“You talk a lot.” Hitoshi says as the other guy finishes, sheathing his knife. “That ain’t the point. Point is, which one’s the highest priority. We can just kill the stuff we know about.” He says as if this is the simplest thing in the world.[break]
“If that big bird decides to fly out in the open, just send everybody in this room out with some fire hydrants. Jump it. We’ll sort it out. We can’t do that to somethin’ we don’t know about! It’s like fightin’ the air! Or fightin’ gravity! If you don’t know about somethin’, it’s just a thing! You can’t kill a thing until you know where its heart is!” [break]
He kicks his feet, looking back to the monitor. Perhaps he has no concept of the fact every word he’s saying is being scrutinized. Maybe he just doesn’t care.[break]
“What I don’t get is, if these guys have all these big things, like that deer or dragon, why don’t they just jump the guys they want dead and kill ‘em?”

The dog watches the next man make his decision, backs it up with words. To his credit, he listens until he finishes talking. Yumi has trained him well to listen before he speaks. It’s a luxury many of the thugs of the Hasegawa household were not afforded, in another place, in another lifetime.[break]
“The hell’re you talkin’ about, idiot? Scrotum’s what? Look. All I’m sayin’ is this: the stuff they showed on the monitors, they’re just big dumb lizards, dragons, whatever. At the end of the day, if you know where their heart is, you can pierce ‘em. Here, look at this.”[break]
He conjures Jubei, his Ceruledge, from his pokeball. Sensing there is no intention to kill, the Pokemon merely flares his blade at Hitoshi’s side to help accentuate the trainer’s point. The flame on top of his helmet flares.[break]
“See that blade? Jubei ain’t no god. He ain’t a legend. But BAM!” Hitoshi has drawn a tanto and stabbed it up through empy air, quick as a cobra striking prey. He holds the pose, tanto held above his head, as if reaching up to stab at the heart of Arceus. “He pierces a god's heart, the god'll die like anything else. Crush his brain, electrocute him, smoke out his lungs. Everything dies.”[break]
A dog yaps, with no grasp of the stakes.

“Heh. I’ll try to remember it, yella.” He says, masking his inability to commit names to memory with masculine bravado and a half-assed nickname. At least his voice is animated. Turning to Kaname Fujihara , he examines the guy. Looks him up and down. If Xenon is a yapping dog, then this creature who now paces and looks at the taller, elegant man has more the make of a wolf with a collar around his throat, bearing the name Yumi Hasegawa .[break]
“Yo. Nice to meetcha. I’m Hitoshi. You’re smart, yeah? Maybe we can work together. Y’know how to shut up. Not like some’ve these bozos.” He laughs, saying thoughtless, juvenile, but utterly honest words.[break]
Behind him, the monitor flares. He watches the show with fascination. The shapes are meaningless to him. Groudon, Xerneas, the beasts of ruination. For a creature like him, a black dog, they may as well be the moon. They are so far removed from the world and ecosystem that this creature knows as to be divorced from him by measurements of lightyears.[break]
Amber eyes scan the choices. For him, the answer is obvious. He is one of the first, if not the first, to walk forward and answer. Hitoshi jabs the terminal, giving it his answer.[break]
C – THE THREATS UNKNOWN[break]
“What?” He turns back to the rest of the class. “If I know what I’m dealin’ with, I can kill it.” This creature doesn’t understand the task being asked of him in this hypothetical. Anyone observant on the other side of the glass can tell. Maybe they’ll find some humor in his answer.[break]
“I can’t kill a ghost or fog or anything like that.”[break]
He slinks past Kouji. Past Kaname. Up to a guy who seems to be the center of attention. Looking at Isaac Merlo , he makes a statement followed by a simple question.[break]
“Oi, Blondie. People like you. You’re strong. Wanna point me at stuff to kill when the test starts?”[break]
He is a sword with the blunt force trauma of a mace to the chin.

Ironic that a dog who sees himself as nothing but a sword finds himself close to a shield. Hitoshi’s only been in one battle before. There’s big dogs here on both sides, people trying to shift the tide back and forth. They want the big dumb shield dog. They want the big dumb sword cat. Cats and dogs, it’s a battle as old as time.[break]

As he slinks on the edge of the battle, watching, looking from person to person, he knows the role he has to play. It’s pointless for him to engage with the big bad legendary Pokemon himself. The world’s like a fog in his eyes, a fog of rage and fear. Picking his way through that fog, he scans for targets. Weak links. People on the right side of useful to the League and easy for him to pick off.[break]

He finally comes across a suitable target. There’s an avalanche coming for them. Barreling down on them like the inevitable hand of fate. Jubei, Hitoshi’s Ceruledge, is at his master’s side. Hitoshi hates this creature and all of his kind. There’s no such thing as a fair fight when there’s Pokemon. He wishes that he could just pull out his sword, get to swinging, and not have a thousand different annoying monsters get in his way.[break]

Finally, his eyes settle on one girl. Genevieve Cromwell . Hitoshi doesn’t know her name. He probably never will. She’s another target to him. Ironically, he bears her no malice. There is no hatred in his heart as he rushes the woman down in her professional suit, a madman dressed like an assassin. Ceruledge rushes ahead of him.[break][break]

While her Pokemon makes its wish, Jubei shows her the fate of most wishes. Reality is bitter. Wishes seldom come true. A message delivered at the point of his bitter blade.[break]

“Heeeey! Pleasure to meetcha! I love your suit. Can ya do me a favor and die quick?” He makes small talk like they’re meeting in a bar rather than a battlefield. He gets the words out as the Avalanche comes for him.

“Oi, Whitie!” Hitoshi chuckles, focusing much of his attention on the man who bumped his shoulder. The dog has a near supernatural ability to filter out things he won’t understand. Much of the chatter with the woman in glasses and the other Rockets is above him – so far above him that he simply does not acknowledge them as a part of his world. His is a world of blood, death, and steel. Ideals are meaningless in his world. Any higher calling of Rocket, anything so human as revenge, conditional love, ambition, power…[break]
Those things are meaningless to him. He exists to swing his blade. He exists to elevate another. Ambition is pointless for one such as him. The warrior, at least, understands. A fellow fighter. A fellow killer. Hitoshi can sniff the blood on him. It’s old, obscured, but it’s there. It makes him comfortable, puts him at ease.[break]
“You know some of the people here, yeah? Introduce me to ‘em. Who do you think I should be throwin’ my sword in with? Seems kinda unfair to the rest of these clowns if you n’ me team up.”

”I don’t see any more, Brownie.” He says to the brown-haired man. He tries to sound enigmatic, but his innate enthusiasm makes the words sound like they’re on the tail end of an adrenaline high. Munenori looks first to him and then to the circling monster above. Even if Hitoshi doesn’t appreciate that creature’s status as one of the gods of their world, the Gallade does.[break]
His conduct does, however, beg a question. A man soaked in the blood of Pokemon he himself ordered the death of looks perplexed at the anger. Cocking his head, he asks a strange question.[break]
"Why're you doin' that?" He asks as the Pokemon is ripped apart with needless inefficiency. There's something more important to worry about, so he lets the matter drop.[break]
“Yumi, Blondie, you two alright?” Concern leaks in as he sees they are, in fact, alright. Looking around, he supposes that it’s mission accomplished. They can come back later with some supplies, set up base, have themselves a merry little picnic or something.[break]
Truth be told, he doesn’t know why they’re here. He doesn’t know the season or even the reason he’s standing here holding his blade. Yumi and the man above him say cut, he cuts. Simple as.[break]
If they wish to depart, he departs. Not another thought is spared for the oversized Pokemon. He doesn’t fixate on the loss of life, or how easily any of them could be cut down at a moment’s notice. It’s just, as he likes to say, one of those things.[break][break][break]
MezP1ZxL [break][break]

Yumi Hasegawa Cillian Quinn Tempest Quinn

Blondie’s right, they have to move. Hitoshi sticks to Yumi like he used to, once upon a lifetime. Living in her shadow. In those days, his hand never ventured far from his blade. Now, as the times have changed, they linger near a pokeball. Inside rests any number of impressive combatants, creatures that can and will change the flow of battle. Monsters who can turn the tide.[break]
Creatures who are better warriors than Hitoshi will ever be.[break]
He hates them for that – or he would, if the capacity for hatred existed within his heart. Conceits like hatred are human, and he hardly thinks he qualifies.[break]
They find their way to a village. His eyes lack the romance to question. He does not ask what sort of people might have lived in this place to make such a village. He sees and he accepts. Acceptance leads to sharpness, and a shake of his head at Yumi’s question.[break]
“Nah. Not really. Somethin’s here.” The question becomes what is here. He’s too close to Yumi to notice Brownie’s kicking the hornet’s nest until it’s already buzzing.[break]
After how Brownie acted earlier, Hitoshi’s rushing forward. Munenori, his Gallade, is out of his ball and running alongside him. Munenori is untrained, his blade untested. His evolution makes him powerful, but he hasn’t been forced to hone his edges.[break]
Hitoshi doesn’t notice that Brownie doesn’t seem all that worried. He simply acts and allows the others to put together the pieces after he acts. Munenori and Hitoshi, together, have one more trick up their sleeve. Embedded into the scabbard of Hitoshi’s sword is a stone. It begins to pulse. The pulse turns into a glow. Light consumes Munenori.[break]
Rushing out of that light, looking like a gallant hero with a flowing cape, his blades are sharp. They cut the vines and the creatures at their ends. It’s all fun and games until someone loses their heads. With one cut, many of the Pokemon that were hiding in this place have been dispatched.[break]
“I coulda done that…” He pouts to no one in particular.

Hitoshi feels his heart leap to his throat in the moment when he thinks he will be too slow to reach her. Another rushes in and blocks for her. In that moment, this dark-haired man, whose name he does not even know, is loved wholly and unconditionally in a way only a dog can love something. To put that much value on her life, too...[break]
Well, that makes it his job to go on the offense. There's nothing to do except join blondie on the frontlines. He'll be afforded the same treatment as Yumi. This blade shall cause harm to divert harm away. In battle, once man has decided to submit himself to that high court, the question is not if someone will be hurt, but who. It will not be this man. Not while Hitoshi draws breath.[break]
Jubei sees the mad charge. Recognizing what Hitoshi means to do, he rushes past him. A Pokemon understands well what will happen if a human attacks a swarm of these creatures. The Ceruledge's idea of prevention is to aim his blade at them and spray a lava plume, spreading over the paper blades and making them screech.[break]
Under their feet, the infant beasts cry. Lava drips down onto them, too. Their screams turn from fear to anguish. Hitoshi pays them no mind. They died the moment they decided to attack Yumi and blondie.

While one woman makes a speech, another grunt peels off from the crowd. He makes for the camera. Walking right up to it, he has the demeanor of a dog sniffing a nannycam. Examining it curiously, he pokes it, prods it, looks right into the lens and smiles.[break]
"Oooooiii! Come on! Start the fight already! Talking's boring!" He pouts, realizing that he is, in fact, forced to talk to these people - rely on them. He's never been one for relying on others. A lone wolf, although he's never given much thought to whether that's by necessity or deliberate decision.[break]
That girl's manner of speech gives him a headache. There's a twinge of annoyance at the corner of his lips. Turning back towards her, a growl builds in his throat.[break]
"Anyone ever told you that you're one crazy bitch?" Says the pot to the kettle.

A legend flies above his head and he pays no mind. Monsters warped outside of human understanding lurk within this crater, under its yellow sky, and he doesn't notice. These concerns are worthless to a blade. His whole world consists of wherever he is pointed, whatever needs to be cut down or killed. Meaning is something ascribed by humans and their incessant need for something deeper than the here and now. He moves. He acts. He listens.[break]
The being that exists above his world gives an order and Yumi agrees. She takes the unworked iron of the underboss's suggestion and beats it into the shape of a practical plan. Over there works fine. Hitoshi will cut down all the stalks within this forest and whatever horrors it holds to deliver her over there.[break]
One foot goes to move in front of the other before the first one that spoke speaks again, calling for the blade's attention and asking him to cut. With a shrug, he does what is asked of him. A blade that can't cut is truly a worthless object.[break]
"Sure thing, bud--" His animated voice drains of its life mid-sentence. Amber eyes lock onto his katana. It's caught mid-air on its trajectory towards its destination. From where he's standing, he can hardly see the thing that blocked the strike.[break]
"Tcejbo sselhtrow a tuc evah I ,niaga ecno." A voice growls. Hitoshi sees it at last, a red slip of paper no larger than its hand. Retracting his blade, he sees the creature float in the air. Two more join it.[break]
He hates the rules of this place, their world. He hates these creatures, Pokemon. By merit of existing, he can't do his job. Without resorting to playing the game by their rules, he can't keep Yumi safe.[break]
Still, he has to admit...[break]
"Man, that thing is cool!!!" Hitoshi shouts with gusto. "Jubei, get out here and kill him for me!" A dark knight wreathed in flames as bitter as the blade's sentiment leaps from a pokeball. He levels his bitter blade at the front runner of the back and aims to cut him down.

Hitoshi doesn’t know the plan. He doesn’t pretend to know what’s going on. There is no delusion of deeper meaning or significance. A blade exists to cut. He cuts. Literally and metaphorically. His answer to the question is the song of a sailing sword. It cuts a path forward for the rest of them.[break]
It cuts clean through the dense jungle canopy. Bamboo is cleaved with a satisfying crunch. The perpendicular cuts make the bamboo tumble. What follows is not on him, he simply goes where Yumi leads. One of his fellows is an underboss - someone even Yumi, end all be all of his world, is beholden to. How this figure fits into the ecosystem of his life, Hitoshi doesn’t know. If Yumi’s word is gospel, what word can be used to describe whatever orders that man gives?[break]
Thankfully, swords don’t have to think. They simply have to cut.[break]
“Beats me.” Hitoshi says with animated apathy. Just words to fill empty air. Caught between the roles of sword and dog, he yaps.