Unaware of the silent crisis happening behind him, Ingo went about buttoning his work shirt, pausing to shrug on the waistcoat he’d insisted on adding to his uniform.

That much was beginning to make more sense, now.

Before he could get it settled, Emmet called his name, and he half-turned, one hand idling beneath his sternum as if to smooth the shirt down.

“Is something the matter?”

Taking the question as invitation, Emmet stepped into the room properly, eyes never quite tearing away from the spot he’d seen. There was nothing visibly amiss through the extra layer of fabric, but it had still been faintly noticeable through the white dress shirt.

“There is a mark on your back.” He said, the lack of inflection serving him well for a change.

The response he got was a blank, legitimately puzzled stare. With the hand that wasn’t idling over his heart, Ingo reached blindly back, trying to understand. Wordlessly, Emmet took him by the wrist and guided the hand to the offending area, but the look of mild bewilderment didn’t shift.

“There’s… something there?”

Instead of offering what, at this point, would have been a redundant confirmation, Emmet asked, “May I look?”

A brief hesitation held the place of an answer, followed by the soft rumpling of fabric, but after a moment, Ingo nodded and took his hand away from where it pinned the clothes in place. After another beat of inaction, it became clear he had no intention of removing the shirt, and Emmet simply pushed it and the loose vest up, so as to get a better look.

He very pointedly didn’t touch, but he didn’t have to. Up close, when he hadn’t half-noticed out of the corner of his eye, it was perfectly clear what the dark spot had been: a dark panel of glass, just barely dampening the glow from the silver flame that flickered behind it.

The mark had no business being there-- or, at least, it wouldn’t have prior to Hisui. Knowing what he did, Emmet couldn’t necessarily be surprised to find it on his twin’s person, but was still dismayed at the realization.

There was little doubt that it was a scar signifying the bond between a human and Pokemon-- what else could it be, when it so resembled Chandelure’s radiant globe?-- but its presence suggested something substantially more grim: such marks only manifested where a close tie had saved a person from death. Something had all but killed Ingo, and he was only standing here by virtue of his connection to Chandelure.

On some level, Emmet understood the silence, but on another…

“What happened?” He asked, a question that demanded answer.

When Ingo looked over his shoulder, though, there was a genuine lack of comprehension, “I’m afraid I don’t follow. What happened to what?”

That was something to puzzle out later.

“You were hurt. Fatally. How?”

In rapid succession, his twin’s eyes narrowed in bemusement, and then went wide. As before, he reached back, searching, but didn’t need Emmet’s guidance to find the smooth panel along his spine. Emmet left him to the realization, busy with the perfect line between the point he’d first noticed and where Ingo had yet to drop the hand bunched up in his shirt-- both offset just slightly to the left. The one on his back was lower, but not by much. There were certain conclusions to be drawn from that.

With the newfound softness that Emmet was growing to hate, Ingo murmured, “I… didn’t realize...” and turned in full, gauging Emmet’s expression.

Emmet sighed, trying to breathe his building ire out with it, and reached up to brush his fingertips against the clenched hand.

“Will you show me?”

For just a second, it tensed, clutching more fervently to the wrinkling fabric, and then-- looking like he’d much rather do anything else-- Ingo gave a single nod. When he let go, his hand left a horribly rumpled patch in its wake, but more importantly, there was that same, faint glow, just barely permeating the layers he’d already donned. If the room had been any brighter, it might not have registered as anomalous.

When he tentatively bared the skin beneath, it showed the same window-- larger than the one on his back and closer to the flame, clearly much harder to keep dimmed. It also boasted delicate iron ribbing, identical to the curve of Chandelure’s arms.

He’d been struck clear through, then, from front to back. Emmet spared a brief thought for his brother’s newly acquired affinity for mountain climbing, but discarded it almost immediately; a fall onto a stalagmite would have been far larger and messier. This, on the other hand, seemed very straightforward.

Under the scrutiny, one of Ingo’s hands twitched upward, as if to shield the little window from view, but he resisted the urge. The timidity of the gesture was at extreme odds with the gravity in Ingo’s voice as he asked, “You’re correct in that it developed after I sustained a rather grievous wound, but Emmet, I have to ask: why do you know that?”

Emmet glanced up, inadvertently locking eyes with the searching gaze leveled at him, and blinked dumbly.

“It’s general knowledge.” He offered after a long, confusing moment, “The phenomena itself is not common. But you would be hard pressed to find someone unaware of it.”

Even as the words passed his lips, he realized he’d overlooked one rather important fact. Not for the first time, he’d forgotten to factor his twin’s amnesia into the equation. Dragons, what a mess this was.

“No.” He said almost immediately, aiming for reassurance, but relatively sure he’d fallen short, “I have not experienced it, personally. That is not something you need to worry about.”

Ingo relaxed marginally and, when he moved to pull the thin fabric of his dress shirt closed again, Emmet didn’t stop him. “Perhaps the knowledge is commonplace here, but back then, nobody was entirely certain what it meant. Irida saw it as a sign of Sinnoh’s favor. I believe she was in the minority.” He drew a slow, steady breath, “I’ve gathered that it signifies a killing blow, but don’t understand why it occurred; I’m far from the only person to have been injured so gravely.”

“Chandelure. It was because of Chandelure.” But, for all the overt similarities to the ghost, it didn’t explain the dark tint to the glass when she herself was a frosted white, “And… perhaps Gliscor as well. You told me the Hisuian people were wary of Pokemon. That is the difference. The bonds between people and Pokemon are capable of changing the tracks away from that terminal.”

Three buttons into refastening his shirt, Ingo seemed to remember the wadded up mess it had become, and abandoned the attempt, instead staring down at the muffled light. He closed his eyes and sighed, absently raising a hand to eclipse it, “That’s… but my memory of her was...”

Emmet let him sit with the thought for a few seconds, rummaging around for a new shirt in the meantime. When it seemed his brother was conducting himself into an unproductive circuit, he tossed the article over his head, to immediate, indignant, sputtering.

“You told me yourself that you remembered her out of everything you’d forgotten.”

Ingo pulled the shirt off of his head and shot his brother a significant look. Emmet waved it off.

“A nice thought. I do not believe twins possess that capability, however.”

“How do you know?” Came the immediate retort, “My ignorance did nothing to prevent this, so perhaps there’s a station you’ve missed as well.”

Emmet scoffed and turned away; he’d gotten distracted for understandable reasons, but if they delayed any longer, they’d almost certainly be late. While he’d already realized that it would be impossible to focus today, he went through the motions of his morning routine with the specter of ‘what if’ hanging over him. What if the force that had carried Chandelure’s love backwards through time hadn’t? What if Gliscor had still been too wary of its trainer? What if Ingo hadn’t remembered in time?

He knew perfectly well that there was no use in asking questions he’d never see the answer to-- that he was catastrophizing something that couldn’t have been more thoroughly in the past-- but he couldn’t get past the realization that his brother had nearly died in Hisui… that, by technicality, his brother had died in Hisui.

If they weren’t late, maybe he could make a last minute adjustment to the schedule-- to rearrange it so they were running the Multi lines for the day. For now, he on his own would be a lackluster opponent, and their challengers deserved better than that. He also wanted to thank Chandelure and Gliscor properly. Really, coupling their cars for the day would be in everyone’s best interest.

He wasn’t entirely sure when it was that Ingo cut in, steering him back on course, but as they reached the door, his twin paused.

“As much as I’d like to leave this matter at home, there’s one fact I wanted to impress upon you.” He reached over and took one of his brother’s hands, resting it over the hidden patch of glass, “You can certainly see Chandelure’s influence, and I believe you’re correct about Gliscor. The flame beneath isn’t purple, however.”

He let their hands drop, but didn’t release Emmet’s as they crossed the threshold.

“I can’t help but wonder what that might mean.”