A deep breath followed, a death rattle in the lungs.

"I suspected. You're much too kind to omit someone from your sight." Another wheeze. "Thank you, Nomi."

They both know why Howard had done this. It's not the why that causes this gap, nor would the elucidation of what he had done cause her worries to abate. It was the fact that once the words were uttered, there was no going back. The line would be drawn, and Admin Fox's goals would become clear.

The one who dedicated himself to the clarification of past events now held the keys to enlightenment in his charred, blackened fingers.

"For humanity's victory. For the dream that demands our mind, body and soul. A dream of a world full of light, where our children and our children's children inherit arcadia and sit in an idyllic paradise." He smiled faintly, even if he couldn't see her face. His eyepatch had burned away, leaving scars in the shape of runes and glyphs. "I failed to make your dream a reality."

A streak of white hair, not unlike the DRK Triad's, sat as a glimmering reminder of the world that he had seen in the height of his arrogance.

"I failed you. I'm sorry, Head Scientist."

---

Naomi Sato

I need you.

It was the plea of someone who bore witness to the cracking foundations of the world. Yet her desire was false. She needed someone who could inherit her will and did not twist a frozen dagger between her ribs.

The crystal ball had reflected a better version of himself. The person who had thrown himself into a telltale heart to save a town he had destroyed had been burned away into ash, and this was what remained.

"You do not." His lips parted with a rasp. "You need people you can trust. Better people than I."

He had seen a version of Galar that had not been preserved once the war had ended. Eternatus had reigned as a god and the world had broken. Nobody had saved it, bar defeating the greater threat. If Nomi defeated the DRK Triad and lost the region, then what was this all for?

"This war means nothing if today burns everything that tomorrow offers. We have broken this region and we have stacked corpses to the heavens. Our dreams. Our struggles. They had to mean something. They had to."

Another rattling gasp.

"If not, we are the greatest traitors in all of creation."

---

Naomi Sato

A charred hand covered her own, rough and smooth simultaneously. Each motion displayed weakness and fragility. It was truly a miracle that the admin hadn't died in transmit, before Nomi could see him.

"I do. Because you shoulder the great sin of caring. There is no greater struggle in this world." How could someone trust so much more openly than the god that created this world? She would have been a better asset in the Pokémon League, yet she had tried to be better in an organization that strove only to be worse. "Even if you have faith, I will not seek atonement through words."

Something was lacking. Howard felt it in his soul. When he had delved into the beating heart of a machine, it had burned away something and he was left with less than he had started with.

Team Rocket was destroying him. It was destroying her. It was destroying them all.

"You need to live. It is your foresight that will guide us towards tomorrow." His lips twitched as he grimaced. Yet his eye was full of resolve. "But I have a dream too, and I will give everything to ensure that it's reached. That includes my life."

"But."

His hand tightened around hers. His eye burned with fervor. Her dream was marvelous and her dream was pure. It could not be spoiled by the grasping claws of their associates.

"I will give my everything to ensure that you and everyone else sees tomorrow."

---

Naomi Sato

The DRK Triad cared, just not about their world. Everyone cared about something, but Nomi cared about this world in its entirety, and thus his respect for her was greater. She would care no matter what, even as it changed.

Howard would prefer the world never change. That was his ideal.

"It's in storage. You or Lulu should make sure it's stable. It has taken to its Wishing Star quite well." If Shred was involved, he suspected that Lulu Flint would be as well. When it came to academics, Shred was more willing to dump responsibility onto others while he followed his own pursuits. Besides, he and Lulu got along like a house on fire. "Heavily damaged, of course, but it will recover. It's come back from worse."

It had been turned into shards when Rocket had first seized it. It would come back from the damage sustained in Dewford.

"It operates on a higher level now. It won't kill Eternatus on its own, but it set the stage for the sheriff into an avatar. It will be enough for what needs to be done."

---

Naomi Sato

There is, in his heart, a small flicker of love for the icebound deity that was not there before. The mutual connection of sharing the weight of Eternatus's legacy and the flutter of contact between an artificial heart and a live one both beating in unison.

Yet it is buried. Buried under duty, obligation, and the passion for archaeology that dictated every action that Howard had taken up until he had joined Team Rocket and risen to the rank of admin. That passion can be twisted into affection for the frozen artifact and love for the Pokémon that it was slowly becoming.

"Maybe so." He raised a blackened hand, burned with a thousand scars of Dynergy from contact with divinity. "But in case anything happens to me, I want it to be ready for use immediately. Someone must wield it."

His eye flickered with the reminder of mortality.

"That dog said she'd-" He did not correct Zacian's name. Zaria was a name that only two people in the world knew, and Howard would keep it that way. "-guh."

His hand fell back to the bed with a dull thud.

"What did Navy do? Something stupid and heroic, I suspect."

---

Naomi Sato

Navy had just signed his own death warrant, but the rage does not come. There was no anger or contempt in Howard's soul for the foolishness that the sheriff had just displayed. The Warrior was meant to be an honest one.

Instead, there was a stillness. A coldness that formed in his limbs and worked its way towards his heart as the implications sank in. This meant a lot for Nomi, and it meant a lot for Howard. All three of them were compromised, and there was no way to put a lid on that bottle.

"He always did have a flare for the dramatic. What a theater kid." There was a twinge of pride in his voice, a latent memory of the man who had squired for the Pale Rider in Galar. "We'll see where it goes."

It was the best reassurance he could offer to Nomi. It likely wasn't enough.

Her next words proved it. How could Team Rocket's eyes, locked squarely on the future, be so blind?

"Idiot." He squeezed her hand in reassurance. "You are the only person here that I would follow if I wasn't a Rocket. You have the power of divinity at your fingertips, and you want to help the world. You are not Nisa Holo, and you are not the DRK Triad. Your dream is pure."

His lips twitched upward into a smile.

"And that, Nomi, makes you worth a thousand of our peers."

---

Naomi Sato