Ayame and Megumi's confrontation! In this chapter, the arc reaches its conclusion! Blake's had an interesting first few days, but hopefully things will settle down to normal, and everything will work out okay with the Toujou family.

Aquahaze675: Megumi doesn't have the best judgment sadly.

KedharS: Awkward has nothing on this.

MikySP: I haven't played smash in a while. I'm not the biggest Nintendo fan, but I do love the Rune Factory and Luminous Arc franchises. (And if you play Rune Factory 3, a certain someone might seem VERY familiar...)

Pokemon Academy: Beginning of Beginnings

Chapter 423

It wasn't possible. Ayame was seeing something that just wasn't real.

Megumi couldn't walk. After her accident, she had lost all use of her legs. She had to use a wheelchair to get around the house.

So Megumi couldn't be standing in front of her.

And yet she clearly was.

Ayame shook her head, she didn't understand what was going on at all.

"Sis, what… how… I don't…" Her brain wasn't reaching her mouth. And even if it was, it wasn't really in much better condition. She didn't know what happening, and of course she didn't know what to say. She still hadn't even realized she'd dropped the bowl of potato salad all over the ground, she was too busy trying to figure out how her crippled sister was standing in front of her.

"Aya, the bowl!" Blake gasped, snapping Ayame out of her confusion. Her eyes shot down to the shattered porcelain littering the wooden floor, staining it with a big mountain of potatoes and mayonnaise.

"Fuck!" She cursed, stepping back. She shot her head up, just to make sure she hadn't been hallucinating earlier. She hadn't. Megumi was standing right in front of her, with a complex look on her face.

"Is dinner on the table ye-"

Hiromi waltzed into the dining room with Hideo behind her, both freezing in place when they saw Megumi standing in the entrance.

"Mom… dad… Megumi, she…" Ayame started to say something, but her voice trailed off as she caught the looks on her parents' faces. They weren't filled with shock and disbelief like she would have expected, like she felt.

"W-wow, Megumi! Y-you can walk!" Hideo gasped.

"It's… a miracle, yes, a Christmas Miracle, what a surprise! How lovely!" Hiromi wasn't much better than her husband.

Ayame's stunned expression shifted into a scowl. Blake shook his head and rubbed his temples in resignation. These two were not exactly professional actors.

"So you knew," Ayame said, figuring out that whatever was going on here, she was the only one of her family not in the loop about it.

"Aya…" Megumi walked closer to her sister, the pain on her face obvious. It made Ayame wince just to look at it, she averted her eyes.

"No, just… just no," Ayame said, shaking her head. Emotionally, she still felt a little numb. She didn't understand what was going on.

"Aya… can we talk?" Megumi asked, her voice softer and more vulnerable than Ayame had ever heard it. She turned her head and reluctantly looked at her sister… and saw that she was trembling. Her amazing big sister who had took her accident in stride, who always put on a tough façade and tried her best, who Ayame had always been chasing the shadow of, in hopes of someday being able to catch up to her…

She looked so frail and weak, like she was about to cry. It left Ayame at a loss for words. She stared at her sister, her mouth open, trying to think of what to say, but even now the words refused to come. So she did the only thing she could do, she closed her mouth and nodded her head.

Megumi sighed with relief.

"Y-yes, that's perfect!" Hiromi said, rushing to the kitchen. "Hideo and I will clean this mess up, you two talk things out, yes, that would be for the best!"

The two quickly left the dining room.

Megumi walked up to Ayame, looking into her eyes. For the first time, Blake realized that Megumi was even taller than Ayame by a hair, which was impressive. Ayame had to look up at her sister.

"Can we… go to the living room?" Megumi asked, clearly feeling a little awkward. She glanced past her sister and over to Blake, reaching out with Skorupi. Blake nodded and took the small pokemon from her hands.

"I guess…" Ayame said, her voice still not sure. She wanted to hear what Megumi had to say, but why was she feeling so anxious and uneasy about all this?

A warm hand on her shoulder snapped those concerns right out of her head, though.

"Blake…" Ayame glanced back at her boyfriend, a soft smile spreading across her lips. Yeah, it would be fine. Just seeing that reassuring gleam in his eye told her that it would be fine for sure. She turned back to her sister and nodded again, this time a little more confident than she had been before. Megumi sighed with relief.

The two girls headed into the living room, sitting down on the couch. Blake was tempted to join them for moral support, but thought better of it. This was a private moment between the two of them, and it wasn't something that he should be intruding on. Even if he did feel like family… Megumi and Ayame were sisters. If Megumi didn't want him there when she revealed everything, if she thought it would make her more comfortable, then that was something he would be fine with.

Because he had to be fine with it.

He clutched his Skorupi a little closer to his chest, the pokemon looking up at him in confusion. He smiled down at the small guy and relaxed his face, shaking his head. It was fine, nothing to worry about. It would BE fine.

He glanced at the door to the living room and went the other direction, out onto the balcony to look at the winter sky and think.

"Good luck, Aya. I know this is going to be difficult to hear, but I hope that everything turns out okay." He was even thinking of Megumi when he said that. For all her faults, he didn't doubt that the girl truly loved her sister. And in the end, she had proven herself in the right. If she really was explaining everything to Ayame like Blake had asked her to do, then that meant she had listened to him and realized what she'd done was wrong.

Blake sighed, shivering a little in the cold air.

If only his problems with his own sister could be resolved with a family meeting like this, that would make things so much easier on him.

While Blake contemplated his own family situation, Ayame was listening patiently to what her sister was telling her. Blake could see them talking through the balcony window, and though he couldn't hear what was being said, the look on Ayame's face said everything.

When it was all said and done, the two girls hugged, tears rolling down their faces as they took comfort in each other's arms.

Blake smiled. That was how it should be. Two siblings making up after something bad happened, and agreeing to move on with smiles. That was who Ayame was, after all. He knew she probably felt a little betrayed by what had happened with her sister, but at the same time he knew that right now, what she was feeling was nothing short of exaltation at the fact that her sister was somehow okay. After everything that had happened, Blake was happy for her.

Blake turned back to watch the sky darken, the sun setting behind him as he stared up at Mt. Silver. A tap on the glass caught his attention, and he turned to look behind him. Ayame was standing at the screen door, waving at him with a shy smile on her face. He nodded back to her and smiled, waving her over.

Ayame stepped out onto the deck and shivered, walking over to stand next to Blake and lean against the railing with him. She tilted her head so that it was resting on his shoulder. It had been such a long day, and she was just exhausted at this point. She let out a long, weary sigh, running her finger over the whorls in the railing wood.

"How did it go?" Blake asked.

"…I don't know," she admitted, lifting her head off his shoulder so that she could shake it. Her voice was distant, like an echo. "I guess it still hasn't sunk in yet. She's… been able to walk. All this time, she was able to walk all this time, and she lied to me…"

Blake frowned. That wasn't what she should be focusing on.

"The only reason she did that-"

"I know, because she thought that I couldn't move forward on my own," Ayame said. "That I would constantly be pushing myself down, content to stay in her shadow."

"Aya, I don't think you would-"

"I would have, too, that's the thing," Ayame said, clutching her chest and lowering her gaze down into the snowy field below. "I would have watched my big sister have a successful career without even trying for myself, without doing anything, really. I'm stupid that way. I give up the minute I think I shouldn't do something, all because I'm too afraid to try."

"You're being too hard on yourself," Blake wanted to tell her. He wanted to say that, no, she was one of the strongest people that he knew. That even if she might have a few issues with her self-esteem, when it came down to it she had the determination and the will to succeed that was so very vital he wished he was half as tough as she was. Hell, just the fact that she was willing to bear the burden of trying to accomplish her sister's dream, even if it really was her dream, that was something that he wasn't sure he could have done.

But none of that was what Ayame needed right now. She didn't need him to tell her that what she thought was wrong. Because it wasn't about whether or not she'd have gone through with it back then. That was in the past, and there was no changing what had happened, no way to go back and stop the accident, or convince Megumi not to put on the charade.

The only thing that mattered was moving forward, and what Ayame was going to do now. Blake knew that in her heart, she wanted to keep running. And whatever decision she made right now would no-doubt be tainted by the turmoil in her heart, but if she chose not to run then it wouldn't last. Ayame was born to do what she always did. He trusted her to make the right decision, he always did.

"So what are you going to do?" Blake finally asked, breaking the silence that had lasted the entirety of the sunset. Their "lunch" had no-doubt gone cold, and it was approaching dinner time. He saw that Ayame was shivering, so he shifted Skorupi to his right hand and draped his left arm over her shoulder to warm her up a little.

"I don't know," Ayame admitted. "Right now, I feel like I'm in a dream. For so long, I thought that I HAD to do what I've been doing. And that even though I love it, it isn't like I had the option to stop. But now, that burden is gone. I can do anything. I could become a pokemon master, I could become a coordinator like Olivia, an idol like Lila and Darla, a breeder like Serefina, a pokemon ranger like my mom and Sango, anything."

She glanced at Blake and smiled.

"I can even be a princess, if I want," she teased, but her voice was still filled with deeper emotions. She looked into his eyes, and he looked back into hers. There were tears filling hers.

Ayame was the first to turn away from their silent conversation, looking down as her tears fell into the snow far below.

"I didn't cripple my sister…" she sobbed, her voice filled with joy and relief. "Megumi's ogaay… I didn't do id…"

Ayame trembled like a leaf as Blake held her, wrapping his other arm around her for good measured. Skorupi took the opportunity to slip out of his grasp and climb up onto her shoulder, nuzzling her in the cheek to wipe away some of her tears.

Dinner that night was steak and potato salad. Blake assumed that the steak had been reheated from the lunch that had never happened. He hoped that the potato salad had not likewise been reused. He and Ayame walked into the dining room hand in hand, Ayame cradling Skorupi under her arm.

"Well, finally, took you long enough," Hiromi said, though her voice carried more caution than sternness. She probably wasn't sure whether or not her daughter was mad at her. "Your dinner got cold… again…"

"That's okay," Ayame said, shaking her head. She didn't mind that too much. She turned to Blake an handed Skorupi over to him, letting go of her hand and walking around the table so that she was standing over her sister. Megumi was looking down sullenly at her food, picking at it with a fork. Her eyes were still red, she had clearly done more crying since the two had finished talking.

"Megumi," Ayame said, her sister giving her a cautious look up.

"Y-yeah?" Megumi asked. Blake was surprised how an older woman like her could sound like such a scared little girl.

"You can stand, right?" Ayame asked. "Then can you stand up?"

Megumi swallowed and nodded, getting out of her seat.

Ayame didn't say a word, she simply raised her fist and hit her sister in the jaw, knocking her onto the floor in one punch.

"Aya?!" Hiromi exclaimed, leaping from her seat in shock at the fact that one of her daughters had just punched the other.

"Ayame!" Hideo's eyes widened and his booming voice made the room shake.

"Ah… ah…" Megumi sputtered, cradling the red welt spreading across her cheek, tears streaming down her face as she looked up helplessly at her little sister.

"That was for lying to me, and making me think that I had crippled you for all these years," Ayame said. She knelt down beside Megumi and held her hands out to the sides, offering a hug. Her expression turned warm.

Megumi's eyes widened in disbelief.

"I… you… but…"

"Come on, geez," Ayame scowled, leaning forward and hugging her bewildered older sister tightly. Megumi just sat there, frozen. She stared up at Blake and gave him a questioning stare, but he just smiled and shrugged his shoulders.

Slowly, Megumi accepted the hug, even though she felt like she didn't deserve it. Ayame patted her on the back.

"It's okay, I forgive you," Ayame assured her. "I know that what you did, you did because you thought it was the best thing for me, so that I could be happy. You did it because you love me, and I'm not mad about that."

"Aya…" Megumi sobbed into her sister's shoulder as Ayame patted her soothingly on the back. After Megumi was all cried out, they all sat together to eat dinner, as a family.

After dinner, Ayame stopped Blake before he could get up and take his dishes away. He glanced at her, confused. Ayame glanced back at him, her cheeks dusted with embarrassment. She turned bashfully away from him and looked over to her parents.

"Dad… could Blake and I… could we sleep outside tonight?"

"Outside?" Blake asked, nearly doing a spit take. "Uh, I don't know about-"

"It's not what you think," Ayame said, shaking her head.

"Aww, snow snugglies with your boyfriend?" Hiromi giggled. Ayame flushed an even deeper shade of red. She leapt out of her seat and slapped her hands against the table, embarrassed.

"Don't-don't say it like that!" She protested, shaking her head frantically. Megumi giggled softly from her seat as Hideo just stared at the two with his eyes locked in a piercing glare at the two of them, but Blake in particular.

"What, uh… what's going on?" Blake asked. "Because I'm not sure I want to sleep outside. In the winter. At the base of Mt. Silver. WHILE IT'S SNOWING."

"Okay, well, snow snugglies-"

"MOM!"

"Well, what do you want me to call it, sweetie?"

"Just… just lawn camping!"

"But snow snugglies are so much cuter!"

"Mom, you're embarrassing me in front of my boyfriend, haven't I been through enough today?!"

She had. Hiromi nodded, and resumed talking to Blake.

"So basically, back when my girls were really little, we would all bundle up in as many layers of clothes as we could get, and then pack ourselves in an extra-jumbo-size waterproof sleeping bag (aka my husband's sleeping bag) with a bunch of blankets piled on stop, and sleep out on the porch so we could watch the snow fall and breathe in the cool mountain air," Hiromi explained. She smirked, glancing at her daughter. "But I didn't expect her to propose trying it with a boy. You and her, packed tightly together in a big sleeping bag? Why, anything could-"

"I JUST WANTED TO SHARE IT WITH HIM BECAUSE IT'S SPECIAL, GAWD!" Ayame exclaimed, burying her face in her hands.

"Well, I think it's sweet," Hiromi giggled, turning to her husband. "Hideo, sweetie, can you go grab the biggest sleeping bag you can for the two of them?"

Hideo scowled at Blake. Hiromi frowned, and slapped him on the chest.

"Come on now, I was just kidding around, it's not like they're going to do it out on the porch! If they were, then one of them would have already snuck into the other's room by now, you know!"

Hideo grumbled, rising up out of his chair and stomping out of the room. Hiromi smiled, and turned to Blake and Ayame.

"As for you two, you better get some layers on! I'll go get the screen so you guys don't get buried in snow.

Blake looked down at Skorupi, the tiny pokemon curled up on the table and letting out a yawn.

"I'll go put Skorupi to sleep," Blake said. "Oh, we better make sure he has everything in the incubator-"

"Actually…" Megumi interrupted him, looking tentatively at Blake. "I could watch him, if you want…"

"Really?" Blake asked, surprised. "You've been looking after him a lot…"

"It's the least I could do, really," Megumi said, nodding her head assuredly.

Blake nodded, and handed the sleeping pokemon over to the girl.

Once everything was set up, Blake had to admit it was impressive. There was an enormous sleeping back set out on a waterproof mattress, with a veritable mountain of blankets stacked on top of it. There was a screen awning set out above to catch the snow, so they could enjoy the fresh air in peace.

"Uh, won't our faces get cold?" Blake asked.

"We can bury them in pillows, silly," Ayame grinned. She had already begun to slide into the sleeping bag, making sure to move to the side so there was room for Blake to get in. Blake struggled a little but managed to slip in. He gasped in surprise. In spite of the freezing air outside, he felt like he was packed into a sauna. He was face to face with Ayame, and her flushed face was smiling at Blake's amazement.

"All snuggled up and toasty, huh?" She grinned. Blake could feel her foot rubbing tentatively against his. They really were pretty close together. It was spacious enough so that they could maintain decency, but at the same time he felt rather boxed in a lot.

"My, you two are just precious," Hiromi giggled.

"Mom, what are you doing out here?!" Ayame sputtered, pulling back from Blake.

"Just brought out some midnight snacks," she giggled. "Hot cocoa for if you two get too cold, you know how it is."

"…Oh. Thanks, mom," Ayame said, calming down.

"And remember, Blake, with all those blankets on top of her, she won't really be able to resist if you'd like to have your way with her!" Hiromi jokingly called to him as she skipped back into the house.

"Aya I wouldn't-"

"I know," Ayame sighed. "God, my mom is so embarrassing."

"I think it's sweet."

"You think my mom telling you to attack me is sweet."

"Your whole family," Blake said. He turned and stared up at the cloudy sky, watching the snow pile up on the screen. "They care about each other, and you, so much. I wish… I wish my family had been like that growing up. Maybe… maybe without harmonia, we… we all could have been having time together like that, you know?"

"Hey," Ayame said, reaching over and placing her hand on his chin, tilting his head back so they were eye to eye again. She softly whispered. "I can be your family."

"That's, um… look, in spite of what people say about my sister I'm really not into incest, so-"

"No! Fucking jerk! No, I mean…" Ayame calmed down, and took a few deep breaths. She let them out in a long sigh. "We're family. At least… I think we are. You mean as much to me as anyone in that cabin, as much as Olivia, my pokemon, to me, you are family."

"…Is this you proposing?" Blake asked, Ayame shooting him a dirty look for trying to deflect the issue.

"Shove it, this is serious," Ayame said. "S-So, I… I was thinking. I've been thinking about this a lot, actually…"

"What?" Blake asked. "You can tell me."

"…We never got a chance to exchange Christmas Presents, remember?" Ayame said. "And I know you're going to say-"

"If you say 'I'm your Christmas Present' I won't be able to accept that."

"Silver," Ayame interrupted him. Blake blinked, confused.

"You got me some silver?"

"No, not… no. For a name. For your Skorupi. That's my present to you." Ayame sighed. "I know he's not silver-colored, he's purple, but 'Iris' is a girl's name, so this was the next best thing."

"Naming my Skorupi is a present for me?"

"It's a name that means something," Ayame said. "I've been raising that little guy almost as much as you have, you know. He means so much to me, that I almost wish I could keep him myself."

Ayame reached beneath the sleeping bag and found Blake's hand, taking it in hers.

"I'll only be at the Pokemon Academy for another term," she reminded him. "Then, I'll be going to try and make my way onto the Pokeathlon Circuit. It'll be a lot more difficult to meet after that, and we'll both probably feel lonely. But… I don't want to break up with you. So that's my present. Whenever you see Silver, you'll think of Mt. Silver, and me, and it'll be like, you know, I'm still there, and stuff."

She squeezed his hand.

"Is that… too corny?"

Blake smiled. It was way, way too corny.

But he like too corny.

"That's a great name," Blake assured her. "Kind of makes me happy I got you something so impressive myself."

"Oh?" Ayame's face brightened. "Do tell? Should we call it early and go inside to see?"

Blake laughed.

"No need for that. We can see it in the morning."

"What did you get, then?" Ayame asked.

Blake smiled at her, his eyes twinkling in a way that made her heart flutter in excitement.

"A while back, Alcea gave me some seeds," Blake said. "Iris seeds. And before we left, I asked her for a climate-controlled incubator. I wanted to give you flowers, but, well, the blooming time is such a long wait, I thought, well… you might want them yourself, you know? To grow. As a hobby, I mean. You said you liked the iris flowers, so I thought, well…"

Blake sighed. He couldn't keep it going any longer.

"…Sorry. Compared to that touching speech you just gave, it must not seem very impressive, just some flowers."

"…It's the thought, though," Ayame reminded him. She scooched over a little closer until their noses practically touched. Blake could feel his face growing hotter, and it wasn't just because of how tightly packed they were.

"You were thinking of something I loved, because you wanted to give me something I loved," Ayame said. "And that makes your gift the most wonderful present I could get. I can't wait to open it."

Blake leaned in and kissed Ayame, to which she reciprocated. It was gentle, but it said everything that needed to be said. The two held each other close and watched the snow falling overhead, until their eyes got too heavy to keep open and they drifted off to go meet up in dreamland.

A nice, touching end to this arc. I'm happy for them, it looks like everything worked out for the best. Next chapter, we start on Cynthia, Sango, and Maddi's arc! Which probably won't be as long, but will still, hopefully, be good!