When Raihan returned to Hammerlocke after his venture across the other regions, he was met with a warm welcome from his people. The residents all met him with smiles, the children asking him about pictures they saw online in their spare time, wondering why the people he was taking pictures with looked so weird. He said that he'd talk about it later, but he needed to settle in. He had brought stuff with him and wanted to find places for all of the knickknacks and such.

When he entered the huge Hammerlocke Stadium however, he was met with something he was both dreading and looking forward to. Standing with his assistant at his side as always, was Chairman Rose. Raihan could tell that he didn't seem happy, and the dark skinned Gym Leader couldn't blame him. The one thing he was afraid of was wandering about freely with his prized possession.

Rose met him with that smile, that oddly fake grin that was obviously meant for the pictures and news articles. "Welcome home Raihan. I'm glad to see that our strongest Gym Leader is back in good health." he said, and Raihan nodded to him, telling a few of the Stadium's trainers and employees to take his things, giving them instructions on what to do with what. He trusted them. They were like his family.

"What do you want, Rose?" he asked, and the Chairman laughed, looking to the aggravated young man. "I just want to chat is all. Your trip was all over the internet, I figured that you'd want to talk about it." he said, Raihan seeing him slowly roll his right wrist, his arm bent. It was one of his ticks, proof that he wasn't happy or had been for a while.

"I made a few stops on my vacation. The NJPW building for one. Had a really nice conversation with the CEO about a possible career in Professional Wrestling after I retire from being a Gym Leader. Gotta secure the bag, y'know?" he said, a smirk on his face, his eyes half lidded. His hands were shoved in the pockets of his golden hoodie, and his posture was slouched and lazy.

Talking vaguely, hiding things and improper posture and attitude were all things that Rose disliked seeing. He'd been a Gym Leader long enough, and had spoken to enough people that came before him both in and out of the gym to know that all of Rose's victims were made to be princes, proper young men at the beck and call of Rose, who fancied himself a King. He wasn't too far off, truth be told. He had the support of the Royal Family along with the most wealth and influence region wide.

"I had heard that you were taking a trip to Johto. Your… social media showed pictures of you in Goldenrod and such." he noted, and Raihan nodded. He kept his eyes peeled for any symbols of Rose's facade slipping, and he paid close attention to Oleana as well. She was a good looking woman, not really his first choice but one of the first at least. Seeing her degrade and delude herself to work directly beneath this monster made him feel rather sad, as he knew she could do much better.

"What else was there to tell? I stopped in each region and snapped a few pics. My fans span eight regions, Rosey. My Kanto fans saw me in Saffron with the Kantonian Wrestling Champion, Jushin Fire Liger. Did you know that Jushin's father is actually Simba's cousin? Or that in Johto, the guy responsible for every single mammalian Halfling is the famous artist, Vinci?" he asked, seeing Rose's eye twitch as he spoke. He smiled in response to this.

"In Hoenn, I spoke to one of their famous religious heads, High Priest Ishron Darkpierce. Did you know that he's actually one of the adopted brothers of Ketchum Genetic head Shere-Khan, who is the son of Simba? It's pretty interesting how tight knit they are." he continued, seeing Rose begin to tap his foot.

Raihan was enjoying this. He was simply doing what Rose wanted him to do, and talking about his trip. He didn't like what he heard, but Raihan wasn't going to pay that any heed. He knew what he was doing. He wanted attention from his fans and their circles, which would become his fans. He'd be one of the most popular men on the planet, something that would aggravate Rose. Raihan was indirectly making himself immune to Rose's nefarious dealings by simply making himself someone that everyone watched all the time.

"And in Unova I talked to a woman named Ghidorah Hitoawa. Did you know that her husband, and the father of her son Broly is actually Nappa Hitoawa, y'know, the Champion of Alola AND Kalos? And that in Kalos, there's a cave with a guy named Anubis who knows everything about everyone ever born? And that in Alola, there's a scientist named Gladion who can prove Anubis right?" he asked, and Rose narrowed his eyes, his physical ticks that showed his agitation ceasing all at once.

"What are you saying, Boy?" he asked, his voice sound far more menacing than before. Raihan smiled before he took his hands from his pockets. He shrugged, his broad, long fingered hands pointing to the sky as he sighed. "That Galar is no fun. I figure once I can beat Leon, or when I decide to retire, I'll probably travel around and not come back much if at all." he said, and Rose frowned. "You're lying to me." he said, and Raihan looked to him.

He had to angle his bright eyes down, as he was far, far taller than Rose. "What if I am? What exactly can you do about it?" he asked, tilting his head as he watched Rose. The Chairman seemed ready to snap, his right first clenching at his side, his neck twitching and making his head shake slightly. He was enraged, and he was trying so hard to maintain in control in a public place like this. "You know that there's punishments for people that lie and deceive me." he said, and Raihan looked to the ceiling.

He sighed again, choosing to start walking. His enjoyment was being sucked out of the conversation. He hated talking to Rose, because it always ended up about the Chairman's desires and wishes instead of his own. He was self-centered and he knew it. At least he was open about it and didn't pain himself as some messianic figure, some false prophet that revolutionized the Gym Challenge. He looked to Rose and frowned himself.

"Even if I die, Chairman, that won't change anything. I've already figured it out." he said, walking past the Chairman as he whipped around, his teeth grit and fists clenched. "You rotten child! How did you find out!?" He screamed, the passersby confused as to what was causing the Chairman of the Pokemon League to have a complete meltdown.

Raihan turned back to him as he walked, a broad grin across his features as he began to tap his temple. He said nothing, Rose being left alone in a rage. Raihan's ears caught his frustrated roar, his bellow of confused anger. Someone had found out the one secret he had left to expose, the one thing that he hadn't told anyone but Oleana. The Chairman turned to his assistant, the duo entering a nearby elevator and heading down to the underground level.

Once they entered the elevator, alone, Rose imploded. His fist reached Oleana's face within a second, her body crashing into a wall and looking at him in shock and terror as she dropped the folders of documents she was carrying. "Did you tell him you whore!?" he screamed, her physical form sliding down the wall and cringing in fear. What had she told who? Raihan? What exactly was there to tell him? She couldn't understand why he was acting like this.

His square toed loafer met with her shoulder, jarring her body as another blow came. The entire time the elevator moved, his shoe kept striking her cowering frame. She tried to cover her face, but enough blows to her shoulders and arms gave his shoe the leeway to crash into her skull. She saw stars immediately before his shoe was pressed flush against her face.

"Did you tell that rotten boy about Bede?" he asked, and Oleana could feel her eyes widen slightly, the pain from the swelling that started mitigated by her adrenaline and fear. She shook her head as much as she could, her face sandwiched between the elevator floor and Rose's boot. "No! I swear!" she cried, both afraid for her safety and upset that he'd accuse her. She hadn't ever been around Raihan without the Chairman. Why would he think otherwise?

He removed his boot, kicking her in the face and shattering her nose, blood splattering the wall of the elevator as he nodded, placing his hands in his pockets as the elevator reached it's destination. "If you're lying to me too, you'll never see the light of day again." he said, incredibly calm and composed as he walked from the elevator, leaving her coughing, bleeding and throbbing in pain.

Standing in one of the labs that was run by his old friend and rival Gladion, Nappa stared at the details on the computer screen with a frown. "And this is all true?" he asked, and Gladion nodded. "Sure enough." he mused, pushing all of his hair away from his bright eyes as he began going over it. "We've got DNA that shows minute similarities to yours from databases in Galar, thanks to Scar. About a fifth of the Galarian populace are super, super distant relatives of yours." he mused, humming.

"Though, the data says that they'd be cousins, descendants of both the Hitoawa and the native Tuatha settlers. Meaning that whichever tribe of the Hitoawa clan left Ransei, Unova or whatever and ended up in Ancient Galar weren't Thorkrom's Blood Braviary brothers." he said, and Nappa frowned. He had made that assumption already, but if that were the case, than who could it be? Records of the other four tribes of the clan were shaky at best, and all of them stated that the entire clan was wiped out by Arceus and his worshipers.

"I have nothing to test it against, but I have a theory." he said, walking over to a board scribbled with various things that Nappa barely understood, partially because of Gladion's terrible handwriting. "With Raihan's statement based on Anubis' 'chronicles', we can assume that the Hitoawa that made it to Galar weren't the Blood Braviary. Now, Thorkrom had four siblings. First was Thorfinn, ancestor of the Lucky Leaves. And then the middle child was Asakura Hitoawa, ancestor of the Vinland Seekers. Now, there are minute traces of paternal DNA in the tests I ran, but nothing directly connected to Thorkrom on an immediate family level."

Nappa nodded, looking to his old friend. "Meaning what?" he asked, and Gladion sighed. "Something like this is normally never bothered with because of a lack of physical things to test, like DNA. But with the favors I can call in thanks to you, I was able to put this together." he said, pointing to a specific cluster of scribbles. "This shows that by isolating the Hitoawa DNA and comparing it to known samples of Thorkrom's generation, we find that there is a partial match to Asakura, meaning that the Vinland Seekers did make it to Galar." he said, and Nappa glanced back to the computer screen.

"So how does this come into play?" he asked, and Gladion sighed. "This would be where I'd need to talk to Zekrom personally, or someone who was around back then, because there's a certain bloodline that disputes the known records." he said, flipping the board to another side. "These clusters of scribbles of mine say that the bloodline that birthed the legendary ancient Galarian heroes that are being hidden from the public are direct descendants of Thorkrom's generation, but the common ancestor is maternal." he said, and Nappa blinked.

"Meaning that the Vinland Seekers didn't come here with Asakura. They came here with one of Thorkrom's sisters. Can you tell which one?" he asked, and Gladion hummed. "Well, that's the problem. With a little help from Shere-Khan, I was able to test the DNA from an ancient dress deep in the mountains of Hoenn. They came up as the sister of Thorkrom, a Bestla Hitoawa. She was, according to Acheron at least, the ancestor of the Storm Lords. But her DNA wasn't a match."

Nappa hesitated when he heard that. That couldn't be true, could it? Had the Church of Arceus really made that big of an oversight? No, that wasn't possible. They had chased down even thin blooded kin and cousins and wiped them all out, leaving only his father. Had they really missed out on a small group like that? There must be some other explanation. Not even his father or grandfather knew about this, and Zekrom was actually there back then, if only as an observer.

What Gladion was saying was ludicrous. Anubis was always correct, but it normally took a lot to get him to actually talk. Even Nappa himself had taken almost a century to get the Halfling to open up to him a little bit. To think that Raihan would waltz into his secluded home and get such an incredible find only spoke to the young man's infectious charisma. "And you've checked this over and over?" he asked, and Gladion nodded, sighing as he looked at it. "The DNA is a perfect match, Nappa. Raihan wasn't full of shit." he mused.

He sighed, shaking his head. He glanced upwards, wondering if this incredible coincidence was simply that damn dwarf having a guffaw at his expense. It'd certainly make sense given his personality, which hadn't changed much in the recent years.

"The ancient heroes of Galar were the direct descendants of Thorkrom's oldest sibling, Katen Kyokotsu Hitoawa, who is on record as being unable to give birth."

Nappa frowned. He didn't realize how deep this ran. He now understood exactly why Rose fled from the war and chose Galar as his playground, his hunting ground and now, his territory. Why he helped the Galarian Royal family maintain power and why he tried to control the region to be none the wiser to the existence of Halflings or of the rest of the world. He didn't want anyone putting the pieces together like Raihan did. However, this all boiled down to one crucial fact that Nappa was surprised to discover. And he wasn't one to be surprised often, especially in the last hundred or so years.

"Meaning that the Tuatha and the Hitoawa's hybrid descendants are the rightful rulers of Galar."