The woman slurped her buckwheat noodles, bulging eyes glued to the screen. Tempering the mettle, the blaze, called Loralei had been a chore wasted. The inferno entrapped past and present, merging them in a heat wave, blurring the lines of intent and action. If the girl had been all the wiser, she would have used her Singularity for good. Destructive natures could always be swept under the duvet of good intentions after all, though such resolve would pave the road to hell.

"Last night, almost every person in Kalos is seen hurting zirself with knives, guns and some have commanded their Pokémon to attack them. About two hundred people have died in Kalos, and five thousand injured landed in hospitals. The cause is unknown, but a common factor is that all of them were listening to a girl's solo in a 'live' broadcast on screens on buildings, phones and computers. The Kalosian Police Force is currently investigating this strange phenomenon."

She switched channels with a navy blue remote control, only to realise similar incidents had occurred in the other regions as well, including Kanto, Galar, Sinnoh, Fiore, Orre and Almia. Even Alola was not left unscathed from this.

The Chandelure looked at the television with zir pupil-less yellow eyes and cried. Zie had never heard of such devastating news. Black arms, tipped with purple fire and curled upward from a black spike below zir head, now shifted around in amusement. The ring of small, black spikes on top of its head with a tall, purple flame in the middle reflected zir pleasant expression as ze imagined all the victims ze could collect if ze were there.

The cry triggered her change in identity. The woman jerked for a moment and a grin replaced her frown. Now, she wasn't Valencia, but a slightly younger man named Wyatt. As much as the 40 year-old male hated it, this curse followed him throughout his life. He was Valencia, and she was Wyatt, two people living in one body. Whoever took over depended on the Ghost-type's cry.

"Destiny Bond is truly one of the most dangerous moves out there," he said as he turned off the television. Proceeding to change into a shirt and denim jeans, Wyatt thought about the curse. It had been three years since he moved to this island. Putting all the dirty money he had embezzled onto buying and recreating the island made it easier to hide from the Kalosian government.

A knock on the door forced him to hasten and he straightened his posture before opening the door to reveal the only yellow-haired boy he knew of.

"Morning, Sir Wyatt. Where's Madame Valencia?" Zayn asked as he surveyed the room.

"What you looking her for?" The man glimpsed at the calendar on the table. "Her lessons start at ten in the morning with twins Iseul and Ji-min, non?"

"It's only nine," Zayn stated.

"Precisely! Now get to sleep." Wyatt wanted to close the door but Zayn held it firmly.

"Make that Chandelure cry then." Zayn's words did not surprise Wyatt. He had thought about it himself, but that damned Pokémon only cried whenever zie wished. Neither he nor Valencia could control it.

Can't help it, I guess. Only this lil' guy knows what's with me. Wyatt thought.

Of course, appearances stayed the same, which explained Valencia's short hair. It fitted them both.

"Just tell me the freaking problem," Wyatt said.

"Loralei died last night and used her Singularity on the students. Also, I watched the news..."

"Oh, I know what's with Loralei. We're lucky Jade rushed to the scene in time to heal everyone," Wyatt mumbled. "I'll settle Loralei's issue myself when we get to Kalos tomorrow."

"Tomorrow?"

"The faster the better. People are dying out there! I need to find a way to get Valencia out of my body as well."

"Actually... whose Chandelure is that?" Zayn asked while tapping his fingers on the door. In his three years here, he merely considered the question but never asked.

"Mine. I couldn't bear Valencia dead so I tried to revive her. But it cursed me and now both of us live in the same body." Wyatt coughed. "Anyway, I'll tell you more in Kalos. Your deduction skills are really needed."

When the boy left, the man slammed the door shut and walked back to his chair.

"Why does this keep happening to me?" Wyatt gobbled up his soba noodles. "Once I get back to Kalos, I'll settle everything once and for all. Everything."

He glanced at the potted plants, one peppermint, one basil. "Screw Destiny Bond. If all else fails, that will have to do."

An eldritch screech made Valencia, the 43 years-old host, return.

「」

Ah, here comes the black bitch... Yuzu spun her white fountain pen on her fingers while fixing her gaze on the despicable second-year entering the room with a clipboard in hand. The third-year raised her brows and flipped her long red hair upon seeing another second-year amble into the room. Her lips curled and her pen dropped onto the white table. And here comes the white gem!

"Yuzucchi," Amity greeted the Director and placed her hand on the table, rosy cheeks so delicious-looking the third-year wanted to take a bite. "Can we adopt a Pokémon?"

"Of course, Amity." Yuzu clicked her tongue and crossed her legs together. "Which Pokémon?"

"There it is," Ciara said before Amity could, earning a cold glare from her senior.

The short, black beak with a bulbous pink cere first came into view as a merry chirp left the Pokémon's open beak. A wide, heart-shaped area of lighter colouration on its puffed-up chest appeared next. When the Pokémon was in full sight, Yuzu tipped her chair over.

"Ciara, the heck is this?" Yuzu pushed herself off the orange-red tiles.

The girl shook her head and glanced at the Flying-type Pokémon. "Come here, Citrus."

Yuzu felt bitterness pile up at the tip of her tongue. Who was she to name that Pokémon of all Pokémon Citrus? Ciara was mocking her, a payback perhaps for what happened two nights ago. Now, there was one more reason to hate her.

"Uh..." Amity's voice made Yuzu's heart flutter. Amity was like a Beautifly bathed in sunshine, something out of a fairy tale. "I Healed the Pidove. I couldn't bear it to die like that. Poor thing!"

Did anyone say you could kill someone with such foolish kindness? Yuzu bit her lips. Folding her arms, she said, "Give it another name, then."

"But Ciara said it's a very fitting name. Taking care of it will be like taking care of you! Isn't she clever?" Amity squealed. The girl could hear her racing pulse. She wondered if the Director got her message. How would she react?

Clever? Black girl don't stand a chance. Amity belongs to me! We're both whites! This isn't some goddamn game of Reversi!

"Yeah. Ha! Ha!" Yuzu let out a mirthless laughter. To Amity, it sounded all the same anyway, so the girl shut her green eyes and giggled along. "Why don't we name it so—"

"OK, Citrus," Ciara said in a rather squeaky voice and stole a quick glance at the Director's scrunched-up face. The Pidove pecked at the floor and waddled around, then its beak swiped across Yuzu's legs. "Oh, seems like Citrus took a liking to... Yuzucchi."

That black bitch is seriously getting on my nerves and slowly plotting my damn death. Only Amity is allowed to call me that. Yuzu grabbed an empty plastic bottle and crushed it, her fingernails scratching the item and sinking into it to create holes. She turned to the brown-haired girl, then at the bird by her feet.

"Yuzucchi," Ciara started. "I'll take Citrus away. Oh! You're not wearing those beautiful high heels from two nights ago?"

Damn it! That Lie Detector Singularity of hers is so annoying. Can't I just off her already? Yuzu scooped up the petite Pokémon and shoved it into the girl's open hands.

"Aww," the girl with chocolate-coloured skin cooed while cradling the Pokémon. She observed the other second-year, who had been quiet for some time, through her peripheral vision. "Do you breastfeed a Pidove? Amity, Citrus is so cute! Why don't you hug her?"

"Fuck," Yuzu muttered while storming out of the room. "Get that thing out of my sight! And never—never, I dare say!—call it by that name! Just call that creature by its damn given name of a species!"

Now, Amity was nodding, as Yuzu had expected. When the Director returned her gaze to the corridor, she caught sight of blue hair at the far end, turning the bend to walk up the stairs. With the breeding of malice aforethought, her pupils dilated.

Whirling around, she said, "You know what? Keep that damn Pokémon! And just call it anything but a fruit!"

Ciara smirked, putting her hands into the pockets of her ripped jeans. "What about... Trump? It's an unintelligent Pokémon after all."

Trumps! Ace of trumps, tarot cards, trump card... As long as it's not my name!

Now that everyone came to a consensus, manipulation was very much unneeded to change the situation.

The third-year took her purse and zoomed down the corridor. It was twelve and she was almost late for her Singularity-mastering lesson with Madame Valencia. Her eyes never left the stairway even as she ran in the other direction.

「」

Mei found the brown-haired boy sitting in a beanbag and pushing a spoonful of chawanmushi into his mouth, the silky egg custard sliding under his tongue. An open book rested on his lap. She found him different from Jade and Zayn, that he actually hid behind a veil of, perhaps, ambivalence with shades of sadness. An enigma seemed to be a fitting description for him.

"Hey." She held out a hand to him, but he smacked it away, causing her to fall forward onto another beanbag in the room, right at the foreleg of the grand piano. A wall fitted with mirrors that stretched from the ceiling till the floor reflected her puzzled look.

"What are you reading?" Mei lay on the floor to take a good look at the embossed title of the book. The cover design was attractive; a boy crouching in the centre covering his face with his hands. A glowing red eye, left exposed, seemed to call out to her and pull her closer to the book. The red-to-black gradient of the text hinted at the deaths woven within the plot.

"Bloodglass," the boy said as he placed the bowl of food beside him and flipped the page with his pinky finger. He picked the book up and carried on with his reading. "Last night's incident reminded me of it."

"They're plotting my death." Mei brought the beanbag over and sat beside him. "I know it. I just know it."

Anyone who heard it might think of her as truly off-centre, simply because she deviated from the norm. She would be labelled as "paranoid". The minorities, the mentally ill like her, for instance, would be judged. Society would impose labels on them and even fear them. People, Madame Valencia said, would burn them in the past, but now, they proved to be more civilised, turning to science and technology. Religious people, on the other hand, would call them "Giratina's spawns", here to wreak havoc. Mei thought about this for a while and was about to quote from Zayn's thriller when the boy beat her to it.

"They're plotting my death and looking at me again. Mad, psycho, cuckoo—those words stamped on my identity as if a passport, and travelling around, people would look at me, then at those stamps, and walk away in less than a split second."

"Zayn really did a great job having a paranoid and aware protagonist, plus the story's in first-person narration," Mei commented.

"Yeah, and it's relatable," Sage muttered while turning the page. "Actually, I saw something when I was looking through Loralei's phone."

"What?"

"She was abused and sexually assaulted by her father about three years ago, then thrown into Noryuku. Cruel, I'd say. Not all silent victims can take it, you know." Sage flipped a page, then another. "She had to write diaries on her phone to cope with the trauma. Of course, another coping mechanism would be singing."

"Right, and what's relatable about Bloodglass? You're not schizophrenic. You don't take meds that make you drowsy. You don't have paranoid schizophrenia."

Sage put the book down and finished his chawanmushi. Then, he held the book. "I don't. But I'm affected by my Singularity. Actually, scratch that, you might already know it from Zayn."

You don't want to know how bad I can be. The boy thought to himself. Because even I am afraid of myself.

Music filled their ears and both of them turned to the girl's phone. Sage got up and tossed the book in his hands onto the grand piano. A short, gloomy sound erupted in the room when the book hit the black keys. Mei clutched her head and brought her hands to my ears, scratching them till her left ear bled a little. Whispers, like water, flowed and flooded the room.

「Karma: why were you unaffected last night?」

"Mei, you didn't do a good job passing the phone over to Madame Valencia, did you?"

Sayo's words were a Seviper coiling around her, the cool flesh freezing the girl whose tears were stuck in her eyes. They replayed themselves, a chant that amplified, and tightened around the girl with each passing second.

"Sa-Sayo?"

Pause. Mei rotated her head to the door, like gears in an old clock, and felt water from the air conditioner above drip onto her. Pause. A penetrating, devilish chortle echoed in her ears. Pause.

It was there. It was back for her. The chirp, the golden eyes, the scar beneath its wings stayed in her mind.

"Pi?" The Pokémon spread its wings. In a swift motion, it charged towards her.