The Eminence in Shadow

John Smith falls back. Gettan presses forward.

Yukime watches the fierce battle through her tears. She sees John Smith, fighting as hard as he can…

In all the time she’s known him, she’s never seen him so visibly enraged.

Their relationship hasn’t been a long one. However, she’s well aware he isn’t the type to wear his emotions on his sleeve.

Right now, though, he’s furious—furious from the bottom of his heart.

Furious at Gettan, the man who stole her away and ran her through.

“Mr. John…”

He looks like he’s on the back foot, but Yukime knows this isn’t the full extent of his strength.

Then—

John Smith fires off a question. “Is that all you’ve got…?”

“Rrr…” Gettan pants as he glares at John Smith.

He’s been on the offensive this whole time, yet his blade hasn’t reached John Smith even once.

To the contrary, Gettan’s body is the one covered in countless tiny cuts.

He can see all the wires, true.

However, it’s precisely his ability to see them that keeps him from advancing into their net.

John Smith’s wires are spread out like a spiderweb. One step in, and escape becomes impossible.

Gettan senses its immaculate arrangement. It’s perfectly designed to predict, trap, and capture its prey.

Each time he tries to push his limits even a little, he immediately finds himself riddled with cuts.

If he doesn’t go forward, he can never slice his foe. But if he does—only death awaits.

Before he noticed, all Gettan became able to do was futilely swing a sword that could never reach its mark.

John Smith calmly steps toward him. At some point, he used his steel wires to cut off Gettan’s escape routes.

“I think you have something you want to tell me. Say it…”

“Ah—”

When Gettan hears the order, he looks toward Yukime for the briefest of moments. However, he quickly shakes his head.

“I have

nothing

to say to you!!”

“Is that so—”

The next moment, blood bursts from Gettan’s chest. The steel wires surrounding him just sliced at his guts.

Even as his face contorts in pain, however, he continues glaring at John Smith.

“I needed power! I sacrificed everything for it!! And I’m not about to back down now!!”

He pulls a heap of red pills from his pocket and swallows them all down. It’s obviously far more than the recommended dose.

“I won’t let myself be stolen from again… So if it’s to keep what’s mine…”

Gettan glances at Yukime for the second time. It’s almost as though he can truly see.

Then his body rapidly darkens. His muscles expand and contort grotesquely.

Waves of magic burst from his body and blast away the falling snow.

“…then my life is a small price to pay.”

Gettan opens his crushed eyelids.

The eyes beneath them are bloodred orbs.

Crimson tears stream down his cheeks.

His movements are leagues faster than they were before. The moment the snow at his feet flies up, he’s already standing before John Smith.

“HRAAAAAAAAAAAAAGH!!”

He brings his blade down with a roar.

John Smith’s fingers twitch, and the steel wire cuts through the air.

“—Oh?”

When the longsword and steel wires meet, John Smith is the one forced to retreat.

A number of severed threads flop down from his fingers.

Gettan doesn’t stop there. His movements are animalistic as he gives pursuit.

Once again, his longsword slices through John Smith’s wires.

He swings his sword. John Smith’s wires dance.

The exchange goes on for a little while, but eventually, John Smith runs out of wires.

“GRAAAAAAH!!”

A maniacal grin spreads across Gettan’s face as he presses toward his disarmed foe.

However, John Smith just stands motionless and sighs.

“At the end of the day, it’s just steel…,” he murmurs uninterestedly as he fixes his gaze on Gettan’s onrushing form.

Then…they meet.

John Smith evades Gettan’s ferocious blow by taking a step forward and bending one knee. The longsword grazes his cheek, taking a tuft of black hair with it.

The dodge used only the bare minimum movement required.

The step was short and quick.

As such, he was able to perform them in one ideal, fluid motion.

In other words…it’s an act of martial perfection.

“What?!”

As Gettan’s eyes go wide with shock, John Smith’s elbow collides with his jaw.

“Gluh—” He staggers backward. His enemy presses the attack.

A fist plows into Gettan’s gut, and when he lurches forward, he receives a knee strike to the torso.

And John Smith doesn’t let up there.

Nothing about his fists, elbows, or knees is special, yet they sink into Gettan’s body all the same. Gettan’s engorged flesh is getting tossed around like a toy.

A man’s body is his final, most reliable weapon…and John Smith is the embodiment of that ideal.

Gettan frantically tries to retreat and put some distance between himself and the whirlwind of blows.

Thanks to the pills, his body heals as soon as it takes damage. The storm won’t last forever, so all he has to do is weather it and get to safety, and—

John Smith, however, doesn’t stop.

With each step, he cuts off Gettan’s escape routes, and with each blow, he saps power from Gettan’s legs.

As he rains down the flurry of blows, he calculates and predicts Gettan’s every move. That’s how he continues his one-sided beatdown.

By keeping Gettan at point-blank range, he’ll always be in John Smith’s reach. No matter how his prey moves, he never lets it escape.

The dispassionate, almost mechanical beatdown continues.

“Gack… Gah-hah… Grah… Urk…”

Gettan’s bones break, his fangs snap, and his organs burst. They immediately regenerate.

The torture seems never-ending. The sprays of blood paint a macabre carpet atop the fallen snow.

Eventually, John Smith’s blows pick up in strength. They pick up in speed, too.

“You have something to tell me. Say it.”

“Gah… Hur-guh…”

John Smith’s words are accompanied by more blows.

Finally, Gettan reaches his limit.

The regeneration stops.

Seeing that, John Smith backs up half a step—then swings his right leg with all his might.

His foot slams into the side of Gettan’s skull, and the therianthrope collapses violently onto the snow.

As Gettan tries to get up, John Smith stamps down on his chest.

He glares up at the man. Gettan’s eyes throb, as though trying to remind him of the past.

“Gah…”

John Smith smashes his fist into his opponent’s face.

“—Say it.”

He punches him again.

“—Tell me what I want to hear.”

“John Smith. I see… You’re the one…from back then…”

Gettan looks up at John Smith, all sorts of emotions running across his face: rage, hatred, envy, regret…

“If I had power like yours, maybe things would have been different…”

The mixed feelings in his voice afford it a certain weight.

“I tried to flee from my own weakness, and look where that’s gotten me… All I really wanted to protect was…” Gettan smiles. “But I feel…I can entrust it to you…”

Gettan’s voice is weak now. His finger trembles as he points in Yukime’s direction.

“I trust you…with Yu…”

“…Understood.” John Smith clasps Gettan’s trembling hand in his. “You can leave it all to me.”

And then Gettan breathes his last.

Yukime buries her face in John Smith’s chest. Her tears sink into his suit. “I finally remembered… You’re the one who…”

John Smith runs magic through his hands, then strokes Yukime’s wound.

“So warm… Like it was all the way back then…”

Thump.

Yukime’s heart pounds.

Ever since that day, that day when everything was taken from her, she’s had to live alone with a frozen heart.

No matter what happened, no matter who embraced her, she’d vowed to accept it with a smile.

The ice was a wall she built to protect herself, one that she knew would never thaw.

Yet now, it was melting.

“…Thank you,” Yukime says.

John Smith cocks his head to the side.

Then he lets out a quiet murmur. “I think he said it was buried under a yew tree over there or something, right…?”

“I’ve got one last job I need to do.”

John Smith begins digging a hole, and Yukime returns to the capital on her own. He must be digging Gettan a grave. Perhaps that’s what Gettan had been searching for—somewhere to die.

That’s the impression his final look had given Yukime, in any case. He seemed peaceful, almost nostalgic.

After spending a night resting in the capital, Yukime picks up the gold coins she just traded for and heads back to their hideout.

John Smith healed all her wounds. Even the ugly scars across her back have vanished without a trace.

Once she reaches the base, she heads down to the vault with her gold in tow. However, what she sees within comes as a shock.

“What in the…?”

All of its contents are gone.

As she cocks her head to the side in surprise, a figure clad in black appears behind her.

“I see. You’re Yukime, president of the Snow Fox Corporation…”

“—?!”

Yukime whirls around to find a platinum-blond elf beauty standing there.

“Who are you?” Yukime asks as she gets ready to draw her fans at a moment’s notice.

“My name is Alpha. I’m with the Shadow Garden. Given the reception you’re giving me, I assume he hasn’t told you anything.”

“Alpha…?”

Yukime’s well aware that John Smith—aka Shadow—is the Shadow Garden’s leader.

However, he never mentioned anything about the organization to her. It’s strange, now that she thinks about it.

“I suppose you must have been his collaborator… As well as the woman the MCA’s Gettan was fixated on…”

“What are you trying to say?”

“I have a letter for you. I’m afraid the seal is broken, but I thought it would only be proper to give it to you anyway.”

Alpha hands her a timeworn sheet of paper.

“The MCA will fall soon, and there were some things we wanted to collect from them before that happened. We found this in Gettan’s room. It’s a letter…no, a will. And it’s addressed to you.”

“Gettan’s will…”

Yukime takes it and starts reading.

The first thing that takes her by surprise is how messy the writing is. He must have refused to entrust it to anyone else, writing it himself even through his blindness. Yukime can sense definite fragments of the warmth of his handwriting in that messy scrawl.

Gettan starts the letter with an apology to Yukime and the people of her village, then goes on to curse his own weakness.

Finally, he reveals an alarming truth.

“The Cult of Diablos…”

It’s the true identity of the organization that set him along his path.

“We of the Shadow Garden are fighting to take down the Cult of Diablos. And of course,

he’s

no different…”

“Mr. John, too…”

“Also, Mitsugoshi is a Shadow Garden front.”

“—?! Heavens! What a shock!”

“This entire incident’s played out exactly how he wanted it to from the very beginning. Unfortunately, that does mean we had to take all the gold.”

“Ah, and now Mitsugoshi will be able to ride out the credit crisis.”

“We’ll also be able to snatch up the MCA’s assets. Our position will be nigh unassailable.”

“And Mr. John…no, Mr. Shadow saw it all coming.”

“If you want to curse him as a traitor, you’re well within your rights to do so. I have no doubt he’s prepared to accept that judgment.”

Yukime shakes her head. “I have no intentions of doing such a thing. Mr. Shadow has saved me now twice over.”

“…Very well.” Alpha nods. “We’re prepared to accept you into our

ranks. Unless you have objections, we would have you keep continue managing Snow Fox so you could act as our liaison to the Lawless City.”

“Ah. Very wise. You want Mitsugoshi to act as the public face, and for Snow Fox to handle the dirty work… A clever arrangement.”

Yukime and Alpha have identical smiles on their faces.

It’s clear they each hold the other in strong admiration.

“We’re glad to have you on board.”

“The pleasure is all mine.”

After they finish shaking hands, Yukime lets out a quiet murmur. “Although it brings me no joy to discover just how many important people he has in his life…”

She and Alpha leave the base together, discussing their future plans.

The MCA’s collapse is swift.

Knowing they won’t have enough reserves to meet people’s demand to trade in their paper bills, many merchants close up shop and try to flee in the night. Eventually, the Knight Order has to be called in to force them to open their coffers, but the amount of money within is nowhere remotely close to the amount of paper bills in circulation.

Eventually, all the merchants are rounded up. Their punishment will no doubt be harsh.

When the masses watch the MCA collapse, their gaze immediately turns to Mitsugoshi.

The morning after the MCA goes bankrupt, they all swarm Mitsugoshi Bank’s capital branch office.

There are enough of them to pack the main street completely full.

The moment the bank opens, they all rush in, paper bills in hand. What they find inside, however, astonishes them.

Mitsugoshi Bank is using a large hall as their vault, and there’s a dazzling mountain of gold piled up within.

The tellers all greet the throng with calm, composed smiles.

When the people in the crowd see Mitsugoshi Bank fulfill exchange request after exchange request after exchange request, one of them turns to leave, then another.

By the time noon rolls around, the line’s dwindle to almost nothing.

Only about 30 percent of the people who lined up at the beginning of the day actually decide to trade in their bills.

Seeing Mitsugoshi Bank’s reaction sets the people at ease.

The mountain of gold, the tellers’ polite smiles, and the reputation that Mitsugoshi Group’s built up over time certainly doesn’t hurt, either. As further proof of that, it takes no time at all before customers looking for paper money loans appear once more.

Mitsugoshi Bank—as well as Mitsugoshi, Ltd., as a whole—is able to use the MCA’s collapse to elevate their position and further increase their trust with the consumers.

At this point, they’re so powerful, not even the government can stand up to them.

If Mitsugoshi were to leave, the kingdom’s economy will be reduced to shambles.

This whole incident has caused the nation’s leadership to view money creation with alarm. However, the fact does remain that the credit crisis Mitsugoshi and the others orchestrated brought them an unprecedented wave of prosperity.

As a result, they decide to hold a meeting with representatives from Mitsugoshi Group and Mitsugoshi Bank and eventually come to a set of agreements regarding credit creation.

With that, the series of tumultuous events finally comes to a close.

I dig through the earth with my slime shovel.

I’ve been digging this whole time.

So why is it, then? Why haven’t I found anything?

And why haven’t I heard anything from Yukime?

She was supposed to go grab the coins she stashed in the capital while I dug up the buried gold, and afterward, we could all live happily ever after. That was the plan, at least.

Except the gold isn’t showing up, and Yukime’s gone dark.

Also, now that I think about it, Mitsugoshi Bank survived somehow.

Why?

What does it all mean?

The only thing I know is that my plan is in ruins.

“Boss man, we’re not finding anything,” says Delta as she scrapes through the dirt with her bare hands.

“It’s here… It’s somewhere around here, it should be.”

I keep digging. If all I needed to do was hollow out the ground, I could just blow it all up, but that’d blow up the gold, too.

In other words, hard labor is my only option.

Delta followed me here by tracking my scent, so I’m having her help me, too.

“Boss man, is this a confidential secret mission, too?”

“Yup, so you have to make sure you don’t tell Alpha about it.”

“Got it!”

“See, what we have here is a man’s dying message.”

“Dine-in message?”

“It’s when someone tells you the truth right before they die. This guy and I hated each other, so we fought to the death, but in the end, we came to a mutual understanding. And the word he left me with on his deathbed was ‘yew.’ And he pointed here. In other words, he was telling me that he buried something important under the yew trees here.”

“Wow!”

“It’s elementary, my dear.”

“Elementary!” Delta wags her tail, her eyes glittering. “When we’re done digging, will you do whatever I say?”

“Huh?”

“Remember, you promised!”

“Huuuh?”

“You promised, Boss man!!”

“Huuuuuh?”

“Oh-woof…” Delta stares at me with upturned eyes.

“Sorry, sorry, yeah, I remember saying that.”

“You did!”

“But I never said I’d do

anything

—”

“You said you’d do anything!”

“No, I definitely specified I’d only do stuff within reason.”

“You said you’d do anything!!”

Crap.

Delta’s got herself totally convinced that’s what I actually said.

“Delta, that’s not what I said. Lying is bad, and if I had a voice recorder, your lie would totally get exposed.”

“Boy’s recorder?”

“It’s a type of Shadow Weaponry. When you turn it on, it destroys the world.”

“R-really?!”

“That’s why you shouldn’t lie. You don’t want the world getting destroyed, do you?”

“Oh-woof… I don’t want the world destroyed… B-but, Boss man, you promised…”

Delta looks at me sadly. Hell, she’s on the verge of tears.

“All right, all right, let’s settle on a compromise. I’ll do what you ask within reason. But remember, Delta, there are things even I won’t do. I’m not Santa, after all.”

“Santa?” Delta tilts her head to the side.

“Santa Claus… The monstrous devil in crimson who rules over the world from the shadows…”

“A devil?!”

“His outfit is crimson, drenched in blood. He destroys people’s dreams, fills them with despair, and paints his suit with their sinew…”

“That’s awful!”

“That’s right. He’s an awful guy. Once, long ago, I, too, suffered at his hand.”

“He even got you, Boss man?!”

“I had a dream that I wanted fulfilled no matter the cost, but he let me down at every turn.”

“A dream?”

“I wanted to become an eminence in sha—no, I’d better not say. I swore to myself that I’d never put the one thing that truly matters into words. Anyways, ever since I was a kid, he betrayed me year after year, each time leaving another scar on my heart. Basically, Delta, what I’m trying to say is that I’m not Santa, so there are some wishes I won’t grant.”

For some reason, Delta stares straight at my face and blinks a few times. Then she cocks her head.

“But Santa doesn’t grant all wishes, either, right? You said he betrayed your dream!”

True.

“Huh,” I say.

“Huh!”

“You’re right. That doesn’t add up.”

“It doesn’t add up!”

The two of us both cock our heads.

“Eh, whatever. The point is, I’m willing to compromise, but there’s some stuff I won’t do.”

“Oh-woof…”

“Now, I’m gonna head off on a journey, so why don’t you have a good long think about what you want to ask me for.”

“A journey?!”

“Yeah, a journey of self-discovery…”

Alpha and the others are probably livid, so it’d be better if I gave them some time to cool off. Emotions dwindle as the hours and days wear on. They say time heals all. Besides, it’s winter break at the academy anyway.

All I gotta do is show up nonchalantly around Alpha and the others after break is over. I purposefully won’t apologize. I’ll just go on like normal, pretending like nothing happened.

The thing is, I’ve discovered an unbeatable Hidden Technique that lets you emerge victorious from any interpersonal conflict.

The trick is…you wear them out.

All you have to do is make them think,

Ugh, there’s no point trying to reason with this guy.

Nobody complains when babies do stuff, after all. In other words, that’s the level I have to reduce myself to.

If I’m not careful, this Hidden Technique can become a double-edged sword.

The thing is, you win every argument, but in a way, you also lose them…

“Oh, and we can stop digging now. Thanks for all the help.”

My plan was completely ruined. And Mitsugoshi ended up surviving anyway, so even if I find the gold, it’s not like it’ll do me much good.

“Now then, I’m off on my journey! Later.”

“Wait, Boss man! Something just came out of the—!”

I hear Delta shouting at me from behind, but I dash off at full speed so she can’t successfully complete her “request.”

Now that I think about it, the first time Santa betrayed me was on a snowy night just like this one.