Once the first "Father" left his lips, saying it again didn't feel nearly as difficult or embarrassing.
Fuyuki looked at Entei and said: "Father, let's go home!"
Entei's voice trembled ever so slightly.
"Okay."
One word. Brief and simple, perfectly in character for this majestic, quietly devoted Pokemon.
But the quiver at the end betrayed just how overwhelmed it truly felt.
Entei picked up the pace. Fuyuki waved at Butterfree: "See you later, Butterfree!"
"Free~eh..."
Butterfree could only watch as the peculiar father-son duo vanished from sight.
...
After that, Cubone stayed at its mother's resting place.
Fuyuki visited the burial ground often, always bringing plenty of food for Cubone.
Time slowly passed.
Cubone seemed to gradually emerge from the grief of losing its mother.
One ordinary day, Cubone came down from the burial ground to the cave to find Fuyuki. It told him it was leaving.
The news caught Fuyuki completely off guard.
"Did you meet a human trainer?" he asked hurriedly.
Cubone looked confused but shook its head: "Cu-bone!"
It wasn't because of any trainer.
It was because its mother had once told it that the world was vast and wide. So it wanted to leave this mountain forest and see the world its mother had described.
"I see..." Fuyuki couldn't help but ask: "All by yourself?"
"Cu-bone." Cubone nodded.
"Will you ever come back?" Fuyuki asked.
"Cu..." Even Cubone didn't know the answer to that.
"Alright then."
Though Fuyuki felt a pang of sadness, he was willing to respect Cubone's choice.
"Maybe someday we'll meet again out there! Cubone, go on. Take care of yourself!"
"Cu..."
A shimmer of tears glistened in Cubone's eyes.
It looked at the companion it had grown up playing with, then nodded firmly.
"Cu-bone!"
In the light of the setting sun, Cubone waved goodbye to Fuyuki with all its might.
Fuyuki waved right back.
Cubone looked back at him one last time, then disappeared into the sunset.
The sunset over Mount Tensei was as beautiful as ever, as though it would never change.
With his companion gone, Fuyuki's spirits sank.
Entei didn't know how to comfort him either, so it simply stayed by his side in silence.
Until a voice broke through the somber mood.
"Hmph, looks like Little One isn't too happy being stuck with you!"
Fuyuki turned to see Raikou walking in from outside.
"Raikou, you're back!" Fuyuki's eyes immediately lit up.
Raikou grunted at him, then glanced at Entei before settling down beside Fuyuki with a deliberately casual air.
"Little One, who made you upset?"
"It's nothing really!" Fuyuki, a bit sheepishly, told Raikou about everything that had happened recently.
After listening, Raikou fell silent for a moment, then offered:
"Next time, I'll take you outside to have some fun."
Fuyuki perked up instantly: "To the human world?"
But before Raikou could answer, Entei spoke up in a low voice from the side:
"Absolutely not. Little One is still too young. Your strength alone isn't enough to keep him safe."
Hearing this, Raikou let out a cold snort. This Entei, who did it think it was looking down on?
The two beasts locked eyes, sparks practically flying between them.
Fuyuki quickly stepped in: "Alright, alright, enough! Father!"
Hearing that word, Raikou's eyes went wide. It stared at Fuyuki in disbelief.
"What did you just call it?"
Fuyuki blinked, confused: "Father?"
Raikou's pupils shook.
H-how could this be?
Entei looked at Raikou, its gaze carrying an unmistakable gleam of smugness.
"Then what about me?" Raikou turned to Fuyuki. It had been raising Little One as its own child this whole time too!
Fuyuki: "..."
A look of disapproval flickered in Entei's eyes.
"Don't pressure Little One. Who he calls 'Father' is his own choice," it said.
Raikou refused to back down: "I'm his father!"
"The one who found Little One first was me!" Entei frowned.
Fuyuki: "..."
Setting Entei aside, Raikou, the big cat with the cold exterior and warm heart, really had been good to him too.
It knew Fuyuki liked Moomoo Milk, so every time it came back from outside, it would bring some as a gift.
Whenever it found interesting little trinkets on its travels, it would bring those back for Fuyuki to play with too.
Raikou... no, it wasn't just Entei and Raikou. Marshadow, Ho-Oh, and Suicune had all treated him as their own child and raised him.
In that case, only calling one of them "Father" was bound to upset the others...
Fuyuki steeled himself and separated the two big cats.
"Alright, alright, stop fighting!"
Raikou and Entei both looked down at him.
Fuyuki came up with a brilliant idea and declared: "Entei is First Father, Marshadow is Second Father, and Raikou is Third Father!"
Back when he'd been too small to move on his own, since Entei didn't have hands, it was Marshadow who'd been changing his diapers and everything.
And all these years, Marshadow had stayed in his shadow, watching over him.
It wasn't just Entei and Raikou. Marshadow deserved to be called Father or Mother too.
Though, these Legendary Pokemon didn't seem to have genders, so it didn't really matter what he called them.
Hearing this, Entei and Raikou stopped fighting.
Though Raikou wasn't entirely happy with the arrangement, it knew full well that Fuyuki had been brought back by Entei and that Entei had spent the most time by his side. Marshadow had stayed at Mount Tensei all along, spending more time with Little One than anyone besides Entei.
"Mar-sha..."
Marshadow, quietly observing from the shadows, hadn't expected to be included.
But hearing Fuyuki's words, it froze for a moment as a warm feeling welled up inside.
In that instant, Marshadow realized with a start:
Without even noticing, it too had come to see Fuyuki as a child to care for.
*
Autumn gave way to winter. With Raikou's return, Suicune and Ho-Oh followed not long after, each making their way back to Mount Tensei.
By then the mountains were buried under heavy snow, and the weather was too cold. Fuyuki didn't ask Ho-Oh to take him to the human world. There was no rush, after all.
He and Ho-Oh's family nestled together in their warm home. Ho-Oh's Sacred Fire blazed in the fireplace, Raikou's electricity powered every appliance in the Secret Base, and Suicune's pure water fed the lake that served as their daily water source.
As for Fuyuki's new way of addressing them, whether it was Suicune or Ho-Oh, both felt nothing but warmth in their hearts.
It meant that this human child truly saw them as family.