This story was co-developed by Titan127 and beta read by ShonnaRose and JhinoftheOpera.
[10-1] Protect What No One Else Will
Saber knew why he'd avoided Celestic Valley, even if he declined to dance with the truth. It was simply easier to work and translate and hide those painful thoughts in the jumble of his research. Though, by letting them live, he gave them the opportunity to lie in wait—they poised to strike, waiting for the perfect, most horrible, moment.
It had been a grueling day of flying, wading through snow, and inscribing his thoughts in cold, slow-flowing ink, all the while flinging phone calls into the empty air in the hopes that his sister might receive them. He didn't intend to make her angry. All he wanted was to hear a little more excitement in her voice, and maybe an offer for them to spend time together soon, but it had shut her out further.
Unable to process his paradoxes, he channeled them into his fists, resulting in an embarrassingly non-zero number of felled trees in the forests of central Sinnoh. With this weighing him down, the center of Celestic Valley took last place on a list of where he wished to be.
It was a bizarre environment, where houses were built on bands of flat ground that descended and shrunk towards the center of the valley, resembling terraced farms with snow in place of crops. The homes were shoddy, built not for longevity but for necessity. Their lack of foresight was apparent in the rotted scraps of wood gathered at their foundations, as if the entire village had been hastily planned and as quickly forgotten.
His attention was elsewhere, however. The pristine armor standing in front of the town's central shrine demanded it, a scarecrow to ward away invaders. Piles of gifts had been left at its base, including folded notes of prayer that scattered across the patched ground when the slightest wind cut through. Atop in, swaying gently in that same wind, was a navy cloak held between two iron pauldrons.
It was Lance Masuta's.
The valley had weaved it from mountains of knowledge the past generations left behind, and it was gifted to him by Saber's mother in exchange for the pendant his people crafted for her. For as long as the man had worn it, it never received a single tear.
Saber didn't know why he was on his knees, backpack's contents spilled in the snow, nor did he know why he couldn't see through his quivering eyes. It was just a cape, nothing more. It was everything his father wasn't: static, shallow, and at the mercy of the wind. But he could still see Lance Masuta donning it on his shoulders to lead the world as few else ever could.
A mundane, temperate weekend one spring came to mind, and their downhill walk mirrored the evening sun's fall. For once, it had been an easy day, free from his junior-high studies just as his father was free from his duties as Elite Four.
They had not decided for subtlety, however. Saber huffed through the high collar of his class uniform. He thought it best to carry pride in his school no matter the time or place—he didn't stop being a student of Indigo Municipal Junior Academy just because the doors were closed on Sunday! Meanwhile, his father's cloak raged behind him like a waterfall, attracting every wandering eye and the billowing wind of their collective gasps.
Saber said, with a wavering voice, "You had zero reason to do this."
"Nonsense!" replied his father. "I appreciate your desire to wear your identity on your sleeve, so it was my duty as a parent to join you in solidarity."
"They're taking photos," he said.
True enough, legions of amateur photographers snapped the shutters on their limited camera film and digital devices, hoping to secure a few square centimeters of bragging rights. His eye lids clenched to shield against the assailing flashes.
Saber swore that the paparazzi stepped closer every time he looked away, but when he snapped his head back to check, they were at a curiously consistent distance—about four and a half meters. His father eyed his left, then his right, then held his chiseled jaw between his thumb and index finger.
"You seem to be right. How could I ever have predicted this?" he said, and then threw him a grin.
He just kept his hands in his pockets and his words to himself, hoping that refusing to share would make him less attractive within the apertures. If only his uniform wasn't so pristine, his spine not so upright. He felt an arm fall around his right shoulder, and he was pulled by his father to his side. The flashes only intensified to capture the simple gesture, tanking the value of the intimate connection as it was soiled by all the hands that reached for it.
"Are you prepared, Sebastian?" asked his father.
"Prepared for what?" He returned the question, unsure what else they might do. They'd already toured every high-class restaurant in the city and watched a live musical of The Hero and the Staff, an Alolan classic.
"For tomorrow," said his father.
"I have Pokémon Ecology Lab, so I'm one-hundred percent ready. It's far more interesting than I anticipated, and the professor was once a revered environment technician in the Pokémon League."
"That isn't it, Saber. Tomorrow is the rest of your life."
It was said low enough that the crowd couldn't hear, even if the camera snapping represented their demand for information. He dragged his shoes on the concrete, scraping off the dye on the tips. He had no reason to ask what his father meant, too busy trying to enjoy the remainder of today. As proud as he was to wear his school's banner, it was tiring to hold up the flag as long and hard as he did. He looked forward to rare days like this.
"Do you know why I look to tomorrow, instead of to yesterday?" asked his father. "Not everyone can afford tomorrow. I realize I'm in a privileged position—many people have fears, or grief, or chains from yesterday holding them back. If I have the power to face tomorrow for them, they can finish their business with yesterday and someday, maybe, join me."
"Is that why you won't tell me about the Dragon Clan? Am I looking to yesterday?" Saber asked.
Lance tilted his chin to the pavement, resting it on the cord that hung between his pauldrons. "The Dragon Clan is nothing you should be concerned about. Not you, nor your sister, nor your mother. It was a burden to inherit it as I have, and I don't think I could offer that burden to you."
"So, I'm correct. That's your tomorrow."
"You've gotten a lot snappier since you put on that uniform," said his father, who tugged on Saber's high collar.
"If I keep looking to tomorrow, will you let me help you one day?" he asked.
"Of course, Saber. One day," his father said. "As long as you're able to keep your head forward."
He felt himself puff up at the offer, and his hands clenched tight around the souvenir bags, just as his hands in the present scraped at the grass and dirt and gravel. Saber wanted to apologize to his father. He was looking back, despite his promise to refuse. His father left, taking all the knowledge and responsibilities of the Dragon Clan with him—Saber would never be able to help him carry forward, with whatever it is that could never be anyone's tomorrow.
"Umm, sir," said a woman in a buttoned blouse and spectacles. "This exhibit closes in nine minutes. You should probably, umm…"
Saber refused to turn his head to her and let her see the streaks on his face. It was unbecoming of him, and more than a little too much to share. "I'd prefer to stay here until the end, if you don't mind."
The woman stepped back. He wondered if she saw Lance's hair through the few drops of gold in his own, but he couldn't see her face to know the connection. "Right. If you're still here, I'll… come get you."
After she stepped past the corded perimeter of the memorial, Saber was alone with his father. The stinging cold fused his pants to his calves and shrouded him in a haze despite dry skies.
The time he was offered was more than generous, and it became endless as his involuntary nervous functions slowed to a crawl. For a short time, the jumble of words, symbols, phrases, meanings, strokes, and histories fell away—the order in his mind devolved to entropy that matched the calm sky above.
For the first time, he realized that his mother and father were truly gone.
He had made it his mission to ignore it. He could not allow himself to be chained, and he moved forward so that yesterday could still live on in the minds of others—his sister, the Sinnoh Region, the entirety of Kibra. He looked forward when they could not.
When the dams threatened to burst, he poured more mortar. He couldn't let it leak out, not when there were answers begging to be found and a mask that needed to be ripped away. It felt like his mother and father, in the message left behind, were still walking alongside him. But this time it flowed free, washing away the footprints on his path until the only ones left were those of his own two feet.
"I'm sorry," he said to no one. "I've been thinking about yesterday."
"Perhaps it's better to do that inside. It's unbearably cold out."
Saber flicked his head away from the other intrusion and tried to dry his eyes on the inside of his sleeve where the dampness would be least visible. He looked over at a positively ancient face, nearly level with him at a kneel. She looked quintessentially Sinnohan, the slight puff of her face offset by a squarish chin. Though obfuscated by her age, Saber turned the clock backwards in his mind to see the pearl skin and platinum eyes that must have drawn her youth.
"Well?" she rasped. "Up on your feet, young man. Some coffee would do you wonders."
"Y-you..." It cost Saber a heartbeat to place her face. Her senescence was multiplied tenfold from her photos, the only place that he had ever seen her. "I recognize you."
She folded her wrinkled face into a smile. "I could've sworn we've never met before. Let's change that, young man."
His mother reflected more of Professor Gunhild Carolina than she ever admitted, according to the hundreds of trinkets hanging on string throughout the single room building she called her home. Saber navigated it like a tripwire, attempting to flatten his body every which angle to ensure he didn't knock a ceramic treasure into a jagged heap. His height was most of the problem—Professor Carolina herself skirted beneath them in an almost reckless fashion, kicking some boxes aside to give him access to her couch.
He sat in the only space in the house that was naturally illuminated, one of the couch cushions, where the cloud-filtered window light managed to slip past every obstacle. He rolled up his sleeves to feel it on his forearms.
The Professor laid out coffee and butter pastries among stacked papers on the central table and hobbled to a recliner. She struggled simply jumping up to the chair, and Saber debated rushing over to help her, but he didn't wish to risk overstepping the boundaries of someone he just met. However she felt about his politeness, she didn't let her opinion show when she finally settled herself.
"You might help yourself. They aren't fresh, unfortunately, but I prefer them cool anyway," she said as she took a pastry from the pile. She picked at it in tiny pieces and seemed to examine each thoroughly before deeming it to pass her inspection. Every single bite forced a decrepit cough from her throat.
"I should… pass, if you don't mind," he said. He must have sounded like a foreigner in comparison to her deep accent.
"You're not my granddaughter's son. She would've swiped a handful before we even took our seats."
The mention of her gave him pause. Beyond the mist still clouding his eyes, he was confused how little information he'd archived about this woman. His father omitted mention and contact with his own family—his clan—for unknown reasons, while his mother, on the other hand, intentionally avoided overwhelming them. They were hounded day-to-day by unfamiliar voices, unfamiliar faces, always the receiving end of unrequited recognition, and she felt that the spidering network of family was an unnecessarily bloat on their already hectic lives. How close had she even been to her own?
He was a stranger to this woman, as she was to him. He wasn't certain why exactly she extended hospitality to him, or why she would even approach a fugitive. Unless…
Saber snapped his eyes to the small sliver of light that penetrated the window. The outside was still, and the inside was quiet despite the rhythmic swings of hanging pots and statues, slow enough to not disturb the dust cover that had settled over open wooden surfaces. To his knowledge, the only two people within a kilometer of this house were himself and Professor Carolina.
"They're looking for you, you know. I'm curious what you did to earn it," she said, genuine enough to calm his nerves.
There was a near-zero chance that she wasn't already informed. He'd searched radio broadcasts for information about the International Police's investigation to be proactive about their movements and had more trouble not finding it. The airwaves were infested, a smokescreen to the bureaucratic blockade that prevented the installation of a new Champion. However, he still answered her question honestly and earnestly. "I escaped from house arrest at the Pokémon League. The authorities seem more concerned with me than with more pressing issues."
"That's hardly unusual," she said, sipping coffee to pour some life back into herself. "Why have you wound up here, young man?"
An urge rushed to his legs—he desired nothing more than to run, and not because he felt he was in danger, much as he wanted that to be the reason. She wasn't someone he could trust, he told himself. He was the only one who could find the answers to the innumerable questions he was seeking.
She spoke where his hesitation couldn't. "This is about my granddaughter, isn't it?"
Saber nodded weakly. He tried to read the expression on the woman's face, searching for mourning within the creases of her face. Her years as a researcher must have dulled her sense, if not her lifespan itself. His great-grandmother had spent far more years on Kibra than nearly all its current inhabitants, and each was a chance to lose something else. She cast a die each revolution, and it might land on a loved one—eventually it would land on herself.
"Were you involved in my mother's research?" he asked in a low voice. He still watched the window, especially as the cloud cover shifted to mask the sun further.
"Much of my granddaughter's work is drawn from the monuments and heirlooms my village protects," she said, motioning to the hanging trinkets. One in particular, a fragmented half of a gilded ceramic container, swung like a pendulum when she brushed it with her hand. "She ran off with her theories some twenty years ago now."
"Your village?"
"I am the elder. I have been for almost seventy years," she said.
There was so much he didn't know. With his head in the clouds, looking outward at a world he was set to conquer, he'd never had the chance or the ability to look inward. He could only listen to her as a student, not as a descendant.
"You've seen the shape of this valley, haven't you? It was a strip mine." She had picked her pastry clean by then and didn't reach for another. A pleasantry was all it was, and they both knew that. "Some wonderful people lived here, in days past. Once Sinnoh began to build its machines, they, and nearly everything they called their own, were destroyed so they could tear through the earth here. It only stopped when the operation struck buried ruins at the center of town, older than the old village, certainly. I suppose history isn't valuable until there's none left to claim it."
"Then, you aren't a native."
"I'm just a researcher, young man. I moved in to make sure no one else would, and I've spent the past decades protecting what no one else will. That's the mission of the Ancient Sinnoh Protection Institute," she said. "So, if you're looking for help, I can't offer more than what my granddaughter already researched. I'm merely a caretaker and a cataloger."
He suddenly shot to his feet, shaking the table when it slammed his leg. Some of the pastries were knocked from the plate onto the dusted surface. "I'm not interested in your help," he stressed. "I'll examine the ruins here and be on my way, ma'am."
"What, pray tell, do you gain?" She narrowed her eyes, and in that thin window, he wasn't sure if he saw defense or a test. He decided to take the latter road, the same he would take against his Dragonite or his father. The only way he could succeed was to charge forward towards tomorrow and demand it bow before him.
"I believe I'll learn who killed my mother and father," he declared.
She paused. "Who?"
That wasn't the answer he was expecting, and he let out an echo. "Who?"
"Tell me, young man. If you're so certain that your quest means something, then you must have a suspect."
He didn't want to say it, nearly biting his tongue in half trying to prevent it from getting out. The last thing he wished to do was implicate someone who was close to his mother, someone who no doubt should be mourning her death. That face had spoken so genuinely, as if his fatalism was only kept caged by his duty to scientific progress. But Saber knew he had changed since August 29th.
Each pair of eyes was filled with intention. Each mouth whispered hidden words. Each person was the culprit in their own personal crime, whether they be a killer, an accomplice, or a bystander in his way. He would not, should not, could not throw out any possibility that prevented him from seeing the truth and passing it on to those that needed its comfort. Tomorrow could only come when today finally set, and he would drag the sun down with his bare hands even as it vaporized the skin from his bones.
"My mother has written leagues about Sinnoh's creation myths and the Timespace Orbs. I know she has," he said.
She narrowed her eyes at the mention of the artifacts and listened with purpose.
"They were missing from her personal notebook, and the only other person in possession of it aside from myself and my mother," he said, "was Dr. Albert Cassius. I don't know what exactly it means, but he had something to gain from her death."
The graveness that Professor Carolina displayed hung her up alongside her artifacts. She finished one final sip of her coffee and refused to meet his eye, even as she prepared to deliver her verdict. "I believe our conversation isn't over yet. Follow me, young man."
This volume marks a bunch of simultaneous milestones for this series. It's not only the fiftieth chapter of the series (minus teaser chapters), but it's also the 100k benchmark for Minutes and the 400k benchmark for the series itself. Altogether, I'm really glad I made it this far, and I'm happy you've stuck with me.
Next is Volume 10, Part 2: Who I Shouldn't Be Anymore. See you someday.