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gray is the color of failure
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21922; Part 1.5; Haizaki
For hex, who loves gen and all things pokémon. If you were a queen, I would totally be your bard!
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This piece is the epilogue of Akashi's section and the prologue of Kagami's section. 21922 stands for BSV, which is an alternate universe featuring the KuroBasu characters in a fascimile of the pokémon world. You can read Akashi's arc at ; this story won't make much sense without it. Still, gratuitous inclusion of Haizaki is always lovely; I really liked both versions of his character design and was somewhat disappointed with his lack of development. Oh well, hopefully he'll make a cameo appearance later on.
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Tomorrow, they had said.
There is still so much promise in the word - in the world, they had been told.
Haizaki wakes in the dead of the night at the beginning of their tenth week at the Indigo Plateau. Five weeks prior, everyone had come together to decide on the rules of the new league. Gym leaders had been nominated; poké balls had been distributed; and Teikou grunts had agreed to refurbish the dilapidated gym buildings.
Whispers and rumors fly across the continent of Kanto. Children come knocking on gates and doors and windows. Everyday, some courier Taillow will fly in with yet another message. Sometimes the letters are from people they know. Most of the time, they're from nameless nobodies.
Is it true that pokémon can be our friends again?
Can I get a pokémon when I turn ten?
Could someone please explain to me the safety precautions the new league will insist on taking?
And so on and so forth. The Teikou Institute is doing their best, of course, but the old guard is only capable of so much. Akashi has already informed them that he will be taking a leave of absence from the Plateau to travel from city to city, fielding questions and reassuring the populace. Yes, some pokémon are good; if you prove yourself capable, yes you will get a Poké Ball at age ten; we are still in the middle of devising new regulations, he can already hear Akashi explaining.
He tosses and turns before falling right off of the admittedly small bed. It's no good, he knows. There's nothing to do at the moment though, especially not at this hour, so he pulls on some slightly-warmer garments, forsaking the slippers in favor of some unrealized nostalgia.
It's three hundred and eighteen steps from the bedroom to the Plateau Park. He steps out into the chill, and the Flygon swoops down with a screech, knocking him to the ground with its enthusiastic greeting.
"Woah, woah, woah! Kaihaku! What're you - " he's cut off then by the arrival of the Rhydon, Claydol, Nidorino, and Nidorina, who flock about him, whining and calling and prodding and nipping. He sighs, patting the heads of each of his pokémon. "This is probably what Kise feels like all the time, huh?"
"I doubt it," Midorima Shintarou sniffs, stepping through the doorway and sitting down on the ground as well. "Now that he's attracted even more of them, apparently they spend more time squabbling with each other..."
Haizaki laughs again, lightly nudging the Flygon away in order to sit up. "Some guys just get all the luck, huh?"
"I don't want to hear this from someone who found four Moon Stones and didn't use any of them."
"Geez, still mad about that?" Midorima's silence is answer enough. "We won anyways, right?"
"If you can call that sort of farce a victory."
"Well aren't you Mr. Philosophy..."
Midorima rolls his eyes. "I didn't come here to have pointless arguments."
"Coulda fooled me."
"...You're absolutely insufferable. The whole lot of you, really." He sighs again and looks away, reaching out to pet the Venusaur's snout. Ah, Haizaki thinks. So Midorima's pokémon had missed him too. "...against him..." is all he manages to catch.
"...What?"
"What do you mean what?"
"What'd you say, I mean!"
"I said," Midorima grates, thoroughly disliking the position of mediator, "That you should stop trying to go against Akashi. I'm not blind and neither are the townspeople. If you refuse to give the impression of a unified front, then don't come along. As it is, the people have enough to talk about."
A thick silence settles between the two of them. Haizaki pushes his pokémon further away, getting to his feet and looking at the other boy. Evidently, he does not find what he was looking for, walking to the door and turning the knob.
"Keep your personal opinions out of this," Midorima advises. "Wait until the system settles."
"And that's what Teikou said," Haizaki drawls. He doesn't bother holding open the door.
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"I'm leaving for a bit," he informs Akashi after the initial panel of gym leaders had been selected.
"Leave if you must," the champion dully replies, flipping through another page in some encyclopedia documenting the evolution of poké ball technology.
Where are you doing; how long will you be gone; why are you leaving?
These are the things Haizaki expects (Haizaki wants) to hear.
He snorts, grabbing a nearby backpack and a healthy supply of berries before striding out the door. His pokémon are in the middle of a game of tag. It's tempting to interrupt them, to step into the shoes of 'master' and demand their attention. Instead, he stands off in the corner with arms crossed and breaths forced.
"Where are you going?" Murasakibara asks, sliding open the door with a freshly-baked loaf of bread on-hand.
'Anywhere that isn't here,' Haizaki wants to say.
"I don't know," he says instead.
"When will you come back?"
"I don't know."
For a moment, Murasakibara is about to ask why. He thinks better of it though, breaking off a chunk of a still-steaming bread and popping the morsel into his mouth.
"Aka-chin's not angry with you, you know," the taller boy conversationally starts, breaking off another piece and throwing it to the pokémon. They all crowd around, eager for a bite of Murasakibara's special Magost-Watmel Bread. "But I will be angry if you don't listen to Aka-chin."
He squashes the loaf of bread with a single hand and then watches it fall to the floor. With all the succinct cruelty of a child, he smiles kindly at Haizaki, wiping the crumbs of his hands before retiring indoors once more.
The pokémon are silent. They look from one trainer to the next, before finally focusing on the ruined meal.
"Tch," Haizaki snorts, pulling on the backpack and hopping onto the Flygon's shoulders. He whistles for the other pokémon and recaptures them with practiced ease. But, his technique lacks Aomine's flair and Akashi's speed. More practice, more practice, more practice, his conscience eagerly insists.
"C'mon, Kaihaku," he mutters, mustering up the obligatory amount of enthusiasm. "Let's fly!"
With an exultant whoop, the Desert Spirit flaps its gold-tipped wings, taking to the air and easily gaining altitude in the process.
He dislikes Akashi for having negotiated with Shirogane. He resents the rest of them for actually accepting pokémon from the leaders of the Teikou Institute. It was an act of goodwill, Shirogane had reassured them.
Haizaki takes a deep breath, leaning forward before holding on tight. You're just jealous you didn't receive a free pokémon,a voice suspiciously similar to Midorima's insists.
The Flygon dips into a playful dive then and there however, and he's forced to admit that, in the face of other misgivings, the gift of Fly was certainly a good one.
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