Pokemon Conquest: The Legend of Ransei

by Imperator Justinian

Tadashi and Kazumi are Aurora's new Warlords. Thrust into a region consumed by war, they must rely on their links and each other as they are pushed down the road to unifying Ransei against Nobunaga. Pokemon Conquest Novelization.

37. Trials

A/N:

Or maybe I'll get the chapter out this month, but better late than never? Eh, saying it last year didn't make me feel any better about dragging my feet...

Anyways, I think I'll put in a throwback to chapter fourteen here; as it was back then, the italicized dialogue near the end of the chapter is the continuation of prior conversation. As a warning in advance, this chapter also takes a darker tone than the previous ones.

---

When their army had first set out it had been mid-afternoon; Kazumi was eager to both save face and make up for lost time, and Shingen and Ujiyasu had insisted on them getting to Yaksha before the sun set. That in of itself wasn't hard at all; it was a surprisingly short trip, and with the guides Ujiyasu had provided it took a little more than an hour. None of that seemed to matter, though; the skies above were so murky with pale clouds and a jaundiced yellow that it was impossible to discern sunrise from sunset, let alone the time of the day, and the only indicator they had seemed to be the broken roads they were travelling down. She took a deep breath, trying not to show concern about their surroundings, and the very real possibility of an ambush or assassin that waited behind every blackened tree and burnt thicket, and focused on trying to clear the fog that was slowly seeping into her mind's eye. Hanbei was being far less inconspicuous or sluggish than her; only a foot or two directly in front of the Auroran as they marched, she could practically see every time his eyes darted off to some innocent piece of crumbling vegetation like it was brandishing a knife.

Kazumi tried to distract herself by wondering if Yaksha had always looked like a giant ash tray.

"Everytime I set foot in this blasted kingdom I like it less..." Shingen mumbled from beside her. She blinked again, feeling the fog thicken - and from the way it tried burrowing its head deeper into the nook of her arm, Espeon felt it too - and looked up at the Terreran. Shingen wasn't really that much taller than her, only an inch or two, but she was beginning to understand why he used to be the favorite for unifying Ransei.

"It used to be better looking than this?" Kazumi asked, had the odd sensation of slowly losing awareness of her surroundings not been creeping up on her, she would have worded it differently. Shingen huffed.

"Keep in mind Terrera's a wasteland and Aurora's about as backwater as you can get in Ransei," the girl blinked self-consciously, and Shingen felt his lips tighten at the sight of more dying trees. "Still, Yaksha didn't look like someone put it in an oven before Nobunaga came."

The Terreran looked up at the messy sky, grey and sickly as the ground below, let out a sigh and put a hand to the moustache that his surroundings made look vibrant. "It wasn't always so bad a kingdom. Not when the Satake were in power."

"I heard of them, once," Kanbei voiced from right behind her - she thought it was of little coincidence that Hanbei seemed to perk up the moment that he heard Kanbei's voice, and immediately loosened his shoulders when the words registered. Shingen nodded.

"They didn't ever really figure into politics on the scale that me and Ujiyasu did, but Yoshishige was a terror on the field and kept Yaksha independent," Kazumi got the feeling Shingen was fighting back a smile. "Off it he was a riot. Could even drink Kenshin under the table."

The three other Warlords took a collective blink in disbelief, and Kazumi asked the obvious. "What happened?"

"Kotaro happened," Shingen nearly spat. "No one knows who he was before he picked up the name and served as Yoshishige's retainer - not even Ujiyasu or Nene - but one day he just decided to murder the entire Satake clan. Just like that. Killed Yoshishige in his sleep, and with the rest of the loyalists too busy running around like headless Torchics to put up an effective resistance, there was no one left to oppose his takeover..." Shingen's lips pulled at the edges of his face, and for a brief moment Kazumi felt something from him - apprehension? Suspicion, even? - before whatever vague sense she had of the Terrreran's inner turmoil was swallowed up by the nothingness that seemed to emanate from the very kingdom itself.

"Though," the Warlord in red's voice shook the Auroran out of her spell. "I heard rumors that a retainer managed to whisk Yoshishige's infant daughter away to one of the neighboring kingdoms during the massacre. But if they were true, she probably wouldn't know her own name, let alone who she really is."

Kazumi unwittingly gulped as she finally digested the information, while Hanbei became a little more zealous in inspecting the nearby foliage as they continued their march. She remembered the tactician mentioning he had given orders for Fontaine and Pugilis' armies to raid the neighboring Viperia to prevent any reinforcements from intercepting them - with that and now this, he was clearly trying to make up for their recent loss. Hanbei finally spoke up after a few minutes of tense silence.

"How are you holding up?" he whispered.

"Fine," the Warlord lied, the clammy feeling that had been dogging her every step of their trek into the kingdom suddenly growing into a smothering sensation that made it hard to even think clearly. Hanbei looked back when he heard Kazumi stagger and Espeon mewl in something between objection and pain. Shingen's ears perked up the second he heard both, eyes suddenly darting around the nearby warriors in what could only be described as paranoia. It only took a second for the Warlord's gaze to land on a glaringly inconspicuous warrior clad in the usual red of the so called Fire Cavalry that Terrera was infamous for. A warrior who hadn't been standing there - and was noticeably close to him, which made his anonymity even more of a tell - seconds before.

In the split second it took for Shingen to shift his focus away from the warrior and reach for the war fan dangling from the side of his belt, the man flashed a grin and brought his dangling arm straight up in the Terreran's direction. Shingen was barely able to keep the knife from reaching its mark, and without wasting any time, the would-be assassin pulled it back from the impromptu shield when Rhyperior moved to attack. He then spun around and cut the two nearest Terrerans, sidestepped the Drill Pokémon's Fire Punch, and then performed a backflip over the remaining warriors and their partners before they could react. Shingen growled, Kazumi felt her blood go cold at watching the two bodies crumple to the ground before her sight was mercifully obscured by Hanbei and Kanbei's backs. The remaining Terrerans quickly formed a human wall in front of a leering Shingen, drawing their weapons and frantically shouting orders at their partners. The Auroran summoned the force of will to push her way through the tacticans - over their objections - and was met with a sight far different than one she remembered from seconds before.

The assailant's build was the same; unusually tall and broad-shouldered, but aside from those minute details everything else had radically changed in what had to have been the blink of an eye. Gone was the familiar red armor of Terrera, replaced with a decidedly Yakshan mix of black and grey - it took Kazumi a second to realize the latter was in fact flesh and not some kind of mask - with the only real color on him being a dyed, thick-looking crimson that passed for hair. And besides him was one more detail that she and everyone else had somehow missed; a bipedal lupine Pokémon she failed to recognize, black as the warrior next to it and with an equally predatory grin. Demented grins that stayed plastered on their slate-like faces as they effortlessly avoided the barrage of attacks from the Terrerans, before forcing them to loosen ranks with a well placed Dark Pulse.

"Zoroark-" Kazumi heard the shinobi she assumed was Kotaro - because if she saw anyone who fit the bill of the man Shingen had been describing moments prior, it would be the person who had just tried to open his gut - start, only to suddenly spun around and swipe at Muneshige before the Violighter could plunge his claymore into the Yakshan's back. Metal snagged on metal - she noticed the elongated claws on Kotaro's gauntlets - and the Yakshan threw their deadlock up while Muneshige's partner bombarded Kotaro's with one flighty attack after another. Kazumi looked on in horror as Muneshige realized the gravity of his predicament; with both his hands on his sword, being held up above their heads with only one of the Warlord's gauntlets, that left his chest completely unprotected. Kotaro moved to plunge his other gauntlet into the Violighter's cuirass, but a sudden pillar of fire from somewhere in the line of Terrerans forced him to leap back. Zoroark took over before Muneshige could fully recover, wheeling around and bringing one claw to bear down on the Violighter's neck after landing a hit on his Staravia. The brunette blocked that in time, but could do little to grapple with the Shadow Claw Zoroark brought up with its other hand.

Muneshige let out a gurgle and staggered back just as his Staravia swept back down and put some more distance between the wounded Violighter and his assailant. Kotaro - having been busy fighting the six or so Terrerans who had charged him - leapt back right before an arc of electricity could collide with him. The Yakshan growled at the sight of Dosetsu hobbling forward - sword drawn and roaring out commands in a voice frightening enough to shake even Kotaro's sense of calm - with the rest of Violight and found himself unconsciously taking another step back at the sound of the regrouping Terrerans.

"Zoroark," the ninja growled out in a voice that sounded like sandpaper, eyes darting over the warriors charging him on both sides. "Night Daze."

"Cover your eyes!" Shingen yelled a moment too late, throwing up his fan in time. Kazumi was spared by her tacticians jumping in front of her, getting only the shadow of a black flash before it faded away to the collective shouting of warriors. She pushed her way through the Ignites again, curiosity and then panic driving her forward, completely disregarding Hanbei's objections and crossing over to where an assassination attempt had just taken place moments before, Espeon leaping out of her grip and darting ahead of her.

"Muneshige!" Dosetsu was already next to him by the time her gaze landed on the Violighter; he was struggling to stand, both hands resting on the pommel of his sword like a cane, but the Junior Warlord was still able to shoot her a smile and look her in the eyes.

"Don't worry, milady," Muneshige choked out, bringing himself to his full height in compensation. "It's just a flesh wound."

"Fool!" the older Violighter barked before she could, dashing the painful-looking front the younger one had been putting up. Kazumi caught a glimpse of the reddened rends in his otherwise unblemished armor before Dosetsu decided to drive his point home by slapping the back of Muneshige's head. He didn't flinch. "You'll only get yourself killed with talk like that."

"Sir," Muneshige said with a deference she seldom saw - to Ginchiyo, her brother, or even herself. Dosetsu sighed.

"You're no use here now with those cuts," Dosetsu let his steely eyes wander over to Shingen in the distance, who was busy talking in a low tone with the Junior Warlord that Ujiyasu had sent with them - Kai, Kazumi thought her name was, and she found herself feeling a little proud at having been able to remember the names of their steadily growing allies. "Go back to Cragspur, we can handle things here. You are not to engage any Avian warriors unless absolutely necessary."

Kazumi then realized that Shingen was asking the warriors Cragspur had provided to escort the wounded - and deceased, she felt herself gulp - back as well.

"Sir-" Muneshige's voice was as calm as ever.

"That's an order, Muneshige."

"Sir," the Violighter made a show of smiling and lifting up his arm for Staravia to perch on before striding, slowly, towards the convoy that was beginning to move with all the solemnity of a funeral procession. Dosetsu watched him go and let out a sigh, bowed to her and returned to his duty leading the rear just in time for Shingen to take his place.

"We should hurry," he said tiredly. The Warlord looked older to her all of a sudden, and she nodded.

"Lord Shingen?" the Auroran and Warlord in question blinked at the voice from behind her. Hanbei looked up and tried to keep that same blasé air about him that Kazumi had found somewhat comforting, but even that had gained a strain that was impossible to hide from her. "How'd you know to look for him?"

Shingen blinked, looked down at the tactician, and then at the equally curious-looking Psychic Type at Kazumi's boots.

"You and your Espeon," he replied sluggishly, looking at Kazumi. "Dark Types act as dampeners to Psychics - and the stronger or closer they are, the more powerful the effect. And since none of us brought a Dark Type Pokémon and there were none in sight, I figured it was probably Kotaro's Zoroark trying to mask their presence; the only reason I'm fairly certain we're not still under its illusion is because of your partner."

Shingen turned and nodded to himself as he went back to his warriors. "Yes, even broken or blunted weapons can still have their uses..."

"Ah," Hanbei replied quietly, silently cursing himself for not picking up the signs earlier. The slightly smaller army then returned to their march, uncomfortably silent and moving at a tense pace through the remnants of the landscape without so much as even a glimpse of another soul. It gave Kazumi the chills thinking about what Yaksha had to endure in the past to come out so cold and colorless, the sight giving her vague reminders of stories her uncle would tell them about what Violight was once like.

Hanbei's nervous gazing had intensified, and if he kept up looking around like that it would only be a matter of time until his eyes rolled out of his head.

"Hanbei," Kazumi finally cleared her throat - she also doubted the Pikachu resting underneath his beret was happy at being moved around every second. He stopped looking around, but made a point of staying in front of her.

"Sorry," he said quietly, and she got the impression he was apologizing for more than that. "I did a bit of reading on Yakshan tactics yesterday, and frankly I'm convinced that attempt earlier was just a ruse."

The Auroran blinked, suddenly becoming more aware of her surroundings themselves, even if she couldn't feel them anymore - she was beginning to suspect that the link she shared with Espeon allowed her to read more than the Pokémon's thoughts, and it crossed her mind to ask Shingen or one of the Illusites more about it when the chance popped up.

"What?" Kanbei huffed from behind them, and she suddenly felt silly that he seemed to be the most unconcerned of the three of them.

"It is also quite possible," the albino's dark voice rang out before Hanbei had a chance to extrapolate on his suspicions. "That their abstinence is an attack of itself."

"What?" this time it was the tactician in white who said it. The brunette of the group looked over her shoulder in time to see Kanbei nod, tapping a few gauntleted fingers against the grip of his cane.

"Simple; they mean to drive us insane," Kanbei's eyes drifted from her to his counterpart. "And it seems to be working."

Hanbei's only reply was an indignant huff as he turned around, crossing his arms as he continued to skulk forwards.

"Was... that his way of trying to get him to cheer up?" Kazumi wondered when she caught the ghost of a smirk flash across Kanbei's pale features. The Warlord turned to look back at Hanbei; he might not have been willing to show any outward signs of comfort, but she could see quite easily that some of the tension in his shoulders was gone.

"Still," Kanbei continued after a few moments of quite. Hanbei blinked and looked up, his face having gone from an exaggerated smarting to something resembling mild contemplation. "You noticed it too?"

The question literally went over Kazumi's head, but the other tactician seemed to get it.

"Yeah," Hanbei replied, voice returning to the grave tone that felt out of place on him. "It's not just too quiet, it's too lifeless."

The Warlord took another quick glance around her at her surroundings; aside from the dying vegetation and increasingly bleak sky, there was nothing in sight. In fact, it looked like nothing had ever been there to begin with.

"I didn't think Yaksha would have a large army, but even with only a few warriors they'd still have to leave some sort of trail if they were following us or laying a trap or something..." Kazumi got the feeling Hanbei had just grimaced. "But there's nothing. No footprints, no noises, no breaks in the vegetation - heck, we're even running out of trees for people to hide behind, anyways - we haven't even seen any wild Pokémon. This whole Kingdom looks like one big ghost town."

Hanbei's lips pursed. "And holing up in their castle," the tactician in white then gestured to the decrepit looking mansion that had just appeared on the horizon, surrounded by the familiar sight of equally decrepit fauna and some burnt-out buildings. "Goes against not only conventional Yakshan tactics, but common sense itself. There's just no sense to it from-"

"Maybe we're looking at this the wrong way," Kazumi finally spoke up, having spent the past few moments pouring over the details of Hanbei's increasingly frustrated analysis. "What if one of our basic assumptions is wrong?"

Hanbei and Kanbei blinked simultaneously.

"Maybe they don't have as many warriors as we think they do," the Auroran continued hesitantly. "Why only Kotaro? Why not send someone after us, too? I can understand not wanting to risk warriors in an ambush that could go south, but you'd think they would want to take out two Flying Types with one stone when they had the chance."

"They could have withheld troops to attack us on the way back, assuming Kotaro would have been successful," Kanbei offered up finally, sounding more than a little uncertain and less than happy at vocalizing the point. Kazumi put a hand to her chin, debating for a split second whether she had subconsciously adopted the mannerism from Kanbei or Motonari before replying.

"Maybe. But-" the Auroran cut herself off when she realized the implications of what Kanbei had just said, and was about to wheel around and look back towards where their Cragspur guides had vanished into before Hanbei cut her off.

"I don't think they'd be attacked, protecting the injured or not," the raven-haired Ignite said. "Cragspur knows the lay of the land better than we do, and they would lose more time than they have by waiting to spring an ambush now."

His amethyst eyes flickered from her back to the front. "Anyways, look sharp."

Kazumi angled her head to look past him; the mansion that had seemed so distant moments prior was now looming over them, what little of the slowly-setting sun she could make out casting a long shadow over their army. She felt a chill run down her spine when they quickly pushed their way through the unlocked gates - they looked ready to fall off their rusting hinges at any moment, and she didn't fancy on being underneath them when they finally did - and took a preemptive look around the walled-off courtyard. Nothing; no shadows hiding behind the atrophying ruins of what once was Yaksha's castle town, no sudden cries in agony as warriors sprung up from whatever Zekrom-forsaken place they were hiding in, only a gulp from Hanbei and the sounds of warriors tentatively looking around the rubble that passed as Yaksha's courtyard. She had found herself gravitating towards Shingen as her tacticans went off to organize their troops, the girl thinking his dulled greys and reds matched quite nicely with the mansion he was staring up at.

"So, it really is true..." he had muttered it, but whether he had said it to himself or just kept his voice low out of some strange sense of respect she didn't know.

"What?" she took pride in having, for the fraction of a second, slightly startled the bulky Terreran, and much to her relief he let the hand that had gone to his war fan fall back by his side.

"Nobunaga putting Yaksha to the torch is common knowledge," Kazumi nodded in agreement as the Warlord spun around, and she instinctively grabbed at her bare arms when a sharp gust of wind suddenly overtook them. "What isn't well known is that Kotaro tried assassinating Nobunaga during the battle."

Kazumi blinked, blue orbs taking another quick glance around the desolate courtyard. "You mean he tried that stunt before?"

"On a larger scale, too. He planned on leading most of his army in a raid of Dragnor's main camp while Nobunaga's army was busy trying to flush them out of the forest," Shingen's mouth tightened and he stayed silent for a second. "Ujiyasu said Kotaro was the only warrior from Yaksha to show up in Cragspur."

In the time the Auroran had been silent, Shingen had produced a small scabbard from underneath his robes. Time slowed and panic rendered her legs useless when she caught sight of the red lacquer, and admist unspoken pleas silently cursed herself for walking into the now all-too obvious trap.

"What a way to go out; murdered in front of everyone without-"

"Here," Shingen said without skipping a beat, holding the dagger up to her, hilt pointed at her. Kazumi forced herself to blink after feeling her heart skip a beat, and slowly grabbed it. She let out a quiet breath when the Terreran let his hand drop back to his side.

"Why?" the Warlord in red looked down at her Espeon, who had been about to pounce on the unsuspecting man before he relinquished the weapon.

"Because you're the only one of us that's defenseless," Espeon's response to the deadpan was a few choice words Kazumi felt would be better left untranslated. "And that makes you the easiest and most obvious target."

The only response the brunette could muster was a grim nod as she checked the cold steel in her frail-looking hands. She tucked the blade into the folds of the purple sash tied around her waist, and silently prayed she wouldn't have to use it. Shingen took another glance over his shoulder, towards a statue of the Pokémon she had seen by Kotaro's side earlier - Zoroark, was it? - and the doors leading into the mansion behind it.

"Listen," Shingen's voice returned to the strained tone it had been at for the past hour. "Kotaro was already off his rocker. But whatever happened here has probably pushed him over the brink. If you run into him - and you will - don't bother trying to reason with him."

Kazumi nodded and then blinked when his wording registered. "Are you saying you're not going to be there with us?"

Shingen frowned.

"We're going to have to split up, yes," he continued before she could voice her objection. "Travelling in one large group will make it just as easy for him to pick us off as if we decided to run around the mansion individually; it'll also be near impossible to flush him out. We'll also need to leave some men behind to block the exits: if Kotaro escapes there's no telling what he'll try to do."

Kazumi nodded, taking a glance over her shoulder at the aging Violighter who was busy trying to form up their ranks, aided with a commanding roar from his Luxray.

"Dosetsu will probably be disappointed he'll be left behind," she commented dryly. Shingen let out a hollow chuckle.

"He'll make do," the Terreran turned toward the gates of Yaksha's mansion, eyed them for a quick second, and then lowered a finger in their direction. "Rhyperior. Rock Wrecker!"

---

"Hey, Masamune," the Warlord in question, having been previously enjoying the solitude of his chambers, looked up from his glass in annoyance and resisted the urge to yell 'Lord' at the mercenary.

"What?" the Avian growled out, downing the small cup sitting on his desk with a single gulp and slamming it back down. Magoichi was the only other person who knew it was only milk, and the Junior Warlord just crossed his arms and leaned against the doorframe.

"Just got the news; Aurora and Terrera have headed south with a sizeable amount of Cragspur's warriors. Fontaine and Pugilis' armies have also gone east to attack Viperia; if there was ever a time to attack Cragspur, it's-"

"No," Masamune said firmly, standing up, crossing his arms and letting out a snort. "What sort of imbecile do they take me for?"

Magoichi blinked, and the Warlord of Avia shot him a glare before he could even open his mouth. "It's obviously a trap - I'll bet my good eye that they'll send some of the troops invading Yaksha back to pincer us - and they're probably desperate to get a prisoner of their own. No, we're not going to attack Cragspur yet," he let his face break out into a grin. "But we can use this to our advantage."

The mercenary raised an eyebrow, while Masamune crossed his arms and looked out the window next to the portrait of his father; the one that offered a view on the road to Viperia.

"Magoichi, I want you to lead some troops into Viperia and bail out Nene; she always repays her debts," the brunette turned to back to face his subordinate, and Magoichi got the all-too familiar feeling of an eyepatch boring into him with more intensity than any glare. "Also, I want Kojuro to stake out the roads leading to Terrera; I have a feeling that once Kotaro's through with her, our Auroran friend will want to go back to Terrera or Chrysalia."

The Mercenary nodded and left Masamune to finish whatever plan for domination of Ransei he had started concocting.

---

"Was that really necessary?" Kazumi grumbled as they stepped over what was left of the doors to Yaksha's mansion, only to be immediately assaulted by the musty atmosphere and dim lighting of the mansion that reminded her all-too much of Terrera's infirmary.

"It could have very well been rigged," Shingen's reply and the sound of Rhperior crushing broken pieces of wood underfoot provided a welcome distraction.

"I think we should be worrying about that when we get deeper into the castle," Hanbei mumbled, kicking aside a stray piece of door with his sandal. Pikachu let out a yawn in agreement. Kanbei's only contribution to the conversation was scanning their surroundings while they talked.

"Anyways," Shingen coughed out, taking a quick glance around at the twenty or so assembled warriors, their Pokémon, and the forking paths that they found themselves in. "Masakage, you and your men will accompany Lady Kazumi." The masked man's eyes drifted down to the Warlord. "Good luck. The rest of you; with me."

The Terreran spun on his heel and headed down the leftwards passage, a few warriors and their partners rushing to get ahead of him. Kazumi gave a belated nod and then turned to look at the only path left to her; the darkened hallway that undoubtedly led into the heart of Yaksha's castle, and its insane resident who was probably waiting for the right moment to slit her neck. The Auroran suddenly found herself wishing she had a mask like Shingen.

"I'll go ahead, Lady Kazumi," Hanbei volunteered, taking a step forward. Kazumi let a second of apprehension pass by before she put a hand on his shoulder, stopping the tactician dead in his tracks.

"No," the Warlord replied as firmly as her nerves would let her. Espeon below mewled out an objection, but Kazumi ignored it; she couldn't afford to show weakness or fear, not here. And letting Hanbei lead would only just make him a target, too - and she didn't want to risk losing someone else she cared about. Hanbei stared back at her for a moment, purple meeting blue in a silent plea, before he finally closed his eyes and acquiesced with a resigned nod. Kazumi let her lips curl into a half-smile, dropped her hand, and took a few steps forward.

And then the entire hallway went completely black.

"Kazumi!" in her panic, she had little time to question why Hanbei's voice sounded distant. She instead spun back around - or, at least, she thought she did; the Auroran could barely make out her own hand - and stumbled about, reaching out for anything to guide her with one hand while keeping the other on the hilt of the dagger Shingen had given her. She could see and feel nothing; not even through her link with Espeon. But, eventually an image did begin to materialize; a familiar outline and a dull white.

"Hanbei?" she finally called out, taking a few steps in direction of apparition-like silhouette, who turned to face her.

"Milady?" Kazumi heard the immediate reply.

From behind her.

The Auroran had no time to register her shock and horror - she just spun away from the other image of Hanbei.

"No!" she meant to say it, but apparently Kanbei had also figured out what had happened. Kazumi raced in the direction she heard the other Ignite's voice - the same direction she heard the real Hanbei's question - only to run face-first into something thick and unmoving. Kazumi let out an 'omph' in pain, clenching her eyes shut and rubbing her nose as she stumbled backwards; when she opened her eyes again, she could see. And she wasn't in the hallway anymore; she couldn't even see where it or anyone else was. The brunette tried reaching through her link with Espeon to find out what happened, where she and everyone else was, only to have her blood run cold when she found a mental wall blocking her from feeling or talking to her partner. The Auroran gulped, the sudden sense of isolation slowly smothering her.

"Nice of you to finally join us," she recognized the voice and it immediately made her skin crawl. A second glance around the room - it had the exact same architectural style she had seen in the rest of the castle, so at least she knew she was somewhere in it - failed to reveal where Kotaro was.

"What do you want?" Kazumi's apprehension was the only thing keeping her from spitting it out as she stood up and tried to ignore the dull throbbing in her nose. There was a short moment of silence that she used to try find out which direction the first statement had come from, and then the gravelly reply echoed throughout the room.

"Why don't we play a game?"

"I'm not in the mood," she tried to put up a brave face. The only response she got was a multi-directional chuckle that had her eyes darting from one corner of the room to another.

"Maybe your friends would be more willing," there was a momentary pause that clearly was an attempt to intimidate her. It worked. "That one in white seemed awfully eager to-"

"Fine," the Warlord hissed, settling for shooting the roof a venomous look. Her answer was another hoarse chuckle, and when she looked back down she could see a door opposite to her that hadn't been there a second prior. She took a cautious half-step towards the panel door, almost waiting for Kotaro to suddenly appear out of nowhere and attack her, but when nothing came she mustered up a little more confidence and strode over to the door.

Kazumi let out a shaky breath as she rested her palm on the door, dreading whatever she might find on the other side, and gulped as she slided it open with abandon. The brunette blinked at the familiar - and had little time to ponder if she actually felt relief at seeing it - face she was met with.

"Heh, I'm impressed a couple 'ah greenhorns like yaselves got this far..." Hideyoshi muttered, the tired brown of his eyes peering into her. They were in Ignis' throne room, she suddenly noticed; warriors and Pokémon as tired-looking as Hideyoshi all lurking about the pillars and braziers scattered about the ornate room. She caught sight of Tadashi and Oichi out of the corner of her eye, and Mitsunari, Kiyomasa and Masanori occupied the other side. And from every pair of eyes in the room being on her, the panting and emotionless Eevee at her feet - not even Zoroark could replicate the link she felt with Espeon - and Hideyoshi and his partner across from her, she could tell that the battle she had stumbled into was down to the wire. Her, and the biggest thorn in their side during their earliest days as Warlords. It was the strangest sense of nostalgia, a twisted memory like this, but she could feel her blood beginning to pump as she stared the Warlord of Ignis down. It was almost comforting, even, the familiarity of it all.

"But it ends here! Chimchar, Fury Swipes!" with a mighty screech, the Chimp Pokémon barreled itself forward, lanky arms raised akimbo over its head. It looked more like a dance than a charge, Kazumi thought with no small amount of amusement.

"Dodge and counter with Quick Attack!" even without their link the Eevee next to her moved with all the efficiency and direction that one was able to provide. It cut in front of Chimchar, who unleashed a series of loosely controlled cuts that the Evolution Pokémon easily avoided, and then rounded back and slammed headfirst into the Fire Type's back. Hideyoshi's partner crashed into one of the ostentations pillars lining the room, only to stand back up and brush itself off before Eevee could ram back into it again. The Normal Type spun to avoid crashing itself into the column, and then raced back to her side to avoid the barrage of flames Chimchar spat out at it.

The moment Eevee came to a stop, however, was when Hideyoshi's partner slammed into it with a Flame Wheel. Kazumi's first instinct was to think that the barrage of flames had just been cover for the attack, the quiet objection of where she being drowned out over the rush of adrenaline. Her head whipped back to her partner, ignoring Hideyoshi's call for her to give up as the Evolution Pokémon got back on all fours and growled at the simian that had sent it hurtling.

"Shadow Ball!" the Auroran cried out with another tinge of nostalgia that didn't quite register as being nostalgia, levelling a finger down at the miniscule Fire Type below.

"Counter with Ember!" Chimchar spewed out another barrage of the flames, but she watched with no small amount of satisfaction as the orb of ghostly energy broke through each and every one of them and crashed into the Chimp Pokémon. Hideyoshi's partner flew back again, landing at his feet, and she felt her chest swell with the eurphoria of victory to the cheering backdrop of her comrades.

"Ignis is-" her declaration petered off when she caught sight of Hideyoshi; head hung and shoulders shaking, it was an almost pathetic sight from someone who she had come to view as eternally optimistic as Hanbei.

And then she realized he was laughing.

"Ya got us good, all right, Lady Kazumi," it was something Hideyoshi would say, she noted - and even how he would say it - but it wasn't in a voice he would use. This one had lost all of its joviality and descended into a smoldering malaise. He glanced back up at her, brown eyes instantly hardening the moment they met her blue. "But you're still just a couple of greenhorns. Koroku!"

Kazumi spun around when the heavy doors behind her burst open, Ignite warriors led by Hideyoshi's semi-competent commander pouring in behind them and surrounding her. The feeling of familiarity turned sour but stuck.

"And I'm gonna take a guess and say that Hanbei and Kanbei have gotten to Aurora by now," came the non-sequitur from the not-so-defeated Warlord behind her, and the girl felt a very familiar chill run up her back at the mention of their kingdom. The Auroran turned around slowly, catching Tadashi and Oichi's distraught visages as she did, and met Hideyoshi's gaze once more. He crossed his arms, cocked his head, and smirked in a vaguely recognizable way, though the expression looked like it belonged on some else.

"Tell ya what," the Ignite said, distracting the brunette momentarily from glaring daggers at the interfering warriors out of the corner of her eyes. "Surrender now, and I'll put ya in charge of Aurora." Kazumi didn't need to look at her brother to know he had flinched. "Ya can help bring peace to Ransei and keep protecting your Kingdom."

"And if I don't?" she asked weakly. Hideyoshi shrugged and looked down at his fingernails, leaving her to stew in the uncomfortable silence he had cast over the humid room. Her eyes glanced back to her twin for a second - who was busy gazing between Hideyoshi and her with a barely controlled growl, and had it not been for the warriors surrounding her he probably would have rushed between her and Hideyoshi - before she quietly mulled over the options presented to her, the gravity of the situation beginning to sink in. And above all else, her thoughts kept drifting back to her brother; of her desire to keep the two of them off the streets, of how he would handle being sidelined as a Warlord yet again, of the idea of losing the Kingdom they had been entrusted with not a week yet into her tenure - they would probably end up the laughing stocks of Ransei, having been so easily outwitted and lured into a trap. And then it hit her, the realization scattering the fog that had descended over her mind;

Hideyoshi wasn't this competent.

Kazumi's response was directed at the ceiling. "If you want to frighten me, you're going to have to try a lot harder."

There was a stillborn silence as the scene around her faded away into nothingness, and the Auroran found herself in a room not unlike the one she first wound up in.

"Frighten you?" there was another low chuckle from Kotaro that failed to give her any indication as to where he could be. "That's an amusing thought. Why don't you go on to your next trial now?"

"Trial?" the Auroran looked around bitterly at hearing that, eyes finally landing on the only door in the room, which was conveniently placed right in her path. Kazumi slowly strode over to it, steeled her nerves, and pushed it open.

Kazumi remembered the scene she stumbled into all too well. Hanbei and Kanbei flanked her as they walked down the streets of Aurora, the former trying to comfort her frayed nerves from two days of constant running and futile resistance.

"Though, without Lord Motonari..." Hanbei added on as almost an afterthought, breaking what had been otherwise a perfect repetition of events. She blinked in confusion while Kanbei dropped his head in a solemn silence.

"We shall make do. We have to; he taught us to," the other Ignite said quietly. Kazumi shook her head in disbelief, looking around for any sign of their grassy-haired strategist. None: not even a single Grass Type Pokémon. Then her memory returned to their defense of Ignis, how they desperately held off the marauding Pugilis army to no avail, to how Motonari, Hanbei and Kanbei had proposed luring them into the cave networks where the Greenleafer could isolate and defeat their army piecemeal. And how even he had lost.

And then Kazumi realized in abject horror where events had diverged here - and how hopeless things looked now without his strategies.

Her gaze snapped up at the sound of an ear-splitting roar from the front, the sight of panicking warriors quickly flooding her vision.

"What's going on!?" she tried peering over the warriors in front of her to no avail. Hanbei had better luck.

"Pugilis is already attacking! They must have stolen the march! We nee-" whatever he was about to say got drowned out by the sight of warriors being sent flying into the nearby buildings as Yoshihiro pummeled his way through their ranks. The next few moments were a panicked blur; she remembered the streets dissolving into anarchy as Pugilite warriors poured into their formation, turning once orderly lines into uneven brawls. She got separated from her tacticians, slowly inching her way back in the direction of the castle as more and more warriors made it through. But Eevee could only fight for so long and so hard; and just as it was on the cusp of passing out from sheer exhaustion, Yoshihiro finally forced his way through another line of warriors.

With no need for civility, Kazumi felt a wave of different emotions rush over her at seeing the septuagenarian; anger for him having caused Tadashi so much misery (so she liked to believe), disappointment for having let the Pugilite come this far, guilt for relying on Motonari to the point where she was practically a lamb to the slaughter without him, and fear at knowing how hopelessly outmatched she was against the Warlord. Sapphire orbs flitted down to her beleaguered partner, and then back to Yoshihiro.

"Why?" she whispered loud enough for her opponent to hear, begging for one of the warriors in the crowd to notice her predicament and help.

"Why not?" Yoshihiro replied with a hearty laugh, pounding a fist against his breastplate. "If you can't defend your kingdom, you were never fit to have it to begin with."

"Easy to say when you have a type advantage and a fully evolved Pokémon..." Kazumi shot back internally, but settled for clenching her jaw. "And that involves crushing everyone in your path?"

"Motonari went quietly like a true warrior," the other Warlord stated with a small grin. The Auroran just felt her stomach churn. "I'd expect better from one of his students."

Kazumi took a second's glance back over her shoulder, looking back up to the castle balcony where her brother had once stood, watching in utter misery as she left him behind. Part of her hoped that he was still watching, that she would be able to catch his gaze and silently plead for him to help, to save her and show him that he wasn't useless because right now she was. The Auroran's hopes were crushed when the only thing that stared back at her were the walls of the keep.

"I'm not giving up Aurora!" the brunette finally shouted, mustering up all her courage and dropping into a fighting stance as Yoshihiro's Conkeldurr stomped forward. "Tadashi... Everyone... I can't fail. Not here."

"You got spirit, kid, I'll give you that," the elder stated grimly, motioning for his partner to attack.

The battle was over in one move.

Before Kazumi even got the chance to vomit at the sight of her crushed partner, another swipe from Conkeldurr sent her flying back into the dirt.

"Was this what it felt like going up against Zekrom?" she wondered as she pushed herself back up, ignoring the stinging of her elbows and the taste of earth and blood in her mouth. She chanced a glance back up, catching Yoshihiro ambivalently watching her struggle to stand. "This hopelessness?"

"Now!" Kazumi felt her breath catch as the ground beneath Conkeldurr opened up, afraid something worse and even more surreal and twisted was about to charge out at her. And then she started to panic when she felt a hand snake its way under her arm. The only thing that stopped her from outright screaming was seeing that it was an Eevee that had propelled itself out of the earth and straight into the Fighting Type, and then the Warlord took a cautious look up at the person who was lifting her back to her feet.

Kazumi had never been more relieved to see her twin's face in her life. The only thing keeping her from giving him the tightest hug she could muster was the Pugilite a few yards away.

"Leave him to me," Tadashi said quietly, eyes flashing gold and his link with Eevee visibly responding. She blinked in utter confusion before her eyes drifted back to his partner, and it clicked when the Pokémon seemed to gain an adrenaline rush all of a sudden, easily outmaneuvering all of Conkeldurr's attacks and hitting it with much more power than before.

"That's... That's impossible... Warrior Abilities can't be used at will!" Warrior Abilities, she knew, were what truly separated warriors from commoners who just happened to have a strong bond with a certain Pokémon - actually demarcating that someone was capable of forming links with them. But a warrior being able to use it at will was near-unheard of; she herself had only used hers twice over the course of her entire life, and both times it had left her exhausted. But it was impossible to deny; Tadashi's Eevee now had the upper hand, the co-Warlord standing silently besides her and pouring all his energy and focus into coordinating the battle through his link. And that was why Tadashi didn't see the stray attack until it was too late.

The inconspicuous rock had launched itself out of the melee and sailed straight into his unprotected temple; of course, he was still wearing his old maedate and not the newer armor - complete with an actual helmet - that he had been electrocuted in. Tadashi cried out in pain and collapsed into the dirt, eyes glancing up at her in shock as the blood began to trickle down from the wound. And with the sudden break in contact, Eevee had stayed in one spot for too long; though tired, Conkeldurr still managed to swipe the Evolution Pokémon into a nearby tea shop. Even with her gaze still fixated on Tadashi, who was becoming more glassy-eyed by the second, she could still feel Yoshihiro's smug grin boring into her back. That was when she started to see red.

Kazumi grabbed the sword from Tadashi's hip, threw away the scabbard, and charged the Pugilite with as fierce a war cry as she could muster. Conkeldurr, spent from the battle, was easily outmaneuvered, and she angled the tip of the steel to pierce the elder's armor. She took some satisfaction at finally catching Yoshihiro defenseless, and right before the blade could pierce his heart the vision that had felt all too real had begun to fade away.

Kazumi gasped and then let out a panicked breath of relief when she realized she was only gripping air. Her arms were no longer burning and the taste of copper was gone from her mouth, but her knees were still shaking, the sweat continued to collect on her brow, and the image of her brother was still engraved in her mind. And then came the infuriating chuckle that she sadly knew all too well; at this point, the Auroran was convinced Kotaro was just doing it to rub salt into the wound.

"How-" she hissed, looking around at the identically empty and featureless room as the last two, suddenly wishing that the sword she had in her hands moments ago was real. She had watched Ginchiyo and Tadashi practice long enough that she was confident that her growing rage would be able to make up for her utter lack of experience.

"Psychics aren't the only ones who can pick minds," came the grim reply. Kazumi rubbed her forehead, the sudden knowledge that her foe was also able to invade her thoughts frustrating her even more and leaving her feeling very self-conscious.

"Why?" the Warlord asked tiredly.

"Because all warriors are the same," came Kotaro's reply, derived of any of the lightness his voice previously had. Kazumi blinked in confusion. "Your squabbles and pathetic striving are just a source of entertainment for me."

There was a pause. "And I prefer an honest war to a false peace - and that's all you and Nobunaga will be able to bring."

"What?" Kazumi blurted out, feeling even more exhausted than she had seconds prior. She waited there for a few seconds, staring at the ceiling for an answer. When none came she took that as her cue to step into the next phase of her torture, and silently hoped that Hanbei and everyone else was safe by virtue of the Yakshan and his Zoroark being too preoccupied with her. Maybe if she could drag this out long enough one of their groups might be able to find her, she mused as her hand went to what felt like the same door she had slid open the past two times.

The next scene she stepped into was complete unfamiliar, and immediately sent a chill down her spine.

The room was decidedly Ignite in an architectural sense and had all the mugginess of the castle that she remembered, but it was entirely unfamiliar to her. It looked like a throne room of sorts, but there was no throne in sight; instead, most of the room was dark, but she could tell she had stepped into a large circle of jade pillars from the few braziers that adorned the room. And then she heard the chanting.

It was barely understandable to her; it was either a very bad pantomime of the western dialect she tried not to slip into when around Shingen and her other allies who used the more refined central one, or an archaic version of it. Given that the content - at least, from what she could understand of it - sounded like a prayer, Kazumi went for the latter. And then she made out the silhouette at the edge of the circle, back turned to her and flanked distantly by two braziers so where the only detail she could make out were his raised hands. Even if she couldn't make out the figure, and Kazumi certainly didn't feel like trying her luck and interrupting him, his voice triggered some vague recognition in the back of her mind, nagging at her with its familiarity.

And then the prayer ended, and the figure dropped his arms. The long sleeves of his scarlet coat had cast shadows over his head, and now with them gone she could see his hair clearly enough; Kazumi's heart skipped a beat when she recognized the very distinctive color, and she realized who the voice belonged to.

"It was good of you to come," Motonari said mildly as he stepped forward into the shifting light the dancing flames provided. Kazumi then understood why she had failed to immediately recognize the voice earlier; this version of the Greenleafer couldn't have been more than a few years older than her. Motonari's mossy hair was longer, strong chin and haughty nose seeming a little sharper, and his eyes burned with a vibrancy that looked out of place on such an otherwise collected face. "And now you must face the crucible where your past and present meet."

Kazumi blinked in confusion, failing to see how the Greenleafer she had only known for the better part of the year could play a role in her past. "What?"

"Ah, forgive me," Motonari said with his usual smile, sheepishly running his hand through the back of his hair. Vision or not, Kazumi had to admit the speech and mannerisms were uncanny. "Doubtlessly you have questions you want to ask first."

She mulled over the offer for a second before shaking her head. "No," the Auroran replied with a small sigh. "You're just another vision."

"Am I?" the man replied, folding his arms behind his back patiently, small smile taking on an almost knowing tone. Kazumi felt her throat go dry. None of the other apparitions or herself had been self-aware in the past two visions, and this one somehow felt different; like one of those dreams where she knew she was dreaming and could control it. For all the Auroran knew this could have just been Kotaro changing tactics to throw her off balance, but that line of thought also reminded her of her own circumstances and so she ultimately decided to humor whatever she was staring at.

"Then what are you?" Motonari blinked vapidly and turned on his heel.

"What am I? What am I..." he put a hand to his chin as he slowly paced between the braziers - at this point she was clueless if the Warlord was considering the question of just doing it for show - before he came to a stop and turned back to her.

"I am but a mirror," the Greenleafer said quietly as he resumed his former position, face settling back into the same unreadable calm as before. Previously it had been something of a comfort to Kazumi; now set against the shadows of the fires it looked vaguely sinister. "And whatever you see in me is entirely up to you."

Kazumi frowned, taking another step into a better lit part of the circle. "Then what were you?"

"What was I?" she caught his lips curling upwards at that, followed by a small chuckle that would have felt entirely out of place on the Motonari she knew, yet seemed to go perfectly with this one. It just set her on edge even more. "A very good question - I have yet to quite figure it out myself."

The brunette got the feeling that she would get a similarly slippery answer out of the real Warlord, and took that as her cue to ask something that she had a better chance of getting an answer on.

"What is this place?" Kazumi immediately regretted not specifying if she meant Yaksha or whatever room the vision had conjured up, even if she had yet to figure out which one she wanted to ask about. The scarlet-clad apparition across from her offered up a gracious smile.

"Yaksha itself is a graveyard now, a kingdom in name only. Dark Type Pokémon and others close to them had always been drawn here by the climate, and I suppose it suits them in a macabre way, but the scars and sorrow have become too much for even them too handle, let alone for humans. The castle itself is the lone survivor of the Kingdom; left standing as a reminder of the kingdom's desolation to its sole prisoner," Kazumi took a silent gulp at what she had just heard from the illusion - she tried not to dwell on the why, as she figured that would be something she wouldn't get an answer for - who then turned and busied himself by staring up at one of the columns flanking him. "As for this place, it was once part of Ignis' Castle - before it was destroyed, mind you."

Motonari then stepped to the side to give her a clear view of the vacant pedestal he had been facing when she first entered. "The most sacred part of the castle, in fact; where the Light Stone was once held."

That sent her mind into overdrive, memories flashing back to Zekrom looming over them in the sands, of the old legends of its counterpart and how it would choose a warrior it felt was worthy. And if Zekrom was awakened by Nobunaga-

"Where is the Light Stone now?" Kazumi asked with more enthusiasm than she wanted to give away. Motonari's response was an apathetic shrug.

"I can't say," he replied absently. "Perhaps the hero Reshiram chose simply gave up? Perhaps Reshiram feels that there is no one honest enough left in Ransei to even appear to," the Greenleafer's voice dropped. "It is a terrible thing, the truth, you know. Ideals are easy to believe in, but the truth? It's much more simple to just be apathetic."

He blinked, and resettled his eyes on the girl to see his soliloquy had done little to damper her eagerness. "And would finding the Light Stone truly be of any help to you?"

"Of course!" the girl nearly shouted, taking another step forward. The Greenleafer's gaze just returned to her, and his figure obscured the shrine again. "Nobunaga has formed a link with Zekrom! With Reshiram I could-"

"Could," Motonari said, the harshness of the retort mitigated by him looking down at the marble below. His gaze flickered back up, and the moment their eyes met she felt her legs suddenly grow weak.

"Tell me," the man continued, tone softening. "Why are you here?" He blinked self-consciously and the sheepish smile returned. "In Yaksha, I mean."

She crossed her arms, careful to keep one eye on the man across from her for any sudden movements. Motonari just stood there patiently as she shifted through her thoughts.

"Because Yaksha is controlled by Dragnor?" she said uneasily, feeling like she was answering a trick question. "And Nobunaga will destroy Ransei if I don't stop him."

Motonari's faced dropped, and Kazumi felt inclined to take a step back.

"And," the Greenleafer began, voice level and squaring his shoulders. "What will you do once you have defeated Nobunaga?"

The first response that came to her mind was executing him, but Kazumi swallowed that, because that would be stooping to the conqueror's level. "I... I don't know."

The younger Motonari's eyes narrowed, and the Auroran got the impression the vision was able to read her like an open book. He probably could.

"No?" his response was drawn out, almost like a slither. "Then what makes you think you will prove yourself worthy to Reshiram if you can't even demonstrate the truth of your cause?"

Kazumi gritted her teeth, the rebuttal slamming into her harder than any of the attacks Conkeldurr had launched at her. "And what about you?"

"Me?" Motonari let out a laugh, and Kazumi nearly flinched. Hearing Nobunaga's laugh had sent a chill down her back at how hollow it was; Motonari's caused her blood to run cold at how tortured it was, and she realized she had never once heard the real Motonari laugh either. The Greenleafer abruptly cut off his cackling, eyes drifting down to her as his face resettled into an emotionless visage.

"I have no personal desires or ambitions," Motonari said quietly, closing his eyes. "I simply bring my schemes to life..." they shot back open, and Kazumi found his gaze to be as piercing as the Warlord of Dragnor's. "And slay my enemies."

A heavy moment of quiet passed.

"Now what?" the Auroran finally mustered up the courage to ask.

"Now..." the vision of Motonari began, tone almost sorrowful. Kazumi practically felt the knots in her stomach multiplying. The Greenleafer gazed up at the ceiling, nodded, and then looked back to her, letting out a resigned sigh. "Now you must kill me if you want to move forward."

The Warlord's breath caught in her throat when she noticed the sword that had suddenly appeared in her hand - and the thin gleam of metal coming from his.

"No! I'm not going to kill anyone in-" Motonari shook his head.

"Then your apathy will be your death," that was the only warning she got before he launched himself across the gap between them, blade poised for her neck. Kazumi barely managed to draw her sword and parry in time.

"You're just a vision!" she yelled out in exasperation, silently hoping that saying it would make this all fade away like the first one. Motonari's lips curled upwards as he spun back around.

"Then you should have no problem in bloodying your hands," the second strike at her neck - brought with what felt like the force of a whirlwind - was barely stopped in time. Kazumi tried not to hyperventilate, thinking back to the one time she had seen Motonari duel; the only advantages he had over Ginchiyo were his speed and knowing how to irritate her enough to get her to slip up in her form. But the vision was much younger and also had a proper weapon; one he was clearly skilled at compared to her complete ignorance. She was at least faster than Ginchiyo, if not clumsier - she could only allow herself to slowly be herded up against one of the pillars in her desperate defense, barely being able to meet all of his swipes and thrusts before they could cut into her. Kazumi felt tears begin to form in her eyes when she felt her back hit the marble, hands shaking uncontrollably as she tried to hold her sword between her eyes; she knew she was hopelessly outclassed, and the entire duel had just been the vision of Motonari toying with her as he forced her back into a corner.

She watched as the Warlord's eyes peer at her from underneath his grassy hair, indiscernible, and in a split second he had lunged forward. The Auroran tried to keep her lips from quivering and clenched her eyes shut, and then slowly opened them when she felt her sword budge in her hands accompanied by a gurgle. Every word she tried to voice died in her throat when she realized what had happened.

"Sometimes," Motonari leaned in as he whispered, impaling himself deeper into her blade with another sickening sound. She could feel his strangled breath against her ear and hear the blood building up in his throat. "War doesn't give you a choice."

He then staggered back, forcing her to relinquish her grip on the hilt of her blade, and smiled as a thin line of blood began to leak out of the corner of his mouth. She tried to apologize and reach out to him, only for his body to crumple into the shadow of the pillar, out of her sight. Kazumi stayed deathly still even as the scene changed again, jade and red marble and ghostly flames and any signs of a murderous duel fading away into the image of a massive doorway.

The intricate gold interweaving against the black reminded gave her a vague sense of familiarity and more than enough foreboding to tell her to turn away. But by this point Kazumi couldn't bring herself to even feel apprehensive, and she forlornly grabbed the gilded handle of the door and pushed it open. The figures she saw made her breath hitch in her throat.

Nobunaga; the man who nearly electrocuted her brother to death and brought half the region under his iron grip, the man she had sworn to bring justice to.

And Tadashi; swinging his sword at him with the ferocity of a cornered beast, even though he clearly had the upper hand in their duel.

Nobunaga had been pushed down against the staircase leading up to his throne. His eyes shifted in her direction when he heard the doors creak open, and she noted with no small amount of nausea that a smirk had formed on the man's face at the sight of her, even as Tadashi's slashes threatened to literally cut through his blocks.

And then she heard the snap.

The obsidian shards of what had once been Nobunaga's blade clattered down the steps and onto the equally black floor below, leaving the Warlord defenseless. Tadashi winded his arm back to deliver the final blow, and Kazumi screamed out for him to stop, legs shooting her across the vast throne room as fast as they possibly could - it wasn't fast enough. Tadashi slashed down, and with one flick of his wrist Ransei had been united. Kazumi skidded to a halt as the reddened steel dropped back to Tadashi's side, staring up at his caped back in disbelief. A second of Tadashi silently staring at the body below passed before the Auroran raised his head.

"It's done," her brother said absently, kicking aside the corpse as he climbed the stairs to Dragnor's throne. "Ransei is just one step away from being united."

"Tadashi!" the girl shouted out in disbelief as he took a seat on the black marble, and wincing as he buried the tip of his sword into the stone platform the throne was built into. "You just-"

"Did what was necessary for the sake of Ransei," Tadashi finished with a solemn nod. "Just as this is."

She took a step back when his silvery gaze landed on her, feeling the hair on the back of her neck stand up.

"Tadashi, I don't know what-" he stood with all the authority the ruler of Ransei would have, gazing down on her impassively.

"Ransei needs but one head," her twin thundered. "And I am sick of being nothing more than your shadow!"

"Tadashi, please, I didn't-" the Auroran rose and tore his blade out of its impromptu sheath with enough force that Kazumi heard the marble crack in protest.

"Yes you," he spat. "And you brought this upon yourself!" Tadashi lowered his sword at her, silvery eyes glassy. "Rayquaza, attack!"

She watched on in horror as the roof above gave way to a hail of black rubble in the face of the Legendary Pokémon crashing through it, the Dragon's fangs and eyes bared solely on her. Kazumi's head whipped back to Tadashi in desperation, silently pleading for him to stop, and the only response she got was an enraged glare as he returned to his throne. Her knees finally gave out at that, slamming into the stone below, and the girl clutched her head in an attempt to shut out both the screaming around her and in her mind.

"STOP! PLEASE!" she finally yelled, clenching her eyes shut and falling down on her side as the past few hours flashed in front of her mind's eye in a macabre montage. Curling up tighter against herself only made the mental barrage worse. The Auroran summoned up whatever air was left in her lungs and dug her nails into her scalp. "STOP!"

And then there was silence. Blissful, beautiful, enrapturing silence when the screaming finally ended. Kazumi didn't dare venture to open her eyes out of fear of what might be waiting for her, preferring to pretend that she was still in Cragspur, having never set foot in this Zekrom-forsaken kingdom, and that this was all just some hyper-realistic nightmare that was the result of eating some bad Magikarp.

"How the mighty have fallen."

And with that, she was dragged back into the harsh reality of where she was. Kazumi cracked a sapphire orb open to see Kotaro towering over her, the same smirk she had seen when he was trying to murder Shingen spread across his grey, tattooed face. She pushed herself off the hard floorboards and away from the Yakshan, who just looked even more amused at her. It was when she hit the wall that Kazumi finally forced herself to stand against it, and she suddenly remembered the dagger tucked away in her sash.

"Stay back!" she commanded through a shaky voice, feeling indebted to Shingen as she brandished the steel in the Warlord's direction. That got a snort out of Kotaro and the Pokémon lurking behind him, and Kazumi realized how silly she must have looked to him.

"Please, girl," the ninja crossed his arms. "You're not worth the effort in killing - no, you're more useful alive right now. And you won't be the one to unify Ransei, either."

Her sense of panic refused to abate at the Yakshan taking a step away from her.

"But thanks to you, I know who will." Zoroark's head snapped to the nearby door, and Kotaro followed for a moment before his paralyzing stare returned to her. "Until next time. Zoroark."

Warlord and Pokémon vanished into a blur, but it was only when the door was battered down with an Iron Tail a minute or so later that she let go of the breath that she had been holding in, dropping the dagger and slumping back down to the floor. Hanbei was the first into the room, followed by Kanbei and a dozen other warriors pouring in. She only vaguely registered the tactician running over to her, too relieved at seeing his face to think of anything else.

"Hanbei," she said weakly, cutting off his barrage of questions, apologies, and orders to the nearby warriors.

"My lady?" he replied, frantically wrapping an arm under hers and helping her stand back up. She tried to hold back her tears.

"We're leaving," Kazumi ordered through shaky breaths, staggering across the room with his help. Hanbei nodded in understanding, and that one gesture meant more than the world to her at that moment.

"I'm never setting foot back in this kingdom if it's the last thing I do," Kazumi swore to herself, the past few hours crashing back into her like a wave as they maneuvered back out of the manor. Espeon - back in her weary arms - was kind enough to not complain about being held tighter than usual, and the brunette began to understand why Oichi was so fond of unintentionally squeezing the daylights out of her poor partner when she got nervous. "Not again. Not ever again. Not... Not after nearly... after I nearly..."

---

"Died..."

Tadashi exhaled and let the back of his head rest against the wall - for the umpteenth time since he had woken up, it felt like it was being slammed into the wood. He ran a uneven hand through the silky fur of the Evolution Pokémon in his arms.

"I almost died then. Died. I-I'm not going to come out of this war in one piece, am I?" there was no answer. The Auroran didn't know if he was grateful or not.

Yukimura and Kunoichi had already been discharged, and Ginchiyo refused stay put in her cot against the advice of Terrera's local doctor - and even with Oichi and Naoshige paying frequent visits, Tadashi found he had too much time on his hands to be comfortable with.

And above all else, he could hear himself think. He didn't like what he heard, and he liked having to come to terms with it even less. His own mortality had always lurked on the fringes of his consciousness before, but now it had dragged itself to the forefront of his mind; having to think about what it might do to Kazumi, to Oichi. Or what it wouldn't do. Nevermind that from how weak Zekrom's attack had been - he had no doubt the Deep Black Pokémon could have easily crushed or reduced him to ash in mere seconds - Nobunaga had obviously intended to prolong his death. Or, more accurately, Oichi's.

How would history have remembered him? The whiny little brother of the unifier who just happened to make a single heroic sacrifice when nobody else would - nothing more than an inhuman plot device in the legend of Ransei's unification? Would history have even bothered to remember him at all? Would anyone?

Eevee tenderly pawing at the burns on his forearm was a welcome distraction. Tadashi quietly hissed at the pain, but moved his hand to scratch his partner behind his ear.

"Thanks..." his voice cracked. He tried to sit up as much as he could and took another sip of tepid water from the small cup besides him, choking it down over the stinging in the back of his throat.

"Now what?" the Warlord let out a raspy breath and wiped the cold sweat off his brow. "I might as well be a vegetable now... I'm no good to anyone cooped up here."

Eevee scampered off him when he pulled his legs up and tried to stand over the objection of his burns - enough of his strength had returned that he could at least pull that off - and slowly began pacing around the room. His steps played out like a march; he could hear the creak in a particular floorboard before he even stepped on it, and knew to take a step to the left to avoid getting blinded by the musty sunlight filtering into the room. He spun, slowly, and the shift in atmosphere reminded him faintly of when Nobunaga had landed before him. He could practically feel his blood start to boil at the memory; it had been like a sudden cold front had fallen over the entire desert kingdom the moment that man brought Zekrom to a halt.

How was the war going without himself and Ginchiyo at the front? She had been pessimistic about it when he asked - and the Violighter made a point on chiding him about how stupid he was from her own cot, and if he didn't know better he'd actually say she cared - and he wasn't exactly optimistic himself. The lack of news was starting to make him stir crazy as well; something should've reached his ears by now. Naoshige had been evasive when he asked, the Auroran offering up a stuttered excuse about pressing business; either he shared Oichi's affinity for lying or was trying to let his lord know he was under a gag order without actually saying it. Tadashi really didn't want to believe it was the latter, and he found his pace only increasing as he went deeper into his thoughts. His knees buckled slightly with each step, and the rough wool of his tunic scratching against his shoulders felt like sandpaper, but at the end of the day the Warlord still preferred the shallow comfort of some activity to lying down, even if sleep provided the enticing promise of escape from his worries.

"Lord Tadashi!" the voice - melodic to his ears - brought the Auroran out of his increasingly troublesome thoughts. It just managed to wake Eevee up from his nap.

"Speaking of worries..." somehow, the brunette found a smile spreading across his face as he slowly turned around.

"I know, I know," Oichi's features softened a little bit when their eyes met, but she kept her blush-colored lips in a disjointed line until he acquiesced and headed back to his cot in the middle of the musty, depressing room. She followed closely, and soon Tadashi found himself quietly enjoying the tea she had brought, in spite of the climate. He caught her auburn eyes flickering down to the patches of still-raw burns running across his arms as he set the porcelain down, and found the corners of his lips tugging against his cheeks.

"T-Thank you," she muttered quietly, and for a second Tadashi wondered if the girl was embarrassed. "For saving my life."

Tadashi nodded gravely. "I'd do it again if I had to."

"Please don't say that, my Lord," Oichi mumbled as she poured him another glass of the amber liquid. He looked down at his own reflection in the tiny mirror it made; his disheveled hair fell down in undignified strands over his forehead, and between the circles under his eyes and the lines framing his mouth, he looked more like a prisoner than a convalescent. Maybe it wasn't that far off.

They sat in silence for another moment, the only sound in the room being a quiet sip of the mild-tasting tea, before Tadashi swallowed the last of his apprehension with it.

"Why?" she blinked, looked up from her tea, then went back to it.

"I was scared," Oichi said a little more loudly than before.

"No," Tadashi shook his head. "I know," the Warlord didn't hold it against her, either. He was more a coward than her, in his mind. "But why would Nobunaga go through all that effort? What... What was the point of all that?"

Oichi shook her head. He swore he heard a strangled chuckle pass through the twisted smile that crept across her features.

"What's the point of anything that Nobunaga does? Even if he has a method, it wouldn't make any difference to his madness." Tadashi blinked slowly.

"Do you think he's evil?" Oichi's brow furrowed, and her lips parted as she struggled to offer a response. She finally let out a sigh and hung her head.

"Yes," she took a long sip from the porcelain in her grip - the Auroran noticed her hands were starting to tremble.

"My brother was a good man - or, he tried to be one, at least. I remember he would use to carry me on his shoulders when I was little and take me to the top of the mountains for the view. I think he cared," the girl gulped, and Tadashi felt a stab of guilt for bringing up the topic when he saw her lips quiver. "He started to change after father beat mother to death."

Tadashi blinked. Oichi preempted him - not that he could think of anything appropriate to say.

"Brother killed father in a duel later; half the castle was destroyed in the aftermath. Then Chrysalia invaded."

The Warlord just took a quiet sip from the dregs of his cup, feeling a few inches smaller than he was. Oichi's glass was still full.

---

"Make no mistake, Lord Tadashi, Nobunaga is far worse than our father ever was. He was a temperamental man, and acted on impulse more often than not - I think Nobunaga's learned far too well from him."

Despite having become as much of a fixture of Dragnor castle as the torches lining its walls, standing in its throne room was still an unusual sensation for Mitsuhide. Nobunaga almost never held council there despite clearly lavishing the place; the whole room was made of black marble interlaced with gold, lit only by flame and culminating in the grotesquely large throne on the pedestal in the back. Maybe his aversion to it was to keep even his own generals from becoming too comfortable when he did hold court - it worked, the Nixtormite remarked to himself dryly.

"How so?"

Nobunaga himself was seated on the throne in the back, distant and surrounded by his cloaked guards, jaw resting on his fist, and looking altogether mightier and more disinterested than any of the old Shoguns of Cragpsur could even conceive of, let alone try to emulate. He and the rest of the officers were closer to the massive doors that marked the room, and far less at ease than their lord; the conqueror had decided to meet the returning Ieyasu here on what Mitsuhide decided could only be a whim, and he had given up trying to understand any of them long ago.

"Father... He cared too much. Enough to work himself into a frenzy at the drop of a hat. That was his undoing, I think. But Nobunaga... He doesn't care at all. People, Pokémon, entire Kingdoms - they're all just tools to him."

Mitsuhide felt his back instinctively straighten when the doors finally creaked open. Whim or not, he did know his lord was never one for ceremony - there was a reason behind this, and he suddenly found himself wishing he hadn't been given the honor of being at the front of the right of the room. Nobunaga's eyes were fixed solely on the Valorans making their way across the hall, but the man could feel Nobunaga's gaze boring into him. The Warlord of Nixtorm tried to keep his eyes on the procession, and feigned interest instantly turned genuine when Ieyasu bowed and then motioned for someone behind him to step forward. His icy gaze could make out a color that was decidedly out of place in the dour atmosphere, even through the drab grey of Ieyasu's warriors; a lively green.

"Lifeless, impersonal means to be sacrificed for his end."

He knew Ieyasu had captured someone of relatively high import in the most recent battle with Aurora; the letter the Valoran had sent in advance made that clear. He had also heard of the strategist-turned-Warlord who had done in two years what no man had accomplished in two hundred, by unifying the south - the Amago Remnants even denouncing him as a 'Lord of Deception'. Mitsuhide never would have imagined either would be the battered, almost unassuming man who had just been thrust onto his knees by the butt of Tadakatsu's spear.

"And if he can't use them, Oichi?"

The was no grunt or cry of protest when the man's knees hit the stone, no quivering or movement in his rope-bound hands. He just - quite steadily too, and Mitsuhide wondered if he was suicidal - looked up at the obsidian throne towering above him, and unflinchingly met Nobunaga's dark eyes. Nobunaga only stared back, and Mitsuhide found himself sweating more than the Greenleafer, who now had nearly every pair of eyes in the room burning holes into him. The man looked completely unfazed over the whole ordeal, the Nixtormite noted in something between disbelief and nausea, while he was stuck with the grating sound of practically being able to hear Nobunaga's lips curl upwards as the staring contest reached its silent crescendo. The Warlord of Dragnor finally broke the suffocating silence by standing; it was when he started descending the steps to his throne, small smirk dissipating, that Mitsuhide came to the horrific realization as to why his lord had decided to hold court.

He was going to make a show out of this.

"He will, one way or another."

"Mitsuhide," for the first time in his life, the man in question felt like throwing up at simply hearing his own name. He tried not to show it as the collective gaze of the room shifted to him; already erect back and aching shoulders going even more rigid - the next two words out of Nobunaga's mouth would destroy what little composure he had managed to build.

"Kill him."

Mitsuhide felt the cold beads of sweat that had slowly been trickling down the nape of his neck suddenly heat up. He couldn't even bring himself to gulp, and his mouth suddenly felt dry the moment he opened it to protest. Motonari, Mitsuhide noted with even more horror, only closed his eyes in something like resignation - and for the fraction of a second the Nixtormite swore he saw the man's lips inch upwards under the cover of the bloody bruise swelling across half his face - but his mien otherwise remained completely expressionless. It only gave him the appearance of wearing a death mask, Mitsuhide thought grimly.

"My lord," he finally spoke up, nearly wincing out how weak he sounded. His grip around the hilt of his blade grew a little tighter; he had cut down foes before when absolutely necessary, but he wasn't an executioner. "Surely he would be more useful a-"

Nobunaga's eyes narrowed. Mitsuhide's words died in his throat, and he suddenly realized his legs were starting to feel shaky.

"The creature you see before you is not a man, but an atrophying relic of a bygone era," Mitsuhide was now starting envy how utterly impervious their prisoner looked to everything going on around him. "An era he orchestrated and did not even have the courage to see through to the end. Ransei will not know peace as long as this ghost continues to plague it."

Somehow, the man in blue found the presence of mind to continue to object.

"My lord, wouldn't throwing him in a cell be enough then? The information he has could be vit-" the sound of Nobunaga stepping off the pedestal and onto the coal-colored stone below was drowned out by the pounding in Mitsuhide's chest.

"Mitsuhide," the taller man's voice was as level as his gaze. But the edge of his lips had twitched upwards - the sudden realization that Motonari wasn't the true target of this farce cut into him deeper than any knife could. "If you so desire to extract information from him yourself, then I remand this serperior into your custody."

Nobunaga turned on his heel and strode to the staircase spiraling behind his throne - the one that led up into the tower the Dragnovian was seemingly so fond of, perched high above the rest of Dragnor's castle and Ransei itself. The room waited a minute after his figure had been absorbed by the shadows to let out a collective breath. Mitsuhide looked back over to the prisoner - his prisoner, he thought bitterly, of whom Nobunaga would undoubtedly expect him to get something of use out of - to see Tadakatsu reach underneath his arm and hoist him back up with a single hand.

"Thank you," he heard Motonari reply emotionlessly as he steadied his footing. Whether he was trying to be sarcastic and was just too shaken to convey it properly or was too bitter to bother to try sounding polite, he didn't know or particularly care - Mitsuhide just wanted to leave this legendforsaken place as soon as possible. The Greenleafer turned when he heard Mitsuhide's near-frantic footsteps - the latter at least tried to put enough determination into his stride to make it look like his tail wasn't between his legs - and blinked with a little more emotion than he had shown when Nobunaga had ordered his execution. The black splotch against a deathly pale complexion only furthered the impression of a mask in Mitsuhide's mind's eye.

"Thank you," the strategist said again when the Nixtormite came to a stop, this time with more sincerity. Mitsuhide blinked and spared a quick glance towards the throne, then allowed his amethyst eyes to flicker back to his prisoner.

"I didn't do it for your sake..." he replied quietly, not sounding entirely convinced himself. Motonari nodded with more understanding than Mitsuhide expected, and then craned his head over towards the congregating Valorans.

"Ieyasu," he said quietly. The Warlord of Nixtorm followed his gaze to see the man in question in a quietly animated and onesided conversation with a clearly indignant Ina. "He's a good man."

Mitsuhide didn't respond, and Motonari didn't bother to turn around.

"He has a kingdom, a family and retainers to look after - I can understand why he would bite his tongue." The Nixtormite's grip around his sword tightened at the prisoner's level and almost colorless voice.

"As do you, and I assume it would be in your best interest comply," the Greenleafer turned around and blinked with the most emotion Mitsuhide had seen yet.

"Ah, yes, I suppose it would be," he said with a small smile. He then lifted up a hand; Mitsuhide raised an eyebrow when he saw that he had slithered out of the ropes binding his wrists and was now loosely dangling them from his forefinger. "Well, I'm afraid I'm at the disadvantage of being in an unfamiliar surrounding."

The man's eyes just narrowed at Motonari's newfound outgoingness, and he made a point of jerking the hilt of his still-sheathed blade in direction of the exit. Motonari's face dropped slightly and he gave a short nod, and Mitsuhide followed as they silently weaved their way out of the room. The Warlord of Nixtorm put a hand to his temple to try to stop the pounding in his head.

---

Nobunaga felt a slight smirk as Hydreigon came to a stop at the base of the tower, black as the skies it reached into; everything was moving perfectly into place.

Oichi surviving was irrelevant, the Dragnovian thought as he climbed off the Brutal Pokémon's back; she had accomplished the goal he set for her far beyond his expectations. He spared a glance back over his shoulder; Dragnor's castle, the city below, the peaks in the background; they all looked so distant under the shadow of the highest point in Ransei. His dark eyes then drifted up to the equally dark tower above; perched atop the tallest mountain in Dragnor and protected by its castle - a sacred spot, where only the Warlord of Dragnor was allowed to set foot. And not even they were able to set foot inside the tower. Not that he cared for such legends; but the gilded door in front of him had proven to be a much more imposing obstacle to less reverent and more opportunistic lords, his father included.

But he had progressed beyond their pettiness; Ransei had already been unified by his hand, his design.

The light snow that had accumulated on the ground - winter was beginning its descent, he noted absently - crunched underneath his boots as he strode up to the doors that had kept the Infinite Tower, a name attributed from the few who survived their attempts to fly to the top, shrouded in mystery for so long. Nobunaga's eyes looked over the doors; no panels, no keyhole, no knob or handle; nothing. He ignored the grunt from Hydreigon and ran his hand over the smooth and frigid metal for any irregularities. Still nothing; it might as well have been a part of the wall that someone had decided to plate with gold on a fancy. It was when the Warlord took another glance out of the corner of his eye to contemplate the odds of Hydreigon surpassing prior generations of Pokémon and actually being able to blast the doors open that he felt them shift.

A second later they inched open of their own accord, and the two were left staring into a vast blackness that had evidently been waiting for them. Nobunaga looked down at Hydriegon; the Pokémon blinked back, and the conqueror set a foot into the emptiness. It was near impossible to tell how much time had passed in their climb - the only light being what the moon managed to sneak in through the small windows lining every couple of steps of the spiraling tower, like an array of ghostly torches - and the only sounds that broke the maddening monotony of his footstep was a series of low growls Hydreigon finally verbalized.

"It would be unprudent to come to rely on any one asset too extensively," Nobunaga let his eyes wonder to the expanse beyond the windows, entertaining the thought for the shadow of a moment that it would have been much easier to simply bring Zekrom and rocket up to the top than climb the seemingly endless staircase - the others who had tried that before did not have the colossus at their back, after all. "And this is yet another test of our determination, of our strength - and shunning Zekrom's would be the best way of demonstrating it."

Hydreigon growled out something about hypocrisy, and Nobunaga stayed silent.

Another eternity later - an eternity filled with increasingly thin air and the sensation of someone pressing down on his skull - and the stairs finally came to an end.

Stepping out onto the platform they opened up to would have been breathtaking or terrifying for most; the clouds, the stars, the whole heavens themselves seemed within a grasp, with the entirety of Ransei illuminated in its background. Not even the heights of Dragnor itself could have competed with the view. But all Nobunaga could feel, for the first time since he had first held the Dark Stone, was excitement. And it wasn't at what he saw below or above.

The atmosphere had thickened and the pressure was gone and replaced with a new one entirely: similar to the one he had felt when Zekrom had emerged from its metamorphic shell, but significantly more imposing. Even his agnosticism towards the Legendary Pokémon had never led to a disbelief in their strength - and this one was powerful enough to make even him square his shoulders as he marched up to the dais in the center of the tower. Hydreigon floated at a respectable distance behind him.

Nobunaga raised his head, feeling the winds tugging at him. He remained unmoved; staring up at the skies above, watching as they swirled around him from his place at the highest point in the world. An indistinguishable, empty, black void above that no one could really quite discern from below; a little bit higher, and he would be in it, looking back down on the speck that was now Ransei.

The Warlord felt a small smirk cross his face at the thought.

"How trite."

He inhaled; not ether, but air. And he could feel it drawing closer - this was a place where mortals were not meant to tread.

"Why climb into the heavens... When one can simply drag them down to earth?"

Nobunaga opened his mouth to speak, and ignored the dryness in it.

"Has Nobunaga not proven the extent of his ambition?"

His response was an almighty roar from the heavens, and gold streak darting across the gleaming void of a sky.

The smirk grew.

---

A/N:

Also, as some of you might have noticed, this is the first appearance of a residential term for Dragnor - when I was first writing them up, I couldn't decide on one for Dragnor but knew I wanted to make it something distinctive from the other kingdoms. Hopefully I succeeded.

Bearing on, I do have both some bad news and some good news; bad news being that I've started college now, so my schedule will now have to revolve around that. Good news being that I've finally regained my will to write. Back in 2015 I had a quota of 1,000+ words a day in writing chapters for this, and that was largely the reason why I was able to churn out so many chapters back then. Then 2016 rolled around and, combined with general laziness and disappointment in the quality of my older chapters, I think I had just burned myself out on writing this. But now I think I'm starting to get back into the swing of things, and hopefully with noticeably improved quality as well. If you think so (and especially if you don't), then please do leave a review - good or bad or just encouragement, it'll help me to continue to grow as a writer.

As the next chapters won't be anywhere near as long as this one, you can be certain that there'll be a chapter later this month, as well as next. Well, until then.