Pokémon: My Parallel World Daughters Revealed

The video continued playing.

Outside the tower, on a hillside roughly three hundred meters from Dragonspiral Tower—

A large watermelon sat atop a flat boulder.

Steven brought his knife down, and the crisp crack of the rind splitting echoed through the air as red juice ran along the blade.

"Here, you can have the big piece."

Steven held out a slice of watermelon to Wallace.

Wallace accepted it but didn’t eat.

"Say... is it really appropriate for us grown adults to sit around eating watermelon while a little girl handles all of this by herself?"

"You just don’t understand."

Steven took a bite of watermelon.

"Miori is currently enjoying the highlight of her heroic moment. If we went inside now, wouldn’t we just steal the spotlight?"

"Besides, Brother Asher isn’t worried. What are you getting anxious for?"

Wallace took a deep breath.

"Asher, are you genuinely not worried at all?"

Asher’s voice was calm.

"What good would worrying do? Since this is the path she chose, she has to face it herself."

"You’re that certain she can win?"

"I’m not."

Asher leaned back in his chair, his hands folded over his knees.

"But she won’t lose."

"What’s the difference?"

"Whether she wins is up to her."

Asher took a bite of watermelon.

"Whether she’s allowed to lose is up to me."

"I’m her safety net. Understand?"

"...Fine. We’ll do it your way."

Wallace nodded and finally took a bite of his watermelon.

"...Mm. This is really sweet. Steven, give me another slice. Remove the seeds this time."

"Get lost."

Steven didn’t even turn around.

"You want me to deseed your watermelon too? What am I, your babysitter?"

Steven and Wallace immediately began bickering again.

Asher’s gaze passed beyond the two of them and settled on Dragonspiral Tower in the distance, which was enveloped by towering pillars of light.

Above the tower’s peak, one white and one dark pillar of light collided beneath the heavens.

Even the surrounding air seemed compressed to its absolute limit.

Asher took a Poké Ball from inside his coat.

The Poké Ball trembled faintly, as though the Pokémon within had sensed something as well.

"Old Popsicle, don’t get impatient."

Asher gently rubbed his thumb across the surface of the ball and lowered his voice.

"It’ll be your turn soon."

[VIP Chat Group]

[Gary]: Old Popsicle? Is Asher referring to the Pokémon inside that Poké Ball?

[Steven]: I bet one Moon Stone that there’s an Arceus inside that Poké Ball.

[Wallace]: What does Arceus have to do with "Old Popsicle"? Besides, Arceus appeared directly from the light last time. We never saw it enter a Poké Ball.

[Lorelei]: Then Kyogre? It appeared during Raina’s episode.

[Lance]: I don’t think we can speculate like that. Each parallel-world Asher has lived through different experiences, so their levels of strength may not necessarily be the same. We can’t treat every version of Asher as though they were one person.

[Asher]: Listen to that. Listen carefully. Now that is what an intelligent person sounds like.

[Leon]: @Asher, what about you? How many Legendary Pokémon do you have?

[Asher]: I’m under no obligation to tell you.

[Lance]: Interesting. So aside from that Pokémon capable of warping through space, you really do have others.

[Alder]: It truly is difficult to imagine...

[Steven]: Since Brother Asher doesn’t want to tell us, let’s just keep watching.

The video continued playing.

Inside Dragonspiral Tower—

The battle within the great hall had already reached a fever pitch.

Flames and lightning exploded at the center of the chamber.

Light and heat intertwined into an ever-expanding sphere of energy, with electrical arcs and patterns of fire flowing simultaneously across its surface.

It looked like something that should never have existed in this world.

BOOM—!!!

The instant the sphere exploded, the entire great hall trembled.

Miori rode atop Zekrom, raising one arm to shield herself from the blast wave.

"Fusion Flare and Fusion Bolt are perfectly equal in power."

N was also riding atop Reshiram.

"You must have noticed it as well."

"As long as neither of our convictions wavers, Zekrom and Reshiram will never be able to defeat one another."

"So what are you trying to say?"

Miori shrugged.

"What I’m saying is..."

N raised one hand and pointed toward Miori.

"Your ideal is merely another form of self-deception. You say that you want humans and Pokémon to understand one another."

For the first time, an almost imperceptible tremor entered N’s voice.

"But the man who adopted me, used me, and ultimately betrayed me... he said the same things."

"He told me he wanted to liberate Pokémon."

"He told me he wanted to create a world without oppression."

"He told me his ideals were righteous."

N lowered his hand.

"And in the end, every word of it was nothing more than an elaborate lie. That is why, from that day onward... I no longer needed something called an ideal."

As his words fell, Reshiram’s flames burned even more fiercely.

"Only truth."

N’s voice returned to its previous calmness.

"Truth is everything we see with our own eyes, hear with our own ears, and touch with our own hands. If the suffering Pokémon experience is real, then humans must experience that same suffering before the two sides can truly understand one another."

"You keep talking about truth."

The corner of Miori’s mouth rose.

"But is your so-called truth really complete?"

"What do you mean?"

N frowned.

"I admit that every instance of suffering you described—the pain those Pokémon endured—was real."

Miori lifted Emolga into her arms.

"But right now, you’re focusing only on the ugly side while ignoring all the Pokémon who willingly choose to live beside their Trainers and are genuinely happy doing so."

"If your view excludes all of that... can you really call it the complete truth?"

N remained silent for a moment before shaking his head.

"You think words like that will make me waver? If my truth were incomplete, why would Reshiram have acknowledged me?"

At that moment—

An exceptionally deep, ancient roar suddenly came from above the tower.

Miori snapped her head upward.

A massive fissure tore across the dome of Dragonspiral Tower.

A gray figure slowly descended through it.

It was a dragon.

Its body radiated a bone-piercing chill.

There was no emotion whatsoever within the depths of its eyes.

Only an ancient indifference that seemed to transcend time itself.

Kyurem.

The legendary shell said to have remained after Reshiram and Zekrom split apart—

A vessel possessing neither ideals nor truth.

Only emptiness.

Kyurem didn’t look at N.

It didn’t look at Reshiram.

It didn’t look at Zekrom.

Its gaze fell directly upon Miori.

"Uh..."

Miori pointed at herself.

"Are you here for me?"

Kyurem made no sound.

Instead, it performed an action that even Miori herself hadn’t expected.

It lowered its head—

Before Miori.

"Wait, wait, wait."

Miori crossed both arms in front of herself in a time-out gesture.

"Do we know each other? Dad never told me there was a third dragon!"

Kyurem didn’t answer.

It simply remained there with its head lowered, like an ice sculpture waiting to be inspected and approved.

While Miori’s brain was furiously trying to process the situation—

The wall beside them suddenly exploded.

Chunks of stone flew in every direction as dust filled the air, leaving an enormous hole in what had previously been a perfectly solid wall.

"Steven, what are you doing?!"

Wallace’s voice was the first to come through the hole.

"I said blow up the door! Not the wall! Can you seriously not tell the difference between a door and a wall?!"

"What’s wrong with blowing up the wall?"

Steven’s voice immediately followed, carrying the righteous confidence of someone absolutely refusing to admit he had done anything wrong.

"We still got inside, didn’t we?"

"We’re not villains! What’s wrong with using the front door?!"

"Using the front door has no impact! The Hoenn Trio is all about making an entrance!"

Miori stared at the still-smoking hole, the corner of her mouth twitching.

N turned toward it as well, his expression repeatedly shifting between vigilance and confusion.

The dust slowly dispersed.

Three people stepped through the hole.

Asher was at the front.

Still eating a slice of watermelon, he spoke through a mouthful of food.

"Old Popsicle, I told you to wait up there. But no, you just had to come down first."

"Miori hasn’t even shouted ’Daddy, save me!’ yet. You’re blatantly stealing the spotlight, you know that?"

Kyurem immediately turned its head away, making it perfectly clear that it refused to communicate with him.

Miori’s brain forcibly rebooted from its crashed state.

She looked at Kyurem.

Then at her own father.

Finally, she took a deep breath.

"Um... Dad, could you explain what exactly is happening here first?"

"Fine."

Asher nodded.

"We’ve reached this point anyway, so there’s no reason to keep it from you anymore. The Guardian of Dragonspiral Tower."

Asher’s voice became unusually serious.

"That title can be traced all the way back to the era when Reshiram and Zekrom first separated. The Guardian’s duty is simple—to protect the seal while the twin dragons sleep, then guide them toward choosing new heroes when they awaken."

"I see."

N’s voice came from across the hall.

His expression was exceptionally complicated.

"The Guardian of Dragonspiral Tower... so you knew from the very beginning who the two dragons would choose?"

"Or rather... has everything that happened been under your control this entire time?"