dawns and skullbones
10.

The air ripples when they pass through it, and on the other side is the distortion world. Giratina continues walking still, and they follow.

Though Dawn wonders why they follow. This is Giratina's home and his motives may be that straight-forward. But when she slows, Giratina waits.

She starts walking again. Giratina continues on with his entourage until he reaches his destination.

It looks no different to the rest of the place, awash with Infernape's flames, except the scars of battle there.

'We battled here,' she surmised.

Giratina inclined his head. Agreement. No, he was gesturing at someone.

Someone, rather. Cyrus. 'You've… been here all this time?' she wonders. It's a lonely place to have been trapped in.

He smiles. Surprisingly, he looks rather content at his predicament. 'You make it sound like a bad thing.' he says. 'I did wish for a world without strife, and here, I have it, and the price I have paid is the world itself. It seemed fitting enough…' He looks at the gathering of pokemon, and the human who follows them. 'And yet you all are here.'

'Long story, that.' She doesn't particularly want to share: how Giratina had saved them from a fate of wandering endlessly within Turnback Cave, not knowing whether the timers on their lives had expired or would expire or if they'd find salvation first. Or how they haven't found Cynthia and how that can mean everything or nothing at all. Or how it felt, standing on the shore of Sendoff Springs and wondering if their fates had already been decided for them, because they'd been chasing him…

He smiles, again. 'You're a kind girl. It's okay. I've no reason to fight, now. This world is enough for me… Unless Giratina would wish me out of it?'

Giratina simply settles somewhere and lets them talk.

'You gave me a Master Ball,' Dawn comments.

'I did,' Cyrus agrees. 'Is that what you used to capture Giratina?'

'No. I used a Dusk Ball.'

He laughs. 'Compassionate, indeed. You despise how it unfairly catches whatever it strikes, do you not? And yet it is humans like ourselves who have made these things.'

'Not like ourselves,' Dawn contradicts. 'Not like me. Not like you.'

'I suppose you are right.' He looks away a moment, then he smiles. 'How do you like it? My world?'

'It is not a world you created,' Dawn replies. 'Is that not what you promised Cynthia and I?'

'I suppose,' Cyrus consents, 'but in an empty world, passion is quickly lost. I have come to like this spiritless, lonely world. But… perhaps I feel a little lonely. Yes.'

'I'm sure we'll be back to visit.' And she's not quite sure how she feels about that, but Cyrus is at least a simpler matter, if he's given up on eradicating spirit and heart from this world.

Giratina stands. They've done what they need to do. Almost.

Or maybe this is simply her selfish desire, her test. '…have you seen Cynthia since?'

'No,' he shakes his head, 'no-one at all.'