Aoki Hana's arrival was foretold.

His first thought was one of surprise at the swordswoman's formality. The second one was far more childish, and it was that one that he almost allowed to leave his lips.

I get a samurai? This is so fucking cool!

That thought does not manifest verbally. She wished to honor tradition, and thus he would as well. It was a lockstep motion of honorable custom bleeding into the modern age, where samurai and ronin could dance amongst soldiers and gods. A few grunts bear witness to the exchange, and run to tell their Kantoan brothers and sisters the news.

The news that Admin Fox is protected by another sword.

"Rise, Tsubame." A red eye regarded the woman, trying to place her on the chessboard of political players in Petalburg. They both play at tradition in this masquerade of a city. "Rise, and pick up your sword. We have much work to do."

As the ceremony closes on the beach where Rocket first landed in Petalburg, his smile turns wry.

"Did you find Sootopolis to be a sufficient whetstone for your blade?"

---

Aoki Hana

She takes blade in hand, now sworn to shed blood for the sake of another.

An odd feeling. Heavier, for the weight it holds now. All this time, she had never pledged her sword to anyone but herself, never sworn to protect anyone before Rocket. Now, though, it is more than just her sword. It is the sword of another-- the man who stands in front of her.

She meets his single eye with a curt smile.

"Sufficient to awaken their hunger, perhaps."

But they had hungered more than ever since this war began, since tasting the blood of the Warrior and his deputy, since their clash with the Champion. She reattaches the blade to her belt, joining it with its twin once again. Scabbards clack angrily against one another as she rises, protesting the ceasefire from their confines even now.

"Tell me, Fox... what work do you have for me? Are you enforcing Walsh's 'peace', all the way out here?"

She speaks of the ceasefire as a four letter word.

Work. Walsh's peace. Politics. Kanto and Hoenn pulled on one another over authority within this necropolis of a city. Tsubame's blades would drink their fill and sup on the red wine of life. Sootopolis had been scoured clean with primordial rain. Petalburg had simply been razed, allowing for rats to hide in the nooks and crannies.

"The better question is what work don't I have for you." He finally said as they walked through the ruined city. What was once a verdant plain had been turned into a mountain range by the wrath of titans. "There are resistance fighters, discontent among the civilian population, and our Kantoan siblings can't keep their hands to themselves."

The discontent with Kanto was exponentially growing as both branches of Rocket mingled together. They were uncouth, hardly improved from their days as mere gang members slinging drugs on the streets of Celadon. No wonder their siege of Johto had failed.

"Plus," he added as an afterthought, "two of our Rocket Executives are dead."

---

Aoki Hana

The samurai strode behind him through ruined streets, stepping over rubble and between the burnt out shells of buildings.

Her gaze drifted from their own soldiers to kantonian transplants, keeping themselves distinct from one another. Civilians, sparse though they were, stared in scorn and fear at their approach, relieved when they did not stop. Behind all of that, the backdrop, massive scars in the earth loomed, remnants of whatever had lain waste to the city. It seemed to her that the world had been upended.

Whatever had done it, she knew, lay in the hands of Admin Fox.

That was the unspoken threat. The only tenuous grasp on peace that kept the coalition together this far from Sootopolis. It was natural to assume that he was to blame for everything, and that he would do it again if provoked. Though, that provocation would be mutually assured destruction.

She saw now why they had sent him a sword.

"Lucky I have two hands, then. They say two swords are better than one, don't they? Though, swords can only do so much to treat a wound. And this city, it's one hell of a big one, ain't it?"

A deep blemish on Hoenn. It hadn't even stopped bleeding before the sickness set in, festering. The attacks, the infighting... when it wasn't attracting the ire of pests from outside, draw to it like flies, it was still infected, a problem unto itself, soon to rot.

Better to cut off the finger to spare the arm. But Fox would not see it that way, so she wouldn't either.

"What's come of the execs? You found who's responsible?"

"It's a big one." He agreed with her statement. "We'll cut away the necrotic flesh as we need to."

A scalpel was preferable to a sledgehammer. A threat could be excised with both, but a blade was more likely to excise a threat and allow the surrounding flesh to heal, rather than to shamelessly smash it.

Tsubame was a better trainer. She was a better soldier. She was thus a better sword. They had brought him someone who had clashed with Navy and lived, and the admin knew from his interactions with Zaria in Galar that Navy would do his hardest to bring down any enemy on the battlefield.

His kagemusha was here, thus she was strong.

"Two swords are better than one. I am not a warrior, but I would consider a shield instead. Human bodies are fragile, and they're remarkably easy to break." His eye reflected bodies crushed by boulders in Petalburg and bloated corpses in Sootopolis. "And when they're broken, they can't be fixed."

In the face of Tsubame's question, the admin shook his head. Despite the threat, he seemed eerily unconcerned.

"No, but I suspect the remains of resistance fighters. There's a lot of places to hole up in the ruins of this city. They'll jump at us when we're most vulnerable." Howard lit a cigarette and blew smoke into the sky. "Which is why you're going to turn into this next alleyway with me."

---

Aoki Hana

He's no Warrior.

One look at the man makes that apparent. He moves with a gracelessness that betrays him, as if all that's ever mattered is what's in his head and the words inside a book. His body had been an afterthought his whole life. Some men just like him are all pride, but at the very least, he's smart enough to acknowledge as much.

"That's why they've sent me," she responds curtly.

All her past record, brief as it was, had to show was a string of failures. But as those had been multiple scraps with an Elite Four and the Top Champion, the brass took interest enough, even for her failures.

Not as much as they would have, had she the skill to bring them down, but...

"... Bait."

She catches on, following with a hand on the swords at her hip...

The scholar and the swordswoman meandered into an alley. It almost sounded like a bad joke, which was an apt descriptor for their lives up until this point. Tsubame fought Navy, yet the sheriff still drew breath. The admin fought the Liberator, and yet he had escaped into the mists brought on by the north wind.

They were both failures. It just so happened that the admin's felt a magnitude larger in the current circumstances. Every piece of rubble was a reminder of his failure, of his mortality.

"The funny thing? I don't even blame the populace for fighting us. We took everything from them. All they have left is hatred and vindication. Normally, I'd have Beasts Conrad or Inoue deal with this. Yet they're overworked. We'll lighten their loads. We help each other." The cherry at the end of the cigarette glowed brightly as the admin spoke. "Because we're Rocket."

That sentence rang out through the alley. A rusty door creaked open. Further down, another rang out in harmony. Dirty men and women emerged, carrying pipes and other cumbersome weapons. Their Pokemon, meanwhile, were remarkably tame. Masquerain. Gardevoir. Pokemon native to this town before it had turned into a ruin.

They fought with what they had. Howard respected that. Yet when this city was rebuilt, those who resisted would not look upon it.

"You said bait, right?" Howard's head jerked in Tsubame's direction. He was pale and shaking slightly, but he barreled on. "I offer you the alternative: 'and switch'."

Their assailants lunged forward.

---

Aoki Hana

Violence begets violence.

They'd made enemies of half the region at this point. There was no doubt that people wanted Fox dead. Foolish to wager otherwise. All of them would get their turn, racking up karma like their sins were poker chips. Admin Fox just had the most to lose.

But Hana was all-in.

She smiles as she eyes the townsfolk slowly filing out of the alleyway's dark, hidden corners. In their eyes was the hatred of those who'd lost everything, those who wanted nothing more than the suffering of the one who'd taken everything from them.

"This ain't gonna end like you think it'll end," she announces to the crowd, both hands drawing her doublades in one swift motion.

The moment she does, chaos explodes around them.

The old man nearest Hana suddenly clutches his throat, voiceless in response to her announcement, red trickling from between his fingers. The bug pokemon's wings are severed, and it goes tumbling into the gutter. The psychic fae begins preparing a mental technique, but Hana lunges forward with all the momentum of her ghostly swords and she kicks it square in the chest, knocking the wind out of it-- buying her just enough time to cut the pokemon's throat with a well-aimed strike.

But all around them, the crowd presses further. A middle-aged woman commands her azumarill to smash them with an Aqua Tail. A kid orders his father's Shiftry to summon a razor wind, fans sending up a gale that cuts deep into Hana's thigh. She buckles to one knee, still ready to fight. A group of men with improvised weapons lumber from a nearby broken doorway, ready to fight themselves.

"Fox--!"

Hana grimaces in pain, the only thing she can do to warn him as her sword wraps a cursed cloth around her wound...

Even a blade can be bent, should it block instead of parry.

Tsubame held two swords in hands calloused from wandering. Swordplay is an art form meant to reach a level of emptiness that cannot be reached by mere meditation. To wield blades is to accept an unending journey, and to swing them is to accept that she will end the journeys of others.

In a twist of fate, they might end hers.

"Damn. I underestimated their numbers." Howard muttered as his shadow fell on the battlefield. He chewed his lip until it grew sore. "Jayden was always better at this."

For a brief moment, he considered summoning giants to wipe these men away like ants in a breeze. They fought with rage and valiant honor, but to be crushed beneath a mountain of boulders or preserved in glacial ice was not a fate these people deserved. His golems labored in the city. They would not be immediately present.

Still, he silently called for Regirock.

As the Shiftry prepared to lop off Hana's head, its Razor Wind is Blocked by a Stonjourner's massive leg. The energy of the sentinel's Power Spot rushed into the swordswoman and her blades, imbuing them with power. Her wounds did not heal, but they did not sap her strength.

That, she had in abundance.

"Does my own mouth betray me? Did I order you to lose, Tsubame?" Howard unceremoniously jumped away from a stray pipe swing, before giving her a glare. "Let me rephrase, then..."

The ground rumbled.

"I ordered you to win."

---

Aoki Hana

His words still her tongue, an impossible ask in almost any scenario but this one.

A wide grin across her face, the sashes that wrap around Hana's wrists suddenly turn a deep crimson as she lets them drink deep of her blood. She rises to her feet, ignoring the throbbing pain in her leg with a wince, though even that pain wouldn't dim her smile.

"That an order, Fox?"

A quip, as one of her blades flickers out of her hands and disappears into the shadows. The men coming for the Admin with improvised weapons all fall in quick succession, deep cuts on the back of each of their necks.

The Azumarill darts toward Hana, and she flies into the air like a barn swallow just out of reach. Kicking off the Stonjourner, she plunges downward with an aerial ace that takes the Azumarill looking around for her by surprise, felling it with one blow.

The Shiftry shrieks next as it flies at her in fury, and Hana reaches out to catch her second blade just in time, cleaving the tengu in twain with a swift sacred sword. It falls to its knees behind her, and Hana raises her blades to the two trainers reaching for new pokeballs.

"Ah-ah, take those out and you're dead. Turn away now, and Fox may still let you live."

Her swords revel in the violence, dyed red in the murder they were denied at Sootopolis. They would want nothing more than to kill, she realizes. But the Admin's orders were to win, not to kill -- and there was victory still in forcing your opponents to cede to your terms. Furthermore, honor in allowing your opponents the option of life.

Blood splattered against his face. Hot. Sticky. The last vestige of life that these people would ever offer to the world of the living. It was their ticket to the next life, whether it was heaven or hell or some cycle of reincarnation. Regardless, the admin hoped that it was better than the world they lived in.

They could sup on the memories of brighter times as their souls flickered and died. When they did so, they left their colleagues behind to suffer from the hammer of judgement. Again, he felt the sensation of holding lives in his palm. It was small comfort knowing that Tsubame would cut them in twain if he ordered it.

Lives had gotten remarkably heavy recently, as had the weight on his shoulders.

"She's right." Cautiously at first, then with more confidence, the admin crossed the battlefield to join his shadow. "Drop them, or join your countrymen who died when we took the city. Lotta rubble. All we have to do is shift a building, and that's another mass grave."

The ground shook again, as if something massive was approaching.

"Lives are cheap." They were not, but this was what was expected of the man who had burned Petalburg. "Drop them."

A titan emerged over the horizon, the size of a building. Concrete was its limbs. Buildings were its arms. It was as if the soul of Petalburg had arisen to possess the city to mete judgement upon those who would resist the will of the world.

Seven eyes lit up, miniature suns in the dust.

"Drop 'em." Pokeballs clattered against the floor. "What would you do with them, swordswoman?"

---

Aoki Hana

Her swords still hum in her hand. They long even now to drive into flesh, to slake their thirst on the living, to kill and kill again. Perhaps she may have given them that once, but they are tools for another now.

A man, who asks his sword what she might do.

What would Admin Fox want her to say?

"Spare them. Tie 'em up, take 'em in, interrogate 'em. Someone knew you'd come this way. No impromptu ambush has this level of coordination. You'd be gettin' an angry mob if this was really unplanned, and these guys don't look like they're doing this in the heat of the moment if you ask me."

She spits on the ground, on the bodies of dead men. The old woman stares at her with scorn, and she flashes her a wide smile.

"Ask me, first one who talks keeps their tongue. Reward the ones who'll keep talkin'. And if they lie, well, it's still there. Can always pull it out if you find they ain't tellin' the truth."

She says it with a grin on her face, no remorse at all.

Deep down, though, she wonders: was that too brutal?

The answer comes quick.

No. Not for the man who had burned Petalburg.