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#canon thank you very much

mak0to · 2 years

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Rei: Rin-san, can I talk to you for a second?

Rin: Yeah, what’s up? Lemme guess. You and Nagisa are having problems and you want me to teach you how to kiss?

Rei: What? No, stop that. I know how to kiss. I’ve read books.

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voidandradiance · 2 years

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ANDOR: Ahem. I have heard that the greatest persuasion is nothing more than telling the truth, so I speak in the voice given me by my mother, Freya. I make no grand overtones or guttural whispers for dramatic effect.

(MARKET VENDOR: More flavours! Come and drink away your sorrows!)

ANDOR: I am only Andor. My voice trembles.

(MARKET VENDOR: More flavours! Come and drink away your sorrows!)

ANDOR: I have come to ask my father a question. Will you listen? Father, I know you're listening too.

LIEUTENANT AL: Prince Andor!

ANDOR: Haven't you noticed? Do these wings look like the product of some frivolous magic? Whom do you suppose the statue at the bridge represents? Not Mianite. I am an acolyte of the wounded goddess; I always have been. We worship Ianite.

LIEUTENANT AL: I have found evidence of a rebellion against Mianite! And I will have to arrest you, Prince, for leading this rebellion!

[With each syllable from Andor's lips grows a surrounding gust of wind, which halts the Lieutenant's advance, despite his best efforts to subdue the awakening acolyte.]

KING HELGRIND, now named APOSTLE HELGRIND: ANDOR!!!

ANDOR: While you have governed this port city and allocated its resources to the glorification of your "one true god," I-

APOSTLE HELGRIND, interrupting: You no longer have a place in this town! During my time away, the truth of the one true god has only become clearer.

ANDOR, speaking louder: I have been chiseling Ianite's likeness into your stones and penning her mantras into your paper. Her teachings have been with me all these years, guiding me towards a day of peace and unity-

LIEUTENANT AL: You will never…!

ANDOR, now shouting: -while you have winced at the thought of our hope and stooped over the corpses of the lost.

APOSTLE HELGRIND: Lieutenant, seize Andor and take him to our Lord.

ANDOR: If you had but journeyed with me! I am at the threshold. Soon, Ianite will rise! And my mother and sister's spirits will rise with her.

APOSTLE HELGRIND: Lieutenant!

LIEUTENANT AL: I- AM- TRYING!

ANDOR: I hear your voice, father. I hear your anger.

APOSTLE HELGRIND: ENOUGH OF THIS NONSENSE.

ANDOR: Do what you will with me. But first, know this. If your god is just and blameless, with flawless integrity, then fear not. Your battle is already won. But if there is the smallest fracture in Mianite's armor… then the crevice will widen. The shell will corrode. And Mianite's sins and yours will seep through. All the false glory you have built will be wiped in preparation for this world's restoration and rebirth. I do not know why you begrudge Ianite, for our family's death, nor why you hide your wounds, father. But I do know that healing is available to you. It is the greatest gift anyone can receive, greater than a shield, greater than a sword.

LIEUTENANT AL: Andor!

ANDOR: Greater than your perfect, made-up world. If it is your wish, see this to its end. Do everything in your power to create the world you so crave. I cannot stay your hand. I raise no sword. I wear no armor. I have only this boomerang, given by a true friend. You could stop this. We could go to the docks, and throw it, just like old times with Mom. We could. I invite you.

[ANDOR collapses from exhaustion. The protecting wind subsides, and he is immediately seized by LIEUTENANT AL.]

#this is a transcription of a canon scene thank you very much

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twentyfivemiceinatrenchcoat · 23 days

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AGH FASHION DESIGNER SUGURU AND MODEL SATORU W A NEW INTERN DESIGNER UNDER THEIR WING 😞😞☹️ - 🌺

WAHHHH I LOVE THIS 🥺🥺🥺 the pining and flirting and slowburn of it all… model!satoru and his favorite designer suguru geto, both of them undeniably skilled and born with an eye for fashion….. well-known and adored……..

designer!suguru who gets tasked with showing you the ropes, who’s always so patient and kind despite your inexperience. diligent with his teaching but also so laidback, so easy to talk to… he looks intimidating, but he’s so polite that you can’t help but swoon a little. and he admires your enthusiasm so much…… grows fond of you soooo quickly bc you’re just such a breath of fresh air compared to the divas he’s forced to work with all the time. he thinks you’ve got real potential and he wants to nurture it.

and ofc you end up running into model!satoru eventually…. bc he’s always hanging around suguru whenever he gets the chance. and he’s maybe a little jealous that you’re hogging so much of his personal designer’s attention, but… he also thinks you’re so cute . T_T like a little puppy following suguru around… so excited to be apart of something you’ve dreamed of for so many years……… he looks into your eyes and sees the same sparkle he had before he made it big, and it makes his heart race.

yeah . i’m just thinking abt the peaceful coffee breaks with suguru….. how he’d insist on paying for your drink, ”since he’s your senior” (he wants to be your favorite </3)…… and how he’d just be so protective over his little intern. don’t get me started on the close proximity with satoru when you’re taking his measurements, the glance and smile he sends your way during an impromptu shoot… the way he always calls for you with a sweet coo of ”how’s my favorite intern doing today?”

😔😔😔 yeahhhhhh. they make me feel ill.

#thank you 🌺 anon my beloved….. i am kissing your beautiful brain #😭😭😭😭 now i kinda wanna write this oh no #my anons keep making my wip list longer this isn’t fair T—T #(i love you all very much)#NO BUT THIS IS SO BIGBRAINED IT’S INSANE #fashion designer!sugu the loml…. model!satoru just feels so natural too #i think they’re both very mature!!!!!!!#there are some aus where i think satoru would lean towards his more bratty hs self #but here i feel like he’s similar to the way he is in canon :3 just. silly and goofy and passionate abt what he does #AND very fond of youth. of people with lofty goals and dreams and starlight in their eyes #(<- has gotten carried away)#YOU GET IT THOUGH i know you’ll see the vision 🌺 anon 🫂🫂🫂 we’re holding hands #i need them both #need suguru to buy me expensive coffee while satoru feeds me pieces of a pastry #for some reason i keep thinking of coffee breaks i might. just be hungry 😭😭😭#ask tag ✩#🌺 anon !! ✩#geto x reader #gojo x reader #stsg x reader #satosugu x reader #gojo satoru x reader #geto suguru x reader

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tired-biscuit · 2 months

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that art of naruto's seal.... thinking.. thinking abt it glowing when he's abt to/when he does cum teehee 🙈🙉🤭🤭

18+ MDNI / fem!reader

there’s sweat gleaming on his skin while you’re dragging your tongue up and down his dick; sucking on the head and moaning at the salty taste of pre-cum. he’s so overstimulated that his eyes are squeezed shut and he’s fisting the sheets and his head is pushing back into the pillow every so often so that he can groan with delight into the dark ceiling above him.

you take your time; working him to his breaking point nice and slow. leaving messy kisses all over his chest and waist. letting him stroke your cheek even if the bandages that cover his prosthetic feel rough against your skin. cooing softly and showering him with praises when he gets a little too whiny.

and just when he’s finally about to cum — when you feel him start to twitch inside your mouth and when his hips kind of buck upwards — you pull back. it’s done the last second and he whimpers in protest, he fucking whimpers as his release is about to splatter all over his stomach.

but then he growls in disapproval all of a sudden, low and dangerous — the sound nothing alike with the previous one he just made. his pupils change shape in a blink of an eye. there’s also a faint, warm glow surrounding you both, coming from the swirl that’s on his stomach — it makes the sweat on your faces visible as you look at each other.

a lump forms inside your throat as the atmosphere shifts. he looks like he’s going to hunt you down any second now, taking the bared teeth and the wild look in his eyes into consideration, but before you know it, it’s over. he regains control, just barely, and the tension that’s been riddling the air is gone as quickly as it came.

you inhale a deep breath as you watch him cum with a heavy-beating heart, trying not to pay mind how the hair on the back of your neck is still standing. it’s all him, no fox. his defences are at their weakest when he’s overcome with emotion.

meanwhile, naruto is panting. his chest is practically heaving, but it stutters with a hitch of a breath when you cautiously lean in to lick the cum off of the seal that’s tattooed on his tan skin and that’s now gone back to its original black colour, the glow of it subduing.

you’re going to clean up the mess he just made. it’s what good boys like him deserve for being able to control themselves even in the most crucial of moments.

#i miss feral n.aruto so much #so this is obviously straying away from canon ok!!#i will be thinking about this the entire day thank you very much #naruto smut #naruto x reader #naruto uzumaki smut #biscuit mail

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charrfie · 5 days

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Sooooo I updated my spamton design... he looks different now!! I wanted to lean a bit more into canon with his appearance :^D also included here are some doodles of my very self indulgent lighter!arrfs au (uncolored ones are roughly a month old so my design changes had not yet been reflected in them.. but you can't really tell since his design was altered so slightly)

#spamton #spamton g spamton #deltarune #oc #original character #fursona #self insert #<- giggles #i thank everyone so much who has complimented my design for him in the past.....#..even though he looks a little different now i hope you still like him!#i wanted his look to reflect canon a tiny bit more purely bc i think he looks very handsome that way :^)#my art #oc tag #arrfs #lightner arrfs au #i promise this au has more in it than these two flirting lol i just happen to draw that a lot for comfort purposes

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bruisedboys · 5 months

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I love ignoring canon like. no he didn’t die. no my favourite characters don’t live in an awful world where everything goes wrong. actually they live in a perfectly normal and peaceful world and live happy lives and none of them r dead :)))))

#this is about peeta and finnick mainly #but also the marauders. like no all three of them did not die way too young what r u talking about 🤨🤨🤨#I decide what’s canon and what isn’t canon thank you very much #especially in my own fics 😌😌😌

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drop-drop · 3 months

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blablabla "stop saying they're just friends" blablabla "you're all cowards they're obviously in love" blablabla NO

you will not pry QPR huskerdust out of my hands, ever, even should said hands be cold and dead

it's about angel feeling safe to be exactly however he wants to be at any moment, knowing that husk will not act on the flirting and the propositioning!

it's about husk grumbling and telling him to fuck off but still smiling when he has to deal with his antics, still happy, somehow, to find a reason to go to work every morning other than a chain around his soul!

it's about the both of them knowing someone gets them, and carving something solid and precious out of something broken and cold.

i don't care if you ship them romantically and/or sexually, i'm happy y'all are having fun with that, but stop implying or outright saying they wouldn't work as anything else goddamnit

#hazbin hotel #platonic huskerdust #husk #angel dust #it's 'getting annoyed at vague people on the internet' time #oh btw i also don't care if they become canonically a couple <3 #non-canon shipping is also a thing for qpr thank you very much #otherwise god knows i'd never get fed #what's mine? that's mine

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n4rval · 5 months

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a few pointers on how i draw this idiot because i can

Definitely DTed himself (you fool no one dude): come on. if you think he's not crazy enough to experiment on himself, what are you doing. the average creature would likely simply vaporize in a CORE accident, but throw an amalgam(dubious term) in it and watch it haunt your footsteps.

Somewhere around 7' ?: lord have mercy. well, i'm not complaining, i've dealt with 10'.

Old man hunch (ow!): this is what happens when you spend your whole life crouching to look at people. or when you try your best to look smaller and kinder as to not creep anyone out, but you creep them out anyway. loneliness is often the price of brilliance

AUTISM HANDS (RAD) (COOL): or of autism. loneliness is often the price of a neurodivergent understanding of social norms. but sometimes you're just cuckoo bananas as well, and that's okay. tries his best to be a gentleman(fucking old man), comes off a little awkward about it

i've picked purple as his representative color for reasons i'll elaborate once i throw in some pre-DT headcanons in here

#artwork #thank you for liking my old man!#well #toby's old man who i happen to like very much #i try to make him as canon adjacent as possible #dont get me wrong i love fanons but source material gives me an immense comfort and so does content that i feel like i can say #Yep Thats Him Alright #i feel like i miss a lot of his overall weirdness in fan content #ESPECIALLY WHEN IT COMES TO HIS SPEECH PATTERN #THE WAY A GUY TALKS IS VERY IMPORTANT OKAY #so here i am doing justice with my own hands #well hand #he's ambidextrous not me #wingdings and me #gaster #wd gaster #undertale #deltarune

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thetwilightroadtonightfall · 25 days

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history 101 💛

This was originally just supposed to be me having fun exploring what Ephemer would be like as a teacher but it got a bit out of hand in a good way (but I think I spent way too long on this lol)

Notes:

I wholeheartedly believe that teaching is Eph’s true passion. While writing Overmorrow, I came to realize that his role as a teacher/master is necessary in ensuring that light and the will of the keyblade lives on, but it’s also something he would just genuinely enjoy doing on a personal level. Aside from being able to infodump to his heart’s content (that’s a big deal! 😄), he can also help, inspire, and lead as a teacher! I think if he does actually establish the Keyblade order/academy in canon, it would be his pride and joy

Eph’s actual classroom may not have looked like kh3/dr’s, but I like to believe it was probably similarly designed. (He learned a lot about teaching from Hestia 🥰)

Lyra first appeared here :) the rest of the students are new, I made them up on the spot

my ass could not have handled making Overmorrow as a webcomic

#khux #khml #ephemer #overmorrow #but can also be canon!#my art #my posts #timeless child #lyra oc #ok ok secret tags:#I sound very normal about it in the body of the post but I screamed when I realized eph would /adore/ being a teacher #idk what it was; maybe I was just generally emo at the time but #like obviously you know he would have students and all as a master but. it’s different when you’ve lost everything and don’t know what to d #in order to move forward from there #teaching just feels /so right/ for him #the kid who questioned everything; who reached the truth; who was chosen to lead and survive and succeed #the kid who helped and cared for everyone around him #that’s teacher material! he’s a teacher!!!!#and honestly after he spent so much of khux doubting himself the fact that he can do /this/ with his whole heart makes me a bit teary eyed #ok I’m done that’s my blorbo dump for the day thank yooouu

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swordsmans · 9 months

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the sea makes bones of bodies

At the question (or maybe just Nami, a reprieve from talking to Zoro—who he's still vaguely afraid of) Usopp perks up. “Kind of! I mean, yeah—the big Sun God in the Trench. But also the sea gods themselves, and the missing Moon God—it’s a whole thing,” he says, waving his hands as Nami crosses the deck, book tucked under her arm. Usopp trails off again but she gestures him onward and plops next to Zoro, dangling her feet over the open water, too. “Go on,” she says. He stares at them both before letting out a strangled kind of, “Do you actually want to know?” Zoro and Nami exchange a look. “We have a keen interest in the local wildlife,” Zoro drawls, and Nami snorts out a laugh. The sound startles Usopp, who might be one of the most skittish people Zoro has ever met—second only to Koby, maybe. Nami elbows Zoro in the side, trying (and failing) to hide her smile as he flips her the middle finger in return. “Local legends, then,” she amends.

pairing: monkey d. luffy/roronoa zoro; nami/wanda (background); sabo/koala (background); deuce/ace (background)

word count: 87,730

ao3 tags: mafia hitman/fight club champion/reincarnated moon god X merman/legendary sea monster/reincarnated sun god AU; only one is a monster but they're both a little monstrous; it's about the Yearning and the Devotion; hurt/comfort/comedy at a 30/60/10 ratio; slow burn; religious imagery & symbolism; crew as family; graphic depictions of violence; (nami & roronoa zoro)

#zolu #op fanfic #opfanfic #one piece fanfiction #THAT'S IT. I'M DONE #the self-indulgent ultra-niche AU that i have worked on nonstop since may 6 #shaking hands with everyone thank you for your patience with the delay in canon-compliant stuff #now back to your regularly scheduled SMALLER albatross chapters and one shots for the rest of the YEAR thank you very much #the title is inspired by a poem called 'why i don't piss in the ocean' btw you should read that if you like poetry #gyro.rtf

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doodlejoltik · 2 days

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the unwinnable game

[~2.7k words. Read it here or on Ao3]

Zugzwang (from German 'compulsion to move'; pronounced [ˈtsuːktsvaŋ]) is a situation found in chess and other turn-based games wherein one player is put at a disadvantage because of their obligation to make a move.

Centuries after their battle atop Mt Coronet, Rei confronts Volo in a nondescript forest, somewhere on Pasio. But the answers he's seeking aren't so easily given.

aka. a continuation of that one dialogue cliffhanger in the Mysterious Stones chapter because I'm extremely normal about these two

///

“There's something you'd like to say, isn't there… Rei?”

Volo turns around and Rei musters up the bravest expression he can.

Now that he's here, he doesn't know what to say first; all his planned questions bounce around his head, clamouring for dominance. Why are you here? How? Since when? You have a Togepi and a Togekiss? Why a tournament? What do you know about the mysterious stones?

Were we ever really friends?

That is, it takes an embarrassingly long time for Rei to respond. In the end, what he says isn’t a question at all. “That Togepi in the ruins was yours.”

Volo only shrugs. He's got a languid smile on his face. “It might've been. She likes running around.”

Internally, Rei is relieved. So he hasn't been seeing things. But he doesn't let it show on his face, and crosses his arms. “Why’d you hide from everyone for months, and only show yourself now?”

“Now, I wouldn't call it hiding,” Volo replies, waving his finger. “This is a big island, and I've made a good few acquaintances here on Pasio already! Perhaps our paths simply didn't cross.”

With the number of times Rei has visited the ruins for mysterious stone research, the odds of that are vanishingly unlikely. “But why didn't you even try? It's not like I've been keeping a low profile.” Of course, the reason is probably something like I tried to end the world and it would be awkward. And that's what Rei needs Volo to say.

The Arc Phone sits heavily in his belt satchel, recording every word.

“Oh, I was just preoccupied. The ruins here are simply fascinating! Even though they're replicas, teasing apart all the ancient cultures used in their construction is such a fruitful area of study. You know me.”

Yeah, I know you. “Find anything interesting about Arceus?” Rei snarks.

“Not particularly!” Volo shakes his head, looking disappointed. Then he perks up, and continues, “Now, Dialga and Giratina however…”

“Oh?” Rei seethes quietly. Of course he had been watching. Why hadn't Giratina said anything?

“It’s curious, isn’t it, how they have seen fit to partner themselves with new wielders?” Volo smiles. “And Palkia too, I’ve heard.”

“It is interesting,” Rei forces out, adjusting his scarf. He recalls Volo's last parting line about Arceus, all those months ago. “Nice to know that they've bonded willingly with people in this time,” he says pointedly.

Ignoring Rei's tone, Volo continues, “That man, Cyrus, who controls Palkia. What a character, wouldn't you say?”

Rei has a lot of thoughts about the Sinnohans’ decision to allow Cyrus - a man who has literally tried to remake the world and not disavowed said goal - to keep the embodiment of Space with him. He'd thought Adaman and Irida had to be joking, at first. What would the Captain think if she saw what her descendant had turned the Galaxy Team into…

“I suppose you see yourself in him.” Rei says flatly.

It's only the two of them here, in the middle of a forest, in the dead of night, so Volo should have no reason to be evasive. And yet -

“Hardly,” Volo laughs off. “Intellectual curiosity, nothing more.”

This is going nowhere. Does Volo seriously think he can fool him again? Probably not - every remark is undoubtedly purposeful, but with just enough plausible deniability to appear innocent. So maybe he just wants to mess with him. Great.

A different strategy, maybe. He’ll surely make a mistake at some point if Rei keeps pushing. “This… tournament that you proposed,” Rei says. “I suppose you're participating?”

“Naturally!” Volo says cheerfully. “Battles on Pasio are done in teams, are they not? Perhaps you'd like to-”

“No.” Rei glares at him. Oh, now, that was going too far. Going to shut that line of conversation immediately.

“So hostile,” Volo sighs. “A united Hisuian contingent would've been a sight to see. Well, the clan leaders should be more receptive, at least.”

“Not if I can help it,” Rei says, crossing his arms. He’s well aware of how childish it sounds, but the thought of his friends falling for Volo’s innocent merchant act, again, is too horrible to consider. Mentally, he rapidly revises his priorities - he has to meet with Adaman and Irida as soon as possible and explain everything. Tomorrow, ideally. Does he have the energy for that? It’s something like one in the morning, right now. He's dead on his feet. But he’ll make it happen. He has to, before Volo does.

But what if he’s already too late? When had Rei last spoken to them? The dance competition, that wasn’t that long ago, right? At least a week, maybe more, his mind supplies. He'd just been so busy… and surely they would have told him if they'd met Volo.

This little anxious spiral must be evident on Rei’s face somehow, because Volo chuckles, stepping closer. “The world doesn't revolve around you, Rei. Not here.”

“You don’t get to act all high and mighty,” Rei snaps. “Not when you’re pulling everyone along on your own strings. I suppose you think you make the world go ‘round.”

But Volo has a point, no matter how much he hates to admit it. Rei’s been assuming he was someone significant to this whole saga. The appearance of the mysterious stones coincided with his and Akari’s arrival to Pasio, after all, so was he really wrong for thinking that?

And Arceus spoke to him first. That had to mean something.

“On the contrary, I simply meant that we’re all on equal ground,” Volo says. For the first time, goes unspoken.

“I’ll still beat you,” Rei vows. He’d done it before, he could do it again. No matter if he was still favoured by Arceus or not. “Because my bonds with my Pokemon, and my friends, are real. And you don’t know what that feels like.” Though intended to be a sharp jab at Volo, instead, a deep bitterness colours those final words.

Volo’s expression twists into something briefly unreadable before it settles into a polite half-smile. “You’re quick to assume the worst of me.”

“Quick?” Rei barks out a harsh laugh. “No, it was exactly the opposite.” He’d been strung along so thoroughly, accepting every strange behaviour as simply one of Volo’s little oddities. Only up at the Celestica Ruins did those allowances start to crumble – and by then, it was too late.

Volo’s look at Rei is one of intrigue. The way Rei's seen him examining ancient ruins, like he's something Volo wants to observe, or study.

And Rei has had it. Enough dancing around the subject, trying to draw it out of Volo; clearly it’s never going to happen. “Is this all just a game to you? You tried to destroy the world! You want me to think you care about anyone?”

Volo raises an eyebrow. “That's a bold claim. Surely if that had happened, it would've ended up in the history books, somewhere.”

Well – okay. The only person who knew what happened was the Professor, sort of. And Cogita. Arceus knows how she found out. But Professor Laventon didn't know half of it, even, Rei had just incoherently vented everything emotional and hurting at him, swore him to secrecy, and then hoped that he'd never have to unpack that again.

Clearly Arceus had other designs.

“We were friends.” Rei’s voice cracks a bit, there; he hates how true it is. “I thought we were friends. But you were going to kill me for standing in your way!”

Volo frowns. “Now, why would I do that?” He takes a few paces towards Rei and smiles, purposefully, grin stretching tight across his face. “I wouldn't want to lose my favourite customer, after all!”

Stumbling backwards to regain the distance, Rei exclaims, “I’ve bought maybe one thing from you. Stop calling me that!”

“Recipient of free samples, semantics,” Volo shrugs, entirely unaffected, and Rei wars with the competing urges to punch him or bolt into the treeline.

“Play dumb all you want,” Rei hisses, “but you’ve already shown your hand. I could tell them everything. You won’t be able to fool anyone ever again.” Least of all me.

Volo tilts his head with a smirk. “Well then, why are you here?” he asks, calling Rei’s bluff.

And though he can’t know that the Arc Phone is listening in Rei’s satchel, Rei realises that his motivations must be laughably transparent. Maybe Volo thinks Akari, or Cynthia, is watching the whole thing from the treeline. The specifics of it don’t matter, really. Rei’s been outplayed from the very beginning.

Volo makes a little movement with his hand. There's a sudden rustle of movement behind Rei, and he whips around, hand on Decidueye's Pokeball -

But it's just Volo's Togepi, who warbles in alarm and quickly toddles past him.

“What would people rather believe in?” Volo says lightly. “The accusations of a boy who jumps at shadows?” He bends down to pick up Togepi. “Or in the innocence of their friend?”

In Volo's arms, Togepi lets out an adorable squeak.

Over the Pokeball on his belt, Rei’s hand is trembling with misfired adrenaline. He carefully drops his hand to his side and raises his head up high. “Cynthia trusts me. I’ve been here for months, and we’ve worked together on the mysterious stones since they were first found.”

“And so?” Volo shrugs. “A working relationship is hardly worth much. I thought you would've known better, with what Kamado did…”

Rei flinches.

The worst part about it all was that no matter what ulterior motives Volo might have had, back then, when he’d been thrown out into the wild with barely a few days’ worth of supplies – Volo had been there for him when nobody else was.

Volo had seen Rei fall apart and put himself back together with forced cheer. And so, he knew exactly where the cracks were, where to strike with his words to disassemble Rei all over again.

Of course Rei knows Cynthia is responsible, and smart, and has been nothing but friendly to him – but he doesn't really know her, does he? And Volo is her ancestor. Which is pretty obvious, honestly. She’d probably like him immediately.

Just like everyone else did. Including Rei.

“Besides, you're not the only one who's been making friends in high places,” Volo adds smoothly. “I’ve heard that Bettie’s word is quite well regarded.”

So now that Rei had wised up to Volo's true nature, he'd gone and found himself new people to use. “You’ve always been like this, then,” Rei huffs. None of it had been real; their entire ‘friendship’ had been predicated on Rei's usefulness. “They deserve to know the truth about you.”

“Truth? Or your own opinion?” Volo scoffs. “You think so highly of yourself, Rei, but you're not the beloved Hero of Hisui here. No…” he smiles. “You're entirely ordinary. Do remember, it was everyone in that stadium who heard Arceus' voice.”

Admittedly, that stings. He'd thought - maybe - that Arceus was finally telling him why He'd brought Rei here. What he was supposed to do in this strange new land. But he'd failed, unable to clearly hear Arceus’ voice.

Rei spares a thought for the Arc Phone, once a vessel for divine inspiration, now reduced to recording mortals’ petty feuds. His messages to Arceus have been left on read for months. He's probably allowed to be a bit petty, at this point.

Volo continues, “Imagine! Any one of us could become Arceus’ champion.” Togepi makes a little noise. “Yes, even you,” he says indulgently, lifting her up to face him, and she goes cross-eyed following his waving finger.

It's horribly cute, the sort of thing Rei would've been charmed by before. And it's clear Volo is no longer taking Rei seriously at all.

What starts out as a wavering thought suddenly asserts itself with startling clarity. “I don't need anything from you,” Rei realises. He'd told himself he was here for evidence, something concrete he could hold against Volo, and that was true. But beyond that, he'd been after something entirely more personal.

He can walk away.

“I don't need anything from you,” he repeats, with force this time.

Volo turns his attention away from Togepi, and this of all things is what finally seems to make him genuinely confused. “Leaving so soon, Rei?”

Rei doesn't elaborate. He turns on his heel to stalk through the forest back to civilisation. Now, because if he says anything more he doesn't know if he'll ever bring himself to stop. Because he's asking for something he'll never get.

Volo's saying something. He doesn't care to catch all the words, though some of it filters through - “challenge”, “tournament”, and “rivals” among them. The general shape of the message is clear. They'll meet again; Rei's powerless to stop that. But as best he can, he'll shake off whatever lingering grip Volo still has on him.

He doesn't stop walking as the trodden earth turns to paved cobbles under his feet, and he makes it all the way up his building's winding stairs to the little studio apartment that he's been given. Home, for now. Collapsing onto the lone armchair, he takes the Arc Phone out of his satchel and turns off the recording. Thank Arceus for divinely bestowed infinite storage, he supposes.

Rei knows that if he were to listen to it, there'd be nothing of use. Only hidden barbs and Rei’s own ugly, wounded anger. It feels fitting to delete it, to banish the whole encounter to memory, and perhaps eventually, less than that.

He doesn't, and instead tucks it away in a folder several layers deep.

Maybe Professor Laventon wrote about the whole disaster in his private diaries. Rei knows he has them, bless the man. He'd once stumbled into the Professor's office late at night, after an exhausting, terrifying escape from an Alpha, ready to tell Laventon off for sending him there – and startled the Professor fiercely, who quickly shut the manuscript he was writing with a blush. So even if Rei had sworn him to secrecy, he might have confided in the written word.

That's something he can set Cynthia on digging up, then. Even just the suggestion that Laventon, the First Pokemon Professor, had such personal writings, would probably send her into an unstoppable research frenzy. That much about her, at least, he knows. If it still existed in this era, Cynthia would almost certainly find it.

And maybe he doesn't need evidence. Not for the people who matter, anyway.

Akari’s only a few doors away, their apartments close neighbours just like back in Jubilife Village. If he wanted, he could wander over there once the sun rose, have her fantastic tamago rice, and tell her everything.

Is he ready to take that step into thin air? To trust that he'll be believed, in something that's infinitely more convoluted and improbable than the simple plea – “I don't know why the sky is red, it's not my fault, I only ever did what you told me to” –

Well. Volo might've been the last one to break his trust, but he was in no way the first.

Can he make good on those words that he’d levelled so confidently against Volo? That his bonds with his friends are real?

Akari had never doubted. And Adaman and Irida had gone against Kamado's will, risking the standing of their people, just to help him. He would be doing them a disservice if he didn't at least try.

And in this dangerous game, it might be the only winning move.

Even as he makes this decision, he feels the pull of sleep. It's offensively late, or early, in the morning now, depending on perspective, and all of this is Tomorrow Rei’s problem.

There's no energy left to even stumble to bed. Rei falls asleep right there in the lumpy armchair, hand loosely gripped around the Arc Phone, Adaman and Irida’s Poryphone numbers on the screen, ready and waiting.

And, though Rei will certainly wake up sore with a crick in his neck come the morning…

For the first time in a long while, his dreams are not restless.