Yagyuu Hiroshi

[This video opens, perhaps a bit oddly, with a shot of the library in the Tennis Haus — or what would be a shot of the library in the Tennis Haus, if it weren't for the fact that Yagyuu is currently blocking the view as he makes adjustments to the camera, shadows playing over the out-of-focus image as it shifts back and forth until he gets it the way he wants it. He's being rather meticulous about getting this just right, actually, and fusses over it awhile until it's the way he wants it — perhaps a bit odd in itself.

At last, though, he steps back, appraises his handiwork for a minute, and then leaves the room with a slight nod of apparent satisfaction. But he isn't gone for long; within a minute or so he's back, carrying a small box, and with his Vulpix at his heels.

He sits down on the carpet, holding the box in both hands, and then sets it aside as he withdraws a brush from his pocket and pulls the Vulpix into his lap, beginning to groom her with familiar ease.]

You'll be eight months old this month, Masako.

[He works slowly, methodically, bringing her fur to a healthy sheen with more care than Yagyuu is generally inclined to show toward anyone.]

I'd planned to leave this to Kirihara-kun, you know. It's part of the responsibility of being a good captain, knowing your players' capabilities. Their strengths, their weaknesses. When to nurture them and when to take a firm hand, to better push them toward their full potential, and when to demand more still. When to ask them to surpass their own limits.

[A gradual pause.]

He'll be a good captain, once he comes to the realization that he can't be our junior forever. But that's something he'll have to do for himself.

[He finishes up, then sets her back on her feet in front of him, and reaches over for the box. There's a Fire Stone inside, one he bought a few months back, that he's been holding in anticipation of this moment — and so now he brings it out, holding it loosely in his upturned palm.]

Now that he and Fuji-kun are gone, I suppose this is something you'll have to do for yourself, too. When you're ready. When it's what you want.

[He holds the stone out for her inspection, then sets it on the carpet between them, well within her reach.]

We all have to grow up sometime, don't we.

[And for a minute, silence hangs in the air between them as they look at each other, a boy and his Vulpix together in a sunlit library, and then at last the Vulpix moves — running right past the Fire Stone on the ground to jump back into his arms instead, nearly bowling him over in the process.

And the last thing that's visible before the video ends is a pair of clawed purple hands descending on the Gear, and a smudge of ghostly fuzz at the edges of the camera, and — oh, would you look at that, this private home movie just got uploaded to the Gear network, didn't it? Thanks, Hirochii. Thanks.]