Officer Jenny rounded on the investigator the moment she heard his question.
"What are you doing?"
That had nothing to do with the murdered family. She had agreed to let him use Hypno because he insisted the case was serious enough to justify it, not so he could fish through Reiji's life for unrelated secrets.
The investigator quickly raised a finger. "Keep your voice down. You've heard the rumors going around. If we're already here, there's nothing wrong with clearing that up too."
Before Jenny could argue, Reiji answered.
"The League."
Both of them froze.
The investigator stared at him. "What?"
Reiji remained slumped in his chair with the same vacant expression of someone under hypnosis.
"Undercover designation... ninety-five... Contact cipher... Mission parameters..."
The investigator went pale.
"Stop him!"
Whatever excitement he had felt at uncovering something unexpected vanished instantly. If Reiji really was a League operative assigned to the Orange Archipelago, those codes could belong to a classified operation far above his clearance.
Even an International Police investigator had limits on what he was allowed to know.
Officer Jenny reacted just as quickly. Neither of them wanted to hear another word, and Hypno was ordered to break the hypnosis before Reiji could finish mumbling whatever supposed credentials he had been about to reveal.
A moment later, Reiji stirred and rubbed his forehead.
"Ugh... What happened? My head hurts."
He looked between Jenny and the investigator with perfect confusion while privately trying not to laugh.
The two officers, meanwhile, looked profoundly relieved.
"You're done here," the investigator said, opening the door. "You can leave."
Reiji glanced at the open doorway, then settled back into his chair.
"Heh. Don't you think that's a little funny?"
The investigator's expression hardened.
They had dragged him into a police station, hypnotized him during what was supposedly a voluntary interview, and now that they had stumbled onto something they were afraid to know, they suddenly wanted him gone.
Reiji had no intention of making it that easy.
"You don't want to leave?" the investigator snapped. "Fine. I can keep you in here forever."
Reiji smiled.
"Try it."
That was enough to make the man's face darken.
Reiji knew exactly what he had said while pretending to be hypnotized, and more importantly, he knew what the two people standing in front of him now believed. As far as they were concerned, he was a League undercover operative on a confidential assignment.
Threatening him had just become considerably more complicated.
The investigator gave a disgusted snort and walked out with Croagunk. Officer Jenny followed him into the hallway, leaving Reiji comfortably seated inside the interview room.
"What do we do now?" she whispered.
"What do you think?" The investigator sighed. "We clean this up."
He removed the recording device from Jenny's uniform, pulled out its storage card, and tossed it to Croagunk.
Croagunk swallowed it.
That recording was the only physical evidence that Reiji had supposedly revealed his undercover identity. If the two of them kept quiet as well, there was no reason the incident ever needed to leave the room.
Continuing to investigate him was pointless anyway.
Deep-cover operations were often compartmentalized enough that ordinary officers could not verify them. Some used single contacts, some maintained almost no accessible records, and the investigator certainly did not have the clearance to start digging through the League's most sensitive Orange Archipelago operations.
From his perspective, Reiji's story was almost impossible to disprove without creating a much larger problem.
Reiji, of course, knew that better than anyone.
If the lie ever became inconvenient years from now, there were plenty of ways to manufacture the missing paperwork after he had climbed high enough within the League. A regional Champion could get an old undercover file created, have a few retired officials sign it, and wait until nobody remained who could challenge the story.
More importantly, his actions in the Orange Archipelago already happened to align with the League's long-term interests.
He had just turned that convenient overlap into an official-sounding cover story.
...
Behind the Pokémon Center, two cigarette tips glowed faintly in the darkness of a narrow alley.
The faces behind them looked enough alike to make the relationship obvious.
"What happened, you idiot?" Cissy's grandfather demanded. "Why did Slowking come back in that condition?"
Cissy's father remained beneath a dark hood, exhaustion visible even in the poor light.
"I chased them all the way to Team Rocket. Then I ran into their leader."
The old man frowned. "And?"
"I couldn't beat him. Slowking forced its way through their blockade to get back here and warn you. That's why it collapsed."
Cissy's grandfather went quiet.
"How strong was he?"
"Very."
That single answer carried more weight than a long explanation.
The old man had seen what Slowking looked like after escaping. If even that Pokémon had barely managed to break away, then his son certainly had not been dealing with an ordinary underground boss.
"Team Rocket really has changed," he murmured. "When I was young, their leader was still a woman."
More than forty years had passed since then. Somewhere along the way, the organization had grown into something capable of producing a leader strong enough to threaten Champion-tier Pokémon.
That was not a small development.
Cissy's father took another drag from his cigarette. "Anything happen here while I was gone?"
"Nothing serious." The old man paused. "Except Rai got taken in by the police."
"What?"
That woke him up immediately.
"Why would they take Rai? If they traced something back to me, shouldn't they be questioning you? Or my wife?"
"How should I know?" his father grumbled. "Maybe somebody from Team Rocket is pushing from inside the League. They haven't touched the family, probably because Mikan Gym is still one of the League's four major Gyms in the Orange Archipelago. Rai is the easier person to pressure."
Cissy's father frowned beneath his hood.
"So what do we do?"
"You stay hidden. Tomorrow I'll hand over the evidence showing our relatives in Kanto were working with Team Rocket. Then we see how the League wants to handle it."
The family in question was already dead. Cissy's household was still very much alive, still controlled an important Gym, and now had evidence connecting the victims themselves to Team Rocket.
The old man knew exactly how institutions made decisions when politics became inconvenient.
"The League wants stability in the Orange Archipelago. Once they see everything we have, they'll know which side is worth protecting."
Cissy's father nodded.
"Fine. I'll stay out of sight for another couple of days."
He was less worried about Reiji than he might otherwise have been. Gengar was still with him, and an Elite Four-tier Ghost gave the boy plenty of ways to protect himself if a police interview suddenly turned ugly.
Before leaving, Cissy's father ground out his cigarette beneath his shoe.
"How did the tournament go?"
The old man immediately pretended not to care.
"Cissy did about as well as expected. Lost when she ran into that powerful Psychic girl. Rai did a little better and scraped his way to seventh."
Despite the dismissive wording, he had followed Reiji's tournament closely.
A top-eight finish had already met Mikan Gym's target. The next step—the League's eventual Elite Four selection process—could wait. Reiji was still young enough that there was no need to rush him.
Cissy's father clenched one fist in satisfaction.
"Good. Knew I picked the right kid. Maybe handing him my daughter and the Gym wasn't such a bad idea after all."
The question of succession no longer bothered him nearly as much as it once had.
Senta still had not woken up.
At this point, there was a real possibility he never would. His injuries could leave him permanently disabled or unconscious for the rest of his life, and his father carried plenty of guilt over failing to protect him.
He had already avenged the attack as far as he could.
Team Rocket itself was simply too powerful for him to destroy.
If Senta could never inherit the Gym, then they would find another solution. Reiji could take over directly, or one day Cissy could have a child who inherited the family name and continued the line.
It was not the future he had expected.
But after everything that had happened, he had learned to work with the future he still had.
With one last tired sigh, he pulled his hood lower and disappeared into the darkness.
[End of chapter]
[100 Power Stones = Extra Chapter]
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