Music: 「My Inner Demons」by Dios

The world shifted back into order in seconds once Cyrus and Mindy returned to Spear Pillar, still locked in their embrace. A white light engulfed Mindy and her right leg regenerated, as if she was an Octillery. It was a gift from Arceus for completing her task. Around them, Saturn, Jupiter, Mars and Charon were kowtowing to Arceus, eyes closed, heads hung low, limbs trembling and rooted to the tiles. Around Spear Pillar, Sinnoh, as with the rest of the world, was free of the Distortion World, albeit with a few scars serving as reminder of the event - fallen trees, near-dry water bodies, soiled buildings. While they were away facing Judgment, Cynthia and Carolina witnessed the taming of the Creation Trio by the Lake Guardians as they created the Red Chain and bound them back to reason. Giratina headed back to the Distortion World after an apology to Arceus, Dialga, Palkia and the world at large. Dialga and Palkia expressed similar sentiments with their roars before returning to the space-time continuum. The trio held their mantles and served their duties once again, overseeing the world while governing space, time and antimatter, an undisturbed harmony as if Cyrus had never gotten to them.

As for Cyrus, he backed away the moment he noticed the change in surroundings, the first drop of tears ruining his composure. He let go of Mindy and joined his fray in repentance under Arceus's unwavering gaze. Mindy hobbled over to Cynthia and Carolina, then glanced at the Lake Trio who gave her a knowing look.

"It appears you have found internal validation," Uxie mumbled. "Self-worth."

Mindy bit her lip, but did not protest otherwise.

"Where's Shaymin?" she asked instead and learnt the Gratitude Pokémon was back in Flower Paradise. "And about the Trader business..."

"You don't have to Trade anymore," said Azelf. "You are self-sufficient, as is."

"I don't have to prove myself to anyone anymore, you mean."

"You never had to," Mesprit hummed. "Before we go, we want you to have this."

Mesprit placed in her palm an SD card.

"Whenever you doubt yourself," said Azelf.

"Or forget yourself," said Uxie.

"Or hurt yourself," said Mesprit, "remember we are here for you. And remember this bit of technology. It will help you."

It contained her journey as a Trader, from start to end.

Mindy nodded.

"Goodbye, Mindy," the Lake Trio said in unison. "Take heart."

A squawk from the sky compelled her to look up and see Rasu wave a wing at the Lake Trio who parted and flew back to their respective lakes. The Honchkrow landed on Mindy's shoulder and nuzzled against her neck.

Mindy thanked Cynthia and Carolina who gave her words of encouragement and affirmation as well as a tight hug. They beamed.

"Team Galactic," boomed Arceus, causing them to snap their heads at the bunch, "under Cyrus's lead, you will gather every member, former and existing, and make amends with Sinnoh and the world. Sincerely."

Arceus vanished in an instant, leaving them in buckets of sweat.

"You should go," said Cynthia to Mindy. "You have someplace else to be, from the look you're giving me."

"But..."

"We'll handle them."

Mindy nodded and left Spear Pillar with Rasu. Etched in her mind was Cyrus staring at the Pokémon League. She figured she would go there. The Pokémon League was the last place Kōki was seen and his belongings were still there, as proven by the Lake Trio. To receive the closure she sought, she must check the Champion's Chamber out.

The Pokémon League was so quiet that Rasu kept pecking her to draw her attention towards him, out of boredom. None of the Elite Four members were there and not a single trainer hung out at the lobby. She learnt from the Nurse Joy stationed there that the Elite Four members had gone back to their homes to protect and calm their citizens and loved ones down, and would only be back two days later. As for Nurse Joy herself, her duty was her priority. Besides, she had received a call from her parents claiming they were quite alright after the ordeal.

"And Kōki still hasn't appeared?"

Nurse Joy shook her head. Mindy realised there were no ill feelings harboured towards her.

"I never once thought you were wrong," said Nurse Joy. "You're free to enter the Champion's Chamber. He might've left some clues, though no one knew what. No one found them."

The place was quite bare and different from what Mindy expected, which made sense why any effort to find a trace of Kōki or anything leading to his disappearance proved futile. Save for a light grey closet and his backpack, there was nothing. Oh, and there's Mindycham at the corner, unable to look at Mindy after that strange exit. Mindycham had regained her self, but the effects of rewinding time dulled her senses for a few hours. Mindy, too, felt awkward and simply nodded to acknowledge the Medicham's presence. When the silence was too unbearable, she added that it was good to see Mindycham again. Mindycham cried softly. Rasu rolled his eyes at their exchange.

Mindy opened the closet. Other than a neat stack of clothes, a Gengar plush stared at her, its shadow crawling across the floor.

"The Gengarite!" Rasu's outburst brought Mindy's gaze to the Mega Ring she was wearing. The Gengarite was glistening with an ethereal purple glow. "Look out!"

When Mindy glanced at the closet, she fell back with weak knees. The shadow, now elongated, danced across the room, then out of it sprouted a strange-looking Gengar, mouth wide open, tongue rolled out like a red carpet. A grouchy figure stepped out of the Pokémon's mouth, eyes burning with ire.

"If you're here for mercy, forget it."

Kōki lifted his chin and gazed at her with his chest puffed up. Mindy shook her head. How was this possible, that he had been in the closet for so long, lurking in the shadows, swallowed by a Gigantamax Gengar? No, it's not just that.

"Gaspar," Mindy breathed. This was the reason why Professor Rowan was so against the unnatural ways humans toyed with Pokémon to begin with, the uncontrolled state the Pokémon might be locked in. Mega Evolution was one, another was the Dynamax phenomenon. Gaspar was now a Gengar now that the Everstone was done away. Worse still, he was a Gigantamax Gengar. The Everstone must have been held to prevent such an outcome.

But how was Kōki still alive? Anyone who entered a Gigantamax Gengar's mouth would have met their demise... Or was it just a presumption, because they simply never came back? The mouth didn't lead into the body, as Mindy and Rasu now saw, but a swirl of wisps. Mindy could even hear Cynthia and Carolina call out to her, then much, much fainter were the voices of Rasu and Gaspar himself.

"Gaspar showed me many things when I was inside him," Kōki said with a glint in his eye. "You may now be a hero to the world, but you cursed me to this fate."

"What fate?" Mindy frowned. Gaspar was nothing but a prankster. Was Kōki's disappearance a prank then?

"To be condemned to tread between the world of the living and the dead."

"You were the one who removed the Everstone! You can't blame her for that!" argued Rasu.

"I can't, but it's easier to accept reality that way," Kōki said. "Though there is a way of undoing things."

"What do you mean?" Mindy croaked.

"You're a Trader, aren't you?" Kōki's question sent chills throughout her being. "Would you like to trade places?"

"I..."

"It's possible." Kōki showed her his palm and shut his eyes. When they reopened, a magenta flame ignited out of his fingertips. "You can have this magic."

Magic. It was nothing but a euphemism for his curse.

Rasu glanced at Mindy. She held her gaze at him.

"You can't be considering this."

"It'll save him."

"You saved Cyrus. Isn't it enough?"

"But it all started with Kōki."

Kōki snickered. "Yes, Mindy. So why don't you begin the trade? This time, we're not trading Pokémon. We're trading our souls."

Gaspar was still, silent. Mindy remembered the days she spent with him. They had fun. But Rasu was right. This was too rash a decision.

"I missed you," she said, surprised when Gaspar spoke the words at the same time as her. Perhaps they still had some leftover synergy from their bond.

"So you'll accept all that pain and suffering? Say you'll beg for my mercy, and it'll be all yours."

Mindy squatted. Rasu followed her steady decline. She didn't know exactly what came to her, but she craved that forgiveness, that mercy. If anything, wasn't this the day, the moment she was waiting for?

"I beg for your mercy, my liege."

Albeit forceful, Mindy was glad her words did the job. Heat coursed through her being as a smile ran across Kōki's lips. Mindy felt the urge to create fire, and there it was, a purple spark, a lavender flame, dancing on her skyward palms.

"This is your mercy. Take it and leave," said Kōki, freed of his messy fate. He never wanted to go near a Gengar again, or any Ghost-types, to be frank. He saw a past self he didn't expect to see, saw the injustices he faced when he was a part of Hisui, a part of the team that now became synonymous with Team Galactic. He loathed this memory and would hold on to this present life doggedly. Mindy wasn't there in Hisui, or anyone who looked like her, as far as he recalled. But it didn't matter. What mattered to him and to the world was that Champion Kōki was back. The Pokémon League would resume business and sweep trainers off their feet.

And Mindy, oh, Mindy, she would be forgotten, left out in the peripheries of celebration. Who would care about an outcast? Who would remember an outcast?

He was already preparing his speech. He went back in time, saved Hisui as he did Sinnoh, and finally came back. He would leave out the part where Mindy's discovery of his Gengar plush brought him back, partly due to the influence of the Gengarite. Had it not been for her, he would be that outcast fated to wander aimlessly about the lands of Hisui, a worn hero who wouldn't know if he would ever return home. And people were made to be fickle anyway, so they could just as easily label her as an insignificant existence. After all, wasn't her status as villain more compelling a story than her being a hero? Yes, that was it. He would announce to the public half-heartedly that he had forgiven her, but they wouldn't care.

He knew he wouldn't.

"I told you to leave," Kōki said with a steely voice.

Rasu sighed when Mindy grabbed the Gengar plush and trudged her way on Gaspar's slimy, gaseous tongue that made her skin blister, towards his mouth. She looked back at Mindycham, who was timely released by Kōki to "start anew". The Medicham met her eyes, then darted out of the Champion's Chamber. She heard the elevator ding.

"Go, take Gaspar home. I'm releasing him too," said Kōki.

Gaspar groaned, then clamped his mouth shut. As darkness bled across Mindy's vision, she was comforted that she had darkness by her side since the very beginning. There was naught to be afraid of.

She sensed movement, but it didn't matter. Rasu squawked and kept her company as souls surrounded them before being led away by a Dusknoir.

"We're really in the afterlife," Rasu mumbled.

From where she stood, Mindy spotted a tower in the lavender sky, glowing orange like a beacon. The souls, comprising both Pokémon and people, lined up towards the tower which was wedged between two white-grey clouds that resembled Mega Gengar.

Mindy laughed. "It's strange. I had been this close to death from the beginning."

Rasu laughed along. The souls glanced at them and joined in, then the Dusknoir too. Mindy thought she heard every object in the vicinity chuckle as well.

The raucous laughter crescendoed till the afterlife stopped rocking and the batch of souls had all entered the tower. Light returned behind Mindy and she whirled around with a hand shielding her eyes.

Her surroundings were familiar. A tiny room in a blizzard. Her door was intact now, miraculously fixed. She figured the Lake Trio had paid their debt, or maybe it was Arceus again. She would never know.

She got into the living room with Rasu flapping his wings beside her and faced Gaspar. After grabbing a teabag from the kitchen cabinet, Mindy rinsed her cup and filled it to the brim with boiled water. The cup, like the door, was good as new, as if it never shattered, except there were lines of gold, an intricate kintsugi stitch. She opened a pack of Galarian biscuits for the three of them to share.

A ping from her phone sent her running. Notifications jammed the screen. They screamed at her: the urban legend called Mindy was updated on the site to include her experience as a Trader; Cynthia and Carolina spread word of her deed and appeared on the evening's news; Team Galactic will honour what the Galactic Expedition Team had achieved and build on their efforts; Kōki had returned.

Mindy giggled and sipped her chrysanthemum tea.

"Seems like I'll have to get used to this new life," she said to herself as she rolled up her sleeves.

"A guardian of the afterlife," quipped Rasu. "The Lake Trio will be proud."

"I hope so."

Imagine guiding souls from one world to the next, one life to the next. It must have been part of Arceus's Judgment too. Add to that her duty as protector of the Old Chateau, and she would be living among the taboos of human society. There would be trials and tribulations, but she would tide over them. She wasn't alone now.

Mindy raised her cup at Gaspar and puckered her lips. "Welcome home, Gaspar."

The front door swung open with a faint click. In the blizzard she thought she heard a deep voice say, "Welcome home, Mindy."

A fuzzy feeling filled her. That would be my new catchphrase. Welcome home.

Mindy got up, walked to the door, placed her hand on the frame and smiled. Rasu, with wings unfurled, set out in the blizzard, a black speck in motion in a stillscape of white. A coo resounded, and Murkrow hovered all about, forming a blizzard of their own, a different kind of beacon to guide spirits. Gaspar stole a biscuit while they weren't looking.

What Kōki decided was cold mercy morphed into a warm acceptance of her reality and others'. This was perhaps the most satisfying Trade Mindy had in her life. But her life had truly, only begun.

In the distance, a white, papery figure was soft approaching. Mindy wept a tear off her eye, stepped out into the snow and opened her arms.

"Welcome home."

Ending Theme「CLOSET」 by Yoh Kamiyama