Note: This story is way better experienced when you play N's Farewell theme in the background! That's what I was listening to while I wrote this entire thing.

Edge of the Sky

All that is left after the final battle ends is this empty desire.

Touko reaches out her hand, slowly, wading through the chilled air, as if she is lifting a curtain from the world around her. Her mind is still wrapped in a daze of Reshiram's orange fire and Zekrom's blue lightning. The colors swim around her as if they still strike down from the ceiling, threatening to destroy the world, but she can't see them anymore. She can't see anything. She doesn't even know what she's reaching for, but she finds herself almost surprised when her fingers fall upon nothing but hollow air.

This feeling—there's no name for it, is there?

She hears Ghetsis's cries, his mad, guttural growls. She hears the swears and curses that reverberate around the golden chambers like the remnants of arrows as he screams nonsense like the madman he is. She hears Alder's low, controlled reply, followed by Cheren's matter-of-fact command (in that cool voice she's known since she was two years old), as they hoist the seventh Sage of Team Plasma roughtly by the arms and lead him away.

She has defeated him, somehow, Touko remembers vaguely. She remembers the anguished cry of a Hydreigon, its wings crumpling as it falls to the ground. She remembers hoarsely congratulating each of her Pokemon and recalling them lovingly to their Poke Balls as the green-haired man's face—no, not him, that one—twisted in hatred and a tortured disbelief.

But all of that, real and imaginary, falls dully on her ears. She can't hear anything, and no noise exists around her. The chamber is entirely empty, and now, left behind in the wake of the feat she has managed to complete, there are no celebrations, no shouts of happiness, no congratulations for having managed to save all of Unova.

All there is is silence. And Touko is grateful for it.

She sees N shake his head slowly, his smooth, pale face dazed as he stares after the three men stumbling down the corridor, his head lowered ever so slightly. He tugs at his chin with a marble hand and the hem of his shirt with the other, as the tan fabric billows against the brown of his pants. Outlined against the pure light filtering in from the open wall and the reflection of the rays on the streams on either side of the floor, he glows, and in the sparkling walls he looks almost ethereal, like an opposite reflection of the black dragon behind him.

Her heart aches. If this is too much for her to comprehend, she can only imagine what it must be for him.

Touko flinches when N shatters the silence with a soft rustle of his pants. She doesn't dare to move, and she can sense him fidgeting a few yards away. She has to keep herself from shuddering when he picks up his foot and slowly begins to walk toward her. The room is empty now, and every movement echoes, every step shakes her heart.

Touko finds it funny, almost laughable, now that she used to think N was the enemy—as if he were something evil, something to hate. She can't imagine ever mustering enough anger to even dislike those soft aquamarine eyes as he looks at her now, his irises still glowing the way she remembers they always did. Still, she never quite noticed it until now.

When he looks at her, it is with nothing but a soft wonder, as if he is unfolding a curtain for the first time and peering inside the window beyond it.

Touko wants nothing more than to let the tears fall from her eyes. She wants to crumple into him and throw her arms around him. But she is the one who needs to be strong now. For him, and for Unova. And besides, she's afraid such a gesture would break him. He's already too fragile. He has been through so much in this one night, and thinking about the life he led growing up before it makes her almost want to die.

Where did she earn the right to the happy childhood she had, growing up in Nuvema Town with a loving mother and the two best friends anyone could ask for? Where did she earn the right to live such a nurturing and fulfilling life, while N had nothing but a single room and his toys…and his faithful Pokemon? And his father—the most twisted man she had ever known, who allowed them to be abused the way they were…why was N the one who had to suffer from everything Ghetsis did?

Why did she deserve what she had never fought to earn? The questions crumble inside her and push her to the very brink, nearly forcing her to her knees. But still, Touko holds herself standing, all for the presence that lingers next to her. How in any way did the boy who had proven himself time and time and to have a kinder, purer heart than anyone she has ever known warrant the life forced upon him?

She thinks she used to believe in justice, in ideals and truth, as the Unovan legends speak of, but after tonight, she doesn't know if she can.

"N…" Touko whispers, not daring to speak any louder, or the sobs will break through. "N…I'm so sorry."

I…I didn't know…

"Touko," he answers, and his voice is as clear and quick as ever, clear as the spring water that pools beside the glimmering floor. She doesn't deserve to have her name said by such a voice, she thinks bitterly. "There's nothing for you to be sorry for. I want to talk to you about something."

She is as bad as the rest of them for fighting him, even though she knows she has saved the world and him by doing it. She has freed him, and for the first time he knows what it's like to live a life for himself. She has freed him, but she still can't help but to hate herself for ever thinking of him as the enemy.

She lets him reach out and take her gently by the arm, nearly gasping when his skin brushes against hers. Every moment he stands next to her is like a sweet breath of eternity, and the chills run up and down her spine, seizing her neck, chills of grief and horror and something larger that threatens to choke her in a single wisp of destruction.

Every moment is precious. She can hardly breathe, let alone speak. And she knows, with a faint, lingering sense of horror, what is coming.

No matter what she does, she can't stop him from leaving.

"N…" The word is a gasp, a sob without tears. "N…please…please don't…"

I can help you.

N doesn't seem to hear her, simply smiling in the way he always has, his blue eyes locked onto hers. His smile is a child's smile, sunny and wide-eyed, but it never was all the way there, Touko realizes with a chill—it is merely a ghost of happiness that grazes his lips from time to time when it wants to, and sometimes when he looks at her.

"I wanted to talk to you about when I first met you in Accumula Town," he says quickly, breathlessly. "When I spoke to your Pokemon…I was shocked, Touko. I was shocked because of what it said. It said it liked you. It said it wanted to be with you." N looks like he's struggling, as the tugging on his shirt grows more frantic, twisting in bunches around his long fingers. "And I didn't understand. Because never in my life had I ever known a Pokemon who actually liked humans."

A tear finally escapes and slips down Touko's cheek, and she lets out a loud, unpleasant sniffle—a disgusting sound buried within the delicacy of N's voice.

"But…but your Pokemon friends…they liked you, N," she whispers back, wiping the tear from her face. "They always have, right? Maybe you could have understood from that that it was possible…"

"I know." N shakes his head fervently. "I know. That is what I am saying. I started feeling unsure about my beliefs somewhere along the way." He pauses. "Especially when I started journeying. The more people I met, the more Pokemon I talked to, the more unsure I became. All of them seemed to love and depend on each other. No matter where I was, everywhere I looked, they were helping each other out, always."

Touko nods, and her lips crack open in the tiniest smile. Pokemon and people have always been there for each other; she has had the luxury of knowing that her entire life. Her heart swells at the thought that N might finally understand.

N, I can help you…

"That's why I had to battle you and test my ideals against yours—battle Zekrom against Reshiram, ideals against truth, and fight against you as the two heroes that they chose." N lets go of the hem of his shirt and lifts his hand to hover over his heart, curling his fingers into a gentle fist. "I had to confirm my beliefs, hero to hero. I needed that more than anything."

Touko's smile widens even as twin crystal tears stream down her cheeks. She wonders why she is crying now, even as N, at the center of this entire disaster, the one who had to live through every moment of it, is completely calm.

Please, N, please let me help you…

"And I'm so g-glad you did," she stammers, as more tears stream down, following the first. "Even if I—I had been the one who lost…I would still be glad…"

It strikes her how true those words are, even as she shudders at the thought of a world without Pokemon. If N could discover a piece of the truth…if he could come to realize, even a little… She desperately wants to wrap her arms around him, but she clenches her hands and wills herself to stay standing. Her face is horribly wet, and Touko lifts a hand to dry it.

Before she knows it she's speaking, her voice thick as words seem to stream from her like a waterfall.

"N…please understand…I—I never meant to hurt you, if I ever did. In all of our battles, and whenever I disagreed with everything you believed, please, I never meant to do it…" Touko doesn't know what she is trying to tell him, but it's all spilling out frantically all at once, as if somehow, she meant to say it all along. Now that she knows what he had been through…

"I never meant to destroy your dream…your ideals…the future you saw for Unova, where Pokemon could live happily, free of all the cruel people in the world. And I—I know I'm the one who did it. The world needs balance, black and white, just the way Zekrom and Reshiram w-wanted it in the first place…but I had to come along and—"

"Shh." N quiets her gently, lifting one perfect finger in the air. "You didn't destroy my dream. Please, I don't want to see you worrying about that. You were a hero and nothing less. And besides, it wasn't even my dream to destroy."

And suddenly his face is clouding with pain, though not in the way that most people's do—he somehow manages to hold the gleam of wonder in his eyes even when they turn dark and troubled and he has to wrap his fingers around the fabric of his shirt once again—but it's still so much that Touko has to dig her fingernails into her palm to keep from crying out.

"Ghetsis," he whispers. "It was Ghetsis's dream."

With a pang of horror, Touko can see the shift happening in his mind—he is still back there in that tiny room with the painted sky as the ground and the toys as his cities and those poor abused Pokemon who never deserved any of it but his kindness as his friends. She wants to reach out and stop the transformation, but her clenched hands keep her fixed in place even as the anguish overtakes her.

"N—please—I can help you—"

And as she speaks without intending to, she realizes what this brimming, shaking desire in her chest is for the very first time, what it is that threatens to overflow from within her like a cracked goblet steeped too deeply in the golden pools of his castle. She needs him as much as Reshiram needs Zekrom, as much as truth needs ideals to accompany it, as much as humans need Pokemon and Pokemon need humans. They are black and white, yin and yang, thought and determination, twin heroes, and without them Unova can never be complete.

She can, she wants, she needs to help him.

"N!"

She stumbles forward, crying out, but her fingers barely miss the thin fabric of his shirt.

He is still speaking, turned away, his chin tucked into his chest with a voice soft as soaked velvet. He doesn't even seem to notice her lunging toward him, and Touko realizes that he is undergoing his own epiphany as she has realized hers, and so she catches her breath and draws back, one step at a time.

"There's no way a person like me, someone who understands only Pokemon—no, actually, I didn't understand them either." N bites his lip, and Touko swears she's never seen anything sadder even in all the movies she used to watch with Bianca in her basement, dabbing floods of tears from their eyes. "No way I could ever measure up to you, when you had met so many Pokemon and were surrounded by friends…"

"You are my friend!" Touko hollers, her voice echoing from the ceiling. "N, please listen to me! We are friends, we've always been friends!" She has to get through to him, has to make him understand…

N finally looks up and meets her eyes, dark blue against glimmering cerulean. Touko is shocked to see that for once, that childish hint of a smile is gone from his mouth, and the man-child standing before her is frowning, truly frowning.

"But I can never measure up to you. I can never be good the way you are, Touko…I will never truly be a hero like you."

"No!" How could he be so wrong about everything? How could he be so mixed up after everything both of them had learned that night? Touko shakes her head. "N, it's the other way around! I—I'm the one—I could never be as pure of heart as you are! Never."

She lunges forward again, desperate to make him hear her.

"Listen to me, N…you decided by your own free will to journey out here to save all of your Pokemon friends, because you truly loved them and wanted to protect them from harm. Zekrom chose you because you sought these beautiful ideals of peace and happiness for all Pokemon." She squeezes her fists shut. "Unlike you, I—I never thought of anything like that in the first place. I set out from Nuvema Town to complete the Pokedex for Professor Juniper and to become Champion. And f-for adventure. I only ended up defeating Team Plasma and saving Unova by chance. By chance, do you hear me?"

But no. That wasn't what actually happened, and she knows that not only from the shocked look on N's face but from what the dull throb in her chest tells her. It wasn't only by chance. A faint smile twists the corners of Touko's mouth as she realizes the truth—the truth that Reshiram chose her for.

"That's not true," she murmurs. "I managed to save Unova all because one clear day in Accumula Town I ran into a boy with green hair and aquamarine eyes."

Silence hangs between them as N lets go of the white cloth of his shirt and lets his arm fall to his side. Touko watches him take a deep breath and lower his head, his eyes—aquamarine eyes—fluttering shut for a moment. He fingers the brim of his black and white cap, and his green shoes clatter softly against the shimmering floor as he takes a few steps forward and wraps his path around clockwise (he always did like mathematics and geometric patterns, didn't he?) back to her.

His voice is clear and still when he speaks.

"Thank you, Touko." N stares thoughtfully into her eyes, green hair fluttering in the breeze. A long pause lingers before his next words, and the chills of emotion keep running, up and down her spine. "The Champion has forgiven me, and…what I should do now is something I'll have to decide for myself."

Touko nods, her smile filled to the brim with tears.

And his smile is exactly the same when he finally turns to look at her, shining with the pure brilliance of the golden room and the golden, human heart that beats somewhere beneath that marble skin. N glows, Touko knows, because he has always glowed, with nothing but innocence and the heartbreaking ideals of Unova's other half.

N's heart is pure and innocent, but there is nothing more beautiful and terrifying than innocence…

He takes a step backward toward the open castle wall.

"You said you have a dream…that dream…make it come true!" he exclaims, voice spiraling across what seems to her like miles of blinding clouds, light beaming from his eyes. "Make your wonderful dream a reality, and it will become your truth!" He spreads his arms wide, and she half-expects him to take flight then and there, elation brimming in every inch of his body. "Touko! If anyone can, it's you!"

The moment has come, she knows. She cannot stop him. Touko feels the truth tear her in two, even as it saves her—black and white, truth and ideals, light and dark, love and…the power to let go.

She reaches forward numbly once again, hoping to catch at least one last shard in her hands of the true hero who stands at the edge of the sky, free at last from the cage that housed him all his life, free to finally chase his own ideals. Free to chase himself.

She cannot stop him. Tears flood down her face. Her heart shatters, splinters tumbling into the endless blue.

N's last words echo above Zekrom's roar as he flings the Poke Ball into the wide emptiness. But the piercing sky is not made of the same emptiness that Touko expected; this emptiness, she knows—it means freedom, it means the freedom of Pokemon all across Unova who can still sleep in the same room as their trainers, who can still fight alongside them for the justice they believe in, who can still understand the meaning of friendship without words. It is in the freedom of N's Pokemon friends, who have healed under his gentle touch the way she hopes he has under hers, and the freedom of N himself.

Touko wants to break down and cry, but instead, she simply smiles when his fingers reach out to intertwine with hers one last time, a true Unova clasped within their own hands.

"Well, then…farewell!"

Zekrom takes flight with one last earth-shaking roar. N doesn't look back, doesn't turn to wave at her tear-stained face, but still, she lifts her hand and waves back, knowing his intentions without needing to speak. His touch still lingers on her fingers as she stands on the golden floor and watches the dark figure disappear into the distance, a black whisper among the clouds.

Suddenly, Touko knows exactly what lies in a twin hero's fate.

Reshiram's Poke Ball is still warm in her hands when the white dragon materalizes in the air where her brother hovered a moment ago, a whirl of orange flame and feathery promises and blue eyes like the sky that understand without speaking.

With a smile and a single tear that slides onto the dragon's head, she climbs on Reshiram's soft, welcoming back and takes flight after them.

Author's Note:

Okay, so I just finished Pokemon Black yesterday for the first time, and...oh my gosh. It has to be said: everyone was so right. The ending was really intense and incredibly moving and saddening, really above and beyond any other Pokemon games in terms of plot and emotion, and after watching the credits, I immediately opened a Word document and started typing, pretty much automatically. I finished the rest of the story today, and what came out was...this.

This is pretty much a story of what my feelings were like at the entire end of the game when N leaves. I wish you could find him again! I really felt the sadness in that last scene and I hope I did justice to it in this story. :)