The catacombs beneath the old Royal Academy were a labyrinth of damp stone, forgotten histories, and the lingering echoes of Cid Kagenou's earliest, most fervent, chuunibyou delusions. It was here, amidst crumbling sarcophagi and cobweb-laden archways, that he had "discovered" the "ancient curse" afflicting Alpha, "revealed" the "truth" of the Diablos Cult, and "founded" Shadow Garden, spinning a tale of shadowy warfare and heroic sacrifice that had, through a series of increasingly bizarre and improbable events, actually come true.
To return here now, not as a scheming teenager weaving elaborate fantasies, but as Lord Shadow, leader of a genuine clandestine organization, to confront a genuine (if somewhat second-rate) villain attempting to desecrate this place of origin… it felt… poetic. In a dark, twisted, and deeply satisfying, Eminence-in-Shadow kind of way.
He moved through the familiar, yet now unsettlingly altered, passageways with a silent, predatory grace. The air was thick with the cloying stench of dark magic, a crude, desperate imitation of the oppressive aura Xar'Voth had exuded. Flickering, sickly green torches cast long, dancing shadows, revealing hastily scrawled Cultist symbols defacing the ancient stonework.
Alpha, Beta, Epsilon, Delta, Gamma, Zeta, and Eta – the original Seven Shades – moved with him, their expressions grim, their loyalty unwavering. This was more than just a mission for them; it was a defense of their shared history, their found family, the very foundation upon which their lives had been rebuilt. Even Delta, usually so exuberant, was uncharacteristically subdued, her ears flattened, a low growl rumbling in her chest. This place was sacred to them, in its own strange way.
Seraphina, the former Night Blade, had been left behind, much to her initial protest. This was a Shadow Garden affair, a deeply personal reckoning. Saitama and Genos were also, thankfully, elsewhere – Saitama having become engrossed in a high-stakes (for him, at least) game of "find the shiniest pebble" with Mr. Fluffles in the Royal Gardens, and Genos meticulously cataloging the various species of Midgarian moss, convinced that one of them held the key to "sustainable, bio-luminescent, emergency power generation."
"Malakorias defiles our sanctuary," Alpha whispered, her voice tight with a cold fury that mirrored Shadow's own. "He seeks to claim a legacy he does not understand, a power he cannot control."
"His ambition is a pale imitation of true darkness," Beta added, her pen scratching furiously across her notepad, even in the dim, flickering light. "He is a charlatan, a pretender, attempting to wear the robes of a true master."
Shadow said nothing. His silence was more eloquent than any pronouncement. He let their anger, their righteous indignation, fuel his own. This was not about grand, cosmic battles or accidental, reality-bending solutions. This was about protecting something… his. Even if that "his" had been built on a foundation of elaborate, teenage lies. Those lies had, somehow, improbably, blossomed into a truth. A truth he would defend.
They reached the central chamber, the place where Cid had first "revealed" the "curse" to Alpha, a vast, circular room with a high, vaulted ceiling and a crumbling, obsidian altar at its center. But the altar was no longer crumbling. It pulsed with a sickening, black-green light, and upon it rested a pulsating, obsidian heart-shaped object – the Umbral Heart.
And standing before it, his arms raised in a theatrical, villainous pose, was Malakorias. He was a gaunt, sallow-faced man with wild, fanatical eyes, clad in tattered, but once-fine, priestly robes. He was surrounded by a handful of equally desperate-looking Cultists, their faces pale and drawn, their bodies thrumming with the unstable energy of the Umbral Heart.
"Yes! YES!" Malakorias cackled, his voice echoing eerily in the chamber. "The power! I can feel it! The Umbral Heart beats anew! Soon, its darkness will flood this pathetic city! The Cult of Diablos will rise again, stronger than ever! And I, Malakorias, will be its new Master! Its true Eminence!"
He then noticed Shadow and the Seven Shades standing silently in the shadows at the chamber's entrance. His maniacal grin faltered, replaced by a flicker of surprise, then a sneer of contempt.
"Ah, Shadow Garden. The meddling children, still playing at being heroes. You are too late! The ritual is almost complete! The Umbral Heart will grant me power beyond your wildest imaginings! You cannot stop the inevitable!"
Shadow stepped forward, his cloak swirling around him like a living entity. The temperature in the chamber seemed to drop several degrees. His voice, when he spoke, was not the booming pronouncement of the Eminence. It was a low, cold, almost reptilian, hiss. A sound that promised not dramatic confrontation, but swift, merciless, and utterly personal, retribution.
"You defile this place, pretender," Shadow said, his voice devoid of all theatricality, all artifice. This was not a performance. This was… real. "You invoke a power you do not comprehend. And you dare… you dare… to usurp a title that is not yours to claim."
Malakorias actually flinched. There was something in Shadow's voice, something in his stillness, that was far more terrifying than any of Xar'Voth's cosmic booming or Valerius's vampiric hissing. It was the cold, quiet fury of a deeply personal boundary being violated.
"Insolence!" Malakorias shrieked, his fear momentarily overcome by his fanatical ambition. "You are nothing! A charlatan! A ghost! The true power of the shadows will be mine! Cultists! Destroy them! Offer their souls to the Heart!"
The handful of Cultists, fueled by a desperate, drug-like infusion of power from the Umbral Heart, surged forward, their eyes glowing with a sickly green light, their movements jerky and unnatural.
But they were no match for the Seven Shades. Not here. Not in this place.
Alpha moved like a silver wraith, her blade a whisper of death, each strike precise, severing not just flesh, but the dark energies that animated her foes. Beta, her analytical mind a cold, calculating weapon, unleashed a barrage of perfectly aimed arcane bolts, each one disrupting the Cultists' corrupted power, causing them to scream and collapse. Epsilon, a liquid shadow, flowed through the attackers, her sword a shimmering, ethereal line that left trails of dissipating darkness in its wake. Delta, her earlier restraint gone, exploded into a furry whirlwind of claws and teeth, her feral rage a terrifying counterpoint to the others' cold precision. Gamma, surprisingly, did not trip, her arcane blasts focused and potent, creating protective barriers and blasting attackers aside. Zeta and Eta, moving as one, unleashed a coordinated assault of shadowy tendrils and debilitating curses, their silent teamwork a testament to their years of shared training and understanding.
The Cultists, who had expected to overwhelm their opponents with their borrowed, unstable power, were cut down with a brutal, almost contemptuous, efficiency. They were not just defeated; they were dismantled.
Malakorias watched, his fanatical grin contorting into a mask of disbelief and dawning terror. "No! Impossible! The Heart… it should make them invincible!"
"The Heart offers only corruption, pretender," Shadow said, taking another step forward, his ebony blade now drawn, its surface seeming to drink the sickly green light emanating from the artifact. "It amplifies your greed, your fear, your pathetic lust for a power you are unworthy to wield."
He was no longer just playing the part of the Eminence. In this moment, in this place, facing this pathetic, sacrilegious imitation, Cid Kagenou was Lord Shadow. He was the darkness that hunted the shadows. He was the avenger of a legacy, however fabricated.
"You… you cannot understand!" Malakorias shrieked, backing away towards the pulsating Umbral Heart. "The Master is gone! But I will succeed where he failed! I will control the darkness! I will be…!"
Shadow moved.
It was not a dramatic lunge, not a flashy display of arcane power. It was a single, silent, impossibly swift, step. One moment he was across the chamber, the next he was before Malakorias, his ebony blade a hair's breadth from the pretender's throat.
Malakorias froze, his eyes wide with terror, the sickly green light of the Umbral Heart reflecting in their dilated pupils. He could feel the oppressive, soul-chilling cold emanating from Shadow, a cold far deeper, far more absolute, than any power the Umbral Heart could offer.
"You will be… nothing," Shadow whispered, his voice a chilling echo in the silent chamber.
And then, he did something that was pure, unadulterated, Eminence in Shadow.
He didn't just strike Malakorias down. That would have been too simple. Too… anticlimactic.
Instead, he reached out with his free hand, not for Malakorias, but for the Umbral Heart itself. His gloved fingers closed around the pulsating, obsidian artifact.
A shockwave of dark energy erupted from the Heart, powerful enough to make the very stones of the catacombs groan. Malakorias screamed, expecting Shadow to be consumed, to be torn apart by the raw, untamed power he had sought to control.
But Shadow just… held it.
The dark energy, the corrupted power, the amplified negative emotions – it all washed over him, through him. And it found… nothing to corrupt. Nothing to amplify. Only the cold, empty, and utterly controlled void of his Eminence persona.
Or perhaps… perhaps it found something else. The genuine, righteous fury of Cid Kagenou, the dreamer whose sacred playground was being defiled.
The Umbral Heart, an artifact of immense dark power, began to shudder in Shadow's grip. Its sickly green light flickered, then began to dim, overwhelmed by the pure, concentrated darkness that was Lord Shadow. Cracks began to appear on its obsidian surface. It let out a sound like a dying scream, a chorus of a thousand tormented souls trapped within, suddenly, inexplicably, silenced.
"No… my power…" Malakorias whimpered, watching in horror as the source of his borrowed strength crumbled in Shadow's grasp.
"This," Shadow said, his voice a low, resonant hum, as he slowly, deliberately, crushed the Umbral Heart in his fist, reducing it to a shower of glittering, black dust, "is true darkness, pretender. Not the chaotic, desperate grasping of a frightened child, but the cold, absolute, and utterly controlled will of an Eminence."
He then turned his gaze, now burning with a cold, unwavering light, back to Malakorias.
Malakorias didn't even try to fight. He just sank to his knees, his body trembling, his fanatical ambition replaced by a profound, soul-crushing despair. He had sought to become a Master of Shadows. He had, instead, come face to face with the genuine article. And it was terrifying.
Shadow raised his ebony blade. The Seven Shades watched, their expressions a mixture of awe and grim satisfaction. This was their Lord Shadow. Not the exasperated, often bewildered, figure who had been dealing with interdimensional tourists and condiment-related crises. This was the Shadow they had first met, the one who had offered them salvation from the darkness, the one who embodied a power so profound, so absolute, it bordered on the divine.
This was not a performance. This was not a delusion.
This, in this moment, in this sacred, desecrated place, was real.
The whispers of a true Eminence echoed in the silent catacombs, not in words, but in the cold, unwavering certainty of his presence, in the absolute finality of his judgment. The pretender would fall. The sanctuary would be cleansed. And the legend of Shadow Garden, forged in lies but tempered in truth, would endure.
The blade descended.
And the shadows… were silent once more.