Sabrina thought she heard voices in the distance. Her eyes opened again. She’d almost forgotten -or maybe she simply didn’t care anymore- that she was still being pursued. It was only a matter of time before another group of Azure’s men was sent after her, after the first never returned.
“From now on, don’t ever stop.”
She gripped the cross with every ounce of strength she could muster and, trembling, unstable, rose to her feet. Limping, she walked toward the nearest of the corpses produced from her brief explosion of psychokinetic prowess, and picked up the first Pokeball she could see on his person as the distant voices grew nearer and nearer. She started walking as fast as she could, one hand over the cut on her shoulder. Trying not to look back.
The snow storm had evolved into an all-out blizzard, and the girl’s feet sank to the ankles in snow with every step she took. At first, she managed to cover some ground. But the persistent blood-loss, combined with the growing difficulty of every step against the growing blanket of snow covering the streets, made her progress unbearably slow and languid.
Yet she didn’t feel the cold. Didn’t feel the pain. She felt nothing except a crushing, all-consuming exhaustion. Defeat.
If there were a god, this would’ve never… They wouldn’t have let him… Why? Why did it have to be him?
No… it was my fault. If I’d believed him from the start, if I hadn’t doubted, I could’ve blocked that attack. I… I could’ve pushed him away before… I could’ve…
But even those thoughts began to dwindle, going off one by one like the lights of the street lamps around her, blanketing her in that stark, unbreakable silence.
The snow reached up to her calves now; making any kind of progress was nearly impossible.
-
A priest, eh? Let's see what he's capable of.
She stuck a hand inside the box and pulled out a Pokeball. Her foe did the same, never dropping that irritating smile.
"Let's have a nice, clean battle," he exclaimed, bowing respectfully.
-
One could say she walked thoughtlessly, simply putting one foot in front of the other. Eyes empty, lifeless.
-
"Aren't you a little young to be smoking?" he asked disapprovingly.
Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.
"Aren't you a little old to be believing in god?" she spat back.
-
She didn’t even know where she was going. There was nothing but snow and the dark, cloudy sky.
-
"Y-you… backstabbing, traitorous…!" He seriously looked on the verge of losing it from anger. "What kind of trainer does something like that!? You're a disgrace to all Gym leaders!"
-
All she could hear was the sound of her own breathing, and the wet thump of her feet sinking into snow.
-
“What’s this?” she asked. The can was pleasantly warm.
“It’s called coffee,” replied the man with the cross, sitting alongside her on one of the hanging steel beams, struggling to open his own. They were alone in an abandoned construction site west of the Gym. The sun was starting to rise. “You’re drunk. No wonder you’re often mistaken for a man; you drink more than one.”
-
Why did she flee? What was the point…?
-
“I couldn’t attend our duel today,” he explained. “And I promised I’d challenge you every day, didn’t I?”
-
Had it all been real? Had it… really happened?
-
“Then that means… you can, y’know…”
He pressed a finger against his temple, screwing up his face like a prune; an expression so stupid and childish that the Gym leader could barely keep the corners of her mouth from perking up.
-
Yes… this feeling, this pain… was authentic. It could only belong to him.
-
“Then teach me.”
The man wasn’t smiling anymore as he took a step toward her, staring straight into her eyes. And in that breathless moment, his usual childishness fell from his expression like a mask cracking, and beneath was the face of a more mature, deathly serious man.
“I want to see it too,” he said. “If what your eyes see is truly that beautiful… then I too…”
-
The cross hung from her free hand, stained with blood and covered in snow crystals.
-
“I’m trying, okay?” she complained, grabbing a cigarette from her pack. “I never said I was good at this.”
“You clearly aren’t,” he said, immediately swiping the cig from her mouth.
-
Tired… She was so, so tired.
-
She didn’t get to finish. Her vision darkened, and all of a sudden she felt her face pressed against the fabric of the man’s shirt. His arms were tight around her, shaking.
“...It’s not like you to be this chatty,” he said in a low, serene voice. “Shut up for a little bit, okay?”
-
Her footsteps ceased. She couldn’t keep going. She would be buried by the storm in this spot; it would swallow her entire existence, erasing every mistake, every sin...
Then, with that thought, the wind ceased. The storm stilled unnaturally.
“Is that all?” asked a woman’s voice, both near and far at the same time. “If you’re really ‘me’, then strive to do a little better than that.”
