Part #18 – Story of the Previous Battle

At sunset, when they had been told to meet the older Eisen, the group arrived at the Arbor Garden Café. The younger Eisen was sitting at a table near the entrance of the café. Beside him was a graying man in a lab coat and a pair of glasses on his nose. He was sipping some tea and when he heard the young man next to him say hello to someone, he looked up at the three young people.

"This is my grandfather, the older Miya Eisen."

The man nodded. "I am pleased to finally meet you all. Shigeru has always said so much about you."

"I hope everything he's said has been good."

"Oh, yes, it has been." He set down his cup of tea. "And you look a lot like your father."

"Yeah, I've seen pictures."

"And, so, now Kinakari wants me to tell you about the last attack." He chuckled then shoved a spoonful of curry into his mouth. He looked at Satoshi then to his friends. "Sadly, in my opinion, I don't think there's that much to talk about."

"Why do you say that?"

"It's the truth as I see it. It is no different than any other attack. It is just the most recent one. Though it does hold many important pieces to the puzzles of your life in it." The graying man took another bite of the curry. "But, I will recount the day as best this old memory of mine can."

After a second of thought, he searched in his pockets then frowned, turning to his grandson. The younger man laughed then stood. "I'll go get it. I remember where you left it."

"Thank you, Teru*." When the younger Eisen had left, the older one spooned another pile of curry into his mouth then drank some tea. "Now, where to begin. I could start with your father coming here but I doubt that you would find that very interesting. So I guess I will start with when he got here from Masara right before Roketto-dan showed up.

"It was a horribly hot summer day, I remember that very well. He flew in on his dragonite and then disappeared into Lev One RC, which was before I got clearance to get in there. Hayato had been working on what I work with now, which I will explain to you as soon as my grandson gets back. He luckily got finished before the attack. I heard Kinakari mention when she put me onto that job that Hayato had said that if he did nothing else in his life, he was glad to have finished with that.

"Well, soon after that Roketto-dan showed up, headed by their then Madame Boss, Sakaki's mother. Ginkaze confronted Kinakari on her own island, so she was far away from the actual fighting among the islanders and Roketto- dan at the beginning. When the battle between them took to the sky, she was able to get close enough over here to see the battles.

"Personally, I was not far from the battle between Hayato and both Sakaki and his mom to begin with. I was battling one of the execs at the time. I never saw him battle better than when he was battling them both. When Sakaki pulled out that blue-winged charizard, though, the midday summer heat got ten times worse. I knew that it was not a good. He used an attack called searing flame, a move only Ginkaze could have taught him. It was so powerful that I nearly got scorched myself and I was, at that time, more than fifty yards away and the closest person to him, other than Sakaki and him mom." He shook his head. "That was such an intense heat. I knew that he would never survive it. I didn't know how Sakaki had survived it but I later learned he had been protected by Ginkaze.

"When Kinakari finally got the upper hand with her brother, he turned tail and ran, as he always had. She immediately went to where Hayato had been killed and burst into tears. Of all the deaths, his affected her the most, I think. Roketto-dan left immediately when they did not have Ginkaze there any longer but they did not leave without their own loses and injuries.

"In the end, ten tunnels had collapsed, killing about a dozen children that had been hiding in one of them. The entire green out there was scorched since that is were the charizard was that killed your dad. I'm sure you noticed the marker out there."

Satoshi nodded, looking out to the marker. It was a short obelisk made of green marble. It was in memory of all those that had died. It was dated and had names engraved into it of both the humans and pokèmon that had died. The public version of the cemetery his father's marker was in.

"Well, there was severe damage to the Pokèmon Center. Three research centers had been plundered and the pokèmon in them taken. The breeding center was in shambles. Not to mention the damage to the landscape. It took ten years to get everything back to the way it was before the attack. By then most everyone had recovered, except, of course, for Kinakari. It was only about a year later that Shigeru showed up, and I don't think the timing could have been better for her. She needed someone with her, other than her pokèmon." He chuckled. "But, then again, it was Avasuke, after all, that brought him here."

"May I ask a question?"

"Of course, Kasumi."

"Why did Satoshi's father's death bother her more than losing the lives of children?"

"I think that Kinakari's consoling the parents of the children that were lost that day helped her recover from the shock of losing so many of the young ones, but she had no one to help her with Hayato's death. I don't think she'll be over it unless she succeeds at winning the battle that's coming."

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Kinakari was standing on the rock outcropping that looked towards the opening of the lagoon. She sighed, clinching her fists. She did not want it to happen again. She did not want more lives destroyed. She slowly turned and walked into the forest that covered her small island. She had not gone far when she saw the small, open-air shrine that had been carved from a single stone many millennia ago. She walked to it and walked into it. The small square altar at the center of the shrine was decorated with engraving of many different, now long extinct, pokèmon. She walked to it, torches that hung from the columns that stretched up to the roof instantly lit just by her presence. She walked around the altar, looking at it. It had a bowl-shaped area carved into the top that was rather deep. When she ran her hand around the edges a gentle warmth began to radiate from it.

"Kira?"

The goddess looked up. Shigeru was there with a purple bird in his arms that was about the size of a pidgey. He walked to her and handed her the pokèmon. She smiled down at the newborn then placed her in the hollowed out area of the altar. The baby chirped some to her. She kissed its head then looked at Shigeru.

"It was amazing to see such a thing, Kira." He looked at the small pokèmon. "And then to see her hatch. It was like a dream."

Kinakari nodded. "I am sure that it was."

"Did you tell Eisen to tell Satoshi about why he is a chosen one? About what he can do and what he is to become?"

"I did. He will know, and then he will have to be trained, just as you were."

"I still think that it is rather strange." He looked at his hands. "Having these powers. Knowing what I am."

"But you have done well dealing with that fact." She took his hands in hers. "Though I hate that we cannot have children together."

"We have, in a way. Our loving each other enabled you to create pokèmon easier than you had before. They are, to me, our children. That is all I need." He kissed her gently. "And I will protect them all, as my children and as my brothers and sisters, just as you will."

A smile spread across her face. "Why could I not have found you years before you came to me?"

"Because, it was not time for it to happen."

Kinakari buried her head into his chest and he wrapped his arms around her under her wings. He put his head on her shoulder and kissed her neck. The little avasuke's chirps made them look at her. The pokèmon's eyes seemed to hold great knowledge but that knowledge would not be known till a month had past. The goddess rubbed the baby gently and it fell asleep under her caresses, curling up in the warm depression on the altar to spend its first night in dreams of the future.

"Sweet dreams, little one." Her eyes were sad. "I just hope that I will live for you to be able to tell me the things that you see."

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(*"Teru" is another reading for the kanji for "Ei" in Eisen)

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xoxo-lugia-oxox – I'm so glad you liked it…^_^…and I'm very happy I got at least one review for the last chapter…thanks!