Naoki slipped out after her.
Zorua, wearing his face, moved carefully along the corridor after leaving the dormitory block and made her way across the Academy grounds until she reached a silver-white building.
The training wing.
Naoki watched from a distance as she went inside.
He followed through a few corridors until she stopped at one of the training room doors.
Zorua pushed it open with practiced ease, fed the coins into the slot with her paw, and swiped the control screen.
The gravity in the room surged.
For Zorua at her current level, it was not a light burden.
Beads of sweat appeared on her brow within minutes.
She did not stop.
Following the training plan and methods Naoki had laid out for her, she began running circuits around the room, over and over, pushing through the weight pressing down on every step.
Time passed.
Her breathing grew ragged.
Her legs began to drag.
But each time her focus started to slip, she shook her head hard and found the resolve again.
Keep going.
When Naoki sees how much stronger I’ve become, he’ll be so happy.
She ran.
The relentless pace built more than raw strength.
The endurance, the physical conditioning, the speed, all of it was developing, but underneath those things something else was being tempered too: her will, and the mental fortitude that came with pushing past a limit and finding another one waiting.
Eventually she hit the wall completely.
Her small body dropped to the floor, flat out, eyes closed, chest heaving.
A low chime sounded.
Three hours.
The room’s gravity returned to normal.
The door opened.
Footsteps approached.
Zorua’s eyes flew open.
She braced herself, certain she had been caught by some other person from the Academy.
Then she saw who it was, and went completely still.
“Wuu…”
“That’s enough for tonight, Zorua.” Naoki’s feelings at that moment were difficult to name.
He crouched down and gathered her into his arms, genuinely at a loss to understand why she had pushed herself this hard.
“Wuu…” Zorua looked up at him with her pale blue eyes, ears flat against her head, guilt written across her face.
She looked like she was waiting to find out if he was angry.
Then, looking at her expression, something in Naoki’s chest shifted and the answer came to him.
“Was this for me?” he asked. Find the original chapter at g.com.
“Wuu?”
“I mean, were you training this hard because I wanted a strong Pokémon?”
“Wuu…” Zorua gave a small, uncertain nod.
Naoki had given her a home.
She no longer had to spend her nights hiding in corners and darting through empty streets looking for scraps.
He bought her food she liked, took her to be groomed, kept her warm and fed and safe.
Meeting Naoki had been the best thing that had ever happened to her.
She liked him.
He was kind to her.
She wanted to be kind to him in return.
But she had nothing.
This was the only way she knew how to give something back.
Naoki sat with that for a long moment.
“Zorua, are you really just made of data?”
“Wuu?” She tilted her head, not understanding the question.
“Never mind.” He rested his hand on her head.
“We’re done for tonight.
Let’s go back to sleep.”
When it became clear he was not going to scold her, Zorua’s whole body loosened with relief.
She curled up in his arms and was asleep before they even made it back to the room.
Naoki looked down at her.
Even Lam Star, with all its technological advancement over the world he had come from, could not have produced an artificial intelligence of this quality.
He was certain of that.
This was a real world.
He might as well stop pretending otherwise.
The following morning, having gone to sleep far too late, both Naoki and Zorua missed their alarm entirely.
When Naoki opened his eyes, it was nine o’clock.
He was late for work.
The realization snapped him awake instantly.
Then, just as quickly, he settled down.
Most of the HR staff had been out scouting for Trainer talent lately.
A late arrival would not cause much trouble.
With that thought he relaxed, got up, went to the Academy cafeteria to pick up two breakfasts, and brought them back to the room.
He and Zorua sat across from each other at the small table and ate.
“Zorua, do you want to come with me to work today?” Naoki asked.
“Wuu…” Zorua thought about it carefully, then shook her head.
“Wuu!”
“Wuu!” She nodded several times in quick succession.
Naoki said nothing for a moment.
In a certain sense, he was not doing a very good job as a Trainer.
The self-reproach was genuine, but both of them understood the reality.
This arrangement was the fastest path to getting stronger without interfering with his work at the League.
There was no better option available to them right now.
They looked at each other across the table.
A few days of living alongside each other had already built something between them, a quiet understanding that did not need many words.
“Then that’s what we’ll do,” Naoki said.
“I’ll put together a full training plan for you, everything you need to focus on and everything to watch out for.”
“I’ll get you set up at the training room before I leave, then come back to get you for lunch the moment I’m off.
How does that sound?”
Zorua’s eyes filled with focused determination.
Her cry came out clear and certain.
She was not going to let him down.
“Good.” Naoki rested his hand on her head.
“Starting today, alongside the basic physical conditioning, we’re also going to work on the moves you already know.”
Zorua currently had five moves: Scratch, Leer, Memento, Extrasensory, and Return.
Scratch was the most fundamental attacking option, a direct strike with sharp claws.
Nothing exceptional in terms of power.
Leer reduced the target’s Defense and paired naturally with Scratch.
Memento was a sacrificial move.
The user pushed itself to the brink of fainting to sharply lower the target’s Attack and Special Attack.
With only Zorua on the team, it was not something that could be used effectively yet.
Extrasensory was a strong Psychic-type move that struck with an invisible wave of mental force and carried a chance to make the target flinch.
Naoki had asked Zorua to demonstrate it a couple of days earlier, and the power she had produced was limited by her current level.
Her accuracy with it was also inconsistent.
Mental strength training and accuracy work needed to be part of the program going forward, Naoki noted to himself.
Return was a different kind of move entirely.
It was one of the clearest expressions of the bond between Trainer and Pokémon made physical, the warmth of that relationship converted into force.
Some Pokémon channeled it into their bodies and struck with it directly, the way Moon’s Pidgeotto had.
Others released it as a concentrated beam of energy.
Either way, the strength of the feeling behind it determined the strength of the move.
It was, in every sense, a move driven entirely by heart.
Beyond all of that, there was also the matter of training her Illusion ability itself.
Naoki walked Zorua through the full plan, every detail and every point she needed to keep in mind.
Zorua listened with her full attention and nodded at the end with a look that said she had memorized every word.
After breakfast Naoki brought her to the training room, got everything set up, and then picked up his briefcase and headed to the Paldea League.