The sword psychics were declining, and it was high time that they finally admitted it. Ever since the death of their last psychic sovereign over a hundred and fifty years ago, the entire Jie School had been undergoing a slow but irreversible slide into the abyss.

Oh, the league still recognized them as one of the major schools of practice within the psychic-type category, but Kong Hou knew it was all political bullshit. In a region comprised of hundreds of millions of people, could you really call a group with less than five hundred members a major one? Kong Hou certainly didn't think so.

It's all about face, a voice said from out of nowhere. Kong Hou wasn't even fazed, ignoring the voice. I'm glad Agatha has kept the reputation of the school from going to shit.

A fat lot of good that's doing for the school, Kong Hou mumbled internally. There's nothing of substance left in the school. We don't even have any ace trainers left!

The school elders had their heads quite literally buried in the clouds, high up on the mountain-top temple where they lived, and refused to acknowledge that their school was basically dead. When the strongest members of your school were only in the External, could you really call it a major power?

When Kong Hou had been chosen and told that he had 'immortal fate,' and was taken up to live at the prestigious Jie Temple, he was overjoyed. A commoner like him, getting the chance to train with the greatest masters of swordsmanship and become a famed sword psychic? It was like a dream come true.

As it turned out, it really was just a dream.

Kong Hou had been scammed.

There was no one left on the mountain who actually knew the true sword-controlling techniques passed down by Sovereign Yu, and the people who remained set up a pyramid scheme to recruit new servants - cough - disciples.

It hadn't even taken Kong Hou a week to realize that everyone in the Jie School had a proverbial and possibly literal sword up their ass, and he hightailed it out of there the second he got the chance.

At least, that had been his plan. 'Immortal fate' was a lifetime deal apparently, and the elders who saw him trying to run away beat his ass and returned him to the temple.

Kong Hou spent the next five years of his life doing chores like cleaning the temple, cooking, ironing clothes, and all manner of domestic housework for the elders. They haven't even reached Inherited! What kind of elders are they?

Everything changed abruptly when Kong Hou stepped on a loose floorboard and cracked it, causing him to fall through into a secret room hidden beneath the temple.

Kong Hou screamed his head off. He had landed smack on top of some dead person's skeleton, causing the ancient bones to fracture and turn into dust.

However, that wasn't the part that scared him. It was the fact that the sword clenched in the skeleton's hand was alive.

Apparently, the honedge had been in some kind of induced hibernation, and Kong Hou's accidental arrival woke it up. He didn't even have time to do anything more than scream before the living sword lashed its sash around Kong Hou's arm, forming an irreversible parasitic and starter bond.

That still wasn't the worst part yet though.

'Is it really the worst part though?' A light voice chimed in, breaking Kong Hou out of his reminiscing. 'I'd argue that this is the best part. After all, not many people get to learn directly from a sovereign, you know?'

'I hate poetry.' Kong Hou bit out mentally.

Verbally, he tried to say the same thing, but what came out was: "Wind and cloud flow across the Forbidden Sea, this one didst not profess his love to poetry!"

It even rhymed. Kong Hou felt faint just thinking about it. 'How am I going to interact with people in public?'

'If it helps, just think of everyone else as unenlightened, stupid beings,' the same voice suggested helpfully. 'It is a rare few who get to learn the sage truths embedded with rhyme and poem.'

Gee, thanks.

'You're very welcome, disciple of mine.'

Somehow, the final sovereign of the Jie School before its decline - Sovereign Yu - had managed to defy death and became a honedge after his passing. The skeleton which Kong Hou had landed on was Sovereign Yu's skeleton, and the honedge which had parasitized and bonded with him was Sovereign Yu himself, reincarnated and transformed into a pokemon.

Kong Hou suspected that General Agatha may have played a role in this strange situation, given that she was a ghost type sovereign and one of Yu's close friends.

This entire situation could be interpreted as a blessing in disguise, if only Sovereign Yu didn't act like a complete nutcase. He completely and categorically refused to let Kong Hou talk normally, instead forcing him to talk in poem and rhyme.

'We come from a long line of poetic swordsmen,' Yu intoned solemnly. 'It is tradition that the direct disciples of my lineage speak in poem, and you will be no different.'

'Why don't you use poem and rhyme when talking to me then?"

'You're my disciple, this is an exception.'

'Whatever. I give up.'

Kong Hou raised his hand over to call a waitress, cringing at what inevitably had to happen.

"Heaven containeth yellow fruits, on earth resideth pink fruits, wouldst it be possible to obtaineth a banana split?" His face convulsed with every word.

"Of course sir," the waitress said politely, probably thinking he was a complete mental case. "Would you like a large or medium? We can add sweetener as well if you want."

"Cries of eagles resound through nations, swordsmen wield three foot blades," Kong Hou replied. "Fetch me a large, and make it snappy, for you won't want to see me unhappy."

The waitress scribbled something down on her notepad quickly and hurried off to take orders from other tables, leaving Kong Hou sitting alone, wallowing in his misery.

'This is so fucked.'

'You're supposed to say profound. We are speaking profound truths.'

Kong Hou closed his eyes and massaged his temples, waiting for his banana split.

The waitress, apparently already very used to dealing with eccentric characters like him, whipped up a banana split quickly and placed it next to Kong Hou, and he thanked her silently by nodding.

'Give her a verbal thanks,' Sovereign Yu urged him. 'The men of my lineage must be virtuous and show grace.'

Fuck you.

Kong Hou started digging into his banana split, enjoying the rich and creamy flavor, before thinking back to the competition he had just fought in.

How come we lost so easily, old man? I thought you were supposed to be some mighty sovereign, untouched by the four winds and seasons or whatever.

'Well, Sovereign Yu said diplomatically, 'I'm being sealed by seventy two chains formed from ghost aura right now. Otherwise, my awesome power would explode the sword body I'm residing within, and then my spirit would scatter, and my aura would implode.'

Kong Hou didn't need his master to state the obvious as to what would have happened if that was the case.

'Boom,' his master agreed. 'My death would likely kill you as well, given that we're bonded so closely now.'

This is sexual harassment.

'It's a master-disciple bonding,' Sovereign Yu dismissed. 'In ancient times, you would need to acknowledge your master as a father, and conduct a tea worship ceremony to beg him to take you in. Forming a little starter bond is nothing compared to that.'

How did you end up in this state anyways, master? Kong Hou asked. I've been pestering you for weeks to tell me, but you always kept saying that we should wait for a better time. Can't you just tell me?

His master prepared to say something, but he was interrupted by the smooth voice of Kong Hou's waitress. "Would you like to pay with credit?"

"Debtors and creditors don't fit my style," Kong Hou was forced to reply. "I'll pay in cash, otherwise this establishment I shall defile!"

Kong Hou's face convulsed again from the cringe he felt. He stuck his hand into his pocket and pulled out a few notes, handing them to the waitress.

"Keep the change, for I am merciful, and don't forget to spend it on a range of goods!"

With that, Kong Hou made his retreat out of the restaurant quickly.

Where are we going now you old fogey?

'I thought you were the one charting the course of this journey, disciple.'

What? You said you would guide me!

'I said nothing of the sort. A journey is a sacred thing. You must walk your own path.'

Hearing that, Kong Hou couldn't be bothered to keep pestering Sovereign Yu anymore.

He just closed his eyes and randomly pointed to a location on the name.

Azalea, Johto.

That's where I'll be heading next, Kong Hou decided. Far away from Celadon, where I won't be laughed out of the room for my babbling poetry.

He booked a ticket for the Saffron-Goldenrod Bullet Line using his phone, and then made his way to a short range teleportation courier to get himself teleported to Saffron.

The price of inter-region teleportation was quite massive - and so was the price for inter-city teleportation to be honest, but Kong Hou had fleeced the elders at the Jie School before he ran away, so he had a little money to spend. Plus, the distance between Celadon and Saffron wasn't that great anyway. Kong Hou didn't want to trek through miles and miles of forest and suffer the predation of hungry pokemon.

You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.

'You're a loser.'

Shut up old man! Who's the one stuck to my arm?

'When will you start respecting my status as your master?'

When you actually start teaching me something useful, Kong Hou retorted mentally. So far, you've shown me how to form sword aura, and that's basically it. You didn't teach me anything at all!

'Go through Route 7,' Sovereign Yu said suddenly. 'I'm getting a premonition that something interesting will happen. Tell you what - I'll even throw in some knowledge. How's that?'

Kong Hou blinked. You really mean it old man?

'Yeah,' Sovereign Yu replied casually. 'Go pack and buy a tent or something. I'll tell you a story along the way.'

This isn't about another one of your ridiculous romance attempts, is it? Kong Hou asked suspiciously. I've heard that dumb story about how you tried to woo Sovereign Agatha like a hundred times now. I swear, if it's that story again-

'Have some faith in me, won't you?'

Kong Hou sighed, and then canceled the teleport request for the courier, and he started walking towards the direction Eastern Gate. There went all his money. He'd blown most of it on an expensive teleport, and because of his master, he had to cancel it. That money wouldn't be getting refunded either.

This sucks. I can't do sword-kinesis until I reach the inherited, and I won't be able to levitate myself like a regular psychic even when I do reach inherited. Why the fuck is our aura type involved so heavily with swords anyways? I can't even use telekinesis on regular objects!

Sovereign Yu's voice was quite awkward. To be honest, I don't know why that's the case either. I'm sure our school founder had a reason…'

'Well, that's besides the point,' Sovereign Yu changed the subject. 'Let me tell you about Agatha.'

Here we go again.

'No no no. I promise it'll be interesting,' Sovereign Yu hastily explained. 'Have you ever heard of the Cult of Distortion before?'

The what now?

'Aha! This should be interesting for you then.'

'I'm going to tell you about my greatest, most dangerous adventure!' Sovereign Yu's voice was quite excited. 'This was also the adventure which ultimately ended up killing me by the way, but we shouldn't focus on that.'

'Where to begin?'

Sovereign Yu paused for a moment to recollect his memories.

'Let me give you some context first. You're aware of Indigo's status as an Empire right?'

Yeah, Kong Hou thought to him. Kanto joined with Johto to form a super region, and then we started annexing the smaller regions around us like Orange and Sevii. They didn't cover it much in school though.

'I didn't expect them to, given how brutal it was,' Sovereign Yu explained. 'Agatha is very much a militarist, and to grow the strength of her gengar further, she needed to have it consume more souls. What better way to kill two stones - satisfying the demands of the great clans to conquer more territory, and her own need for living souls - was there, than to directly attack the Orange Islands?'

'In that thirty-year war alone, Agatha and her gengar easily assimilated millions of souls. She sank three entire populated islands and had her titled gengar devour everything on it, propelling its strength to a whole new level. Her previous conquest of Sevii already greatly invigorated herself and her gengar, and the conquest of Orange brought her another step further. This is also the point at which Hoenn started calling for Agatha to be stopped, but that's a story for another time.'

'My point,' Sovereign Yu said, 'is that Agatha is a nutcase. And she isn't satisfied with just becoming a peak sovereign. Her goal is to reach beyond the limit of a sovereign, to go further beyond where no one has ever gone before, and to achieve the fifth realm that exists only in rumor and myth and legend. However, she never reached it as far as I'm aware, at least during my lifetime. Although her strength grew with each battle, she didn't experience a qualitative change.'

Kong Hou's master sounded melancholic. Do you think she'll ever get there?

'It depends,' Sovereign Yu said eventually after thinking a bit. 'You don't know how high the heavens are, nor how hard it is to become a sovereign, let alone a peak one. The rare few trainers who make it to sovereign in the first place are stuck at the early stage, with only a scant few being able to progress their aura further. Take me for example - I never made it past middle-stage sovereign. Agatha's status as a peak sovereign is already rarely seen in history. When - if - she passes away, she'll go down as a historic great in the annals of history.'

'You're at the initiate stage right now, so you'll only understand what I'm talking about when you reach the External,' Sovereign Yu told Kong Hou. 'It's such an earth-shattering difference that you'll never be able to look at your old self the same. The difference between that and the next realm - the realm of inheritance - is also massive, and the chasm between that and sovereign is even greater than that. Agatha's ambition to go further and reach the fifth realm is destined to be essentially impossible, and I'm not aware of anyone in history who actually reached this mythical fifth realm. Perhaps it really is just a dream.'

'But…'

But what? You can't just leave me hanging! Kong Hou whined.

'Go buy your camping supplies.' Kong Hou could hear the smirk in Sovereign Yu's voice. I'm not continuing the story until you're at the Eastern Gate for Route 7.

Shit.

Kong Hou didn't have much money left, so he was forced to buy the cheapest possible tent he could get his hands on. It featured no advanced technology of any kind, and was just a simple roll of cloth that you could set up with some tent sticks and nails.

With the last bit of money he had, Kong Hou purchased some rations and a few repels, and started marching towards the Eastern Gate leading to Route 7.

Can you continue the story now?

'I dunno. Can I?'

Let's not play this game, Kong Hou sighed. Please oh great master, please continue telling me the story, this humble disciple requests your wisdom and sage words.

'That's more like it,' Sovereign Yu said approvingly. 'Okay, where are we again? Right. The adventure that ended up killing me, and Agatha and her attempt to reach the mythical fifth realm.'

Kong Hou started trekking into the forest, and began absentmindedly listening to his master speak. He shoved a bit of beef jerky into his mouth and chewed.

'Believe it or not, these two events are actually related. In her quest to ascend beyond the limit of a sovereign, Agatha decided to try to do something utterly crazy. She thought to herself: since legendaries are deities, and deities live forever - why not attempt to become a legendary herself?'

"Blargh!" Kong Hou spat out the jerky in his mouth. "Shocking, fearless, ruthless! The master of ghosts is crazy, and her ambition never lazy!"

'You should really work on your poetry,' Sovereign Yu noted. 'When you speak aloud, it sounds quite horrible even to me.'

What the fuck? Sovereign Agatha tried to become a legendary? Like, a fucking deity? Kong Hou was so shocked his mouth fell open.

'That is indeed what she tried to do,' Sovereign Yu confirmed. 'However, she didn't know the first thing about how to go about becoming a legendary. For that matter, was it even possible? Are legendaries born, or made? When did the legendaries come into existence? What separates a major legendary from a minor legendary? Who is the Original Being? These are all questions Agatha started asking about, and trying to figure out.'

'I'll spare you the details for now.'

No! Kong Hou wanted to scream. Tell me old man! I wanna know this stuff!

'Too bad,' Sovereign Yu smirked mentally. 'A puny kid like you who hasn't even reached the inherited isn't qualified to hear about stuff like this. I'll omit the details you shouldn't know for now. Let's skip to the fun part. The adventure that killed me.'

'How much do you know about the Distortion World?' Sovereign Yu asked directly. 'Has knowledge of it become commonplace?'

Isn't that like the underworld? Where people who sin in life go to after they die? Kong Hou replied. That's all I know really.

'Bury those misconceptions right now,' Sovereign Yu corrected. 'The distortion world is a very real place. It exists in a different layer of reality than our own, in a place where space and time and concepts themselves are distorted and twisted. Make no mistake though: it's a real place - I should know, given that I've been there.'

Kong Hou's mouth fell open again at what he was hearing. He nearly tripped over a rock while walking due to his surprise, so he called out Bai Qi, his abra, to guard him as he walked.

Is that the adventure that killed you? Going to the distortion realm?

'I didn't go there alone either,' Sovereign Yu said proudly. 'Agatha took me along. We had to travel to the location of the largest anchor point between the distortion world and the material world to penetrate through the spatial layers - Spear Pillar. It's a place in Sinnoh with a bunch of cool looking pointy pillars, but that's besides the point. According to ancient myth, the Spear Pillar is a remnant of an ancient temple where the Original Being once descended into the world. It is also, if you're stupid or brave enough, a place where you can penetrate the veil of reality and enter the distortion world.'

'Our little adventure did not go as planned, at least for me,' Sovereign Yu continued, 'But Agatha profited greatly from her trip and ended up taking another step closer to her goal of reaching the fifth realm. Before I passed away, I had her promise to keep the reputation of the Jie School intact, and to help me get a chance at reincarnation.'

And now you're a honedge, stuck to some random northerner from Kanto, Kong Hou guessed.

'We all play with the hand we're dealt,' Sovereign Yu shrugged. 'I took a risk, and it didn't quite work out.'

Why did you even agree to go along with Sovereign Agatha? Kong Hou asked. You told me yourself that you were barely a middle stage sovereign, and you still had plenty of years left to live - why risk it all on that adventure?

Sovereign Yu flew up in front of Kong Hou, rattling his sword body free from the sheathe hung by Kong Hou's waist and projected his face into being using his psychic powers to distort the air in such a way that it produced a facsimile of a face.

It was quite handsome, Kong Hou noted, with sword-like eyebrows and sharp eyes that… reminded him of swords. Fuck. I'm being infected with this old man's poetry disease.

'Do you want the honest answer, or the nice answer?' Sovereign Yu asked directly.

The honest one.

Sovereign Yu spun his sword body around. 'If we're being honest, Agatha told me she would let me seriously woo her if I came back alive. I had been courting her for almost a century already, and she never took me seriously.'

This time, Kong Hou really spat blood out of his mouth and started choking.

You crazy old bastard, Kong Hou cursed. You went and got yourself killed because you couldn't manage your lower body?

'You wanted honesty,' Sovereign Yu reminded him. 'Swordsmen must never lie to themselves. Whatever we do, we must have a clear heart. I knew what I wanted, and I went for it.'

I think I've heard enough for now, Kong Hou sighed.

The sun was starting to go down, so he pulled out his tent and started to set it up. Bai Qi fiddled a little with his levitating spoons, and Kong Hou pulled out a few rations to munch on.

"Noble beast, adhere to the commands of heaven!" Kong Hou said loudly at his second pokemon. "Wave the spoons of power, seize the meal of the hour!"

Bai Qi was understandably confused at what Kong Hou wanted, but their bond helped him understand the intent of his words, so he started hunting for food. A few minutes later, Bai Qi came back with the carcass of a few pidgey, which Kong Hou started butchering and cleaning immediately, relying on the skills he'd learned while being forced to cook and clean for the elders of the Jie School.

He struck his flint onto a bit of prepared tinder, and watched as it came ablaze, and blew on it to encourage the flames to grow hotter, and transferred the fire onto a bed of logs Bai Qi had cut up with his psychic power. Kong Hou then took the cleaned bodies of the pidgey and pushed a twig through them and hung them over the fire to cook.

Can you keep watch while I eat and sleep, old man?

'Sure. I can do that.'

Kong Hou didn't pay any more mind to his surroundings and started digging in, sharing some of the roast bird when it was done with his second pokemon. Sovereign Yu looked as if he wanted to try to eat some too before remembering that he was a sword now, so he had to settle for regretfully watching his disciple munch on the pidgey.

'Damn. I wish I could still eat.'

And I wish I could speak without needing to talk in rhyme and poem, but we can't all get what we want, can we?

'You're learning, disciple of mine.'

'Fuck you old man.'