It's the sort of night that can make a man nostalgic.[break]
Rain patters on the roof of the small ramen stand. A dog wolfs down his meal like he hasn't eaten in weeks. The nice suit he wears is spattered by small ramen stains. No doubt it will make the woman who holds his leash fuss, he has to be presentable after all, but it's nice to taste a piece of the old country.[break]
He'd say it's like tasting home, but home is wherever she resides. Anything else, the people, the places, the objects, are all secondary. It's the same story no matter where he goes. The local crime syndicate wants to remain top dogs. They recruit beasts with a taste for blood to fill their ranks. Such is his role. Every precise kill by this well-trained dog is in the name of someone else, to win them glory.[break]
Above him, hanging in the sky like a scorching white light through the cloudy summer storm, is a full moon. Tonight is a night when beasts come out to play. Someone will die. Someone who knows too much, who refuses to back off.[break]
It's not the dog's place to ask questions. It's his place to pierce the heart. Anything else is for Yumi and this mysterious handler. He's got his blade, a Kartana he has grown very fond of in a short time, floating on a roof overlooking the man's office. His new blade hates the rain, but he'll live. He's made of tough stuff.[break]
Hitoshi waits on his handler to show up so the fun can begin.

She hasn't led him astray yet. His faith in her is absurd, inhuman. Its closest approximation is the undying faith of a child but that too fails to cover its depths. Hitoshi nods. If this is where she wants to be, if this crucible called Hoenn is where she must be to find happiness, then he will be here, too.[break][break]
Besides, what did he say during the SPECTRA trials?[break]
All you gotta do to kill a god is stab the heart.[break]
He stabbed a simulacrum of one of the mightiest creatures to have ever walked the earth through the heart, why not this hateful beast? At the end of the day, he has a new task. That's what this amounts up to: an assassination contract, opened by himself for his own satisfaction. The pay, as he sees it, is Yumi's life. Her continued existence in a world she understands, dominated by greedy humans.[break]
Let the dogs and the cats squabble beneath her notice.[break]
Clothes are tossed out. He changes into a track suit. It's not flattering to look at, but it feels better than a stuffy three-piece.[break]
"I want steak." The dog's smile takes on the image of a wolf. Some things never change.

Inoue is a word that barely registers in his mind. His sword pierces another rat's skull as he turns and quirks his head. Funny, these business types are the only people in Hoenn who stick to the formality he remembers from Johto.[break]
"You can call me Hitoshi." You can call me are pretty words drilled into him by being around Yumi. She has all the social graces. Hitoshi has very few, but he learned enough from here to adapt. In the world above, this man is his boss. His direct boss, as only an idiot would use a blade for anything other than offense.[break]
"I picked it up here and there." He muses, remembering his past. Years spent as a stray dog on the streets of Goldenrod, fighting to survive. "I just picked up a sword one day. Stole it from someone's house. Started swinging it. It felt right. I studied some pictures in books to help my technique."[break]
"All the old schools in Johto suck. They're sticklers for form, poise, all that crap. Do whatever works. Just get the blade through the big organs. Anything else is unnecessary." He stretches his vocabulary to its limits for this man. Swords have that effect on him.

He didn't know how bad he needed this hug until he has it. He's fought twenty years for this hug. He holds her tight, holds her close. He is not a godly man but he thanks the gods for carrying him this far. He feels that she is the same as anyone else, as all the people he has slain for her. Flesh and blood. Organs that can be pierced. He knows it's his job to keep that fate from befalling her. She will live until she is an old, wizened matron of her own crime family. Men and women will fear her name.[break]
That's a future he can carve for her. The only thing he knows how to do is make a road of bodies for her to walk on.[break]
When they break away, he looks at her with somber eyes. Resolute. He'd die for her, but he knows that isn't what she wants. Her eyes are too beautiful for tears, and she would cry for him.[break]
"I do." He always knew she'd want to stay. This is a place teeming with humanity. Teeming with opportunity. He doesn't understand that stuff, but he knows it isn't his place to understand.[break]
"You were all that kept me goin'. Twenty years of fighting. I knew if I could just keep waking up, fightin', I'd end up back where I'm supposed to be." He places his hand over his heart, a samurai giving a vow.[break]
"I spent enough time away from you to know there's nowhere I'd rather be than right by your side."

"Well, if someone like that broke in, I'd kill them, obviously." He says as if that settles the matter. So long as he has his blade, nothing can harm those he has decided he cares for.[break]
...or so he would like to believe.[break]
That creature is out there, the snow-draped sword. It is not something he can simply slay. Not as he is now. Were that cat to intrude upon this woman's home, he could do little save cover their escape and say his sorrowful prayer to Yumi that he couldn't keep his promise. Perhaps those words he says are more for himself than her, a reassurance that his strength is enough.[break]
"...look." There's a sigh, he tries to build his part of the bridge that is understanding. He wants to meet this woman in the middle, truly, he does.[break]
"I didn't know you had kids. Dunno anything about you." He was, in fact, an exceptional specimen in regards to how few personal questions he asked during that initial meet and greet.[break]
"All I knew is I got done early. Killing 'em wasn't hard. So I got bored waiting, figured out how to get here, and just thought I'd come and let you know. I was gonna leave."[break]
He looks away from her, out the window into the darkness beyond the light cast by electric civilization.[break]
"...guess it's just a weakness of mine, I love kids. They're not old enough to hate yet." He envies them for that. He has seldom felt hatred in his own heart, but when he has, it's scared him.[break]
"I won't come here again if it makes you mad."

Like any good blade, he stays on the woman's right side. Just ahead of her, leaning his barenaked sword against his shoulder. Let these paradox Pokemon come. No skin off his teeth, no danger to him. He's killed them before. He knows how they die. He was there in that podunk little town on the edge of everywhere and nowhere.[break][break]
"I've killed 'em before." He admits. "That one robot that looks like a Gallade? It's got a heart, same as anything else. They bleed oil. Anything in these caves attacks us, well..." Above his free hand floats a peculiar little creature. Were it not for its independent suspension in the air, it would surely be mistaken for paper mache. It floats around, chuckling and surveying the area. Fragile as this little paper crane is, it is power. Hitoshi has witnessed its power firsthand. Perhaps its style resonates with him - offense at the cost of all defense. One decisive swing to end things.[break]
"You two got pulled into the sword, right?" He asks them. Since that day, he has been more somber. More serious. Severe. Almost stern.[break][break]
"Missed you guys." Twenty years is a long time to think. He's not afraid to make that admission to them.

A shield clarifies.[break]
A fist directs.[break]
A blade cuts with decisive words.[break]
They will not die here. They will take what they can. They will overpower these monsters from another world with strength.[break]
There is kinship with the blade, as much kinship as a dog can have with a human. This resplendent blade wields his sword with a humanity Hitoshi could never hope to emulate. It is logic honed along the edge of a sword. Its bitter blade burns a cool blue, dancing with the sharp reds of this dog's world.[break]
These creatures, which when left to his own devices he would call cool, swarm him. Growling in annoyance at their omnipresence, he charges forward. Jubei is close by. This creature, a lowly grunt striking out ahead of the great veterans of this cause, strikes with reckless wild abandon. Perhaps to the untrained eyes, they are pointless strikes. They exert too much force. Wild swings.[break]
Like nature itself, there are means and methods within the chaos. Strokes that seem too loose land his blade precisely where it needs to be to push them back. Milliseconds make all the difference. Life and death are separated by a thin line. Were it not for these wild motions, Hitoshi's foes would not be precisely where Jubei's flame blades pierced.[break]
Swing. Pierce. Back and to the left. Forward charge through the chaos. A dog howls. Kartana snicker. He rushes through the forest, towards the fortress where these creatures dwell.[break]
"Oi, blade. Show me what your sword can do." His voice is frantic in a breathy way, his lungs an overworked factory, but his eyes are pleading. There is such beautiful humanity in the sword's strokes.[break]
Show me more.

"I got bored waitin' on ya. What else is there to say?" In a dog's world, things aren't complicated. Instincts keep him out of trouble. Yumi trained him well in where to go and where not to go in relation to her own businesses. This, freelancing under independent contacts formed within Team Rocket, is new to him. Everything is for Yumi's glory. That is what led him here, to this place, looking into eyes that make him think he's looking into a mirror.[break]
"Wasn't followed." He adds, as if that solved anything. "Your security guards suck. Most of 'em are on their phones. Dudes weren't even payin attention to the monitors. Everybody capable of holdin' a gun or a pokeball in the building you sent me to clear out is dead. What's the problem?"[break]
The first real sign of concern crosses his face. A dog puts his proverbial tail between his legs. Apprehension takes him. How could it not, with the thought that just crossed his mind.[break]
"I didn't...upset 'em, did I? They're really cute. I like 'em. They've got your eyes." Whatever else comprises this creature, for these children, who he only just met, he feels nothing but unconditional love. It's in the unsteady cadence of his voice, the way he looks away. Not much causes him shame, but that thought does.