Chapter 1- Secrets of Shadow
It was the morning after Claire Kagenou had been rescued by Shadow Garden. Most of the Kagenou estate were ecstatic to see her back- the shades shocked she got back under her own power, Cid just complimented his sister's stubbornness, giving her a lazy wave then waxed some praise as she strongarmed him… Baldy consciously avoiding Claire's blatant glare during the act.
Still, Cid was so engrossed in keeping up with the plot that he completely forgot about her until later, the girls being the ones who assumed he left a passage for her without making his presence obvious.
Now where were the girls? He was going to the library as they were mostly there or in the makeshift hous-
Time froze. Cid blinked, noticing his stuck body then squinted as the area glitched, teleported to a movie theatre-like room. He looked around, noticing the girls were just as confused, but he mostly remained curious.
Alpha coughed, assessing the situation then swallowing, turning to her master and crush, "Ahem, it seems we're in an unknown space. As a matter of caution, please be alert."
The girls nodded, already scanning the place, Eta poking around with her wrench and finger, "Hmm, it doesn't seem we're in any danger."
Gamma tilted her head while Cid snorted at Alpha's puzzlemen-
"She's right, I hadn't brought you for that, merely to watch something," they all turned to the… dragon? It looked like one, making itself known, its aura showing no harm whatsoever.
While everyone was instantly on alert, Cid eyes widened in recognition.
It had jet-black scales covering its whole body. Its sides and wings have small light patches in a pattern similar to that of a manta ray. It possesses two sets of wings- one main pair and one smaller pair near the base of its tail. At the end of its tail, it has two natural tail fins that aid in steering and stability.
Its eyes were bright green, sometimes acid or emerald-green. Located very near the front of its face giving it excellent depth perception and reflexes in flight. Despite being obsessed with shadow-esque characters, Cid was capable of liking many forms of fiction (if they abided by his standards anyway) - evident when he recognized the dragon as a Night Fury from the How to Train Your Dragon movie trilogy. He had liked the adorable creature, and decided to try to tame him… till he turned into a human.
One dressed in black, with red highlights which worked to enhance the look. He was 6'3", with black hair riddled with slight crimson highlights. It was windswept, yet mussed, like he had just decided to roll with his bed-hair. The man had a face that looked sculpted at first glance- it had all the makings of a classic ikemen, except the face also radiated a boyish charm that made people swear he had one of those forgettable faces despite the obvious handsomeness. His eyes were a sparkling black coffee, glinting with amusement at him.
Cid hummed, analysing the way his body moved and its mana waves, it didn't show any malice… "You can lower your guard, if he wanted to dissipate us he wouldn't have shown himself," that seemed to relieve them as the entity smiled.
Still… this is starting to feel like one of those reaction fics he read to get an idea of people's perspectives, killing one liners anyone? He wonders if they'll get to see something good?
The man snickered. "I can read thoughts, comes with the territory of being a Dimension-hopping immortal… And to answer your master's thoughts, yes, you will be getting to see something good," Alpha frowned while Delta was disappointed, Eta just seemed curious, Gamma inching to Beta and Epsilon
Cid and Zeta just stared, deadpanning for different reasons- Cid because he was rather unsurprised, Zeta because she was unimpressed with the answer.
"However, while you eight are central to the timeline of your universe," 'in other words central to the main plot', he projected to Cid, the teen wondering how he knew about his theatrics, "there are secrets that you have been keeping from each other that need to be revealed- Your lack of trust in each other can and most certainly will lead to… a rather grim future, if you keep on as you are."
Alpha eyes widened, shocked. She never imagined anyone there was keeping secrets from each other, or why. She thought that they would always talk with each other on such things, or the Cult would just dismantle them immediately! Teamwork made Shadow Garden work, as Shadow often declared when Zeta inevitably showed her wild side and went off on her own.
Since she spearheaded most of Shadow Garden's operation, Alpha always ensured that those under her command return safely and refused to give them an order that she would not be willing to do herself. She even extended this kindness to the victims of the Cult, thus fearing the grim future that was predicted by the man that summoned them the most. The "why" repeating itself.
Zeta was panicking. How did he know about her plan to revive Diabolos from harvesting the Tears? This wasn't good, while she did share the goal of defeating the cult, Zeta was more aware than most that there was a possibility that humans could create something worse if left alone. Naivety was not in her plans, what's she gonna do? There's no way Alpha would approve of her plans, her kindness just didn't cut it!
Not when Zeta had no reservations about sacrificing someone if she had to, the only way things won't lead to a disaster is if she makes Cid immortal! Anxiety ate at her.
Cid pretended to sigh, in reality he was worried, from beginning to end this was just a world where he would act his fantasies, there's no way he's gonna keep the girls' trust if they knew he just bullshited everything! He can't have that, he needs them! At worst, he confesses and hopes they can forgive him, he'd need another way to be a shadowbroker, but at least he won't lose everything.
Wait, should he bullshit again? Maybe he could find a loophole, nah, the forgiveness seems more likely, he did save them from a death that wasn't deserved… Still… urgh, this was tough!
The entity chuckled, amused by their reactions, "Oh, where are my manners? My name is Seiichi Yotsuba- and I don't claim any home country. To answer your question, Zeta, that's a capital- if morally ambiguous- idea," Cid was half considering using slime to shut him up, not liking his fac-
"Why is it morally ambiguous, you wonder? Well, the first secret is Cid's to reveal, although there is the pesky matter of him having multiple secrets… Which ones will he trust you with, I wonder?"
Cid paused, mostly because he blew all of Cid's possible covers with that one sentence. Evident when Alpha seemed surprised, Eta already grinning and the others plain confused.
He clicked his tongue, then considered, he did have a point, there's no way he can act in a destroyed future, the only thing he can hope for is a zombie apocalypse. And that's just overdone and boring anyway!
Still, what's with Zeta's big idea anyway?
"You win, you absolute plot-driving mechanism…" that made the girls confused, "Then again, you have a point. Can you clarify why my secrets must go first though? What positive does it give you?" He asked metaphorically, truth be told, he doubted he'd be given an answer.
Beta looked confused at the vocabulary that he was using, but that was fine.
"Why, you've the biggest influence on the timeline, young man! Your secrets are the biggest BY CONSEQUENCE."
'By which I mean you're the protagonist and the power in the shadows… figure out the rest by yourself, oh perceptive lord' he projected to Cid, if he wasn't bothered by the clear ass sarcasm, he'd compliment the man's cockiness.
Still… one thing for sure, this man was begging him to reveal his secrets… or at least it seemed like it? Cid was still confused about the 'protagonist' bit, like yeah, he was surrounded by beautiful woman and considered himself quite powerful, he had to in order to be a power in the shadows, but it's not like he was some kind of harem protagonist, he consciously avoided the flags after al-
A pause, but he shrugged just as quickly, doubtful, but he might have the harem if they're still willing, now what was the question?
He was talking as if he should know everything about that line, that's preposterous, he was known for his improv skills, not reading between the lines! Well… unless he knew the cliches, or paid more attention, given that mobs don't notice hidden cues, but still! Just take the cult thing he made up! It was just a random scenario that he felt was plausible, which is why he used it as the setting.
He needed a justification for his actions after all! He couldn't just tell a young Alpha he was killing bandits for money! And she said the whole "I'll do whatever you want" thing, so he improvised!
Anyway, Cid was trapped. Now he had to apologize and explain. Deep breaths. Alpha's expression was not very happy. In fact… was she pouting? And averting eye contact? Delta was literally needling him, though he was ignoring it and the resulting bleeding. She was also asking him to tell her everything… Gamma's eyes were sparkling as she looked forward to knowing more, curse his teachings!
Epsilon was much the same. Beta was ready to… write it all down!? Oh boy, he might be shutting her drive to write down! And was that his face? He shrugged mentally, turning to Zeta, hoping for some sympathy… who was just staring at him like she was expecting some new information. Judging by the glint in her eye, she was baying for someone's blood. He was so screwed, Eta was still grinning, like she already figured something out. Wait, that could work!
"Eta, you seem to know something about the secret that I currently hold… Care to share with the class?" Now, he wasn't going to avoid the truth. He just wanted to know how close she was to the truth. He could work from there, and also apologize for the deception! Oh, he needs to clarify that he won't run away if Seiichi's glint was anything to go by. "Fear not, you will have no punishment pushed on you, regardless of how close you are. I am merely curious about how close you are."
While the rest just looked contemplative at his seemingly calm wording, that seemed to lighten the mood.
Eta was more than happy to answer, forgetting her lack of energy in her enthusiasm to do so- a miracle in itself, since she was looking for the answer to THAT problem herself, her mind calculating everything from their meeting to now, "I was thinking about the timeline of events a few weeks ago, and it was new, thinking about the past. When I did so, it struck me as odd that a 10-year-old had been told about something only adults would know of, let alone about a cult. Oh, right, this thought process was stimulated by the most recent girls' talk we had the night before."
Alpha looked like a lamp was lit, something she took for granted, now seemed very odd, mostly the how, their library hasn't contained more than fairy tales and history books.
Cid was more concerned about why the hell Eta was talking like the Cult existed in real life. "The obvious answer would've been that our Master had been subject to their tender mercies before." Cue Shadow Garden's panicked looks and Cid's offended face.
"I was content with that thought, since it made sense. I would've even brought it up after what we had planned, but that was until yesterday, when Lady Claire was kidnapped." Relief washed across their faces. "Master behaved a bit too confidently when it came to finding his sister," they ignored his sweat at that, the hell he can say he gave up and by dumb luck coincidentally pointed at the right place when he actually slipped! "Of course, I was thinking that there had to be some way they didn't know, except Viscount Greaves, who we suspected of being a high-ranking member, asked us how we knew about them."
Alpha seemed to be putting the pieces together, wanting to call her a liar. Gamma looked like she was in despair already, her view of her master's omniscience faltering. Unfortunately, Eta was too into what she was talking about for her to be lying.
Cid, on the other hand, was hyperventilating. He seemed to be wondering what he had missed and how, if the expression of embarrassment and comical anime-esque rolling was any indication. Seiichi snickered at how Cid's reality was breaking. It amused him that the one who blew everyone's mind was having his mind blown right now. Sucks to have chuunibyou, doesn't it?
"That meant that NO ONE knew about the Cult, which means Master never knew that the cult existed. While I realized that, I tried figuring out how he could give us exact details about the Cult if he knew nothing about them. And, I came to a conclusion."
Cid swallowed while the others waited with gulping breaths.
"You did some research about random topics and joined whatever points you thought made the slightest sense and combined them into a single story. I was fascinated about how abnormal your luck was. You're indeed extraordinary, Master!" Fuck, Eta eyes were gleaming, genuine admiration present, and worse? She wasn't done, "How do you do it? How do you connect stuff that quite literally has no connection into something that does?! It's like reality alters itself to fit your demands, that's incredible, marvellous, austonding! So please let me dissect yo-"
Cid put a stop hand immediately, "Let's not do that, Eta," the scientist pouted, grumbling in her spot.
Alpha was seeing her life disappearing… In fact Cid could see her soul floating out her mouth. Seiichi promptly blocked that, thankfully.
Welp, there was the death knell to everything! He didn't see this coming- he was prepared for multiple scenarios. He had trained to drown dramatically like a mob. To be killed tragically like a well-intentioned mob. To run in terror from the villain like a mob. But he never trained for a scenario like this! For every single bit of his made up setting to be real! How!? Why!?
Seiichi was rolling around laughing, because this was just too funny. He could sense his partner-in-crime doing the same from their hiding spot, too.
Delta was unbothered. So what if the Bossman was just pretending to know about the truth? He was still the strongest! He still saved Delta! "Delta doesn't care about that, Boss! She just wants to hunt and give her Boss a harem!"
Well that changed thing's a lot- Gamma looked like her faith in her master's omniscience was recovering with Eta's statement of reality backing his fantasies up. Epsilon was in disbelief, though she didn't really think it mattered- in fact, while Alpha was recovering, all seven of them were wondering how they could still repay him for everything he did for them, even though he kinda(?) deceived them.
Well, he might as well bare the entire truth now, especially since he didn't wanna be dissected by Eta! That was too scary, and he had to die for that!
"Ahem, quiz time, Eta! Also Beta, Gamma and Epsilon, a few questions." They nodded.
"First question, to Beta! How many stories have I narrated to you?" Beta looked like she was quickly counting that up. It was a lot- including light novels that he had read and enjoyed, yeah too many.
"Next, Gamma! Where exactly has all your knowledge been coming from?" Gamma was burning with the amount of thinking she was doing… till he saw Seiichi behind her showing flames above her head… She was still thinking intensely, though.
"Following that, Eta! How much of your knowledge is known in the world?" Eta was confident in the answer- that none of it that wasn't common knowledge was known in this world. She was curious about that as well, however, she was still stumped at how he could explain 'science' to her. This was her most ardent question.
"Finally, Epsilon! How much of the music I have played for you was known in this world prior to me actually playing it for you?" This stumped her- she was aware that the music she had managed to learn through observing him was all original, but that was too much to develop, especially in two years' time!
Gamma had tried answering all his questions as well, as had Beta and Eta. All four of them had come to the same conclusion- that he couldn't have just come up with ALL of this in the amount of time he spent with them. It was just too much.
This begged the question, which fittingly was asked by Gamma, with her dependence on the Shadow Knowledge- "Master, how is it that you know so much? Eta explained how you could've come up with the Cult- and it makes sense. This doesn't make as much sense as it should!"
Shadow smiled, a carefree smile, now that he was free of the act (Damn You Seiichi!) and asked the last question of Beta. "Beta, could you recite the premise of 'That Time I Reincarnated as a Dragon, please?"
Beta, being faithful as she was, had the premise on the tip of her tongue as she opened her mouth. Then she stopped. Cid's smile became more rueful at her expression. No one could blame him. She had her mouth open, pain clear in her eyes, her hands grabbing at air, as she tried to justify what he thought was her betrayal.
In reality, she had a hard time staying mad at him (she still was mad until now), since she realized that he had lost his own life in a previous world through some fault of his own, and could thus empathize with them the most on their own struggles.
Cid, after all of his own anxiety based revelations with a bit of a crisis- being the ACTUAL protagonist while also being a Shadowbroker, had started being more perceptive as a person, having achieved his dream- though he still had complaints about the way it had come to be- and his perception had always been good… It was just that his 'Mob-Fu' required him to be dull. And that turned out soo well for him, didn't it!?
In any case, he nodded, signalling to Beta that she should continue. Understanding the sign, she did so. "This story is about a man, who went and put himself in harm's way to become popular with girls, only to die. However, what happened was that he was reborn to an entirely different world, where magic worked differently, and there was more danger everywhere they could see. He was lucky that he was a dragon in his new life."
More understanding dawned, especially on Gamma's and Eta's faces. They couldn't believe that their master had been reincarnated in their world with his memories intact… That could only be for their Master. They were convinced now- their Master was loved by Reality itself, to be able to save them all. They had no intention of abandoning him now. They were destined for him. He was meant to be the one they rallied around. And if he wished to deal with the Cult now, they would do their best to help him.
Zeta still had her own ideas, but now she knew that it was better to talk about it than think that that would be rejected.
With all of that considered…
"Beta," she turned to Alpha, their happiness momentarily paused, "One question though. What kind of world did the man originate from?" She had something to confirm, Alpha would never doubt her master after this, but was curious, that world seemed oddly… advanced… and pacifistic. The opposite of theirs.
A pregnant pause followed as they tilted their heads at her frozen smile.
"Er, Beta? Is there something wrong?" Gamma was worried.
"M-Master," Cid panicked, she was turning it to him to explain?!
They waited curiously, "A-Ahem," relax, they won't blame you, sure, criticise, but won't right?! "... Let's just say my previous world… was boring."
"Boring?"
"It was… far more advanced, like Eta's level of advancement, there was even something like TVs, mangas and animes, stories kinda based on our world," their eyes widened, "... I was someone who admired a certain archetype, a character that set the stage of the main plot, one who worked from the shadows. I emulated it often in my daily life, but…"
"But?" They were smiling, oddly cracked, but did.
"... There weren't any enemies for me to fight, it was a peaceful country, the most were some gangs or thieves and I dealt with them."
Alpha seemed to have a bad feeling about this, the others similarly dumbfounded.
"... Basically, you're a chuunibyou?" Beta heard the term before, but… what?
"What's a chuunibyou?" Delta asked, curious as Beta awkwardly explained it to the others, Zeta staring while Eta seemed slightly disappointed.
Cid pouted, "Okay, fine, I just wanted to use this world for my fantasies, what's wrong with that?!"
Alpha piffed, "N-Nothing," the others contained their laughs, "I'm just surprised you're not this perfect being," and utterly nuts, but probably a good type was left unsaid.
Cid blinked, the chuckles open now. Really, there's not a single unflawed person there. Delta was the obviously airheaded combat genius, Alpha had become obsessed, which never spelt anything good, Beta had extreme hero worship, Gamma's a klutz, Zeta was aloof, and needed to let some things go, Epsilon was too sensitive about her bust size (that was way too obvious), and Eta and her issues were best left untouched, genius that she was.
Zeta took the chance, laughing between words, "You know, with the way things are, I can see the necessity of this talk. And… I can now say this out loud." They turned to her, curious, "Alpha-sama, I… was actually planning on reviving Diablos."
This time, Alpha was confused, "... That's the plan though? Cid will defeat it and we'll prove the Cult Dark history?" The words barely sank on him.
"It's not just that," most frowned at that, Cid still shocked, "I… was planning on making Shadow immortal, to avoid bigger problems that the Cult influence caused, not trusting humanity won't just doom itself again… I was willing to sacrifice ANYONE for that." Seiichi just shook his head as he looked on- since he saw the future, he knew that she actually shoved Diabolos' arm into Claire, which is why they should really talk things out among themselves.
"... I admit that your reasoning is sound, but… What's your opinion, Cid?"
He finally snapped back, "Hmm, what? Oh yeah, I have no complaints about being immortal, that was my plan, keep being a Shadow eminence for 300 years and all, though I'd rather do it under my own power, but hmm, governing's gonna be a pain, so I'll leave THAT to Alpha."
The hand wave caused another onslaught of laughter.
Seiichi interrupted the moment, coughing, "All right, now while I'd love to make y'alls as happy as can be, you do wanna see how your master came to be as he is, right? Lemme explain what's about to happen!"
All the merriment and talk of plans stopped. They were interested, having no intention of not accepting his help now. Though they wondered what they would get to see.
"So I'm gonna let you see a part of Cid's past life, a summary of the events from three years ago, and some of the events that start happening two years later. While this will benefit you, I also intend to bring some people who've a role to play in your story, as small as it is." Cid raised an eyebrow, until he froze, doesn't that mean C-Claire's gonna come?! Everyone else had sparkles in their eyes.
"They however will only remember this as a particularly vivid dream, since I'll be dragging them in their sleep. You'll all remember everything that happens. They'll also only think this to be a possible future, while you'll know this to be true, and have the ability to change everything." His sigh of relief was audible and no one blamed him.
"I'll say this, if you want someone to remember it as you do, you just gotta think it. Depending on who it is and why, I may or may not do it, but there is a good possibility that I'll do it. Do remember that there is no violence more serious than a fisticuff between frenemies that is to occur." That last part was a threat. It was a clear one, in fact.
They nodded to signal their agreement and then came the seats for them- An eight-seater couch that all eight of them sat on.
The screen flickered on.
So, I'm doing it again! Yes, I'm spreading myself thin here, but this time, I have a rather good partner with me on this one! I really DO have to formally thank NeutralMime from AO3 for accepting the request to work with me on this, since I'm new on AO3, where this is cross-posted. Other than that, they've been really kind while I work my special brand of Chaos! Please, if you have any words for them, I think they'd love to hear them!
On a separate note, the inspiration was the multiple Gacha Club tiktok react videos I stumbled onto in Youtube. That blossomed beautifully, though yes, there might be a few mistakes here and there. Seiichi and his brand of Insanity are waiting at the Races!