[Lance: Hahaha! Wallace, you're brutal! I bet Steven is turning beet red right now!]
[Diantha: Hehe, isn't it true? But this is good news for Steven's fans. The position of 'First Blood' is still open! I wonder who will win that battle?]
[Caitlin: Steven is old news. The real question is: who will win Ash's heart first? Forget 'first blood'; if anyone can actually get that stone man to become a boyfriend, they'll be crowned the Queen of Love!]
Indeed, compared to the idea of Steven Stone falling in love, watching the progression of a dense "wooden man" like Ash was infinitely more entertaining.
The world couldn't wait to see which of his many confidantes would eventually stand out as his final partner.
In the Footage—
After separating from May, the return journey on the bus was quiet. Both Ash and Chloe were deep in thought.
Chloe was replaying May's meaningful expressions and her last, enigmatic words. After the ribbon-merging ceremony, May had looked Chloe deep in the eyes and whispered something just for her.
Only by focusing on your goals, moving forward, and completing your own journey to become a truly brilliant person can you earn the right to stand by his side. Your competitors... are quite formidable. Good luck, Chloe.
The profound meaning of that sentence continued to consume Chloe. Was this why May had chosen her own solitary path as a Coordinator rather than just tagging along with Ash? Was she building her own legend to match his?
Ash, meanwhile, was meditating on what May had said about "finding his original heart."
Recently, he had been winning his World Coronation Series matches so consistently—against both strong and weak opponents—that his mentality was starting to shift.
Even he could feel a sense of complacency, a frivolousness, starting to take root. He was only fifteen, and he had already achieved what many people never would in a lifetime. Why shouldn't he feel confident?
Because confidence is not arrogance, Ash thought. I don't need to just win matches; I need to make progress! I need to catch up to Cynthia! I need to catch up to Leon! I can't let victory go to my head, or I'll never reach the peak! He needed to find the purest version of himself—the boy who only saw the adventure, not the ranking.
"The original heart… if I want to find that, there's only one place besides Pallet Town," Ash murmured to himself.
"Huh? Ash, what did you say?" Chloe asked. She had been lost in thought, and Ash's voice was barely a whisper.
Ash turned to her with that same bright, signature smile, his determination renewed. "We're going to Alola!"
"Pika?!" Pikachu's ears perked up in surprise.
"Alola?" Chloe repeated, her eyebrows raised. Alola... that's where Ash won his first League Championship and became the region's very first Champion, right? Why are we going back now? Is there an opponent waiting for him?
Ash picked up Pikachu and gave him a nostalgic hug. "I miss them. I miss Professor Kukui, Professor Burnet, Lillie, Mallow, Lana, Sophocles, and Kiawe... I miss all of them! I want to go back and see them! And... I also want to talk to Dr. Kukui. I need some guidance."
"Guidance?"
"Yes. I've won too much lately, and I feel like my 'state of mind' is off. I need my life mentor in Alola to help me clear up this confusion!"
Chloe: … Some people lose all the time and want guidance. Ash has won too much and feels 'confused' because of it? Only Ash could have such a problem.
"How about it? Do you have time to come with me?"
"When?"
"There's no time like the present! Let's go tomorrow!"
"Mo~ Ash, you are so willful... fine, since you've made up your mind, let's go." Looking at Ash happily high-fiving Pikachu, Chloe smiled.
Her "goals" could be achieved slowly. Right now, what she truly wanted was simply to travel with this boy. The more she saw of the world with him, the clearer her own path would become.
[Lance: It's truly rare that Ash, at his age, was able to discover his own flaws without a crushing defeat.]
[Drasenna: For a fifteen-year-old, this is a remarkable display of maturity.]
[Drake: Precisely. Ash didn't lose himself in victory. Many trainers, even at twenty-five or thirty-five, can get lost in the arrogance that comes with success if they aren't careful.]
[Raihan: A guy who is always victorious, always confident, but not arrogant... until now, I only knew one: Leon! Now it seems Ash's heart has begun a slow transformation into that 'Undefeated' general mindset!]
[Diantha: The most admirable thing about Leon is not that he hasn't lost, but that despite his streak, he remains introspective. His mental stability is terrifying. Leon found his center when the world pressured him.]
[Leon: Haha! You're exaggerating! The pressure of being called 'Undefeated' is exactly why I can't be arrogant. If I slip, I lose everything.]
[Leon: But Ash... he discovered his own 'expanding ego' when there was no external pressure at all. He won his matches, but he felt the internal shift. That is a truly remarkable heart! The Ash of today... is absolutely worthy of the title of Champion!]
[Professor Kukui: I didn't expect him to treat Alola as his primary 'haven' just because he won his first championship there.]
[Professor Oak: I think it's deeper than that, Kukui. He treats Alola as his second home.]
Professor Kukui, watching from the Alola region, was thoughtfully observing Ash's expression in the footage.
It wasn't the look of a champion returning to defend his title; it was the look of a traveler returning to a place of absolute safety and love. He truly curious what Ash's next adventures in Alola would bring.
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