kintsugi
golden scars | pfp by sun
content warnings: language
{You would do that for them?} asks the dragon, fixing him with blue eyes that have seen eternity. {You, a human, would do that for us?}
“I would. I’m not one of them,” N lies, confidently.
The dragon of truth nods impassively .
For a split second, N wonders if his resolve isn’t enough, if he can will himself to believe that he’s truly inhuman, that he’s finally become the freakish name Ghetsis gave him. For what good is a human without a human heart?
Stark wings flare wide. Crimson energy crackles to life in Reshiram's tail; there’s a horrible whirring sound that only picks up intensity, but it’s not loud enough to drown out Hilda screaming in the background; the winds have picked up, someone else is scrambling up the shattered staircase—
It doesn’t matter any more.
Legendary power fills his veins, reaches down and grabs hold of the wish that’s wrapped its tendrils so firmly around his heart, and time freezes.
Humans and pokémon. Surely humans didn’t mean any slight when they listed pokémon as second. Surely they were equal partners here; surely battling was what was truly what pokémon wanted; surely abuse was individual rather than systemic; surely, surely, surely.
Well. If he’s wrong, his ideal will shatter into dust beneath the will of the dragon. That’s a nice way for the equation to solve out without anyone else being hurt.
When he opens his eyes, he sees two worlds. One for humans, one for pokémon. There isn’t room for both. They tell stories of the others sometimes, but that’s all they are and will ever be—stories. Everyone is happy and no one hurts, because no one knows how things used to be.
Time speeds up again.
Alder’s volcarona shoots a jet of fire towards the pedestal where N stands. Before he can even blink, Reshiram’s wing is in front of him. The Fire Blast curls around them, so hot he can feel the heat on his cheeks, but Reshiram doesn’t even flinch. He hears Alder’s cry of alarm, and when the onslaught ceases and Reshiram’s protective wing lowers, N sees the horror on Alder’s face, as if noticing the pokémon of legends for the first time. Hilda is shouting something to Vaselva, but with one glance at N, both the human and the serperior hesitate.
They hesitate. N does not. He brings his hands down and cleaves the two worlds apart.
When he wakes up, it’s in a place he’s never seen. It’s like someone’s taken a bucket of white paint and thrown it across the landscape—there’s just an endless, endless plain.
Alarmed, N looks down at his hands. Still human. His clothes are immaculate. Is this the afterlife?
“No,” says a calm voice behind him, and N whirls around to see—
A mirror image of himself, actually. He blinks. It’s disconcerting, actually; he’d spent so much time getting used to the human face in the mirror that the minute differences when he’s looking at the unmirrored version scream out at him, like shadows going the wrong way on a doctored picture.
“Who are you?”
“A projection,” says the second N.
“Of what?”
“In the moment before you split the worlds apart, you hesitated. You were unsure of yourself.” The projectioN walks calmly toward him, but there’s something weird about the gait, as if the body’s feet don’t actually make contact with the ground. “Your will wavered. You called me forth from the Light Stone to make a wish, to solve the equation that would fix the world, and yet. In the last moment, you changed your solution. So I ask you again, Hero of Truth. What is the truth that you seek?”
“I—”
“I’ve changed my mind.” A third voice cuts him off, and both N and the projectioN look over to see a human in khaki pants and a white walking towards them, silver eyes serene and yet portending a storm.
“And just who are you supposed to be?” N asks.
“I’m you, from two years in the future,” says the human, chuckling a little. “I guess you can call me N2.”
And then, the more pressing question: “What do you mean you’ve changed your mind?” As disturbing as it is to see more and more imitations of himself appearing in this strange, strange plain, it’s even more perturbing to hear his voice, casually recanting on his life’s work.
“I’ve changed my mind,” N2 repeats. The rest of him looks the same; he’s still staring wistfully off into the distance, a few inches taller. Looks like N won’t cut his hair for two more years. “A lot of people felt really bad about what we had to say back when we took over the Pokémon League, you know.”
“They… yes?” That was sort of the point.
“Yes, they were asking themselves all sorts of questions. How do I know if my pokémon really trust me? Even if I’m good to my pokémon, what about all of the others who are not? Does one individual operating morally under an oppressive system somehow wipe out the immorality of the entire system? Are we the baddies??” N2 spreads his hands dramatically through the air, pretty much for no reason. “And I realized, well. Those are hard questions.”
N isn’t exactly sure where this is going.
“So I said, oops, I changed my mind. I told everyone it was a big fake news coverup by Ghetsis and that it was all no big deal. Ignore the questions, buy my merch, don't forget to ring that bell and subscribe! Oh, and I gave Reshiram to a random trainer.”
“You did what—!?” the projection hisses, at the same time as N manages to say, “You gave—??”
N2 shrugs. “Kid said he needed it for his pokédex.”
“You’re just another mareep, then, pulling the wool over your eyes so you can sleep comfortably at night,” says a muffled voice.
Both N and N2 turn to look at the source of the voice who is, inevitably, a fourth N. This one is wearing a Team Plasma bandana around his neck and the bottom half of the face, so that only his glittering eyes peek through. Ah. That would explain the muffling.
“I’m Revolutionary N,” he says through the bandana, and that’s when N notices the bruises on his face and how his clothes are ragged, dirty, darkened, like his broken soul. The rip in his pants definitely looks like it came that way when he bought it. “Or Leftist N, but, uh, that doesn’t match the naming scheme as well.”
“Who?”
“You can call me RevolutioNary,” he says confidently. And then, as if noticing how all three sets of (his) eyes are on him, RevolutioNary adds, “Well I’m sorry for my appearance. I was busy firebombing a pokéball factory and beating up humans who refused to release their pokémon willingly.”
“You beat them up?” N tries to make his voice not get progressively higher and higher pitched, but it’s a losing battle. “Can we even do that?”
“No, I canonically have less muscle mass than a piece of spaghetti,” N2 adds unhelpfully.
RevolutioNary pulls the bandana away from his face, so everyone can see his tortured, broken lips. One of them has been split open, probably from a punch. From a machamp. “I couldn’t make pokémon fight on my behalf. There was no other option. So I did it myself.” There’s a grim finality in those words, a resolute dancing around the definition of ‘it’. An edge to his voice that just doesn’t fit. "I had to fight. I had to get stronger."
“He’s right. We had to become stronger. For my friends!”
“Who are you?” N says, at the same time as N2.
“Shonen N! Baka!” shouts a fourth (fifth?) voice. “And I’m going to achieve my dream of liberating pokémon worldwide and toppling an entire social order without regard for consequence. Believe it!”
“Who the fuck invited him?? Oh, sorry. I didn’t mean to make you feel bad. Here, let me heal your pokémon. I’m Tsundere N.”
“You can ignore TsuNdere,” N2 chimes in quickly. “We’re pretty much the same person.”
“Yeah, well, I won’t ignore you,” RevolutioNary says, walking over and punching N2 in the face without a second thought. “Ignoring the problem is what got us here in the first place.” He stands over N2, hands curled into crescent-fists, eyebrows pointed into a thunderous V (which is 2/3 of an N). “Ignoring the problem gave us Ghetsis, and the corrupt League! Your centrist bullshit is what lets the humans live blissfully unaware of the harm they’re causing pokémon, because they’re complicit in a system that we need to tear down!”
N2 rubs his jawline thoughtfully. A bruise is already beginning to form. “You know what? I forgive you for punching me. Because not all N’s would punch me. And because they aren’t cruel, you can’t be cruel either, and if you can’t be cruel, then I can’t be in pain.”
He’s right. The bruise disappears in a puff of logic.
“Could we all get nametags?” ShoNen shouts, which seems to be his only volume. “This is getting hard.”
“I’ll show you something that’s getting hard.”
“What the fuck—?”
“I’m Romantic N,” he says in a low, rich baritone. His long fingers tap sensually on his pants. His cheekbones are impossibly sharp. His silvery orbs have infinite depths like an infinity mirror. The weird puzzle around his neck means he is a man of high intelligence quotient. He probably watches smart shows, like Richard and Mortimer, because he is dreamy and smart and feels a little alienated from society, just like you. “I like liberating pokémon, long walks on the beach, and riding on Ferris Wheels, but I’ll show you something else to ride on.”
“What the FUCK—”
“And by that I do mean a second Ferris wheel,” RomaNtic amended quickly. “Because that is literally the only grounds I have for wanting to date someone. You can be old, young, male, female, on my side, completely not sharing in my beliefs and actually the legendary hero who’s actually destined to tear down everything I stand for and believe in… I don’t judge! We go around that Ferris wheel once and we’re basically mated for life.”
N looks desperately back at ProjectioN. “Could you tell me what’s going on?”
“Nope, I’m actually a zoroark,” says that copy of N, and dissolves into a plot hole.
ProjectioN (or at least the one that N thinks is ProjectioN) smiles sadly. “You wanted to create two worlds. One for humans, and one for pokémon. But the reality is that your motives are interpreted in so many ways that it’s impossible to know what those two worlds would be, since no one even knows what world you even come from.”
“It’s because there’s no CaNon,” says another person in N’s voice, sadly.
“Who?”
“Ignore PuN, he doesn’t really add anything except for good chapter titles.”
“Oh. Okay.”
ProjectioN shrugs. “So here, in the netherspace, you’re everything. You’re nothing. Whatever people want you to be.”
"ANything?"
“We can all get along with the power of friendship!” shouts ShoNen.
“Fuck you fuck you fuck you, eat the rich, burn it all down,” says one of them, almost certainly RevolutioNary. “And yes, I curse now. Because I’m an ADULT. And seventeen.”
“I’m eighteen,” RomaNtic chimes in.
N blinks. Unsure of what to make of all of this. He looks back at ProjectioN, who seems to be the only reasonable person in the room (probably because they’re the only person who isn’t also him). “So what now?”
ProjectioN shrugs. “Honestly? I don’t know. The joke sort of ran its course already. That’s all I got.”
“Oh. Aren’t you concerned about having an entire story’s worth of buildup disappearing after a battle and two lines of text?”
“No.”
nmn upsidedown is uwu
nmn
{You would do that for them?} asks the dragon, fixing him with blue eyes that have seen eternity. {You, a human, would do that for us?}
“I would. I’m not one of them,” N lies, confidently.
The dragon of truth nods impassively .
For a split second, N wonders if his resolve isn’t enough, if he can will himself to believe that he’s truly inhuman, that he’s finally become the freakish name Ghetsis gave him. For what good is a human without a human heart?
Stark wings flare wide. Crimson energy crackles to life in Reshiram's tail; there’s a horrible whirring sound that only picks up intensity, but it’s not loud enough to drown out Hilda screaming in the background; the winds have picked up, someone else is scrambling up the shattered staircase—
It doesn’t matter any more.
Legendary power fills his veins, reaches down and grabs hold of the wish that’s wrapped its tendrils so firmly around his heart, and time freezes.
Humans and pokémon. Surely humans didn’t mean any slight when they listed pokémon as second. Surely they were equal partners here; surely battling was what was truly what pokémon wanted; surely abuse was individual rather than systemic; surely, surely, surely.
Well. If he’s wrong, his ideal will shatter into dust beneath the will of the dragon. That’s a nice way for the equation to solve out without anyone else being hurt.
When he opens his eyes, he sees two worlds. One for humans, one for pokémon. There isn’t room for both. They tell stories of the others sometimes, but that’s all they are and will ever be—stories. Everyone is happy and no one hurts, because no one knows how things used to be.
Time speeds up again.
Alder’s volcarona shoots a jet of fire towards the pedestal where N stands. Before he can even blink, Reshiram’s wing is in front of him. The Fire Blast curls around them, so hot he can feel the heat on his cheeks, but Reshiram doesn’t even flinch. He hears Alder’s cry of alarm, and when the onslaught ceases and Reshiram’s protective wing lowers, N sees the horror on Alder’s face, as if noticing the pokémon of legends for the first time. Hilda is shouting something to Vaselva, but with one glance at N, both the human and the serperior hesitate.
They hesitate. N does not. He brings his hands down and cleaves the two worlds apart.
nmn
When he wakes up, it’s in a place he’s never seen. It’s like someone’s taken a bucket of white paint and thrown it across the landscape—there’s just an endless, endless plain.
Alarmed, N looks down at his hands. Still human. His clothes are immaculate. Is this the afterlife?
“No,” says a calm voice behind him, and N whirls around to see—
A mirror image of himself, actually. He blinks. It’s disconcerting, actually; he’d spent so much time getting used to the human face in the mirror that the minute differences when he’s looking at the unmirrored version scream out at him, like shadows going the wrong way on a doctored picture.
“Who are you?”
“A projection,” says the second N.
“Of what?”
“In the moment before you split the worlds apart, you hesitated. You were unsure of yourself.” The projectioN walks calmly toward him, but there’s something weird about the gait, as if the body’s feet don’t actually make contact with the ground. “Your will wavered. You called me forth from the Light Stone to make a wish, to solve the equation that would fix the world, and yet. In the last moment, you changed your solution. So I ask you again, Hero of Truth. What is the truth that you seek?”
“I—”
“I’ve changed my mind.” A third voice cuts him off, and both N and the projectioN look over to see a human in khaki pants and a white walking towards them, silver eyes serene and yet portending a storm.
“And just who are you supposed to be?” N asks.
“I’m you, from two years in the future,” says the human, chuckling a little. “I guess you can call me N2.”
And then, the more pressing question: “What do you mean you’ve changed your mind?” As disturbing as it is to see more and more imitations of himself appearing in this strange, strange plain, it’s even more perturbing to hear his voice, casually recanting on his life’s work.
“I’ve changed my mind,” N2 repeats. The rest of him looks the same; he’s still staring wistfully off into the distance, a few inches taller. Looks like N won’t cut his hair for two more years. “A lot of people felt really bad about what we had to say back when we took over the Pokémon League, you know.”
“They… yes?” That was sort of the point.
“Yes, they were asking themselves all sorts of questions. How do I know if my pokémon really trust me? Even if I’m good to my pokémon, what about all of the others who are not? Does one individual operating morally under an oppressive system somehow wipe out the immorality of the entire system? Are we the baddies??” N2 spreads his hands dramatically through the air, pretty much for no reason. “And I realized, well. Those are hard questions.”
N isn’t exactly sure where this is going.
“So I said, oops, I changed my mind. I told everyone it was a big fake news coverup by Ghetsis and that it was all no big deal. Ignore the questions, buy my merch, don't forget to ring that bell and subscribe! Oh, and I gave Reshiram to a random trainer.”
“You did what—!?” the projection hisses, at the same time as N manages to say, “You gave—??”
N2 shrugs. “Kid said he needed it for his pokédex.”
“You’re just another mareep, then, pulling the wool over your eyes so you can sleep comfortably at night,” says a muffled voice.
Both N and N2 turn to look at the source of the voice who is, inevitably, a fourth N. This one is wearing a Team Plasma bandana around his neck and the bottom half of the face, so that only his glittering eyes peek through. Ah. That would explain the muffling.
“I’m Revolutionary N,” he says through the bandana, and that’s when N notices the bruises on his face and how his clothes are ragged, dirty, darkened, like his broken soul. The rip in his pants definitely looks like it came that way when he bought it. “Or Leftist N, but, uh, that doesn’t match the naming scheme as well.”
“Who?”
“You can call me RevolutioNary,” he says confidently. And then, as if noticing how all three sets of (his) eyes are on him, RevolutioNary adds, “Well I’m sorry for my appearance. I was busy firebombing a pokéball factory and beating up humans who refused to release their pokémon willingly.”
“You beat them up?” N tries to make his voice not get progressively higher and higher pitched, but it’s a losing battle. “Can we even do that?”
“No, I canonically have less muscle mass than a piece of spaghetti,” N2 adds unhelpfully.
RevolutioNary pulls the bandana away from his face, so everyone can see his tortured, broken lips. One of them has been split open, probably from a punch. From a machamp. “I couldn’t make pokémon fight on my behalf. There was no other option. So I did it myself.” There’s a grim finality in those words, a resolute dancing around the definition of ‘it’. An edge to his voice that just doesn’t fit. "I had to fight. I had to get stronger."
“He’s right. We had to become stronger. For my friends!”
“Who are you?” N says, at the same time as N2.
“Shonen N! Baka!” shouts a fourth (fifth?) voice. “And I’m going to achieve my dream of liberating pokémon worldwide and toppling an entire social order without regard for consequence. Believe it!”
“Who the fuck invited him?? Oh, sorry. I didn’t mean to make you feel bad. Here, let me heal your pokémon. I’m Tsundere N.”
“You can ignore TsuNdere,” N2 chimes in quickly. “We’re pretty much the same person.”
“Yeah, well, I won’t ignore you,” RevolutioNary says, walking over and punching N2 in the face without a second thought. “Ignoring the problem is what got us here in the first place.” He stands over N2, hands curled into crescent-fists, eyebrows pointed into a thunderous V (which is 2/3 of an N). “Ignoring the problem gave us Ghetsis, and the corrupt League! Your centrist bullshit is what lets the humans live blissfully unaware of the harm they’re causing pokémon, because they’re complicit in a system that we need to tear down!”
N2 rubs his jawline thoughtfully. A bruise is already beginning to form. “You know what? I forgive you for punching me. Because not all N’s would punch me. And because they aren’t cruel, you can’t be cruel either, and if you can’t be cruel, then I can’t be in pain.”
He’s right. The bruise disappears in a puff of logic.
“Could we all get nametags?” ShoNen shouts, which seems to be his only volume. “This is getting hard.”
“I’ll show you something that’s getting hard.”
“What the fuck—?”
“I’m Romantic N,” he says in a low, rich baritone. His long fingers tap sensually on his pants. His cheekbones are impossibly sharp. His silvery orbs have infinite depths like an infinity mirror. The weird puzzle around his neck means he is a man of high intelligence quotient. He probably watches smart shows, like Richard and Mortimer, because he is dreamy and smart and feels a little alienated from society, just like you. “I like liberating pokémon, long walks on the beach, and riding on Ferris Wheels, but I’ll show you something else to ride on.”
“What the FUCK—”
“And by that I do mean a second Ferris wheel,” RomaNtic amended quickly. “Because that is literally the only grounds I have for wanting to date someone. You can be old, young, male, female, on my side, completely not sharing in my beliefs and actually the legendary hero who’s actually destined to tear down everything I stand for and believe in… I don’t judge! We go around that Ferris wheel once and we’re basically mated for life.”
N looks desperately back at ProjectioN. “Could you tell me what’s going on?”
“Nope, I’m actually a zoroark,” says that copy of N, and dissolves into a plot hole.
ProjectioN (or at least the one that N thinks is ProjectioN) smiles sadly. “You wanted to create two worlds. One for humans, and one for pokémon. But the reality is that your motives are interpreted in so many ways that it’s impossible to know what those two worlds would be, since no one even knows what world you even come from.”
“It’s because there’s no CaNon,” says another person in N’s voice, sadly.
“Who?”
“Ignore PuN, he doesn’t really add anything except for good chapter titles.”
“Oh. Okay.”
ProjectioN shrugs. “So here, in the netherspace, you’re everything. You’re nothing. Whatever people want you to be.”
"ANything?"
“We can all get along with the power of friendship!” shouts ShoNen.
“Fuck you fuck you fuck you, eat the rich, burn it all down,” says one of them, almost certainly RevolutioNary. “And yes, I curse now. Because I’m an ADULT. And seventeen.”
“I’m eighteen,” RomaNtic chimes in.
N blinks. Unsure of what to make of all of this. He looks back at ProjectioN, who seems to be the only reasonable person in the room (probably because they’re the only person who isn’t also him). “So what now?”
ProjectioN shrugs. “Honestly? I don’t know. The joke sort of ran its course already. That’s all I got.”
“Oh. Aren’t you concerned about having an entire story’s worth of buildup disappearing after a battle and two lines of text?”
“No.”
eNd
nmn upsidedown is uwu
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