The beach stretched for kilometers in either direction, a canvas of sand and surf that Sasuke had claimed as his training ground.
Dawn light painted the sky in shades of orange and pink as Landorus hovered beside him, the Legendary Pokémon's cloud-like lower body stirring the sand in gentle spirals. They'd been here since before sunrise, working through exercises that pushed the limits of reaction speed.
"Again," Sasuke commanded.
Landorus surged forward, and Sasuke threw a series of markers into the air, small weighted discs that caught the wind unpredictably. The Ground-type tracked them with ancient eyes, then released precisely calibrated bursts of earth energy that struck each disc before it hit the sand.
Seven of eight. Better than yesterday's five.
"The wind is interfering," Sasuke observed. "We need to account for aerial distortion."
Landorus rumbled agreement. The Legendary had served as one of the Forces of Nature for millennia, but this kind of precision work was different from the broad-scale weather manipulation it was accustomed to. Speed, reactive, targeted speed, required different muscles, different instincts.
Three days. That's all they had to solve a problem that Sakumo's opponents had been failing to solve for decades.
"Your Ground-type immunity is the foundation," Sasuke said, more to himself than to Landorus. "Pikachu's Electric attacks won't work. That's the advantage we build on."
But immunity to damage wasn't the same as immunity to defeat. If Pikachu was as fast as Sakumo claimed, faster than Sasuke could track, it could potentially wear Landorus down through sheer accumulated impact. Death by a thousand cuts, none of them individually lethal but collectively devastating.
The solution wasn't defense. It was control.
Miyuki arrived mid-morning with supplies and obstacles.
"I borrowed these from the Pokémon Center's rehabilitation unit," she explained, unloading a collection of poles, hoops, and elevated platforms from the Mobile Home. "Normally they're used for mobility recovery training, but the principles should work for what you need."
"An obstacle course?"
"A prediction course." Miyuki began arranging the equipment with practiced efficiency. "The obstacles create defined paths. When something moves through a constrained space, its options narrow. Instead of tracking infinite possibilities, you track limited ones."
Sasuke saw her logic immediately. Pikachu's speed advantage relied on freedom of movement, the ability to attack from any angle, at any moment. If Landorus could reshape the battlefield, limit those angles, force Pikachu into predictable corridors...
"Help me understand the layout," he said.
They spent an hour constructing the course, Miyuki's analytical mind proving invaluable for spatial reasoning. The obstacles created a maze of sorts, not one that would trap Pikachu, but one that would channel its movements. Each gap, each opening, became a potential ambush point.
"If Pikachu enters here," Miyuki indicated a narrow passage between two elevated platforms "its exit options are limited to three directions. That's manageable. You can prepare responses for three possibilities."
"But Pikachu isn't stupid. It won't enter obvious traps."
"No. Which means you need to make the traps less obvious." Miyuki's golden eyes sparkled with the challenge. "The obstacles are just the framework. What fills the gaps matters more."
Landorus understood before Sasuke did. The Legendary rose higher, then slammed its fists downward, not a full Earthquake, but a controlled tremor that reshaped the sand beneath the obstacle course. Dunes formed and collapsed. Depressions appeared in unexpected places. The flat beach became terrain.
"Uneven ground," Sasuke said slowly. "Even the fastest Pokémon has to account for footing."
"And if the footing keeps changing..." Miyuki smiled. "Adaptability becomes more important than raw speed."
Kasumi arrived with her team in early afternoon.
"Espeon reporting for duty," she announced, releasing the elegant Psychic-type onto the sand. Espeon stretched luxuriously, its lavender fur catching the sunlight. "Ready for anticipation training."
Sasuke had requested this specifically. Espeon's Future Sight ability allowed it to launch attacks that materialized later, in predetermined locations. Training against such attacks developed the kind of predictive thinking that Sakumo had emphasized, the gap between thought and action.
"Set up a pattern," Sasuke instructed. "Random intervals, random locations. Landorus needs to learn to anticipate without seeing."
"How random?"
"As random as you can make it."
Kasumi's grin was competitive. "Challenge accepted."
The training began. Espeon would glow briefly, the only warning before Future Sight activated, and then moments later, psychic energy would erupt from seemingly empty space. Landorus had to read the initial positioning, calculate probable strike zones, and move before the attack materialized.
The first hour was humbling. Future Sight struck Landorus more often than not, the Legendary's ancient power proving no substitute for predictive instinct.
"You're reacting to the glow," Kasumi observed. "That's the wrong trigger. By the time you see the glow, the attack location is already set. You need to read Espeon's intent before the ability activates."
"How?"
"Body language. Eye movement. Subtle shifts in posture." Kasumi demonstrated with Espeon, showing how the Psychic-type's ears would angle toward its intended target zone, how its weight distribution shifted slightly before each Future Sight. "Everything communicates. You just have to learn to read it."
Sasuke applied the lesson. He began watching Kasumi and Espeon together, noting the tiny signals that preceded each attack. Slowly, Landorus's hit rate improved. By late afternoon, the Legendary was dodging more Future Sights than it was taking.
"Better," Kasumi said. "But that's against one opponent with one ability. Pikachu will have multiple options and no delay between attacks."
"Then we train harder."
Kiyomi contributed research.
She'd spent the previous day combing through every public record of Sakumo's battles, gym challenges, exhibition matches, tournament footage from his competitive years. Her tablet now contained a comprehensive analysis of his Pikachu's fighting style.
"Hit-and-run," she summarized as they gathered for evening strategy discussion. "Pika never stays still. She attacks, withdraws, repositions, attacks again. Opponents describe it as fighting smoke, the moment you think you've located her, she's already somewhere else."
"Does she have patterns?"
"She has preferences." Kiyomi pulled up visualization data. "Pika favors circular movement, orbiting her opponent rather than approaching directly. She rarely attacks from the same angle twice in succession. Her speed allows her to maintain constant motion without losing attack power."
Sasuke studied the movement diagrams. The circular patterns made sense, they minimized the time Pika spent in any single location, making her nearly impossible to pin down. Traditional strategies that relied on cornering or trapping would fail against such mobility.
"What about her attacks?"
"Quick Attack as the primary engagement tool, not for damage, but for repositioning. Thunder Wave for control if the opponent proves troublesome. Thunderbolt for finishing power." Kiyomi scrolled to another dataset. "But here's what's interesting: almost none of her victories involve Thunderbolt. Opponents are defeated through accumulated Quick Attack damage and exhaustion. She doesn't need overwhelming force because her speed makes her untouchable."
"So our immunity to Thunderbolt is less relevant than we thought."
"The immunity still matters, it removes her finisher from consideration. But you're right that the battle will be decided by Quick Attack, not Electric-type moves."
"Then we need to make Quick Attack ineffective." Sasuke looked at Landorus, then back at the data. "What if we changed the environment so severely that her speed became a liability?"