Glossary:

Ratta = raticate

Pigeon = pidgeotto

Chapter 6

Though I know nothing has changed

The training arena was one of the few places I had never been, even after more than two months in the base. The rest of the place I knew just as well as anyone could—but the training arena and the laboratories, aside from the command room Sakaki had shown me, were a mystery. I had meant it that way. For a long time I just wanted to focus on catching up; it let me forget, for just a little while, what my circumstances were. Just being focussed enough did that—if I focussed hard enough to get rid of the reminders. Being in that particular wing would have been a worse one.

It was different now, though. Sakaki and Ishii had given me clearance, and that meant they had faith in my ability to cope, and their faith gave me confidence. If they believed it, I'd just have to live up to it, right?

That still didn't stop me from feeling nervous as I approached the training room's doors. Despite all the facts and figures I'd learned about pokémon, I actually have very little idea about what to expect. That they were wild seemed a given, but what sort of wildness? In the end I could only shake my head, sigh, and shove open the door.

Lounging against the short wall dividing the seats from the arena was Ichigo, and I stopped, blinking. Was I in the right place? Ichigo looked down and waved, then beckoned, calling, "You're late."

"Ichigo?" The confused word was already out before, abruptly, I remembered—Ichigo was a trainer. A grin spread over my face. "You're the one who's going to be giving me orientation."

He spread his hands, wearing that rueful, mocking smirk. "Whyever would they want to inflict you on anyone else? I'm already doomed; may as well go the whole way!"

I laughed and let the door close behind me, moving to the centre of the arena and shooting back, "Maybe you'll be lucky and succeed where everyone else has failed."

His smirk widened. It always did, when I joked back. I was starting to think he'd just been testing me, way back when, and I'd seen him only sporadically since he was released from hospital. Maybe it was me starting to feel more comfortable in my uniform, but I got the feeling I was starting to pass his 'tests'.

"Get your ass over here and I might have the time to try, then." He gestured me closer and pulled a pokéball from his belt. Most agents wore them, even admins like Yuudai, but in time I'd actually stopped noticing them. It was more noticeable whenever I saw someone with a gun—the buying of them was so regulated by the government that not every agent could even get one.

"This pokémon's newly caught," Ichigo told me, tossing the 'ball further into the centre of the arena. It was a basic pokéball, I saw; that meant the pokémon was relatively weak at the time of catching. You could usually estimate the strength of a pokémon by the kind of 'ball it had and how weathered the 'ball was. "But completely untrained."

Then I actually realised what he was doing and tensed as the pokémon materialised in a flash of red light, because if it was untrained it was sure to attack us, right? Why wasn't Ichigo releasing another pokémon as protection?

Only it didn't attack us at all. It was a raticate, brown-furred and with a sturdy, compact body unlike mundane rats, its hind legs more powerfully built than usual for its kind to let it rise on two legs with ease. And it just stood there, hunched over and ears twisting this way and that, nose working as it scented the air. It did turn toward us, but then it just waited, gaze fixed on us and somehow blank. This was one of the pokémon I was so afraid of?

It'snotadragon, I reminded myself. It was the dragons I had to watch out for. This was just a … well, just a rat in comparison.

Ichigo pushed off the wall and strolled toward it, and belatedly I followed. "Not gonna assume you don't know all the stats and attacks about ratta," he said cheerfully. "Although if you don't, I warn you: I am going to hold it over Anderson right into next year."

"And she's going to hold it against me right up until I become the Boss," I said deadpan in response, eyeing the raticate. It still wasn't moving. If I didn't know any better I might have thought it was cringing. Ichigo snickered, clapping me on the shoulder.

"You know the solution to that, right? Anyhow, you know all about ratta. I, mere grunt that I am, am just here to teach you how to train it." His grin widened and he held out a set of keys, dangling by their ring, his head jerking toward the door opposite the entrance. "And you, mere student that you are, get to be my slave. Training gear's in the room out back; what we want is the basket of large balls."

"Certainly, oh great one." With a roll of my eyes I grabbed the keys. At least he didn't actually try to snatch them away at the last moment, even though I was half expecting it. I jogged for the training door, brow furrowed as I sorted through the keys to find the one he'd been holding them by. That was the one that opened the door, right?

If I'd been wrong, I wouldn't have been surprised. Fortunately, Ichigo was likely to have gotten the same lecture as everyone else about pranking, and he chose to give me a break. The training-gear storage room was dark and not musty at all, surprisingly; actually, it smelled like oil and polish. I didn't know what half the equipment was for on first sight, though—for all I knew it could have been a torture chamber.

After a quick glance around I spotted the basket of foot-long rubber balls and hauled it out, huffing a bit at its unexpected weight. Ichigo rose from his crouch in front of the pokémon.

"This should be easy for you," he said. "All the balls take is a lot of patience and repetition. Now." He pointed at the raticate. "Take a look at it and tell me what conclusions you come to."

I lifted an eyebrow as I set down the basket. "You know, even Anderson gives me more specific orders than that."

"Anderson has no concept of the 'learning by mistakes' method," he said with another smirk. I just shook my head and turned to the pokémon, studying it for a moment. It stared blankly back at me.

"It's not wild," I said without thinking, because that really was the first thing I had noticed. Then I shook my head and crouched to look closer, to use my hands. That's what Ichigo had been doing when I first came out: seeing what condition the pokémon was in. The only problem was, he had a baseline and I didn't.

Still, it was worth examining. The raticate went still under my touch and I ran my fingers through its fur, stiff and coarse. It was shiny, though, I noted. Coarse to the touch but sleek against its body, and the skin under it felt faintly elastic.

"It's young," I murmured, again without thinking, because it was. It had to be. This wasn't something Anderson had covered, but I still knew.

"Why?"

"Because its skin is still tight and elastic; it's not sagging like it would on an older pokémon. Its fur is thick, not patching. And it's bigger than average, but …" I craned my head down, using a finger under its chin to lift the raticate's face up. It didn't resist. "Its teeth aren't as long as they would be if it was a full adult. Not as badly stained, either. They grow faster when they're younger, so the enamel gets replaced more quickly."

I smoothed out its whiskers and its—his, I saw with another duck of my head—nose twitched. "His whiskers and nose aren't dulled and his tail's sleek. And I can't feel any scars under his fur."

"Could've just been lucky," Ichigo pointed out, but I shook my head.

"Not on top of everything else, and not at this size. He's, what, two or three years old? Ratta mature fast and live to be around twenty, don't they? He's young. Nearly an adult, but not quite. Big and powerful—" I could feel the latter in the quiver of the pokémon's muscles under my hands; more bulky than sinewy "—he can get food more easily than the others with his size, so he was relatively high in the pecking order of his family group. And he got a lot of it, too. Food, I mean. He's not starved."

"What, you think we starve our pokémon?" Ichigo's voice sounded strange; like he was trying to sound amused and not quite managing it. I rolled my eyes in his direction.

"His skin fits him too well. If he'd been starved before he was caught he wouldn't have filled out nearly so nicely, and not with muscle-fat ratio so clearly in favour of the former. So." I patted the raticate on the head and pushed myself to my feet, absently brushing my hands off each other. "How'd I do?"

Ichigo was shaking his head with a strange, only half-cocky smile on his face. "And they say your memories are gone. I'm going to win my bet with Anderson for sure."

I couldn't tell if the statement was a compliment or not, and it simultaneously made my gut clench and fill with warmth. It wasn't the first time I'd just known something without knowing how, but never like this. It felt like déjà vu, so crystal clear that it didn't matter what pokémon Ichigo had pulled off his belt: I'd still have been able to answer. I knew it, the same way I knew … well, the same way I knew my martial forms, I suppose. It was too ingrained for me to have forgotten—I just needed the right impetus.

"If you were betting on how long it would take me to learn what you have to teach me," I said, forcing a jovial note into my tone, "you can tell her she needs to work on her student-teacher manner before she's going to win that one."

He grinned. "That might ruin the fun. Catch." My hands instinctively shot up to catch the ball he lobbed at me, but I didn't manage it before it bounced off my chest. "Balls are versatile, but usually what they have to teach are about control. Finesse. Refinement. Want to teach a pokémon to dodge? Start with the balls. Want to teach them how to counter, either in the literal use of the attack or with another? Start with a ball."

"Accuracy, evasion and conditioning," I said with a nod. Made sense.

"Basically," Ichigo agreed. "Unmoving targets are better to start with for accuracy, though. Balls are for precision."

He grinned again and threw another ball at my face; this time I managed to catch it with some juggling. It was hard to catch balls that size when I was already holding one.

"So go ahead. Throw one of those balls at 'im."

I raised my eyebrow. "Here I thought I was meant to be an observer."

"What, you're actually complaining I'm not making you stand on the edge and just watch?" His tone was innocence personified.

"No." I grinned and then glanced sidelong at the raticate. He remained unmoved, staring into space. "Will he actually dodge? He looks like there's something wrong with him."

"He's just a clean slate," Ichigo said dismissively. "All we're supposed to do is give him some basic training, really. Teach him how to obey commands." His grin widened. "You're the opponent. Throw a ball."

"Doesn't he need an example first?" It seemed unfair to start throwing things at him and expecting him to know instantly what he'd been ordered.

"You're going to make a lousy field agent, 'Taru, just thought you ought to know."

… Oh. Right. Field agents had to obey orders without thinking; there was no room to stop and ask questions while on a mission. Abashed, I tossed the ball lightly at the raticate.

"Left," Ichigo said. The ball bounced off the rat's head and made him start, take few loping steps away on all fours, then and turn toward me, whiskers quivering. "Wait until he stops paying attention, then move around to his left side and throw it again," Ichigo instructed, throwing me another ball. Baffled, I obeyed. "Left."

Again the raticate turned, again Ichigo gave me the same order, and again and again I pelted the rat with the soft rubber balls while Ichigo tossed them to me from the sidelines. Before a half-hour had passed I was looking at the other man sidelong, half certain the man was having me on somehow. If Ichigo hadn't already shown he could focus on the training and leave aside the jokes, I would have been more than half, but he had. And although it felt oddly cathartic to be pelting a member of the species that had so completely screwed me over, a part of me started to feel a bit bad for the raticate too.

But there were changes—the raticate started anticipating the balls coming from the left, and a few times managed to dodge. But Ichigo kept doing the same thing, over and over, even when the pokémon succeeded. Surely once it had learned to dodge the lesson had been learned?

Then things changed. "Go to his right," Ichigo instructed even while I started taking steps to the left. "And don't toss the ball until I've given you a signal." I obeyed, holding back the ball until he said "Left," and signalled me.

The rat, at the sound of Ichigo's voice, took a hopping step and turned to the left. It never saw the ball coming from the opposite side, but finally I got it, and grimaced. That was so obvious; why had it taken me so long to catch on?

"Do they all learn so quickly?" I asked, moving around to the raticate's right this time, still with a ball in hand. Ichigo snorted.

"He'll have forgotten by tomorrow. It'll have sunk in by the end of the week, though. These simple verbal commands are easy—all it takes is repetition. Right."

The rat failed to dodge, but after the past half-hour I knew it was only a matter of time. And it was—half an hour later, the raticate knew 'right'. And another half-hour after that, he knew 'behind' too. He also knew the ball was an enemy, and regardless of the direction managed to dodge more often than not—not that we were really trying, but even so. My arm was probably in worse condition than his head.

"What other basics does it need to learn?" I asked along the way, when I switched arms the third or fourth time to give the other a rest. Turned out I was ambidextrous. Useful, that. "Attack names, but what else?"

"Some other verbal commands," was the answer. "Attack, defend, dodge, forward, hold. Those are the harder ones. 'Dodge', 'forward' and 'hold' we can do, but the other two we'll need to teach it some attack commands first."

That's almost all we did that first day. Left, right, behind, dodge, hold, over and over until I was more exhausted than the raticate was. He had already started to forget the first commands by the time we got to them again, but he only took one or two bops with the ball before he picked them up again.

I barely looked at the clock. Ichigo's commands had started coming faster and faster, and with the man's grin I was half-convinced it was mostly for my benefit. By the time Ichigo called out "Lesson end" it took a few moments for the words to sink in and I was panting, my arms aching.

At least the raticate was too. He'd taken a little while to respond to the staggered timing of the commands, but he had. Ichigo was the only one who wasn't tired, the bastard. "And that," he announced, "is how you start off training a pokémon."

"I hate you worse than Anderson," I grumbled, not even half seriously.

"You'll hate me worse tomorrow," he said cheerfully, returning the raticate and nudging the basket with his foot. "Now, it's your responsibility to return this, and then I'll show you where the pokémon in training go when lessons are over. Then, tomorrow, you'll be doing all this yourself."

"Yes, Teacher, Sir," I said with a mocking bow, and turned my back on the sound of his laughter to do so, rolling my eyes. And yet, as tired as I felt, I also felt … good. Accomplished. Granted, I hadn't cottoned on to what Ichigo was doing until he all but told me, but I'd known things without being told too. And I'd survived the lesson without breaking down or being attacked or … whatever I'd been afraid of when I'd been hesitant to confront pokémon. This was easy. It was basic, so far—but oh, it was easy. I wasn't worried about tomorrow. Possibly Ichigo was even speeding things up for my sake—or at least to see how I'd react, before he bumped me down again if necessary.

After all those private lessons with Anderson, easy was nice.

"I hear you had a good lesson." Yuudai slid into the seat beside me, his tray clicking on the table.

"Ichigo told you that?" I asked incredulously, looking down at rest of my rice and trying to decide if it was worth the ache in my arms to try and finish it.

"Well, he said he had a good lesson. That probably means he had loads of fun bossing you around," Yuudai said with a grin.

"I threw rubber balls at a ratta all afternoon." It sounded like I was complaining, but the fact I was trying to repress a grin myself probably ruined that.

"And how does that make you feel?" Yuudai asked in the sort of tone Ishii would have used had he been the one asking and trying to pry out my deepest emotional problems.

I snorted, then let the grin break through. "Fantastic."

"Left. Left. Behind. Dodge. Dodge forward. Right. Left. Hold."

I followed the raticate around the arena, occasionally tossing a ball at it and occasionally holding it back, my tone even as I spoke the commands. On the 'hold' command I tossed it, watching the pokémon closely in anticipation. Last time I'd used the 'hold' command the raticate had—

There! Done that! He attacked the ball right back before it could hit him on the head, his teeth flashing. The ball squeaked and rebounded in Ichigo's direction, so I left it for the agent to get.

"Right," I said as evenly as I could, just before Ichigo tossed the ball, but it was hard when I wanted to grin. I'd spent the last three days wondering just how we were going to teach the raticate attack names when we couldn't actually tell it what to attack with yet. No wonder 'hold' was one of the first things they were taught.

"Judging by that cat-canary face I'm guessing you figured out the next step," Ichigo said cheerfully as the raticate dodged his ball. I caught it and threw him a half-sheepish, half-exasperated look. It must have turned out more eager than I thought, because he laughed.

"When do we start the next step?" I asked, and added absently, "behind." The raticate didn't instantly respond, so I sharpened my voice and motioned at Ichigo to pinpoint the command with two balls instead of the one. "Behind."

The raticate dodged.

"Soon as they start fighting back, usually. We're not replacing one training with another—just adding onto it." He smirked. "Hope you're ready, because these sessions are going to get long."

"No wonder you people spend all your time in the training room," I grumbled. All this repetition took its time, and if one afternoon was for the six basic commands, well … "How do we get him to distinguish between the 'attack' command and the attack name?" He was already defending—just defending with a technique. I just couldn't figure out how we were meant to translate 'attack' when all he'd done so far was wait for the balls to come to him.

"Later. Toss the ball already."

"Hold." I tossed the ball. The raticate's teeth seemed shrouded as he snapped them at the ball, and even though I could see Ichigo's mouth opening to name the attack it felt perfectly natural to say, "Bite."

The ball slid out from under the raticate's teeth and went bouncing across the floor, ash-like marks left where the raticate had hit, but Ichigo didn't move, so I retrieved it myself. "And how," he asked as I came back, "the hell did you know that was Bite?"

"I don't know," I said. Except that I did. It was in the raticate's jaw-speed—for a raticate, nearly everything was jaw-speed and –strength and the angle of application. A raticate's Super Fang could easily crush a small rock—or a pokéball. It was a technique they used to crush bones and cripple opponents. Hyper Fang could tear flesh off the bone. I'd read that in one of my stats books.

But I knew that that had been Bite, and not the myriad of other jaw-related attacks raticate used, because the attack had been quick and snapping, meant for stunning with pain, and had pushed Dark energy into the fangs. Something like Super Fang was intended for power—to crush, hold on, and never let go. It was slower and the angle of the lower fangs compared to the longer upper ones was completely different. Crunch was more like that too, with the added bonus of using Dark energy, but it was also meant to be more of a death blow than a crippling blow. And with Hyper Fang the angle was different again, meant to strip flesh, almost more a series of lightning-quick gnaws than a bite.

I'd been able to call the raticate's age and health before capture almost perfectly; I looked it up in the database after the first training session, just to confirm. Sure, that sort of thing came easily with experience, but if you knew basic physiological facts, a well-informed trainer could have come to the same conclusions. It made my performance that first day less unnerving, because I could have easily just happened to study it.

But not this. They didn't write books on the fine nuances of biting techniques for raticate. This was something that came with experience. And part of me didn't want Ichigo to know I was remembering it. There were some things, some terrible things I'd done, that I didn't want to remember at all. What if this was just the beginning?

"You're a fucking terrible liar, Wataru," Ichigo said bluntly and without the hint of a joke in the least. I winced. "You know exactly why that was Bite and not something else."

"I don't remember how or where I learned it, though," I offered.

Ichigo snorted. "This sort of thing you just pick up over time and never remember exactly where you first started noticing it. Well, fine." He pointed at the raticate. "Since you apparently already know half the shit I'm supposed to teach you, show me."

So I did. We ran over the commands again. Over and over. Most of the time we used the 'hold' command the raticate used Bite, but several times he used Hyper Fang and once he used Crunch. And I knew the difference.

Every time.

"Right. Behind. Left. Behind. Dodge. Behind. Right …"

The training-room door opened and closed quietly. I spared it a glance and looked away before registering that someone had actually come in, and hesitated. It was our eighth day training the raticate, and I'd never seen anyone in the room aside from us.

It was Ichigo's finger-snap that got my attention; I pulled my mind together and tossed the ball at the raticate, ignoring the trio that gathered at the wall. "Defend with Bite."

The commands came before the raticate had the chance to respond on his own. We'd started combining technique names with the 'defend' command yesterday; he was still getting used to it. He responded perfectly well to the 'Bite' command, but if a ball was lobbed at him without the 'hold' command' he had as much chance of dodging as actually defending.

It was only a matter of time. That was one thing I'd learned: it was always only a matter of time. But I'd also learned one or two other things, too. Like the fact that he responded better to a sharp, authoritative order than a calm one. It wasn't a matter of fear—he responded to the urgency. If I was too calm about it he didn't react as quickly.

I managed to ignore the newcomers up until Ichigo called out, "Session end," and by the time he did Raticate had started to pick up 'defend' on his own more times than not. It didn't prove anything—yet. He needed to be able to remember it long-term, and that would take a little while longer yet.

So I wasn't quite expecting Ichigo's next suggestion.

"Right. I think it's time for a battle, then," Ichigo said briskly, and I paused in the motion of lifting Raticate's pokéball.

"I beg your pardon?" I asked incredulously. He just waved a hand.

"You're pardoned."

"Ichigo!"

"What? I mean it. He knows all the basic commands, and even if he doesn't defend without an accompanying attack order, he doesn't need to. It's about time we took a look at how far your training will hold up under pressure and how much further it has to go."

… It made sense. I just wished he hadn't chosen to spring this on me while there were others watching. What the hell were they doing, anyway? If they wanted to use the room, it wasn't like they couldn't see it was already in use. Ichigo has explained early on that we didn't train multiple pokémon in the same room—not unless they were being tag-trained. Otherwise it risked the sessions crossing by accident.

No, I realised with a sinking feeling. They were here to watch me. What I couldn't figure out is if Ichigo was doing this now to make me look good, or show me up.

I had a bad feeling it might be the latter. This was Ichigo, after all. He was a friend, not a saint.

The training-room arena was small, but I'd taken a quick look around the other rooms at disposal. This was for the low-level pokémon—the ones without the truly terrain-affecting attacks. We took our places on each side. It wasn't going to be a true battle; not really. Raticate was probably going to be reduced to constantly defending. That wasn't the point.

There was still a part of me that chafed at the one-sidedness.

The pokémon Ichigo released was a persian. Well, alright. So at least we were both even when it came to using special attacks, assuming he hadn't taught the cat something like Thunderbolt … which he probably had. How was Raticate meant to defend against something like that?

… Well, he wasn't, I guess. That was what the plain old 'dodge' command was for.

"Now then," Ichigo said calmly, but I didn't think I was missing the glitter of excitement in his eyes. Of course; who wouldn't enjoy showing me up? Only a handful of agents hadn't wanted to or hadn't tried, and Ichigo hadn't been in either category. "Use Fury Swipes."

Almost too fast to see, the persian bounced. It felt like I barely had time to shout, "Defend with Tail Whip and dodge!"

I panicked at the command a moment later; I hadn't been thinking. Was that too complicated? That was too complicated—two totally different commands at once, we'd never done that before. What if Raticate didn't know how to—

The rat's tail flashed out and Persian instinctively shifted its focus from rat to the sudden movement apparently striking it from the side. It gave Raticate the chance to dart away from the cat's sharp claws and wheel back around, teeth bared. I exhaled, my heart already pounding. Never underestimate the value of instinct; I had to know that better than anyone. Pokémon were wild beings, and wild beings couldn't help but react to sudden movement.

"Scratch," Ichigo called, and I countered with "Bite!" The persian's paw shot out, and then was yanked back in quick succession before Raticate's snapping jaws could close on it.

"Attack with Hyper Fang," I ordered, and caught Ichigo nodding out of the corner of my eye. 'Attack' wasn't a command Raticate knew—but Hyper Fang was. And Persian wasn't a ball; it was a real, tangible threat right there in front of him. He had no reason to wait and see if the cat would come to him.

Raticate lunged and Persian darted to the side, but not before the rat's long teeth scraped a furrow in his side. Hissing, Persian pounced, accompanied by Ichigo's command of "Fury Swipes!"

I already had a counter, and there was fierce victory in my voice when I spoke. This was easy—as easy as reading Raticate had been on my first day. "Dodge forward and Hyper Fang!"

Ichigo winced. Raticate dodged forward—right under the airborne persian. And then used Hyper Fang. On its underside.

I wasn't anticipating the scream of pain a cat could make. I wasn't anticipating it at all. It made my heart leap to my throat and then start pounding somewhere down in my twisted stomach. The sharp copper scent of blood made me feel sick to my gut, and for a moment I had a fleeting sense of déjà vu so sharp that I forgot just where I was, whether I was actually there or somewhere else in the cement corridors—

"Quick Attack!"

I blinked and saw the arena in front of me again, Raticate with his fur bristling and his teeth stained red, Persian leaving a spray of red droplets in its wake as it flashed across the arena nearly too fast to be seen. Nearly.

"Dodge left. Tackle."

My voice sounded distant; I was actually vaguely surprised to hear it at all. Raticate darted to the side, turned on his heel and then charged the Persian just skidding to turn itself.

"Right!" Ichigo shouted, and the cat just barely managed to dodge, Raticate's shoulder grazing its haunch.

Even that light touch made the cat almost stumble and fall, but then there was a moment of stillness and I was able to actually see its condition. It took a few moments—at first all I could see was the blood staining its underside, but then I saw something long and thin protruding from the ragged wound and realised it was a rib.

Before I knew what I was doing I'd stepped forward, lifted Raticate's pokéball and returned him. "That's enough."

Ichigo raised his eyebrow. "Oi, who's the official trainer here?"

"Give it a rest, Ichigo," I said flatly. "The purpose of the battle was to see if Ratta could respond to commands in action, and he's done it. Persian's hurt and getting weaker all the time. There's no reason to continue with it in this kind of condition, and I'm not going to train you a new cat because you can't take proper care of your own."

Besides, now Raticate had tasted blood. What if it made him go wild? What if he forgot whatever conditioning he'd been given to make him compliant? I didn't want to risk it.

There was a moment of dead silence in which I had time to be faintly amazed at my own tone of voice. I'd never addressed an agent in that tone of voice before—the same sort I'd used on Kitano way back when to find out my exact status.

Then Ichigo started laughing, and if it sounded mildly incredulous I couldn't find it in me to be insulted. Instead, with a faintly forced grin, he obeyed and returned the cat. "Persian's got a lot of levels on your rat. A few broken ribs and an open wound isn't going to put her out of the fight. But, fine. Whatever you say."

I exhaled with a whoosh, and all of a sudden felt weak in the aftermath of adrenaline. "Yes, well, there's not much point in breaking your tools during a test-drive, is there?"

"Guess not." He sounded cheerful, but there was an undercurrent in his voice too. I just wasn't sure what it was. Maybe I was just progressing faster than he'd thought … or maybe it had never fully occurred to him that, one day, I'd be giving orders to him again.

Maybe that day was closer than either of us had imagined.

"Sir."

The agent just coming to the table I had just left stepped aside and saluted with the hand not holding his tray. Aina's gentle prod in my back helped me not to falter, but I still couldn't help but glance behind me after we'd passed the man, half expecting him to be laughing with the buddies he was joining.

He wasn't.

"What happened there?" I asked out loud without meaning to.

"Didn't you notice?" Aina asked with a small smile. "He's the third person to salute you today."

"He is?" I really hadn't noticed, but come to think of it, hadn't someone saluted when I came into the mess hall? I'd just assumed they were directing it at someone else. And before that … it had just been in the corridor, hadn't it? "Huh."

Aina laughed quietly, but it wasn't a disdainful laugh, and I found myself grinning as I scraped the detritus from my lunch into the trash and left the tray on the counter. This was new; the last time someone had saluted me it had been Aina herself.

"Are you coming in this afternoon?" I asked. It came out more uncertainly than I'd intended, but I had a right to that. Today I was going to battle one of the other trainers with Raticate. It was a test for both pokémon, not unlike Ichigo's sudden decision to battle, only now it was several days later and both Raticate and my opponent's pokémon had been trained in all the basics. This would be the first time I had trained Raticate at all for two days; it was a test of the pokémon's retention as much as his ability. Wining wasn't really an issue.

I still intended to win. I didn't know if Ichigo had been holding back on me or not, but pokémon were meant for battling. Last time, I'd cut the battle off early. Last time I'd been unnerved. That wasn't going to happen this time. Of course it was brutal; I was just going to have to get over that.

"Of course." Aina set her tray on top of mine. "I have a few minor duties to finish, but I'll be at the arena. You have to go over right away, though, don't you?"

I nodded. "I have a few hours to train Pigeon." I hadn't trained Raticate, but that didn't mean I hadn't had to start on another pokémon. This time, Ichigo had let me have control from the very beginning, right from the paperwork to say Raticate was ready for testing and signing out a newly caught pokémon to replace him. In-between, Ichigo had started to show me some of the other training equipment with his own pokémon; most of the equipment was actually for trainers to further refine their pokémon's skills and not in the least bit relevant to my work given I had no pokémon of my own.

I waved goodbye to Aina and headed for the training-room to give Pidgeotto a few hours of my time. The bird was picking things up at roughly the same rate as Raticate—it was the third day, but I was already running through the 'hold' command and she was beginning to attack back.

Three hours later I headed for the main arena. This was where the real battles were done, and it was where newly-trained pokémon were tested. Apparently it was something of an occasion. I was just glad I'd actually known this before I was meant to show up, and then wound up faced with an audience.

As it was, when I entered the arena by the trainer's entrance there were already people on the balcony, but I ignored them in favour of seeing if my opponent was already there. She was; a trainer I'd seen around once or twice, but never close enough to actually be introduced to. She just gave me a short nod of acknowledgement. A side-glance showed that Ichigo was already there too, yawning and leaning against the wall below the balcony.

Officially, the battle could begin anytime the trainers and a judge were present, and my opponent was apparently eager to begin, because she made for her side of the arena. Automatically I glanced back up at the balcony, half to see if Aina or Yuudai were already there. I didn't expect for my gaze to catch on a black suit and slicked-back hair, and my heart pounded at the sight of Sakaki.

Of course he would be there too.

I turned back to the arena, took a deep breath, and took my place. I was not going to let this rattle me. It just meant it was even more important for me to win—more important to prove the battle wouldn't unnerve me like it had last time.

The distant, overhead chatter of agents faded once it became clear we were about to begin. I faced my opponent and breathed out slowly, my limbs already tingling with adrenaline. Ichigo pushed off the wall and ambled to the side of the arena, glancing first at my opponent, then at me. I gave him a short nod.

He lifted his hand. "Begin."

"Congratulations." Aina squeezed my hand and then released it quickly and rather sheepishly. If she weren't Aina she have been beaming, just like Yuudai was; the man had clapped me over the shoulder.

"Thank you." Aina wasn't the only one wearing a grin, I had to admit. I hadn't been able to stop the silly little smile all the way down to the medical ward, where I'd handed Raticate over to be healed. He was out of my hands now—Ichigo had pronounced him as having passed, satisfaction in his voice and with one of those mysterious, considering looks at me.

My opponent's pokémon had passed too—an ariados. In a way that was to my benefit; I knew ariados. I wasn't sure why or how, but I knew how to beat them, even with a raticate. I'd tried not to let on, but right now, having won, I couldn't find it in myself to care even if I'd failed.

Abruptly both Aina and Yuudai snapped to attention, and I already knew who was behind me before he even spoke. "Well done, my boy."

I turned, still not trying to get rid of the smile. He looked pleased. That made my smile widen, and I sketched a salute. "Sir."

"Very well done," he repeated, coming forward and patting me on the arm. "At ease, my boy, and congratulations. Agent Tachibana wasn't exaggerating when he said you were picking the training up quickly. Given your background perhaps I shouldn't have been surprised, but I was loath to rush you before you were ready. That was only your second battle, wasn't it?"

"Yes, Sir." It was impossible to hide the pride in my voice, so I didn't try, and Sakaki nodded thoughtfully and gave me another small, satisfied smile.

"Continue, Agent Himura."

He squeezed my arm one last time and then turned and left, and there was no stopping the grin that plastered itself over my face. Agent Himura.

I liked that. I liked that a lot.