Growing up, he was not the kind to deal with others, yet these people...

Not for the first time, he cursed out the crazies who had signed him up for this. Amanoko Tsuchiyume didn't want to go on his own with the new recruits. The others knew he was the least tolerant of mistakes, and yet they... heck, even Ranto and Areum, and Areum knew these kids better than he did! 

He bit his lip, serpentine eyes gazing behind to see the small silhouettes of his companions slowly catching up with him. He hadn't meant to be so harsh. Stuff had been... pretty bad ever since Yuga did what he had. 

Why am I so harsh on Yuga, though?

He paused. He... hadn't really considered that. As much as he had done something knowing what it would end in, Yuga had been hurt by Paruko, and he understood the feeling. More than he would ever admit. Only Sasuga knew, and he...

Where the **** is that *******? Oh, that would probably get him scolded by his mom and dad, but Natsume did also have her own loose lips when it came to bad stuff, so not fully his fault either. 

He just... couldn't understand his reality. Things had been upended so quickly he had barely been able to process anything, least of all when the report came in...

"Jinpei! Kaichou!" A loud voice yelled as everyone turned around from a discussion, or rather, interrogation of Yuga, to see the other YSP members there, looking a bit worried. 

"Fubuki! Mera, what's going on?" He asked them in concern while getting up. 

"The location you said that had the Anomalice, we already checked it..." Fubuki said. 

"But they were gone!" Mera threw his hands in the air. "As if they were never there..!"

"Curses! We missed a chance!" MB-Félix hissed. 

"But who would take the Anomalice? Someone else with ulterior motives more aligned with Pascatmon?" Ranto asked. 

Fubuki looked away. "About that... we already know who it is..."

"That's great! Why aren't we going after them?" FH-BC asked from the monitor. Behind him, one could see Pure Heart Valley being restored, with the ruby now removed to allow for more space. A sign things were getting better, right?

"About that..." 

From behind her, Fubuki pulled out a letter with handwriting that made Tsuchiyume's stomach drop to the center of the earth and be incinerated. 

No. 

No. 

No....!

"No ****ing way, there's no way, he..." he backed away. 

"It makes sense, though. We learn that the truth of the Anomalice, the truth HE told us, was not right..." Gangsan said softly. 

"SHUT UP!" He slammed his shaking hands onto the table, making everyone flinch. "You don't know **** about Sasuga! He's a really kind person, and if you want to believe he... he would do this..." 

"The evidence is lining up a bit too nicely, though," BO-Monica pointed out. "I don't know what your history with him is, but this doesn't make this letter less suspicious. I propose we open it to see what he has to say for himself."

"Sounds simple enough to me," Belos said while gently taking the letter and opening it with his letter opener, pulling out a piece of letter paper and adjusting it before reading the first line. 

He would immediately regret it.

"'Taking the Anomalice was always in the plan, really, it was child's play. Let them take Mona Artemision, and I take the rest and make sure they can continue what they were made to do-' PARDON?!"

At that moment his reality, it... crashed and scattered all over the place. Even more as Belos read, detailing how he managed to elicit the responses he wanted to get them to trust him, to get rid of Mona because she was a weak master... how he had... USED Tsuchiyume for prestige...

No. No.

Nonononononononononononononononononononononono......

"Senpai-"

"DON'T TOUCH ME!" He snapped at Yuga, who flinched as he backed away. "YOU'RE THE REASON WE'RE ALL HERE! YOU'RE THE ONE WHO GAVE UP AND LET PASCATMON PLAY YOU LIKE A ****ING FIDDLE! YOU RUINED EVERYTHING, AND YET YOU THINK YOU HAVE THE RIGHT TO ACT AS IF YOU DIDN'T DO ANYTHING WRONG?! **** YOU! YOU'RE JUST THE SAME AS PARUKO THEN! YOU SET US UP FOR FAILURE, YUGA! WAS IT FUN GETTING TO MURDER YOUR MOTHER JUST FOR THAT?!"

Amber eyes widened in fear, shock, guilt, regret. "I hadn't-"

Tsuchiyume grabbed his hoodie. "You have no ****ing right to pretend like you regret anything. You're every bit of the monster, of the Vessel Pascatmon led you to be. Happy now? Happy that because you're an arrogant *******, everything around us is about to fall apart? Maybe things would have changed if you had been raised by your fathers, maybe. Maybe not. Maybe you really were just a rotten apple all a-"

The resounding sound of a fist meeting the table made everyone gasp, Tsuchiyume flinching as Wuliang hissed, "Funny how you're saying all that cause you feel betrayed. But Yuga-senpai is NOT a monster. If he were, he would have been chosen by Haavik to join his side. If he were, he wouldn't have fought AGAINST him, against Pascatmon, against Paruko. I give no **** about anything, but you crossed the line. You ****ing crossed the line with your tantrum, Tsuchiyume-san."

His blood boiled. How dare he...!

"TANTRUM?! YOU ALL ARE BLIND AND CRAZY! PEOPLE LIKE HIM, THEY ALWAYS END UP BEING CRIMINALS! AT THIS POINT, IT'S HIS DESTINY TO BE THAT WAY!" He roared. "YOU HAVE NO RIGHT TO SAY THAT EITHER, INTERLOPER! CENTURIOMON IS RIGHT WHEN HE SAID YOU SHOULD DIE!"

Centuriomon gaped at him. "I said no such thing!" 

"Well, you sure ACTED like i-"

"****ING ****, SHUT UP!"

Everyone froze once more. The atmosphere was THAT bad, anyone could choke on it.

Not Amano Natsume, though. Her brown eyes glowed red as the medical officer of Y-Gakuen walked in, her husband not far behind. "Natsume, please calm down."

"I AM calm," She snapped back, and oh, her tone was calmer now as she closed her eyes. "... Sorry."

"No worries, Obasan. What's wrong?" Ranto took charge, a frown on his face.

"I got a call from the others. They've been told about...." She vaguely waved. "Gao and Tasuku are losing it, if the panicked tone from both of them is anything to go by."

Yuga flinched. "I... I'm sorry, Natsume-senpai, I hadn't thought..." His voice was so small now.

"No, it's fine. I get it. I've been there before with Touma and Keisuke, heck, even my dad at one point," She said. "Hard to blame you wholly for this, really."

"But-"

"Tsuchiyume." Her voice was soft, gentle. "Please don't."

He froze. That tone, he knew it. It was when she was tired and exhausted. 

Swallowing his protests, he nodded numbly and sat back down. 

"How... how's the multiversal structure holding up?" Sandayuu was the one to ask the forbidden question, making Touma inhale as he rubbed circles into his wife's back. "It's... not looking good. Stuff is really falling apart, and according to Blues, there's been an.... announcement."

"Announcement? Announcement for what...?"

 Tsuchiyume's protests died in his throat when he heard what his dad had to say next.

"A tournament. RAGNARÖK. To determine the fate of the multiverse..."

He inhaled. Regardless, Yuga had been a ****ed up *******. No way was he forgiving him. Not in a million years. 

Even though you yourself know what it's like to be choked by expectations?

"Shut up," he said aloud, a scowl on his face. "At least I came out better than Yuga had. I didn't ruin everything like he had. He deserved what he got. Should have died back then, too."

"Is that really what you think?" Another voice nearly made him jump as he turned to see Kusamimi Kayushi. His Youkai partner seemed worried for him. 

"Don't sneak up on me like that," he snapped. "And don't even start-"

"I wasn't. You're growing paranoid again, Chiyume," the iguana with fur and hamster ears said with a soft tone. 

"I'm not. Stop making it sound as if I'm going crazy."

"We all are, though."

And he... he wasn't wrong. No one seemed to be in the best spirits after that, heck, the realisation that the mark could be broken, that it wasn't permanent, only hit them after Ragnarök ended. 

He looked away. "All because one person couldn't stop himself from killing his mother."

"Was Paruko even his mom?"

His footsteps stopped. "I..."

"Tsuchiyume, you're pushing your own insecurities onto him..." He said gently. "I know it's hard, what with Sasuga being gone and all that, but-"

"It's his fault."

"Huh?"

"It has to be his fault. If Yuga hadn't been saved, or if he hadn't done any of that, Sasuga would have been safe, right?" He turned to Kusamimi. Out of the corner of his eye, he noticed the others stopping. "So it all really ties into that one stupid thing he did. If he had only killed his "mother" in his own timeline instead of doing it in the main timeline, none of this would have happened!" 

Why do you sound so desperate, then?

No, I don't. I'm fine. I'm fine.

"Chiyume, please-"

"Can't you see, he's the problem!? Centuriomon was right, people who ruin everything should pay, and he hasn't paid ONE bit! He ought to just k-"

"Amanoko Tsuchiyume. How the **** can you say that someone is better off dead?"

Everyone froze. Right behind Tsuchiyume, a familiar figure landed. Scarlet red eyes bore into his serpentine eyes when he turned around as Marduk coldly said, "You think that living isn't its own curse? I doubt he's not feeling the pain, the guilt every day he looks in the mirror. The only psychopath here has always been Pascatmon." 

His voice... it didn't sound as heavy as before... In fact, his words seemed to clear up as Marduk grabbed Tsuchiyume's shirt and pulled him closer. "You really have a nerve. People like you ask me why I don't do the right thing, when for me and Dia, when it was never an option. We had to fight tooth and nail, bend the rules every day just to live. So don't you DARE claim someone is better off dead."

(His friends, dead. They tried to stop him from doing what he had to do, begging that there was another way. He had been too blind back then, and...

Bylur Garcia, Tristan Wilson, Ezra Bos, Asani Balodis, Adan Neri, Eva Stoica...

Aranaut had once said it. That his recklessness would be his undoing, and he was right.)

"Maybe you're saying that only because you don't know what it's like to **** up so badly, but for us, there was never any way out. She would never give us a way out..." His grip tightened as his irises, shattered like glass, looked at the horrified Keeper. "So tell me, Amanoko Tsuchiyume, did you ever consider it from his point of view? Pascatmon didn't let him say ANYTHING. When we were forced into becoming the Fragmented Evolutions to Perfectio's Digimon, we couldn't speak, we were forced to watch it all, and it HURT." 

The realisation hit Ranto, the cold water solidifying the dread in his stomach. They really had been aware of it all. He remembered Yuga telling them that, some of the Fragmented Sin Code Digimon too, but none of them had been sure about it, but now... 

It had come from the mouth of one of them, looking very lucid and rational. They really HAD suffered because of the Codes. 

Marduk then released his grip as he turned around to face away from them. "... You all are just hypocrites. It's a joke that you all thought the Creator Gods ever cared for us. They are just happy that we're killing each other. So we'll prove them wrong, no matter what."

Then his shattered wings spread out once more. He took to the skies and left them speechless while Tsuchiyume shook. 

"Chiyume..." Ranto whispered. He could see the tears falling while he gripped his shirt, breathing bated. How did he help? How COULD he help? This wasn't his younger sister, Marina. No, this was his friend, his maybe crush, and he was hurting, just as badly as the rest of them. 

But then a berry was held out to Ranto. A raspberry, as he looked up to see Griánne, who left it in his palm and nudged him towards Tsuchiyume. 

"We'll leave you to handle this, Ranto. We don't know him as well as you do, so... Take your time while we hunt ShatteredHopemon down," RH-Ashley told him. 

He looked at them as Relica nodded. "Take your time. We will come back once we take him down."

"But-" he tried to protest.

"Ranto." Areum placed a hand on his shoulder. "Right now, you're the only one here he would listen to willingly. Please, just be there for him, okay?"

Like what he had told RH-Ashley, huh?

"I... Alright then. Good luck." He nodded.

The others gave him a smile, and with that, they were gone with their friends, leaving him with his crush (which, he might add, he just realized) who just got fact-slammed by the "enemy". 

... what kind of situation would have that sentence be an actual truth?

He sometimes wondered what his partner was doing in Saviour Datand. 

"He's not a conventional hero, but his heart was in the right place," Tzelohimon had explained to him when she came over after becoming the full guardian of Saviour Datand. "As much as most CGs don't agree, Milady managed to save him before he got sent to the Dimension of Eternal Suffering."

"And I am grateful for that," he remembered saying. He had seen Marduk endure too much, so he wanted him to get some rest and peace. "Please tell him that he will get rest and not do anything for once."

Her joke when she came next time? "Lily and Konju had to drag him off to have some fun."

"Sounds like him."

The two had become somewhat friends, really. Tzelohimon had an interesting personality, with a dry snark despite her overall innocence. (His own innocence towards human culture was lost no thanks to Elfin, and he sincerely prayed Dia did not get corrupted herself.)

Vladitor looked up to the dark sky above. Thunder and lightning crashed and struck, and the souls of the lost roamed as he sighed. He had grown used to this. He was pretty much a vessel now, with his partner gone. 

To him, he would never find a partner like Marduk again. Whose recklessness was never on full display, but easy to see. He and Zuka had once discussed how much this could lead to his death, and...

He closed his eyes, remembering the last time he saw his partner before he sacrificed it all to bring the Diamond Faction back at all costs. How Marduk had thanked him for his help, and how he himself had held his tears, even when he had asked him to continue living for his sake... 

Idiot, a Bakugan and his brawler are connected. You can't find another bond once you've found the right one. One would think Marduk would know that, but... 

Vladitor spent that night sobbing and crying, shedding tears for the first time. Even when Dia showed up and he hid away, he had to see her break down too, had to see her struggle through her emotions. 

Yet never could he say what he wanted to say. 

"Stop, don't go, please. I can't handle the heartache." He wished he could have said that to Marduk. 

"Don't worry, your brother loved you, he always did what he thought was best for you. Even if it came off as a bad thing." He wished he had said that to Dia. 

"He saw you as his closest friend. I mean, it was just you and him. So don't let what happened with the V Virus happen again." He had wanted to tell Tiko that, to let Ichita know. 

"As much as he didn't like you, he understood where you came from; a place of fear and anxiety after being under Haavik. Even if things ended the way they had... you see Dia and Ichita as loved ones, and he saw you as a friend." He had tried to tell Dan this when he was invited to the Aurelus realm, but somehow, his words died in his throat. 

How could he tell them this? All from the partner, who could have, should have been stopped? 

He had known at one point, it would have ended this way, but... 

Marduk, I wish I could have told you how much you changed my life. How much our partnership meant to me...

(How does one pick up the broken shards of their heart when their platonic soulmate is gone? 

Why does the world not give time to grieve, to process? Battle Axe Vladitor is many things, but being knowledgeable in processing emotional pain is not one of them.

Maybe... maybe he can find the missing piece, not through another Marduk, but... through himself.)

A portal opened up behind him, surprising him as he turned to see a swirling blue vortex. What? How had someone opened—

"Ouch!"

Another blink of surprise, as a fourteen-year-old boy landed on the ground with a yelp, and right beside him was a ... 

Ferret? 

Is that a ferret? A very cute and long, and somewhat terrifyingly big ferret? 

Vladitor could only stare in shock. What the actual heck was going on? 

And the ferret immediately jumped onto the boy, who seemed surprised and— and he seemed TERRIFIED? "M-Merkins?!"

"Rara!" The creature giggled while trying to nuzzle him, but he roughly pushed him away. "N-no, why are you so kind?! I boxed you, Merkins! I-I'm a bad person!"

That surprised Vladitor. For someone who supposedly had no remorse, he seemed scared of the idea of being so, unlike actual psychopaths...

The creature, ferret, thing, seemed to agree as it tackled him to the ground and nuzzled him hard. Soon enough, little giggles erupted out of his mouth. "Hahaha, stop, Merkins, it's too muc- HAHAAHAA STOP!"

"Rara!" Merkins smiled, but then paused as it noticed his presence and immediately scowled. 

It proceeded to do the most perplexing thing he had ever seen. 

It tried to stand up, and stretched out its pudgy front legs to the side to form a T as if it could intimidate him? 

"M-Merkins, this is not Kitakami!" The boy whispered. 

Kitakami...? He didn't know where that was, but he did find it very amusing. Never in his life, not even knowing Elfin (and she provided her own kind of humor), had he seen such a cute creature try to intimidate him. "I'm not going to harm you, kid. But this place can be bad for you and... Merkins?" That had to be one of the best nicknames he had ever heard from the millions of axolotl videos he had been exposed to because of Venoclaw. (Full blame onto him! Even Marduk laughed at him after he started loving those derpy looks and adorable gills! MARDUK JENKINS! Laughed at HIM! His own partner!) "Is your name Rara?"

The boy looked very lost, but Merkins was nodding. "Rara!" 

"Apparently that's your name to Merkins," he quickly clarified to the human, who looked at his partner in surprise. "You... you gave me a nickname?"

"Always!" He trilled happily, even if he did sound a bit sad. "Even when you boxed me, I knew you would come back for me!"

Box him?... That sounded... sus. (CURSE YOU ELFIN!) "Did you... abandon him?" His tone did become frosty, and the kid flinched, but looked away. "I... I got carried away with something, and I couldn't bear to look at Merkins after what I had done."

Vladitor couldn't stop the anger coursing through his veins at that. "Merkins was not a tool for whatever power hunt you were on. He knows you abandoned him, but he still believed you would come back. Tell me, as his partner, what do you have to say for yoursel-"

Are you really going to be a hypocrite about this?  You could never tell Marduk how you felt. You couldn't tell Dia, Ichita, Dan, about what Marduk did, about what you wished you could have done. Face it, you are not so different from him, so why act as if you are on a higher moral ground? Especially with what you did as Marduk's partner to revive the Diamond faction. Do you really think that after all that, you deserve forgiveness? After you couldn't do ANYTHING to stop your partner? When you could have stopped him and begged him to not die?  His thoughts mocked him. 

His words died. Suddenly, he felt a void open up within him. Each sentence held truth in it, highlighting the reality he had been trying to push away ever since that fateful day; that he could have, SHOULD have saved his partner, should have died in his stead to fully revive the Diamond faction. He had no one. Marduk had a family and friends. And yet, he was left to carry a burden he could have avoided if he had only begged, selfish being he was, for Marduk to find another way. Maybe team up with the Awesome Brawlers, find any other way to save him, instead of choosing to sacrifice himself when he himself had aspirations. ANYTHING, even if his sister would hate him, at least Marduk was alive. 

(He holds himself back, when Tzelohimon offers to bring him to Saviour Datand to meet Marduk. He knows that he would try to revive his partner at all costs, even if he gets struck down for defying the laws of nature. 

How can he face someone when he himself had these selfish desires?)

"E-Erm, Sir...?" The boy's voice snapped him back to reality as those yellow eyes looked up at him. Even if fear wasn't hard to see, he also seemed... concerned for him. "Are you okay?"

"I... Forgive me. I do not know why I said that," he admitted. Had his emotions overcome him again? He supposed reminiscing really was a bad thing to do... "I am Battle Axe Vladitor. I am a Diamond Faction Bakugan."

"A... Bakugan? What's that?" The boy asked. 

How did he explain it? He was definitely not from his world... and what was Merkins anyway? "I suppose you can call me an alien, an extraterrestrial being."

"W-Wowzers, so you came from outer space? Like Rayquaza and Deoxys?!" He gasped.

Who or what were Rayquaza and Deoxys? "I... do not know who those two are, but yes, I do come from a planet far away from Earth."

"Earth?"

"We are technically on Earth in a way. To summarize it in the best way I can, Bakugan hail from Vestroia, and Vestroia fused with your planet filled with humans during a war that nearly ended us all due to a virus created from the dead bodies of Bakugan from my faction who were killed for being too strong."

His eyes widened in shock, and fear seemed to flash in his eyes. "Yikes... t-that has to be scary... b-but you won right?"

"No. Our faction ended up becoming somewhat extinct until Marduk found my Bakuball, rolled me out and I told him my story. We agreed to revive the Diamond Faction and recruited people to our cause, but..."

In the end, Marduk took on the burden on his own.

He swallowed the lump in his throat. Was this how Ichita had felt when Dan had found out he was Kagami? If so, he genuinely felt bad for him. This was a horrible feeling to endure through. "My partner, he... died to fully revive the faction."

And I've never fully forgiven myself for it either.

"Being strong... comes at a cost. Sometimes, I wonder if our faction was not so strong, maybe we would have been spared the genocide by that sniveling hydra."

Why was he saying so much to someone who he barely knew, especially who was not of the same world?

(Maybe Vladitor too craves connections. He is a warrior, but he also has a heart, and he misses them. Elfin, who would tell him about the trends through her phone. Venoclaw, who had millions of ideas for them to discuss. Cubbo, who would snuggle up to him when he had nightmare about what if Zuka hadn't saved him from Everett Ray. Dragonoid, despite only being there for a while, who sparred with him and could bring up things that genuinely made his stomach ache from humor. Zuka, who would feed him his favorite food when Marduk wasn't looking. Dan, who would show him funny videos and leave him rasping for air. 

Marduk, who would watch all this with a fond smile.

He... he wants connections, but he's told that he must remain here for eternity.)

Kieran's eyes widened, and it was like a chasm had opened up. He had remembered Ashley's face when he had asked her how she had gotten so strong, and the jaded look in her eyes as she answered, "I did a lot of training from my father, who... died in Kitakami. It's kinda why I'm here, so yeah. But I did get to meet you, and you're a really nice guy, which is great too!"

Her eyes had always spoken of pain. Her strength as a champion hadn't been gained through the best means.

Power... he had only wanted it to prove people wrong, but... when had it become a thirst for it, a willingness to gain it at all costs? 

When had he... when had he become a villain?

"So, ugh, we beat the Digimon, and we, ugh, keep this world safe?" RH-Ashley grunted while climbing up the cliff. Now she was regretting leaving Koraidon and Miraidon with Arven. They would have scaled these cliffs like nothing, much like Ogerpon had with hopping like some sort of elfish fairy. 

Though I don't know how they would have reacted to the new environment. I know that my mons can adapt fast to the climate somehow, but those two DID travel through time and all that. I don't know how they would have reacted to it, She thought to herself, sighing while pulling herself to the very top. 

"Yeah, pretty much," Areum agreed while holding her hand out to help RH-Ashley up. 

"Thanks," she said, her feet landing on solid ground at long last. Phew, that could have gone a lot worse. She hadn't been doing a lot of physical stuff outside of commanding her mons to battle since arriving at Paldea, so... 

I just hope Father isn't mad at me in the afterlife, she decided. She would go back to training after this. It's not for me, it's so I can figure out what I truly want as a Keeper, and maybe figure out how to help Kieran. 

Ranto had been right, hadn't he? While she didn't know much about making friends, much like Arven, she sure as heck could try her best to support Kieran, even if he didn't want it. 

"How much further is ShatteredHopemon?" Relica asked Areum, already readying her arrows while tuning into the wildlife around her. It was really serene, and she found that it really reminded her of home...

She shook her head wildly. No, she couldn't afford to be distracted! Not when her fellow Keepers were trusting her to stay on guard! She could not afford to falter!

"I see you finally showed up." Speak of him and he shall appear, it seemed. 

The trio turned around to see Marduk land on the ground, and even Shiift couldn't help the wince at how bad the damage was on him. "Did Exbloode do that much of a number on you?" 

"My own recklessness led to this, so I am better off accepting it as it is," he answered coldly. "But I digress. You are not here to hear me rant about this."

"We... we won't pretend to know what you've been through, ShatteredHopemon, no, Marduk, right?" When Areum didn't get an answer, she pressed on, "But we both know that your presence here has altered the course of it all by now."

"I only sped it up a bit. That Shilla was better off dead, anyway. Don't you agree, Relica of the Rito?"

Her grip on her bow tightened. She had been given an overview of what had happened in this world, and honestly, it had been a slap to the face. That her own mindset would lead her down a path of self-destruction, and that path broke all the people she cared about. 

She didn't know how to come to terms with that, but... she was going to figure that out one day. Right now, she couldn't afford to lose focus. 

The warrior chose to answer, "For all the chaos she brought onto my life, killing someone in a twisted act of justice is still condoned. Therefore, we must stop you here." 

"I'd like to see you try!" he yelled while his wings unfurled, returning to his Digimon form as the three gaped. Now that they had a closer look, this was...

"This is definitely not ShatteredHopemon," Areum mumbled.

"Like it? This is what I have become, after being forced beyond my limits!" he laughed, his eyes glowing all the more. "And this time... I will not fail!" 

"They were forced to evolve, weren't they...?" RH-Ashley whispered. That was... that was ****ed up. How could someone be so cruel, so evil to force people who were already in pain to go through more of it?!

"Griánne, time to go!" Agathhos urged. 

"Ponio!" She agreed, putting on the Angel Mask once more. "GRAHHHHH PON!!!!" 

"Shiift, unite this family!" Areum yelled as she slipped the bracelet on as well.

As the Miraculouses activated, RH-Ashley called out her Ninetales, eyes narrowed. Time to go all out! (Maybe this is how she makes her stand, stand firm in her decision to support Kieran. After all, he was her precious friend, and as scared as she is to venture down this hole, she will not falter!) "Let's go, kyuu!"

Her Pokémon roared in agreement, and Relica herself prepared her arrows for the fight. It was time to win this battle!

"V-ruelian!" Vestramon roared, the V-Virus rushing at them. Thankfully, Relica's flame arrows cut through the attack before Griánne blasted a Dazzling Gleam, dispelling the dark virus. 

"Grrr... I will not falter here! Wrath's Genesis!" He created a tiger-like projection made of red Aura, then threw it at the group. 

"Scatter!" Protector commanded, and they complied just in time for the attack to hit the ground, creating a crater shining like a rainbow spectrum despite the red and black vines growing out of it. "What the heck...? That is NOT normal!" 

"Oh, there's PLENTY where that came from! Vile Prism!" He summoned projections that seemed to resemble Geogans before fusing into one huge attack. While they did manage to miss,  the woods around them were obliterated completely. 

"For the love of- Is this why they didn't show up for an entire month...?" Areum grunted. "He's way too strong! We have to back o-"

"GRAHHHHHHH!!!!" the Legendary Pokémon screamed, surprising her allies as she swung her cudgel, a bright pink aura surrounding it, and struck Vestramon. HARD. 

(She had heard Ranto's words. She knew she couldn't turn back time, for if she could, she would have done that to stop the Loyal Three and... and HIM. 

But she COULD try to help Kieran, make sure he didn't turn out like her. All she had to do was be there for him. 

For loneliness was a huge void, and while she had gotten her reprieve, he hadn't, and Ogerpon KNEW that for all his faults, he had just wanted a friend. A friend who wouldn't backstab him, who would be there for him.

After all... she herself had wanted that for so, so long...

So this was her own promise! To one day tell him the truth, to one day be able to look at him and not feel scared! Even if it would take days, months, years, she WOULD reach that point!)

ShatteredHopemon SCREAMED as he stumbled back. What the heck was that?! How had she...!?

"Ogerpon..." RH-Ashley felt her grin spread. She could sense her determination loud and clear! "Alright, I'm not about to slack off either! Nimona, Will-O-Wisp!"

Her Ninetales roared in agreement before sending the ghostly fireballs at Vestramon, making him hiss while Ogerpon struck a Wood Hammer at him. Relica was not far behind with her own arrows, too!

Still, this wasn't the end of the attack onslaught! "Dazzling Gleam!" She commanded the same time Ogerpon used a Draining Kiss on him, the Fairy-type combo serving to knock him back even more. "Time to end this, don't you think!?" 

"Grahpon, yopon!" the Legendary agreed as the two prepared their final attacks. 

Little did RH-Ashley know, that as Nimona began charging up the attack, something... began to happen to her. 

A fluffy white tail, coloured red at the tip began to grow. White fox ears popped out of her head, her usually white hair gaining the same red-coloured tips while her eyes glowed all the more. She could feel a fiery warmth in her body, Aura surrounding her like a hot blanket in the middle of winter. As if someone was protecting her from being burnt badly. 

Areum actually gaped at the growth. "Wha- HUH!?" 

"What's going on?" Relica asked, readying her arrows just in case. 

"Wait, wait, let's wait and see first..." Areum said. She was still confused, but she would reserve judgement. For now. 

Ogerpon charged up her cudgel one last time. "YOPON!" 

This is for you guys, [REDACTED]! I WON'T LET THIS CHANCE BY PASS ME AGAIN!

RH-Ashley felt the words stream into her head, a natural thought, and she grinned. Time to end this!

"DIVINE..... INFERNO!!!!" She roared at the top of her lungs, every ounce of her energy poured out into that scream as the two Pokémon launched their attacks. A fire drill tornado seemingly surrounded by a void of nothingness and a huge ivy cudgel bursting with bright energy, and together they struck Vestramon. HARD. 

A loud hiss, unlike anything they had heard before, was heard as the wings seemed to boil upon the flame's impact. It was... painful to their ears, making Ogerpon cry. It was too much! 

(What exactly were Core Cells? No one truly knew, they were technically alien technology made by a Creator God. 

Maybe... there is something yet to be found about them.)

The wings then proceeded to melt to the ground, leaving a dead body, one of Ganondorf's loyal servants, in front of them as ShatteredHopemon's voice echoed, "That was quite the move, I must say. No matter, though. I WILL find you, Exbloode."

He was not about to let Vladitor's death be in vain. His brawling partner, who had rescued him. For all the cat-loving videos Elfin had made him endure, all his friends, all his family, everything he had worked for had been LOST when he had made that one stupid, stupid mistake that cost an entire world. 

"I'm far beyond saving, Mona. I'm sorry for this, but... I WILL destroy Exbloode if it's the last thing I do." was the last thing they heard before the goop dissipated, letting RH-Ashley's additional features fade away while she collapsed onto the ground, only for Areum to catch her with a smile. Well, she really had proven herself today, hadn't she? 

They could worry about ShatteredHopemon another day. For now... It was time to head home. 

"Ashley?" a gentle voice spoke. 

"H-Huh?" she rubbed her ears, opening her eyes up to see the dorm caretaker, Miss Lily Amano, smiling in relief. "O-Oh, Miss Lily..."

"Are you okay? Your new friends dropped you off here a while ago, saying that you overexerted yourself today," she asked. 

New friends? Did she mean the Keepers? "You mean Areum?" 

"Yeah, her and a nice young man who reminds me strangely of Keita's Incineroar, Jiidii. Said his name was Jinpei."

Oh, that was pretty nice! Had they dropped by Y Gakuen before bringing her home? They didn't need to!  "T-they're... friends of mine, I guess," she admitted with a small smile. "I'm really happy to have met them."

"That's great! I'm honestly happy that you're making friends now!" Lily clasped her hands together. "I remember when you and Taiko showed up, you were really secluded!" 

She... She had been, hadn't she? Back then, he had wanted her to have an education while he attended to some unfinished business in Kitakami, so he left her here, and... 

and got himself killed while she was down in Area Zero...

She sighed, getting up as she admitted, "I don't even know if they see me as a friend." 

"I mean, don't friends carry each other back home? They apparently did that, and it reminds me of when Arven and Nemona carried you back when your father... well..." 

She nodded, but it did make her smile as she remembered how her friends had stayed the night to ensure she was okay after that. Even if the Keepers hadn't done that, she... She was really happy that she now had friends. 

And I'll be a friend to Kieran like how they have been to me, she swore in her heart. I'll find a way to help him, and I won't give up until I get there. That's my decree from here on out!

Noticing the younger girl smile with the fire burning in her eyes, Lily chuckled before saying, "Anyway, we may be getting new tenants soon enough, Ashley."

That made her look up in surprise. "Huh?"

"Apparently Naruva Academy's sister school is having an exchange program that's coming here! I think the place is... Blueberry Academy?"

Wait what.  

She paused. 

She blinked. 

She checked her phone, and saw a text message from Carmine about how she was on her way to Paldea next week (There is NO way I'm losing the tournament to go to Naruva!). 

She shot up out of nowhere, alarming Lily's Marshadow as she yelped, "WHAT!?" 

"He... didn't want to be saved?" 

"I don't know, Mona. I'm really sorry, but it looks like that one month of reprieve only made things worse for them," Areum said while looking away. 

"I... I expected that but to think that the Codes could force them to EVOLVE..." Mona whispered, hands in Yuga's hair. "Thank you for telling me about this, though, Areum. I know that none of you trust me or Yuga yet but-"

"We don't really blame him for his actions. It's hard to do that when he clearly blames himself a lot more than we ever could." She shook her head. "That being said, can I know... what kind of person he was?" 

"You mean Marduk? I... suppose he is quite serious," she admitted with a chuckle. "He has been through a lot, but being around us softened him a lot, I suppose. Even if he's more or less the exasperated anti-hero Marduk Jenkins is in the main world or any other world. Heck, if I were to see a world where he wasn't that, I would have never believed you. He may be reckless, but that recklessness is what we all come to love about him." 

Her tone softened. "But if there is someone who truly blamed himself the most for his world turning into a Forbidden Verse, it would be him. Marduk is extremely hard on himself for that. After all, he just wanted his loved ones to survive, to revive the Diamond Faction when Viloch had them slaughtered like pigs, but his one action killed all those who he held dear." 

"Not even the others blamed themselves like he did, huh?" Wuliang murmured. "That... must be hard."

Centuriomon nodded, unsure how to respond. How could he? He had spent a good amount of time thinking the Anomalice were just as messed up as their Creator, but now, he was being forced to reconsider those preconceptions. He had been forced to think about how the judgement had pushed people to the brink of no return... 

Had someone actually stopped to think about it, to empathise with them, would they have avoided all this? He HAD noticed Yuga acting off, but had waved it off, and found it great since there were no more crazy shenanigans. It hadn't hit him that it could mean something really, really bad... 

Mona closed her eyes. "Regardless, we have to stop him now. If even one of the Miraculous were to..." 

"We know. Don't worry, we'll make sure that isn't the case at all," Glasssweeper reassured. "Consider this from personal experience. I was born as a Broken World monster, you know." 

"I... thank you for the encouragement, Plecosweeper," Mona said with a smile. 

"Don't sweat it. Now, Heliang, get me some cabbage to chew on." 

"NOW, of all times? Alright, alright, might as well. I don't want to be smacked like how you would smack Papa during HIS self-deprecative moments." Wuliang rolled his eyes. "Centuriomon, you coming?" 

"I... yeah," he agreed, looking at Mon- Yuga for a brief minute before joining him outside the room. 

Once it was just the two of them, Areum's next words were a lot more careful. "I... heard from Ranma. About what you had gone through during the past few months after the erasure." 

Yuga flinched as he looked away. "I don't need pity." 

"And yet you still struggle to write a letter explaining it all to your dads." She had seen the numerous versions of the online document he had been using. "It's okay to ask for help, Yuga. I don't know if you're aware of that, but pushing yourself away from others doesn't change the past." 

"And that's why I'm doing this. I... I'm not a good person, and the fact that I took pleasure in Paruko's death proves that. I doomed everyone I knew, just like ShatteredHopemon, all because I couldn't take the nightmares, the whispers taunting me about still being Nanana Yuga..." His grip on his shoulders tightened. 

Nightmares? That was new to Areum. "Did Pascatmon...?"

"I don't know, Areum-san. All I know is that they're right. I can't call myself a Mikado when unlike my parents, who at least have moral standards, unlike Gangsan, who managed to live with the truth a lot longer than I have, heck, unlike Garga, who still retained sanity after what Whirnobog did, I... I'm practically trash." He let out a mirthless laugh. "Why did Garga choose ME of all people to be the new heir? I will never know. Maybe he finally realised it and left because I was too much for him." 

"... Gangsan didn't take it as okay as you think, Yuga. When I first met them..." 

"How can I stay calm, Daun!? I had an entire family forget about my very existence! I had a TWIN brother! I've always felt some sort of gap in my life! And I got my answer to it now! How the **** do you think I'm fine!?" 

"They were really shaken. As for holding on, they weren't at all. They're barely surviving, Yuga. So please... don't assume things. We all have our own issues, but our choices determine the path we end up going down." She placed a gentle hand on his shoulder, making golden eyes meet navy blue. "I don't know if you'll believe me on this, but I genuinely think that the fact that you and Mona managed to somewhat break free from Pascatmon shows you're a lot stronger than you think." 

"... T-Thanks, this is the first time someone..." 

"Gave you a genuine compliment?" 

His only answer was a silent nod, making Areum smile softly before she left him there to think about it. She didn't know when he would come to accept himself better, but... she had a feeling that he would come to accept things.

... Still...

A frown formed on her face. 

What did he mean about voices and nightmares? Was it the Codes?

Something told her that there was more to be discovered about Yuga, and how he was connected to Mona Artemision, and the Fragmented Codes in general...