Keahi may have lost a pokemon, but he's managed to regain some control over his Revavroom, and will be able to fight Dokukage more directly now, thanks to Samarra's help. Will Dokukage be able to keep from being overwhelmed by Keahi's Shadow Pokemon, and use his strategies to win? Or will Keahi finally realize that Dokukage isn't some grand strategist, and just gets really, really lucky sometimes? We'll have to see! Remember to review!

KedharS: I guess we'll have to see if he can.

Epifanio Therion: Yup, Keahi may be down a pokemon, but he's also done some serious damage to Dokukage's entire team. Not sure which one has the edge here.

Hyphenman: I'm glad you're starting to appreciate the battles! I've really put a lot of effort into them, and I'm glad they're being recognized!

Tambry96bj: I agree, I don't think it's very good.

Pokemon Academy: Beginning of Beginnings

Chapter 1156

"Muramasa, use night slash," Dokukage ordered.

"Scizor!" Muramasa flapped his wings and shot across the battlefield, raising his pincer and slashing at Papa. The Revavroom zigzagged around the attack, taking Muramasa from behind. She opened her mouth wide and fired a blast of shadow fire at the Scizor's back.

"Sci!" Muramasa easily evaded the flames, much to Keahi's frustration.

Even with the shadow mist clinging to him, that Scizor is too quick to catch, he noted. It must be due to all that speed he gained from Dokukage's Scolipede. But that won't last him forever.

"Papa!" He shouted. "Increase your speed even higher! Shift gear!"

"Revavroom!" Papa roared, shifting into a higher gear and massively boosting her speed, as well as increasing her attack. She drove through the air, heading right for the crimson bug. Shadows leapt up around her wheels and covered her entire body as she drew closer to him.

"Muramasa, use quick attack," Dokukage ordered. An instant before Papa collided with Muramasa, the Scizor disappeared, increasing his speed so much that not even Dokukage's eyes could follow him. He slipped to the side, evading the attack completely, and didn't show back up until he'd put considerable distance between himself and the Revavroom.

Keahi clenched his teeth. "You think it's so easy for you to get away, do you?" He growled.

"Your pokemon is fast. But with quick attack, Muramasa is faster," Dokukage replied, while silently praying that the Revavroom didn't know any priority moves. "Now we make our counterattack. Muramasa, flash cannon."

"Scizor," Muramasa nodded. He raised his pincer and fired a compressed beam of light at the Revavroom, hitting the pokemon in the back wheel. But it didn't even make a scratch.

"Ha! And here I thought you were always prepared!" Keahi cackled. "Your Scizor isn't made for special attacks! Even if Papa isn't very specially defensive, she won't take much from a lighthearted hit like that! I guess ninja planning isn't all it's cracked up to be!"

"What did we discuss about underestimating our foes?" Samarra reminded Keahi. She'd already lost a lot of friends today, she was in no mood to lose another one. "This Dokukage is a proven strategist. Someone as cunning as him is certainly planning something with that flash cannon, it would be foolish to think otherwise."

Damn it! And here I was hoping that Muramasa could at least do SOMETHING with his flash cannon! I guess there's no getting past that Revavroom's Steel resistance. We need to think of something else… but what?! Dokukage was running low on strategies. The only thing he had left was turning this into a slugfest with Muramasa using all of his strength, but given the fact that Muramasa could only use attacking moves while Papa wasn't so hindered, that had the makings of a very bad idea.

But it's not like I have any other ones… He was forced to admit.

"Muramasa, use night slash again," Dokukage ordered. Because of Papa's typing, it was the move that was likely to do the most damage, with the lowest possible drawback.

And it was a move Muramasa could do well.

The Scizor stood where he was and raised his pincer, holding his arm at his waist like a samurai preparing to draw his sword. He took a preparatory stance as the Revavroom charged towards him, body covered in shadows.

"SCIZOR!" The second Papa crossed the threshold where she was in range of Muramasa, the Scizor struck. He stepped forward and swung his pincer, a long blade of darkness extending out of his claw. The blade arced through the sky, swinging right towards the car.

"Revavroom!" Papa cackled, and turned at just the right angle to avoid the slash. She followed the arc of the strike, circling around Muramasa once again, and slammed into the Scizor from behind, sending him flying forward.

"Muramasa!" Dokukage gasped, letting his mask drop momentarily out of worry for his pokemon. But he shouldn't have been concerned. Muramasa flipped through the air before touching down on the ground, relatively uninjured.

"I see, thanks to the boosts to your defense, even if we attack with everything we have, it won't be very effective," Keahi mused. "Well, we'll have to see what we can do about that! Papa, use shadow down to cripple that pesky Scizor!"

"Revavroom!" Papa roared, releasing a cloud of smoke that rolled across the battlefield. Due to the dark mist that clung to Muramasa already, he couldn't evade the attack, and winced as he felt his polished scales begin to dull.

"With shadow down, your pokemon's defense will sharply drop," Keahi said. "And that means Papa's next attack is going to do a lot more damage!"

"Scizor…" Muramasa panted, glaring defiantly at the hovering car.

Dokukage said nothing, staring patiently at Keahi. Keahi was about to give the order for Papa to attack, but he hesitated.

That stance his Scizor is making… I recognize it. That's right! It's preparing to use counter again! And after the defense drop, the counter attack will be even more powerful! That's not good. Can I afford to risk Papa taking so much damage? If I lose the ability to taunt Dokukage's pokemon then it might be all over for me…

Keahi found himself in a tough spot. He could try and wait for the shadow sky to wear Muramasa down naturally, but who knew how long that would take? He'd have to make a different avenue of attack if he wanted to prioritize caution.

"Papa, use shadow fire!" He ordered. Even if Papa didn't have nearly as much special attack as she did physical, it was still better than being on the receiving end of a painful counter.

Dokukage was stunned. That actually worked?!

Muramasa wasn't planning to use counter at all. In fact, he'd been preparing to use an entirely different attack, and had taken up that stance in the hopes that he could fool the Revavroom into backing off for a moment and giving him room to breathe.

"Scizor!" Muramasa leapt to the side, evading the blast of shadow fire. As he did, he swung his claw out, and it was glowing with a rainbow light. As he drew an arc in the sky, a long blade shot out of rainbow, headed right for the Revavroom.

"Vroom?!" Papa gasped in surprise, slamming on the brakes. But even with her speed, she couldn't get out of the way of the attack in time, and took the psycho cut head-on.

The attack was a critical hit, striking Papa right on the axel. She spun out and crashed into the grass, spitting out shadows and exhaust as she tried to right herself.

"Damn it!" Keahi cursed. He couldn't believe he'd been made a fool of so easily!

"Nicely done!" Dokukage shouted. "Now finish her off! Close combat!"

"Scizor!" Muramasa shot across the field at incredible speed, raising his pincer high. He unleashed a barrage of carefully-executed strikes that hit the Revavroom in multiple places, denting her shiny body and pushing her backwards.

Dokukage didn't like relying on close combat. The drawback of lowering his pokemon's stats meant that using it came with serious risk. It was an attack of last resort, when a pokemon absolutely needed to go down. And that was precisely the situation he found himself in. If they didn't deal with Papa now, the Revavroom would only make things worse.

Keahi didn't need harmonia to tell him that Papa wouldn't be able to last much longer. But before his Revavroom went down, it was essential that he give one final show of defiance.

"Papa, use shadow end!" He ordered.

"REVAVROOM!" Papa built up a massive charge of shadows in her body as Muramasa assaulted her. Dokukage realized what was happening, and called out to Muramasa to get back. The Scizor leapt back just as Papa released the energy she'd stored up, catching him just at the edge of the blast.

Muramasa was flung through the air, crashing down hard in the grass. But at least he was still ready to fight. The same couldn't be said for his foe, who was smoking like a car that had been hit by a firebomb, wheels spinning helplessly as her tongue flopped out over the ground.

"Return," Keahi said, showing little regard for his fallen pokemon. He had more important things to deal with, like the fact that Muramasa was would be released from the taunt soon, and thus would only get more problematic to deal with. Luckily, he still had a few cards he could play.

"Kaho, go," he ordered, sending out his Doublade again. The sleepiness induced by Kagerou's yawn attack had worn off, and the two swords were ready to fight again.

"As I expected," Dokukage said, narrowing his eyes. "Muramasa, iron defense."

"Scizor," Muramasa nodded, recovering some of his lost defense by hardening his scales once again. Now that Papa wasn't here, he was free to use all the status boosts he liked.

"Of course you'd go back to boosting your stats the second you had the opportunity," Keahi smirked. "But it won't make a difference. Did you forget? Kaho is another pokemon I've been preparing to finish you off with. And now I'll show you our secret weapon! Sacred sword!"

"Doublade!" Kaho flew through the shadowy sky, circling around Muramasa at high speed. They turned their blades towards him and shot down, stabbing him in the sides.

"SCIZOR!" Muramasa roared with pain. Dokukage was stunned. Even with how high the attack of that Doublade was, Muramasa still had a decently high defense buff from all the iron defenses he'd used. And that Doublade hadn't even used swords dance! So how could that attack have-

"I can't see your face because of that mask, but I bet I've finally gotten you to start panicking, isn't that right?" Keahi smirked. "'Why did that attack do so much damage when I just finished boosting Muramasa's defense?' Well, there's a simple reason for that. The fact is, sacred sword is a special type of attack. It's a sword strike that deals damage to the opponent while ignoring any boosts to your defense! And with No Guard preventing you from dodging as well, it's the perfect blade to strike through that strategy of yours, Dokukage!"

Dokukage scowled behind his mask. This wasn't good at all.

Kaho's two swords pulled back from Muramasa and began to circle again. The Scizor fell down to one knee, trying desperately to keep going, but he was in bad shape.

"By all means, switch back to your Accelgor and try to put us asleep again," Keahi said. "But I think you know how weak that bug must be right now. Do you really think he'll be able to take another hit from Kaho? You overplayed your hand, ninja boy, and used pokemon you should have been saving at the wrong times. You KNEW that Kaho was a threat to your strategy, and yet you still let your best counters to them, your Masquerain and Accelgor, get badly injured unnecessarily. I thought switching to the appropriate pokemon was part of a ninja's strategy? Or have you just been bluffing this entire time, and you're actually just some loser?"

Keahi's words hit closer to home than he knew, and they stung. But Dokukage wasn't some blind fool who cared more about pride than good sense. At his core he was a cautious person, and he knew better than to try to prove some higher moral point, especially in a match like this.

"Muramasa, baton pass," he ordered. While Muramasa's night slash might have been perfect for taking down the Doublade, he didn't have the strength for it right now. And Dokukage still had other pokemon he could rely on, he wasn't backed into a corner by any means.

"Higurashi, come back out," Dokukage said, sending out his Ninjask.

"Ninjask!" The cicada buzzed, fluttering through the air. Of all Dokukage's pokemon, Higurashi had fought the least in this battle, and was in the best condition by far.

"Well, I can't say that's the pokemon I expected you to use," Keahi said, a little surprised. "But then, I guess you don't have much else, do you? And a four-times resistance to sacred sword is better than nothing, I suppose."

"Higurashi has other advantages," Dokukage said. "Use swords dance!"

"Ninjask!" Higurashi fluttered through the sky at top speed, sharpening his claws to maximize his attack. Honestly, Keahi was surprised it could even go much higher at this point. Not that it would make a difference. Ninjask were only good at one thing, after all, and that was speed. Certainly, their next highest stat WAS their attack stat, but at only 90 it wouldn't do much against his Doublade's massive defenses.

Especially not when he played his next trick.

"Ninjask!" Higurashi flew towards the Doublade with his claw raised, dark energy surging through it in a powerful night slash.

"How predictable! Don't you have anything new?" Keahi cackled. "This is the ingenuity of a ninja? Reflect!"

"Doublade!" Kaho crossed their swords, creating a silver barrier of light around them. Higurashi's claw struck the center of the barrier and caused it to crack, but that was all. He just couldn't smash through it.

"Now use shadow break!" Keahi ordered. The two swords swung at Higurashi, slashing at him from both sides.

"Substitute," Dokukage ordered, relying on an old classic to get his pokemon out of a tough situation. A log took Higurashi's place and was sliced into pieces, and the Ninjask reappeared a few feet away, closer to the ground.

"You can't keep doing that forever!" Keahi shouted as his Doublade turned their swords back towards Higurashi and shot towards him again.

"Double team," Dokukage ordered. The ground was covered with countless bugs in seconds.

But Keahi just kept laughing.

"Are you that much of a fool? Did you really forget all about No Guard?" At this point, Keahi was convinced that Dokukage was all talk. "A 'great shinobi', you're just a loser who talks a big game, but you're really just lucky, isn't that right?" Sure, Dokukage had gotten in some good hits, and it seemed like he had everything planned out. But the more Keahi thought about it, the more he was starting to realize that maybe, just maybe, it was a load of BS. Maybe all this time Dokukage had just been pretending like his pokemon's actions were part of some big plan.

That was easier to believe than the thought that he'd been outsmarted by a guy dressed like a period movie extra.

Samarra urged Keahi to reconsider his thinking, but the more she analyzed his thought process the more she had to acknowledge the possibility. It didn't seem wise for Dokukage to use a move like double team, after all, not when Kaho was carving through all the duplicates at incredible speed.

Soon enough, there was only one Ninjask left. As the two swords collided in a pincer attack, Keahi was certain that would be the end.

But they passed right through the copy, and crashed right into each other.

"No way!" Keahi exclaimed in disbelief. "Where did your Ninjask go?!"

This wasn't like substitute, there was no log in sight. The Ninjask simply wasn't there.

"Higurashi hid himself with ninjutsu," Dokukage declared, narrowing his eyes. "You got cocky, Keahi. You thought I was all talk. But you failed to grasp the true essence of a ninja, which is hiding within the shadows. Did you think this sky could only benefit you?"

"Impossible!" Keahi sputtered. Shadow sky, working to the benefit of a non-Shadow Pokemon? He scanned the dark clouds desperately, looking for some trace of the Ninjask hiding among them. But Higurashi was nowhere to be seen.

"You'll never find him," Dokukage promised, narrowing his eyes. "He's waiting to strike when you'd least expect it."

Keahi was sick and tired of being made a fool of. "In that case," he seethed, "we'll tear the sky down itself! Kaho, use shadow storm!"

"Doublade!" Kaho's two swords began to circle each other, turning the wind and forming a massive tornado of darkness. The shadowy clouds were sucked in, clearing the sky as a massive black cyclone ripped loudly in the air.

As the shadows receded, Keahi scanned the sunny skies for Higurashi. But he couldn't see the blasted bug! And when Kaho let the storm go, it sailed harmlessly away, with no target.

What was going on here!?

"Blast it!" Keahi spat. The fucking Ninjask was nowhere, there wasn't a single bug in the-

He gasped, and his eyes shot down.

There was no Ninjask in the sky, but… the ground…

"There you are…" he seethed, glaring at the tiny hole in the grass.

Fuck, he found it, Dokukage winced. Oh well. It didn't matter that much.

"So that was your game," Keahi growled. "You weren't using double team in order to evade our attacks. You did it so you could cover the ground with all those pesky afterimages, so we wouldn't see the real Ninjask digging an escape tunnel!

"Correct," Dokukage nodded. "The true art of a shinobi is in misdirection. So while the copies were all acting as a distraction, I had Higurashi did the way I knew he would. You forget, Keahi, Ninjask start out as Nincada, a Bug/Ground type pokemon. If there's one thing they know, it's how to burrow. I counted on the fact that you'd expect a fast flyer like Higurashi to be up above, and never even consider the possibility that he would forego his speed to dig underground. And with the shadows in the sky making it so hard to see, I knew you'd never be able to spot the tunnel in that fog."

This wasn't a bluff, or playing off some bullshit luck as actually having been planned. It was a carefully thought-out plan that Dokukage developed on the fly, using his knowledge of Higurashi and his natural abilities.

His sister would be proud.

"But we still found you out," Keahi stated. "And now that we know where your Ninjask is, we'll be able to take it down!"

Dokukage shook his head. That wasn't the only misdirection he'd prepared, after all. "You might think you can," he said, "but the truth is, you and your Doublade have fallen into my trap. And now we'll destroy you with our trump card."

Whoa! It looks like Dokukage can really be a badass when he takes the time to calm down and think up a plan! No bullshitting, no bluffing, he actually came up with a pretty good strategy! And not only that, he's seized the upper hand in his fight with Keahi by taking out two of his pokemon now! And apparently he's got some secret trump card prepared as well? Does Keahi have any chance at all?