While Shiba was shaking the entire main arena with his thunderous victory, on the screen of another battle zone, a different match had reached a white-hot climax.
Relying on her increasingly mature command skills and the sheer power of her Machoke, Yuko had hacked her way through the brackets. She had successfully broken into the top eight—a result so good it felt almost unreal even to her, making her heart swell with pride.
However, her quarterfinal opponent was a towering wall she had never imagined facing, one that seemed impossible to climb.
Her opponent was a seasoned Trainer. His eyes were steady, his expression unreadable. His ace was a Sandslash whose strength had climbed all the way to quasi-Elite level.
That Sandslash's armor-like plates were thick and heavy. Every step it took made the ground rumble dully. When it rolled to attack, it carried the momentum of something that would crush everything in its path. Even worse, its dual Ground/Rock typing completely suppressed Yuko's Fighting-type ace, Machoke.
From the moment the referee's flag dropped, the battle plunged straight into a desperate struggle.
Machoke's muscles bulged, fearless and ferocious, but its proudest weapon—its Close Combat flurries of fists and kicks—only threw out a few stray sparks when they slammed into Sandslash's shell of iron-like plates. They couldn't inflict any real damage at all.
By contrast, her opponent's commands were calm and deadly.
"Dig."
Sandslash vanished beneath the field in an instant, leaving Machoke's pursuit to hit nothing but air.
The very next second, the ground under Machoke's feet exploded without warning. Sandslash burst up from below, its claws tearing viciously into Machoke's legs.
And then came an even nastier combination.
"Stone Edge."
Countless razor-sharp stone pillars speared up from beneath the ground, sealing off every possible escape route. They shredded what little was left of Machoke's defenses, already weakened by the recoil from using Close Combat.
"Machoke is unable to battle!"
The referee's cold declaration fell.
Yuko had already lost two Pokémon. On the other side, that Sandslash was still standing tall. Only its breathing had grown a little heavy, and its armor bore nothing more than a few superficial scratches.
"Is Yuko going to lose?"
"Yeah… there's no helping it. The strength gap is just too big. Making top eight is already really impressive."
In the stands, sighs of regret rose one after another, merging into a continuous wave.
Even Yuko's own eyes were red from watching her partners fall. She bit down on her lower lip, refusing to let the tears spill, but there was no way to hide that deep, burning unwillingness in her heart.
Everyone thought the result was already decided.
Up in the VIP viewing box, however, Shiba's lips curved into a satisfied smile.
He knew this match wasn't over yet.
On the field, Yuko's chest was heaving. She pushed all the burning air out of her lungs, as if expelling every last trace of doubt and weakness along with it.
Then she slowly took out a Poké Ball she had never used in public before, clenching it tightly in her palm.
When she lifted her head again, a firm light had rekindled in those beautiful eyes.
"I believe in you. You can do this!"
She hurled the Poké Ball.
A soft light flashed.
A graceful, slender, pure-white Pokémon appeared on the field. Its posture was like that of a ballerina. Under its green "hair," a pair of red eyes shone with pure clarity, and two red horn-like sensory organs on its head were faintly glowing with mysterious psychic energy.
It was the Ralts Shiba had given her, now evolved into—Kirlia!
"Kirlia?"
"Can that thing really do it? It looks so fragile…"
"Yeah, Sandslash is a dual Ground/Rock type. Psychic-type moves don't do anything to it, right? Is she just giving up?"
The questioning voices in the stands rang out again, louder than before.
But at that exact moment, on the other side of the field, the calm mask on the veteran Trainer's face shattered. His expression turned extremely grave, and his pupils shrank sharply.
From that seemingly delicate Kirlia, he could feel a spiritual pressure far beyond what its level should allow—a pure, terrifying psychic power. That mental weight was so strong that even his own brain felt a prickling, needle-like pain.
This was no ordinary Kirlia.
"The battle continues!"
"Sandslash, use Rollout!"
He no longer dared to be careless for even a second. He had to finish the match immediately. He unleashed his strongest attack.
Sandslash curled into a massive boulder of rock and spikes, spinning at high speed. It whipped up clouds of sand and dust, barreling straight toward Kirlia with crushing force.
The entire arena hummed under the weight of that power.
Yuko's eyes became utterly focused. All the noise vanished from her world. In her vision, only two things remained: that ever-larger rolling boulder of death, and the pure-white, unwavering figure standing in front of her.
Now!
"Kirlia—use Dazzling Gleam!"
Her clear voice echoed through the stadium, carrying a resolve that would not allow refusal.
Kirlia's eyes flared with a dazzling pink light. A Fairy-type power so strong it took people's breath away erupted from its slender body.
The Fairy type.
Four times effective against Ground and Rock!
The blinding pink radiance wasn't a simple beam—it was a storm of energy, a flood of judgment. It fell precisely over the Sandslash that was rolling toward them at top speed.
"Rrrroooaaahhh—!"
A shriek so twisted it hardly sounded like it came from a living creature tore out from the center of the light.
Sandslash's supposedly unbreakable Rollout state was ripped apart and shattered by that terrifying power.
Its massive body was blasted into the air by an immense impact. It traced a wretched arc across the sky before crashing down hard at the edge of the field. Its tough armor was covered in spiderweb cracks, and it lay still, with no sign of movement.
One hit.
A single, decisive blow.
Once more, the entire arena sank into deathly silence.
Every voice that had doubted her, every sigh that had pitied her—all of it was crushed into nothing by an invisible hand in that instant.
Yuko had done it.
By revealing the trump card she had always kept hidden, she pulled off a reversal so shocking that no one had even imagined it, and successfully advanced into the final four.
In the stands, Shiba watched the girl standing at the center of the stage, hugging her Kirlia. Her face was streaked with tears, yet her smile was radiant.
A genuine smile rose from the bottom of his heart.
His Yuko was growing at an astonishing speed into a truly outstanding Trainer who could stand on her own.
(End of Chapter)
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