After breakfast, Reiji fed his Pokémon and made his way to Pummelo Stadium.
Cissy had wanted to come with him, but he sent her back to the Pokémon Center to watch from Senta's room. Today's match was difficult enough without part of his attention drifting toward anything outside the battlefield.
There were only eight matches on the schedule now that the tournament had reached the round of sixteen, so there was no chance of competition dragging late into the evening. Reiji had drawn the third match of the day, leaving him plenty of time before he needed to report.
The waiting room felt almost empty compared with the previous rounds. Only one or two other Trainers were there, neither of whom Reiji knew, so he grabbed something cold to drink and watched the first match on television.
Rudy was on the field again.
His opponent managed to force out another of Rudy's Elite Four-tier Pokémon before finally losing, confirming once again that the competition had reached an entirely different level. The second match featured another familiar face, and by the time that one ended, Reiji had finished his snacks and had nothing left to do except wait for his name.
"Reiji, please report to the battlefield. Reiji, please report to the battlefield."
There it was.
He left the waiting room and entered the Trainers' tunnel while the announcement repeated several more times. Tournament rules gave each Trainer ten minutes from the first call before they were declared absent and forfeited, so Reiji was in no danger of being late.
He stopped several meters from the tunnel exit anyway.
Today was different.
For all the planning he had done, there was a very real chance he would lose this match. If that happened, the Elite Four preliminaries would be out of reach, and he would eventually have to enter the Orange League all over again to earn another opportunity.
Reiji leaned against the wall, lit a cigarette, and took a long drag.
He did not want to go through all that again if he could settle things here. Unfortunately, wanting something badly enough did not make his team stronger. Either they could get through this opponent or they could not.
By the time the cigarette burned down, the nicotine had taken the edge off his nerves. Reiji crushed the butt beneath his shoe and started toward the field.
His phone rang.
He pulled out the old handset and found an unfamiliar number on the screen. Any other morning, he probably would have ignored it as spam, but something made him stop.
He answered.
"Who is this?"
"Boss, just listen until I'm done."
Daishi.
Far away on Mandarin Island North, Daishi was standing on the villa balcony with his voice lowered. Naoki was already awake and watching the tournament downstairs, and there was no telling how long Daishi had before he noticed something was wrong.
"Boss, I'll keep this short. The guy you're fighting today is Riku's sworn brother. He used to be the first mate of the Black Ship operating off Trovitopolis—the second man in command. That was his old identity. He has a legal one now."
Reiji stopped walking.
"The woman with him is Aya. She's his fiancée now... and she used to be Naoki's girlfriend. From what I found, the marriage is political. That's part of why he entered the tournament."
That explained considerably more than Daishi probably realized.
"And his Elite Four-tier Pokémon: one is Tyranitar, one is Gyarados, and the third is another Water type. It's—"
A pounding came through the phone.
"Daishi? Why did you lock the door? The match is about to start! What are you doing in there?"
Naoki.
Daishi had run out of time.
"I got it."
Reiji hung up before he could finish.
He had heard enough.
Back at the villa, Daishi opened the door and did his best impression of someone who had just woken up, rubbing his eyes and fixing his hair before following Naoki downstairs to watch the match.
At Pummelo Stadium, Reiji stepped out of the tunnel.
"Entering from the green side is Reiji! And his timing is perfect—only a few seconds to spare. For a moment there, I thought he might not show up!"
The joke earned a laugh from the stands before Reiji's usual chant rolled through the stadium.
"Reiji! Reiji! Reiji!"
He smiled, waved to the crowd, and walked toward his platform as though nothing had happened.
The field selector began cycling on the big screen and eventually stopped on rock.
"This fifth-round match will be a full six-on-six battle on the rock field! Once either Trainer has lost three Pokémon, we'll take a five-minute intermission before continuing on a new battlefield!"
The referee waited for the replacement field to lock into place, raised his flags, and brought the whistle toward his mouth.
"Wait."
Reiji's voice stopped him.
He folded his arms and looked across the field at Riku's sworn brother without saying anything else.
At first, the stadium merely went quiet. As the silence stretched toward half a minute, whispers spread through the stands until the entire venue was buzzing with speculation.
The commentator finally spoke. "Reiji has asked the referee to hold the start. It looks like he has something to say."
The stadium cameras zoomed in.
Reiji finally opened his mouth.
"You can't beat me. Save yourself the trouble and forfeit."
For an instant, even the crowd seemed unsure whether it had heard him correctly.
Then the stadium erupted.
"Did Reiji just tell his opponent to surrender before the match even started?"
Reiji offered no explanation. He simply stood there with Umbreon on his shoulder and his arms still folded, looking far more arrogant than anyone who knew him would have expected.
That was intentional.
He had not suddenly decided to humiliate a stranger on live television just to avenge Naoki's love life. Picking a fight for that reason alone would have been childish.
What Reiji wanted was anger.
Across the field, Riku's sworn brother looked genuinely stunned. Everything they had gathered about Reiji described a cautious Trainer who avoided unnecessary attention, not someone who walked into a top-eight qualifier and publicly told his opponent to quit.
"You're telling me to forfeit?"
He shoved Aya's arm away and stepped forward.
Reiji did not move.
"I gave you the chance to leave with some dignity. If you don't want it, I'll handle the rest."
That did it.
The crowd exploded again, and the commentator was reduced to asking the same question everyone else was asking: what in the world had gotten into Reiji?
Only a handful of people knew enough about Naoki, Aya, and the man across the field to guess where this sudden hostility had come from.
...
On Mandarin Island North, Naoki slowly turned toward Daishi.
The look on Reiji's face told him everything.
"Was that you?"
Daishi knew there was no point lying now. "Yeah. I told him."
He stood and picked up his jacket. "I'll go."
"Sit down."
Naoki was not about to throw out the younger brother he had practically raised over this. Daishi had gone behind his back, but the damage was already done.
More importantly, Reiji had chosen how to respond.
Naoki would deal with him personally once the tournament was over. He had already caused Reiji enough trouble, and he refused to hide behind Daishi when the consequences came.
Besides, what was he supposed to do—walk away from either of them?
Daishi was family.
And Reiji was the boss who had given him a pseudo-Legendary and was now picking a fight in front of the entire world on his behalf.
Naoki could hardly ask for a better one.
...
Back at the stadium, the situation had nearly boiled over.
Riku's sworn brother was furious enough that the referee had to step between him and the battlefield.
"This is ridiculous! Referee, how is that not a violation?"
"Calm down. Reiji has not insulted you or used abusive language. What he said does not violate tournament rules. If you continue disrupting the match, however, you may be disqualified."
The warning only made him angrier. From his perspective, the referee was taking Reiji's side because Reiji represented a Gym and therefore belonged to the League's own system.
That resentment was exactly what Reiji wanted.
The man was no longer thinking about whatever plan he had prepared before the match. His pride had taken over.
The referee returned to his position.
"Both Trainers, prepare your Pokémon. On the whistle, send them out together."
This time, nobody interrupted.
The whistle blew.
"Go, Tyranitar! Tear it apart!"
"Poliwrath, you're up. Don't hold back."
The two Pokémon appeared on the rock field.
Poliwrath took one look at the furious Trainer across from it, then glanced back at Reiji's completely calm face. After a moment, it raised a thumb.
Reiji almost smiled.
Poliwrath understood.
More importantly, so had his opponent.
Tyranitar was his strongest known Pokémon, and Reiji's provocation had made him throw it out first. Instead of allowing the man to control the pace of the match, Reiji had dragged his ace onto the field immediately.
Now all he had to do was remove it.
"Tyranitar and Poliwrath!" the commentator shouted. "We're opening with an Elite Four-tier clash—and Tyranitar is a pseudo-Legendary! Can Poliwrath really bring it down?"
"Tyranitar, Hyper Beam!"
Tyranitar roared and planted its feet.
The rock field trembled even before the attack fired, and Drake reacted immediately from the VIP lounge.
"Get the barrier to maximum output! Now!"
The protective system hummed to life around the battlefield. Its surface became visible before Tyranitar had even finished charging, with the section in front of Reiji's platform glowing brightest of all.
Reiji already had Electivire's Poké Ball in his hand.
If the barrier failed, he would release Electivire and use Protect.
Tyranitar fired.
Hyper Beam tore across the field in a blinding white column, sweeping toward Poliwrath with enough force to make the stadium barrier shudder under the impact. Ripples of energy spread across its surface, but the system held.
That was one less thing Reiji had to worry about.
Poliwrath had already moved.
It slipped away from the beam the instant Tyranitar fired and kept accelerating across the rock field. Tyranitar tried to sweep Hyper Beam after it, but Poliwrath was covering several meters with every burst while the beam turned far too slowly to keep up.
Then Hyper Beam ended, and Tyranitar was left recovering.
Poliwrath was already in front of it.
Its final step shattered the rock beneath its feet as all that momentum drove into a fully charged Focus Punch.
The x4-effective hit landed squarely across Tyranitar's jaw.
Tyranitar flew sideways and crashed into the protective barrier hard enough to make the entire section flash. One of its teeth spun across the field before disappearing among the rocks.
Poliwrath gave it no room to recover.
It jumped high and came down with another fist ready, abandoning any thought of conserving strength or setting up the ice armor it had used against Electivire.
Tyranitar had learned from the first hit, though. It could not match Poliwrath's speed, so instead of trying, it waited with electricity already crackling around its jaws.
Thunder Fang.
As Poliwrath dropped toward it, Tyranitar lunged upward.
Poliwrath heard the electric crackle and adjusted in midattack, covering its fist in a layer of frost before driving it down anyway.
Fist and fangs collided.
The explosion lit the barrier along the side of the field, and a thick cloud of dust swallowed both Pokémon before either Trainer could see who had won the exchange.
[End of chapter]
[100 Power Stones = Extra Chapter]
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