Author's note: Only managed to finish an update for this, instead of two updates like I had wanted to, but it's something at least. For my readers of "Sign Here", don't worry, I'm working on the second part!

Thanks to the following reviewers: PinkiePieParty122894; leighd1314; Pen-Woman; swordsmanwielder; Kalos

Warnings: Gym battle once again

Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto, Kishimoto owns it. I also don't own Pokémon, that belongs to Satoshi Tajiri and The Pokémon Company.

I hope you'll like this part!

Chapter 22

Kadabra was turning out to be the most tenacious Pokémon they had battled so far. It wasn't as if it had a Type advantage against Mimikyu. In fact, it was actually Mimikyu who had the Type advantage due to this dual Typing being Ghost. In theory, this battle should have been very easy.

Reality was something completely different.

Naruto didn't think that Kadabra was that much more powerful, but his Teleport made it impossible to hit him. Whenever Mimikyu would launch an attack, throwing a Shadow Ball or having Shadow Sneak crawl across the ground ready to rear up, Kadabra would simply Teleport out of view, ensuring that neither attack would ever hit it. That made Mimikyu naturally upset and in his agitated state it became easier for Kadabra to hit him with its own attacks.

Mimikyu wasn't that weak against Psychic attacks, but the barrage of Psyshocks, Psycho Cuts and Psybeams were never ending; the waves of the powerful Psychic attacks even causing cracks to appear in the walls, thin as a spider leg but still visible as the cracks rushed up towards the ceiling. Mimikyu did his best to avoid the attacks, but he would never be one of the fastest Pokémon and some attacks would slip through, hitting him in his chest or flaying his back.

"I suppose there is a limit to everyone's strength," Yamanaka commented casually; a smile dancing across her lips when Kadabra used Teleport once more, appearing behind her and avoiding a Dazzling Gleam.

Naruto pursed his lips together, but didn't react to the taunt. Instead he studied Mimikyu, wondering how much longer the small Pokémon could hold out. Already Mimikyu was moving a lot slower; the stuffed head of his costume dangling uselessly to the side. Naruto worried he wouldn't be able to last much longer, not when the battle was getting drawn out by Kadabra Teleporting constantly. Should he put someone else in? Toxtricity might stand a good chance; his Spark might be quick enough to hit Kadabra before he could disappear.

"Kadabra, why don't we finish this?" Yamanaka said calmly. "Use Psychic."

"Wait, Mimikyu, watch out!" Naruto called out worriedly, but it was too late.

The strong Psychic wave hit Mimikyu full on, sending him crashing into the wall behind Naruto with a choked squeal. Kadabra lowered its arms calmly, floating idly in the air and making no move to Teleport away.

"Mimikyu!" Naruto hurried towards Mimikyu, carefully picking him up and cradling him against his chest. "How are you feeling?!"

"M-Mimi." F-fine.

But he didn't look nor sound fine. His entire body seemed shrivelled up, feeling even smaller than he already was. His eyes appeared dazed and his shadowy tendrils laid limply across Naruto's lap, barely even twitching when Naruto brushed a careful hand across them.

"You did really well," Naruto reassured him and took his Pokéball. "You can rest and Toxtricity will finish this fight for you, okay?"

Out of all his Pokémon, he thought Toxtricity might have the best chance at defeating Kadabra. He still didn't have the Type advantage, but Naruto was starting to suspect that Toxtricity might be higher levelled than he had initially assumed if he could hold his own so well against a Psychic Type. Maybe Toxtricity would even consider this challenge to be a worthy one unlike with Espeon.

"Mimikyu! Mimi, Mimi!" No! I can fight!

Sparks of life instantly flared up in Mimikyu's eyes and he slipped out of Naruto's grasp, slumping onto the floor before he straightened out his body and started shuffling back to the gym floor.

"Oho, quite the tenacious one, hm?" Yamanaka chuckled, clapping her hands in delight. "This is wonderful! Kadabra hasn't had this much fun in ages!"

Kadabra for its part regarded Mimikyu with a completely unreadable look, raising the hand with its spoon in the air.

"Mimikyu, you already proved yourself enough!" Naruto said; his worry increasing when he saw how unsteady Mimikyu walked towards Kadabra. "Come back! It's time to rest!"

When he threw the Pokéball, however, something unexpected happened: it bounced off. To his complete surprise, one of Mimikyu's shadows slid from underneath his costume and whacked the ball away.

"Mimi." No.

"Mimikyu, don't be stubborn!" Naruto warned and hastily snatched the ball from the ground. "You're too hurt! You need to rest!"

"Mimikyu! Mimikyu!" I can fight! I can win!

"Mimikyu, please, just get back into the ball before you get hurt too badly!" Naruto pleaded but the second throw ended with the Pokéball thudding against the ground and a third one sent the ball skidding across the floor.

"My, oh my," Yamanaka smiled, supporting her chin with her right hand and her right elbow with her left hand. "I don't think I have ever seen a Pokémon so determined to win a battle!"

Naruto didn't care about the battle. Mimikyu was already severely hurt by all the Psychic type attacks he had been unable to evade and his gait was much too unsteady for Naruto to feel comfortable having him out in the field any longer. He had already defeated Hypno, there was nothing to be ashamed of if he needed to retreat now! The others wouldn't make fun of him for it!

"Mimikyu, get back in this ball now!" Naruto demanded, raising his voice for the first time.

Mimikyu twitched visibly, but continued to shuffle towards Kadabra, who couldn't look more bored if it tried. Kadabra clearly wasn't scared of Mimikyu, not even with his Type advantage, as he made no move to Teleport away when Mimikyu halted close to him, panting audibly.

"Damn it!" Naruto cursed and marched over to Mimikyu, intending to grab him and switch over to Toxtricity to let him deal with the remainder of the battle. Why did Mimikyu have to be so damn stubborn?!

"Ah, let him try," Yamanaka smirked, obviously very entertained by the sight of a beat up Mimikyu still trying his hardest to look battle ready.

Naruto wasn't about to let Mimikyu get hurt even worse, though. He bent down, reached for Mimikyu and snatched him around the waist of his costume.

There was nothing in the costume.

Shocked, Naruto raised the costume and carefully poked it, but it was completely empty, no shadowy mass greeting him from the eye holes. The costume was empty.

"Mimikyu?!"

Naruto's shocked exclamation had Yamanaka realising something was off and her eyes widened when she caught sight of the lifeless costume in Naruto's hands.

"Wait, where is Mimikyu?"

As answer a blinding, glimmering light suddenly filled the Gym, risking blinding them all. Naruto slammed his eyes shut instinctively, raising his hands to cover his face, but was alert enough to realise that this was Mimikyu's Dazzling Gleam attack. Except that this attack was brighter than Naruto had witnessed so far, so bright that it seemed to penetrate straight through his hands and his closed eyelids. He dropped down to the ground, bending his head and burying his face into Mimikyu's empty costume.

He heard Yamanaka cursing violently, her heels clacking against the gym floor as she stumbled backwards. The light of the Dazzling Gleam attack hadn't faded away completely yet when an ominous growl filled the room next, followed by something metallic dropping to the floor.

Naruto's head shot up and he could only watch wide-eyed as the biggest Shadow Ball he had witnessed so far was hurtled straight at Kadabra. Kadabra who laid flattened against the floor, restrained by several Shadow Sneaks as it struggled and bristled, trying to reach for its dropped spoon. Right as its first finger touched the hollow point of the spoon, the Shadow Ball hit it straight into its back, making its eyes bulge out and its mouth open in a silent scream.

The moment Kadabra slumped down, having lost consciousness completely, something shadow-like flitted across the floor and filled the empty costume the next second. Naruto watched stumped how the flat cloth rounded out once more as Mimikyu filled up the costume; his eyes peeking through the holes, throwing an almost murderous look at the passed out Kadabra.

Then Mimikyu slumped over, crumpling into Naruto's lap; his triple attack having exhausted the last shred of energy he still had left.

For a little while silence reigned in the gym until Kadabra was returned to his Pokéball and Yamanaka spoke; her voice brittle in disbelief.

"Well …" She paused, visibly gathering herself. "I definitely did not expect something like that to happen. I – didn't even see him before he used Dazzling Gleam."

Naruto hadn't seen him either. Somehow Mimikyu had dashed to the shadows quickly enough that none of them had been able to catch his true form. His strong Dazzling Gleam had ensured that he could get close to Kadabra without anyone of them seeing him. Taking advantage of Kadabra's dazed state, he had managed to capture Kadabra before it could Teleport away once more, leaving the Psychic Pokémon vulnerable to his Ghost attacks.

Naruto had never expected Mimikyu to actually discard his costume in order to win the battle. Everyone knew how precious their costumes were to Mimikyu; to have one discard it so easily just to win a fight … That was unheard of!

"Your Mimikyu did faint, but it happened after Kadabra lost and as you still have five other Pokémon battle ready, it is obvious that you are the winner of this battle," Yamanaka said and shook her head, smiling. "Congratulations, it's been a while since I last had to use all my Pokémon and I definitely did not expect that triple attack at the end. You've got some really strong Pokémon there."

"Yeah, thanks," Naruto said, still trying to comprehend what had just happened.

He received the badge – deep purple with an open eye in the middle of the round badge – in a bit of a daze while Yamanaka continued chatting, recovering faster than him.

"Given how you fought in my Gym, I doubt you'll have any issues with the next one," she was saying; her thumb brushing soothingly across one of her Pokéballs. "I don't think the next Gym's Fighting Types will stand a chance against your Mimikyu," she chuckled.

When she peered down at the unconscious Mimikyu, though, she pursed her lips. "Better take him to the Pokécentre. He doesn't look that good. No surprise, of course, after the fight he put up!"

Naruto was already out of the door before he could hear her wish him good luck with the next Gyms.

"You're still here?"

Naruto looked up at hearing the familiar voice and blinked when Tsunade halted in front of him. "I could ask the same of you," he said befuddled. "I thought you had left already?"

She waved her hand and sat down next to him. "I met an acquaintance and spent some time exchanging information with him," she explained. "What about you? You challenged the Gym already?"

"Yes and we won, but Mimikyu got hurt pretty badly," he sighed and rubbed the back of his neck, glancing at the door behind which Nurse Joy was taking care of Mimikyu.

The nurse had clucked her tongue when she'd seen the sorry state Mimikyu had been in, but had reassured Naruto that everything would be all right. She had whisked Mimikyu away, calling out for Chansey to help her, and Naruto had been left to take a seat at one of the benches, relegated to waiting until Nurse Joy would be finished.

He hated waiting and not knowing how long it would take, but Nurse Joy hadn't looked too distressed at the sight of Mimikyu, so he comforted himself with that thought. If it had been really bad, he doubted she would have looked so unperturbed.

"That sucks, but it can happen sometimes," Tsunade said and patted his knee. "I'm sure he'll be fine, though. Nothing that the nurse can't fix."

"Hm." He hesitated for a moment, but decided that there was nobody better suited to answer his question than a Pokémon Professor herself. "Say, have you ever heard of Mimikyu getting out of their costume to attack?"

She furrowed her eyebrows. "You mean, completely leaving it behind even if the costume isn't damaged?"

"Yeah, just pulling it off like it's regular clothing and then attack someone."

"I can't say I have," she admitted. "All the documentation we have about Mimikyu state that they cling to their costumes like it's their personal lifeline. They consider it the only way to be able to move amongst others and they get angry if anyone tries to take it off. In fact, we don't know what their true form is, because it is said that the scholar who tried to take a peek underneath a Mimikyu's costume - "

"Died of fright right after doing so," he finished, nodding slowly.

He had heard that before. It was the sort of information that couldn't be really confirmed as nobody knew the actual source, but considering Mimikyu's general protectiveness over the costume, it was a fact that everyone assumed to be true. Mimikyu's true form was so horrendous, so horrifying, that it would instantly kill anyone who dared to take a look at them. Even whilst unconfirmed, nobody was willing to take the risk and find out themselves if the information was true, scared that there might be some truth to it after all.

And so that fact was just one amongst the list of things that made people avoid Mimikyu, more than they avoided Gengar or Hypno or Cacturne or Yamask. Mimikyu wasn't the only Pokémon having its fair share of horror stories, yet somehow people tended to treat them the worst.

Naruto had never understood that. To him a Pokémon was a Pokémon and while he might not be willing to fall asleep around a group of wild Cacturne or follow a Hypno or let a wild Drifloon wrap its hands around him, neither would he purposefully ignore or avoid them. They were all living creatures and if people would stop being jerks, they would realise just how adorable and cute Mimikyu were. All they wanted was love and wasn't that something everyone wanted to have?

Tsunade side-eyed him. "Why the odd question?"

He shifted on his seat. "Well, that's what – Mimikyu ended up doing to win the battle," he admitted haltingly. Worrying the zipper of his jacket between his fingers, he explained, "Kadabra was the last Pokémon, but he kept using Teleport, making it difficult for Mimikyu to hit him."

"They are quite tricky like that," she said, nodding in understanding.

"Yeah, exactly. Mimikyu tried to avoid Kadabra's attacks as much as possible but he still got hit several times." He frowned, recalling how wave after wave of pure Psychic power had been launched at Mimikyu. "Kadabra's Psychic hit him so badly that I wanted to call him back into his Pokéball and let Toxtricity handle the rest of the fight, but Mimikyu refused."

"He refused?"

"Yeah, he smacked the ball away every time," he sighed and ran a hand through his hair. "When I went to grab him and pull him out of the fight like that, his costume was suddenly empty! Next thing I know he uses the brightest Dazzling Gleam I've seen him use to date and I had to cover my eyes to protect myself from it."

He shook his head in disbelief. "When I could look again, he had Kadabra on the floor with Shadow Sneak restraining him and he used one last Shadow Ball to defeat him completely. I didn't even see him escape his costume or get back into it! I didn't think Mimikyu would ever pull off his costume if it wasn't for the sake of repairing it!"

"It is quite strange," she admitted and tapped her chin. "But well, we constantly discover new facts about Pokémon every day, so it's not like we can claim we're all knowing. Perhaps this is something Mimikyu does if they really do want to win a battle – or perhaps he did it to win the battle for you." She looked at him pointedly.

"I didn't want him to nearly cripple himself to win a battle, though!" he protested. "He had already defeated Hypno, he had done amazing even without defeating Kadabra."

"I don't claim to know him well," she said calmly. "But it is hard to deny that you two share a unique bond. You are probably the first person who ever treated him nicely; he might have refused to give up because he wanted to make you proud."

"I was already proud of him! He doesn't need to win battles to make me proud," he insisted.

"You should tell him that," she advised. "It might be something he needs to hear."

"Uzumaki?"

Naruto shot up when Nurse Joy appeared behind the desk. "Yes, I'm here! Is he okay?"

She smiled and beckoned him closer. "He's getting better as we speak. We're going to keep him here for a couple of hours more just to make sure he heals completely, but you can see him if you want to."

"Of course I want to!" he blurted out, before realising Tsunade was still here.

She snorted and stood up, clasping his shoulder for a moment. "Go on, I bet he wants to see you." She hesitated before adding, lowering her voice, "I'm sorry you ended up in the middle of the whole business with Tyranitar. I never meant to put you in harm's way, especially not after what hap-"

"It's fine," he cut her off and flashed her a quick smile. "I mean, it wasn't fun at all, but it was just a stupid accident. And he's back at the facility, right?"

"Right," she confirmed.

"Then it's fine. If anything, it showed just how strong my Pokémon already are," he huffed amused before jerking his thumb at the door that cut the main centre from its operation rooms. "I'm going to see Mimikyu now."

"And I need to go back to my lab," she said and smiled at him. "Congratulations with your new badge."

"Thanks," he grinned before jogging over to the desk where Nurse Joy was patiently waiting for him.

She led him through the door and past a couple of closed doors. This part of the centre was quiet, making it agreeable for the Pokémon resting and healing here.

"He's resting in this room," she told him friendly and opened the fourth door on the left. "I'll come back when it's time to discharge him."

Naruto thanked her and walked inside, spotting Mimikyu immediately. His Pokémon was curled up on the bed; his shadowy tendrils busy poking and prodding the blankets surrounding him. At the sound of the door opening and closing, Mimikyu's gaze moved to him and his Pokémon perked up; two shadowy arms raising up in the air to greet him.

Relief replacing his concern, Naruto made his way over to the bed, letting Mimikyu grab onto his wrists with his shadows. "You had me worried there," he said softly and Mimikyu hunched his shoulders in contrition.

"Mimikyu, Mimi …" Didn't mean to …

"What you did was very dangerous," Naruto continued and when Mimikyu's shoulders drooped even further, he sighed and added ruefully, "but really cool too. I never expected you to pull off a triple attack like that."

That made Mimikyu perk up once more, brimming with pride.

"But you know you didn't have to push yourself that far, right?" Naruto said, carefully patting Mimikyu's back.

"Mimi, Mimikyu, Mimi." Wanted to make you proud.

Mimikyu's voice was small, bordering on shy, and he looked down at where his shadows met Naruto's skin.

Careful not to aggravate Mimikyu's wounds, Naruto picked him up and hugged him, feeling those shadows wrap around his shoulders in turn. "You don't need to win battles to make me proud," he murmured and Mimikyu stiffened in surprise. "Just you being part of my team, that's enough for me. All the rest is just a nice bonus."

If those shadows turned a bit colder and his neckline somewhat damp, Naruto didn't comment on it, simply content to hold his friend and bask in the happiness that came with having defeated another Gym.

AN2: Fourth Gym down, onwards to the next one! A Fighting one, three guesses who this Gym Leader might be?

Please leave your thoughts behind in a review; should you spot any mistakes, please point them out to me.

I hope to see you all back in the next chapter! Please stay safe and take care of yourselves!

Cuddles

Melissa

P.S. For more information about my upcoming and posted stories, please visit my profile.