The Eminence in Shadow, Vol. 3 (Light Novel)

by Daisuke Aizawa

  “In other words, he’s with some other organization… On par with the Seven Shadows, she said?”

  “Who could he possibly be?”

  The Seven Shadows is home to all sorts.

  Some of its members lack combat prowess, such as Gamma, whereas others specialize in it, like Delta.

  “We should send in Delta.”

  “Delta? …Yes, I suppose that’d be for the best.”

  It’s hard to picture Delta losing in a straight-up battle.

  “John Smith, huh…?”

  Alpha’s blue eyes narrow.

  After gently driving Mitsugoshi’s hit women back, I spend my next few afternoons the same way I always do and my next few nights acting as an agent under the cover of darkness.

  I’m a busy man—touching base with Yukime, protecting the flow of counterfeits, and stopping anyone who tries to find out where they’re coming from.

  Mitsugoshi seems to have their guard up, as they haven’t tried anything since.

  Tonight, once again, I lurk in the darkness and protect the carriage filled with counterfeits.

  As it rolls across the evening roads, a silent, barely perceptible presence approaches it.

  —An assassin.

  Like I said, though, I can barely sense them.

  If that’s the case, well…there’s only one person I know who can mask their presence so skillfully.

  A little while later, a familiar figure emerges from the darkness.

  It’s a woman clad in a black bodysuit, her muscles supple and her movements flexible.

  I’d know her anywhere—it’s Delta.

  It makes sense. I drove off that three-woman squad of theirs already, so now they’re sending in the biggest guns they’ve got.

  Unfortunately for them, though, they chose wrong. John Smith fights with wires, so his style matches up well against hot-blooded meatheads. Against Delta, all I have to do is tie her down with my hidden wires and that’ll be all she wrote. Oh wait. Her instincts are crazy sharp, so there’s a chance she’ll be able to avoid them all on intuition alone.

  Actually, that’s totally what’s gonna happen.

  Wait… Is Delta secretly my worst matchup?

  Eh, whatever. Worst comes to worst, I’ll just go full tryhard against her and win the fight that way.

  She’s probably noticed me by now, so I make my grand appearance.

  “My name is John Smith. You go no furth—”

  “Boss man, what’s up?” She sniffs at the air as she asks the question, her tail wagging happily.

  “My, uh, my name is John Smith. I’m not your Boss m—”

  “Boss man! Wanna go hunting?”

  “…I’ll pass.”

  It’s no use. She has me dead to rights.

  I did take a bath and drench myself in perfume before this, but I guess I underestimated Delta’s nose.

  I take off my mask and reveal myself.

  “Boss man, you’re John Smith?”

  “Yeah, basically.”

  “Oh-woof… That means I can’t beat John Smith… I gotta go tell Alpha!”

  “Hold it!”

  As Delta makes to go run off, I grab her by the tail to stop her. Sorry, I think I pulled a couple tufts of fur loose.

  “Yow! Not my tail! No pulling! Pulling bad!”

  “Sorry, sorry, sorry. Now, Delta, I need you to listen to me real close. See, I’m on a confidential secret mission right now.”

  “What’s a confidential secret mission?”

  “A confidential secret mission is a mission that’s confidential and secret, so you can’t let anyone know about it.”

  “Wow, cool! I wanna do that, too!”

  “No, only I can do this particular mission. But if you tell Alpha about John Smith, then I’ll fail. You know why, right?”

  “Nope!”

  “Because it won’t be a secret anymore, see. So you can’t tell anyone about any of this.”

  “But Alpha gave me a mission…” Delta’s ears droop as she looks at me.

  “It’s okay, I have a new mission for you. You remember the Shadow Garden’s rules, right?”

  “Nope!”

  “The missions I give you take priority over everything else. Even the ones Alpha gives you.”

  “Alpha won’t get mad?”

  “Nah.”

  Alpha will definitely get mad. I know that.

  After all, Delta’s on an official Mitsugoshi-related mission right now. Using the bullshit Shadow Garden rules from when we were kids to overrule it is totally foul play.

  Sorry, Delta. When all this is over, I’ll help you apologize to Alpha.

  “This is for the greater good…”

  “The greater good…?”

  “Yeah, the greater good.”

  “The greater good!”

  “That’s right. Sorry about this, Delta. When you finish your mission, I’ll give you some kind of reward.”

  “You’ll do anything I want?!” Delta’s eyes gleam, and her tail starts wagging excessively.

  “I will not. But I promise I’ll try, as long as it’s something within my abilities, and as long as it isn’t too much work, and as long as it doesn’t cost any money.”

  “You’ll do whatever I say?!”

  “Other than those categories I said, sure.”

  “Hooray! I’ll do it!”

  “Now, what should I have your mission be? Oh, here we go. If you go straight that way, you’ll eventually hit the Lawless City, and when you do, there’ll be a black tower there. In that tower, there’s a guy named Juggernaut. Now, he’s a mean old bandit, so I need you to hunt him.”

  “Lawless City. Black tower. Juggernaut. And I can hunt him?”

  “Yup, that sounds right.”

  “Got it! And when I hunt him, you’ll do whatever I say!”

  “With those caveats, yeah. Oh, and we’re in no rush here, so make sure you take your time getting there.”

  “Lawless City! Black Juggler! Hunting!”

  With that, Delta takes off at a dash.

  I feel like she didn’t get that quite right, but I’m sure it’ll be fine.

  At the end of the day, I got Delta out of the capital, so we’ll chalk that up as a win. Her acting sucks, so even if I tried to get her to keep this a secret, I’d be exposed in no time.

  This way, it’ll take the others a while to track her down and pump her for info. That works out perfectly for me.

  After all, I’ve decided they can only know the whole truth once all the dust has settled.

  “Delta was tracking John Smith, but she’s gone dark.”

  “—?!”

  When Alpha hears Gamma’s report, she drops her pen and looks straight at her.

  “We also found this at the scene…”

  Gamma shows her some scraps of fur from Delta’s tail. Sorrow wells up in Alpha’s heart upon seeing they were forcefully ripped out.

  Gamma’s eyes look cold and steely. However, uncontrollable fury lurks just below their surface.

  “I see… So Delta’s been…?”

  Upon realizing just how frail her own voice sounds, Alpha takes a moment to compose herself.

  She’d been prepared for this.

  Someone was always going to fall, eventually. Today just happens to be that day.

  “I can’t imagine her abandoning a mission you assigned her. That idiot… She might not have had much going on upstairs, she might have been all brawn and no brain, but she always did listen to you, Alpha…” Gamma’s voice trembles.

  “It’s okay. I know.” Alpha tries to comfort her.

  The Shadow Garden’s missions are fraught with peril, but because of Delta’s combat prowess, she’s always the one being asked to handle the most dangerous ones. Her not coming back almost certainly means she’s dead…

  “Continue the search. We have to find her, even if it’s just a body…”

  “Understood.”

  Alpha then takes the lock of Delta’s
fur. After delicately wrapping it in cloth, she slips it into her cleavage.

  Number 666 tried to tell her how dangerous John Smith was. She shouldn’t have sent Delta in alone.

  A deep voice wells up from within her throat. “John Smith…!”

  “Also, the amount of counterfeits in circulation is continuing to rise. At this rate, we’re bound for a credit crisis…”

  “That was his plan from the very beginning,” replies Alpha.

  “…Huh?”

  “John Smith isn’t some small-time crook trying to use counterfeits to make a quick buck. Causing the credit crisis was his goal all along… If we look at it that way, all the pieces fit into place.”

  “What…?!”

  “The credit crisis is a poison that will destroy Mitsugoshi and the MCA. While we’ve been fighting, he’s been sowing his seeds in the shadows… And now, he’s going to take everything.”

  “That can’t be… You’re saying that he saw this all coming from the get-go?”

  “He understood the ingredients for a credit crisis, he noticed the flaws in the MCA’s bills, and he used those two tiny grains of information to form a flawless plan.”

  “Is that even possible…?”

  “—It is for John Smith.”

  The sound of Alpha grinding her teeth fills the air.

  As the Cult’s messenger leaves, Gettan slams his fist against the desk.

  “What’s the meaning of this?! Our counterfeits haven’t been distributed yet?!”

  He checked in with his bosses earlier about the counterfeit situation.

  However, they told him that they didn’t have anything to do with the fakes that were currently making the rounds.

  In other words, that means some third party is the one mass-producing fake bills.

  At this rate, the MCA is going to go under way ahead of schedule, and the Cult will suffer tremendous losses.

  “This is unthinkable! Who would dare?!”

  More and more counterfeits are pouring in every day, yet they still have no idea where they’re coming from.

  It’s clearly the work of organized crime.

  Whoever’s doing it must have a mind like a steel trap, a sizable bankroll, sizable manpower, and intimate knowledge of the mechanisms behind credit creation…

  “Wait…it’s so simple…”

  Isn’t Gettan himself currently locked in battle with an organization that fulfills all those conditions?

  “It’s Mitsugoshi!!”

  In the event of a credit collapse, Mitsugoshi and the MCA will go bankrupt in kind. However, there is a way to recover: by preparing enough funds to weather the bank run.

  Mitsugoshi must have realized sooner than anyone just how shoddy the MCA’s bills are.

  By manufacturing counterfeits and liquidating them in the marketplace, they must have been able to raise substantial capital.

  They’d seen through Gettan’s plan.

  They’d seen through everything, and now they’re using it against him.

  “Dammit… Cuuurse them!!” Gettan roars.

  At this rate, he’s quite literally going to lose his head.

  The MCA will fall, the Cult will suffer catastrophic losses, and Mitsugoshi will gain a complete monopoly over the marketplace.

  Gettan will be lucky if all the Cult does is kill him.

  “It’s not too late, I can still make it…! If I can just recover those funds…!”

  According to Garter, there’s a man named John Smith protecting the counterfeits’ distribution chain.

  If Gettan tracks him down, he can still salvage this…

  The full moon hangs glimmering over the crisp winter night air.

  Beta is with her master, delivering her regular report.

  She finishes telling him about the Shadow Garden’s activities like always, then moves on to Mitsugoshi news.

  Normally, her report only contains information about the Shadow Garden. After all, Mitsugoshi’s work is only peripheral to this organization as a whole. There’s usually no need for her to waste his time with trivialities.

  At the moment, though, Mitsugoshi is in a major pinch.

  Her master seems to have sensed that fact, too.

  He normally just nods and says “uh-huh” during her reports, but now, the air about him changes.

  He straightens his posture, takes a notepad out of his pocket, and begins writing on it as he listens to Beta’s report.

  Then—

  “I see. And?”

  “—?!”

  He’s actually saying something other than “uh-huh” during her regular report. Beta chokes on her words for a moment.

  “F-forgive me. As I was saying, the quantity of counterfeits has—”

  When her master’s gaze sharpens, she feels a tinge of joy.

  He’s taking this seriously.

  Her master is a busy man, and he rarely gets involved in Beta and the others’ affairs. He surely has much grander tasks that he’s devoting his time and strength toward.

  If he’s getting serious now, that means that the situation must be important enough to warrant it.

  The incident with Delta cast a heavy pall over all of the Shadow Garden.

  However, if their master’s going to get serious—Beta’s sure they’ll be able to overcome anything that stands in their way.

  Warmth floods her heart.

  “The amount of money in circulation’s increased, so the value of goods has begun rising as well. At the moment, the inflation rate stands at…”

  “I don’t quite follow…”

  “—?!”

  Her master just told her that he didn’t follow.

  Now, he obviously didn’t mean it literally. Her master understands everything, after all. That means he must be suggesting something else—in other words, there must be some error in her report. He’s asking how it’s possible that she made such a boneheaded mistake.

  Maybe she got the inflation rate wrong, or maybe there was some flaw in her underlying logic, but the fact of the matter is that he noticed her failure in an instant.

  “I-I’ll go back over my analysis immediately.”

  She screwed up, and just when her master started taking the issue seriously, too. Beta’s face reddens in shame and vexation.

  “I don’t follow, but oh well. May as well write it down anyways.”

  “My sincerest apologies.”

  Her report ends.

  However, there’s something else she needs to tell him, too.

  As she watches her master start to put away his notepad, she speaks solemnly.

  “There is one other thing I need to inform you about today.”

  “…I’m listening.”

  Upon seeing the quiet, almost drowsy look in his eyes, Beta realizes something.

  He’s already figured out what she’s about to tell him. Now that she thinks about it, it’s obvious. In fact, it would be stranger if he didn’t know.

  Even so, she still needs to say it.

  She needs to tell him that one of their dear comrades died…

  It’s her duty as one of the people who let it happen.

  “Delta was pursuing John Smith when we lost contact with her. Given the situation, we have no choice but to assume she’s…”

  Beta’s voice is shaking. Delta was a dear teammate of hers. She was a handful to deal with, sure, but something about her always set Beta’s heart at ease, like an adorable little sister.

  “…dead…,” she manages to say.

  Upon hearing the news, her master cocks his head and thinks for a moment.

  “No, no. She just…went off on a long journey, that’s all,” he finally says.

  When she hears the gentle euphemism, Beta is unable to hold back the tears.

  “You’re…you’re right. I see now. She’s just off on a long journey…”

  Tears stream down her cheeks. She’s thankful for her master’s awkward kindness.

  “We consider John Smit
h to be a formidable foe. If it’s at all possible, Master Shadow, we’d like to ask for your assistance in dealing with him…”

  “Sorry, but I have business of my own to attend to.”

  “No, of course. Forgive me for my impertinence.”

  Her master’s already moving along a different course.

  No matter what it is, it must be absolutely essential for both Mitsugoshi and the Shadow Garden as a whole.

  “That’s all I have for you today… Oh, but before I go…”

  Her report’s finished, so there’s other work she needs to get to, but there’s something she wants to confirm first.

  “And, um, forgive me for asking, Master Shadow, but that notepad…”

  “This one?”

  “Yes, about that notepad. We actually have a rule about immediately destroying or encrypting sensitive documents, so…”

  She’s sure he knows all about that. She just wants to make absolutely certain.

  Her master freezes for a split second, then hands it to her. “Have a look.”

  “W-wait, this is…!”

  Upon seeing the script written on it, Beta’s eyes go wide.

  “I encoded it in a cipher I made up of the five different languages—Japanese hiragana script, katakana script, characters, Arabic numerals, and Romanized Japanese.”

  “Y-you came up with this all by yourself?!”

  “Yup.”

  The letters scrawled across the page aren’t just written randomly. They’re simple yet complex, regular yet chaotic.

  Trying to decipher the five intermingled languages would be a daunting task.

  Beta gazes reverently at her master, the man who devised that whole encryption method solo.

  “Um, if it’s not too much to ask, would you mind teaching me this code sometime…?”

  “Hmm… It’s a bit too early for that.”

  “I… I see…” Beta slumps her shoulders, crestfallen.

  “Now that you mention it, though…”

  With that, her master quickly writes something on the pad, then tears out the page and passes it to Beta.

  “What’s this…?”

  “When you can make out the meaning there, I’ll explain it to you—I’ll explain everything.”

  There’s a short passage written on the sheet in the five languages.