Akiyama started back early with an armful of wisteria vine and Gardevoir at his side, retracing the way they'd come. If Kadabra and Gengar got back and couldn't find him, they'd worry.
"Huh?"
Passing the Gym, he looked up. In the failing light, there seemed to be someone standing on the roof.
"Takeru?" He glanced at the Gym's half-open door. "Wait here a minute, Gardevoir. I want to talk to him."
She nodded and took the flowers he handed over.
Akiyama slipped inside as quietly as he could, easing the door open just enough, and started up the stairs that ran along the interior wall.
The Fighting Gym was tall—one of Greenlight City's landmarks—even if most of the inside was empty space.
....
"Shade… I miss you."
Takeru watched a broken moon lift itself over the rooftops, and his mouth trembled. His eyes went red without permission.
"I did everything I could. I'm sorry."
He let out a breath, and it was like someone had pulled the bones out of him. Nothing about the man in that moment suggested a master of anything.
A heavy paw settled on his shoulder.
He turned to look at the "bear" whose bulk had been hiding him from below.
It opened its other paw. A woven wisteria bracelet lay in the palm.
"Thanks, Wave." He closed his hand around it and let himself fall against the Pokémon's chest.
"Sorry to interrupt."
The voice came at exactly the wrong moment.
Akiyama stepped out from behind the rooftop door.
Takeru's brow dropped and he pushed away from the Pokémon.
It turned, sized Akiyama up, and shifted into a stance—one foot raised, one arm high, the other hand clenched, green claws standing out like spikes. The fur was mostly black with gray and white running through it, and the ruff around its neck was pure white, like a heavy scarf.
It watched him carefully, fur stirring, poised to move on the wind.
"Urshifu. Rapid Strike Style?" Akiyama ventured, opening both hands to show he meant nothing by it.
"Your old man tell you that?" Takeru asked, frowning.
Akiyama shrugged. "No. My dad won't talk to me about anything from twenty years ago."
"Then you know more than you should. Doesn't matter. Get out."
Too many years of not caring. He'd lost the instincts he used to have, and somebody had walked right up behind him.
"I'd still like to hear your story. There's a chance I can help."
Seeing the Urshifu had only made him more curious. And it explained why Nanami spoke about the man the way she did.
Takeru was quiet for a long moment, visibly holding back the urge to throw him off the roof. "It's not that I don't respect the Mikis. It's that this is something the Central Tower in the Prisma region couldn't do—"
"I've heard about it. The top floor grants a wish, supposedly." Akiyama didn't back off. "But what if you didn't need a wish? What if you could go back and do it yourself?"
The words went into Takeru's chest like a needle. Every hair on his arms stood up.
Go back?
"Is that possible?" he said.
"Your story first," Akiyama answered.
Takeru understood. A trade.
And it wasn't as though the story was forbidden.
He waved him closer and sat down cross-legged. Seeing that, Urshifu let the stance go and settled beside him.
Akiyama came over and sat facing them.
"I was born into an unusual family. My parents were archaeologists—always out on digs, never around. From the day I was born, the ones raising me were two bear cubs."
"One was Shade. One was Wave. Just like their names, they grew up into two different kinds of Urshifu."
"Rapid Strike Style, and Single Strike Style. You know the difference, I assume."
He watched Akiyama's eyes as he said it.
Akiyama nodded. "Fighting/Water for Rapid Strike. Fighting/Dark for Single Strike."
"Right. And then came that era. Twenty years ago. Prodigies coming up out of the ground like bamboo after rain, every one of them driven half insane trying to keep pace with those two from Pallet Town."
"There were more capable Trainers in that generation than I could describe to you in three days and nights. And Shade, Wave, and I beat an awful lot of them."
"Then, right before the Silver Crown Conference, we ran into a red Dragon-type."
His fists closed. His whole body started to shake, and his jaw locked so tight the teeth ground audibly.
Beside him, Urshifu shut his eyes. Something enormous stirred in the air around them, and the bear reached inward for that water-flow stillness and forced it down.
"He was strong."
Three words, squeezed out.
"To cover my retreat, Shade stayed behind. Alone."
"They vanished. Both of them, without a trace. All that was left where they'd been was some kind of ore. Rainbow-colored."
And there it was again—the man with his bones removed.
"How was I supposed to accept that? I took Wave and I looked. I looked everywhere. Nothing."
"Then I heard about the Central Tower in the Prisma region, so I went. I'm the only Trainer who ever reached the top of that tower without Mega Evolution."
"I saw the legendary Pokémon up there. I can't remember its face anymore, for reasons I don't understand. But—"
"But. But. But—"
His back curved forward, and his voice cracked.
That year he had climbed to the top covered in wounds, beating every guardian on the way up, carrying nothing but hope.
And what was waiting for him was despair.
It had broken something in that stubborn spirit for good.
Afterward he'd come home to Greenlight City and inherited the Gym. At first he'd raged against it. Then, gradually, he became the man Akiyama had met that afternoon.
He never finished the sentence. He didn't have to.
"I'm sorry. I wasn't trying to tear that open." Akiyama exhaled, and found himself unexpectedly heavy.
The red Dragon-type, and rainbow-colored ore. Something about both of those rang a bell he couldn't place.
Now wasn't the time to chase it.
"Your turn." Takeru lifted his head. He was breathing hard, and his eyes were red enough to bleed.
If you'd never truly loved a Pokémon, you couldn't understand what he was feeling. You especially couldn't understand the size of the hole it had left.
Pokémon weren't cold numbers. They weren't models on a screen.
They were his family. They were everything he had.
"Celebi," Akiyama said. "A Pokémon that can move through time. It's possible you could borrow that power, go back, and stop it from happening."
Celebi?
Is that actually possible?
Takeru had never heard the name in his life.
"Celebi exists," Akiyama said, and he said it flatly, without room for doubt.
"Then where is it?" His heart felt like it was slowing to a stop as he asked.
"It's—"
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