Setting aside the four people chatting outside — inside the wooden house, the battle had already reached a white-hot intensity.
— Pikachu, upper-left ceiling — Quick Attack!
Relying on his Aura perception, Ash was the first to detect Volcarona's movements — it was using its scale dust to create an optical camouflage, attempting to strike from above. Aura sense wasn't visual, which meant optical invisibility had absolutely no effect on Ash.
A flash of golden light — and Pikachu shot toward the target like a thunderbolt.
But Volcarona beat its wings, scattering scale dust that didn't just obscure vision — it carried a faint paralytic effect. Pikachu twisted nimbly in midair, dodging most of the scales, but his speed was still very slightly affected.
If the rules hadn't been restricting the power of their moves, Pikachu could have simply wrapped himself in a full layer of crackling lightning — a high-intensity electrical field that would have doubled as a shield. Unfortunately, that approach was off the table right now.
"Ariados — from the shadows — Silk Shot!"
Koga's voice drifted in from some unseen corner of the room.
He could have given the command in silence. He chose to speak it aloud deliberately — it was a remarkably practical tactic. On one hand, you could never be sure whether the command was genuine or a feint; reality and illusion, illusion and reality. On the other hand, it drew attention. Even if Ash didn't believe it, he would still hear it. He would still react.
Fssst — fssst — fssst —
Several strands of white silk shot from the shadows like striking serpents — not aimed directly at Pikachu, but adhering to the main load-bearing pillars in an instant, forming a sticky web network that dramatically restricted Pikachu's room to maneuver.
— Pikachu, don't force through it!
— Sweep the silk zone with Thunder Wave!
Ash immediately changed course. Forcing through the webbing risked yanking on the silk lines and dragging the pillars with them.
He didn't say this command aloud. A ninja of Koga's caliber would have trained specifically for exactly that kind of situation. Simply mirroring Koga's tactic back at him would be overconfidence getting the better of intelligence — though, that said, it was still worth trying occasionally. Sometimes a bluff worked. Sometimes you could beat someone at their own game.
What determined which outcome you got was whether you succeeded or not.
"Pi — ka — CHUU!"
Pikachu understood immediately. He leapt into the air and released a wide-range, low-intensity Thunder Wave. The electrical current danced across the silk strands — it couldn't dissolve them entirely, but it successfully disrupted their stickiness. Thunder Wave generates heat, after all. And that was enough.
The disruption caused Ariados, hidden within the web, to stagger — exposing a split-second opening.
— Now! Misdreavus — Confuse Ray!
Ash's thoughts raced. Through the Aura link, he issued the command directly to Misdreavus, who was currently phasing through the walls.
Misdreavus emerged silently through the wall behind Ariados, her eyes blazing with a swirling, unsettling kaleidoscope of distorted light. Ariados had no warning whatsoever — the light washed over it, and it was instantly plunged into a confused frenzy, spraying poison needles indiscriminately in every direction.
If there was anyone better suited to the role of predator in the dark — well, between a ghost and a spider, the ghost won that comparison without contest.
"Volcarona — Psychic, control the needles!" Koga's voice remained perfectly level.
Volcarona's compound eyes lit up with blue light. A surge of powerful Psychic energy swept outward — not crushing the needles, but redirecting them. Guiding their trajectories like a conductor shaping an orchestra, the needles bent and curved, arcing right back toward Ash and Pikachu.
This was the gap between real combat and a simple game. In a game, a move was just a move. In reality, the applications were endless.
— Pikachu, dodge!
"Misdreavus — Will-O-Wisp!" Ash called out, a deliberate feint.
— Misdreavus — intercept with Shadow Ball, controlled power!
A false command spoken aloud, a real one whispered through Aura. Ash threw the feint without any real expectation it would fool Koga — but it cost nothing to try. Reality and illusion, illusion and reality.
His mind churned at full speed. Pikachu twisted and wove through the limited space, relying on sheer speed to stay ahead of the redirected needles. Misdreavus, meanwhile, condensed a Shadow Ball — tightly packed, deliberately reduced in scale — and fired it into the densest cluster of incoming needles.
Boom!
The Shadow Ball collided with the barrage and triggered a small contained energy detonation, sweeping all the needles out of the air at once. The dispersed shockwave was kept to an absolute minimum, causing no significant impact on the surrounding wooden structures.
"...Excellent control." Koga's voice carried the faintest note of approval — but his assault did not pause for a single moment.
"Volcarona — Psybeam, wide-area sweep!"
Volcarona's wings vibrated at high frequency, radiating warped, distorting waves of light that blanketed a vast area. This kind of attack was nearly impossible to dodge cleanly — and beyond the physical threat, it would scramble the mind.
"Pikachu — rub your cheeks together, break the charge!"
Pikachu — Thunder Wave!
— Misdreavus — shadow-phase in close to Volcarona!
Ash ran two tracks simultaneously.
Pikachu ignited tiny crackling sparks across his body — the mild electrical interference from Thunder Wave disrupted Volcarona's energy buildup before it could fully coalesce. And honestly, Ash realized in the moment that Thunder Wave — usually a completely useless technique in his eyes — was actually perfectly suited for situations where the last thing you wanted was to blow up the building. The range really was exceptional.
At the same time, Misdreavus melted back into the wall, phased straight through the front line of the Psybeam zone, and materialized in an instant at Volcarona's side-rear.
"Mai!" Misdreavus used Astonish.
Ghost-type energy enveloped Volcarona. The sudden, overwhelming fright successfully broke Volcarona's focus, plunging it into a brief state of cowering. This, of course, was not simple "fright" in the casual sense — though they shared a name, what Misdreavus had just deployed was something fundamentally different from merely jumping out and startling someone. It was Pokémon power woven into the act. Overcoming that kind of Astonish required not just a sufficiently resolute and courageous will, but genuine underlying strength.
In a five-Badge Gym match, Koga would never deploy Pokémon with overwhelming strength. This was the appropriate tier.
"Now's our chance! Pikachu — Electro Ball — controlled output, aim at the ground beneath it!"
Ash seized the opening — and deliberately chose not to go for the high-powered Thunderbolt. And this time, what he said was exactly what he meant.
Pikachu compressed a tightly wound Electro Ball, energy coiled inward, power deliberately restrained. He didn't aim at Volcarona directly — he aimed at an open patch of ground beneath it. The ball detonated. A sharp electrical burst and shockwave erupted across the floor.
Reduced in power as it was, the blast's radiated shock and spray of electric arcs still caught Volcarona — already flinching and vulnerable — with meaningful damage, while the floor structure itself absorbed the force cleanly.
Ash couldn't afford to be too timid about this. Yes, he had to avoid damaging the house. But tying his own hands so completely that he couldn't actually win was self-defeating. The whole point was to defeat these two Pokémon. If he was so afraid of breaking something that he refused to commit to any real attack, he was going to lose — and losing meant the house's structural integrity would be completely pointless.
"Scree!" Volcarona cried out in pain, its flight pattern destabilizing.
— Ariados... Cross Poison — target Pikachu!
In that moment, Koga communicated directly through Volcarona's Psychic connection to Ariados. The external boost was enough to partially break Ariados free from its confused state. Its twin claws flared with crossing violet light — and it launched itself at Pikachu with terrifying speed in the instant after Pikachu had just expended his attack.
The speed was unnatural. Silk-propelled. It had used the web threads as a slingshot.
"Pikachu, dodge!" Ash shouted.
But Pikachu's last burst of power was spent — his next hadn't arrived. There was no way to avoid it cleanly.
In the razor's edge of that instant —
— Misdreavus — Pain Split!
A flash of inspiration. Through the Aura link, Ash issued the strange command.
Misdreavus's eyes flooded with deep violet light. An invisible energy tether snapped into existence between her and Ariados in the blink of an eye.
In a game, Pain Split's effect was simple — combine both parties' HP and divide it evenly. But this wasn't a game. Ariados was a living creature.
And Misdreavus was not.
Well — ghost-types had a peculiar mode of existence, occupying a place between states: living dead, perhaps. But that wasn't the point. The point was this: as a ghost, Misdreavus could absorb the life force of the living. And when a ghost pushed her own negative life force into a living creature in return... most living things simply couldn't handle it.
Ariados's charging momentum lurched to a sudden halt, as though a portion of its strength had been physically wrenched away. Misdreavus's own spirit, by contrast, gave a sharp pulse of invigoration.
It was not an attack — yet it had elegantly weakened the enemy and broken the crisis bearing down on their ally.
Pikachu took the opening and vaulted backward, barely, barely avoiding the edge of Cross Poison's claws. The poisoned blades grazed past him and drove into a wooden pillar behind — leaving two deep, scorched black gashes. Splinters flew. But the structural damage stayed this side of critical.
The battle settled into a grinding stalemate.
Koga, leveraging the environment, concealment, and the beautifully coordinated double-battle pairing he had fielded, applied unrelenting pressure on Ash. Ash, for his part, relied on Aura perception, the deep wordless synchronization he shared with his Pokémon, and Misdreavus's ghost-type ability to phase through solid matter — reading every attack as it came, finding the counter.
All while keeping his moves' destructive force leashed to whatever the building could survive — and hunting for the chance to strike back.
Sweat ran down Ash's forehead. He wasn't just commanding — he was in constant motion himself, evading potential strikes from the shadows, while simultaneously tracking the structural state of every beam and board, calculating where the next attack could and could not safely land.
The demands on his mind, his body, and his judgment were immense.
With his Aura sense dialed up further to compensate, he couldn't help but feel that Koga was like a venomous snake coiled somewhere in the dark, patient and lethal, waiting for exactly the right moment.
Too much perception, it turned out, wasn't entirely comfortable either. But too little, and a single hit could end everything.
Pikachu and Misdreavus were beginning to show wear. Their reserves were draining. But the fire in their eyes hadn't dimmed by a single degree — they trusted completely in every decision Ash made.
In the shadows, Koga felt something that was almost surprise beginning to stir within him.
Ash's growth and adaptability were far exceeding his expectations. That near-symbiotic coordination with his Pokémon, that ability to keep finding flexible responses even under the harshest of restrictions — it truly warranted the title of Rainbow Hero.
— It's time to end this.
Koga's eyes hardened with resolve.
The structural pillar of Ash's strategy was Misdreavus — that ghost who phased endlessly through the walls and kept causing chaos. Pikachu, unable to cut loose with his full electrical output, was the lesser threat. But Misdreavus, by nature, wasn't built for high-intensity offensive combat — and in this particular fight, that actually suited her perfectly. She was in her element.
— Volcarona — maximum Psychic power — lock onto Misdreavus's current position — force her out of that wall!
— Ariados — stand ready. The moment she surfaces, use Lethal Spike!
High-intensity energy attacks could land on a Ghost-type even without a precise location fix — that was one of the ways real combat differed from a game. In this world, true immunity was essentially a myth. Unless you happened to be facing Arceus standing on a full complement of stone plates — and then, nothing could be done — but short of that, there was always a way through.
Volcarona gathered every last ounce of its mental power. The immense Psychic energy surged outward — no longer scattered, but concentrated, crashing down in a single overwhelming wave on the wall section Misdreavus had just phased into.
The force was so tremendous that the entire wall groaned under it, the wooden boards warping and twisting as though they might be torn apart at any moment.
Koga wouldn't intentionally attack the walls as a primary strategy. But if his opponent chose to hide inside one, he would not hold back on their account.
This was still a six-Badge Gym match, after all. It had to have some teeth.
Misdreavus felt the crushing pressure close in around her — her phasing ability severely disrupted, her form dragged involuntarily back out of the wall, her movements sluggish and forced. Ariados was already wound up and ready.
Its extended claws gleamed with a bone-chilling cold light — and it launched forward like a cannonball, carrying the full weight of a finishing strike, aimed straight at the just-materializing Misdreavus.
Danger arrived in an instant.
Ash's pupils contracted sharply.
He sensed it through Aura — Volcarona's Psychic force had pushed this wall to very nearly its structural limit. If Misdreavus took that Lethal Spike head-on and the energies collided at full force, the resulting explosion could be the final straw that collapsed that entire section. He couldn't let the attacks clash hard.
He couldn't take the hit.
— And he couldn't let the energies collide!
In the space of a lightning strike, an extraordinarily risky tactic flashed through Ash's mind.
"PARTNER!" Ash shouted out loud.
And through the Aura link, he conveyed the full detail of what he needed in the same instant.
— Maximum output — Magnet Rise!
— Not an attack — generate a strong magnetic field, disrupt Ariados's charge trajectory!
— Misdreavus!
— Don't fight the Psychic force — go with it — use Double Team, then Curse!
This was a desperate gamble.
Magnet Rise was normally used to levitate oneself. Outputting it at full power as an outward magnetic field would be an enormous strain on Pikachu, and the results were entirely uncertain. And Curse — Curse would deal continuous damage to Misdreavus herself. Projecting a ghost-type's negative life force into an enemy to cause ongoing suffering — it was somewhat similar to the Pain Split she'd used earlier, but the intensity was categorically different. It was a move that hurt both parties, deeply.
But in this moment, there was no better option.
"PIKA — CHUUU!!!"
Pikachu let out a roar and detonated every last volt of electricity within him in a way he had never attempted before — not as a directed attack, but radiating outward as a visibly shimmering, light-bending shell of intense magnetic force, enveloping the space directly in Ariados's path.
Ariados's hurtling body lurched. It was like hitting an invisible bog mid-charge — its trajectory bent and skewed beyond its control.
At the same moment —
Misdreavus abandoned all resistance to the Psychic pressure. Instead of fighting it, she rode it — and in an instant, she split into more than a dozen strikingly convincing Double Team copies scattered across the entire zone.
Her true body, shielded by the decoys, let a look of absolute resolve flash across her eyes.
A cold, ominous energy began to seep out from within her — Curse.
Curse was an extraordinary move. Its greatest quality was that it was nearly impervious to Protect — in simple terms, it was almost impossible to defend against. Ghost-types didn't tend to use it often, precisely because deploying it meant suffering alongside the target. For every point of damage it dealt, the user paid a price.
Hurt the enemy a hundred — hurt yourself eighty.
The Curse power had no physical form, no visible substance — yet it reached Ariados directly, catching it at the worst possible moment, destabilized as it already was by the magnetic interference. Ariados let out a scream of pain, its charge broken entirely, all the strength draining from its limbs as though pulled out by a hand from within. It locked up where it stood, consumed by the Curse's grinding torment.
And Misdreavus — the moment the Curse completed, her own presence dimmed noticeably, her breath growing thin.
"Now!"
"Pikachu — deliver the finishing strike! Controlled power — aim for non-load-bearing areas!"
Feeling Misdreavus's distress through the Aura link, Ash felt it too — a pang of guilt in his chest. But the battle wouldn't wait for his feelings. They had come this far. He couldn't afford to lose.
Pikachu suppressed every instinct screaming at him to cut loose. He forced the electrical output down, down — enough to land, not enough to bring the building down with it. For Pikachu, going all-out was the easy part. Dialing back to exactly the right level of power, still sufficient to finish the job — that was the complicated part.
A thin, razor-precise bolt of lightning shot out — threading past every load-bearing structure — and struck the floor beside Ariados.
The electrical detonation erupted across the ground. Already weakened, already wracked by the Curse, Ariados was swept completely into the blast. It let out one final wail — and lost the ability to battle.
Almost simultaneously, Volcarona — which had been maintaining that immense Psychic focus throughout — could no longer sustain it. Mental reserves depleted, it swayed in the air and plummeted.
It barely managed to catch itself before hitting the ground, but the strength to continue fighting was gone. Volcarona was finished.
Misdreavus, her stamina pushed past the final limit by the Curse, drifted slowly downward in a wavering spiral — and Ash reached out and caught her just in time.
The old wooden house groaned. One final wave of energy tremors ran through the structure — a chorus of agonized creaks and pops that set everyone's teeth on edge. A handful of roof tiles shook loose and fell. But the building — stubbornly, improbably — held together. The main structure endured.
Silence.
The smoke slowly cleared, revealing the interior — a scene of considerable chaos, debris and splinters scattered across the floor — but the walls still standing. The bones of the building still intact.
So — was this victory?
No.
The most dangerous moment was right now. The instant you were closest to winning was also the instant you were most vulnerable to losing.
Because —
Koga's figure appeared suddenly at Ash's back!!
In his hand was one of the poison needles that Ariados had released during the battle.
The rules had been stated at the start: Trainers participated in this battle too. There was a hidden victory condition — defeating the opposing Trainer. Because this was an official Gym match rather than a true street fight, Koga hadn't resorted to poison darts or smoke bombs. And because it was a Gym match, he was limited to materials sourced from his own Pokémon — Ariados's needles and silk threads, Volcarona's toxic scale dust, and so forth.
But in a genuine street fight, direct Trainer-versus-Trainer combat was an essential element of the battlefield.
And this was, coincidentally, the domain where Ash was most at home.
Ash: I am a Martial Artist.
There was a reason the Martial Artist profession had a sturdier track record than the ninja profession. Having powerful combat ability was genuinely, concretely useful.
Ash's Aura sensed the sudden ambush.
His Psychic ability ignited on pure reflex. And through the habit of using them together, the Psychic immediately chained into Agility.
□
And then there was nothing after that.
Koga was kicked clean through the wall.
Given Ash's current physical conditioning — Koga was probably a little hurt.
A little.
As a ninja, absorbing raw physical damage wasn't exactly part of the standard curriculum. Ninjas were, in professional classification, closer to thieves or assassins than to fighters. Not a warrior-class profession.
Simply put: glass cannon. High offense, minimal defense.
For that matter, Psychic specialists like Sabrina were exactly the same kind of glass cannon. If you closed the distance on either of them without their abilities in play, one clean combination was all it took.
The vast majority of Trainers, no matter how hard they worked on their physical conditioning, would never reach anything close to what a group of dedicated Martial Artists trained for.
"Ah!" Ash jolted back to the present.
"Gym Leader Koga — are you alright?!"
He had a decent internal sense of his own physical capabilities at this point. That full-force kick he'd just landed on a person — it was genuinely very easy to kick someone to death with that.
The sudden development drew the attention of all four people outside.
Brock: "!!"
Misty: "!!"
Aya: "Brother!"
Janine: "Father!"
All four sprinted toward the section of wall that had just been broken through.
"I'm fine." Koga's voice carried through the dust and debris — and his figure rose slowly from the rubble.
His expression was a mask of rigid composure. Internally, he felt as though his chest and abdomen had been split open — he might actually be bleeding internally — and something in his ribs felt distinctly snapped. But in front of this many people, dignity had to be maintained.
Seeing Koga apparently on his feet and functional, Brock, Misty, Aya, and Janine all slowed to a stop. The Gym match, technically, hadn't been formally concluded yet.
Koga raised his hand slowly.
Cradled in his fingers was a badge of elegant design — shaped like a pink fleur-de-lis.
"Challenger Ash. Congratulations."
Koga's voice betrayed nothing. Not a single tremor of the agony he was actively suppressing. A ninja endures what ordinary people cannot endure. That was the ninja's way. That was the creed of endurance.
"You have not only demonstrated a deep bond with your Pokémon and outstanding tactical ability — you have proven, under conditions of extreme pressure, your mastery over power and your sense of responsibility for what you protect."
"This Soul Badge is the reward you have rightfully earned."
Koga walked to Ash and placed the badge in his palm. Then he turned away.
Ash looked down at the badge. Then he looked at Koga's retreating back.
Ash: ...Gym Leader Koga — my Aura is telling me your condition might be a little... not great?
But watching Koga hold it together so stoically, Ash didn't say it out loud. The right move here was to wrap up the formal Gym challenge ceremony as quickly as possible and let Koga make his exit.
"My deepest thanks, Gym Leader Koga. I'll keep working hard." And as Ash finished saying it, he looked down at Misdreavus in his arms — exhausted, but smiling — and at Pikachu beside his feet, puffing his small chest up with stubborn pride.
— Got another one.
He had won.
Hearing Ash's gracious response, Koga let out a quiet, internal breath of relief.
He opened his mouth: "Aya — Janine — the rest of the... hospitality... is in your hands."
"I just... remembered... I have something to attend to — I'll be going ahead..."
He delivered this somewhat muffled, rambling announcement — and then Koga's figure dissolved into the shadows and disappeared.
"Brother?" Aya stepped forward.
Her professionally trained senses caught something — a faint trace in the air. A smell? Iron? Blood?
"Has Father been busy lately?" Janine asked, genuinely puzzled by the development. "Rushing off like that — and he didn't even take Volcarona and Ariados with him."
"...He probably left them for us to take to treatment, I'd imagine," Brock said, rubbing his chin. "He did seem like he was in a considerable hurry."
Koga's unusual behavior was visible to everyone present. But only Ash knew the actual reason.
Aya could only guess at part of it.
Misty walked over, the rims of her eyes faintly pink. "I knew you could do it!"
"Yeah!" Ash gave her a thumbs up. "Keep believing in me!"
---
Meanwhile — on the other side of the building.
Koga had made his way to his private infirmary.
A Chansey was stationed here. Naturally — healers and poison-users had always gone hand in hand.
"Chansey?" Chansey: Why do you suddenly look like you're slightly dying?
"TREAT ME NOW!!" Koga snapped.
Chansey: You're not going to die. Your body stopped being that of an ordinary human a long time ago... this is the Nurse Joy family's time-tested enhancement technology, after all~
Chansey: If you'd like, I could upgrade you further to be more like me~
____
👻🔥+40 ch: Walnut-chan🔥👻
🔥 New history: Re:Zero: Wrath Route Yandere Emilia Watches the Projection
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