'Well, it's actually not that bad…'
Cid nodded to himself as he finished watching the events unfolding in front of him. The Protagonist kid was feeling well, Lilac got little brother to play with, Shades were now quite happy with Cid being back… Something is missing, though…
A bulb appeared in his mind.
Alexia! Of course!
It was a long time since he had a talk with her… Well, long by his feelings, anyway; for her it was barely three weeks. For him, though? More than two hundred days… By the way, he needs to check time dilation in Black Rose: time here was supposed to flow much slower…
You know, he kinda missed talking with her. Really. Of course, by herself she was this bratty, a bit rude and spoiled princess… But that's exactly what he needs right now, you know? Just to sit down and relax with someone who would honestly say that sometimes you, Cid Kagenou, might suck… Though if she talks this way about his Shadow persona, then… Well, he might up the difficulty in the Protagonist Challenges.
Ju-u-ust a bit…
Alexia Midgar was bored.
As the younger princess of Midgar kingdom, she was supposed to be a perfect example of royalty… Polite, beautiful, but at the same time having her own pride and backbone… She also had a lot of suitors, both political ones and those who were enamored with her perfect mask… She honestly pitied the second ones: after all, their feelings, even if misplaced, were honest and down to earth (or rather, up to heaven, if romantic books were to be believed)… Unlike first ones, which were politely told to fuck off.
Yes, the whole noble slash royal circle was full of venomous snakes and cunning foxes who would not hesitate to stab her in the back should she ever show herself as vulnerable. Alexia learned that much from Zenon incident. You would be correct to think that with these prerequisites finding a good friend is nigh impossible…
Being a member of upper nobility and royalty did have its own problems. However, just not so long ago all the cons were completely crossed with appearance of one unassuming raven-haired boy in her life.
Cid Kagenou. If you look at him in the sea of people, you might not even be able to remember how he looks; he just had that average appearance of bored student, coupled with usual Midgarian dark hair and eyes, a bit worn out uniform… Nothing interesting or standing out about him whatsoever. Even his family was lowly baron one.
However, to Alexia he was the most exciting thing to appear in her life. She didn't know why he was so alluring to her… Was it because of his honesty? The fact that he just told everything straight to her face? He also didn't hide his flaws, either, allowing her to see clearly what kind of person he was…
What started as a simple plan to get rid of all other suitors slowly bloomed into affection, and that affection turned into…
She shook her head with a blush and hugged the plushie in his appearance (custom order!).
In short, she was feeling great with him. Unfortunately, the same couldn't quite be said about him…
For some reason he was obsessed with not standing out, to the point where he even told her that the best course of action for him would actually be to break their relationships (her heart at that moment almost stopped); fortunately she has managed to mend everything, and over time he stopped complaining about his, as he said, 'background character appearance', whatever that meant… He even at some point said he did enjoy spending time with her!
So you can imagine how bored she became when on the academy break Cid went away… As Mitsugoshi employees said, he was doing some kind of a work for them, but the details were not to be disclosed. Secrecy, be it damned.
And now you can imagine how happy she was when she heard a knock on the door. After peeking out she realized that the unassuming face of student in front of her was actually really familiar…
"Poochie~!" her happy voice reverberated throughout the hallway as she pulled him to her room.
"…Kitten," he jabbed back at her, though it did take a bit more than usual for him to start talking.
"Wha-a-at? Don't say you aren't happy to see me!" she faked pouting and placed her hands on her hips.
"Nah, just got a bit overworked and even forgot about stuff and all…" he sat on the couch (but she just sat there 5 minutes ago!) and half-closed his eyes in bliss, placing hands behind his head, "Ah, yes, the scent of royalty…"
"S-Scent?" her cheeks went red, "The hell are you talking about?!"
"Hmm?…" he opened one of his eyes, "I meant how everything there screams about being rich."
"…Uhh…" she stopped dead in her tracks, eyes running to the sides, "Well, m-m-m…"
He stared at her seriously before nodding to himself and going back to relaxed mode.
Not before sending last words, though.
"Pervert."
But she really wasn't…!
She sat with red face and tried to drown her embarrassment in black coffee that she drank non-stop. Cid himself sat across of her and slowly — elegantly, even, — sipped his own black tea. And his gaze was so…! So…! It was as he was laughing at her!… Friendly laugh, of course; the one where you tell a good joke about your close friend and he himself likes it. Not that Alexia would know much, but anyway!
Cid Kagenou was definitely amused by her situation! She couldn't just let it slide! Never!
"So, Poochie…" she started sweetly as he raised his brow, "Mind telling me what were you doing during the break?" and lean in a bit, yes.
"Hmm, I guess there is no harm in saying that…" he tapped on his cup, "So, I was in a completely different place, barely similar to Midgar kingdom; no cities, no stuff… even Mitsugoshi wasn't there yet…"
"And?" she urged him when he suddenly went silent, "What's next?'
"Yeah, this place was completely nuts, if I am being honest," she snorted at his words; as if he wasn't always straightforward with his words, "But I have managed to get a bit of hold in there and even a bit of land with… moderate-size house…" yeah, she gets it; he got shit, "But I have managed to get some connections with them, and after some time I will come back to get the job done."
"So you are leaving again…" she deflated.
"Stop being sad Kitten," he smiled slyly, "that doesn't suit the arrogant princess who has no filter on her words."
"Only when you stop being coin-hungry Pooch," she snorted again and went back to sipping coffee.
He frowned for a moment, and then his eyes flashed.
"Oh, yeah, I forgot one thing…" he took out some kind of ancient paper, "Look, I got some juicy information."
"Information?" Alexia raised her brow, "And you are telling this to me and not Mitsugoshi?"
"I have already told them," shrug, "But they said this place had no value for them. A pity, if I am being honest…" he unfolded the paper.
Alexia, led by curiosity, looked at the intricate drawing of… ice cubes?
"People living in that place said that this is their ancient legend; at some point the Ice Kingdom re-emerges back into material world. Anyone who wishes to do so can try to conquer it; should they be successful, and Ice will grant its treasures to the victor. However, the price of failure…" he frowned and sighed, "Death."
"What? No one was brave enough to try this so-called 'Ice Kingdom'?" she asked in disbelief.
"Well, the people living there also said that it's nigh impossible to complete the "Conquest", and either way this place disappears after some time, so no point in trying to destroy it. Mitsugoshi is, well, a company: they want profits, and these profits should be stable," he patiently explained.
"…You know, Poochie, sometimes I can't believe that you are actually so smart…" she exhaled.
"W-Well, what can I say…" his cheeks suddenly turned a bit red.
"Aha!" of course Alexia couldn't miss this chance! "Look who is all flustered now!"
Needless to say, they had a lot of friendly banter…
"Phew, done…" Cid sighed and looked at setting sun.
Not only he managed to drop some juicy Protagonist info to Alexia, he also got to unwind a bit, which is nice.
He has grown a lot… softer, gentler, even, after Alexia's confession and Shades trying to make him notice their feelings. And, honestly? It's not even a bad thing. It's good. He feels good. He's not alone. Shades would support him, Alexia would support him, Claire would support him… That's something he didn't have in his previous life.
It's also nice that even with now being… Unknowable Thing, he could say, with the amount of stuff he has done on himself… In short, he was happy to spend some time with Alexia who could just allow him to unwind. In order to maintain stability of his double life he has to make sure both of his lives have good, well, lives. Should he remember about not showering again?…
In short, it was nice to unwind. He got to rest for a couple of days. He got to talk to Alexia for almost an evening. It's time to go and try to create other biomes. Then, some time after, he will go back to Shinobi world.
He now has energy for years of researching again- Actually, no. He has another person he needs to visit.
Alpha sighed and placed her pen on the table.
Another allocation of Shadow Garden manpower, done. Eta's research, completed. Delta and Zeta faraway lands investigation, finished.
Now, she can rest and think…
Ever since her Master and husband said about creating branches of Shadow Garden in other worlds, she has been restless. She was eager to make sure it comes to fruition. And seems like their adopted son was of the same opinion, if him trying to mimic Shadow's poses and mumbling something about "I am Flaming Fox, the one who is born of fire and rules the fire" is to be taken seriously… His pet fox at these moments was looking at him incredulously, by the way, as if it was shocked by Naruto's speech… Though some time after it just didn't care about this stuff, merely snorting when Naruto failed at creating speech. It resulted in a long run across the room usually, until blonde kid ran out of breath. Funnily enough, the fox itself was seemingly fine with it and even tried to taunt him more.
Alpha managed to talk about branch of Shadow Garden with Naruto, who, seemingly very serious about it, started giving his ideas. Nothing too outstanding, with some missing points even, but overall she was pleased that he was so serious about their common task. He came up with a name "Order of Fire" (Shadow after hearing it for some reason teared up and started mumbling something along the lines of "They grow up so fast"), gave a rough draft on who he would like to see as members ("Lee is cool guy!" and "Sasuke sucks!" are the two extremes), and even started training with other Shadow Garden members in physical battle, though… Lambda upon seeing this snorted and said "You call that training?!"
…Let's just say, on that day Naruto got ten times the amount of exercises. Never again, as he said.
Alpha could see where Lambda was coming from, but as (foster) mother she could not allow this, thus the training went from 'you will die and then you will work as corpse" to "manageable", much to dark-skinned elf's displeasure.
Oh, right, Naruto's code-name. He didn't want to stray too much from his (foster) father, (foster) mother, and aunties, so he decided to call himself…
"Shadow of Fire".
…Honestly, Alpha could see the reason behind it.
Excerpt from research about correlation between magic and physique:
'…As it stands, we still don't know much about magic. However, we know that it could affect our bodies. We know that we can use it for strengthening and reinforcement. We know that with enough skill it could affect environment and even bend the laws of nature to our benefit…'
'…What's even more interesting is how magic affects our bodies. Take, for example, Magic Overload. At its core it's merely high amount of magic, yet it is able to completely restructurize how our cells work, to the point where we evolve (or devolve) into completely different thing. Even more surprising that deep inside it still continues to keep our original structure, evidenced by Master Shadow's words about how he calls out to something inside our bodies and stabilizes our magic, thus allowing us to be reborn…'
'…Of course, another interesting case is vampires. Their ability to convert blood into power source is truly unique; the fact that their magic makes them effectively immortal so long as they can regenerate from wound is bizarre; how they are affected by moon is utmost interesting. Sadly, all cases of true vampirism were cured by Master Shadow, and now everything that remains is upgraded, without weaknesses version of them. However, even that is enough for me…'
'…Demon Diablos is the best example of body affected by magic: truly immortal, without any weakness, able to affect everyone else to the point they can start losing their minds. It is no wonder Cult at some point sought her cells to create their wonder pills. Unfortunately for them, the only one who actually managed to create a perfect version of their drugs was also the one who got bored by how stale they became in years of fighting for power…'
'…Master Shadow is the most strange case of that: while technically still maintaining his human appearance, to the point where even the most skilled observer is unable to point anything out of ordinary, running tests on him reveals that his body structure has been completely shifted, to the point where some places simply don't make sense, like the strange knots that seem like they try to connect with something invisible. I have a suspicion they might be related to his disappeared magic…'
By Eta, Seventh Shade of Shadow Garden, Head of Research Department.
Cid needs to relax at some times…
For those who don't get it: 'Hokage' is literally translated as 'Shadow of Fire'. Yes, this is just a case where the super magic translator worked directly. As expected of Lord Shadow: even the literal translation works in his favor! Sasuga, Shadow-sama!