Celestia City — Virelia League Summit, Upper Spire Council Chamber

  Day 3 — League Circuit Season Commencement

  The doors opened as she stepped into the chamber.

  Not a single footstep out of place. Not one muscle drawn tight. No voice announced her, no fanfare preceded her. She didn’t need any of it.

  She was already the center of gravity.

  The council room was suspended near the top of the Spire, walled with angled glass that gazed down over Aurora Plaza’s brilliant sprawl. Beyond it: banners, battle stages, youth chasing glory. Within it: pressure. Real power. Men and women dressed in subtle defiance, smiling with straight teeth and folded hands.

  There were twenty-four seats at the summit table.

  Only one mattered.

  She crossed the polished floor with the quiet poise of a drawn blade, heels clicking once for each heartbeat, then stopped at her place—the seat without inscription. Every other chair bore the seal of office. Hers bore none.

  She knew why they were here.

  Not to speak.

  To circle.

  To push.

  To test.

  Let them.

  Around the table:

  Director Albrecht stood silently at her left, one hand on the back of her chair, the other resting on a leather portfolio thick with stamped files. His presence was enough to remind everyone that the Champion did not stand alone.

  Henrietta Lynne, head of Media Oversight, had her arms crossed and a slight smirk dancing at the corner of her mouth. She was already bored. That meant she was listening harder than anyone.

  Evie Tanaka sat beside her, eyes unreadable, stylus dancing silently over her tablet. She didn't speak. She waited.

  Diana Mercer, Elite Four Liaison, sat tall and statuesque, her expression steel-set but fair. She was here for the region. But which version of it, no one could say.

  Felix Thorne, the idealist, the infrastructure voice, leaned forward already—ready to speak, but waiting to be acknowledged. His optimism was his weakness, and everyone at the table knew it.

  Gregor Ivanov didn’t sit. He stood against the far wall, arms crossed, tactical gear black against the white walls. A presence that didn’t ask for respect. It demanded it.

  Marisa Vaught, young and sharp, sat with a posture too formal and a tablet held too tight. She was trying to be perfect in a room where everyone else had already killed that version of themselves.

  And across the table—they sat.

  The Other Side:

  Minister Takamasa Yorihide, composed in his crisp black haori over a League-standard suit. His silver pin bore the old symbol of the Yorihide clan, known only to those who still studied forgotten banners. He hadn’t spoken yet. He didn’t need to. The quiet around him was already his voice.

  Séraphine DeValmont, draped in deep violet with her golden fan half-open in one gloved hand. Her eyes were pools of cultured venom, her smile as polished as the gems at her throat. When she moved, it was with ceremony—grace turned weapon.

  Rikuto Kamizawa, flamboyant in a wine-red blazer with cufflinks worth more than some gyms. He twirled a silver pen between his fingers like it was a dagger waiting to find a back.

  éloise Verdain, eyes cold, notes already recorded before the meeting began. Her gaze passed over everyone like an international ledger calculating what each life was worth in diplomatic currency.

  Seiji Ayanami, blank-faced and silent, his voice still unspoken but ever-present. His folded hands rested on the table like they were waiting to weigh down a decision.

  And Hiroshi Hayashi, quiet in an ash-gray suit, his posture relaxed, his presence not. His expression was unreadable—not passive, not aggressive. Simply… unbothered. He hadn’t come to fight.

  Mr. Kondo, sat three seats down—his tailored navy suit uncreased, his cufflinks custom-etched with his family's export seal. He said nothing. He never did. But when he looked across the room, people noticed.

  Dr. Kazuo Takahara and Dr. Liliane Takahara of Technogrove, clad in pristine white and gold, sat near the finance sector of the table—science cloaked in luxury. Their company’s chokehold on proprietary Pokémon technologies had made them indispensable to the Government, and dangerously independent of the League.

  And more seated:

  Governor Lucien Marchand, an older gentleman whose family oversaw Virelia’s coastal provinces since the age of imperial conquest. His voice was calm, but his influence sharper than most realized—his monopoly over maritime trade routes was unchallenged.

  Lady Rika Tsukihime, Matron of the Southern Isles Administrative Council, known for her elegant posture and veiled threats. Her clan name had fallen out of fashion publicly—but behind closed doors, few in the south dared defy her.

  General Inspector Corvin Desrosiers, a security official masquerading as a policy enforcer. His uniform bore League insignias with subtle defacement—a signal of independence no one acknowledged but everyone noticed.

  Finance Secretary Ayaka Shibasaki, eyes like coals under frost, with the uncanny gift of asking the one question no one wanted to answer. Her family’s power came not from politics, but from debt. Most at the table owed her something.

  The line between political power and generational dynasty blurred here—heritage bleeding into authority like ink on parchment.

  And still, the seat of power remained at the center—It belonged to Astrid.

  Astrid Eisenhart didn’t sit right away.

  She stood at the head of the obsidian table, her fingers resting lightly on the chair’s spine—her chair, the only one without a nameplate, the only one that didn’t need one. Around her, the League Council and Government Board members adjusted their posture in the slight silence. Eyes followed her movements with the same reflex trained Pokémon had before a strike.

  She offered no greeting. No welcome. Just four words:

  “Let us begin, then.”

  A gentle hum stirred to life as Director Albrecht activated the central feed—stats, reports, live analytics flickering across the embedded table glass.

  Marisa Vaught, eager and deliberate, led the first discussion. “There are supply line variances we haven’t addressed. Price surges in key areas like Maydew, Ryme, Azure Bay, and Blazebrook are spreading uncertainty among Trainers. Some Centers are being forced to charge triple for basic medical sprays.”

  Her voice wavered slightly. It wasn’t fear. It was the pressure of being heard in a room that didn’t always listen.

  Astrid didn’t look at her. She looked at the data. And nodded once.

  “Submit the full report to Director Albrecht,” she said. “He’ll coordinate with League logistics to audit vendor compliance.”

  Marisa’s breath caught briefly—approval, just enough to keep her grounded. But she didn’t speak again.

  Felix Thorne leaned forward next. Earnest. Soft-spoken. “Route infrastructure’s degrading again. We lost another geothermal relay outside Maydew. If we keep ignoring remote zones, wilds will start pushing inward.”

  “Start?” Henrietta Lynne quipped, brushing imaginary dust from her blazer. “They already are.”

  Astrid didn’t speak. She let the silence filter that tension.

  Diana Mercer stepped in like steel on silk. “Then approve the expanded patrol zones. Cut back on ceremonial exhibitions. We need Rangers, not PR.”

  Evie Tanaka, who hadn’t looked up once until now, calmly lifted a hand. “Pulling public events will reduce visibility and morale. The League Circuit just began. If we start canceling match coverage, we lose control of the conversation.”

  Astrid broke in, eyes sharp.

  “Control isn’t the issue. Visibility is. Trainers need to be seen. That’s what holds this place together.”

  Then she looked at Gregor Ivanov, still standing at the rear.

  “Status?”

  “Three unregistered incursions in the western glades. Unmarked balls, non-native signatures. Possible Eclipse remnants.”

  “Handled?”

  He nodded. “Quietly.”

  No one asked for details.

  Then came the pivot.

  And with it, the shift in the room.

  Séraphine DeValmont opened her golden fan and tilted her head like a question written in cursive. “Certain shrines,” she began lightly, “are seeing… increased traffic.”

  The pause that followed was just a fraction too long. Not hesitation. Intention.

  “Unauthorized. Unregistered. Uninvited.”

  She said it softly, like an idle note on morning air. But her voice curled like ribbon around a blade—dressed in diplomacy, sharpened with implication. Her words landed with the weight of a signature on parchment: neat, subtle, dangerous.

  Astrid didn’t react—no blink, no shift in posture. She only turned her head slightly, as though adjusting to a sound no one else could hear.

  “And the Ministry of Culture believes this is League interference?” she asked, her tone absent of emotion but not weight.

  Séraphine’s smile was delicate. “I believe our traditions are fragile things, Champion. So easily trampled when everyone assumes ownership.”

  She closed her fan just enough for the snap to echo.

  No one laughed. Because everyone understood.

  She wasn’t speaking of shrines. Not really.

  She was speaking of jurisdiction. Of who held the right to define Virelia’s legacy.

  The “shrines” were placeholders—metaphors cloaked in politeness. They stood in for myth, lineage, and narrative. For everything Astrid had slowly begun to wrap the League’s fingers around—through actions, reforms, and sheer presence.

  Séraphine represented old blood, old power, and sacred influence. Her family had held curatorial control over Virelia’s historical sites for generations—long before the League ever planted its banners in the soil. To her, the shrines were not just religious or cultural; they were inheritance. Authority by birth, not appointment.

  And in the League’s increasingly independent excavation teams, their presence near ancient altars, their meddling in what some still called “divine ground”—Séraphine saw something dangerous: a redefinition of who the guardians of Virelia’s soul truly were.

  The tension didn’t come from miscommunication. It came from clarity.

  Séraphine’s warning was precise. Do not make history your battlefield. Do not mistake silence for absence. Do not presume the League may tread wherever it pleases.

  And Astrid? She said nothing more. She understood that too. And she wasn’t going to stop.

  Then—cool as a blade dipped in honey—Rikuto Kamizawa broke the silence.

  “We could talk sacred sites and traditions all day,” he said, his voice a warm dagger, “but let’s focus on what trainers actually need—stability. Regulation. Prices that aren’t dictated by whichever gym leader feels the most generous this month.”

  He gestured as he spoke, his pen dancing like a conductor’s baton. “Without oversight, the market’s slipping. Supply hoarding is already happening. If we don’t move to standardize commerce—privately, if need be—someone else will.”

  Astrid glanced briefly at Evie. She didn’t need to say anything. That was a threat in plain sight.

  éloise Verdain, calm and corporate, followed like a blade of ice. “International investors have been watching Virelia closely. These… stories, these forum rumors of trainer deaths and wild Pokémon attacks—it’s causing uncertainty.”

  The table shifted uncomfortably.

  Then Astrid spoke, low and cutting:

  “There are no confirmed deaths.”

  The weight of her voice dropped into the room like iron.

  “Only anonymous threads. Coded messages. Nothing verified. If your departments are confusing hysteria with evidence, perhaps your analysts need retraining.”

  The line cut the air in half.

  A silence followed—not like before.

  This one wasn’t passive.

  It dared someone to speak.

  The silence stretched—just long enough for the sting to settle, just short enough for the cowardice not to show.

  From the side of the table, Mr. Kondo—unmoving in his navy suit—cleared his throat once. His presence was always minimal, but always noticed. The trade routes he oversaw from the north funneled rare goods and commodities across Virelia’s entire interior. Without his logistics, the League’s infrastructure would choke.

  Dr. Kazuo Takahara and Dr. Liliane Takahara exchanged no words, only glances. The Technogrove moguls were as white-lab coated as they were gold-ringed. Their company’s exclusive rights to essential trainer equipment made them impossible to regulate—though Astrid had tried. Their presence here said one thing: the Government was protecting its assets.

  Across from them, Governor Lucien Marchand’s knuckles rested like small statues on the obsidian table. He never spoke unless it served the tides of trade, and tonight—he was watching Astrid. Measuring. Weighing.

  Lady Rika Tsukihime remained still as porcelain, her expression unreadable beneath the soft veil that hung from her ornate hairpiece. Her hand traced the rim of her teacup slowly, not drinking. Listening.

  Finance Secretary Ayaka Shibasaki was the only one who smiled.

  “I believe,” she said with a voice like glass, “the numbers speak for themselves. And the stories? Well… even myths move markets.”

  If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.

  Astrid didn’t respond. She looked across the table once more—and then her gaze fell to the one who hadn’t spoken.

  Minister Takamasa Yorihide.

  He had been quiet throughout, but it wasn’t submission. It was observation. His posture was respectful but never diminished—his hands clasped, his eyes slightly downcast, the silver pin of his clan catching the flicker of the overhead light.

  The flick of Séraphine's golden fan had not even settled when the voice that followed unraveled like velvet against glass.

  “I believe we’re dancing around the more tangible concerns.”

  All eyes turned as Hiroshi Hayashi finally spoke.

  The man had barely moved until now. But when he did, it was with the ease of someone who never had to raise his voice to be heard—or feared. He didn’t blink. He didn’t smile. His tone was neither warm nor cold.

  It was simply inevitable.

  “Shrines and sightings,” he mused, fingers threading together atop the table, “have their place, of course. As do culture and history. But what matters to the people of Virelia… is structure. Access. Affordability. The average Trainer shouldn't be forced to trade three day’s wages for a Revive because supply chains collapse every other month. Shouldn’t have to gamble their journey on whether a League-certified Center even has medical stock that week.”

  Astrid didn’t answer, not at first.

  She watched. Hayashi’s gaze swept the table like a slow scan, letting it land—pointedly—on Marisa Vaught, then Felix Thorne, then finally Albrecht.

  “Hayashi Global has been more than willing to assist in these gaps. Our subsidiary logistics arms have already routed supplies throughout Virelia. Quietly. Effectively. Not because we were asked. But because the League wasn’t fast enough.”

  He paused, just long enough for the silence to bloom.

  “Perhaps it’s time we reconsider the centralization of distribution oversight. Regional commerce has always thrived under diversified models. Let cities determine their own pricing. Let the market breathe.”

  Rikuto Kamizawa’s pen spun like a wheel. “Now that,” he said brightly, “is a practical suggestion. Trainers don’t care who runs the routes. They care if they can buy Potions when their partner’s bleeding.”

  Astrid’s fingers barely moved, but Director Albrecht caught it. The smallest flick—permission to proceed or halt. He didn’t move.

  Then, another voice—calm and weighted with centuries.

  “I would caution against misreading structure as weakness.”

  Minister Takamasa Yorihide’s voice was barely above a whisper, yet it rolled through the chamber like a tide. When he spoke, even Séraphine’s fan stopped mid-air. Rikuto’s pen paused.

  The Minister sat like stone beneath polished silk, one hand resting loosely against his chin.

  “The League, for all its flaws, represents consistency. If we begin to unravel that thread—”

  “No one is unraveling anything,” Hayashi interrupted, gently, with the edge of a blade dipped in honey. “We’re refining. Fortifying. Giving the regions the tools to correct imbalance before it breeds resentment. Or worse... resistance.”

  He didn’t look at Astrid when he said it.

  But the room did.

  Gregor Ivanov’s brow twitched, just once.

  Astrid still didn’t speak.

  She knew Hayashi’s game.

  And worse—she knew Takamasa wasn’t opposing him.

  She could feel the alliance pulsing like a slow heartbeat behind their words. Not formal. Not public. But real. The old guard, cloaked in lineage and legacy, quietly backing the industrialist with a leash made of iron silk.

  The meeting shifted subtly.

  Policy suggestions began appearing like offerings—small budget reallocations, expanded oversight committees, private-public joint task forces for trainer aid programs. All innocuous on the surface. All inching the needle.

  Away from the League.

  And toward them.

  Astrid let it continue—for now. Her silence wasn’t weakness. It was record.

  The room itself was designed for this.

  Veiled beneath its obsidian panels and prism-lit glass architecture were integrated archival glyphs—coded symbols embedded into the structure itself, paired with the League’s proprietary sigil-woven circuit tech. The chamber's foundation was etched in data-binding seals only understood by Virelia’s top encryption engineers and historical analysts.

  It wasn’t surveillance. Not in the traditional sense.

  It was memory. Constructed and sustained by a singular presence housed deep within the spire’s core containment vault:

  A Porygon-Z—one of only three ever engineered by Professor Ardene herself.

  Custom-coded, reality-stabilized, and tethered to every active surface in the room, the AI-Porygon-Z recorded not just sound, but tonality, eye movement, biometric shifts, and the frequency resonance of intent.

  It didn’t listen. It understood.

  And Astrid would review it all later.

  But for now? She let the play unfold.

  It began with Séraphine DeValmont.

  “If the Ministry of Culture is expected to continue allocating site permits to excavation units,” she said lightly, “we require assurances that League researchers are trained in appropriate liturgical etiquette. Too many ruins have been disturbed under the pretense of academic study.”

  “Academic study is how those ruins still exist,” Diana Mercer muttered beneath her breath.

  Séraphine ignored her.

  Rikuto Kamizawa followed, almost on cue.

  “We should consider streamlining licensing for independent vendors. Some of the best service stations in the region aren’t under League jurisdiction, yet they're forced to play catch-up on regulations crafted by boardrooms, not battlefields.”

  He gestured, all performance.

  “A revised free-market approach gives trainers more choice. More competition.”

  “And more chaos,” Felix Thorne said, softly but clearly. “We've already had eight price-gouging incidents this month.”

  “Eight isolated incidents,” Rikuto countered, “is still a far better track record than the League’s current economic centralization. If I remember correctly, the last surge in Route 7 forced three families into relocation.”

  That earned a small nod from Governor Marchand, whose influence in the coastal regions had long been threatened by over-centralized infrastructure.

  “Let’s be clear,” Ayaka Shibasaki said, her voice like frost. “The League’s overreliance on short-term subsidies is what cripples market response. Trainers shouldn’t need to rely on League aid every time a Center supply truck is delayed. If the private sector can fill that gap, why not let it?”

  Dr. Liliane Takahara didn’t look up from her datapad.

  “Because the League doesn’t trust anyone but itself,” she said flatly. “And yet it needs us. Our devices. Our patented systems. And our factories.”

  “That can be revisited in a quarterly audit,” Albrecht responded, his voice smooth but firm.

  Rikuto’s pen spun again between his fingers, a lazy circle that belied the keenness in his eyes. “Revisited, sure,” he echoed, “but by then the market damage will be done. Trainers don’t wait for audits. They wait for healing sprays that cost half a badge. If we delay, we’re just feeding resentment—and resentment doesn’t vote League.”

  éloise Verdain arched a brow. “And it certainly doesn’t attract investment. Investors don’t gamble on fractured systems, Director. They withdraw. Quietly. Permanently.”

  Lucien Marchand nodded once, a gesture so subtle it might’ve gone unnoticed, but not by Astrid. Nothing went unnoticed.

  Mr. Kondo, silent until now, spoke with practiced calm. “The burden is shifting. Farmers in my districts are already dealing with backlogged cargo and increased tariffs. The League’s transport corridors are bottlenecked. If Hayashi Corp hadn’t stepped in with supplemental routes, the western supply chain would have collapsed.”

  Hiroshi Hayashi remained seated, perfectly still, the faintest curl at the corner of his mouth. Not a smile. A reminder.

  “And we’ll continue stepping in,” he said, his voice low and level. “But only if we're included in the shaping of League distribution policy. As it stands, there is no seat at that table for us. Yet every Center, every vendor, every trainer on the road… relies on our infrastructure.”

  Ayaka didn’t blink. “And you're suggesting they should pay more for the privilege?”

  “I'm suggesting,” Hayashi said evenly, “that the League stop pretending it can run this region without partners.”

  The words landed with intent. Not loud. But heavy.

  Seiji Ayanami’s voice, when it came, was a whisper drawn in steel.

  “And when the partners disagree?”

  Silence followed.

  Then Séraphine again, folding her fan with a sigh that was more theatrical than breath. “Then we return to the oldest answer, Seiji.”

  She smiled sweetly at no one in particular.

  “Influence.”

  Dr. Kazuo Takahara, expression unreadable behind gold-rimmed glasses, lifted his eyes from his tablet. “Our labs in Technogrove are reaching final phases on signal-based behavior modifiers. If implemented responsibly, it could reduce aggressive Pokémon incidents by twenty-three percent.”

  “Or raise obedience thresholds by fifty,” Gregor muttered from the wall, voice gruff.

  Liliane tilted her head toward him. “Semantics.”

  “No,” Gregor said, uncrossing his arms just long enough to tap the table once. “Control.”

  Albrecht raised a hand. “Enough.”

  The glass table’s feed pulsed once. “The League thanks all contributors for their input. These proposals will be logged for review.”

  Hayashi, arms still folded, leaned back in his chair. “Let’s hope they’re not just logged.”

  That earned a glance from Séraphine. From Rikuto. From everyone.

  But Astrid? She still hadn’t said a word.

  There was a brief silence—a pause that, in lesser rooms, might have meant agreement. Here, it meant calculation.

  Ayaka Shibasaki’s fingers resumed tapping faintly on her holo-slate. Séraphine closed her fan with a quiet snap. Even Rikuto, for all his performative bravado, leaned back with the air of a man not quite ready to fold, but content to let the hand play further.

  Astrid remained still.

  The glass feed dimmed slightly. A signal.

  It was ending. Almost.

  A voice spoke, it came not with volume, nor demand, but a tone that carved through the room without ever raising above a conversational murmur.

  “Then let us not forget,” said Minister Takamasa Yorihide, “that the soul of a region is not written in its policies—but preserved in the silence between them.”

  His words fell like distant thunder—low, final, unhurried.

  For anyone else, the Porygon-Z system embedded within the walls would have already begun categorizing dozens of subtleties: micro-muscle shifts, vocal tremors, subconscious tells layered beneath tone and phrase.

  But Takamasa Yorihide didn’t offer tells.

  There were no lies to catch. No nervous tics to trace. No emotional residue left in the wake of his voice.

  Only balance.

  Even the AI—designed to render nuance into algorithms, to reconstruct emotional intent from inflectional variance—could only log his statement as neutral expression / indeterminate purpose.

  He wasn’t unreadable because he defied the system.

  He was unreadable because he had already mastered the self long before such systems existed.

  And yet, the Porygon-Z still watched him.

  The man had spoken only once during the last three summits. And even then, the AI had flagged his voice as neutral—unreadable.

  Now, he spoke again.

  "The League’s dominion, while earned, must not bleed unchecked into cultural jurisprudence. Shrines are not battlegrounds. They are vows." His voice was soft. Clean. Threaded with a tone that did not rise to reprimand—yet somehow was one.

  The words hung in the room like scripture.

  The Porygon-Z, silently nested behind its encrypted processes, flagged no emotional indicators. No stress. No deception. Just one tag:

  [AMBIGUOUS SIGNIFIER: CONTAINED EMPHATIC GRAVITY]

  Even the machine understood—it mattered.

  Astrid hadn’t moved in the last forty minutes.

  Not when Séraphine preached tradition. Not when Rikuto pitched privatization like a sales pitch from behind a smile. Not when Hayashi smoothed every underhanded tactic in silken rationale.

  But now?

  Now, her eyes lifted. Not with caution. With focus.

  Because this—this was someone who mattered.

  Takamasa Yorihide never made threats. He didn’t need to. If he ever made a move, no one would see it coming.

  And that, perhaps more than anything, gave her pause.

  Her silence broke at last.

  "Minister Yorihide," she said, and the temperature in the room shifted. “Your concern is noted. But the League answers to no altar, only to the safety of its people. If preservation is to be honored, then so too must be protection."

  Takamasa inclined his head, the barest motion. “Then I trust you will continue to act with wisdom, Champion. As you always have.”

  The meeting ended shortly thereafter.

  There were no real farewells. Just murmured acknowledgments and the sound of chairs scraping back. The eagerness with which some departed was telling.

  Hayashi didn’t offer a final word. He didn’t need to. His exit was measured, silent, and absent of any courtesy.

  Even the League members dispersed—Evie nodding silently, Diana giving a short, crisp glance toward Astrid, Gregor disappearing without sound. Henrietta was the last to go, lingering just long enough to mutter, “That one’s watching the whole board,” before vanishing behind the tinted glass doors.

  Until finally, the room stood empty.

  Except for Astrid.

  And Director Albrecht.

  He closed the portfolio in his hands and approached the table.

  “Never thought I’d miss the days when budget squabbles were the worst thing we had to deal with.”

  Astrid didn’t sit.

  “I’d take sabotage over incompetence. At least sabotage has intention.”

  He nodded. “Still, the tension’s escalating. Hayashi’s making more moves. That supply line control—if it tightens any further, we’ll be under his thumb in half the regions.”

  “He’s not the threat.”

  Albrecht raised a brow. “No?”

  “He’s the sword,” Astrid said. “The hand behind it is what matters.”

  Director Albrecht didn’t answer right away.

  His eyes tracked Astrid in the quiet that followed, as though trying to see beyond the surface of her words—to the thoughts she hadn’t spoken, the ones she always tucked just beneath her breath like a blade sheathed behind statecraft.

  “The hand behind it, huh,” he finally murmured, low and thoughtful. “And you’re going to find out who that hand belongs to.”

  Astrid’s gaze flicked up, sharp but steady. “Not exactly.”

  His sharp eyes, weathered by years of war rooms and policy battles, remained fixed on Astrid—searching not for deception, but for the truth she hadn’t yet spoken. The kind that traveled beneath words, like currents under still water.

  “So what now?” he asked. “You’re not just going to sit through the next summit like nothing’s shifting beneath our feet.”

  Astrid’s gaze didn’t waver.

  “I’m heading to Ryme City.”

  That made him pause.

  His brow furrowed, just slightly. “Ryme?”

  “You sound surprised.”

  “I am,” he admitted. “The western edge’s been quiet, at least on paper. Unless I’ve missed a briefing.”

  “You haven’t.”

  Albrecht took a step closer, leather portfolio still unopened beneath one arm. His voice dropped. “Then what’s really pulling you west?”

  Astrid looked out past the tinted glass, toward the shadowy outline of the horizon where the spire view ended and Virelia’s lands began. Her reflection stared back in ghost-form.

  “It’s not Ryme,” she said. “It’s what’s outside of Ryme.”

  That gave Albrecht pause. His instincts sharpened.

  He shifted his weight slightly. “This about the Verdantia Collapse? You think it's happening again?”

  She didn’t answer at first. Her silence was the answer.

  “Something’s stirring,” she said finally. “Disturbances—readings we haven’t seen since Verdantia. The same irregular ley surges. Displaced Pokémon behavior. Static interference near old altars. It’s happening again, and this time… I don’t think it’s residual.”

  Albrecht exhaled, heavy. “You think it’s a Plate.”

  Her expression didn’t confirm it. It didn’t have to.

  “I think it’s something buried that wants to be found,” Astrid said. “And if I wait too long, it’ll find someone else instead.”

  He frowned, memory pulling at the corners of his face. “Verdantia was a black box. You and I were the only ones who got the full report. I still remember that slab. The carvings. The one phrase…”

  Chosen One.

  And the incomplete message.

  Virelia’s… [undecipherable]… HOPE.

  Astrid’s voice grew quiet. “I never forgot it.”

  “You never told me what happened after you went.”

  She turned to him fully now.

  “There was an old woman. Alone. Waiting.”

  Albrecht’s brows lifted.

  “She spoke in a dialect I couldn’t place. But it wasn’t lost on me—it was old. French roots, older than our records trace. I understood just enough to know she wasn’t warning me for show.”

  “What did she say?”

  Astrid’s lips pressed together. “She asked me what business I had in land not meant for the League. Told me to turn back. That I had no place there.”

  “But you stayed.”

  “Of course I did.”

  He almost smiled at that, but the weight of the moment held it back.

  “Who was she?”

  “I don’t know. I tried to identify her through local registries, cultural archives—nothing. It was like she stepped out of the ruins themselves.”

  “Or never left,” Albrecht murmured. Astrid nodded once.

  He studied her carefully now, his tone softer. “And that’s why you're going off-grid.

  ”She met his eyes. “I’ll be back in a week.”

  “And if you’re not?”

  “You’ll hold the fort.”

  Albrecht scoffed under his breath, but there was no real complaint in it. Just the shared ache of knowing what their roles demanded.

  “You always did like vanishing right when the chaos started,” he muttered. “Drop me in the middle of a political knife fight, and go chase ghosts in the hills.”

  “You’re better with knives,” she said simply. “I’m better with ghosts.”

  He looked at her, this woman who had stood against storms he couldn’t name, who bore the weight of titles no human should have to carry alone.

  “I’ve followed a lot of leaders, Astrid. But only one I trust with the soul of this region.”

  Her reply was quiet, but firm.

  “And I’ve had many who stood beside me. Only one I know who can hold it together when I’m gone.”

  Albrecht exhaled. “Still…”

  “What?”

  He raised his head, voice dry. “If you go digging up another shrine, don’t come back with a prophecy.”

  Astrid almost smiled.

  She turned then, cloak brushing against the obsidian table’s edge. The glyph-etched walls pulsed faintly behind her—data-bound circuitry watching, waiting. The Porygon-Z within its vault recorded everything, but even it couldn't distill what passed between them in that moment.

  Just the quiet weight of belief.

  As she reached the doors, Albrecht called after her—his voice low, rough, but clear.

  “Bring back more than questions this time.”

  Astrid glanced over her shoulder, eyes gleaming like distant stars ready to burn.

  “I’m hoping,” she said, “to bring back an answer.”

  Then she was gone.

  And in her absence, the League’s burden settled upon Albrecht’s shoulders once more.

  The Champion may have left the chamber.

  But the shield of Virelia remained.