The humid Alolan air clung uncomfortably to Guzma’s skin.

Morning light filtered through the dense canopy above, dappling the beaten dirt path that twisted behind his parents’ house on Melemele Island. The screech of a distant Wingull mingled with the rustle of leaves as he trudged uphill, a satchel slung low over his shoulder and Golisopod’s Poké Ball clipped to his belt. He wiped at his brow with the frayed sleeve of his jacket—stripped now of the Team Skull insignia, though the faded shape of it still lingered on the back like a ghost. Hala had told him to take it off. Not to shame him, but because “you can’t build new roots in scorched earth.”

Maybe that was true. Still didn’t make it easier.

It had been three months since Team Skull had scattered like leaves in a hurricane. Three months since Po Town had fallen quiet, since the name “Boss” stopped meaning anything. And for the first time in years, Guzma was back in the place he had once torn himself free from—his childhood home.

The same cracked porch. The same creaky steps. The same rooms, steeped in silence so dense it pressed on his lungs.

They hadn't changed much.

His old room was smaller than he remembered. Somehow colder, too, even in the sticky Alolan summer. The posters on the walls were long gone—ripped down, he imagined, the day he left. Now it held only a mat on the floor, a bag of spare clothes, and the weight of everything he’d never said.

His father hadn’t spoken more than a few sentences to him since his return. Just the occasional grunt or disapproving glance, like nothing had changed. Like Guzma was still seventeen and worthless. Still a disappointment.

Guzma said nothing in return.

He avoided the house when he could, preferring the company of sunburn and mosquitoes to that silence. Hala helped where he could, giving him work, giving him something to focus on. Guzma wasn’t dumb. He knew it was a kind of unofficial probation—Iki Town’s attempt at “seeing if the boy could be fixed.”

So he pulled weeds. Repaired broken fences. Hauled crates for the market and swept the path to the shrine until his back ached. But that itch—the one that had always lived under his skin—never went away. The one that screamed he’d never be enough. That he’d never be good.

That morning, Hala had sent him to the ridge trail to gather herbs for the town healer. A routine errand. Harmless. Guzma hated it.

“Why me?” he’d muttered.

“Because,” Hala had said in that unshakable tone, “the island remembers who you were. It’s up to you to show them who you are.”

So here he was, swatting away Cutiefly with one hand and crouching low in the tall grass, the satchel rustling as he pulled free a stalk of limu kala. The ocean glittered far below, blue and endless. The breeze off the cliffs cooled the sweat on his neck and carried the scent of salt and wildflowers.

He let his hand rest on the herb a moment longer than needed.

For all his snarling, there was something... calming about it. Real work. Quiet work. No one yelling. No fists slamming tables. No impossible standards. Just the earth. The wind. And his breath, steady for once.

Then a crunch of footsteps snapped him back to the moment.

He straightened slowly, squinting against the light as someone emerged from the trail ahead. “Yo,” Guzma called, voice rough, “this trail’s kinda off the main path, y’know.”