the eminence in shadow: Eminence of the Side Character 7

Chapter 7: Meet and Greet

The meeting room was so large even the grandiose meeting table seemed undersized in all that space. The large circle of dark marble had light grooves on it's surface dividing it into eight sections at the edges which became intricate patterns meeting at the centre.

He was about to see his own chair when something wrapped itself around him and his view was obstructed by a large pair of fluffy black ears.

"Boss-man, Delta missed you. It's been forever"

It had only been two months.

But I suppose that is more than a year in doggie years.

"Yes Delta. I heard from Alpha you were a good girl on your last mission".

"Yes Yes, Delta cut a building in half and hunted a bunch of guys and Gamma said Delta was a walking nightmare. Then Delta was thinking she should change her codename from "The Tyrant" to "The Walking Nightmare".

It was a pretty cool codename but he still thought the tyrant worked better in more scenarios

"I'd just stick with what you've got" he said moving past her. He scratched her ears as he passed to show he wasn't mad or anything.

He actually needed to hold onto the table when he saw his throne to maintain composure. It was made of intricately designed black metal with red velvet cushioning and gold detail work around the edges. It was literal gold not just gold coloured and dwarfed the chairs around it significantly.

I need to reward them for this.

He'd been thinking of offering them a reward anyway since not believing them about the cult had been kind of a dick move.

"Master I hope I don't need to tackle you to show I'm glad to see you again." Zeta spoke up, leaning back casually in her nice but much less impressive chair.

"There's no need for that. How are your projects going?" Zeta's documents were all encrypted so that even if other members of shadow garden saw them they wouldn't be able to decipher them. Needless to say, he hadn't got through many of her reports.

"Very well. Eta and I will be showing one of our recent successes when she gets here. I've decided on a codename as well, to the rest of Shadow Garden we are CoS".

CoS sounds more like it stands for something than an actual name. Still given their covert set-up it's mysterious enough to work.

"Did Claire like the bracelet?"

Weird thing to ask

"Yes she was very pleased".

"Oh good, it took a while to pick that out. I know how imperative it is for you that we avoid another 'day of reckoning'. Hope your not losing your touch master, it was a little too easy to sneak in."

Damn she actually did get him this time. He'd caught her every other time she had tried to sneak up on him over the years, but given how much else was going on and how tired he'd been from all nighters at various casinos over the last week it wasn't that shocking he hadn't been noticed her.

I'm not sure this even counts, she only snuck into the room next to mine and left something completely harmless.

He thought Zeta might have been the coolest member of Shadow Garden (excepting himself, naturally). Alpha was the leader and was more calm and collected, and apparently Epsilon was some sort of celebrity but in terms of simple cool-factor Zeta had them both beaten. None of the others would even think of trying to challenge him like this. He still couldn't admit defeat publicly though.

"You can think that if you like". Cid spoke with an artificial edge in his voice "But I simply didn't want to interrupt you while you fetched my gift." He gave her his best mocking grin and moved up beside her to whisper "After all, I know from experience how much Delta hates interruptions when she plays fetch".

He pulled the same thing he did with Delta and scratched her ears while he said it. Their never ending desire for that was the only thing those two really did have in common.

Beta stepped up then, slightly agitated "I hope you know I'm always happy to see you my lord."

Cid didn't know whether or not to approve of this level of ass-kissing, but eventually decided it could work with the aesthetic. An eminence in shadow steps into the room and his subordinates filled with awe and even a little fear fall over themselves to avoid his wrath. He could roll with it.

He nodded to Beta and moved onto his throne.

---

As Epsilon looked over to Alpha, it was hard for her to reconcile that she had once considered Beta her greatest rival in this group. She was clever, friendly and her figure was as good as any 'natural' could hope for but Epsilon had achieved victory over nature long ago and in every other way Beta was surpassed by their leader.

Delta seemed to want a child from him more than a real 'romantic' relationship and her ideal outcome was for everyone to get a share. Eta was socially awkward and Epsilon couldn't tell where her academic interest ended and personal interest began with regards to Shadow and Gamma lacked the confidence to make a real attempt. For Goddess's sake she was the older than Alpha by almost three years but followed her lead with everything she did.

Zeta would have been real competition and was possibly more obsessed with him than any of the others, but more as a god than as a potential lover and her scouting trips had left her with the least potential one-on-one time with Shadow. Zeta had even promised to support Epsilon in her own pursuit in exchange for sharing all her intel and that was a small price to pay for her support. When she'd asked Zeta why she wasn't going for it herself she just smiled sadly and said it wasn't her purpose. It had left Epsilon feeling slightly guilty realizing her own lack of dedication to Shadow Garden's cause.

She justified it as Shadow had said many times that being true to yourself and not compromising on your ideals was essential in life. By her reckoning that left her and Alpha as the front runners and Epsilon did have one advantage she could use, one thing she understood better than Alpha.

Almost two years ago she had seen Shadow vulnerable and alone and it had taken this for her to realize an obvious truth. For all of his power and knowledge Shadow was just a man, who needed the same support as everyone else.

Maybe not as much naturally, but still.

Alpha might have been the closest to realizing it in their group, but even she still treated him as an infallible demigod most of the time. When the rest of the girls saw the power he unleashed on Zenon they saw a natural phenomenon, Epsilon saw the immense effort and thousands of hours of practice it must have taken to achieve.

She had known for a long time she wasn't naturally special as she had believed when she was a child, being constantly surrounded by stronger, smarter, and more 'well rounded' girls had swiftly and brutally destroyed than notion. When they split up the only skill she had that was better than any of the others was her control over the slime suit and musical talent she was too shy to use.

She decided on being a spy not only to prove her value to the organisation but also to improve her understanding of others, so she could better understand and support her master. It surprised her how quickly she'd taken to it. By the end of the first three months she could casually answer even the most unexpected question and was already playing exclusively for the nobility. By the end of the first year she was moving through royal circles and the hardest task had become trying not to laugh at how obvious all the other infiltrators were being.

That had been around the time when she'd finally realized her greatest competition was Alpha. Alpha was normally very reserved, making it difficult to tell what she was feeling but she'd given herself away as she had delayed reporting to Shadow in fear that she hadn't achieved enough.

After all the pleasantries were exchanged the meeting proper began.

"Beta, what have you been able to uncover about the Goddess trail and it's connection to the cult?"

"Yes. As you all know the common story of the goddess trail celebrates the victory of the elf hero Olivier over Diabolos, where she and her followers severed an arm from the demon and sealed it away within the sanctuary, permanently weakening Diabolos and moving events in the hero's favour for the final battle. Most people believe this is a fairy tale but I've gathered multiple pieces of evidence indicating the arm is present somewhere within the sanctuary. Additionally there is a cult facility that's always in operation, but it seems the true depth of the sanctuary only opens once a year during the goddess's trail."

"So we need to time our assault on the day of the goddess trial to maximise the information we can gather. It might also be possible that the spirits themselves could provide information. Understanding the origins of the cult and the heroes is essential" Alpha concluded.

"Yes, but I think the only way to force the sanctuary open from the outside is to challenge and defeat it's strongest defender Aurora, the witch of calamity".

That was a dangerous game. Aurora's legend was mostly forgotten but what was left was terrifying. She'd destroyed nations, slaughtered countess heroes of her age and was said to be impervious to almost every method of attack. There was no way to know what her weakness even was since every version of the legend changed it. Some believed she was even the most powerful entity to ever exist.

"My lord I don't wish to impose, but you would have the greatest chance of success in this operation, would you undertake this battle".

Cid had just been reclining on his throne, holding a hand under his chin and looking more regal than any king she had ever seen.

"Naturally. I have never known defeat, Aurora can join the list of others who tried and failed".

His confidence really was...exhilarating "Of course it will just be a memory of Aurora, so I don't think she'll be fighting at her full strength".

Most of the table relaxed hearing that but Cid actually looked disappointed. Could her master have wanted to fight the witch at her full strength. She supposed with his power he must lack challenging opponents but Epsilon was glad to hear he'd be in less danger.

"Why is Aurora at the sanctuary though? I didn't think there was any connection between her and Diabolos".

He's right, that's bizarre. If they were alive at the same time and interacted, some legend should have mentioned it.

Zeta looked thoughtful "Well if nothing we've found yet mentions it I don't think we'll find anything before the trial. Let's keep it in mind when we investigate."

"Delta doesn't understand. If Diabolos and Aurora are both bad guys we should just hunt them both".

Alpha just ignored this "I think that's the most we can do at this point, Epsilon could you give your report the state of things in Velgalta?"

Epsilon shifted in her chair so her upper body was more visible before starting. If Shadow was going to be looking at her for a long time she may as well capitalise on it.

"My time in Velgalta lead to several of key discoveries. The first is that there appears to be an assassination plot against emperor Glaedr being backed by the cult. With princess Iris's victories at the border the emperor has started scaling back payment for the military and it's senior commanders. He told me personally that he feels if the legions aren't going to win as many victories they can take less gold. Some of them are taking it poorly".

"And how does this involve the cult, seems like it's just another regime change and there's been five of those in Velgalta over the last two hundred years?" Beta asked sceptically.

"Because" Epsilon explained dryly "The current emperor's ties to the cult are minimal. I'm sure there are some people in his government that are cult agents but only one of his most senior advisors has ties to them. The man most likely to replace him is General Visimir and he has several family members in the cult. If they help put him on the throne they'll own him forever".

"Isn't there a daughter as well, Valeiria or something?" Zeta asked.

"Yes. She's a very talented spellsword and supposedly very bright academically, but she's not very popular." because she's a flat, haughty little bitch.

Epsilon was certain that would be the most common description of the Empress-in-waiting in Velgalta if it wasn't punishable by death.

"If the emperor dies she won't be able to hold onto the empire for more than a few weeks. The best she could hope for is that Emperor Visimir likes her enough to keep her as a pet rather than killing her."

Alpha looked like she wanted to speak then but Epsilon continued "I also managed to find an artifact Eta was looking for when the emperor gave me a tour of his private collection. He's got the oath stone".

"That rock that forces you to do what you say when you hold it, that's dumb. Delta doesn't need a rock to remember her promises."

The oath stone could solve a lot of Shadow Garden's recruiting problems. With it they'd be able to force new recruits to swear absolute loyalty, allowing them to lower their recruiting standards and reduce surveillance of the new numbers. Finding it was a massive accomplishment.

"Well, very good Epsilon". Alpha replied "Find the assassins and we'll make a plan to take possession of the artifact".

"I actually have another plan for both". Epsilon responded casually. Zeta had helped her with it but had agreed to let her take the credit. "I'm almost certain the assassination is going to happen during the festival of crows, the chaos of the festival is the best time for them to get into position and get away once they're done. If I go myself I can take the artifact and reveal the assassin. If we blame them for the theft we won't leave any loose ends."

"I see" Alpha responded "Well this is your operation. Let me know what personnel you'll need in advance".

"Actually Alpha, I believe I'll assist Epsilon in this task personally" Shadow spoke coolly.

This was better than she could have hoped for. She had only expected him to notice her contributions and planning but going on a mission together would be amazing.

"If you feel that's best" Alpha replied, slightly off-put.

The meeting continued for a few minutes more before she and Beta had to leave, but Cid called out to her and pulled her aside.

"It's nothing too important, but it's something I think you need to hear" Cid said calmly.

"What is it?" she asked, trying to sound casual

"Borrowed strength isn't real strength. If you rely on deception for so long your true self will be lost".

Her blood ran cold. It was finally here. Doomsday. "What do you mean?"

"If you rely on these methods any longer I'm certain you'll be exposed in the end. You need to make a tough choice now to prevent that outcome".

She was actually shaking now. Her nightmare had come true "I.. I can't" she whispered.

"Yes you can. More than that you have to. If you just keep performing the songs I gave you without coming up with any of your own eventually someone will ask you to write one and if you can't do that, you'll be ruined."

Her legs felt weak, if she'd sprinted a miles her heart would be beating more slowly than it was right now. She would live another day.

"I have written a couple of my own songs... but I always knew they weren't as good as yours. I haven't even had the chance to play them for you first".

"Well after the meeting I'll see if I can come back to your show and you can play them then, okay? What did I always tell you?"

She remembered everything he told her "If you're afraid of something, don't let the fear build".

"That's it, I'll see you in about an hour. I better go tell Beta the same thing about her books".

Still a little shaky she set off to her next performance, realizing she'd need to take another couple of minutes somewhere to completely calm down.

She comforted herself by acknowledging he had at least come to her before Beta.

---

That went pretty well, an origin of the cult event would be helpful and there was no way in hell he was missing a simultaneous heist and assassination mission in a palace. His calendar was filling out with some great events.

Eta and Gamma came in then, he knew it was coming but couldn't leave his throne to catch her before she fell over.

Who gave her high heels, it's like giving a seven year old a desert eagle. Well... a seven year old that isn't me.

He tried to quickly refocus on the meeting before the trauma of that Christmas morning reared it's head again. To this day he didn't know if it was Santa or his parents responsibility, but it had been a heartbreaking day.

On that topic, should Eta really have been left to manage those kids.

It wasn't like she was a bad person (exactly), he actually thought her single minded focus on her goal made her the most like him in all of Shadow Garden but he still remembered when she was fourteen and slipped him some sort of love potion, then when that didn't work gave him enough poison to put down a dragon.

It had been Alpha's first time really punishing any of the other members, she was so angry when she heard the first part she couldn't even get more angry when she heard about the poison. She'd forced Eta to do all of their outside chores for then next three months, with the condition she could only do them when it was raining and without the slime suit for cover.

Gamma eventually righted herself and made it to the table, nose dripping blood and Cid decided to take over for a bit.

"I'm proud of all of the work everyone has done over the last two years, and from what I've seen today no one has worked harder than you two. Take this as your reward"

He extended out his hand and let out a powerful burst of healing magic. The energy he was giving out made even Eta look alert while the others were all smiling blissfully. Honestly it was worth it just to deal with Gamma's nosebleed, this set was precious and he needed to protect it.

"With that said I do also mean to offer a reward to the group as a whole, do you have any requests?"

"Delta wants puppies".

"You don't need my permission to get a pet Delta".

"Delta means..."

Tap, Tap, Tap

Alpha ran her fingers over the table looking intently at Delta, while Delta recoiled back in her chair as if there was a knife millimetres from her nose.

"I don't think that needs to be considered, after all this is meant to be a reward for all of us"

Delta looked like she wanted to argue more, but just nodded.

Looks like Alpha's got her well trained.

"Mitsugoshi is planning to open a new seaside resort before the end of the year" Gamma offered. "What if we all went before it opened to the public for a vacation"

"That seems acceptable to me" Alpha concurred.

There was a general round of agreement from the table, even Delta relaxed at the thought of a group vacation. Cid nodded as well, going on vacation with them was as easy a reward as he could have hoped for.

"Can I have...more wisdom?" Eta asked.

Cid spent the next five minutes going over several inventions for her to work on. He obviously couldn't give them all away, then he'd have nothing to offer. For today he gave her microwaves, vacuum cleaners, sewing machines (he thought they already had something like this but was sure his would better) and most importantly…

"They're called GPS trackers" Cid explained "They give out a long range signal that's undetectable without a specialised signal receiver. Then you can trace the signal back to the source to locate things. It's used to monitor people and objects without needing directly tail them."

Never again.

Eta looked at him intently, as she always did when he explained something "Does GPS stand for something?"

"Yes it's Global Positioning System. It's called that because ideally the system can find something anywhere in the world. These will be an Eta protocol project". Eta protocol meant it was Shadow Garden exclusive and kept super secret from the rest of the world.

"Before Eta gets carried away, our research and development budget needs to be reduced for a while to cover our expenses opening this store. We took out several loans to speed up our expansion and it will take at least a few months to pay them off and begin funding so many new projects."

Eta's face fell hearing Gamma's logic. She kind of got obsessed with things and when something went wrong she had a tendency to mope for weeks. The look was almost indistinguishable from her normal tired face, but something about it that made Cid try to avoid depressing her whenever possible. Maybe it was because she was the most like him in the group.

"Gamma, if I needed it later how much money could you give me for operations?"

"That's not easy to say my lord. At best now we could probably provide five billion Zeni, though that will increase massively once were out of debt, and I expect we could provide thirty to fifty billion Zeni by the end of the year."

"And you wouldn't need any of that money back?"

Gamma flushed "No my lord. Managing our finances is my responsibility, so if there are necessary expenses I should be the one to cover them".

Well that made things easy "In that case, I've got two billion Zeni I can invest into Eta's R&D work". He was sure to say it was an investment and not a gift, since he'd definitely take more money than this back later. It would be more justifiable if he contributed a bit and it still left him with a billion left for emergency expenses.

He made sure to savour the looks of awe that came his way at that revelation.

"Master, you're the best...I'll definitely make you something good later".

"My lord, if I could move your attention onto our current financial position" Gamma stated. Cid nodded to show his assent.

She then went over a lot of financial information Cid found incredibly boring. To put it simply they had a lot of money tied up in new acquisitions and this had left them in significant debt, but they would be able to clear easily over the next few months given their high revenue. Apparently they also owned Tuna king and were setting up their own bank with the objective of making paper money common for the middle classes to improve monetary circulation. He kept carefully still when she lamented that a casino she had a major stake in had recently suffered major losses.

As she concluded she asked "Is there anything you think we should add to our current plan".

Cid had been thinking about this on and off since he saw Gamma giving the opening speech. Mitsugoshi's money was his money after all. "I would suggest using a system of credit for the store. You need to encourage people to buy money that can be used exclusively at Mitsugoshi for their purchases but can't be traded back into Zeni by offering an enticing exchange rate, for example giving people one hundred and ten Mitsugoshi credit for every one hundred Zeni".

They all stared at him like he had gone mad.

Yes, now someone just needs to ask how my scheme actually makes money and I can explain it like it was obvious the whole time.

"Delta doesn't get it, if we give people more stuff for less money, then we have less money?"

"Initially yes, but let's say you go shopping at Mitsugoshi and get 50,000 credit and spend 30,000. That means that you've got 20,000 Zeni you can only spend at Mitsugoshi, so you come back and spend more, you see something else you want and end up getting more Mitsugoshi credit and you probably end up with more spare. People are always pulled back to the store to spend what they have left over and they'll think they're getting the better end of the deal since you're technically giving them more than you would if they just used Zeni".

"That's...brilliant" Zeta was grinning triumphantly and the rest of the table seemed similarly impressed. Delta's confusion actually added to the appeal since it meant his plan was so brilliant it was difficult to understand.

He considered recommending that microtransaction thing where you only give people credit in certain bundles and then price all your products so they're always just short but decided against it. He was the eminence in shadow though, not the villain.

"I would also recommend cutting prices on the record players and raising prices for the records themselves, and using this approach for any other appliance that needs other products to work. Once people are invested into the system they'll justify spending more to make their purchases worthwhile".

Gamma bowed her head "I thank you for your advice my lord. I will integrate these ideas into our current plans immediately."

Cid thought it was Zeta's turn now so he nodded to her.

"Eta and I have had a breakthrough on one of our research projects, which we can share with the rest of Shadow Garden." She reached down under the table and casually revealed a small plastic case which contained a several blue pills. Other than the colour change it greatly resembled the cult's 'enhancement' drug.

"We've been looking to reverse engineer the cult's technology to use for ourselves" Zeta explained while Eta was clearly fine just sitting back to watch. "One of their most dangerous weapons are the diabolos drops, which temporarily cause a massive burst of uncontrolled mana in the subject." Cid did not like where this was going.

"Since relying on being able to take these mid-fight is a problem we decided to do the opposite, creating a drug that would increase a person's mana capacity slowly and permanently over time" he was interested again (the only reason anyone ever got to take those things was because he let them, mostly just to show he'd win whatever they did). "These pills induce high mana usage in the subject with no practical effect over a few hours, using these before sleep every night leads to an almost 20% increase in mana capacity over time compared to not taking them".

"These are safe for human's, beastkin and elves to take?" Alpha asked.

Zeta gestured to Eta "Yes".

"How do you know that?"

"Experiments" Eta said defiantly "With cultists and bandits".

He remembered something about Alpha banning Eta from those kinds of experiments (not that she felt any sympathy for their enemies but just felt they shouldn't rely on the same methods as the cult), apparently working with CoS got around those rules somehow.

Did I approve that?

"Do you support using the cult's tools like this?" Beta asked nervously,

Honestly Cid felt that reverse engineering your opponents technology and conducting human experiments on their enemies was exactly the kind of cool morally grey shit a secret secret organisation should be doing. It would totally waste Zeta's cool set up if he was too supportive though. In this scenario the organisation has to be convinced to use the questionable technology and for that he needed to seem reluctant. He did have one point of actual concern he could use for this.

"These pills, there's no drawback to stopping taking them".

"No" Eta replied while Zeta elaborated "The increase in mana capacity is permanent...there are no withdrawal effects".

"The only flaw is that they can only add to natural growth". Zeta added "They can't increase someone's capacity if they've reached their limit, or aren't actively training".

"Then" He paused dramatically "I have no objections, you may proceed as you wish".

"Thank you master" Zeta tossed him the case and went on "Production isn't able to provide these to all of the numbers yet, but we do have enough for the seven shades. They'll be made available to all of you soon".

"I'd be interested in knowing more about your current operation master. What's this I've been hearing about you charming a princess?" Zeta almost managed not to give away her amusement as she asked.

He gave a quick run down of the Zenon-Alexia thing, his current position and the members of Iris's new task force.

"And there's also Sherry Barnett, she's a research student looking into an artifact they found in the cult base".

"What kind of artifact?" Eta asked, suddenly interested again.

"It's unclear. They suspect it has something to do with mana storage but Sherry hasn't made much progress yet."

"Mana storage...can be a problem. Can you steal it for me master?"

Dammit why is she better at the puppy-dog eyes thing than Delta, it makes no sense.

"I don't think I can. It would be trivial of course but there would be too many questions".

"Okay".

If you say that at least look like you mean it.

The ideal thing would be if she could just come and take a look at the artifact herself, he could probably sneak her in easily enough. Then a much better idea came to him.

"Eta how would you like to join me for this operation".

Her face lit up (as much as it was capable) "Yes, I want that."

"Since Sherry hasn't made much progress, if you get Gamma to introduce you to Alexia as a great artificer she'll probably try to recruit you". Alexia was desperate to prove herself useful to her sister's team, it was why she recruited him after all.

Gamma nodded "I can do that once were finished here" she looked at the time and jumped out of her seat "We need to go right…" She fell over again running to the door. Thankfully she wasn't bleeding again.

---

Alexia anger from the previous day was still simmering as she stepped in to the crimson orders main office. Her first 'date' with Cid after her kidnapping and he'd spent half the time indulging his elf fixation, ditched her for more than an hour and then dragged her back to see one of them perform. Iris had been no help, once she heard him say Sylon was debuting a new song she'd almost run back with him.

He's gonna pay me back for this, I swear.

He did at least have the grace to give her one of the boxes of chocolates he'd won in the prize giveaway. The third place prize was surprisingly substantial, though she'd prefer he hadn't walked away with three signed books of Natsume Kafka's.

The day hadn't been a complete waste of time though. She'd spent most of her saved allowance and regretted none of her purchases, and had managed to prove her value to the Crimson Order again by scouting key talent.

They had decided to keep using the academy as there base (Alexia knew this was probably for her protection) but she was quite proud of the lie she'd told Iris to use. The rest of the school now thought her kidnapping had happened on academy grounds and the new knights served as additional security.

Cid was pouring over papers as usual while Sherry and her father were going over her progress with the artifact to Iris. She thought Glen was giving a guest lecture to the students while Marco was canvassing witnesses from the citizens displaced by Shadow's attack.

"Our new members are here, should I let them in?" Iris nodded. She expected Cid's reactions to the new recruits to be hilarious.

First walked in her recruit Erin Lloyd Cartwright. The scientist/architect (/apparently a lot of other stuff) wore a long sleeved white dress which didn't seem much different from her lab coat from a distance.

"Hey" she muttered groggily "My name is Erin Lloyd Cartwright. Nice to meet you". As if that had been a herculean effort she slumped down in the chair next to Cid. He looked a little curious but not much else.

Disappointing.

"Ah...Yes" Alexia decided to pick up where Erin had left off. She was responsible for bringing her on after all. "Miss Erin is a famous architect and artificer with multiple papers published in Laugus Scientific Journals, I'm certain she'll add a lot to our investigation".

This speech would have been more convincing if Erin didn't look ready to pass out at any second. She had been told about her sleep disorder but this way worse than she thought it would be.

The next member walked in then and she saw the shock on Cid's face. Erin too seemed stunned but as a fellow elf she probably knew her by reputation.

Alexia had much the same reaction when she met her sister's candidate at the school reception. Beatrix was a damn near identical copy of Cid's friend Allison. She looked a few years older and her hair and eyes were slightly different colours, but other than that those two wouldn't be able to tell the difference between looking at each other or a mirror.

"Greetings, I'm Beatrix Llanerei. Some of you are probably familiar with me from Bushin festivals, although most of you are too young to remember when I competed. I hope we'll be able to help each other". She gave a polite bow to the group.

Lutheran stepped forward and held out a hand "I didn't know Iris had called a living legend to the school or I would have prepared a proper welcome. I assure you that your victories haven't been forgotten and wont be for a very long time yet. I won a Bushin festival myself once, but that was a long time ago". A small coughing fit gripped him then as if to prove his point.

"I wasn't sure she'd agree to join and I didn't want to get anyone's hopes up" Iris explained.

"I hope it isn't a problem, but I didn't come just to help with your investigation" Beatrix added. "I'm looking for my niece. Have you seen an elf that looks like me anywhere?"