Chapter 94: Review and Commendation

"Sigh…"

"Stop sighing, any more and you'll snap your crutch!"

All Baimu shot a glare at Otsuka, who was leaning on a crutch.

"Because we really were just one kick away from the goal! Clearly Bouffalant had a shot at winning—you almost made the semifinals! A Pokémon you've only had for less than two months, and you made the top eight of the battle tournament!"

Otsuka felt endless regret over the quarterfinal defeat.

Yet All Baimu had seen similar words and similar expressions at least a dozen times by now, and was sick of them to no end.

Clearly he was the one who lost, yet the people around him ended up more regretful than he was, taking the initiative to come over and offer a word or two of comfort the moment they saw him.

Even Cang Zhi Lang didn't find an excuse to beat him up, and instead drew a new pie.

"In a few days there'll be an important operation within the team. If you complete it well enough and your contribution is high enough, I'll put you on the cadre candidate list."

All Baimu didn't know about the others, but the Sand Squad leader's pies had always been real—and fragrant and big to boot.

And Otsuka had even chased him all the way to the Pokémon Center on his crutch, catching All Baimu—who was waiting for Bouffalant and the others to finish their treatment—and wearing an expression that said, "Feel free to pour your heart out to me."

Unfortunately, All Baimu didn't need an emotional trash can like that.

His stress resistance hadn't yet weakened to that extent.

Regret, yes.

But more than that, he felt he hadn't properly answered Bouffalant and the others' expectations, hadn't satisfied their longing for victory, so it was hard to avoid feeling self-reproach.

Of course, he knew that simply blaming himself was not the way to think.

He and Bouffalant and the others were one whole; he shouldn't single himself out.

Ding~

A medical staff member rang the bell, and a broadcast that didn't sound human issued a direction: "Mr. Baimu, number 118, please come to counter 5 to collect your Pokémon."

All Baimu stood up, took the three Poké Balls with him, and also received a thick stack of physical examination reports.

Even with a Pokémon's strong recovery, some injuries simply couldn't heal in a single day, and it was perfectly normal to be unable to battle the next day. Right now the doctor's recovery recommendation for Bouffalant and the others was two days of rest.

He flipped to the next page and found that, although fighting the strong with the weak was difficult, the gains were also enormous—Bouffalant and the others had all leveled up once.

From that angle, it was indeed worth rejoicing over.

Flipping once more to the page detailing Bouffalant's status, even though All Baimu had long been mentally prepared, seeing those precise numbers still made him want to sigh—

It had always been silently working hard, so when evolution came, all the accumulated effort of the past burst forth completely, shaping the Bouffalant of now.

First was height—Bouffalant's height far exceeded the average line, a full 245 centimeters, and its weight had reached an exaggerated 430 kg; even Onix's average was no more than this.

The strength of its iron armor was equally pleasing, and its twin horns were immensely thick, looking like two massive cones; the only thing holding back their growth was age.

Bouffalant could still grow, heading irreversibly toward an even more terrifying behemoth.

All Baimu let out a breath of stale air. A month ago the two of them had been cuddled up sleeping in bed together, yet now the other had become a behemoth that left a dent in the wooden bed every time it sat down.

In terms of moves, the two new ones it had shown—【Heavy Slam】 and 【Flash Cannon】—were both excellent Steel-type techniques, and 【Iron Tail】, which had previously been hard to put to use because of Bouffalant's short tail, finally had a chance to make its debut.

"The road is still long."

He stuffed the report into his pocket and dragged the crutch-leaning Otsuka away.

——

Evening.

In a two-story small building.

All Baimu, Bouffalant, Chansey, and Mawile held a review meeting first.

Chansey couldn't stop sobbing. When it had taken beatings in the past it hadn't felt it was so hard, but now its tear ducts had collapsed and it could no longer hold them back.

Because it felt it had held the entire team back.

"Lucky~"

If it had the ability to fight on its own, the pressure on Bouffalant and Mawile wouldn't have been so great.

Bouffalant and Mawile hurried over to comfort it, then followed up by pointing out their own shortcomings, just as All Baimu saw his own shortcomings.

None of them felt they had done perfectly.

And subconsciously took the blame onto their own side.

"We are a team. If any single member doesn't do their part, that's a failure for our entire team." All Baimu, as usual, instilled the concept of a small group into them.

Only by building up a team's centripetal force could they go further.

All Baimu also didn't want his relationship with Bouffalant and the others to stop where it was now; no matter the reason, it should grow more intimate.

Heart to heart, flesh to flesh, souls in resonance.

Bouffalant and the others listened to their trainer's words and nodded their heads in unison.

"Then the review meeting ends here—let's eat!"

With a grand sweep of his hand, he pointed at the extremely lavish dinner on the table. "Eat! Not a single scrap can be left today! Eat till your bellies burst!"

"Bwoo!"

"Lucky~"

"Cha!"

The three Pokémon responded in unison and buried their heads in the feast.

This was both a review meeting and a celebration-and-thanks meeting—celebrating Bouffalant's evolution, and thanking everyone for their hard work all along.

At first he had planned to simply have someone else prepare it and deliver it.

But on second thought he figured he'd better not—what Bouffalant and the others most wanted to eat was probably still the dishes their trainer made by hand.

So.

All Baimu had spent an entire afternoon preparing before he barely managed to put together this huge spread.

'Turn regret into appetite, and eat it away bite by bite; either let it pass on directly, or let it remain in the heart. But no matter what, it will become nourishment for progress, letting everyone grow once more toward strength.'

He ate silently, watching the three Pokémon chow down with such gusto, then picked up his own spoon and started eating in big mouthfuls.

Grow!

Keep growing!

At this moment.

The same thought flashed through the minds of all four at the table.

——

The battle tournament continued.

After defeating All Baimu, Yamaminori charged forward triumphantly, quickly winning both the semifinals and the finals.

Becoming the new champion.

But he didn't seem all that happy about it.

Did he think the trainers of Iron Town were too weak?

All Baimu recalled that this one had returned from another region and had taken part in many regional conferences.

Results unstated.

Whether too good or too bad, he didn't know.

But just as All Baimu had said before, Espurr couldn't even be considered Yamaminori's main fighter, and Slowbro and Claydol were even less the latter's trump card.

His real trump card was an Alakazam, whose psychic power he wielded with breathtaking mastery—truly extraordinary.

If Alakazam had been the one facing Roggenrola, it absolutely wouldn't have lasted until the moment of full explosive evolution, and All Baimu would have lost the whole match.

Speaking of which.

Why his first pick was Espurr was truly baffling.

Even setting Alakazam aside, judging by his later performance, he could have fielded other Psychic-type Pokémon.

"A Psychic specialist, huh…"

All Baimu watched the match broadcast on TV. Unlike other types, the Psychic type had an especially large number of master craftsmen, and many trainers even possessed extraordinary powers themselves—that is, being psychics in their own right.

He wondered what Yamaminori's situation was…

Of course, that wasn't to say a Psychic-type trainer without psychic powers couldn't climb to the top—among the three Psychic-type Elite Four members, only Caitlin had explicitly stated she possessed psychic powers.

The rest were five Gym Leaders—Kanto's Sabrina, Hoenn's Tate and Liza, Kalos's Olympia, and Galar's Opal—all of whom possessed psychic powers.

Thinking about it this way, Psychic-type trainers really did seem to need psychic powers.