A man unchains a dog and asks what the dog would do. Uncertainty guides him. Independence is a bone whose taste is foreign to him. He tastes it in his mouth, chews along both ends. This mission is outside his area of expertise. Were it a simple assassination mission, he would say they kill their target and get out...[break]
...but they weren't told to kill anyone. But they're also the enemy. They're sheep who think they're wolves, creatures that will be on the battle lines. The orders to kill them will come eventually, isn't it just more efficient to do it now? It saves them time...[break]
A gentle red cloth caresses his arm under the robe he wears. An evil thing reassures him, tells him that it's only natural. It's what the woman who holds his leash would want. It keeps her safe for them to die now...[break]
"We take 'em out. No point in putting it off, whitey." A pair of chittering Kartana come out, whispering among themselves. Kusanagi and Tsuchigumo are blades that talk like chattering housewives.[break]
"Whatcha got to hit 'em with? I say we go in hard n' fast. Can't let those garden vores build momentum."

"I can do fast." The dog promises as they move through the poisoned forest. The trainers have tossed out their pokeballs, up ahead. Hitoshi can already hear the cheers. He wonders how many people in this crowd are going to be missed. They'd tell him he was going soft in the Hasegawa. Overthinking things. All he has to consider is how to keep his star safe. So long as she keeps burning, all else will be right in the galaxy.[break]
His grunt of pain is tiny. Almost imperceptible. Muramasa hooks into his vein like an IV. It senses the coming apocalypse. Its taste for blood has been roused. The cursed blade wishes to use its dog as a taster.[break]
The first to die is bright-eyed. Happy. Coaxing his Pokemon forward, the Gardevoir unleashes a psychic barrage on its sister. People cheer. Humans look at these Pokemon in the way only humans can look at things. Such a lecherous gaze.[break][break]
Kusanagi flies through his heart. Blood activates his beast boost, letting him knock the trainer's Gardevoir out in one clean blow.[break]
A girl screams. A dog rips out her throat with a bloody red blade. It begins.

This should be a battle. Gardevoir are forces to be reckoned with in their own rites. Under the Dewford seas, he saw from a distance as some mega evolved. None are evolving. None are even attacking. Kusanagi slams into one of the battlers, skidding along with them until they crash into his fellow grunt's Bisharp. Sparks fly as the sharp edges of the origami figure slash against the sword Pokemon's blades.[break]
Confused, Hitoshi looks around. The dog surveys, sniffing the scent of blood in the air.[break]
The Gardevoir are weeping. All of them have collapsed to their knees. Surrounded by this death and destruction, piling body upon body, they cannot bring themselves to fight. Each death is a terrible psychic backlash against their soul. Hitoshi flicks his blade across the neck of another trainer. All the collective Gardevoir scream out in torment.[break]
"This...ain't even a fight." The dog says, watching blood drip off his blade. "We won the first time I swung my sword."

The green-haired maidens don't put up a fight. Most of them look out into dead woods with red, lidless eyes. Red horns staked through their chests rumble. While the white-haired boy with his red knife does his part, the dog bites at their pokeballs. Picks them up, returns them all to the confines of their balls. He says a quiet prayer to the kami of sky and sea that they will find peace within the pokeballs, or with their new owners.[break]
They won't. They won't any more than he would enjoy life without his sun.[break][break]
"Pay better be good for this." His sword disconnects from home, floats over to the bodies. Every beast of the wood will soon come out to play. They'll gorge themselves on this feast. Muramasa is simply the first carrion, promised the choicest morsels.

It overwhelms him. Dropping to his knees, Hitoshi feels all that grief. Thoughts are not for dogs. Dogs only serve. They obey without questioning. A dog with a blade in its mouth leaves a trail of destruction in its wake. Death follows a dog. Thoughtless death, delivered at the edge of an impartial blade.[break]
These creatures loved the people who trained them. He's flooded with that sensation, unconditional love replaced by a hole. With every swing of his sword, he killed two. These creatures are useless. They will never love again, nor will they bond with another after such a violent parting. He has made them useless. He feels the same pit of grief he feels when he considers life after Yumi. There is no joy in the world. The sun has been doused. There is only cold oblivion.[break]
Is this what it's like to die, yet still live?[break]
His amber eyes look across the darkness, blank. The dog trembles, unable to stir. Only his blade moves. Slipping free from Hitoshi's arm, it voices its displeasure with the hum of steel against air. To free its wielder, it begins to butcher the remaining Gardevoir, too. They do not resist. Their lives were already over.

When all is said and done, they are covered in blood. Kusanagi and Tsuchigumo take the other grunt's orders to heart. Flicking across the air, they bring death to the Gardevoir. It's not a total bust. There are other Pokemon on their belts. They're scooped up, gathered, placed in a bag.[break]
Even the heavens weep at the slaughter. Hitoshi is pulled up to his feet, trembling, by the two origami Pokemon. They chitter at him but whatever they say is but a distant buzzing. He can't stand all this blood.[break]
I'm going soft.[break]
"Doesn't look like we really did much tonight. Just killed a bunch of goons. What do we tell the bosses?"

"Yeah. Me either." It's revolting to be here, surrounded by this stench and that awful feeling. Even with the Gardevoir dead, it's like he feels a phantom pain in his mind. Within him is a memory of loss so profound that it will shake him from his sleep in the days to come. He sees the face of a girl he murdered - someone who will never grow old. Someone who will never love. He wonders if this is how she felt when she saw her father dead at his feet.[break]
"Fuck...I need a drink." Cutting their losses, they flee into the woods. In a few days, this will make for a sensational news story. Whether or not they'll connect these killings to Rocket, Hitoshi won't know.