"Dad! Dad! I have a suggestion! Father has been getting more and more irresponsible lately. You should really keep him in check. Letting so many unpredictable factors into Wano Country, what if something goes wrong?!"
Before she even arrived, her voice had already reached the room. Yamato openly declared her plan without the slightest concern over whether Kaido might hear her. To be precise, she wanted Kaido to hear it.
As long as Kaido couldn't hold back and decided to attack, she could ride the momentum to fly backward, crash through several walls, and collapse in front of Arceus, successfully pulling off her staged act of playing the victim.
This time it wasn't Robin's suggestion, but her own idea. Yamato's intelligence-type special attacks against Kaido had never disappeared; if anything, they were still evolving.
However, Kaido didn't do as she hoped. He never even appeared, and no one knew what corner he was hiding in plotting something.
Since no accident occurred, Yamato simply continued with her original plan. A hidden door in the floor opened, and she climbed directly up into Arceus's room.
"Dad, I think—"
"I'm not deaf. I heard everything you said. You don't need to worry about that sort of thing. I'm still here. Nothing unexpected will happen."
The affairs of Wano Country remained under Arceus's control. However, he wasn't paying much attention to Luffy and the others. Instead, his focus was on the Pokémon. Giratina and Landorus quartet were much the same as always.
The area of Reverse World was continuing to expand and would likely become the entire world's reverse side before long. Landorus quartet stirred up whirlwinds within it, creating a unique ecosystem exclusive to the Reverse World.
Rayquaza, Reshiram, and Zekrom had largely maintained their usual states. Instead, it was Regigigas who had come up with some new ideas.
Regigigas was still beneath the volcano. It had entered a state of obsessive perfectionism and was constantly remaking Registeel and Regirock.
Objectively speaking, the reconstructed Regirock and Registeel were already up to standard in terms of combat power. The problem was that Regigigas kept comparing them to Regice, which Arceus had personally created using the Icicle Plate. As a result, it always felt they were lacking something and was never satisfied.
Because of the constant reconstruction work, strange rumbling noises had been coming from beneath Mt. Fuji for quite some time. Ordinary residents even started believing that God had been in a bad mood lately, leading to the suspension of mountain-climbing activity.
"Your father has quite a bit of free time these days. Let me give you a reminder, his strategy might actually succeed soon."
"Strategy?"
"That's right. Calling it a strategy may be a bit exaggerated, but there are already signs of it. That child doesn't have as much patience as your father."
The child Arceus referred to was Rayquaza.
Under normal circumstances, there were only two ways to obtain Rayquaza's power: defeat Rayquaza, or earn Rayquaza's acknowledgement.
Yet in a certain sense, Kaido seemed to be creating a third method, annoying Rayquaza until it finally gave in.
"Dad, you're not joking with me, are you...? That's really not funny..."
She had come to report Kaido, but ended up receiving a shock herself.
"Whether Rayquaza agrees or not is Rayquaza's own decision. I won't interfere. But you don't need to worry too much. A shortcut like this won't grant him the full power. At most, Rayquaza will casually give him a little power just to brush him off.
The fact that he managed to find this approach is unique enough already."
To be precise, Rayquaza was a Pokémon that preferred peace and quiet. Aside from carrying out its duties, it rarely showed itself. One of the things Rayquaza disliked most was Groudon and Kyogre constantly fighting.
Testing Kaido was Rayquaza's current task. Originally, Rayquaza hadn't taken it seriously, assuming Kaido would give up after running into setbacks a few times. Unexpectedly, Kaido displayed extraordinary patience and continued bothering it relentlessly.
After such a long time, Rayquaza had already begun considering just giving Kaido something and sending him away. At least then it could enjoy some peace and quiet.
But in certain situations, one's own happiness is often built upon another person's suffering, even unintentionally.
Rayquaza was still hesitating, but that hesitation had already transformed into a Sword of Damocles hanging over Yamato's head. If Kaido received another power boost, the distance she had worked so hard to close would be widened once again.
"Dad, doesn't this really count as cheating?"
"No. If you can make Zekrom and Reshiram compromise, I won't object either."
"Really?!"
"Of course it's true. But I don't recommend doing it. Reshiram and Zekrom are different from Rayquaza. They're exceptionally patient. Even if you kept at it for tens of thousands of years, you still might not manage to annoy them."
Different Pokémon have different preferences and characteristics, and even Legendary Pokémon are no exception. Personality-wise, Reshiram and Zekrom aren't the type that cannot be reasoned with.
Pokémon like Yveltal, who governs death, are the ones truly difficult to communicate with. There are also even more unusual Pokémon, such as Nebby. If you're unlucky, you could wait nine hundred years and Nebby still wouldn't say a single word. [TN: Nebby is the nickname of a Cogmog in Pokemon world.]
There are also those who are easy to talk to. If someone sincerely told Groudon, "I hate the sea. Let's create a world without oceans together," then there was a certain chance Groudon would agree without a second thought.
Arceus deliberately brought this up because a trend of rule-breaking had recently become popular on Onigashima. One after another, people were operating right along the edge of the rules. The wager from earlier and the current discussion about power were both examples.
From the moment Yamato asked that question, Arceus had already predicted what she was thinking and extinguished the idea at its source.
Trust was built little by little. Ever since Yamato could remember, Kaido had never left her with a particularly good impression. It was always schemes and tricks; every day he seemed to be plotting ways to attack her.
When other people had snowball fights, they hid rocks inside the snowballs. Kaido could hide an actual cannon ball in the snow. After years of that, any trust Yamato might have had in him had long since been worn away.
But Arceus was different. If he didn't agree to something, he simply wouldn't promise it. But once he did, he had never broken his word. The trust he had accumulated was so great that Yamato never doubted him. Since Arceus said it wouldn't work, then it definitely wouldn't work.
"Ah, why is Father's method so simple? Dad, you're treating us differently!"
"He's taking a shortcut. If he followed the proper path, he'd have even more things to consider than you do. After all, his understanding is fundamentally different from Rayquaza's."
"But Dad, Zekrom and Reshiram... they're perfectly fine when I'm with them individually, but the moment the topic of fusion comes up, they both get all worked up, as if they have some deep blood feud."
"It's not a blood feud. It's a conflict of beliefs. Don't you possess part of their power as well? Your father is at most on the same level as you in that regard. As long as you can find the balance point, you can still overcome the age advantage he has over you."
"I think so too. If he hadn't lived more than twenty years longer than me, I could definitely beat him."
At least the current Yamato was full of confidence. She no longer thought about running away whenever Kaido was involved. In that sense, she had overcome her psychological shadow.
"Oh right, Dad, Azelf and the others are special too, aren't they?"
"You noticed? You're a lot sharper this time. If you want to go, then go. Perhaps you'll find what you need there."
The Creation Trio and the Lake Guardians—these six Pokémon had the deepest connections to Arceus. Unlike the Creation Trio, the Lake Guardians, often called the Lake Trio, might not possess overwhelming combat power, but they held far more mysterious powers on the spiritual level.
Uxie, Mesprit, and Azelf furthermore represent the bond-like relationship between humans and Pokémon.
"Of course. I'm not an idiot."
"If you could always be as serious as you are when dealing with your father, I doubt anyone on the entire sea could cause you much trouble. In truth, even if you accomplished nothing in life, your father and I have the ability to carve out a stable environment for you.
"But that would be meaningless. What isn't yours will never truly be yours. You may hold it for a time, but you can never possess it forever. Only when you gain the power to control external things yourself do they truly belong to you."
"I understand. Then, Dad, I'll be going now."
A few seconds later, Arceus gazed at the open window, seemingly lost in thought. Then he merely summoned a gentle breeze to close it again.
Climbing out the window seemed to have become instinctive for Yamato. Even when it wasn't the most convenient route, she reacted as naturally as a muscle reflex and left the same way.
Only after Yamato had departed did Arceus resume reading Barro's letter.
TN: Hey guys, I have picked up a new Pokémon novel Pokémon Master. It's by the same author as Pokémon Court. Go add it to your collection and donate power stones.
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