Cain, still seated, looked at the dagger and showed an ambiguous smile, then raised his head toward Malva, who was sitting across from him.
With her left hand, Malva continued to play with a strand of her hair, but her expression was not one of true calm either. Only, the way she looked at Cain was somewhat strange.
The dagger from a moment ago had been thrown by her.
After all, they were in the middle of a meeting room and no one had summoned their Pokémon, so no one had expected Malva to suddenly pull out a dagger like that.
"You..."
Xerosic opened his mouth wide, intending to ask Malva why she had done that, but what he met was her completely cold and emotionless gaze.
Immediately, all the words got stuck in his throat again. He sat back down awkwardly and said nothing more, although the way he looked at Cain and Malva had become quite strange.
Only after seeing that Xerosic had sat down again did Malva stand up. She extended both hands toward the black bag, pushed it back in front of Cain, and, maintaining a respectful posture, said: "My lord."
Someone observant enough would have noticed that, at that moment, both Malva's neck and back were also slightly damp.
Cain looked at Malva, who after pushing the black bag back had not straightened her waist for even an instant, remaining slightly bent to display her full respect toward him.
Looking at Malva, Cain slowly lowered the hood from his head, and his voice also returned to its original tone. Then he calmly asked: "How did you recognize me?"
Hearing that, Malva's body trembled. She had not yet had time to respond when others interrupted her.
And those who interrupted her were, naturally, Xerosic and the others. They all looked at Cain, who had removed his hood, with faces full of horror and eyes opened wide.
"Ca... Cain! Cain, the Sandstorm Elite Four member of the Hoenn region!!"
Xerosic's voice trembled slightly. The others, Aliana, Bryony, Celosia, Mable and the rest, also stared at Cain's face in complete shock, not knowing what to say for a moment.
But there was one thing they all did the same: a Poké Ball appeared in their hands.
Even Lysandre looked at him with a trace of surprise, although he quickly showed an expression of sudden understanding. Evidently, Cain's true identity did not particularly matter to him.
Or rather, deep in his subconscious, who Cain truly was did not matter that much.
But Cain did not pay attention to them. He simply looked coldly at Malva, waiting to hear from her lips how she had managed to recognize him.
Feeling Cain's gaze upon her growing colder and colder, Malva felt all the hairs on her body stand on end. Her body trembled slightly again.
She slowly straightened her back and revealed a bitter smile.
She truly had not imagined that the elusive deputy leader of Team Flare, that man who appeared and disappeared like a ghost, was in fact Cain, the number one genius of Hoenn who had protected everyone on the Space-Time Continent.
Perhaps others did not know it, but she, who had just become one of the Kalos Elite Four, knew what Cain had done one week earlier at the summit of Mt. Silver, and she also knew what kind of power he now possessed.
She even knew that in three weeks Cain would become the Champion of Hoenn, completely establishing himself as the true leader of the entire younger generation.
And not by a small margin, but with overwhelming advantage.
Only when she got closer to that level of things did Malva understand just how terrifying an existence with such strength truly was. So terrifying that she could not even produce within herself the impulse to resist.
Even now that she had become an Elite Four member, it was still the same.
She had reached the Elite Four position with the lowest possible threshold. Perhaps she would not even be able to easily defeat a high-ranking member of the Sacred Church on her own, while Cain had been able to eliminate three high-ranking members of the Sacred Church in a single stroke and confront Kael directly, as well as a Master Level Mega Latias.
An existence like that was not someone she could afford to provoke.
And that remained true even with Lysandre present.
Why had Team Flare been able to develop successfully within the Kalos region?
Simply because it relied on the name of Lysandre Labs and Lysandre's connections within the Kalos League.
What supported Team Flare was technology, not absolute strength. That was why Malva was certain that, even if everyone in that office combined their strength, they would not be a match for Cain.
And yet, Xerosic and the others had dared to question him. To question someone who could crush them like ants?
In Xerosic's mind, Malva had made him lose face just now, without realizing that she had actually saved his life.
What Cain intended to do was kill the chicken to scare the monkey, and Xerosic, being the first to jump out, was precisely that chicken. Only, Malva had interrupted the scene.
But now Cain had revealed his true identity without the slightest hesitation, so inside that office there were only two possible outcomes left...
Either surrender...
Or die.
Bitterness still remained on Malva's face.
"To be honest, I truly hoped it would not be you... Because... before your strength, people like us simply do not count for anything."
When Xerosic and the others heard Malva speak with such admiration about Cain's strength, even saying that even if all of them joined together they would not be his match, cold sweat began to appear on their bodies.
Recalling how they had provoked him again and again just moments before, they realized that they had been dancing on the edge of death.
That they were still breathing intact until now could only be attributed to luck.
(End of chapter)