The fan-shaped palm at the tip of Aipom's tail kept flashing with a white light, like a lamp with a bad connection—lighting up, then going out, over and over.
Ordinary civilian spectators might not have understood what was happening.
But the big shots in the VIP seats, along with the Trainers watching on-site and on the broadcast, could all tell at a glance.
This was Aipom struggling to gather the attribute energy inside its body, trying to forcibly break free from Lopunny's restraint.
Yet every time that energy finally formed—
Lopunny would forcibly scatter it again, just like that.
The most absurd part was—
From the look of it, Lopunny wasn't even using attribute energy at all.
It was relying purely on physical strength to do this!
This was way too outrageous!
"Chi-chi!"
Aipom screamed, its voice already trembling.
It never could have imagined that such a slender, elegant, big-sister-type Lopunny could possess such brutally violent power!
The distance between the two was being pulled closer and closer, little by little.
Aipom shut its eyes, sinking into despair.
With one hand, Lopunny grabbed Aipom by the tail and dragged it right in front of herself.
Then she raised her other hand high, formed a blade-hand, and slammed it down hard onto the back of Aipom's neck.
Thud!
After that dull impact—
Aipom immediately lost the ability to battle and fainted.
The entire venue suddenly fell silent.
Huh?
The battle ended just like that?
No one expected such a reversal.
At first, it looked like Aipom had the upper hand.
But in an instant, the situation flipped.
And Lopunny had ended it in a shockingly forceful way.
For a moment, the audience didn't even know what to say.
"Clap, clap, clap!!!"
In the quiet venue, scattered applause rang out.
Following the sound, people looked over—
It turned out President Sun, Teacher Moo Inoshishe, and Miyazato Aisa in the VIP seats were applauding and cheering for Himeko.
The next second, once the rest of the crowd snapped back to their senses—
A tsunami of applause surged in like a tide.
Even if the process and ending of this battle felt unexpected—
That didn't change the fact that it had been a superb, exciting fight.
Especially Lopunny's power-packed fighting style—
It left everyone with an intense impression.
"A very interesting battle. This Lopunny's strength talent is extremely powerful."
Miyazato Aisa nodded as she evaluated it, clearly quite satisfied with Lopunny's performance just now.
Even though she didn't get to see the Charmeleon she'd been longing for—
This Shiny Lopunny truly gave her plenty of surprises.
Miyazato Aisa lowered her head and, without hesitation, gave Himeko a B-rank rating in the evaluation form next to her name.
Just from a single battle.
Just from a single Pokémon revealing one area of talent and potential.
Himeko had already earned the rating of an outstanding graduate.
The evaluators sitting in the row behind Miyazato Aisa hesitated briefly—
Then chose to give the same B-rank evaluation.
To be fair—
Just the strength this Shiny Lopunny displayed was already enough to prove how well her Trainer had developed her.
Her talent had been pushed and refined to a very high degree.
That kind of violent-aesthetics combat style—
It made people's blood boil with excitement.
"As expected of Himeko-san! You're amazing!"
After returning the fainted Aipom into its Poké Ball,
the opponent's remaining two Pokémon—
were both starter-level Pokémon.
He'd pulled them in at the last minute just to make up the numbers for this Pokémon Tournament,
and he hadn't trained them for long.
In that situation, they naturally couldn't withstand Lopunny's attacks any better.
But in these next two battles,
Lopunny didn't use the same rough, brutal method as in the first match.
She became light and swift—like a gust of wind sweeping across the field.
In an instant, she closed the distance to the opposing Pokémon.
She didn't even use any moves.
Just a simple straight punch—
and she easily finished them off.
"So weird! That speed had to be Quick Attack, right?!"
"Probably! That kind of swift speed can only be that!"
"I don't think so—there was no energy fluctuation, and none of the signs of using energy!"
"Yeah! It looks so strange!"
"…"
In the VIP seats,
the evaluators whispered among themselves, discussing those last two battles.
Lopunny's speed in closing the gap was incredibly fast—
close to the speed of using Quick Attack.
But—
there wasn't any energy fluctuation on Lopunny's body, nor any signs of energy being used at all.
That left the evaluators unable to figure out what was going on.
"It wasn't Quick Attack."
"That was her pure, innate speed."
"From the beginning of this match until the very end,"
"she never used a single move."
"She won entirely with her own strength and speed."
Miyazato Aisa's voice suddenly rang out.
The evaluators' hearts jolted hard.
(End of Chapter)
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