“Does anyone know why he hasn’t eaten for two days?” Reiji looked over the sixteen men on the deck, trying to figure out what had happened.

One of them suddenly sat up, clearly wanting to speak. Reiji had Spinarak crawl over and peel the silk off his mouth so he could talk.

“Two days without food? We haven’t slept for two days either. Catch wild Pokémon in the daytime, stand watch at night. Catch wild Pokémon in the daytime, stand watch at night. It’s been like that for days…”

“Everyone probably forgot he even existed. Oh, right—wasn’t that kid the one bringing food before? After he ran off, no one brought meals anymore…”

“Ah…” Reiji glanced at Gulzar. So it was your mess again.

All eyes turned to Gulzar, and the boy’s ears went red.

“Sorry,” Gulzar said, giving Travis an awkward smile. He hadn’t expected something like this either. Who knew these people could be careless enough to forget feeding someone?

“It’s fine.” Travis had gotten some strength back. He let out a helpless sigh, not even angry. Gulzar had escaped to save him—going hungry for two days wasn’t worth making a fuss over.

“Alright. If there’s anything you want, say it now.” With the “why didn’t he eat” question settled, Reiji looked at Travis. If he had no requests, Reiji could wrap this up.

“I want my Pikachu. I came out with Pikachu.” Travis hadn’t thought of it earlier, but after Reiji brought it up and he saw the Pokémon around them, it hit him all at once.

“Where’s his Pikachu?” Reiji looked at the poacher who’d spoken. This guy should know.

“It’s with the boss. No idea if the boss already ate it. The boss loves mouse meat—always said it’s the most tender…”

“Spinarak. That’s enough.” Reiji had what he needed. If Pikachu hadn’t been eaten, it would be in those Pokémon backpacks in the captain’s room, mixed in with thousands of Poké Balls. They could check after they got back to camp.

“Trainer—wait, he still didn’t say where Pikachu is!” Travis panicked when Reiji had Spinarak seal the man’s mouth again. He rushed to ask anyway. Had Pikachu been eaten or not?

“It’s in that dead fat guy’s backpack,” Reiji said. “We’ll deal with these sixteen first. Then we go back and check.”

Reiji tossed a dagger to Gulzar. It was time for him to act.

“Gulzar. Do what you need to do.”

“Gulzar, you—?” Travis hadn’t even gotten a clear answer about Pikachu, and now something worse was happening in front of him.

Gulzar looked cold. When he picked up the dagger, there wasn’t a hint of hesitation. He walked straight toward the bound poachers. Travis grabbed his arm in a hurry.

“Gulzar, shouldn’t we let Officer Jenny punish people like this?”

“Travis,” Gulzar said, yanking his arm free, “if your Pikachu had been killed and eaten too, would you still say that?”

He swept his flashlight across the deck and spotted them—the ones who had killed his Gloom and boiled his Pokémon into soup.

Gulzar stopped in front of the scum, clenched the dagger tight, and drove it down without flinching. One stab wasn’t enough. He stabbed each of them again and again, until they died wide-eyed and shaking.

“Don’t look away, kid,” Reiji’s voice cut in.

Travis avoided his gaze. Reiji waited until Travis finally looked back, then continued, calm and blunt.

“If we’d come two days later, it wouldn’t just be your Pikachu. You would’ve died here too.”

After Gulzar finished with the ones who had harmed his Pokémon, he turned to the rest. Terror spread across their faces. He let out a hard snort, then threw his head back and laughed.

“Hahaha… Now you know fear. Now you know what it’s like to be scared.” His voice shook as he spoke faster. “When you killed Gloom right in front of me, you should’ve known this day would come. I’ve been waiting so long. Gloom… Gloom… I avenged you…”

The laughter died. Gulzar’s legs gave out and he dropped to his knees, facing the sea. He sobbed and hammered the wooden deck with his fists.

“If I hadn’t left to travel… Gloom wouldn’t have died. If I hadn’t left…” His words broke apart. “Gloom… Gloom…”

“Travis. Your turn.” Reiji tossed another dagger and watched Travis closely.

If Travis couldn’t get his hands dirty now, how was he going to survive later—how was he going to fight Team Rocket?

Those parasites never held back. If they got the chance to finish you, they would. They’d make sure you suffered for it, too.

“I… I…” Travis hesitated.

He’d never seen something this bloody. Before the poachers grabbed him, he still believed the world was basically good.

Even when he’d been tailing them, he wanted to be a hero who brought criminals down, not a butcher with blood on his hands.

And if he hadn’t been caught, he never would’ve known these traffickers ate Pokémon. He wouldn’t even have dared to imagine it.

He’d heard rumors back home, though. His mom ran a restaurant, and he’d heard there were places like that. It was one reason he never went—some stupid fear in the back of his mind that he’d end up on the menu too.

“Travis,” Gulzar said, voice rough, “if we hadn’t come, you don’t even know where you’d be sold. These traffickers catch wild Pokémon in the forest every day. They eat wild Pokémon out there too. Even my partner got eaten…”

“They’re not people anymore,” Gulzar went on. “They don’t deserve to be called human. They deserve hell. Put your pity away. If you weren’t worth money, you’d be dead already. Your Pikachu would be meat too.”

He stared past Travis, like he was talking to himself as much as anyone.

“You know what I want? Strength. Strength to protect my partners. If I don’t have it, the next time I run into poachers, what happens—do they eat my Pokémon again, or do they eat me?”

Gulzar’s eyes shifted back to Travis.

“And you? You got lucky this time. What about next time? Do you hire bodyguards? Do you never leave home? If you don’t have strength, you’ll get sold again. If you don’t have strength, you can’t even protect your own Pikachu.”

After leaving Butwal Island, Gulzar had run into reality head-on again and again. He adapted fast. His thinking changed fast, too.

Travis was different. Travis had a mother who was a Gym Leader, and his family’s business on Kumquat Island was huge. Gulzar had no one. His family couldn’t help him.

They’d barely managed to get him certified as a League-recognized beginner Trainer. Even the guarantor they hired was just the old village chief, and it still cost them a lot.

Travis never needed anything like that. As a Gym Leader’s son, he was born with everything—Pokémon, teachers, resources, training knowledge. All of it.

Reiji finished a cigarette while Travis stayed frozen. He flicked the ash away and spoke, unimpressed.

“Enough. Don’t force him. If the enemy wants him dead, and he wants to preach mercy to the enemy, he’s not cut out for traveling.”

Maybe it really took losing someone you loved—losing your Pikachu—for kids raised in the League’s honey pot to understand what the world looked like.

Or maybe they didn’t need to understand. Maybe a sweet dream for a lifetime was fine when you could afford it.

Reiji had always hated the type that demanded kindness from people who were bleeding. If you hadn’t lived someone’s pain, you had no right to tell them to be gentle.

He wasn’t that kind of person, and he never would be. He was a bad person. The kind you didn’t confuse for anything else. He didn’t deny it. He didn’t need to.

And honestly, this was the League’s sickness. Teaching Trainers to be good wasn’t wrong. But raising a bunch of people who couldn’t bring themselves to kill—that was a death sentence when they ran into Team Rocket.

“Spinarak,” Reiji said, “finish the rest. Then we head back.”

He was going to have Spinarak end it with poison. After that, all they needed was fire—burn the whole ship and wipe the traces clean.

“Wait.” Travis looked at Gulzar.

Not long ago, Gulzar had been the same kind of kid Travis thought he was: upbeat, loud, full of drive. Even trapped on a poacher ship, Gulzar kept talking about escaping and starting over—becoming a Trainer again, becoming strong, bringing criminals down.

During the days Travis was locked up, they’d talked constantly. It had been easy between them. But the moment Travis learned Gulzar’s Pokémon had been eaten, Gulzar had gone quiet in a way that didn’t come back.

Travis understood why.

If Pikachu had been eaten, he would’ve become like this too. Maybe worse. Maybe he would’ve gone completely off the edge.

That was hatred—pure and sharp—right before the dagger came down. And after it came down, there was something else mixed in. Relief. Release. And pain that didn’t go anywhere.

Gulzar got his revenge, but he’d lost the partner who’d traveled with him. If Pikachu was gone… even if Travis made it out alive like today, he might break the same way.

He’d thought he could be a hero who fought crime. Instead, he couldn’t even beat a low-rank sailor. His weakness got his partner killed. What hero was that? He was a joke.

And then he’d been thrown into a cell like trash. If he hadn’t revealed who he was—if he hadn’t tried to buy freedom with ransom—his ending would’ve been ugly.

Even ransom might not have saved him. They could’ve sold him anyway. Pikachu’s life was still unknown. He might never see Pikachu again.

It wasn’t that these people saved him.

It was his own weakness and arrogance that ruined him.

He needed strength too. The same kind Gulzar was clawing toward. No—stronger. Strength to protect partners. Strength to protect friends. He needed strength.

Once that thought settled, Travis looked at the dagger on the deck. The fear didn’t win this time.

He picked it up and stood, holding it tight. His eyes locked in with a firmness he’d never had before.

These scum wanted to repent? Wanted to start over as “good people”?

In your next life.

The moment Travis drove the dagger down, hot blood burst out, splashing across his face. The terror in their eyes hit him like a slap, and he finally understood what Gulzar meant.

The weak only dare to draw steel on someone weaker.

“So you can be scared too,” Travis said, voice low.

When Gulzar used to bring him food, chatting with him always made Gulzar run late. He wouldn’t get time to clean or mop, and these scum would beat him for it. Every time, Gulzar came back bruised and swollen, sore all over.

And every time, Gulzar acted like it didn’t matter. He’d still smile and say goodbye.

Now Travis understood. That smile had been cover. The fear was there, buried deep.

You couldn’t see it on Gulzar’s face, but every time those men showed up, Gulzar’s first move was always the same: crouch down, wrap his arms over his head, and stay silent. It reduced the beating. Sometimes it avoided the worst of it.

And Travis?

Because of his identity, they didn’t beat him. He escaped that kind of pain. But he only got one meal a day, and it wasn’t a meal so much as leftovers thrown at him—barely enough to keep him alive. Gulzar was the one who told him that.

When Travis was starving, Gulzar would sneak him food from the kitchen. The price was always the same: another beating.

They warned, they begged, and these scum only looked at them with mocking eyes, like nothing they said mattered.

Travis had sworn then that he’d make them pay. He’d sworn he’d make them regret it.

And what was he doing now?

Pitying human traffickers?

Thinking they deserved mercy? Wanting Officer Jenny to “punish” them? Saying Gulzar was wrong? Acting like these people didn’t deserve to die?

He hadn’t lived Gulzar’s pain. He hadn’t lived Gulzar’s despair. Of course he could afford to pity someone weaker.

Before, Gulzar had been the weak one. Now the poachers were the weak ones.

But the poachers deserved death. Being “weak” had nothing to do with it.

They did everything—poached wild Pokémon, trafficked people. Travis himself was one of the people they planned to sell.

He’d actually tried to stop his friend from finishing them. He’d tried to save the men who wanted to sell him.

No wonder everyone had looked at him like that.

What kind of look was it?

Disappointment? Naivety? Or just… cold distance?

Probably all of it.

He could’ve kept insisting. He could’ve clung to the idea of never killing.

And the result would’ve been simple: he would lose Gulzar. The first real friend he’d made out at sea, and the person who’d saved his life.

That cheerful, smiling Gulzar… the hot-blooded Gulzar… how much pain had he swallowed to find help, to pull off the rescue, to get his revenge, to become someone Travis barely recognized?

Maybe that was the real Gulzar all along.

Even if it was, Travis didn’t want to lose him because of some stubborn “principle.” Not after Gulzar nearly got himself killed to save him.

So what if he had to put away his pity and help his friend kill a few enemies?

Did Travis really think the hatred he’d carried in that cell would vanish just because he’d been rescued?

No chance.

He would never forget watching his friend get kicked and beaten. Never forget the way Gulzar’s smile froze when he talked about his first partner—the light in his eyes going out in an instant, trying not to cry.

He would never forget the mornings, afternoons, nights, and deep midnight hours when Gulzar brought him food, smuggled him something better to eat, sat there talking to keep him from going insane, dreaming out loud with him about the future.

He knew Gulzar had cried in secret. He knew he shouldn’t have brought up battling. Gulzar couldn’t battle anymore—he’d lost his partner. He’d lost everything.

Travis had already lost the cheerful version of his friend. He didn’t want to lose the friend who came back for him too.

He stared at the bodies, still wearing that frozen fear. So this was what Gulzar had been forced to live with.

It really was cruelly ironic.

These scum could be scared too. And they’d been his fear once. He’d been afraid of them.

Gulzar had pulled that fear out of him and crushed it. Now Travis wasn’t afraid of them anymore.

Now they were afraid of him.

Then he looked down at the blood on his hands, and his mind snapped back into place.

What did he just do?

His arm started shaking so hard he could barely hold the dagger. It slipped from his fingers and clattered onto the deck.

[End of chapter]

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