Within a single minute, the bidding on the Zorua had climbed to a staggering figure.
One hundred million.
Jacob stared at the display and felt a quiet disbelief settle over him. He had known the Underground Black Market drew serious money, but watching it happen in real time was something else entirely. A quasi-King-level Zorua was rare, certainly, but one hundred million?
He shook his head inwardly. People with that kind of wealth really did exist, and apparently they had opinions about Zorua.
"One hundred ten million."
He raised his paddle calmly and announced the figure without hesitation. Ten million over the current bid, clean and deliberate.
The reason he could do this without a second thought was simple: it was not his money. The Qi family had offered to cover any bids he made, and Jacob felt no particular attachment to the Qi family's funds. He raised the paddle the way someone else might flip a page.
There was a reason for that, too, beyond mere convenience.
Jacob and Erick sat beside each other in the private room with the comfortable ease of two people who had reached an understanding. But Jacob had no illusions about what that understanding was worth. The moment his identity as Giovanni came out, everything would change. The Qi family knew Giovanni as the man responsible for their decline: for the death of Emilio, for the death of Adonis, for the loss of several Champion-level Pokémon in their ranks. The fall of a family that had been one of the strongest in the Southwest region traced back, in no small part, to him.
There was no version of that revelation that ended peacefully.
Jacob had thought about it carefully over the past few days. The conflict had not been something he had gone looking for. Emilio had targeted him first, coveting the Dark Stone Jacob had won at auction and attempting to ambush him. Jacob had defended himself, and Emilio had not survived. That was the beginning of it.
After that came the Gigantamax Mystery Realm incident. Adonis had pushed the confrontation, and Jacob had been left with few options. He had sent out Iron Valiant, and Adonis had not walked away either. From that point on, the enmity was fixed.
He had looked at the Qi family's situation since then and found himself hesitating more than he expected. It was a large family, with deep roots across the Southwest region. Dozens of members, perhaps more when collateral relatives were counted. If he decided to act against them, it could not be done halfway. Either he left them alone entirely, or he finished it completely. There was no middle ground that would not come back to cause him problems later.
He understood that. He had understood it for a while.
And so he had made his decision, quietly, without ceremony. From the moment Emilio died, the sequence had already started. There was no clean way out of it now.
Jacob turned his attention back to the stage and raised his paddle again when the moment called for it.
"Congratulations to the guest in Box Two!"
The auctioneer's gavel came down with a sharp crack, and her smile widened. "This Zorua has been acquired for three hundred million."
Three hundred million. The final price was on the higher end, even by the standards of the room, but the auction house had no complaints. A strong opening lot set the tone for everything that followed.
"Now, our second item of the evening..."
The auction moved forward, and Jacob made his presence known two or three more times. On each occasion, he used his ability to identify exactly what he was looking at before bidding, and on each occasion, he came away with something genuinely valuable. He kept his bids deliberate and spaced out. Bidding too aggressively would draw attention to the pattern, and if Erick began to suspect that Jacob had no intention of settling the bill afterward, the cooperation would fall apart before it had served its purpose.
So Jacob moved only when the item was worth it, and only for S-rank lots.
"Ladies and gentlemen," the auctioneer announced, "we have now arrived at the final item of this year's annual auction."
A curtained box was wheeled onto the stage. What made people straighten in their seats was not the box itself, but its escort. Three Pokémon accompanied the staff member pushing it, standing close on either side. All of them were at least King-level in strength. One of them registered at Champion level.
Jacob took that in and said nothing. Whatever was in that box had not been brought out lightly.
"I can promise you," the auctioneer said, letting the quiet in the room hold for a moment, "that the value of this final lot will exceed what most of you are expecting."
She stepped to the box, held the crowd's attention for one more breath, and drew back the curtain.
Seven-coloured light spilled out from inside.
The room erupted.
"Is that— a Rainbow Feather?"
"Ho-Oh's feather? Here?"
"Look at that light. That's a tail feather, or a crest feather. That's not a small one."
Jacob stared.
He had not expected it either. A Rainbow Feather, one of Ho-Oh's own feathers, appearing at an Underground Black Market auction in Dragon Ridge was not something he had factored into tonight. His first thought was the same as most people's: why would anyone sell this rather than keep it?
The answer came to him quickly. The Underground Black Market was backed by several major families, all of them with competing interests. If the feather had been found or acquired jointly, and no one could agree on who deserved it, an auction was the cleanest way to resolve the dispute. Let the highest bid settle it.
He glanced at Erick.
Erick was staring at the feather with a tight, closed expression. Not the look of someone surprised by a rare item. The look of someone who had just understood something unpleasant.
As one of the Underground Black Market's principal backers, Erick had not been told. The families had known about the Rainbow Feather, had planned the auction around it, and had not seen fit to inform the Qi family. The Qi family had been cut out of that conversation entirely.
Erick's hands were still in his lap, but his chest rose and fell steadily, the deliberate rhythm of someone holding something in.
Jacob watched him for a moment, then spoke quietly.
"It seems like the Qi family has been left out of a few things, Erick. One of the partners behind this auction, and you're finding out about the Rainbow Feather the same time as everyone else."
He did not say it cruelly. He said it evenly, the way someone states a fact.
"Some people seem to have already decided where you stand."
Erick's expression darkened further. He exhaled slowly. "They will regret that decision."
"I don't doubt it," Jacob said. "But for what it's worth — from today, I think they'll begin to understand what it cost them to underestimate you. Cooperating with God's Coffin was the right call, Erick. You'll see that."