The mystery of the crown of Arceus.

Chapter 10- finding the crown

At first, Darkrai didn't want to wear any of the crowns. He'd rather hear one of Raikou's jokes than chant those magic words. What he did, instead, was to rest in a soft bag of flour in a corner of the storage and from there, sitting, he watched reluctantly at Cresselia, Roserade and Smeargle as they wore each if the crowns and, of course, chant the verses.

But not much time passed before he got bored and impatient. He understood that the search would be faster if he helped.

-come on! -he spat- can't you d the thing a bit faster? At this rate we will be here all night!-

Saying this, he hopped from the flour bundle; he picked a crown and placed it in his head, but it was too big and it fell to his eyes.

Then, in what you could barely call a whisper, Darkrai, reluctantly and lowly, chanted the magic words.

Pokémon world

The nucleus…

The universe we long for

Only object of our love

It mortified him to say in high voice those verses. And to make things worse, nothing happened. Anything. No magic. The crown was still dancing in his head like before.

Then, Darkrai, let out a sigh, took off the crown and threw t to the pile of false crowns. He picked up another and tried again.

And things stayed like that all evening until night came. It resulted to be very slow. At midnight, the pile of crowns left was not bigger than the already probed- ones.

Hours later, when the first lights of day were filtering in the high window, Darkrai made a pause in his long search and yawned. He lifted his head to check his companions and what he saw: Smeargle, resting over a box, was sleeping soundly with a crown in his head. Roserade, too, had her eyes closed but she was completely resting on the floor, just in the middle of the crowns that were left for checking.

Cresselia, however, kept searching

So Darkrai took another crown from one of the left. At this time, now they did the work by auto pilot. Pick up crown, place in head, say words and throw away. Pick up crown, place in head, say words and throw away…

Like that, when in effect happened what happened, Darkrai almost missed it.

Pick up crown, place in head, say words…

This time, when Darkrai was taking his hand to his head to take off the crown, he froze. Was he imagining things of this crown just… shrank?

When he just wore it, the crown had rolled until it covered his eyes just as the others. However, this time, when he took his hand to the head to take it off, the crown fit perfectly in his head.

Very slowly, Darkrai took off the crown, placed it in front of his eyes and stared it. So this was all the mater: the crown of Arceus. The thingy- thing, the true one. And he couldn't help letting out a relief sigh. Now he knew that he couldn't be banished to the dark realm. Not only he could prove, beyond any doubt, that he hadn't stole the crown, but he had found out how it had lost… besides tracking it down, or course, until finding it. Ys, Darkrai had left his name free of any suspect. He was about to open his mouth to share his thoughts with Cresselia but he regretted it immediately. Something that began going in circles in his head. His relief had been so big, so strong, that it could block another type of different emotions. Emotions that now began to bloom. Anger, bitterness. And something else. But what was it? Oh, yeah… a wish of revenge.

After all, almost all legendaries had thought that he, Darkrai, had stolen the crown. And now, here he had it, between his own hands. He could do whatever he wanted with it. So, why not follow the current and give the reason to everybody? Why not steal that crown? In fact, he could surely steal it and hide from the eyes of Cresselia, Roserade and Smeargle. He could perfectly go to the public audience and tell Arceus everything about the investigation that had taken place… well, except the part in which h himself had found the crown in the storage. The testimony that until certain point could give the other involved legendaries enough doubts to free Darkrai from any guilt. And however, ja, he would be the depositor of the real crown!

Darkrai hadn't said anything since he made his discovery. And he hadn't torn apart his gaze from the crown.

Now, finally, he lifted his gaze in search of Cresselia and, for his surprise, he encountered with Cresselia's eyes looking at his. In fact, it was as if she was looking through him with the gaze.

And Cresselia knew perfectly what was going on in Darkrai's head.