Chapter 622: Cannot Form Bonds? No!

In Dragonite's perception, this autumn was the longest one since Lilia began to gradually age.

Under its care, given without regard to cost just as Lilia once did, the three Dratini evolved into Dragonair.

Led by Xiao Fen, the shiny Dragonair that Dragonite had first taken in, they now possessed the ability to protect themselves.

This allowed Dragonite to normally focus its life with greater peace of mind on caring for Lilia, whose mobility was gradually becoming inconvenient.

With the rapid development of the times, the post office where Dragonite worked gradually declined, forced to consolidate its operations and survive solely on the "express delivery" business.

This actually brought no change for Dragonite; whether as an ace mail carrier or an ace courier, it remained an irreplaceable presence within the post office.

The ability to deliver express packages to most regions of this planet within a single day even gradually became the post office's signature feature.

For Dragonite, who not only had not aged with the passing of time but had instead grown stronger.

Even though accomplishing such feats became increasingly easy for it, it gradually lost the motivation to continue working.

Dragonite was uncertain whether it was because work without Lilia's companionship no longer held any attraction for it.

Or whether it was influenced by that extremely complex feeling that suddenly arose when, after air-shipping a package to the Hoenn region on one occasion, Dragonite returned home excitedly carrying "Kamiry Senbei," a Hoenn specialty.

Only to be informed by neighbors that Lilia had accidentally fallen, but fortunately they had discovered her and promptly sent her to the hospital for treatment, where she was currently lying.

Although the post office repeatedly tried to retain it, Dragonite chose to resign from its job to devote itself entirely to staying by Lilia's side.

After leaving the hospital, Lilia's physical condition became far worse than before; Dragonite spent most of its time accompanying Lilia, only occasionally visiting Casseroya Lake.

It was also during this autumn that the Paldea region finally established its own Pokémon League.

Dragonite clearly remembered Lilia, her face covered in wrinkles and her expression kind, pointing at the television screen at a young woman named Geeta, who still looked very green, and saying that she believed Geeta would lead the Paldea region to become better and more prosperous.

She sincerely hoped for the arrival of that day.

Later, just as Lilia had hoped, after the establishment of the Paldea Pokémon League, those welfare benefits that Lilia had never dared to hope for in her youth step by step became reality.

Dragonite still remembered.

When Lilia usually sat in her rocking chair by the windowsill, gazing out at the hurried figures of those boys and girls barely in their teens, her gaze would always converge on the brand new Poké Balls in their hands, and a satisfied smile would curve the corners of her mouth.

It was as if her former wish had finally been realized by these children on her behalf.

Several years passed.

Under Dragonite's meticulous care, Lilia's health improved significantly; unlike the previous few years when she could hardly bear the wind, she could now, on sunny days, sit in a wheelchair and be pushed by Dragonite for a stroll outside.

There was also good news: during a routine visit to Casseroya Lake to reunite with the Dragonair sisters.

Dragonite locked eyes with a Dragon-type Pokémon passing through Casseroya Lake during migration, and together they conceived a Pokémon Egg.

In Dragonite's view, this encounter was like what humans called a "fleeting romance"; they were together for a brief time, left behind a next generation representing the continuation of life, and then parted ways.

After hesitating repeatedly, Dragonite concluded that caring for Lilia had already consumed most of its energy, so it chose to entrust its child, that Pokémon Egg, to the Dragonair sisters it trusted, rather than bringing it home.

Perhaps the new life inside the Pokémon Egg was a bit afraid of strangers, or perhaps it was simply slow to warm up.

Over these few years, it did not hatch immediately but remained in the state of an egg.

As if settling itself, or as if waiting for some opportunity to hatch and break out of its shell.

This situation was obviously beyond the scope of experience for the Dragonair and Dragonite, who were hatching an egg for the first time, but judging by the instincts etched in their genes, while this situation was rare, it was not actually a major problem.

Like the pink Dragonair among the Dragonair sisters, in its vague memories, it had stayed inside the Pokémon Egg for roughly a longer time than the other two Dragonair before finally breaking out of its shell.

Such a slow-to-warm-up issue might be a fatal situation for the Pokémon Eggs of other Pokémon, after all, the nutrition within a Pokémon Egg is limited, and failing to leave the egg before it is exhausted could result in a dead egg.

But for Dragonite and their species, these matters were not an issue at all.

The Dragon-type Pokémon that mated with Dragonite was also the leader of a migrating flock; with both parents being very powerful, the Pokémon Egg naturally contained more nutrition than ordinary Pokémon Eggs.

Furthermore, since Dratini are Pokémon capable of growing by settling down and consuming leftovers, being a bit slow to warm up inside the Pokémon Egg was actually not much of a problem.

The Dragonair and Dragonite simply often gathered around the Pokémon Egg, nurturing it with their aura and energy, so that although the child inside stayed in the egg for a long time, when it was born, it would gain a faster growth speed surpassing that of its own species.

Another autumn arrived, in this season accompanied by harvest and withered yellow.

As usual, after visiting the Dragonair sisters and its own child, Dragonite returned to the home carrying so many of its memories, bringing along flowers carefully picked from beside Casseroya Lake.

—But this time, it saw Lilia, who had been bedridden for a long time, stand up, and she had even prepared lunch for it just like in its memories.

No matter how well it understood things of the human world, Pokémon were fundamentally creatures with pure hearts.

Even though Dragonite's subconscious was frantically sounding alarms, it still one-sidedly believed that under its care Lilia's illness had been cured and her health had recovered.

Only later did Dragonite learn that from the very beginning, Lilia had never been sick.

The fall several years ago had only made her physical constitution somewhat weak; under Dragonite's care, Lilia's physical condition was actually quite healthy.

—What could not be resisted was simply time.

That night, Dragonite squeezed into the same bed with her just as it had when they first met and it was still a Dragonair.

Dragonite curled its body up carefully, ensuring its weight did not burden Lilia, and tried its best to support Lilia, who lay on her side in its embrace, with its softest abdomen.

Just like several decades ago, when the clingy Dragonair coiled around the young girl whose face showed helplessness and indulgence.

Perhaps when that moment arrives, everyone will vaguely sense it in their hearts.

Lilia stayed awake all night, holding onto Dragonite's chubby and soft abdomen, chattering about many things, recalling the bits and pieces of the journey she and Dragonite had taken together.

She also said that seeing how happily Dragonite ate its lunch and dinner today, she would also strive tomorrow to prepare a sumptuous lunch and dinner for Dragonite.

Gradually, perhaps tired, Lilia closed her eyes and fell into a deep slumber.

Dragonite stayed by her side until the sun rose high in the sky.

After confirming that Lilia's breathing was steady and she was merely sleeping soundly, Dragonite carefully left the bed without waking her.

Today it had one matter to attend to, a request from someone at the former post office who had taken great care of both it and Lilia, which Dragonite found hard to refuse.

It needed to deliver a letter to a corner of the Paldea region; at Dragonite's flying speed, it could be resolved in less than an hour, so it still accepted this task.

The gentle breeze stirred up by Dragonite as it flew away with the letter rustled the flowers arranged in the vase by the window and blew down the last withered yellow leaf from the old tree in the yard.

But when Dragonite finished delivering the letter and returned excitedly to that familiar house, what awaited it was not a table of steaming hot food.

At the entrance of the small home belonging to Dragonite and Lilia, neighbors had now gathered all around.

And among them, that child who was a neighbor and had always been very close to Lilia hugged the landing Dragonite, crying and saying things that Dragonite could not quite hear clearly.

The Dragonite struggled to extract some information from it.

Shortly after it left, when the child, holding the acceptance letter from Grandma Ju Zi Academy, excitedly rushed to share the news with Grandma Lya, who had always been so kind to him, he discovered she was sleeping very soundly, unable to even hear the knocking at the door.

The child merely thought Grandma Lya was just a bit prone to sleep and paid it no mind.

It was only after he returned home and told the elders, prompting a neighbor who grew concerned to come take another look, that they realized something was wrong.

When they climbed through the window into the house, they discovered her with a faint smile curling the corners of her lips, having sunk into an eternal slumber.

The Dragonite remembered the subsequent events rather unclearly.

It only knew that it seemed like a marionette, participating in the funeral held jointly by the town's neighbors, staring blankly as the wooden box containing the one who held its heart's core was buried in the earth, a stone tombstone erected, while the flowers it had picked yesterday from the flower fields beside Great Pot Lake rested quietly atop the grave marker.

All the facts it had deliberately avoided attacked its mental defenses; amidst the neighbors' cries of shock, the Dragonite flew away from the funeral site, plummeting into Great Pot Lake like a meteor, only to be carried back to the island in the lake by the Dragonairs who had sensed its aura and rushed over.

The Dragonite lived in a daze within Great Pot Lake for a period; since it rarely spoke to the Dragonairs about matters from its own side, they did not understand what was wrong with the Dragonite.

Gradually, the Dragonite recovered and calmly told the Dragonairs that it intended to go away for a while.

To the Dragonairs, the Dragonite often did this, so they found nothing strange about it.

After reassuring them enough to entrust the Pokémon Egg to their care, the Dragonairs watched the Dragonite depart.

Yet from that day on, the Dragonite never returned to Great Pot Lake again.

The Dragonite did not believe what the neighbors told it; it believed Grandma Lya had simply left on a journey without telling it, just as they had imagined countless times together, traveling throughout Paldea and even other regions.

Grandma Lya must be waiting somewhere in the world for it to find her.

Thinking thus, the Dragonite began a journey alone.

Until one day, when it no longer knew the time, it encountered a humanoid Pokémon radiating a powerful aura.

The other party stared at it for a long while, then slowly said in a cold voice, "You are on the verge of collapse."

The Dragonite did not understand the other's meaning; thinking that Grandma Lya should still be waiting for it somewhere, it intended to turn and leave.

Perhaps driven by a shred of compassion, the humanoid Pokémon restrained the Dragonite with powerful psychic power and stated in a tone of notification, "Since you will break down anyway continuing like this, you might as well become my messenger and serve me."

"In exchange, I will let you live within an illusion that, for you, might be salvation."

The moment the other's words fell.

A light appeared once more in the world belonging to the Dragonite.

Gazing at the figure of that young girl who had appeared beside it.

She held the bouquet of flowers it had picked, smiling as beautifully as it had when it first saw the girl upon waking in the hospital bed.

Observing this scene, the humanoid Pokémon fell silent for a few seconds, then let out a cold snort.

"From beginning to end, relationships between existences with unequal lifespans are nothing but adding to the sorrow."

"If one had simply not formed a bond from the start, one clearly would not have been hurt."

The memory interrupted here.

The memories belonging to the Dragonite Leader also remained stuck in that autumn.

With Lei Guan Wang's assistance, Luo Mu transmitted the memories belonging to the Dragonite Leader, which he had previously obtained from Mewtwo, to Seeing Seeing Kapu, who had returned from the South Paldea Sea.

From his understanding, the small town where the Dragonite Leader and Grandma Lya had once lived was now abandoned, and the people who lived there had long since moved away to unknown locations.

Although when he and the Dragonite and Dragonairs went to verify, the tombstone was still well-preserved, merely overgrown with weeds.

But after consideration, they did not directly take the Dragonite Leader there; instead, they waited for an opportunity, attempting to first unravel the Dragonite Leader's mental knot and obsession through Seeing Seeing Kapu's mist or Celebi's ability to traverse time and space.

Through the Dragonite Leader's memories, Luo Mu guessed that its greatest regret was failing to properly bid farewell to Grandma Lya and, from start to finish, choosing to deceive itself.

Even in that autumn, it had not accompanied Grandma Lya through her final moments.

These various regrets could not be remedied, yet the Dragonite Leader refused to accept the reality that Grandma Lya had passed away, so its spirit began to develop problems; it left the Paldea region alone, searching the world for those "non-existent footprints."

"Lai-fine..."

After reviewing all the memories, Seeing Seeing Kapu's expression became somewhat complex.

Indeed, as a guardian deity controlling a mist of miraculous power, it was accustomed to partings in life and death; countless people unable to endure the separation of yin and yang had once pleaded for its power, wishing to see their departed loved ones one more time.

Among these people, Seeing Seeing Kapu often did not grant every request.

It had once been a guardian deity who disliked humans, disgusted by the development of Poni Island's nature.

Therefore, no matter how moving the story, it would set trials according to its whim, watching coldly as those people struggled.

Only when the mood struck would it unfold the mist.

But after experiencing many things, Seeing Seeing Kapu had changed greatly.

Now it felt sufficient empathy for such stories that were warm yet tinged with sorrow.

Seeing Seeing Kapu's gaze fell upon the Dragonite Leader, who, under the influence of Lei Guan Wang's power, was momentarily regaining clarity and looking at it with hope.

Seeing Seeing Kapu closed its eyes.

Since it possessed this power, it must fear and respect this power.

Unless it was a special moment, it would not unfold that mist again.

But the story of the Dragonite Leader and Grandma Lya had moved it.

No bonds to be formed?

No!

It possessed the power to remedy this regret!

Just as if refuting the words Mewtwo had spoken within the memory.

Seeing Seeing Kapu unfolded a dense, pure white mist.

(End of Chapter)