Chapter 139

Chapter 139: Chapter 139

After Mike ended the video call, Melodi finally came back over and sat down on the stone bench nearby, looking at him with undisguised curiosity.

"Mike, you know Champion Cynthia?"

"Yeah," Mike replied casually. "I suppose you could say we’re colleagues."

Melodi caught her lower lip between her teeth and stared at him in shock.

Colleagues?

That single word sent her imagination racing.

Did that mean Mike was a Champion too?

That didn’t seem possible, if someone this young had become the Champion of a region, she surely would have seen him on the news before.

Then perhaps he was a member of the Elite Four?

She quietly glanced at his Pokémon again—Gengar, the enormous Beedrill, Snivy, and Glameow—and frowned.

That lineup didn’t exactly look like the specialized team of an Elite Four member.

Unless, of course, this was a completely new team and Mike had deliberately started another journey from scratch.

Before her speculation could spiral any further, Mike brought her back to reality.

"Oh, right. Cynthia asked me to check something with you. She’s very interested in the journal your grandmother left behind. Would you mind lending it to her for research?"

Melodi blinked. "But... isn’t the journal already with you?"

"Sure, but it still belongs to you. You only lent it to me."

Only then did Melodi realize what he meant.

She nodded at once, then gave him a slightly embarrassed smile. "Of course she can borrow it. Um... since you’re asking her anyway, could you also get Champion Cynthia’s autograph for me? I’m actually a huge fan."

Mike gave her a puzzled look. "Why don’t you just ask her yourself?"

Melodi froze. "What do you mean?"

"She’s already on her way here."

"What?!" Melodi shot to her feet so quickly that the stone bench scraped beneath her.

"Champion Cynthia is coming here? Right now? Why would she come all the way out here herself?!"

Mike lifted the ancient journal and gestured with it. "Well, if she doesn’t come, how am I supposed to give her this? I can’t exactly fly over to meet her. I don’t have a Pokémon I can ride through the air."

"You mean she’s personally coming here just to pick it up?"

"Pretty much."

"Why didn’t you tell me earlier?!" Melodi exclaimed, already turning toward the house. "I need to change!"

She hurried inside in a panic.

Mike looked toward Snivy and winked before breaking into laughter.

Snivy could only stare at him with the long-suffering expression of someone who knew perfectly well that he had enjoyed dropping that news on Melodi without warning.

...

Before long, the sharp rush of displaced air sounded overhead.

An overwhelming presence descended across the flower fields, carrying both the authority of a Champion’s ace and the instinctive pressure of a powerful Dragon-type.

The Combee that had been peacefully gathering nectar scattered at once, diving into the flowers and trembling there without daring to move.

Garchomp descended from the sky, and Cynthia jumped lightly from his back.

She took one look at the endless field of flowers stretching around Melodi’s house, and a small smile appeared on her face.

"This place is beautiful."

"T-Thank you! Thank you very much!" Melodi said, nodding so enthusiastically that her whole upper body moved with each motion.

Cynthia approached and offered her a polite introduction. "Hello, Melodi. I’m Cynthia."

Melodi blinked rapidly, already overwhelmed by the fact that the Sinnoh Champion was standing directly in front of her.

"H-Hello, Champion Cynthia. I’m Gardevoir."

Mike nearly choked on the Berry he had just put into his mouth.

Cynthia also went still for a moment.

Melodi’s expression went blank before horror finally caught up with her.

"I’m sorry! I mean—Melodi! My name is Melodi!"

Cynthia’s surprise softened into an amused smile. "It’s all right."

Thoroughly embarrassed, Melodi hurriedly invited her to sit.

Cynthia took the seat opposite Mike, reached into her pocket, and handed him a familiar scale.

"I asked my grandmother to analyze this. Although it’s a scale naturally shed by Enamorus, it still contains an extremely concentrated amount of Fairy-type energy. A Fairy-type Pokémon should be able to absorb some of that energy and strengthen itself."

Mike accepted the scale and immediately tucked it safely back into his pocket. "Thanks."

He had missed having it around.

Ever since Cynthia borrowed the scale, he hadn’t found so much as a single Nugget, which made him increasingly suspicious that the system’s description of Enamorus’s blessing was not exaggerating.

Melodi, meanwhile, sat nearby with Ralts in her arms and looked between them curiously.

"Champion Cynthia... you know about Enamorus too?"

"Of course," Cynthia replied. "Mike and I are both investigating legends and historical records related to Enamorus and ancient Hisui."

Melodi nodded slowly, then fell quiet and listened as Mike handed Cynthia the journal.

Cynthia accepted it carefully and began turning through the old pages, but Mike still couldn’t resist warning her.

"Easy with that. It’s ancient, and if the binding falls apart, Melodi is probably going to kill both of us."

Cynthia nodded and handled the book with even greater care.

Whenever she encountered sections of Hisuian script that she couldn’t decipher, she asked Mike, and he explained the passages one at a time.

Before long, Cynthia asked Gengar for paper and a pen and began taking notes as she read.

Mike watched her for a moment and found himself quietly impressed by how seriously she approached the material.

He picked Glameow up and settled her across his lap, then used a towel to clean the dirt from her paws while Cynthia somehow produced a pair of glasses and continued reading with complete concentration.

After several pages, she finally looked up. "This feels more like a diary than a formal historical record."

"That was my impression too," Mike replied. "Although there are other things mixed into it—illustrations, copied accounts, later notes, and whatever those strange symbols are."

Cynthia nodded and continued reading until she reached another passage. "What does this mean? Poké Ball?"

Mike leaned closer and checked the line.

"More literally, it says they created a tool capable of capturing what they called ’wild creatures’ by adapting the properties and shape of certain Apricorns. So ’tool’ would be the more precise translation there, although from context it’s obviously describing an early Poké Ball."

Cynthia’s expression sharpened. "So Poké Balls already existed during the Hisui era?"

"If this journal is accurate, yes."

She read farther. "Then this part says those creatures were formally given the name ’Pokémon.’ Does that mean the term itself also dates back to Hisui?"

"Unless the writer was mistaken, apparently so."

A little later, Cynthia paused again. "Pearl Clan, Diamond Clan... Almighty Sinnoh Sage?"

"Almighty Sinnoh," Mike corrected.

Cynthia glanced up. "Almighty Sinnoh? What exactly does that refer to?"

"Keep reading."

She followed the text until she reached the crude illustration showing two enormous beings clashing beneath a broken sky.

Cynthia stared at it for several seconds before realization struck.

"These are Dialga and Palkia. So when the Diamond Clan and Pearl Clan spoke of Almighty Sinnoh, each clan believed a different one of the two was the true deity?"

"That seems to be what happened," Mike said. "From other ancient records I’ve encountered, though, I suspect the original being behind the title ’Almighty Sinnoh’ was actually Arceus.

My guess is that the leaders or ancestors of the two clans arrived in Hisui, encountered Dialga and Palkia under unusual circumstances, mistook them for the creator they were seeking, and eventually began using the same title for them."

Cynthia slowly raised her silver-gray eyes from the page and studied Mike for several seconds.

"You know a remarkable amount about this."

"I read a lot," Mike replied without the slightest change in expression.

Nearby, Gengar quietly poked Beedrill. "Gar?"

[When does he ever read?]

Beedrill tilted his head and gave Gengar an incredulous look.

[I joined the team after you. Why are you asking me?]

Gengar turned back toward Mike with his large face scrunched in suspicion.

Mike already refused to explain the secrets of the strange backpack, and now it turned out he had apparently been sneaking off to read books as well.

As far as Gengar was concerned, this was deeply suspicious behavior!

Cynthia noticed the exchange and smiled faintly before returning to the journal.

After reading for a while longer, however, she finally rubbed her temples.

Her knowledge of ancient Hisuian script was limited, which meant working through every page took far more concentration than it did for Mike.

Eventually she closed the journal. "Give me the overall summary."

Mike briefly explained everything he had pieced together: the seasonal storms caused by Tornadus and Thundurus, Landorus’s appearance as a bringer of fertility, the conflict between Dialga and Palkia, the resulting space-time distortions, and Enamorus’s eventual return after several decades of absence.

"So you think Enamorus disappeared because of the space-time distortions created during the conflict between Dialga and Palkia?" Cynthia asked.

"That’s my current theory, but something else is bothering me." Mike reopened the journal and tapped one of the early pages.

"The writer says there were several decades between Enamorus’s final appearance and the previous time they had seen her."

Cynthia frowned. "And you think that gap is significant?"

"Look at the first page. According to the old stories, the Herald of Spring used to cross the ocean every year near the end of winter, arrive in this area, and spread her blessing across the land so new life could begin growing again."

Cynthia reread the damaged opening entry and slowly nodded. "You’re right."

"So if Enamorus normally returned every year, why did she disappear for thirty or forty years?" Mike continued. "And there’s another detail. In those earlier records, Enamorus crossed the sea alone. Landorus wasn’t described as accompanying her."

Cynthia thought back over everything they had seen. "You think the relationship between Enamorus and Landorus might matter somehow?"

"That’s what I’m wondering."

Some Pokédex information suggested a natural correspondence between the two species, not unlike other Pokémon that appeared to form closely associated male and female counterparts.

Nidoking and Nidoqueen were an obvious example, while Tauros and Miltank had long been discussed in similar terms.

Whether Enamorus and Landorus had any deeper relationship was impossible to say from the records they currently possessed, but Mike couldn’t shake the feeling that the connection was worth investigating.