This chapter, we'll get to look at the aftermath of the devastating match with Blake and Elaina vs. Julia and Reiner. Hopefully, everything is okay between them, and no one is seriously injured. But this certainly doesn't bode well for Elaina's control over her harmonia, unfortunately.

KedharS: If only she could control.

Rosealine gold: Well, they should be pretty good.

Hellraiserphoenix: It should be pretty good.

Thunder Fire: Nope. Cory, Roden, and Orion are all fainted, and Ayer is paralyzed, but still capable of fighting.

Pokemon Academy: Beginning of Beginnings

Chapter 335

Elaina groggily sat up, her head pounding like a hammer was smashing into it.

"What… what happened?"

"You snapped, that's what happened," Ayame said, glaring down at the girl. Elaina gulped.

"Wh-what?" Elaina gasped. She turned her head and looked out over the battlefield. She felt sick to her stomach. Her head throbbed, her harmonia burning her chest like a brand the marked her as the monster everyone accused her of.

"I… I didn't mean to, I… I just…"

Ayer was the only pokemon still standing. The other three pokemon had all been knocked unconscious. Julia and Reiner picked themselves up out of the snow, shivering, and recalled their own pokemon. Thankfully, their injuries didn't look TOO severe, compared to how often Elaina's rampages resulted in major damage.

"You… ow… you hit me again?" Elaina gasped, turning back to Ayame in shock.

"You're fucking right I did," Ayame scowled. "And you should thank me! I charged into the maelstrom around you and smacked some sense into that thick skull of yours, without me you would still be running rampant!"

Ayame swung her hand out over the wrecked battlefield.

"Unless you wanted to keep going on your little rampage?"

"I… I didn't, I just…"

"Aya!" Blake cried, running up to her.

"Blake! Thank god you're okay!" Ayame said, turning back to him, her face softening into a bright smile of relief.

Blake slapped her across the face with a smack that stunned Elaina enough to make her fall back on her butt, her eyes bulging out in shock.

"Wh… wha…" Ayame was even more stunned than Elaina. She reached a trembling hand to her cheek, touching the sore red spot. She looked at Blake with disbelief.

"How could you do something like that?!" Blake exclaimed, his face red with anger and his eyes wet with tears as he glared at Ayame. "You pushed me aside and just charged headfirst into that typhoon, with all that debris flying around you?! Do you have any idea what could have happened to you?! You could have been put into the hospital! Do you have any idea how terrified I was? I thought you could have been-!"

Ayame's face went from shock to outrage in a second and she turned her rage upon Blake, yelling angrily at him, "who do you think you are to talk like that?! Do you have any idea how terrifying it was for me, seeing you and your pokemon fighting today? Knowing that if something bad happened, when you were fighting like this, that you or your pokemon could be…? And you have the audacity to say that I'm the one being reckless, and that I shouldn't be worrying you?! How fucking dare you?! I've been worrying about that since you fucking started this fucking tournament!"

Elaina stared in shock at Ayame and Blake shouting at each other, when before they had seemed so happy together. It didn't make any sense. She looked to the other two people there, Reiner and Julia, she remembered their names being, but they didn't seem at all surprised by this turn of events. They were just watching with expressions like this was something to be expected.

Elaina turned back to look at Ayame and Blake again. They were getting more frenzied now, their faces were willed with worry and their eyes were watering. Both were on the verge of crying, and Elaina could see… the love that was there.

…Oh. So that's how it is.

Elaina understood now. They were certainly angry. But not the kind of anger that Elaina was used to experiencing.

For Elaina, anger and rage had always been born of malice and hatred. People hated her because she was a freak, because she hurt them, or people they cared about, because they thought she was a monster.

But this wasn't that sort of anger.

Blake and Ayame… they were angry at each other because they were worried about each other. Because neither one of them wanted the other to get hurt, and seeing their partner acting in reckless ways that put them in danger caused them to get angry for the other's sake. It was anger born of worry, born of love.

An anger she had never experienced before.

Someone like me… I've only inspired fear and hatred. I could never inspire love. Even these feelings for Blake that I have… they still weren't enough to keep me from endangering him. Elaina hated herself now more than ever. She had pretended that her feelings were a cure, tried to keep Blake at her side so he could help her, but the words Gerard had said rang truer in her ears now than they did when he had first spoken them.

"Do you think Blake will remain by your side forever?"

Of course he wouldn't. It was foolish of her, to try and use her power as an excuse to keep him under control. She didn't want to hurt him, but she still had put him at risk. And when she needed to control her powers, she hadn't been able to do it. Ayame had needed to knock her over with a painful hit to keep her down. Even though she had promised herself she wouldn't hurt him…

In the end, Elaina realized that she had been so obsessed with trying to get Blake to like her, to value her, to remain by her side, that she hadn't tried to do anything for him. Not… not like this. To her, "doing something for Blake" meant keeping her distance from him to keep from hurting him. She was concerned about him, but…

Looking at the worry and anxiety on Ayame's face, Elaina knew that her worry for Blake was ultimately not for his sake, but for hers.

I don't want to hurt him because I don't want to drive him away from me. Because I don't want to be alone anymore. Because I didn't want to face the reality that someone like me… no one could love a freak like me. I like Blake for caring about me. I want him to care about me, to continue to be concerned about me. And… I don't want to hurt him because I don't want him to hate me. But that… that isn't the kind of love that Ayame feels for him.

Elaina wanted to cry. But she wouldn't cry. Not until she was back in her room, where she was safe.

This isn't love. It's possession. I want Blake to look at me and care for me. But the selfless kind of love where you truly care for another person's wellbeing and happiness…

Of course Blake would love Ayame and not me. I could never love like that.

In the end, Elaina had to face the cold truth that she was a heartless girl who couldn't love anyone. Even the boy she cared so much for, she could see now he was nothing more to her than a tool to so that she could feel wanted.

Did I ever try to get to know him? To see him as someone more than just the selfless, kind person he was, reaching out to me when no one else would?

Elaina curled up into a ball, clutching her knees against the cold surface of her mask as she felt the world around her begin to shrink.

It didn't have to be Blake, in the end… I would have been fine with anyone who treated me kindly, who tried to get to know me. Such a half-hearted feeling, and I fooled myself into believing it was love, when really I was just a pathetic little girl who fell for the first boy who was nice to her. Desperately clinging to the hope that I could be something more than a freak.

Blake wasn't someone I loved.

He was just my hope for living a normal life.

What a heartless monster I turned out to be.

"Are you okay?"

A gruff voice shook Elaina from her daze. She raised her head to stare up at Ayame looking down at her. Ayame's eyes were red and showed signs of brushing tears away.

"It's nothing," Elaina muttered, shaking her head. She rose to her feet and turned away from the tall girl, looking back to the battlefield. Blake had already recalled Cory, and the only pokemon left was Ayer. Elaina bitterly recalled her Aerodactyl. It had been their victory, but right now Elaina felt nothing but misery at what she had just realized. All it had taken was a single glance at Ayame and Blake, and that had been enough for her to realize.

"Hey, don't give me that fucking shit!" Ayame snapped, grabbing Elaina by the collar of her dress and pulling her around to face her again. A shiver went down Elaina's spine.

"Look at you! You're freezing!" Ayame exclaimed.

If the other two could have seen the look of confusion on Elaina's face, they would have burst out laughing.

She processed it for a second and then looked down at herself. Her dress was covered in snow, in fact, most of her was. She had fallen into the snow earlier and had just been sitting in it, and now here she was, her jacket off, snow soaking her clothes through.

Elaina suddenly realized she was freezing.

Ayame draped Elaina's jacket over her to warm her up. Elaina squeezed it over her shoulders tightly, trying to conserve the heat. She looked up into Ayame's eyes. That was…

Was this girl… concerned for her?

"Come on, let's get you inside," Ayame said, her stern, gruff voice surprisingly kind.

"I said, you don't need to-"

"Fuck that," Ayame scowled, dismissing her attempt to deflect concern away from her. "We need to get you warmed up, you idiot."

"I told you to stay away from me!" Elaina growled, not in any mood for this girl's false sympathy. She just wanted to be alone.

A blast of cold air slapped Ayame in the face, and that just made her mad.

"Come on, we're going to the pokemon center," Ayame snarled, grabbing Elaina by the wrist.

"Hey! Let go of me!" Elaina exclaimed, trying to pull free from Ayame's grip. But compared to the athletic girl, Elaina didn't have the strength to free herself. Without harmonia, she was just a normal girl who played dating sims and watched anime, never leaving her room.

Elaina sighed, giving Blake a glance as he followed after the two girls. She averted her gaze. Even if he couldn't see her face, she found that she couldn't meet his eyes with what she had realized about her feelings for him. She didn't deserve to even look at him right now, let alone be his partner. She was just a selfish girl.

That phantom, Harmonia… in the end no matter how hard she had tried to escape her haunting, there was nothing she could really do about it.

Harmonia appeared out of the corner of her eye. Once again, she wore the face of Elaina Bishop, dressed in a pure white dress, as though she really were as innocent as Elaina wished she herself could be.

Are you happy now? Elaina bitterly asked her ghostly stalker, glaring venomously at her. In the end you were right. I couldn't escape from who I am, just a monster.

And yet…

Harmonia didn't seem happy. The look on her face was remorseful. She shook her head sadly, her body shimmering as shadows wrapped up around her and she once again took on the masked appearance of Elaina.

…What?

When Ayame dragged Elaina into the closest pokemon center, everyone around her using the facilities reacted with shock and horror, quickly running out of the way. It could have been the determined look on Ayame's stern face that caused them to scatter, but Elaina knew that it was because they were afraid of crossing her, and had all run away in fear.

"C-can I help you?" The nurse asked, clearly nervous. It wasn't one of the campus facility nurses, this was clearly another student, as evidenced by the green armband she wore pinned to her nurse's outfit, the armband that matched the one Ayame wore on her sleeve.

"My friend here needs to heal up her pokemon," Ayame said, tugging on Elaina's arm and pulling her forward, pushing her up to the counter. Ayame jutted her thumb over her shoulder to point at Blake, Julia, and Reiner as they entered the room. "Them too."

…Friend?

What the hell was she saying?

"Uhum, um…" The student nurse, clearly taking part of one of her assessments for her class final, was having a difficult time looking at Elaina. She gulped, sweat rolling down her brow. Elaina rolled her eyes. Of course the girl was scared of her.

The nurse reluctantly took Elaina's pokeballs from her and took them to the healing machine. Elaina stepped back, clearly feeling more than a little awkward about her position at the moment. She looked around, not sure what she was supposed to do. She walked to the waiting area and sat down in a chair away from everyone else, the other students pulling away from her, shooting wary glances in her direction.

Normally, Elaina would have been irritated about being around people like this. Other students, who despised and feared her, and here she was, parading herself around in front of them. Why did she even have to do this? But right now, there was something else occupying her thoughts. Something that confused her even more. The way Ayame Toujou was acting around her right now… before, Ayame had only looked at her with fear, apprehension, and even scorn.

But…

Now it was like she was being concerned for Elaina's wellbeing?

It didn't make sense in the slightest. The girl had hit her in the head today, twice!

…Well, the first time had been because she was about to turn her harmonia loose… and the second time, she really had lost control…

Wait, now that Elaina thought about it, Ayame had been acting weird the whole battle. Encouraging her, cheering for not just Blake, but for her as well…

And when Elaina had passed out, it was Ayame who had helped her up and wanted to take her to the infirmary, wasn't it?

Trying to think it through was too hard. Her head was pounding with waves of pain, her harmonia too overpowering. Ayame was approaching her, but Elaina stood from her chair and pushed past her, running into the bathroom.

Safe in the stall of the girls' room, Elaina pulled her mask off and dug around frantically in her jacket, the pain in her head getting worse and worse. She felt like she was going to throw up. She knelt in front of the toilet bowl as she fumbled, her mittens making it hard to feel.

Did I drop them? She questioned. No, there they were. She wrapped her fingers around the slender bottle and pulled it from the pocket of her jacket, frantically trying to unscrew the lid. She failed a few times as a wave of nausea roiled in her gut, realizing there was no way she was getting it open like this. She pulled her black mittens off and discarded them, her numb fingers scraping the lid open. She grabbed a pill, but it slipped from her grip and rolled across the floor and under the stall. Too desperate to retrieve it she frantically dug another pill out with her trembling fingers and clenched her hand tight, not wanting to take any chances. She slapped her palm against her mouth and forced the pill in, swallowing as she hacked and resisting her body's impulse to vomit.

Elaina clasped her hand over her mouth and clenched her jaw shut, the world around her spinning as hot flashes and bursts of light exploded in her body. Finally, things began to die down, and the sick feeling in her stomach began to go away. She dropped her hand to the side and let out a sigh, her body slowly returning to normal. She had just finished screwing the lid back on when she heard a knocking sound from the door.

"Elaina? You okay?"

"What…" she coughed, unable to finish her sentence, "what do you want?"

"I wanted to know if you were okay," Ayame said, in a snide tone of voice that seemed to ask "what sort of dumb question is that?"

Ayame's eyes dropped to see a small white pill on the tile floor. She reached down to pick it up, seeing the heels of Elaina's boots and realizing she was kneeling in front of the toilet. Ayame knocked on the door a little more insistently this time.

"Are you seriously okay?!" She demanded. "Because it looks like you're throwing up!"

"I'm… I'm fine, I already told you not to be concerned over me," Elaina snarled. She slipped her pills back into jacket pocket and reached out to the toilet paper roll hanging beside her head. She pulled a few sheets off and rand them over her mouth, wiping away the blood from her nose and the spit from her dry heaving. She cleaned herself up as best as she could.

"…Well, listen, I don't know if that's really true or not," Ayame said, her voice sounding a little softer to Elaina's ears. "Look, see… I have this thing where when I get to flustered or anxious, I kinda… well, let's just say I have a really weak stomach."

Why was she telling her this? Elaina vaguely wondered. Did she really think Elaina cared?

"See, before a track meet, I used to spend at least an hour in the bathroom hurling my guts out," Ayame admitted. "The pressure, I guess… well, my body doesn't work well under stress. It's sorta gotten to be a bit of a habit. Like, I can't even watch horror movies without losing my lunch. And I mean, compared to what I was going through… I think you've been through a lot, just today, you know? I can't imagine what it must be like to have harmonia, but if you need to like, you know… I get it, okay?"

Elaina was still completely lost.

"What do you think you know?" Elaina spat out, rising to her feet. She affixed her mask back over her face and swung the door open, stepping out and looking up at Ayame's face.

"I don't know anything, not really," Ayame admitted. "But I'm just saying, like… if you wanted to talk, I can talk, you know? I can't know what you're going through, but I just want to help, if I can, you know? Because you're important to Blake, and I think… I think you really could use a friend."

Friend? Someone like Elaina didn't have friends. She resisted the urge to burst out laughing, shaking her head in cynical amusement.

"You would never understand what it's like to be me," Elaina muttered. She felt her harmonia flare up in spite of herself, the door to the stall banging against the wall, startling Ayame. As she expected. Ayame didn't look at her with the same look of assurance as Blake did. The terror in her eyes was true, honest, and it made Elaina feel miserable. Maybe she did want to be Elaina's friend.

But she was going to turn on her soon enough. The minute she experienced Elaina's power for real, that fear in her eyes would overpower her, and she would abandon Elaina again, like all the other false friends she'd made in her childhood.

Elaina pushed Ayame aside and stormed off, Ayame watching her leave, a confused look on her face as the pill burned hot in the palm of her hand.

Elaina's gone through a lot this time around. Sadly, she won't accept Ayame's friendship, even if it is genuine. I don't know if I could be friends with someone who was scared of me, either.