In this chapter, we learn just what it is that Megumi's hiding, and a little bit more about the secrets of the Toujou family that Ayame is in the dark about.

KedharS: Hopefully nothing too bad.

Thunder Fire: Well, uh… about that…

JoshGamerV: Interesting, what gave it away?

MikySP: Okay, I'll check it out, thanks!

Aquahaze675: Hopefully it's not anything that bad, right?

Pokemon Academy: Beginning of Beginnings

Chapter 422

"Secret?" Megumi tilted her head to the side, still smiling. "I'm not quite sure what you mean. I'm an open book, Blake!"

"Just stop it," Blake said, shaking his head. "Ayame doesn't know any better, but I do. The truth is, you don't need that wheelchair at all, do you?"

Megumi's eye twitched, and her smile froze on her face. Her expression darkened.

"What would make you say something like that?" She asked, her voice taking on a much colder tone than before.

"When I was younger, due to an… incident, I was also confined to a wheelchair for an extended period of time," Blake explained. "And growing up needing assistance like that, I became very conscious of certain things, and even all these years later I still pay attention to them out of habit. For example, there are three stories on this cabin, and yet I don't see an elevator, or any other form of lift support to get you upstairs."

"…Well, such things are not exactly traditional in a log cabin," Megumi said, shrugging her shoulders. "Neither our generator nor the foundation could probably bear it, so…"

"So do you have your dad carry you upstairs?" Blake asked.

"I prefer to spend my time on the first floor," Megumi replied.

"Then why is your studio upstairs?"

Megumi's eye twitched.

"What do you mean? We're in my studio right now," she said.

"When I asked your dad, he was about to say that your studio was upstairs, but then corrected himself," Blake said. Your parents know about it, to, huh? That explains why they haven't gone to any steps to accommodate your condition, because you don't need a wheelchair. You're just lying to Aya. That's why this cabin doesn't even have a wheelchair ramp to get inside, just stairs!"

"Blake, you're mistaken!" Megumi urged him, glancing at the door like she was worried Ayame might come bursting through it at any second. "If you'd just let me explain-"

"The ramp, upstairs, your dad's slip-up, those things and all be explained away," Blake shrugged. "But something else that's missing, are skid-marks."

Megumi blinked, tilting her head to the side in confusion.

"Wheels on hard surfaces like this cabin? You should be leaving skid marks all over the place just incidentally. I remember quite well that just going through the halls, after a few months there were burrs all over the floor. But I can barely see any, even though you've been living here for six years," Blake explained.

"…You've been paying quite a bit of attention, it seems," Megumi sighed, lowering her head. "…Well, fine then."

Megumi slid out of her seat and stood up, towering over him on two perfectly fine, strong legs.

"So I was right."

Megumi raise her arms to the sides and dropped them with an exasperated sigh. "So? Are you happy now?"

"I don't understand," Blake said, shaking his head in confusion. "Why? How? Why would you pretend to be in a wheelchair for six years?!"

"Because it's easier this way," Megumi said, sitting back down, rubbing her temples in frustration. "You don't understand. If you had a little sister, then you'd get it."

"I do have a little sister, actually," Blake replied. "And I would never lie to her."

"Not even to make her happy?" Megumi asked. "Wouldn't you do anything to make your little sister happy, Blake?"

"Happy?" Blake asked, unable to believe what he was hearing. Did Megumi think that what she was doing, what she'd done, was actually making Ayame happy?

"Ever since I was a kid, I've loved running," Megumi said, turning her chair around and moving over to the window, looking out at Mt. Silver. "It felt so freeing. I would just run and run for hours, letting my mind think of so many things. Things like competitive running and Pokeathlons, I didn't even think about those. And when Aya became old enough to run with me, those were some of the best days of my childhood. We were always together, doing anything that we wanted, just the two of us. But as much fun as we had together, we couldn't be more different. I was talented, you see. Superbly so. Talented enough that people began… to take notice."

Megumi glanced over her shoulder at Blake, beckoning him to come over. He did.

"Back then, my mother was still working as a pokemon ranger. She would move around a lot for work, and so we were actually seldom home. We ended up having to transfer schools multiple times, going all across the regions. Schooling in Kanto, Johto, Hoenn, even Sinnoh. It was rather difficult, since I was in middle school and Aya was in elementary school. But every time, I would always be the fastest runner. And people began to pay attention, and I got popular. But Aya… she was rather awkward. Always growing up in my shadow. No one paid attention to her the way they did to me. You would think that would lead her to resent me, no?"

Blake could understand that feeling a little bit. He had more than his fair share of resentments towards his famous brother growing up.

"Eventually, I realized… Aya idolized me just like everyone else. She adored her popular and cool big sister, who was always winning praise from her coaches. People were talking about how I was suited to becoming a star, but… I didn't really care about anything like that. For me, running was always something that I enjoyed because I loved it. The accolades, the attention, I just wanted to run with my sister like normal. But the more she saw me as someone amazing, the further apart we drifted…" Megumi sighed, her eyes looking so worn and tired it almost made Blake forget how her lies had injured her sister.

"I may love running, but Aya… she's loved it more than me. For me, it was a hobby. For her, I suspect that it became something to connect her to the older sister that she adored. And as we got older, I could see the competitive fire burning brighter and brighter. I saw it when she was running, I saw it when she was watching the Pokeathlon, Aya, she… she wanted those things so badly, those things that came so easily to me, and yet that I couldn't care less about. And yet, do you know what she said when I suggested she try training for the Pokeathlon herself?"

"What?" Blake asked.

Megumi frowned, tears welling up in her eyes.

"She said 'what are you talking about, sis? There's no point in someone like me trying out for something like that. You're the one who's really talented, you know? I'll just keep running for fun!'"

Blake winced. If it was the Ayame that he had never met, the shy, insecure girl that Olivia had told him about, who put herself down and couldn't fathom doing something if someone else was better suited for it… he could absolutely see that Ayame doing something like that.

"That… that was the horrible thing I did to my sister," Megumi said, her voice taking on a venomous tinge to it. "Simply by existing, simply by being better than her at the thing she loved, I had managed to convince the poor girl that her dream wasn't even her dream in the first place. When she first told me, for the first time I asked myself what I really wanted to do with my life. I had thought that I would become a competitive Pokeathlete, even though I had no pokemon whatsoever! All because that was what my family and everyone around me told me I was good at. So I didn't see any harm in doing it, because there was nothing else I would rather do instead. But Aya's words… they completely destroyed that perspective I'd had, you see. I realized that, even if I didn't care, my existence as "someone who was a talented Pokeathlete" would forever serve as an obstacle to prevent my sister from doing the thing she loved. And I couldn't bear that. I was tempted to quit, but I couldn't. How could I explain it to Aya then? 'I didn't want to do it anymore'? I couldn't tell her the truth, of course! But even if I had quit, that wouldn't have given her any relief. She still wouldn't pursue it, after all. No, she would just tell herself that same story. 'Let Megumi do it. I'm not talented enough.' Even if I didn't want to at all! I was completely stuck!"

Megumi grit her teeth together and slammed her hand against the arm of her chair, frustrated.

"And while those thoughts of mine were in turmoil, I was still getting messages from scouts, urging me to consider working with them. I was in my final year of schooling and it was all too much to bear, I couldn't deal with it. And then, when I was at my absolute limit, being pulled in all sorts of directions by everyone around me… the accident smashed through all those worries and insecurities."

"So you were never crippled in your accident at all," Blake said quietly.

"The doctors said that it was unlikely I would ever recover," Megumi said. "They weren't lying about that. I did need a wheelchair as my spine recovered. They just… happened to be wrong. Six months after I was told I would never walk again, and it turned out I was healing perfectly fine, well on the road to recovery. That was when the lying began."

Megumi turned her chair to look at the paintings, each properly preserved in storage.

"My sister thinks I turned to painting in order to fill the empty void that losing my legs left within me," Megumi said. "In truth, though the accident confined me to this chair, it had opened my horizons immeasurably. While I was in the hospital, there wasn't much to do besides watch TV and draw. So I did. What I loved about running was the freedom to go where I wished, with nothing holding me down. But my art? It was more freedom than I ever thought possible, at the tip of a pen or a brush. And at the same time, not only had I found what I wanted to do, but so had she. So that's how we went. Aya would pursue running, and I would stay home and paint. When I moved back home, I would live normally while Aya was at the Pokemon Academy, and while she came home on vacations, I would break out the wheelchair and keep up the act, like I was still injured. And she would talk about how much fun she was having, running at her school. I was so happy, we all were, the two of us pursuing the things that we love. That's the happiness that this lie of mine is protecting."

"Megumi, Aya's running-"

"She blamed herself at first, I know," Megumi said. "And no matter how many times I told her it wasn't her fault, she still continued to. But whether she knew it or not, my accident opened the door inside of herself that she had closed forever. Without my accident, Aya would never have considered running professionally. As long as I was there, such thoughts would never have crossed her mind, she wouldn't have allowed herself to think of them."

Megumi let out a long sigh.

"I know I've done something horrible to her, Blake. You don't have to tell me that."

"That's right you did," Blake snapped. The reason that Aya is so dedicated to running is because she feels guilty! She's trying to live out your dream to make herself feel better about what she thinks she did to you! When really you're totally fine!"

"No, Aya is dedicated to running because she loves it!" Megumi replied. "The guilt is just an excuse! Don't you see how bright her face looks when she's smiling?! It's because this is what she wants more than anything, to become a professional Pokeathlete and live a life of running and competing! Everything else, it was just necessary for her to have her dream!"

"Even if that's true, it doesn't change the fact that you've chosen to just sit back and let Aya live believing that she's responsible for mutilating her sister!" Blake snapped. "You and your parents both, do you have any idea how cruel of a thing you've done to her?!"

Megumi wilted under his glare, unable to refute that.

"That's… I know," Megumi said. "Don't you think I know what a horrible thing I've done?"

"I can understand how you can see that this is the best solution," Blake said. "Aya is pursuing her dream, even though she thinks it's a form of atonement. I can see how clearly she loves what she's doing. But you need to understand that you aren't helping Aya be free to pursue her dream. Even though she loves it, what your lie has done has turned something she loves into a cross she has to bear."

"N-No, she's always so happy when she's home," Megumi said, shaking her head.

"Of course she is!" Blake snapped. "Because she has to be! She's trying to put on a strong face for her older sister, to show her that everything's okay, that you can count on her to keep doing her best and not to worry! Because she doesn't want YOU to feel bad about not being able to achieve what she thinks YOUR dream is, or think that you've pressured her into doing something that she doesn't love!"

"Th-that's… n-no," Megumi said, shaking her head in frantic denial, but the pallor of her face was betraying the worry welling up inside of her, the suspicion that Blake might be right, and that all of this was a horrible thing that had made things worse for her sister, not better.

"When I first met Aya, she never smiled," Blake said. "More specifically, she had to force herself not to smile. I had to drag her onto our first date against her will, because she refused to do anything that wasn't about becoming a better runner. To live up to all the expectations that everyone had shouldered her with, to live up to the expectations that YOU had pushed onto her. I had to show her that running could still be something that she loved, because she had become so consumed with her desire to be better that she had completely lost sight of how much she loved it! You didn't give her an excuse to pursue her dream, you filled her with so much guilt that she forgot she ever had such a dream in the first place, warping it into a burdensome curse that she resented, because you were too scared to tell her the truth."

"I wasn't… I'm not scared-!"

"Then tell her the truth," Blake said. "Tell her that you don't need that chair anymore, that you've been lying to her all this time."

Megumi's face was whiter than the snow outside the window.

"If… if I do that, then… Then it's all going to be ruined… she's going to step aside and give up on her dreams again, because she'll think that I should be the one doing it instead…" Megumi fumbled for excuses, but Blake could see that she was really just scared that her lie would be revealed. Megumi was much like her sister. Both girls were unable to be honest. But where Ayame took all of her burdens onto herself without telling anyone how much pain she was in, Megumi lied to herself in order to convince herself that those burdens were freeing her sister, because she was too afraid to do something that would actually help her.

They were both human, but right now, Blake didn't want anything to do with Megumi. Ayame might have idolized her sister, but Blake could see that the woman was even more weak and fragile than she was.

"Ayame is stronger than you think she is," Blake coldly replied. "And she's a hell of a lot stronger than you are. Tell her the truth. If you don't, then you really will have destroyed her dream."

"Th-then… you won't tell her?" Megumi asked hopefully.

Blake turned and walked towards the door, unable to even look at her. He paid the tears she shed behind him no mind at all.

Blake walked into the kitchen, where Ayame and Hiromi were just putting the finishing touches on the meal. It was a little late for lunch, he thought, but it was starting to resemble a dinner with the amount of effort put into it. An early dinner then, he noted, though his conversation with Megumi had killed the appetite that had been built up.

"You okay?" Ayame asked, setting down the bowl of potato salad in her hands and walking over to him. "You look a little…"

"It's been a really long day," Blake admitted. "Actually, I was wondering if I could talk to your mom about something?"

"Mom? Sure, what?" Ayame asked, glancing back at Hiromi, who was currently mashing potatoes while listening in on their conversation.

"It's about what happened on Mt. Silver," Blake said. "Shirayuki… she was your partner pokemon? Your Glaceon?"

Hiromi nodded. "She fell in love with Mt. Silver the day we were assigned there. Even when I was sent somewhere else, Shirayuki would refuse to leave. So I got pretty good at doing my ranger duties without the need for a partner pokemon."

Blake nodded.

"Even when I settled down here, Shirayuki still didn't come down off that mountain," she sighed, her voice filled with sadness. "I'm happy that she's found a place to belong up there, but I would be lying if I said that I didn't wish she could live down here as part of our family."

Hiromi turned to Ayame and reached up, patting her on the shoulder.

"Though I guess if she had, then she wouldn't have been there to save you two today," she laughed. "So I suppose in the end it worked out for the best."

Blake nodded.

"The reason I asked… when Shirayuki rescued us, she was protecting something," Blake said. "We were in a cave on Mt. Silver, and there was a shrine there, with a shining blue stone placed there, and Shirayuki was guarding it. Do you know anything about that?"

"A cave and a shrine?" Hiromi asked, raising her eyebrow. "No, I don't think I ever saw anything like that. Is that the 'Orace' thing you mentioned?"

"Yeah, mom, those guys were after it. It seems to be pretty powerful," Ayame explained.

"Then I suppose that was the duty that she found up there," Hiromi sighed. "I guess it makes sense. She must have sensed it there, she was never the same since she evolved on the mountain."

That was interesting. Shirayuki had evolved from an Eevee on Mt. Silver? He would have to make a note of that.

Hiromi's expression brightened, and she resumed her work.

"Enough talking about stuff of the past, that's all over and one with!" She declared, clapping her hands together. "It's time for lunch! Although, it's more like dinner at this point! I'll go get Hideo, Ayame, Blake, would you two mind setting the table?"

"Sure thing, mom!" Ayame said, nodding. Hiromi skipped off as Blake and Ayame began moving the plates and silverware out. Then, the food came next.

"Blake's you're gonna love this, trust me," Ayame crowed, walking out of the kitchen with a big bowl of potato salad in her hands. "We had a little at the picnic yesterday, but right now, this is fucking-"

Ayame's voice stopped working and her mouth dropped open. She froze in place. Blake peeked over her shoulder, and saw Megumi, holding his Skorupi… standing in the entrance to the dining room with a tense look on her face.

The bowl filled with potato salad smashed against the floor, exploding into a million pieces as Ayame stared dumbfounded, her brain trying to figure out what she was seeing.

Next chapter, the confrontation between the sisters! Can Blake resolve things, and make up for Megumi's stupid and reckless decision? What will Ayame's response be?