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

by Daisuke Aizawa

  As he spoke, he pulled out a pill as red as blood.

  “By taking these, we could have become powerful. We could have survived the war. But that damn woman rejected my proposal! Because of her, nobody took the drug!”

  Gettan tried to stifle his laughter, and Yukime took a step back.

  “…I should have killed her back at the start.”

  “Gettan…?”

  “I was the one who killed your mom.”

  “Wh-what are you talking about?”

  Yukime’s mother had gone missing as soon as the attack had begun. Yukime was sure she was still alive somewhere.

  “All of this is her fault. If we’d just taken the pills and accepted the Cult’s protection, we all could have survived.”

  “The Cult…? Hey, Gettan, I’m a little slow, so I’m not really sure what you’re talking about, but…you were joking just now, right?”

  “Like hell I was. I snuck up behind her and chopped her head clean off! If it weren’t for that wench—!”

  “Gettan, don’t tell me you’re serious…” Yukime took another step backward.

  “If I wanted to protect you and the village from the war, I didn’t have any other choice.”

  “N-no! No! Stay away…”

  “What’s wrong? C’mon, let’s go get our revenge.”

  Gettan offered Yukime a red pill.

  “You have to take one, too. The only way to protect what’s yours is to take from others. Now, seize this power so we can go slaughter the bastards who did this!”

  “No! Stay away from me!!” Yukime finally turned around and began running.

  “You’re gonna reject me, too?!”

  Something smashed into Yukime’s back.

  Then she collapsed facedown. Blood gushed from the sword wounds on her back.

  “Don’t reject power.”

  “G-Gettan… Why…?”

  “Revenge isn’t something to be afraid of. If you don’t steal from others, they’ll just steal from you.”

  “N-no… Please stop…”

  “You’re still rejecting me!”

  As Yukime tried to crawl away, Gettan brought his sword down on her over and over.

  Each individual wound was shallow, but together they brutally shredded her back. Then he planted his foot atop the cuts and whispered in Yukime’s ear as she writhed in agony.

  “C’mon, Yukime. Take the pill so we can have our revenge together.”

  “No…”

  As the pain caused her consciousness to fade, she heard a strange voice.

  “Yahoo! Gimme all your money!!”

  The voice itself was young and ungainly, in stark contrast to the violence in its words. She must have just been hallucinating or something.

  Then she passed out.

  When she came to, it was night.

  Her back felt strange. When she reached up and felt it, she found the bleeding had all stopped. There were probably scars, but it didn’t hurt anymore.

  She didn’t see Gettan anywhere. For whatever reason, though, she saw blood and his fur scattered about her surroundings.

  Yukime then went back to look for her mother’s body. For some reason, her village was littered with the corpses of its attackers.

  It didn’t take her long to find her mother’s body and severed head.

  Its eyes were wide with shock, and the three fluffy tails Yukime had loved so much were all burned to a crisp.

  “Mother…!”

  Her mom had been killed.

  Her friends and neighbors had been slaughtered, too.

  Her village had been burned to the ground.

  Their money had been stolen.

  And finally, her beloved fiancé had become her bitter enemy.

  “Sniff… Sob…”

  As hot tears rolled down her cheeks, she burned the sight of her dear mother and her destroyed hometown into her mind.

  She bit her lip.

  Everything had been taken from her. All she had left was a single bitter enemy.

  However, even surviving was a tough task for a fourteen-year-old with no money, power, or relatives. She spent her days traveling from place to place as a battlefield prostitute.

  By the time she turned seventeen, she owned the brothel she’d been selling her body at.

  She had money. Next, she wanted power.

  Having had everything taken from her, she vowed to take everything from that enemy of hers in turn—

  It looks like Yukime’s done with her story.

  I feel like I was part of a similar situation once, so I got distracted at about the halfway mark.

  “I suspect you’ve had an inkling, Mr. John. You knew I had no interest in the companies or the money. My sole aim was to take everything from Gettan. His money. His power. And then, his life. Everything he’s worked so hard to build. And to do that, I needed a company’s power, as well as your help… But I had to deceive you, and for that, I beg your forgiveness.”

  “I see…”

  Nope, my memory is failing me.

  “I will settle the score with Gettan. I ask that you please believe in me and wait for my return.”

  Yukime smiles and stands.

  There’s no use racking my brain over stuff I can’t remember, so I may as well get to work.

  “I should get going,” I say.

  “Allow me to accompany you to the exit.”

  The two of us leave the room together.

  The afternoon sky is pleasantly clear. As the gentle winter sunlight streams in through the windows, a furious voice echoes through the Garter Corporation headquarters.

  “Why exactly are you having so much trouble locating John Smith?!”

  President Garter hangs his head as Gettan slams his fist into the desk and screams at him.

  “W-well, you see, we followed his tracks as far as the Lawless City, but any investigation in the Lawless City is incredibly risky, and we keep losing contact with the investigators…” Garter murmurs his excuses.

  “Can’t you see we’re out of time?! Rumors about the counterfeits are already starting to circulate around the capital!!”

  “Well, um, yes, about that… There’s been an increase in people exchanging their bills for gold…”

  “Tch, it’s too fast!”

  “A huge liquidation request came in this morning, and we’ve only been getting more…! The other company presidents are saying this isn’t what you promised… Th-they’re asking if it would be possible to shut down exchanges…”

  “Idiots, the lot of them! Go silence them! If we did that, word would spread like wildfire, and hordes of people would come breaking down our doors!!”

  “B-but at this rate, our reserves won’t hold out…!”

  “I know that, dammit!!” Gettan slams his fist onto the desk again.

  “Eek—!!”

  The sturdy wooden desk splinters. Small shards fly into the air and scratch up Garter’s face.

  Gettan bares his canines, then glares out the window with his blocked eyes.

  “…A huge liquidation order came in this morning, you said?”

  “Y-yes, sir.”

  “That’s fishy… No one would have reacted that quickly. Look into who made it.”

  “Y-yes, sir!”

  As Garter runs off, Gettan covers his eyes with his hand.

  His empty sockets throb with pain, almost as though his missing eyes were still there. Whenever that happens, he knows something related to his past is afoot.

  “It can’t be… No, there’s no way…”

  He presses his hand over his eyelids for a little while longer as he digs through his memories.

  The Seven Shadows decide to keep the fact that John Smith is Shadow just to themselves.

  Their rationale is that if the troops knew, it would strike a harsh blow to morale.

  “It was probably the right decision,” thinks Gamma as she looks over Alpha’s gloomy visage.

  The hearth crackles.


  “He exists in a realm nobody else could possibly hope to reach…”

  “Alpha…”

  “That’s why he doesn’t need me anymore…”

  “That’s not true.”

  They’ve had this exact conversation several times now.

  Alpha’s sunken into the depths of despair. She’s in no state to lead the Shadow Garden right now.

  At the moment, Gamma’s the only one who can take the reins.

  However, no amount of makeup can hide Gamma’s sallow cheeks or the dark circles under her eyes. She’s close to her limit, too.

  Even so, there’s something she needs to report.

  She steels herself, then speaks.

  “The MCA’s begun going bankrupt. Crowds of people have been trading in their bills since this morning. And it’s probably only going to get worse tomorrow…”

  “I see…”

  “We don’t have it as bad as they do, but Mitsugoshi is seeing an uptick in people making exchanges, too. Their ranks will likely swell tomorrow, and when the MCA goes bankrupt, all hell will break loose.”

  “I see…”

  Alpha listens to Gamma’s report with a vacant look on her face. Finally, she responds with a brief question.

  “Can we weather the storm?” she asks.

  Gamma looks at her face, wavers for a moment, then decides to rip off the bandage.

  “…Not with our reserves.”

  That’s the simple truth of it.

  Gamma and the others have been frantically raising funds in preparation for the MCA’s collapse.

  However, even though they’ve been gathering gold from around the globe, it’s nowhere near the amount their credit creation practices generated.

  “I see…”

  Alpha smiles.

  It’s a forlorn smile, and when Gamma sees it, tears well up in her eyes.

  “I’m sure we’ll be fine. When the people see the mountains of gold we’ve prepared, I’m certain it’ll set their hearts at ease…”

  “That’s enough.”

  When the masses see the MCA go under, they’ll know there’s no guarantee the damage will stop there.

  Gamma and Alpha are both all too aware of that fact.

  “That’s…that’s enough…”

  “Alpha…”

  Alpha looks at Gamma, the heartbroken smile plastered across her face unchanged.

  “He’s the one who decided to circulate the counterfeits and cause the credit crisis. He’s the one who wanted to cast us aside…”

  “Th-that’s not true! Master Shadow would never abandon—”

  “We just weren’t strong enough to live up to his expectations… And this is our punishment.”

  “That’s not… That…”

  She wants to say, “That can’t be true,” but the words won’t come out.

  Their lord’s combat prowess, creativity, and ingenuity are all leagues above theirs. Even after being given the perfect environment and unbridled knowledge, none of them has been able to reach his ranks.

  And now, their master’s given up on them.

  “Th…that…”

  Gamma goes weak in the knees. She crumples down onto the sofa.

  In contrast, Alpha rises to her feet. Her eyes burn, both from the glare of the fireplace and her newfound determination.

  “If this is what he wants, then it’s our job to fulfill his wishes. I took an oath… I said that if he wanted me to, I would even die… It was the first promise I ever made to him.”

  “Alpha…”

  Then, an interruption.

  “Pardon me.”

  The dark-brown-haired girl, Nu, bows as she enters the room.

  “We’ve received new information. Gettan, the MCA’s de facto leader, is without a doubt connected to the Cult.”

  “Go figure,” remarks Gamma.

  However, finding that out now isn’t going to do them any good.

  “He’d been coordinating with the Cult to bring down Mitsugoshi.”

  “What was his plan?”

  “It was…to introduce counterfeits into circulation and cause a credit crisis.”

  “Ah… I see.” Gamma looks up at the ceiling.

  He got them good.

  Nobody knew Mitsugoshi was a Shadow Garden front, so she hadn’t expected the Cult to be willing to go to such suicidal lengths to take them down.

  After all, sacrificing the MCA just to take Mitsugoshi down with them?

  Even though it worked, surely the price was too steep.

  Who would have thought they regarded Mitsugoshi as such a threat…? Gamma had overlooked the possibility.

  “So in the end, the Cult successfully did us in, huh?”

  “No, not quite… The Cult hasn’t actually put their plan into motion yet.”

  “Wait, but that doesn’t make any—”

  Gamma feels as though the puzzle pieces are rearranging themselves in her mind.

  Another interruption.

  “Alpha!”

  Beta comes barreling into the room without so much as a knock. She’s holding a sheet of paper in her hand.

  “Over at the lab, Eta decoded the encrypted message Master Shadow left us!”

  Eta, the seventh member of the Seven Shadows, specializes in research. When Beta’s master gave her the encoded message, Eta was the one she’d entrusted deciphering it to.

  “Look here!”

  Alpha takes the proffered document. Light returns to her eyes as they trace over it.

  “Alpha…?”

  She responds to Gamma’s puzzled voice by flashing her a broad smile.

  A tear rolls down her cheek, but it’s a tear of joy.

  “He didn’t abandon us after all…”

  Upon hearing that, Gamma takes the page and reads it over.

  “Th-this means—!”

  The astonishing truth is laid out in Eta’s handwriting.

  “Sorry, but I have to betray you all. A partner and I are manufacturing counterfeits and using them to collect gold. We’re squirreling away all the money in the old facility we saved my sister from back when we were kids. I know you all might resent me for this, but I believe every choice I made was for the best.”

  Before she realizes it, Gamma is crying, too. The puzzle in her mind’s taken on a form that she hadn’t dared imagine possible.

  Alpha, Gamma, and Beta—all of them are beaming as the tears stream down their faces.

  “Master Shadow set this all up for us,” says Beta, her voice full of reverence.

  “So he’s been looking at the bigger picture… Who knew anyone could see so far?” Alpha’s voice is thick with emotion.

  Gamma’s sounds relieved. “He saw through it all and made the best possible choice… An act truly befitting the man.”

  “He realized the Cult’s plan sooner than anyone else.”

  “Then he used it against them. By making his own counterfeits before the Cult could act, he was able to amass a shocking amount of capital.”

  “With that gold, Mitsugoshi will be able to survive the credit crisis.”

  “When that happens, the Cult will have lost the MCA. They’ll be the sole losers.”

  “The Cult picked a fight with the wrong man. Master Shadow’s understanding of money creation was what made his plan possible.”

  “He understood how dangerous a credit crisis could be, and he came up with a bold, efficient method of raising funds… A class act all around.”

  “We didn’t want to reveal the link between Mitsugoshi and the Shadow Garden, so our hands were tied. That’s why he had to work behind the scenes.”

  “And that explains why he had to hide his identity, too—to remove the link between him and us. Now nobody has any clue that there’s a connection between the corporation and the counterfeits.”

  “He even went so far as to set up his factory somewhere we were familiar with, then told us where the vault was.”

  “In other words, he’s telling us that all
we have to do is pick up the gold.”

  Everyone breathes a deep sigh of relief.

  “It’s just like he told me. ‘Once all this is over, you’ll realize this was for the best.’”

  “To fool your enemies, first fool your friends… That’s what he was doing all along.”

  “A perfect plan formed on a foundation of subtlety and precise calculation… That’s Master Shadow for you. But what about Delta?”

  Gamma’s voice is still a little worried, but Alpha’s eyes are filled with conviction.

  “It’s Delta we’re talking about. I’m sure we don’t have anything to worry about.”

  Suddenly, they hear a sound from outside.

  Then the window slowly creeks open as Delta sheepishly lets herself in.

  “—See?”

  Gamma’s face flushes with joy. “Delta?! Oh, thank goodness…”

  “Oh-woof… Alpha… I was on a confidential secret mission, see… So…”

  Delta waits timidly for Alpha’s reaction.

  “Don’t worry, I know. He had a job for you, right?”

  Delta’s face immediately brightens. Her head bobs up and down as she nods.

  “There was a black Juggler, and I…! Oh, it’s a confidential secret mission, so I can’t tell you…”

  “Come on now, Delta, speak properly. Calling it a ‘confidential secret mission’ is redundant.”

  “B-but that’s what Boss man said…!”

  “Don’t be silly, of course he didn’t. Still, I’m so glad you’re okay…”

  Delta seems to still have something she wants to say, but Alpha just strokes her head and squeezes her tight.

  Gamma and Beta hug Delta as well, and they all wipe their tears away with a smile.

  “He’s done so much for us already. We need to handle the rest ourselves. Let’s go collect the gold he prepared for us.”

  “Got it!

  “Sound like a plan!”

  “Woof!”

  And that night, the Shadow Garden makes their move.

  I conduct a thorough sweep of the route to the Lawless City, then return to the underground base.

  Yukime should be getting back soon.

  When she does, it’ll probably be atop a cart laden with cash.