Alola, Alola

✽3. Sparkling Luck

After dropping Litten off at the lab, Mizuki returned to the beach. She took her time in traversing in, letting the soft grains of sand fill the space between her toes as she walked. Every light crunch beneath her bare feet was like a gentle melody, and she found her body swaying with every step.

Yet as happily as she moved, inside she felt like a crumbling sandcastle. Every gorgeous aspect she explored of Alola now seemed to serve as a reminder that this region was painfully different from what she had to return.

I said I'd spend the rest of my time enjoying it, but... All she had done was create even more memories that hurt to let go, memories that were doomed to soon become mere apparitions on the cold winds of Snowpoint City when she returned.

With a bitter pang she remembered Yo and his announcement just before they had reached the lab, envy tangling itself around her heart like thorny vines. It just wasn't fair. She knew she was being a child—something she had sworn to put behind her after her birthday—but she couldn't help it.

So many thoughts were swirling in her mind like a storm she was bound to get lost in. She hated that others were able to change their fates, all while she was stuck with her own. Wanting a way to release everything she felt, the forlorn girl raised her head, her braids swishing against her shoulders as she glanced around. No one else was around. It was just her, the beach, and the darkening plum-colored sky.

Throwing her head back, she compiled all the emotions bundled inside her into a single, desperate wail aimed at no one in particular. "I want to participate in the Island Challenge, too!" She didn't want Contests or Gym battles, and she most certainly didn't want Sinnoh. She wanted Alola.

Her throat growing hoarse, Mizuki's voice became a light whisper, so quiet that the gentle lappings of the ocean against the sand would be enough to overpower it. "I want Alola."

The black-haired preteen's hopeless gaze flickered up to the night sky, as if it could provide an answer to a problem she desperately needed to be solved. She began laughing at herself for thinking that the mere sky would change anything, until she saw it.

For a split second—so short that it could be missed in a single blink-a brilliant beam of light soared through the sky. It was much brighter than any shooting star Mizuki had ever seen, and she could feel a breeze rippling across her arms and legs as if the light had physical presence-and that she had been up close to it.

Mizuki tore her gaze back to the beach, slowly shaking her head in confusion. What was that? Then a small twinkle resting in the sand caught the girl's eye.

Her heart in double speed, Mizuki cautiously brought her legs toward it. She paused and eyed it carefully before moving again, the strange shimmer growing brighter and brighter as she neared it.

Nestled in the sand was an odd stone-like object, its gray surface dappled with a few sparkly colors. Intrigued, she bent down and picked it up, turning the strange object over in her hands. Then her heart froze. She had seen this design before!

"Is it...a sparkling stone?" Mizuki almost dropped the stone as her hands began quivering at the precious object that lied in its palms, coal-gray eyes stretched wide as she couldn't help but stare. She was almost certain that this was a sparkling stone!

Clutching it tightly in her hands, the black-haired girl hurried to the front of the beach, just barely remembering to snatch up her sandals before exiting. She had to get this stone to Professor Kukui right away!

✽✽✽

Professor Kukui held the mysterious stone beneath the table light of his desk, his other hand rubbing the stubble of his chin as he examined it with a gleam of interest sparked in his eyes. After a moment he set it down on the table, fixing Mizuki with a wide grin.

"That right there is indeed a sparkling stone."

"R-really?" Though she had already suspected it, she just couldn't believe it! That meant that the light she had witnessed was none other than Tapu Koko!

"How did you find it?"

"Oh, well..." Mizuki fumbled around her brain as she recalled the events of what happened before she found the stone. As she told the story, she omitted the part about her screaming angst into the sky—that would surely save her a heap of embarrassment—and instead said that she had been merely speaking to it.

When she was finished, Professor Kukui slowly nodded. "It looks like Tapu Koko took an interest in ya."

"M-me?" At that moment it felt as though a thousand balloons were released in Mizuki's chest, her heart floating along with them. Chosen by Tapu Koko itself... The thought made her dizzy.

The Professor's proposal made her even dizzier. "I can make a Z-Ring for you. How 'bout it?"

Mizuki responded faster than her brain could even process the request. "Yes, please!" Though she wasn't allowed to stay in Alola for much longer, she loved the idea of being able to take home a souvenir—a special souvenir.

Professor Kukui clapped his hands together, his bright smile threatening to change the color of Mizuki's cheeks. "Great! I'll have it done for you by tomorrow."

Tomorrow. It would be her last day. For a moment, the joy in her eyes softened, but—deciding not to let herself be known as a crybaby, especially in front of the Professor—she picked it back up and nodded vigorously.

"Alright!"

✽✽✽

Mizuki set down her bag after another day of doing her best to live it up, heaving a sigh as she removed her shoes and threw down her hat. She sat down on the edge of her bed, working her fingers through her large braids as she undid them.

Rustling her hair, she laid on her back, the events of the day breezing throughout her mind as smoothly as a river flowing. The day seemed crazy, excited, even awe-inspiring, but she didn't feel as surprised as she would have been a few months ago.

Ever since she'd come to the region, crazy and exciting had become part of her daily life. With a reminiscent smile she remembered her first week, where she'd explored the different flavors of malasada, attempted to catch a slippery Wishiwashi, her first battle against Yo at the trainer's school...

Everything seemed so far away, yet they were so close that she could feel it, because they were there—nestled in both her mind and heart.

Mizuki sighed again as her thoughts led her back to the Sinnoh region. The noisiness of her house as the walls rang with the yells and hollers of her parents' constant arguments, the unpleasant sound of daily snow crunching beneath her boots as she made her way to school, the relentless cold that always seemed to find a way under her protective layers of sweaters and coats to nip at her skin.

Then, as if her brain yearned for shelter from the unhappy thoughts, she found herself thinking back to the beach. The warm sand, the light breeze, the ocean... And Tapu Koko.

The black-haired girl sat up, her eyes narrowing as she tried to figure out just why the island deity chose her. To anyone else, surely she must have seemed to be just another angst-filled preteen taking her anger out on the world.

"So why?" She didn't know how to interpret the will of any Pokémon besides Litten, let alone special ones. All she knew was that she had been chosen.

Does Tapu Koko want me to stay? Why else would it have dropped the sparkling stone if that wasn't the case?

Her heart quickening, Mizuki brought herself to her feet, her nerves itching as if they'd been lit on fire. Instead of just sitting around hopelessly watching five become zero, maybe there was a chance that she could actually fight her parents' decision. After all, it was her life, wasn't it?

She glanced around the room until her gaze landed on the phone that was perched on her desk. All this time she'd been complaining about being unlucky, but Tapu Koko may have given her the luck she'd been after all along.