Above the mountains, the sky wept.
It should never have rained at this altitude, where the ground was nearly always blanketed in snow, and yet it was raining. Freezing cold, yet not quite cold enough to freeze, it ran down Volo's face in thick rivers, saturated his clothes, seeped into his boots. His soft cap became heavy on his head.
Volo was aware of the downpour, but he paid it no attention. His gaze was fixed straight ahead, upon the back of a lone girl, clad in the deep blue of a Survey Corps uniform.
Akari.
His enemy, though she may not have known it yet.
She stood before the stone feet of a broken statue. Her head, sheltered by a ragged scarf that had once been pristine white, was bowed towards the statue's cracked pedestal as though in prayer. But she was not praying, for nobody had prayed to this deity for hundreds of years.
Well, almost nobody.
Volo glanced at the ground around his feet, littered with the shattered remnants of what his ancestors had once lovingly, worshipfully built. All of it lay in ruins now. Or perhaps this was his forebears' way of reaching through time, and offering a gift - for the stone they had used was cut from these very mountains, and it was just as enduring, even if the ones who had mined and shaped it were long gone.
All of these stones would, someday, become part of something else. Volo had accepted this, with bitterness: people only respected the past for so long, and then ancient relics became untapped resources. Or they simply got in the way.
All of these stones would find a new purpose. And Volo was about to give new purpose to just one. An terrible purpose, some might say. But it was a small part of something much more glorious.
All of these stones had been a small part of something much more glorious, once. Volo was only here to repeat history, after all.
Just a few steps ahead, there lay a chunk of rock small enough to lift with one hand, but still weighty. Neither weather nor centuries had smoothed its jagged edges, and that in itself seemed like divine providence. Volo wondered how long it had lain there, undisturbed. Based on where it had fallen, assuming nobody had moved it there, it could have been a part of that same proud statue.
A piece of Giratina. How fitting.
The heavy rain covered the sound of Volo's cat-like footsteps as he drew nearer to Akari, pausing to pick up his chosen weapon. It was heavier than he thought; the weight hurt his fingers and tested the strength of his wrist. Once it was settled in his hand, it felt comfortable, and yet deeply uncomfortable.
Closer still. He began to raise his arm. Gravity protested against his plan, pulling upon the blessed stone in his hand and making his arm ache, but Volo resisted. His will was stronger than gravity.
Would she turn around? Would he want her to? Probably not, and yet her name was upon his lips.
Akari.
How Volo hoped to never speak or hear that name again. Even just the imagined whisper of it within his own skull, or the sight of its letters scrawled in his mind's eye, made him sick.
His shadow fell upon her.
