In Akira's childhood, Pokémon was translated as "Pet Elves." Except for the word "pet" and the debated "small" part, given that many Pokémon are actually quite large—larger than humans, even—everything else was pretty accurate.
The definition of "elf" was officially certified by Gojo Satoru's Six Eyes.
As for "pet," the majority of raising Pokémon isn't much different from keeping pets. After all, there are few Pokémon you can marry—unless you're part of a certain cult of sad believers.
Of course, even pets have their differences.
Some are easy to take care of.
Representatives of this category are the Grass-type Pokémon, like Oddish and Sunkern. Most Grass-type Pokémon can survive on photosynthesis alone, some even producing useful by-products. They not only don't trouble their Trainers but can also generate income—they're easier to raise than even cacti.
Others, however, are extremely demanding.
They have requirements for food, temperature, and even the environment itself, like Cottonee and the rare Dragon-type Dratini. Raising them well is no less challenging than keeping reptiles like lizards and snakes.
Fortunately, all the Pokémon following Akira belong to the easy-to-raise category.
The Ralts line, which includes Gardevoir, is basically like adding another pair of chopsticks at the dinner table for the Akira family. Whatever humans eat, they eat.
Pancham is a bit more troublesome, as it likes eating bamboo and has a digestive system similar to real pandas—more fragile than other wild animals. However, it has inherited the panda's omnivorous nature quite well.
Bamboo is a preference, but it can eat other foods like meat, vegetables, both raw and cooked. It even occasionally licks a metal spoon, showing off a bit of Iron-Eater flair.
Its current height of 0.6 meters is still somewhat lacking, but after evolution, it could barely manage to ride out and battle the Yellow Emperor like Chi You—what do you think, Darkrai?
"Mmm."
Darkrai ignored Akira and focused on "feeding."
Akira: "..."
This is a mythical Pokémon, a being rarer than even the legendary Pokémon, yet who knew it would be so easy to raise. This doesn't match its high-level aura at all.
Darkrai's feeding method was extremely simple and crude; it created a suction force from what seemed to be its mouth area, sweeping away all the residual cursed energy in the surroundings.
Residual cursed energy—any remnants left behind by jujutsu sorcerers, curses, or cursed objects, basically anything related to curses.
And Darkrai fed on this.
This also confirmed Akira's theory about the connection between "curses" and nightmares, and what Darkrai liked most was the cursed energy released from Rika Orimoto.
There was no need to do anything extra; just being around her, absorbing a bit here and there, Darkrai actually leveled up.
Le-veled-up!
Akira could hardly believe his eyes.
This is the biggest hassle when it comes to raising Pokémon.
The method of training Gardevoir on Ten Miles Hill is one thing, but even in Tokyo, training Pancham wasn't easy either.
There are plenty of curses here, but their strength is also higher. Akira was really worried in the beginning, afraid the little guy would get hurt or crippled by a curse. In the end, he had to scour several commercial areas, gathering up a bunch of weak "fly-head" curses for it to squash, just to barely get the little guy through the rookie stage.
In the Pokémon world, no matter if you're a mythical Pokémon or a legendary one, without high levels, you're just a weakling.
Right now, Darkrai was just a fancy shell—scary-looking, good for intimidation, but incapable of winning a fight against anyone at Jujutsu High.
But with this new discovery that he could level up by consuming "nightmares," Akira had nothing to worry about.
After all, this was the Tokyo Metropolitan Curse Technical College, a place for studying and exorcising curses. If anything was in abundance here, it was curses.
And there was also the gigantic source of cursed energy, Rika Orimoto, whose scale of curses even Gojo Satoru found troublesome. Just a little overflow from her was enough to keep Darkrai well-fed.
This resulted in Akira spending significantly more time around Yuta Okkotsu recently, to the point where Panda was starting to look at the two of them oddly.
The way you're so close to Yuta—putting your arm around his shoulder—if you'd just act like that with Maki, I, the CP shipper, would have long since boarded the ship.
Seriously, what's wrong with the guys at our school?
Our dear Principal Yaga Masamichi and the incredibly handsome and eligible Gojo Satoru have never shown signs of pursuing any female relationships.
Among their peers, you have people like Akira and Yuta, who seem more interested in non-humans than humans. And then there's Inumaki Toge, who can't speak properly, so how's he supposed to date? Can he really just rely on his phone?
What did people do before cell phones? Did they hold up signs for each other or go straight to marriage proposals?
Panda really wanted to visit the Inumaki family and ask Toge's parents how they courted in their clan.
Last year, Jujutsu High's recruitment went poorly; they only found one delinquent student, Kinji Hakari.
This year, they finally managed to fill up a small class, but they were all a bunch of oddballs.
Why is it so hard to ship a normal couple in this school?
Is it too much to ask? Is it too much? Is it too much?
If you guys keep messing around like this, don't blame me for looking to the next generation. Fushiguro Megumi looks decent and seems reliable. He should be popular, right?
Please, please, please, don't follow in the footsteps of your seniors.
No one but Maki knew what Panda was thinking; otherwise, it wouldn't just be Maki taking on Panda alone—it would be a group brawl.
Akira might even use his own methods, perhaps asking why two pandas can't be a CP themselves.
Panda, I never told you that Pancham can also evolve, and Akira already has the key ingredient; he just needs the level.
What do you think, king of the Dark-types, mythical Pokémon, Darkrai?
"Mmm!" Darkrai floated along the residual cursed energy trail.
"Come back, come back. That's enough. If you keep hanging around the girl, you'll be seen as a creep. She's not your counterpart, Cresselia."
Akira, being the reliable person Nanami picked out, had a good grasp of the situation. Feeding off Rika's cursed energy was already a bit questionable, but hanging around all the time would be too much.
Hearing his master's command, Darkrai hesitated but didn't return, merely replying with, "Mmm→Mmm mmm↓."
Learning to understand Darkrai's language was way harder than "Sha" or "Play," but with the help of his Greenthumb perk as the "Trainer," Akira managed to grasp what he meant.
"You're trying to enter Rika's nightmare?"
"Mmm!" Darkrai nodded. Dream entry wasn't on his move list, but it was a racial trait of the Nightmare Pokémon.
"Are you confident?"
"Mmm, mmm!"
"Just a bit more 'nightmare' and you can do it, huh? Good, strong… So, what do you plan to do once you're inside?"
"Mmm~~~~~~"
"You're going to find the real Rika Orimoto. You don't want her to be stuck in a nightmare forever… You're a surprisingly kind Nightmare Pokémon."
Akira felt a mix of emotions. Here was a Nightmare Pokémon, an existence that could plunge people into endless nightmares, thinking about how to save someone from a nightmare.
And look at himself, still hesitating over whether to let Rika be freed from her curse.
If he kept going down this path, one day he might turn into a DIO-like figure, walking the path of losing his humanity—even if he never studied law.
"Gar-chan, what's your opinion?"
"Gar…" Gardevoir puffed out her cheeks in rare displeasure.
Akira laughed. "My bad. I've always known how you feel. It's time I had a good talk with Yuta Okkotsu."