Takeshi awoke gasping.
Not in a flurry of sweat and sheets, but sitting up on cold stone. The air was too sharp, the scent too real. His fingers pressed against the concrete steps behind the morgue—rough and cracked and familiar.
It hadn't been a dream.
Something rustled nearby.
He turned.
Cubone.
The little creature stood just beyond the edge of the back alley light, barely solid. His form shimmered, colors washed out to pale browns and grays, like a reflection in misted glass. Takeshi blinked hard, but the image didn't disappear.
"You... you came back."
Cubone didn't answer. He couldn't. But his eyes held that same sorrow—deeper now, as if stretched thin across the veil that separated them.
And then Takeshi saw it.
The edges of Cubone's limbs were unraveling, breaking apart like steam from boiling water. His outline flickered. His skull-helm turned translucent. Bits of his body vanished and reappeared, never in quite the same spot.
"No. No, no, no."
Takeshi stumbled forward on hands and knees. The spirit didn't move. Didn't run. But his body pulsed wrong, like static caught between frequencies. The world was rejecting him.
He doesn't belong here.
And worse—he was fading fast.
Takeshi's breath caught. All the chakra theory he'd studied—everything Iruka had drilled into them—came crashing back.
Chakra is physical and spiritual energy combined. Yin and Yang. Mind and body.
He couldn't mold chakra because his soul didn't match his body. The puzzle didn't fit.
But Cubone was pure spirit.
And Takeshi... Takeshi was trapped in a body with an abundance of physical energy and no way to use it.
He looked at Cubone. At the trembling, half-fading creature. A terrible idea took root in his chest.
What if I gave him my body?
Not in death. Not in sacrifice. But in sharing. What if he gave Cubone his physical energy? Just enough to anchor him here. Just enough to let him stay.
Takeshi crawled closer, eyes wide.
"This might not work," he whispered. "It probably won't. But if there's even a chance..."
Cubone met his gaze. There was no comprehension, but there was trust.
Takeshi placed both hands against Cubone's chest. His fingers tingled.
"I know how this is supposed to work," Takeshi whispered. "I've tried. I've failed. Over and over."
He looked down at his hands—one calloused from labor, the other trembling with power not his own.
"It's hard enough with just your own chakra. But this... this is two lives. Two energies that were never meant to mix."
He closed his eyes.
"Arceus... I know this shouldn't work. Not in any world. But if you're still watching—if that offer still stands—then I need a miracle. Right now."
He closed his eyes. Focused inward. Found that burning, restless heat in his muscles—his body's energy. He didn't try to shape it. He just pushed.
Nothing happened.
Then—
Pain.
His veins screamed. His limbs locked. The pressure built behind his eyes until they burned.
And then—
Something shifted.
It wasn't a voice. It wasn't light. It wasn't even presence. It was like the world itself allowed it.
As if some vast, invisible law had just quietly rewritten itself in the background.
And suddenly, the impossible was possible.
Cubone's body shimmered.
The flickering stabilized. Cubone's outline shimmered—not with light, but with purpose. His spirit glowed faintly—golden and warm, like dawn seen through tears.
His body didn't burn or break or scatter.
It softened.
His shape unraveled—not into smoke, but into chakra.
Gentle, pulsing chakra that flowed into Takeshi's chest like a breath finally exhaled.
Takeshi gasped as the energy entered his body. Not like an invasion. Like a handshake.
Cubone didn't possess him. He didn't vanish. They met, at the boundary of matter and soul.
The chakra wrapped around Takeshi's arms—then his shoulders—then his chest.
It wasn't fire. It wasn't light. It was form. It was chakra.
Chakra shaped itself around him, molding into something small and sharp and aching.
A skeletal mask formed over his head—Cubone's skull.
A long, spectral bone grew into his hand, solid and heavy, like memory made weapon.
A cloak draped down his back, hugging his form. Not fabric. Chakra. Shaped in Cubone's likeness—short limbs curled at his sides, tail tucked, like the spirit was resting across his body.
The cloak shimmered brown and cream, edged in faint gold, soft as moonlight on fog.
It didn't weigh him down. It braced him. Like grief wrapped in armor.
His heart didn't race. It slowed.
He felt calm.
He felt...Powerful.
The glow dimmed.
Takeshi sagged forward, catching himself on trembling hands. The warmth receded—but didn't vanish.
Cubone was still there. Not outside him. Within. A steady presence. A quiet ache.
He pressed a hand to his chest.
No words. No thoughts. But something shared. Something alive.
He leaned back against the stone, his fingers still curled instinctively around the outline of a bone club that wasn't there.
No surge of power followed. No chakra pulsed through his limbs.
But for the first time since he could remember—he had hope.
He didn't sleep.
But he rested.
---
The next morning, Takeshi sat cross-legged in the embalming room. The tools were still. The lantern flickered softly.
He looked down at his hand, then placed it gently against his chest.
"I don't want to force anything," he whispered. "I don't know what we are yet. But I want to understand."
There was no answer—not in words.
But there was warmth.
A steady, quiet hum in his core. Like breath. Like a heartbeat that wasn't his alone.
He closed his eyes.
"I won't ask you to fight. Not yet. I just want to know… if you're still with me."
His shoulders tingled.
A faint pressure—barely there—settled across his back. Something between a memory and a presence. A suggestion of weight. Of bone.
It faded almost as soon as it came.
Takeshi opened his eyes.
No cloak. No weapon.
But the warmth remained.
He smiled, quietly.
They weren't ready yet.
But they would be.