This world is inhabited by creatures that we call pokemon. People and pokemon live together by supporting each other, but now the scourge threatens the safety of the entire region. Kohaku has become a dangerous place, where children stay at home and only brave souls go adventuring.
Welcome to KOHAKU. Come for the nightmares. Stay for the tea and crumpets.
The season is SUMMER. It is easy for survivors to forage for food from the land, as there are entire abandoned farms ready for harvest. On the downside, you can smell the corpses.
swarms
GRAND OPENING !
Welcome to KOHAKU REGION's grand opening! If you're interested in joining, come check out our grand opening giveaway!
"you asked me what to do with him," zahir said wearily. "and i told you. if you don't like the answers i have, there's nothing i can do. they're all i have."
as usual, there's something missing in this equation, and sophia can't for the life of her figure out exactly what it is. she doesn't even bother hoping that it isn't anything of consequence. she's made that mistake before.
"...you assume that i would be able to leave him to his whims, as unreliable as he is." she didn't actually expect to win anything, but the manager of the booth drops a stuffed emolga in her hands anyway. sophia gives it to a small girl with hair as pink as thalia's. "i thought that you would have understood, considering how quickly you ran in the direction of pax when the institute fell."
something dark and hateful rose in zahir for a moment; he was struck by the uncontrollable urge to spit in her face the truth: by the time i made it to the institute i was an agent and i spent every step of the way there hoping you were dead. and when it turned out you weren't, turned out you were flawed, turned out you wanted to live at everyone else's expense i wasn't relieved you were alive. i was disgusted. why do you think i never told you anything about what i did as an agent, even when i still walked in my own body?
but he was a spirit's dream, and that would accomplish nothing.
"he isn't me," zahir said. "and so it shouldn't matter to you what he does. i'm gone."
"if you take a piece out of a puzzle and throw it away, it's not the same puzzle anymore," zahir said. "i told you that. batin is me, but if you take away the vital parts, is he still the same person? if he doesn't care what i cared about, is he still me? he's a gun aimed at a purpose. he's me without any person-hood." which i guess was technically a lie, because batin cared about things; they just weren't what zahir cared about, aside from burning down the world.
also people could be the same and different. like say, if you genderswapped someone and made them evil.
sophia tried to imagine her brother without all of his kindness. she couldn't come up with anything. maybe she was simply unimaginative, but that wasn't the answer that sophia went for first.
she can't imagine shutting such an essential side of herself away. for that, she wishes that she can say that zahir is stronger than she gave him credit for. at the same time, it's hard to say that about a person who shut away half of themselves after falling into a coma. she wishes that she could have said a lot of things.
she says them now.
"i wish i were as strong as you." then again, it probably didn't mean much coming from sophia. in a softer voice, she says. "...i wish that you cared about yourself a little more."
"...like what?" she's pretty sure that she knows after nearly ten years together, but playing old memories over in her head like an old cassette player isn't like hearing the words live. even before her break with nerio, sophia thinks that she could probably listen to him forever. "what's at the end of your story? how is it different from the other endings that are being told?"
there's legitimate curiosity in her questions. all physis really sees right now is a lot of death and destruction. if batin gets his way, she doesn't see anything that will change.
...she's bombarding him with a lot of questions, isn't she.
"sorry. i guess this was supposed to be your day off." not that anyone could probably take a day off from being...nonexistent. that was probably the wrong expression. sophia leans in against him as she walks with him to another attraction. 2tsunz
"what's more important than me? easy. the world. people's lives, people's happiness, the right of other people to live in safety and peace. children. art. there's a lot out there worth more than one person's life, and it'll all be at the end of the road, should things go to plan."
the ferris wheel rotated slowly in the distance, a syrup-like slide through the sky of lights and music.
"i was always aware that the methods were less than ideal, but i had no other accessible source of power, and i never minded creating a world with no space for me in it, as long as others--innocents--could live happily there."
zahir is telling her a story that she wants to hear and does not want to hear all at once. it's a strange feeling, but it does not sound wrong coming from him.
there's no happiness at the end of the road for the either of them. that much, even sophia can understand. her world is not one of safety and peace. her world is -
not the one that zahir wants.
(not the world that she wants.)
the world that she lives in, he intends to doom it to oblivion.
(maybe she should derive comfort in that. she should be relieved. in a way, she is)
she walks in the direction of the ferris wheel. along the way, they find a small boat service. sophia passes a few bills to the attendant and settles into a milotic-shaped one.
"... i only wish that you had talked to me about this sooner" she's quiet. she's so used to having her world filled with his words that she has a hard time interpreting his silence. "you were innocent once. as innocent as the next man."
(why did it have to be you? why did you feed yourself to the flames?)
"i used to dream about a different world in which you were accepted by the ranger's union." she admits, and she's not sure why she's giving this particular story a voice. "i'd wake up and realize that's not what happened. i'd tell myself that you were content with what you had chosen." she's not entirely wrong on that front, at least.
and now zahir is nonexistent and sophia is hit with the full extent of her foolishness. they are here. the future is now. 2tsunz
"the ranger's union," zahir repeated with frank disbelief. "the all natural boy scouts of kohaku ranger's union? where you have to--camp outside and bond with pokemon?"
"i have no patience for pokemon at all," he said. "and no interest in training them, as a ranger or a breeder."
as for her second comment.
"the world is full of heroes already, and villains who pretend they're noble or worthwhile. i never objected to dipping my hands in blood so someone else wouldn't have to."
she decides not to point out that there isn't really a significant difference in what a ranger and an agent have to do.
sophia wishes that he wouldn't talk like that, but if he didn't, then zahir probably wouldn't be talking at all. the latter is undeniably worse. maybe she had subconsciously known these things about him all along. maybe that was why she had chosen him to begin with.
"...you believe that it's a choice, then." of course he would believe that. it was one of the things about him that gave her hope from the very beginning. "someone else won't have to? who are you trying to save?"
even the kind were capable of villainy. zahir is, for one. even daniel. although he hid everything behind kind eyes and gentle words, sophia had also known a monster in him that would surface for her and her alone.
she hadn't wanted any of them to become monsters. sophia thinks that she can empathize with his feelings in this regard.