If the world were a play performed on a stage, what would appear the most in that play?
Extras.
What is an Eminence in Shadow?
Is it a deus ex machina who, when the protagonist encounters an obstacle they cannot overcome, suddenly transforms from an ordinary extra into a mysterious powerhouse and resolves the problem?
Or an invincible villain who beats the protagonist senseless over trivial matters, doing whatever they please?
Or the mastermind who looks like they are plotting something behind the scenes and actually is?
All of them.
So what is Cid Kagenou?
He is an extra. But even extras have different categories.
He is not the type of trash villain extra who gets slapped in the face by the protagonist.
He is the type of extra who knows a tiny bit of information within the story. Someone who accidentally reveals some new urban legend while hanging around the protagonist, and that urban legend becomes the protagonist's next adventure.
The kind of extra he wants to play is the one who happens to reveal some seemingly unimportant information while drinking in a tavern when the protagonist comes to gather intelligence.
Information that seems trivial, but turns out to be crucial for the protagonist.
So what are Shadow, Cid Kagenou, and Roland Augustus to Cid?
Disguises.
Then what is Cid's true nature?
"Shadow, Cid Kagenou, Roland Augustus."
So what role does Cid's true nature play on this stage?
Not a role.
He is the director.
A scumbag director who does whatever he wants to satisfy his desire to act as an Eminence in Shadow.
...
"Hey. Hey. Hey."
After separating from the other students, Yukina Himeragi was walking absentmindedly along a small path when she ran into someone she hadn't expected to see.
"Senpai? What are you doing here?"
Seeing Cid running toward her while waving, Yukina Himeragi looked around to make sure no one else was nearby. Only after confirming he was calling her did she walk over.
Facing her puzzled expression, Cid waved casually and took a student ID out of his bag, holding it out to her.
"I came to find you. Here. I forgot to give it to you last night."
"Ah… oh. Senpai, I actually forgot about it too."
Only after hearing Cid say it did Yukina Himeragi remember that her student ID was still with him. She quickly accepted it.
Cid didn't pay much attention to her reaction. Instead, he glanced behind her a few times. After confirming she was alone, he looked back at her with some confusion.
"Just you? Where's Nagisa?"
Cid felt he understood Yukina Himeragi fairly well. With Nagisa Akatsuki's personality, once she discovered Yukina Himeragi lived next door, she would absolutely insist on going to and from school together every day.
"Huh? Nagisa-chan? Let me think… Nagisa-chan said she had something to take care of, so she told me to go ahead first.
Wait… Senpai, how did you know I was here?"
Apparently surprised that Cid asked about Nagisa, Yukina Himeragi thought for a moment. Earlier after school, Nagisa had indeed run over and said she had something to do and asked Yukina to head out first.
After answering Cid's question, Yukina Himeragi suddenly realized something and turned the question back on him. Her right hand, held behind her back, instinctively moved toward the guitar case that contained Sekkarou.
At first she thought this encounter with Senpai was just a coincidence.
But if Cid had specifically come to find her, then there was a problem.
She had been sent by the Lion King Organization to monitor the legendary Fourth Primogenitor, Kojou Akatsuki.
However, for some reason the Lion King Organization had arranged for her to attend a different school than Kojou Akatsuki. That meant she had to rely on Shikigami to monitor him remotely during classes, and after school she had to rush to Kojou Akatsuki's school as quickly as possible.
Right now, the path she was walking was neither the route home nor the route to school.
And as a Sword Shaman of the Lion King Organization, there was no way she could be followed.
So how had Cid found her?
In that instant, countless possibilities flashed through Yukina Himeragi's mind.
Thinking about it carefully, could someone who lived next door to the Fourth Primogenitor Kojou Akatsuki really be an ordinary person?
A bed cannot tolerate others sleeping beside it.
If the Lion King Organization's information was correct, then as Kojou Akatsuki's neighbor, Cid should have been turned into a Vampire long ago and become part of Kojou Akatsuki's Demon army.
And now her identity might already be exposed to Kojou Akatsuki.
Cid-senpai might possess some sort of tracking ability.
Which meant Kojou Akatsuki could have sent him to kill her.
"Uh… I feel like you might be imagining something pretty dramatic. I just asked a few passersby if they'd seen a cute girl with short black hair, brown eyes, and the same school uniform. Most of them said yes, so I kept asking along the way and eventually found you."
Cid looked at Yukina Himeragi's expression, which was tense and slightly wary, and immediately understood what she was probably thinking.
He was very familiar with that look.
Before his lie about the Cult of Diablos was exposed to Alpha and the others, they would always make that exact expression whenever they started imagining new details about the Cult of Diablos.
"!!!"
"I'm really sorry, Senpai. I absolutely didn't mean to think badly of you."
After hearing Cid's explanation, Yukina Himeragi suddenly understood.
No one had been following her, but she also hadn't deliberately avoided the pedestrians along the road. It was perfectly normal that some of them had noticed her and told Cid when he came asking.
Realizing this, she immediately apologized.
"It's fine. I don't know what you were thinking about me just now anyway."
Cid shrugged indifferently.
Of course, he had just lied.
He hadn't asked any pedestrians.
He had memorized Yukina Himeragi's presence earlier, then used his Atomic Radar to search for it. Once he located her position, he simply came straight over.
Atomic Radar was a wide-area, high-precision detection technique that compressed even the smallest amount of Magical Power to its absolute limit, then broke it down into particle-sized fragments and dispersed them across a large area.
It was actually very easy to learn.
There were only two requirements.
First, the basic Magical Power that any normal person possessed.
Second, a little control over Magical Power.
The only problem was that his childhood friend Epsilon always exaggerated it, claiming that Cid was the only person in the world capable of using it.
"Let's go."
"Oh, okay… Wait, Senpai, where are we going?"
Hearing Yukina Himeragi's question, Cid raised an eyebrow and turned back toward her.
"What? Aren't you going home? If you have something to take care of, I can help you deal with it. It hasn't been very safe at night lately. If you run into terrorists like last night again, that wouldn't be good."
This time, Cid was actually being sincere.
Yukina Himeragi was a pretty unlucky girl. She had decent strength, but she had ended up caught in a scheme from the higher-ups. If he hadn't transformed into Shadow last night and thrown out a bunch of cryptic lines, she would probably be dead already.
And if she happened to run into Rudolf again tonight, was he supposed to transform into Shadow again just to save her?
That would ruin the dignity of an Eminence in Shadow.
So he sincerely hoped Yukina Himeragi would hurry home.
As for himself, he planned to investigate the conspiracy on the island tonight and see if he could complete another item on his Eminence in Shadow checklist.
"Ah… um… Senpai, I…"
Yukina Himeragi didn't know what to do. The reason Cid gave was perfectly reasonable, leaving her with no way to refute it. Was she supposed to tell him she was a Sword Shaman from the Lion King Organization sent here to monitor the legendary Fourth Primogenitor?
"...Senpai, I don't really have anything I need to do. I just arrived on Itogami Island, so I wanted to walk around and look at the place. But since you said that, we should head back first."
Taking a deep breath, Yukina Himeragi made up her mind.
She wouldn't go monitor the Fourth Primogenitor today.
Cid's words had reminded her that there were terrorists on the island right now. It would be better to escort the Senpai who cared about her safely home first, just in case he got caught up in something. After that, she could go deal with the terrorists herself.
Anyway, most of her surveillance of the Fourth Primogenitor during the day was done through Shikigami. What difference would it make if she followed him today?
If anyone should be blamed, it was the Lion King Organization. They had arranged for her to attend a completely different school. She had already sent them a request yesterday asking for a transfer, but there had still been no response.
"Oh, alright."
Seeing that Cid didn't seem to notice anything strange, Yukina Himeragi followed him with light steps so she wouldn't fall behind.
...
Saikai Academy
"Yuuto, what you said is true?"
"Yes, President. I swear on my honor as a knight."
A girl with bright crimson hair and a flawless figure sighed and rubbed her forehead after hearing Yuuto Kiba's report.
"Forget it. This matter is too serious. I'll speak with my brother about it later. Yuuto, tell me the name of the person you injured."
"Cid, President. His name is Cid Kagenou."
Neither Yuuto Kiba nor Rias noticed that when he spoke Cid's name, the black-haired woman with a ponytail kneeling nearby preparing tea and the white-haired girl sitting on the floor playing a game both froze for a moment. Their ears subtly perked up.
"How are his injuries?"
Rias asked.
"It didn't look serious. Just a small scrape, I think."
"...That's good."
Rias let out a breath of relief.
What she didn't notice was that when Yuuto Kiba said Cid was fine, both the black-haired woman and the white-haired girl also seemed to relax slightly.
"Still, just to be safe, Yuuto, take him to the hospital later and have him checked. We don't want any hidden injuries going unnoticed. And when you're outside, never say that you used your full strength. Just say that you accidentally got carried away during practice and used Magical Power without realizing it."
"President, I…"
Seeing Yuuto Kiba hesitate, Rias immediately understood what he was thinking.
"Yuuto, don't be so stubborn. Don't worry. If he really is injured, I will do everything I can to compensate him. But if this gets out, attacking a classmate with lethal force during training… Yuuto, I don't want you to become a Stray Devil."
"I understand, President."
Seeing that Yuuto had accepted it, the heavy weight in Rias's chest finally lifted.
At a time like this, attacking a student from another world during training with lethal intent was extremely dangerous. If someone with ulterior motives used this incident against him, no matter how many excuses Yuuto Kiba had, he would be finished.
Even though she was the younger sister of one of the Four Great Satans, she wouldn't be able to protect him.
In fact, precisely because she was the younger sister of one of the Four Great Satans, she absolutely could not intervene to protect him.