Inheritance

At Viridian Gym, Blue finds comfort in returning to the pure focus of battling, free from the crushing responsibilities of the region's recent crises. As he prepares for his final badge challenge, he reviews his custom-built anti-Ground team: corviknight, breloom, his blastoise Maturin, weavile, and gliscor. Finally, he unleashes his newest acquisition: a massive, fully evolved dragonite. Although he feels a pang of guilt over effectively buying his way up the power ladder rather than training it from scratch, he justifies the purchase as a necessary instrumental step to match Indigo's elites and a symbolic claim to the Champion's mantle.

Arnaud, Viridian's elusive Second, approaches and asks why Blue chose a dragonite. Blue explains its symbolic weight, representing his grandfather, Lance, and Indigo's strength. Noting Blue's confidence in controlling the beast, Arnaud unexpectedly challenges him to a 2v2 battle—a format entirely absent from Leader Giovanni's standard challenges. Blue accepts, seeing it as a test of adaptability.

The battle is brutal and fast. Blue starts with his corviknight and breloom against Arnaud's mamoswine and toedscruel. Arnaud instantly disrupts Blue's targeting with Rage Powder. Despite Blue's rapid tactical adjustments, Arnaud's seamless substitutions of a stunfisk and an excadrill overwhelm Blue's vanguard. After corviknight and weavile are knocked out, Blue summons his dragonite to face the mamoswine and excadrill alone.

Realizing that playing it safe will result in his dragonite being whittled down, Blue cycles through potential sweeping attacks. He hesitates, wary of permanently maiming Arnaud's pokemon, until Arnaud initiates a silent, five-finger countdown, daring him to strike. As the countdown ends, Blue commands Heat Wave. The devastating blast bakes the arena and severely burns Arnaud's team, allowing dragonite to swiftly finish them off with physical strikes. Afterward, Arnaud remarks that Blue took almost too long to unleash the necessary force, advising him that if he intends to challenge Giovanni, he must keep the dragonite—or something equally devastating—in his lineup.

Meanwhile, Leaf begins exploiting her newly granted access to Indigo's restricted files. Anticipating that her queries might be monitored, she intentionally obfuscates her true objective by requesting mountains of irrelevant data across all government sectors. Even with Bill providing a highly secure, AI-assisted computer, the sheer volume of data is overwhelming. She enlists Janine to help cross-reference historical lulls and spikes in ninja clan activity against the prosperity of influential Indigo figures.

While working, Janine casually suggests Leaf post a chapter of her ninja story to see if anyone reacts to the bait. Janine then casually brings up the "hybrid story" (Leaf's publication of Dr. Fuji's account). Leaf attempts to mask her surprise but slips up, inadvertently confirming to the sharp-eyed ex-vigilante that the two stories are strategically connected and that she is planning something risky regarding the Dreamer.

Returning to the data, their combined analysis reveals a shadowy network of politicians and corporate titans whose fortunes suspiciously align with the clans' actions. After mapping several prominent figures, Leaf identifies Hiromi Tsuru, the last descendant of Viridian's original warlords. Hiromi's death forty years prior perfectly coincides with a major slowdown in ninja operations. Leaf notes that Hiromi seemingly left no heirs, but Janine corrects her. Hiromi had an illegitimate son who only claimed his inheritance after proving his strength by entering the Indigo Hall of Fame. Janine pulls up the public profile of the heir, revealing Leader Giovanni.