<b><span style="font-size: 15px">Round Primary</span></b><br/><br/><br/><br/>Eleyna bounded through tee shallow water and hugged Dratini giggling. She triumphantly held the Pokeball above her head.<span style="color: blue">Hahaha! Nothing can stop us! Woo!</span>She splashed around, overjoyed. She didn't even notice Scyther retreat to the beach sand and land heavily, dropping to a knee as the weight of his injuries fell upon him. She was simply too caught up in the moment to consider the cost of it.<br/><br/>She waded up through the water, the waterline falling lower and lower on her belly until she was hip deep, then thigh deep.  It was at that point she realized that once more in the excitement she had managed to lose her undergarment.<span style="color: blue">Oh... uh... hm.</span>She mumbled as she planted her hands on her naked butt and looked around pointlessly for where her underwear had gotten to. She had no choice but to simply laugh and shake her head. No damn point in trying to cover herself at this point!<br/><br/>She trudged across the beach to where she had unceremoniously left the kimono and bent over to begin putting it on, giving dear Lydia and Dratini a full moon. She started putting on the kimono when, from the festival grounds she heard a deep thunder of a Taiko drum.<br/><br/>She looked at Lydia and Dratini and yelled,<span style="color: blue">Hey! There's something going on at the festival! come on!</span>She waved, grabbing her Pokeball belt and returning Scyther before running toward the festival, fumbling with the Kimono to get it on.<br/><br/><br/><br/>***<br/><br/><br/><br/>The sound of the three great taiko drums was enormous, overwhelming. Set upon the stage built the day before, the three drummers struck with their thick wooden rods. they wore nothing but loincloths and broad headbands. The villagers, even moving along in years were corded with muscle, strong in body from working fields and earth.<br/><br/>Below the stage, the bonfire was stoked, more fuel thrown upon it until it roared with ferocity, bright in the night sky. Each villager present, threw more upon the fire to the thunder of the drums. The fierce depictions of legendary Pokemon upon the banners hung from the stage flashed in the turbulent firelight. Such was the sound and fire that it could be heard and seen from upon the very mountains that looked over the village. It could be felt in every muscle and fiber. Sweat poured from the intensity of the drummers as they yelled short syllables. The stalls were moved aside, opening space around the great bonfire as it grew.<br/><br/>Machoke, disappeared down into the village, as did several others. Standing at the fringe of the flame suddenly was Kaiyo, old and hunched, leaning upon her walking stick. Absent from the night until this moment. Her eyes stared into the fire with such a willpower behind them that it was as if her very eyes burned brighter than the flame before her.<br/><br/>From the village came six, the Machoke Makka among them, who carried upon their shoulders a great wooden platform, painted and decorated. Kneeling upon the platform, a girl who was once Aiko. Now her face was painted white red and black in a striking visage, pooling around her a thick white robe embroidered in gold and red flames. Her hands clasped and eyes closed, she knelt in complete stillness, scarcely jostling as she was carried upon the float toward to stage.<br/><br/>As the dancer of Utsumi neared, the villagers ceased stoking the fire, parting to allow the procession to pass among them. The drums rose in tempo as the platform reached the stage and was lowered. Still the dancer did not stir. The drums rose and rose into a feverish thunderstorm of sound that shook the very earth.<br/><br/>Aiko's eyes opened.<br/><br/>Silence.<br/><br/>She rose, slowly, deliberately. The robe rising with her. As she rose the villagers, gathered before the stage fell, kneeling. Aiko stepped forward, her legs bare, painted white. She stepped onto the stage, the robe trailing behind her.<br/><br/>Eleyna arrived and inconspicuously joined the villagers kneeling. She had no idea what was going on, but as everyone was doing the same thing, she determined it wise to do so as well.<br/><br/>Aiko stood at the center of the stage, looking forward into the dark depths of the spirit forest. She waited. Musicians rose from the crowd and stepped up upon the stage's flanks. A shrill flute played a long note. A deep chant called out, its words uttered from a time long past.<br/><br/>A dance began upon the stage, one of precise movement and grace. It was a ritual of a world come and gone in a past age. It was a thing from a time primordial, little more than a memory recanted. It was something wholly strange to Eleyna as she looked on. She was startled as the villagers joined in the chant, creating a dissonance of sound, a strange cacophony. They called out into the darkness of night. Eleyna had no idea what they were saying, and it settled over her that she wasn't supposed to know. The trainers were in an alien place once more. It was why they alone could accompany Aiko into the forest.<br/><br/>They were not of this place. They were witnesses, and audience to this ritual out of time, nothing more. Eleyna rose from the rear of their rank and stepped away. For some reason she felt it was her place, away from them, apart.<br/><br/>She was startled as she realized Growlithe was suddenly standing beside. She looked down at the Pokemon. He had his eyes transfixed upon Aiko in her dance. Somehow, Eleyna knew that he understood what was happening before her as she could not. The sound, the movement, it was a message, a primal song of power and humility.<br/><br/>Eleyna's eyes rose, and by no direction of her own. She was compelled to look up, her gaze drawn by some unknown force. Her eyes widened as she beheld the thousand faces looking down at them from the treetops. Her lips parted as she recognized the Pokemon among the gnarled branches, floating in the air. Her mind knew them as Ghost type, psychic, dark - all the denizens of the spirit forest gathered to watch, beckoned from the deep.<br/><br/>The dance rose and fell, the chant rising as the drums had before them. Eleyna could feel her heart rising in tempo with them. She could feel them like a wave, emanating. All she could do was watch. Aiko moved, swayed, twirled, and as the sound reached its climax she raised her arms into the air and in a single movement cast off the white robe of fire, throwing it to wood beneath her feet. She wore nothing, naked, her body painted white and written upon her skin in red, ancient prayers and chants.<br/><br/>And she fell, prostrating herself before the great Torii, the spirit gateway into the dark forest. The villagers bowed deeply, their heads upon the earth. Silence fell upon the village.<br/><br/>Eleyna stood at the outskirts watching. There was a stillness that settled over the scene that made her uncomfortable. High above, the Pokemon watched in silence. She felt the hairs on the back of her neck rise.<br/><br/>Like a whisper of wind it came from deep within the twisting forest. Moving without form like the rising of a tide Eleyna couldn't see it but she could feel it coming. They all could. A few of the villagers rose their heads slightly and looked around nervously. It was then that Eleyna realized that this wasn't part of the ritual.<br/><br/>It gathered from within the trees into a great formless darkness that moved out from between the gnarled branches and  trunks. It moved past them as though it were nothing, like it were air passing around them, the woods moving through it. It had no face nor arms, it was a formless darkness before them towering. Two great red eyes looked down and Eleyna's heart felt as though it stopped. She stared in complete shock, no alcohol holding sway now. She was terrified as she stared up at the unreal.<br/><br/>She stared at a God.<br/><br/>The villagers looked up and began screaming, retreating from the the woods in fear. Aiko, the Dancer of Utsumi dared look and her demeanor faltered. She gasped and retreated, pushing herself across the stage as she shrank away from the thing emerging from the spirit forest. It moved forward until it stood before the Torii, and halted, looking down upon them.<br/><br/>Kaiyo struggled to get up upon the stage. Brollem saw her and ran to her helping her up. The old women walked forward as the others fell back. Old, hunched, she looked up at the great spirit, and it looked down at her. Aiko retreated behind her grandmother.<br/><br/>The old woman stared up at the formless thing and placed her palms together before her, raising her gnarled fingers she bowed.<br/><br/><span style="color: purple">"Oh nameless god, I bow before you. We humble ourselves in your presence and ask you bear us no ill will."</span><br/><br/><i><span style="font-size: 12px">Wretched little creatures...</span></i><br/><br/>Its voice make the earth tremble beneath Eleyna's feet. She recalled with sudden terrifying clarity what had happened in Saisho.<br/><br/><i><span style="font-size: 12px">Your time has ended. Soon you shall suffer for what you have taken. The light of the Borealis shall never again cover these lands. For your crime the Burning Star shall cross the sky. The Great Wind shall rise once more, and the Shattering Earth will shake your kingdom to ruin. Your time has ended.</span></i><br/><br/><span style="color: purple">"Oh nameless god, we beg your forgiveness. We are but few, drawing from the land and returning to it as was it in the time of our ancestors when Pokemon and Human lived in harmony. We seek nothing that is yours, and shall raise a shrine in this place and lay an offering of our humility."</span><br/><br/><i><span style="font-size: 12px">Your time has ended. Go back to where you came from, wretched creature. We cannot stop what has begun. Go back to where you came from.</span></i><br/><br/>With its last utterance, it retreated back into the spirit forest, disappearing among the trees. One by one the Pokemon who watched them disappeared as well, leaving the villagers once more alone. There was silence among them. They all looked between one another, confused, frightened, not knowing what it was that they had witnessed. Kaiyo stood on the stage, unmoving, staring into the forest.<br/><br/>Eleyna sought the trainers, she looked for her friends. She was shaken, she was scared. Like the villagers she didn't understand what had just happened.<div class="messageTextEndMarker"> </div>