the eminence in shadow: Eminence of the Side Character 2

Chapter 2: The Anti-Romcom Protagonist

"Pr-Princess Alexia, please go out with me!" Cid declared, forcing the pitch of his voice to rise as he bowed and extended his hand forward, just too far away from the silver-haired princes to reach.

It was a perfect amateur love confession. The clearing behind the practice dojo was private but not at all romantic and he had rushed straight to the punchline with no build up. His footwork and positioning were also flawlessly mediocre, feet spread out and knees bent as if he was afraid she'd try to tackle him over. In addition he was almost certain the distance between him and Alexia was the optimal 184cm exactly. It was impossible not to smile after completing this perfect performance.

Thank god she can't see my face right now. I just need to wait for her to accept and I can call it mission complete.

His two idiot friends were waiting in the bushes eagerly awaiting his brutal rejection. Sadly for them, this was a battlefield where his defeat was impossible.

As if on queue he heard her say "Alright I accept"

His confidence would have surprised almost everyone, generally speaking there was no way that a princess would start going with some random she had never spoken to before and so his rejection was what should have been guaranteed.

The path to this point had begun almost two years ago when he enacted his move of absolute last resort to get to the capital early. He'd written to the school and told Claire that he thought he needed to get stronger quickly (hinting that it was because he wasn't able to help when she got kidnapped). That plot event has been a really convenient excuse for him to start taking things more seriously with his lessons.

He expected Claire would insist on taking him on as a squire (sort of a dark knight unpaid internship) herself and was previously hoping he'd be able to get anyone else in the school to do it. He didn't have any other connections though and needed to move quickly to get ahead of Alpha and the others.

What he hadn't expected was for her to skip class, catch a carriage all the way home, jump over the walls of the estate and hold him for twenty minutes of happy crying. She was talking for most of it but he barely caught any of the words, something about him being a "sweet younger brother" and "waiting for this for years".

She seriously acted like he didn't always play the hen-pecked younger brother that had to go along with everything she said, and why the hell did she talk about years, she'd left less than two weeks ago.

From there he tried to look into the cult and learn more about the city, though Claire's mild to moderate torture sessions had significantly limited his time for this. He'd quickly learned to decipher his friends notes, but they were so complicated you needed to start at the beginning or you would be unable to understand the context of the later entries.

Once he'd actually started at the academy himself, he'd been able to get more breathing room from Claire to investigate, but he still hadn't had much luck. Most of the last year and a half before and after joining the academy had been spent essentially chasing his tail.

He either found empty buildings that had been apparent cult outposts that were either evacuated or destroyed according to later reports or skipping ahead and looking at "potential" cult locations he had no way to properly investigate without just breaking in and killing everyone. He'd been just on the cusp of giving up when he'd found a new girl called Victoria to recruit and had tried to interrogate a few of the men that had held her captive.

The men said nothing. Not that they didn't say what he wanted but literally nothing. He'd used knives, fire, magic, thrown one off a roof, put one in a river tied to a boulder twice his size, and then tried just being nice to the last one. Not a god-damn word.

This brought the likelihood of the cult being real back to around 30%, since bandits or hired extras would have given up immediately. Still without saying anything they could have been part of any secret organization or just been masochists.

At the church where he'd rescued Victoria he finally got his first lead from the documents the cultists(?) had been looking through. It appeared as though they were planning to kidnap princess Alexia and to be fair, the ransom for that would probably be probably be pretty sweet.

He'd kept an eye her to see if they'd try to abduct her like the others, initially just to stop it and interrogate the abductors but then an even better idea came to him. He could let her get kidnapped, let the ransom demand go through, then swoop in, kill the kidnappers and make off with the ransom while everyone wondered about the mysterious third party. It'd be like having your cake and eating it too, a mastermind event that generated funds for more mastermind events.

His two morons assumed he was staring at her for "other reasons" though. So when he lost his bet with them and had to either confess to a girl, or buy them lunch tomorrow he decided to go double or nothing. He would confess to a girl and if she accepted they'd have to get him lunch for a week.

He already knew from his surveillance (it wasn't stalking if you weren't the abductor) of the princess that she was looking for a low ranking noble to pretend to go out with in order to block one of her official suitors, and going in as her patsy for this event would be incredible side character set-up. He might have confessed love even without the free food.

He felt Alexia take his hand as she said "I'll be in your care from now on. I hope our relationship goes well"

In a complete reversal of how it should have worked his face went from a triumphant smile to cautious excitement as he said "Really! I mean, haven't a lot of other guys asked you?".

"Of course I mean it. I've been waiting for someone like you for a long time. I'm so glad you wanted to be my boyfriend" Alexia replied, smiling serenely.

Damn that was good, she didn't even technically lie there.

Alexia still held his hand, she had had to bend a considerable distance to reach his hand and was now leaning over him "Well, it's getting late, could I ask you to escort me to my dorm".

"Of course".

He set off hand in hand with the girl who though she was playing him, but who he was secretly one step ahead of.

Even if this is pointless with the cult, putting someone's secret plot inside my more secret plot has been on the list for a while.

Po and Skel's frustrated sobs in the background mildly dampened the atmosphere.

---

"Hey Beta" Cid called as he walked into his room.

"Lord Shadow!" she exclaimed, a little more loudly than he'd have liked. Eta had done something to mostly soundproof the room, but it wasn't absolute (not because of any technical limitation, but a pure void of sound would be surreal to his neighbours). "I've got a report from Alpha, she and Zeta are bickering again and want you to settle it. I also wanted to let you know that my new book is this month's best seller."

"Nice" Cid replied distractedly.

I'll probably just tell Alpha to just let Zeta do whatever she wants.

During his first weeks alone with Zeta she had asked for permission to form her own sub-organization to monitor Shadow Garden itself and research special projects. Alpha hadn't liked it but apparently Zeta had already identified several cult infiltrators (uncool people) to ban from Shadow Garden and he was curious about her special project. It was also a secret organization in his secret organization, it required no further justification.

"Lord Shadow you seem distracted, is everything alright?"

"Yeah it's fine, just glad to see you're all doing well for yourselves"

It was nice to see the girls he'd raised were all well balanced and had found respectable careers. Beta was a novelist, Eta was a renowned architect, Epsilon had become a musician and Gamma had even started a small business. Alpha, Zeta and Delta were apparently full time fighting the cult (unemployed), but he was sure they would find something eventually and calling them on it now would crush their confidence.

Everything with Alexia had gone exactly to plan but he was just concerned about one potential problem that could emerge, and on that subject...

"Beta, you've written romance novels right?"

"Yes. I tried to use everything I know about love to write them". She said moving closer to him for some reason. Honestly she had as much experience with this as Po and Skel but girls were supposed to be better at these things naturally, right?

"I need your advice on a problem I've encountered". She stood to attention immediately.

"I've recently acquired a girlfriend at school and…"

"What!" she shrieked in disbelief.

You don't have to be so shocked about it. I haven't even said it's Princess Alexia yet.

Mildly offended and wanting to avoid any more damage to his eardrums he moved away from her and sat at the table as if preparing to read Alpha's message and replied "Yes, for reasons I wont get into I've had to do this. The only potential problem is that she might drag this out for an unreasonable length of time, so I need a way to ensure this relationship isn't long term". Being the guy who dated the princess for a few weeks or a month tops would be fine, but going longer than that would be pushing into main character territory.

Beta calmed herself over the next few seconds and then responded as seriously as he'd ever heard her speak "Yes, I will definitely, absolutely solve this problem for you as soon as possible my lord. Might I suggest a simple fatal accident as soon you've finished whatever your plan is? If this girl is bothering you it wouldn't be any trouble."

Okay, maybe they're not that well adjusted, that was way too fast to go to murder.

"That's a bit much Beta, besides the girl is princess Alexia so the political ramifications…"

"What!" she shrieked in disbelief again. This time he'd been expecting it and was able to cover his ears in time.

"What I was looking for" he continued "Was something like an Anti-Romcom protagonist script"

"Anti-romcom protagonist?" Beta replied, confused.

"Yes. I need a script on ways to act and events I can trigger that will destroy any affection she might have for me and crush any hope of this relationship lasting long term, basically the opposite of what you'd write in one of your books normally". He figured if he was annoying enough she was guaranteed to drop him as soon as she dealt with Zenon.

"Of course, princess Alexia's royal blood might make her a prime target for the cult. Your strategy of getting closer to her, while having absolutely minimal romantic interest or contact with her is brilliant"

I totally forgot the royal blood part of our lore. I suppose Beta's skill in remembering this kind of stuff and being able to work it into new plotlines is why she's a first rate novelist.

Beta undertook her mission readily, and after a little more small talk he headed off to bed. When he woke up in the morning he found twelve pages of notes on how to act with Alexia. He actually had to use magic to slow his perception of time so he could read them all before he left, musing that this had to take another five percent from the cult meter. It was strange that she would invest this much time into engineering an exit into his fake romantic life if she actually thought that her other work was saving the world.

---

Alexia was used to being stared at and talked about. It had been a part of her life since she was born but even so she had learned to notice when it became more intense as it had this morning. She'd only told two of her friends about her new "boyfriend" but he'd obviously spread the news. She wasn't upset though, it worked to her advantage and she could show him a little charity, it was probably the first time a girl like her had given him the time of day.

Speaking of the idiot there he is now.

He was eating in the cafeteria, sitting with two guys she had absolutely no knowledge of, which naturally proved they were completely insignificant. Between the lanky blond guy who was trying way to hard to look cool and the bald shorty he somehow managed to look half decent.

She sat at the table next to… Cid (she was 90% sure that was his name) and signalled to the staff to bring her order, smiling her best "I'm so lovingly content" smile.

"Good morning Cid, would you mind if I sat with you and your friends".

Cid responded with a causal "fine" while his friends showed her the proper respect as they almost fell over themselves to welcome her.

When her order came Cid asked "Is that a custom order?"

"No, it's just today's deluxe meal, I do feel bad about about the waste though. I rarely have the appetite to eat it all". She had long since learned that she was expected to not eat all of her food and therefore order more than she wanted.

"Let me help you with that" Cid said, as he started digging in to her meal.

"This is seriously good. I wish I could afford things like this". He didn't even even finish chewing her food before saying this.

He's actually stealing my food right in front of me. Was he raised in a barn

Realizing she couldn't stop him, she resolved to get as much as she could before the pig cleaned her out. She looked back to the table and began moving items onto her plate so she could safeguard them.

Breakfast continued in this undignified way until, still fairly hungry and almost impressed by Cid's ravenous speed, it was time for her favourite treat. A small strawberry croissant that had been miraculously spared all this time.

She reached out to collect it and it vanished. She knew where it was but couldn't help but look around at him, her face briefly showing the anger she'd been suppressing all this time.

He seemed to notice and she saw a brief flash of satisfaction in his eyes. That didn't make any sense. As a minor noble, a student of the academy, and especially as her boyfriend he should be trying anything he could to avoid upsetting her.

Getting angry would essentially be a defeat, so she forced another gentle smile and ruffled his hair "Aww, you're such a hungry little guy. I bet they never fed you properly out in the country. I'll be sure to buy you something next time". That would at least prevent her from starving before the week was out.

"Anyway we have to get to class. I know you obviously wouldn't want to spend any more time away from me than you absolutely have to, so I asked for you to be moved to Royal Bushin section one with me and the school agreed. I'll see you there this afternoon".

---

"I can't believe you're still going out with that guy after this morning, I know he's just a distraction but still!" Millicent told her, holding back a grin

"You don't have to laugh" Even if it made her look like a complete push over and an idiot, she'd at least managed to convince most of the school she was madly in love with Cid Kagenou.

He'd offered to walk her to her next class and she thought he was finally starting to suck up to her like he was supposed to but no. Instead his foot had tangled with hers as they were exiting the cafeteria and she'd gone tumbling into another table, and found a mixture of jam, apple juice and milk had completely ruined her blouse.

Cid had apologised and was going to bring her to her dorm room, but in this case she'd decided a retreat was required, waving him off and going on her own. Again she thought she saw satisfaction hidden in his eyes.

She looked around at her two closest friends and looked for any tell that might give them away "did you tell anyone about this, about why I'm dating him?"

"N-no of course not" Alisa stammered.

"Nope, didn't even know you picked someone and went through with it until this morning" Millicent replied. "It's bad luck you didn't ask me beforehand, I would have steered you away from him".

"Why?" she asked, curiosity rising. Alexia lacked her sister's talent with a sword, but prided herself on being a good judge of character. Cid had become a strange puzzle for her to solve, as she had no idea what could have motivated him to ask her out just to try and sabotage the relationship

The only guess she had was that he'd figured out her motive for accepting him, but these two were the only ones who knew and she now was certain they hadn't told anyone.

"You've heard of his sister right, Claire Kagenou?"

"That's his sister, I thought they were third cousins or something". Claire was one of the natural standouts of the school. Talented, beautiful and very self-assured, she'd been said to be the next Iris of the academy. Alexia hated her despite their minimal interaction.

She was so different to the mediocre Cid she'd assumed they were distant relations at most, despite sharing the same name.

"Yeah, that's his sister. She's uh, protective of him, like scary overprotective. You know that guy Clive in section two of standard Bushin. Claire found out he was trying to bully Cid and went off on him the next time they were in training together. She got three weeks detention for it but didn't seem to mind at all and there's a rumour he deliberately got moved down to section two to get away from her. Total Brocon."

"She also trains with him before school starts most mornings." Alisa piped in. As usually she kind of shrank when attention turned to her "I see them sometimes, going to violin practice"

Alexia groaned. This girl sounded like a problem and this didn't give her anything else to figure out Cid.

Unless Cid was as into Claire as she was into him, and had asked her out expecting rejection so he could follow after her without being called out by his friends. Eww.

---

She didn't have long to wait until meeting Claire Kagenou and it didn't go as badly as she thought it would. It was considerably worse.

The older girl had almost half a foot on her which was incredibly noticeable when she grabbed her in the hallway and dragged her into an empty classroom. She'd had no choice but to go along with her act about needing "a quick word alone", mostly just trying to rush though it to get out of Claire's claw-like grip.

Claire didn't waste any time setting out her demands "you need to leave my brother alone. Now"

The abruptness of it left her speechless for a moment, but she recovered quickly "Hello Claire, it's been some time since we last spoke, I think it was Iris' farewell party".

The reminder seemed to calm Claire somewhat "Yes I think it was, but I'm not here to talk about that. The whole school says you're going out with Cid, but I don't think you've ever spent any time with him. The only thing that makes sense is that you're using him for something and I don't like it".

I need to shut this down, it's bad enough one of them's probably figured it out.

"Claire, Cid was the one who asked me out". This next part was going to be physically painful "I was so moved by his heartfelt confession I just couldn't say no, he was just so sincere and thoughtful"

"Oh so you see it too, he's such a sweet boy. He's also got such amazing potential as a dark knight, even more than I do" Claire said passionately.

My goddess, she actually, genuinely, sincerely believes that.

Mildly more afraid since she had confirmed she was in the presence of a delusional person and wanting to get away as quickly as possible, she replied "Yes, so I don't think there's any need for conflict between us. I'd really like to get to know you better." Alexia offered a hand, masterfully hiding her displeasure.

Claire considered her hand but didn't actually take it. It seemed all the Kagenous had none the manners required to interact with royalty.

"Still, your father still wouldn't consider him for a royal marriage, even though it's obviously ridiculous that you're too good for him" Alexia could do nothing but internally seethe. "So you'll obviously have to split-up anyway eventually, and the longer this goes on the more Cid will get hurt so you should get it over with now. Cid needs someone closer to his own rank that will stick with him long term. Someone who sees how incredible he is and will put in the work to draw out what he could be."

Alexia couldn't resist "Someone more like you then?"

"Yes, someone like me would be perfect for Cid!" Claire replied in the sort of voice one would use when given the answer to a problem that had been frustrating them for years, completely missing the sarcasm. Alexia would later reflect that there was an important life lesson here about not asking questions you didn't want to know the answer to.

She was saved from having to continue this by the miraculous appearance of Cid himself. He'd taken Claire aside and had a quick whispered argument with her at the back of the classroom. It had ended with Cid storming away, taking her hand and nearly dragging her to Royal Bushin, shooting an angry look back at Claire.

Well that's another theory down. I'm actually glad I was wrong about that, it would have been far too distasteful to deal with.

This brought her back to the drawing board in terms of why he was trying to get her to dump him. After his introduction to the class Cid was pulled aside by that arrogant faker Zenon. Rather than show he was upset like he obviously was he obnoxiously pretended to be nice to Cid and the two were chatting like old friends when it clicked. Zenon would have figured out why she was dating Cid straightaway and had no reason not to tell him. Cid, obviously hurt and heartbroken wanted to get back at her and end their relationship, but politically couldn't afford to break-up with her himself and so was pushing her to let him go.

She began figuring out her next steps while the class divided into pairs for sparring practice, pulling Cid aside before he could go off on his own. His idiot friends must have known as well, they were acting far too afraid that morning given her reputation for kindness and generosity. They were weak links and might even be able to give her information about him she could use to blackmail him back into line.

She was briefly distracted from her plotting by a sharp pain in her cheek. Cid had fallen over after her last parry and his brief, ballerina like spin sent his practice blade flying right into her face.

"Oh, I'm so sorry" he said. The voice was convincing but she could read the satisfaction in his eyes by now.

"It's nothing, training accidents happen" she replied sweetly. Knowing that he wanted her to get upset and angry helped her keep calm. Every time she moved past one of his stupid stunts, she was winning. "I just hope your alright, that was quite a fall".

The class continued but she kept her focus on her sparring partner properly, dodging his acrobatic and apparently inadvertent attacks until the class ended. She made a point to publicly ask him to meet her on the roof to watch the sunset together at the end of the day, ensuring he couldn't back out.

--

"Quit acting, you obviously already know" Alexia practically growled at him.

"What is it that I know exactly". Years of living in a weird Schrödinger's cult relationship with his friends had allowed him to master bluffing in any circumstance.

"That I only accepted your confession because I wanted to stall instructor Zenon from trying to marry me. It's completely obvious you're trying to push me into breaking up with you".

Beta.

What the fuck.

I was trying to go for mildly annoying and now she's figured out my exit strategy. This is the last time I take her acting advice.

Putting on his best hurt and offended expression he replied "Wow, I had no idea. I'm going home. I'd say it's been fun but I'm obviously not as good a liar as you are".

If he was going to be outed like this, he was at least going to get something out of it. He'd just have to dig his heels in until she made him an offer.

As expected, she grabbed his arm as he started to stand and pulled him back until he was sat beside her again. "I don't know about that. I mean asking me out because you lost a bet with you're friends and wanted free lunch is pretty cold-blooded. I wonder what the other guy's at school would do if I went to them, crying about what how such a horrible boy played with my heart."

You can't play with something that doesn't exist.

"What makes you say that?".

"I talked with your two idiot friends before coming here. They held up for about five seconds before they spilled everything and begged me not to have them executed or have their families titles stripped away".

It appears Beta isn't the only one who made an oversight. If I expected those two to be of use in any situation, it's absolutely my fault.

"You're going to do what I say, and pretend to be my sweet, loving boyfriend until I tell you to stop. Do you understand me!"

"Well if you want to continue our relationship how it's been I obviously have to give up and play along" He moved a hand near to the bruise on her cheek "I'm so glad you looked past how clumsy I've been today, and how clumsy I'll obviously be every day until we break up".

She sighed and pinched her nose.

Checkmate. This is the part where she'll offer me a vague favour I can call in later. She must be desperate if she's put up with all my crap so far and It'll be nice to have this card in my pocket going forward.

"I swear, you lower class nobles might as well be dogs for all the civility you have. Well I suppose if you want to train a dog you have to use treats, right?"

She pulled out a 10,000 Zeni coin and held it just out of reach, he knew this because he instinctively moved to grab it as soon as it cleared her pocket.

"You'll be a good boy and behave right".

Dammit, this was checkmate. Money making opportunities were scarce in the capital and he'd already blown through all his savings making one small apartment remotely liveable as the eminence in shadow. Now the question was should he hold out for a vague favour or accept the cash now?

It wasn't a real question, he nodded and felt the gold coin pressed into his hand. "You'll need more than just this though".

She responded by carelessly tossing five more coins across the ground in front of her "you can fetch these"

As he collected the last coin he felt her hand move through his hair "That's a good puppy. I'll have you trained in no time".

Okay she's messed up. It's pretty impressive she's managed to fool everyone into thinking she's a kind-hearted, demure princess. Maybe I should be taking notes.

"It should go without saying but since it's you I'll say it anyway. You can't tell anyone about this or where you're getting this money".

Cid could only nod again. Besides being humiliated on the ground this was exactly where he wanted to be at the start of this whole thing, so it wasn't as big deal.

-----

He entered his apartment and once again found Beta sitting at the table in front writing what looked to be a small novella.

"Lord Shadow" she exclaimed again "I've been working on our project and I think if you can manage all of this then the princess is certain to break-up with you despite your overwhelming charisma".

This was going to hurt, he was going to immediately waste all her considerable (yet useless) effort. "Beta, I appreciate your hard work, but I no longer need you to keep working on this".

"Why, my lord?"

"Alexia and I have come to an… arrangement of sorts. I'll continue as her boyfriend and she'll provide something I want in exchange".

"Mi-might I ask what she's giving you?"

Obviously it would be completely lame to admit he was broke and got bought out, so he'd just have to use EiS technique 7 "Be vague while truthful to avoid the real answer".

"I'm sorry Beta, as part of our agreement I can't say. I'm certain she would be completely mortified if people found out she had to do it to keep her boyfriend interested".

Beta gave him a look of shock, disappointment and mild horror.

Damn I said too much, she totally knows I'm broke.