(Arata's POV)
The ridge felt endless.
Mud clung to every step, sucking at our boots, dragging us back down toward the sea that still roared behind us.
The slope carried us higher, but it was like climbing the ribs of some drowned giant jagged, broken, shifting beneath our weight. Roots jutted out at odd angles, snapped trees leaned like broken towers, their bark stripped by the flood.
Caesar trudged ahead, claws gouging deep furrows into the wet earth. His sides still heaved slightly from the fight, smoke curling faintly from his jaws, the sharp scent of it mixing with salt and rot. Every so often he'd glance back at me, tusked grin fierce and proud even through exhaustion, as if daring the forest itself to try again.
On my shoulder, Livia was barely holding on. Her feathers were plastered flat by the rain, every movement shivering with strain. She'd nearly drowned dragging me from the wave, but she refused to stay in her ball. Stubborn to the last.
Behind us, the fisherman clutched the younger sister's wrist as she stumbled, her older sibling shielding her from branches that whipped in the gale. The boy with the broken Pokéball brought up the rear, limping on a twisted ankle. He didn't complain. He didn't say anything at all. He just clutched the cracked ball tight against his chest, the faint red light within flickering weakly like a heartbeat slowly fading.
No one spoke.
It began as a patter against leaves, but soon it thickened into sheets that blurred the world, each drop heavy enough to sting when it hit bare skin. My clothes were sodden, plastered to me, water trickling from my hair into my eyes. My chest burned with every breath, lungs raw from salt, ribs aching as though the sea itself had left its handprint across me.
I pushed forward anyway.
The ridge narrowed into a jagged incline. We climbed in silence, boots slipping, hands digging into dirt and stone slick with moss. Caesar anchored himself at the top, crouching low, tail lashing as he stretched a claw down to brace me. My hand found his scale, hot and solid beneath the cold. That heat kept me moving.
Halfway up, the forest screamed.
A blur shot through the undergrowth Rattata, their fur bristled, eyes rolling wild. Dozens of them, tearing past our feet, scrabbling up the slope as though chased by death itself. Behind them, the air filled with a shrill buzzing that cut through rain and storm alike.
Beedrills.
The swarm poured through the canopy, yellow-and-black blurs slicing the mist, stingers flashing like knives. The fisherman cursed and yanked the younger girl into the mud, shielding her with his own body. The older sister flung her arms wide, eyes wide with terror.
Caesar reared back, a roar tearing from his throat. Smoke belched in defiance. Livia shrieked, wings spreading to make herself look bigger, her talons biting into my shoulder.
But the swarm wasn't here for us. They wheeled, wings a blur, and shot deeper into the forest, chasing something unseen. The storm swallowed the sound of their flight, but the stink of venom and churned earth lingered long after.
I swallowed hard, forcing my own voice to steady. "Keep moving. The whole forest's gone mad. Staying still's worse."
The others obeyed.
By the time we crested the ridge, my legs were shaking, my breath coming shallow and ragged. The slope dropped us into a basin littered with wreckage. Boats torn apart by the flood lay tangled in branches. Nets and ropes draped from trees, heavy with seaweed. Crates bobbed in brown water pooled between broken roots.
Goldeen's Pokéball glowed faint at the fisherman's belt. She swam slow circles around his boots, her scales dulled, body twitching as she fought to breathe air instead of water. He murmured to her softly, his voice hoarse.
I kept scanning the treeline, waiting for the next shadow to lunge. Every splash was a monster. Every shift of branches, a predator. My hands were fists so tight my knuckles ached.
But beneath it all was the silence.
Not around me. Inside me.
Rin.
Her hand ripped from mine. Glasses slipping from her face. Abra glowing faint, trying to teleport. That image played behind my eyes like a wound I couldn't close. I clamped my jaw until pain radiated through my skull.
Abra. Psychic. Teleport. I repeated it like prayer. A lifeline. The only thing keeping me from falling into the dark spiral opening in my chest. She had to be alive. She had to.
I forced my eyes forward.
It was the Older girl who spotted it, a gap in the rockface, half-hidden behind dangling vines. A cave. Dark, jagged, its mouth glistening as rainwater poured in thin streams. She pulled her sibling toward it, desperation written in every line of her body. The fisherman followed with a muttered thank-you to gods I wasn't sure were listening.
I hesitated at the threshold.
Caves meant shelter. But caves also meant things that didn't want company. Flooded things. Starved things.
Caesar growled low, tusks gleaming faintly in the storm's dim light.
"…We don't have a choice," I said at last. My voice sounded strange, thin, like it belonged to someone else. "In."
We ducked beneath the vines.
The storm dulled immediately, the rain a muted roar outside. The air inside was damp and heavy, thick with the smell of moss and old stone. Water dripped steadily from the ceiling, echoing deeper into the dark. The cave stretched farther back than I expected, uneven scars etched along its walls where ancient rivers had carved their mark.
Caesar padded in behind me. The boy collapsed to his knees, clutching his broken Pokéball. The sisters huddled together, the older wrapping her arms and jacket around the younger, who shivered violently. The fisherman sat hard against the wall, Goldeen flopping weakly beside him.
No one spoke at first. The only sound was coughing, fabric scraping wet against stone, the drip of water somewhere deep in the dark.
Then the fisherman cursed softly and fumbled at his belt. He pulled free a soaked device a PokéNav. The screen was dead for a moment, then flickered with faint lines. He slapped it against his palm. Once. Twice. A hiss of static filled the cave. On the third strike, light steadied, pale and wavering.
We all leaned in.
The signal was fractured, crackling with interference. Lines of text crawled across the screen, slow and broken. But the words were enough to make my stomach turn to ice.
"…tsunami confirmed… coastal devastation across eastern Kanto… Vermilion Harbor flooded… partially evacuated… casualties unknown…"
Vermilion.
The word hit me like another wave. My lungs clenched. Vermilion. The harbor.
Rin.
Where had she been? Where had the wave taken her?
Abra. Psychic. Teleport.
I clung to the thought like a drowning man to driftwood. Abra had to have saved her. If I let myself think otherwise
The fisherman scrolled, static chewing at the edges of the signal, before the device jerked and stuttered into a crude map. Red zones blotted half the coast, angry scars bleeding inland. Blue arrows pointed away, jagged corridors marked "safe."
One arrow ran north. Along the mountain. Toward Vermilion.
The fisherman tapped it with a shaking finger. "Here. If we stay along the mountainside, we reach Vermilion. League should've marked safe paths." His voice cracked, but there was iron beneath it.
The boy looked up, his face pale, hollow. "And if the League isn't there?"
No one answered.
I turned to Caesar. To Livia, feathers still dripping, her eyes fierce even through exhaustion. To the people I barely knew but was now bound to.
"…Then we make it anyway," I said, my voice low.
The silence that followed was heavy. And above it, the rain outside pounded harder, as though the drowned world was listening.