- Soul of Steel -

Chapter 22: The Calmed Waves

Author's Note: This is the full intended release of this chapter containing an intense lovemaking scene. Any such scenes like the one later on here will be shown as is, but do serve the purpose of furthering the relationships shown. Thank you for your understanding. 

Chapter 22: The Calmed Waves

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Haru was unable to figure out where he currently was, and the last time he recalled such darkness thick and dense with intimidation was that fateful duel with Eternatus. It was something he often recalled, if only half heartedly as a memory of a 'long gone' era of his yesteryear. Low sounding hums and a thunderous shockwave could be heard in the distance as he stood tall, straight, and in the some shorts. He turns to his left to gaze over a grey blue field as the skies showed only clouds, and a Galar that was far more flattened, and seemingly endless with fields but no large hill. Here, there was no apex view to mentally assert his place: the quiet whistling of wind being his only companion.

Off in the distance, Haru sees some clouds light up in a flash of lightning; his mother told him when he was young it was called 'heat lightning'. 'THOOOOOM' goes off a sound in the distance as a large dust cloud suddenly chases towards where he stood. Just as he turns to run away from the oncoming dust-cloud, he's cornered by the visage of his own mother's homeland. Inside he sees the men attempt to take and tie up his own mother, and constrict the Pokemon she has as fellow friends. He tries to shout for them to stop but doesn't see them once he runs inside. The front door suddenly acts as a gateway to somewhere else, and finds himself in the backyard in a field overlooking some gardens his mom has planted.

Another 'THOOOOM' is heard, causing Haru to look up behind himself. 'Surely her home is right where I was just trying to run to' he figures, but it's gone. A crash of thunder sends a vibration so strong he feels his bones rattling as if the lightning bolt were mere feet away. The house of his mother, that he was near is gone. The ex-Champion can only see himself in a long hallway with a red light at the end. The fields and outdoors were gone, and the man only now found himself within a nebulous location that bore no familiar signage nor gave any hint of its truths. On the other side of the hallway, he spots an exit sign hanging over an open doorway frame.

The hallway stretched outwards unto infinity, with Haru almost 'feeling' the ground give way and stretching onward as if some cosmic entity was taking the very floor he stood on and was mending its length to be far longer. Beneath his feet, the ground felt elastic in nature not unlike children playgrounds. One of his hands goes to his throat and clasped onto it. A moment of clarity: he had no voice. All sound felt 'muted', and as he turned to try to find out some answers he saw a mirror reflection of himself in the walls as if they were marble. They are of himself, only infinitely repeated as if other variations of himself.

The other 'Haru's' that he saw sometimes had brown hair, black hair, some long or short hair, and some with blue, and others with green eyes. Yet they all reacted to the reflected, true, Haru, him, much in the same way he did. It was as if he was in a Fun House attraction that was only confined to the one, seemingly endless hallway that still bore nothing close to an answer for its origin or purpose.

He recalled, if only for a second, that this could be a dream, and tries to mentally fight back against what may be trying to zero in on his position. A few slow, cautious steps forward and an extension of his hand, Haru went to investigate the light.

A laugh is heard from the light: a figure forms within the red lights. Retracting. Refining. Haru gazes upon it in horror as it appears to look just like himself and as such, starts to hear what he would only describe as hundreds of thousands of voices like his own speaking out at the same time.