This was the most Galarian Corsola had spoken since being captured.
Unfortunately, its audience was Chansey.
Kashiwagi watched the entire exchange, unable to understand a single word. He sat cross-legged, chin in hand, waiting for them to finish their "chat."
Galarian Corsola seemed to be telling some incredible story, as Chansey's eyes soon welled up with tears. Kashiwagi assumed it was recounting some tragic past—perhaps how miserable its death had been—but in the next second, Chansey's tears stopped as if time had frozen. Its face tightened, the tears vanished back into its eyes, and it adopted an expression of utter speechlessness.
"Lucky?"
"Sola-cor..."
"Lucky!"
"Sola..."
"Lucky..."
The conversation ended there.
Galarian Corsola turned to glance at Kashiwagi, appearing to size him up, before drifting lazily toward the living area.
Chansey rubbed its face, looking deeply conflicted. Facing its Trainer's expectant gaze, it began to gesticulate wildly. The content was so complex that despite their strong bond, it took a long time to clarify the situation. It only ended when Galarian Corsola drifted back with a look of pure satisfaction.
Sensing Kashiwagi's eyes on it, the Corsola's satisfied expression instantly flipped back to depression mode, returning to its default state as the "Core-slump."
"This guy..." Kashiwagi's lip twitched.
Through Chansey's explanation, he learned the gist of Galarian Corsola's origins.
It wasn't a local Lental Corsola that had passed away. It came from a much more distant land, though it didn't know exactly where. It only remembered a Crawdaunt attacking it for no reason; while counterattacking, it had accidentally fallen into an underground river. It was swept out to sea, stuck itself onto a migrating group of Wailord and Wailmer, and eventually reached the waters near the Lental Region, where it fell into a deep dormancy.
Heaven only knows how long it had been down there before Kashiwagi picked it up.
During these past few days of "awakening," its mind had been foggy and stuck in power-saving mode. It had lost most of its cognitive ability, leaving it only with a mechanical, automatic counter-response to external attacks.
Fortunately, yesterday's "starvation tactic" had provided enough of a jolt to bring its brain back online.
Kashiwagi didn't even know where to begin critiquing this.
What is this, some ancient demon king? And why is it that when others break a seal, they lose their power, but you lose your IQ?
In short: it had just slept itself stupid.
But if anyone thought a returned IQ meant the Corsola would become hardworking, they were dead wrong. Despite constant encouragement, Galarian Corsola maintained that sleeping was currently the only thing it enjoyed, flatly rejecting most of Chansey's suggestions.
Chansey then asked about the meals.
Galarian Corsola fell into a sudden silence.
Fine—it had to admit that the food Kashiwagi made was delicious enough to make it wake up on time even when it was "brain-dead." Now that its intelligence had returned, it couldn't help but steal a few glances at the human. He looks like all the others, so how is he so good at this?
Under Chansey's persistent coaxing, Galarian Corsola begrudgingly accepted a deal: it would set aside some time each day to help Kashiwagi battle, provided it was guaranteed sufficient "free sleep time."
In exchange, Kashiwagi had to provide delicious food and "massage services."
"What on earth is 'massage services'?" Kashiwagi muttered. Chansey lowered its head, blushing with embarrassment, and let out a soft, giggling hehe while rubbing its hands together.
Without waiting for Kashiwagi to formally agree, Galarian Corsola drifted slowly over to him, closed its eyes, and dropped into his lap.
Go ahead, start rubbing. Its belly-up position made the intent unmistakable.
"Lucky?" Chansey leaned in, looking like it wanted to take over.
"It's fine, I'll do it," Kashiwagi sighed.
-----
From that night on, Kashiwagi gained a shoulder accessory.
To ensure it could sleep peacefully at all times, Galarian Corsola clung to his shoulder whenever they went out. If the left shoulder was occupied, it took the right; if both were busy, it sat right on top of his head.
Fortunately, it weighed less than a pound. Counting the smoky horns, it was only about 50cm tall, and the round stone body itself was only about 30cm. It didn't place much of a physical burden on Kashiwagi's neck.
The more important development was in battling.
Though there was no "passion" to speak of in its fights, it was at least willing to participate. It showed no major resistance and followed Kashiwagi's commands with perfect accuracy. Even though it lost more than it won, Kashiwagi didn't complain; he simply meditated on how to maximize its potential.
He realized his team was becoming quite "low-speed" by base stats, but he usually played them as mid-speed, favoring aggressive charges. This worked for Aggron, Mawile, and Chansey. Mawile had the explosive speed of Magnet Rise, and Chansey's Minimize made it incredibly agile. But those tactics couldn't be replicated with Galarian Corsola.
It was truly, painfully slow. Without Trick Room, moving fluidly was nearly impossible. If he forced his usual style, he'd end up like Ash's Torterra—turning a strong lead into a sacrificial pawn. He had to adapt his own rhythm to match the Pokémon's.
To help, Kashiwagi visited the ship's specialized Pokémon goods store and found a second Eviolite.
The price was steep—500,000 PokéDollars—but the thought of taking the Eviolite back from Chansey and seeing its disappointed face was enough to make him swallow the cost.
More money! More whims!
Upon receiving the stone, Galarian Corsola showed no reaction, simply dropping it into one of the holes on its back. As a Ghost-type, its interior was nearly hollow, consisting of a smoky spirit body. Upon evolution, this spirit would expand, shattering the stone shell to become a translucent Cursola.
Kashiwagi recalled that level 38 was usually the threshold for evolution. At level 35, it was close. However, given its lazy nature, it wasn't particularly interested in evolving. When he asked, he got the standard answer: "Evolving sounds like too much work."
...Fair enough. For a Pokémon like this, evolving didn't necessarily make it "stronger" in practice, even if the base stats increased.
After a long voyage, the Eros Milotic finally arrived in the Hoenn Region, preparing to dock at the port of Littleroot Town for supplies.