In Magic City during September, the lingering force of the "autumn tiger" still held on.
Sunlight curled the leaves of the plane trees; through the gaps in the branches, golden dapples wavered over a shady path paved with bluestone.
The air carried a fresh scent—a blend of grass and damp earth.
Kudo Shiba walked shoulder to shoulder with a young girl.
She wore the same Magic City First Pokémon High School uniform as he did. Simple blue and white, yet on her it carried the refined grace of haute couture.
The sunlight placed a faint halo over her sleek black hair, tracing the delicate line of her pale jaw.
She was Takai Yuko, the childhood friend who had grown up with Kudo Shiba—and the undisputed school beauty at this academy that gathered the elite sons and daughters of all Magic City.
Her beauty held a natural sense of distance; those eyes, as limpid as autumn water, could shut out most fervent gazes.
Now, however, a trace of pure curiosity rippled in those eyes.
"Kudo Shiba, you really gave up the Bagon your family prepared and came to school to get a starter Pokémon?"
Her voice was light and soft—like a mountain brook.
"Mhm. I want to experience what it's like to be ordinary," Kudo Shiba answered offhandedly, a lazy smile tugging at his lips.
As he spoke, he naturally lifted his hand and let his gaze fall to her hair.
A mischievous fallen leaf had come to rest there.
He reached out and, with the pad of his finger, gently pinched the leaf away.
The warmth of his fingertip seemed to pass through the strands, and Takai Yuko's pale cheeks swiftly bloomed with a faint blush.
Her lashes quivered; she lowered her eyes without thinking.
That unintentional moment of closeness pricked like a needle at the eyes of certain passersby.
A swarm of gazes—envy, jealousy, resentment—snapped instantly to Kudo Shiba.
"Hmph, what an act!"
A grating voice—like sandpaper on glass—rudely tore the quiet.
Three to five boys blocked their path. The one in front wore a defiant look, chin lifted, peering down his nose at people.
Sunada Kaoru.
He too was a scion of a major Magic City clan. He had always treated Takai Yuko as something already in his pocket; the sight of Kudo Shiba openly at her side had long set his jealousy ablaze.
"Kudo Shiba, who do you think you are?"
"'Experience being ordinary,' you say?"
Sunada Kaoru's tone dripped with naked contempt and mockery, and the lackeys behind him burst into raucous laughter.
"Your Kudo Family is just guarding a few antique old dragons now! You're already behind the times!"
He wanted to needle Kudo Shiba with this clumsy provocation—wanted to see him lose composure.
Yet Kudo Shiba didn't even shift his gaze from the path ahead.
As if he hadn't heard Sunada Kaoru's bluster, he looked at Takai Yuko's slightly flushed profile and spoke, mild as ever.
His voice wasn't loud, but it carried clearly to Sunada Kaoru's ears.
"I heard Sunada-ojisan has gone a lot grayer lately trying to win the development rights to that tract in the west of the city."
"And the core tech for energy conversion… seems you're still stuck at the bottleneck?"
The arrogance and feral grin on Sunada Kaoru's face froze at once.
His pupils snapped tight.
The lackeys' laughter died mid-breath. They looked at one another, not understanding why their young master had turned so pale.
Energy conversion technology!
It was the next-generation industrial core into which the Sunada Family had poured everything—the top secret item, hammered on again and again in family councils!
Kudo Shiba's offhand sentence slid in like an invisible red-hot blade, stabbed straight into his heart—and then twisted, slowly and precisely.
It was the naked feeling of having all one's cards seen through in an instant.
An asphyxiating sense of being crushed beneath a gulf of family standing and of information advantage.
He felt that his bluster just now was like a beggar showing off a ten-coin find in front of a tycoon.
A complete and utter clown.
"Y-You… what nonsense are you spouting!"
Sunada Kaoru's face went from white to red, then from red to purple. After straining for half a day, he could squeeze out only that feeble retort.
"Riiing—"
Just then, the assembly bell pealed across the campus, sparing Sunada Kaoru from suffocation.
Up on the platform, the homeroom sensei raised a loudhailer and announced the rules for receiving starter Pokémon.
The students' mood flared at once.
The crowd surged toward the breeding wing; excitement and expectation were written on every face.
Sunada Kaoru shot Kudo Shiba a vicious glare—pure venom.
"Just you wait!"
The words hissed through his clenched teeth; then he and his hangers-on slunk away into the flow of people.
Kudo Shiba paid it no mind, as if he'd only waved away a buzzing fly.
He turned with Takai Yuko and let the current of students bear them toward the Pokémon Breeding Room—a place brimming with future and hope.
With every step he took, Kudo Shiba could feel it clearly: his heartbeat was accelerating, and at a very particular rhythm.
Not nervousness. Not excitement.
But a sense of… destiny about to be fulfilled—one that had been kept waiting far too long.
It's now!
At the instant his right foot was about to cross the threshold of the breeding room's heavy metal door—
The world changed.
All the clamor around him, the classmates' laughter, the wind afar, the footfalls underfoot…
Every sound was stripped away in that instant.
The entire world became a silent black-and-white film.
The heaving human tide—those vivid faces—froze into stills.
Time and space seemed to lose meaning at that moment.
Only he could still move within that dead-quiet realm.
Then—
A crisp, affectless voice—like something mechanically synthesized—did not travel through his ears but detonated directly in the depths of his soul!
[Ding!]
[Host detected at point of destiny's inflection. Prophecy System initializing. Bind to host?]
It was here!
In that world of absolute hush and grayscale, the corners of Kudo Shiba's mouth drew up into an irrepressible smile.
In that smile was unshakable confidence—the certainty of one who holds everything in his hands.
(End of Chapter)
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