Chapter 69: Distribution of the Inheritance

There's a ghost! Ahhh!!

Ash was still screaming and fleeing, running back and forth on the second floor of the Pokémon Tower, quickly putting a considerable distance between himself and the chaser.

Damn it!
How come even the stairs to the first floor were nowhere to be found?

Cubone, whom Ash had casually tucked under his arm like a scroll, noticed that he was getting further and further away from the stairs to the third floor. With a sudden struggle, it used a burst of strength to break free from Ash's grip. Its petite figure executed a neat front flip in the air, landing firmly on the ground as it aimed its large bone club directly at Ash once again.

"Cubone!"

Cubone bounced up from the ground, leaping forward right as Ash's right leg was raised in mid-run, and swung downwards once more.

*I'm jumping up to smash your kneecap!*

"Clang!"

A metallic explosion rang out, followed abruptly by the strange, unexpected twang of a coil spring.

"Boing~!"

Ash's thigh once again shot forward uncontrollably like a catapult, kicking the airborne Cubone flying. The little Pokémon soared backward several meters, crashing hard against a large gravestone before finally coming to a halt.

"Cubone..."

This unexpected strike successfully calmed Ash down. He bent over and rubbed his knee.
Why did his leg automatically kick out every time someone hit his knee?
Was it rheumatism?

Realizing what had happened, he hurried forward and scooped the incapacitated Cubone into his arms. As he recalled the encounter from half a minute ago, he finally arrived at a bold conclusion.

"That Gary I ran into... seems to be alive and kicking?"

When he had touched Brother Red earlier, his palm had passed straight through, but this Gary was someone he could physically touch.
At that thought, he abruptly slapped his forehead:
"Wait, could it be he's not dead?!"

Right! Buying the farm had just been a one-sided delusion shared by himself and Leaf. Since Gary also possessed a supreme deity comparable to Brother Red, how could he possibly kick the bucket so easily?!

A comforting sense of having recovered a dear friend suddenly welled up in his heart.
Yet, on the flip side, a trace of slight regret also crept in.

"Not dead yet? Well, that's a bit of a pity..."

Regardless, he needed to turn around and head back now.
Whether Gary was human or ghost was one thing, but Brother Red's soul was still lingering upstairs...
Besides, what was he even running for? With Gengar holding that absurd paper fan, even if Gary really were a ghost, he'd get cleansed alongside everything else...

...

At the staircase leading to the third floor of the Pokémon Tower, a touch of sacred golden light was still shimmering, rising straight up from the spiky-headed boy's head all the way to the ceiling above.

As for the semi-transparent phantom of the slightly older spiky-haired young man who had previously occupied that golden light, he was nowhere to be seen—presumably having already ascended to the celestial realm of the upper floor.

Ash sneaked stealthily up behind Gengar, grabbing the Pokémon's lower back with both hands.
Not gonna to say, it felt soft and squishy, bouncing just like jelly.

"Gen-gen?"

"Don't speak, just kiss me."

Taking advantage of Gengar being momentarily dazed, Ash casually swiped the paper fan from its hand. Instantly, a bizarre sensation of enlightenment surged from his palm into his brain, making him want to abandon everything right there, lie down, and sleep his life away like a Magikarp.

It was a feeling of sage-like serenity, as if his very soul had been thoroughly purified.

He shivered involuntarily, quickly refocusing his gaze and clearing his mind to return to his senses, muttering to himself that this paper fan truly possessed something peculiar.

However, glancing at Gary—who was still standing nearby with his head tilted upward, staring blankly at the golden light above—Ash suddenly wore a sly grin and crept forward stealthily.

1 meter.

Suddenly, he pounced forward like an Incineroar, raised the paper fan, and delivered a refreshing smack right onto Gary's head.

"Smack!"

A crisp sound echoed, and it was super effective.
A critical hit straight to the pate!

Ash had been dying to pull this stunt for a long time!

The heavy blow caused Gary to shudder violently, jolting him completely awake. He clutched his head and looked at Ash with a bewildered expression.

"Huh, Ash... wait, what just happened to me?"

Ash simply waved his hand, maintaining the demeanor of an accomplished master who concealed his achievements.
"You were possessed by a ghost just now. This is my evil-warding paper fan; I just exorcised the evil for you. No need to thank me."

"A ghost...?"

Gary scratched his head. In his memory, he seemed to have indeed been ambushed and face-hugged by a Gengar, and then Big Brother Blue seemed to have...
Achieved Buddhahood?!

He snapped back to his senses, breaking out in a cold sweat as he panicked and shouted in his mind:
"Hey, hey, hey, Big Brother Blue, you still there?"

After a long while, there was no reply.

"It's over, it's really over. Big Brother Blue actually got cleansed?!"

He was dumbfounded.
He never could have imagined that the seemingly invincible Big Brother Blue would get ambushed like this?
What?!
He got completely wiped out of existence in a shithole like this?!
Was it because of that Gengar?!

Gary's gaze suddenly turned solemn and sharp, fixing squarely on the large purple fatty standing behind Ash.

"Wait a second, wait a second, let me ask you something first!"

Ash quickly stepped between the person and the ghost, changing the subject:
"You were up there just now, did you see a shadow of my Brother Red?"

Hearing this, Gary froze slightly and instinctively blurted out:
"Did Sister-in-law Red get cleansed too?"

Originally, he had been feeling quite aggrieved, but upon hearing this news, for some reason, peace suddenly returned to his heart. Since everyone's grandpas had been cleansed, it meant essentially nobody's grandpa was cleansed.

"As for whether I saw anything... I think I did spot a shadow just now..."

He remembered Big Brother Blue saying that the two of them, as well as Leaf and her counterpart, shared over 90% facial similarity, differing only in age.
Yet the shadow he had just seen looked vastly different from Ash, didn't it?
Aside from the similar red-and-white baseball caps perched atop their heads, there were practically zero points of resemblance.

The two exchanged glances and quickly arrived at a hypothesis: those two big shots probably hadn't been fully cleansed yet and were still upstairs chatting.

Dropping their past animosity, the two of them tacitly headed toward the third floor of the Pokémon Tower.

On the stairs, Gary suddenly asked:
"By the way, Ash, if Sister-in-law Red really got cleansed, wouldn't you be able to inherit her estate?"

Hearing this, Ash felt as though he had just swallowed a Gigantamax Farfetch'd, thinking to himself that his little scheme from just a moment ago hadn't been seen through, had it?

No!
This guy must be testing him!

Ash's face flushed, and he rebuked with righteous indignation:
"Hmph, I really misjudged you. The grass on their graves hasn't even started growing yet, and you're already thinking about inheriting their estate? It makes me sick."

Gary was instantly overwhelmed by Ash's burst of righteousness and scratched his head sheepishly.
"Hehe, actually, I only have my eyes on Big Brother Blue's utility bird; it's just so convenient, the rest I don't really care about. Of course, if I really can inherit it, I suppose I could hold back tears and loot their corpse..."

Ash immediately sneered:
"Don't care? You look like you're eyeing everything! That kind of moral character simply won't do!"

Though he was also secretly drooling over that utility bird himself, he already had his own utility bird. As long as he wasn't foolish enough to release Pidgeotto into the wild, why worry that it wouldn't reach those heights in the future?

Gary quickly argued back:
"Well, I'm definitely going to release them in the future to pay tribute to Big Brother Blue's spirit in heaven!!"
"I'll release mine the moment we reach the Pokémon Center."
"I'll release mine the second we exit the Pokémon Tower."
"Don't egg me on, I'm easily provoked."
"Scared? Is that all you've got? Bet you I'll release the utility bird right now?"
"Damn it! Then I'll throw Pidgeotto's Poké Ball away too!"

Amidst their bickering, the two of them had somehow successfully divided the inheritance of Red and Blue...?

...

On the third floor of the Pokémon Tower.

Red was still standing in place, dazed.
Perhaps because they weren't normal souls to begin with, let alone humans of this world, the exorcism fan had knocked him out of Ash's body, yet left nowhere to store him.

He had returned to the exact same soul state he was in on his very first day arriving in this world.

"Whoosh..."

Soon, another shadow filtered up through the floorboards, drifting right up in front of Red.

"..."
"..."

Two supreme powerhouses from different worlds, coming face-to-face in their true forms for the very first time, resulted in precisely this sort of scene.

Two greenish phantoms simply stared at each other, the atmosphere plunging into awkwardness...

After a long moment, both spoke up simultaneously in unison:
"Hehe, you got cleansed too?"
"Hehe, you got cleansed too?"

Red: "..."
Blue: "..."

The atmosphere plunged back into awkwardness once more...