Chapter Text
Ingo wakes to pain. This does not surprise him, although he can’t immediately recall what had caused it. This is also not surprising. His memory isn’t exactly reliable.
He shifts, then groans as pain shoots up and down his body. He feels like he got thrown into a wall.
Wait. Oh yeah.
He did.
He groans again as the memory returns. Jaws made of shadow closing down on him. The beast had shaken him like a doll. The last thing he remembers is his back slamming into one of the stone pillars of the temple. And hearing Akari scream his name.
Akari. Where is Akari?
He opens his eyes slowly, flinching at the light that floods his vision. Before he’s even aware of his surroundings, he’s pushing himself up, grunting with the effort as much as the pain. He feels a pull on his right hand and looks down to see some kind of rope attached to it.
IV , his mind helpfully supplies, without any further context to what that is.
He rips it off his hand along with the strange device clipped onto his finger. The machine next to the bed begins to wail, and he flinches back, covering his ears.
“Ahh, What?” He hears a familiar voice behind him. He turns too quickly and loses his balance, but spots Akari sitting up on a similar bed a few feet away before he falls back to the mattress. Relief floods through him seeing her in one piece.
“Uncle Ingo!” Akari cries. “Be careful!” She begins to get up, but as she does several people burst into the room, likely drawn by the wailing machine. One of them checks on Akari and makes her lay back down.
Another presses a button, silencing the machine, while a third grabs Ingo by the arm and helps him move back to a more comfortable position. The young woman takes a device from around her neck and pops earbuds in before reaching the other end out toward Ingo’s chest. He flinches and raises his hands to a defensive position. The woman ( Nurse ) stops and looks him over with a critical eye. She says something that almost sounds like words Ingo knows, but too fast. Ingo just stares at her in confusion.
“She wants to check your heart.” Akari translates for him, and Ingo wonders briefly how she understands the woman so much better than he does. Maybe he hit his head again. Regardless, he drops his hands and lets the nurse place the strange device on his chest. She seems to listen for a moment and nods, removing the device. She then looks critically at Ingo’s right hand and speaks again, “You shouldn’t have — — —.”
Ingo swallows and looks at Akari, “She’s mad that I removed the IV, right?”
“You remember what an IV is?”
“No, but I know what it’s called.”
This causes Akari to laugh, but she nods. “Yeah she’s mad about the IV. She wants to run another one.”
“Can she not?”
The nurse is surprisingly patient with their little conference, and doesn’t look terribly surprised that Akari is the one who talks to her.
After a short back and forth that Ingo only half follows, the nurse relents on the IV and leaves the room, with promises to be back for more check ups. At least Ingo thinks that's what she’s promising.
He takes a breath and actually checks his surroundings. He and Akari are each laid up in a strange raised bed, each surrounded by machines. The room itself is quite small, the only other furniture being two small chairs pushed up against the other wall, underneath a window. The curtains are drawn, but judging by the light coming around them it’s either early morning or late evening. There is only one door, now shut.
“Akari, where are we? The last thing I remember is the temple, after that my memory is derailed.”
Akari looks up at him, guilt in her eyes, and looks away almost as quickly. Not a good sign.
“Akari…”
“We’re in a hospital in Oreburgh Town.”
“I am not familiar with that station.”
“That’s because it didn’t exist yet in Hisui.”
Ingo starts to speak but comes up short. His brow furrows. He knows what the answer is going to be but he still asks the question, “Yet?”
Akari looks like she’s going to cry. Maybe she’s already crying a little. “I didn’t know what else to do. You were dying, and I knew that no one in Hisui could have saved you. When I finally calmed Giratina I called them all, the siblings. Sacred quest from Arceus be damned, I couldn’t let you die. I didn’t actually expect it to work, I didn’t think they would disobey Arceus. But they did. They sent us home.”
“Akari.” The girl looks away. “Akari, look at me.” His tone leaves no room for debate, and Akari does as she’s told. He holds eye contact for a moment, ensuring that the girl won’t look away again. In the calmest voice he can muster, he asks, “Are you telling me you defied a god?”
“Um.”
“For me?”
“I mean… yes?”
The girl is looking away again, so she doesn’t see Ingo stand, ignoring his injuries, and cross the gap to bundle her into a bear hug. She yelps in surprise, but her tension melts away and she hugs back as tightly as she can. They stay that way, neither wanting to let go, and Ingo can feel Akari sobbing lightly into his shoulder. He finds that he is crying as well.
Ingo doesn’t know how long they stay that way, but it becomes difficult to stand far too quickly for his liking. He gently releases his arms and Akari does the same. The girl sits back and rubs at puffy red eyes while Ingo falls backwards onto his own bed with a groan.
He is so tired. He wants to talk to Akari more, but his own body is betraying him. His eyelids drag themselves closed and he’s asleep before he can even try to stop them.
When he wakes next, there’s soft light filtering under the window curtain. Morning, then.
He wonders distantly if it was evening last time or if he slept through a whole day.
No way to tell.
He pushes himself up with a grunt. Somehow the pain that permeates his body is worse than it was last night. He does feel less exhausted though.
Akari is sleeping soundly in her own bed, and Ingo has no intention of waking her. Instead, he decides to take stock of his injuries. His left leg is covered in a massive black bruise. He can still move it though, and he can feel all of his toes so he supposes that the damage is probably not too bad. His other leg and both arms seem to be intact, if badly bruised in places. He gingerly runs his fingers across his head and is unsurprised to find a wound at the base of his skull, closed with tightly placed sutures.
Oh sure, he remembers what sutures are now. Very helpful.
Finally he gently lifts the strange tunic he’s wearing to investigate his torso. It is… not good.
There are several large, bandaged wounds on either side of his chest, and everything in between looks to be one massive bruise. The blood on the bandages is also not a great sign. He has to have been in this hospital for at least 24 hours, so if the wounds are still bleeding through bandages, they must be pretty bad.
Well, obviously they’re bad. Giratina had thrown him around like a toy.
Still, not ideal.
He wonders how long they will want to keep him here. He would prefer not to stay, this place was too strange. It was too bright, too loud. Although he couldn’t smell much but his own blood, his brain seemed to think this place should smell weird as well.
Oh well. It’s not like there’s anything he can do about it. And he’s not going to leave Akari.
He sighs and lays back, letting exhaustion take him again.
This time he wakes up to voices. He sits up with some effort and looks over to see Akari sitting on the edge of her own bed, speaking with some people who were dressed like the nurse from yesterday. Probably nurses as well then. He can’t quite make out what they’re saying but Akari looks equal parts upset and hopeful. The two nurses excuse themselves and Akari releases a breath.
Ingo swings his legs over the edge of the bed, making another grunt with the effort. The sound catches Akari’s attention.
“Uncle Ingo! You’re awake!”
“What’s going on?”
Akari grins, but Ingo can tell she’s hiding anxiety behind it. “They found my mom!”
Ingo’s eyes widen. That’s… somehow not what he was expecting. He feels a spike of anxiety himself, as he realizes that means Akari will likely be leaving soon. Going home. Without him. No. That is selfish. This is a good thing.
“Oh, bravo Akari!” He puts as much genuine excitement as he can into his voice. “That is wonderful news!”
Akari smiles sadly, having seen right through him. Of course she did, the two had spent enough time together for the girl to learn to read him. Ingo looks away, unable to meet her eyes.
“I’m not leaving you Uncle Ingo.”
He shakes his head. “No, Akari, you must go home.”
“But-”
“Akari.”
“Fine. I’ll take you with me.”
“What?” That’s not what he was expecting. He opens his mouth to argue, but it’s not as though he has anywhere else to go. Maybe it’s not such a bad idea.
The two are distracted from this discussion as a new nurse rushes into the room. He addresses Ingo, “You — — — name — Ingo?”
He thinks he understood enough to answer so he nods, “Yes, my name is Ingo.”
The nurse looks briefly confused, like he didn’t quite understand what was said. Somehow it’s comforting to realize that this is a two-way language barrier.
After a moment he nods, “Good — — found — brother.”
Ingo stares at the man, hoping beyond hope that he had understood correctly. If the look on Akari’s face is anything to go by, he had. Still he asks for clarification.
“You… found my brother?”
After only a moment to decode his words, the man nods.
They found his brother.
He has a brother.
Is he the man in white? The one who always smiles?
Yes. He is suddenly certain.
He is the smile to Ingo’s frown. The white to his black. The exuberance to his composure.
He is the most important person in the world.
He is the void in Ingo’s soul.
The hole in his heart that has been the only constant in his life until now.
For the first time in so many years, he is in reach.
He is-
Ingo is not aware as he collapses, clutching his head.
______
Emmet’s leg bounces as he stares out the window. He does not like flying. He much prefers trains as a mode of transport, but there are no trains to Sinnoh.
He is going to Sinnoh.
He has not been there in a very long time. He did not ever want to go back.
But he is going to Sinnoh.
For his brother.
The doctor said that he had been found in the mountains. No. A specific mountain. Emmet cannot remember the name.
The doctor said that he had been badly injured. How? What happened? The doctor didn’t know, but reassured him that his brother would recover.
The doctor said that he had been found by a child. No. With a child. Who were they? The doctor would not say. Patient confidentiality. But she did say that the two seemed very close, and had refused to be separated, even to be treated.
Who were they? Why would his brother not leave them? He had left Emmet.
No. Not left. He wouldn’t have left.
His brother will explain everything.
Emmet’s leg bounces harder.
He needs to stop overthinking. His brother is alive.
That alone is more than he had dared hope for.
His twin had been declared dead two years ago. Emmet never really accepted that, but he had tried to move on. To go on living like he knew his brother would have wanted him to.
Even so, after all these years he still found himself turning to ask his brother a question or to see his reaction to a joke. Only to be hit with gut wrenching loneliness all over again.
He would catch his reflection in the window of a train and think for just a split second it was his twin.
Emmet was not alone. He had Elesa, the twins' honorary sister. He had the other Gym Leaders as well who each did what they could in their own way. It wasn’t unusual for them to drop by the subway and check up on him. He knew there were regions where the Gym Leaders barely even knew each other, but the Unovan Battle Elite, as they were called in the papers, were unusually close. The loss of one of the beloved Subway Bosses had hit the whole region hard, and things had never been quite the same.
Emmet remembers the funeral like it was yesterday. He had not wanted to go. He had not wanted to accept that his brother was gone. But he had also not wanted to miss his funeral if he really was. So he had gone.
He had not worn black.
The sky had been blue, the day warm. Emmet had wished that it had been more gloomy, until he remembered how much his brother loved days like that.
He had been surprised when every single Gym Leader and even the Elite Four showed up. He had been even more surprised that not a single one of them wore black. Even those that normally did had removed it in favor of brighter colors. It was the most colorful funeral Emmet had ever seen.
That had been the thing to bring him to tears. No, not standing in front of his brother's grave, but the sight of all of these people who had loved him, who were grieving him just like Emmet was. The twins had spent so long with only each other, but now they had friends. No, family.
Family who were grieving alongside him.
He had broken down, fully, for the first time since his brother disappeared into thin air. It had hurt. But he had felt better when it was over.
After the funeral, all of the Battle Elite worked a little bit of black into their signature outfits.
In remembrance.
That hurt too, but it felt right. Emmet’s subway uniform now had a black tie instead of the blue they had worn before.
Emmet grips his own arm until his nails leave marks, bringing himself back to the present.
His brother is not dead.
Even after years of mourning, his brother is alive.
He is going to Sinnoh.
His brother is not dead.
He is going to Sinnoh.
He is going to bring Ingo home.