The Eminence in Shadow – 29 – Cid the Fixer

Cid’s “Journey of Self-Discovery” brings him to the war-ravaged First Castle Town, and as fortune would have it, he ends up staying at an inn opened by Maria, the prostitute he saved in the Lawless City. It’s here where Cid thinks out loud and is totally misinterpreted by Maria for the first time.

She agrees with him that “things can’t go on like this”, even though he’s talking about his so-far aimless quest to determine what kind of Eminence in Shadow he needs to be while she’s talking about the desperate situation in the town.

While last week was all about the Seven Shadows, this week focuses on 664, 665, and Rose, who are not only in First Castle Town doing recon, but staying at the same inn as Cid. Naturally he doesn’t recognize two of the lowest-ranked Garden members.

He and Rose don’t cross paths, as she’s up in her room with the same basic dilemma as Cid: she’s not sure what to do now, but things can’t go on the way they have. Joining Garden wasn’t the cure-all she thought it would be.

To make matters worse, when she and her fellow 660s meet with the distinguished 559, while they’re the only two on-Seven Shadows who derive their power directly from Lord Shadow, 559 tells 666 she’s weak. The last thing poor Rose needs is people reinforcing her delusions!

Unfortunately, that’s not the only blow 666/Rose endures this week. 559 leads them to ruins where the Cult is operating, and Rose is shocked to find her own mother the Queen appears to be cooperating with them to unlock a Sanctuary-type lock.

559, who seems more than a little eager for a fight, swoops in and prepares to assassinate the queen, but it isn’t a Cult officer who blocks her strike—it’s Rose. Whatever is going on here, and whatever oaths she made with Shadow Garden, she’s not just going to let this bitch kill her mom. I can’t blame her!

Back in Midgar, Nu gives a detailed report to Gamma about 559 and Rose, whom Gamma is willing to give up to the Cult for now. Her main concern is Mordred, AKA the Knight Beyond Men, who is controlling the Oriana Kingdom from the shadows with Asshat as his public-facing partner.

Gamma is content to not only allow Asshat and Mordred to make the first move, but give Rose to them, because she believes everything is unfolding according to the will of their Lord Shadow. Princess Rose is where she is because that’s where Shadow wants her. To what end? That’s for Shadow to know and Gamma & Co. to find out.

Of course, this is all a complete fantasy! Cid is, as always, making shit up as he goes along. As he continues his stay at Maria’s inn, he reads up on the current deteriorating civil and political situation in Oriana, notes how that’s a perfect situation for an Eminence to intervene, and learns from a headline that Princess Rose has returned to the capital.

“Maybe I should help with that,” Cid thinks out loud, “that” being the crowning of a new ruler in Oriana. Maria thinks he’s talking about breakfast, and says she’s fine making it on her own. He goes over in his head his role as “fixer”, guiding the new ruler of his choosing to victory.

He then thinks back to his heart-to-heart with Rose and considers that perhaps she looked so determined to do anything because she actually did seek the throne, and killed her father to pave the way for that outcome. He can respect hustle, and vows to help Rose become the next ruler.

“Yes, it’s delectable,” he says out loud of his plan, and Maria thinks he’s talking about his drink. I love their dynamic so much. As far as she’s concerned, they’re on the same wavelength, but they’re not even using the same radio equipment.

When some bandits burst in to “procure” what little money and supplies Maria still has for “the war effort,” and even propose she pay them with her body (talk about dropping the pretense!) Cid steps in … and proceeds to act like a complete weakling, allowing them to beat the crap out of them.

Even so, Maria thanks him for rescuing her, mentioning that in her former life as a prostitute she had to deal with their sort every day. She came so close to giving up so many times, but never did. She believes that defiance in the face of despair is what brought Shadow to her room, and led to her deliverance.

Cid proceeds to quickly run through all the adventures he went on while trying to execute the “Birth of Tyrant Rose” plan, including infiltrating a prison, staging a break, joining the volunteer army and winning a great victory without getting the credit for it. As he puts it, a fixer “is supposed to, like, stand out by not standing out when standing out,” which reminds me of my favorite fortune cookie fortune: “Show-off always shown up in showdown.”

Cid’s wanderings through the bombed out town bring him to the hideout of the bandits who robbed Maria. He learns they picked the side of the cult, and talk about a legendary treasure in the mountains. One of the bandits continues to talk about how they should have their way with the girl at the inn before getting out of there.

It’s only when this bandit doesn’t get a reply that he realizes all of his mates have been gruesomely slaughtered by Cid. He recites to them the only law of Lawless City: The strongest guy is always right. That makes him right.

That very night, Maria is going through her books and concludes that she’ll have to start selling her body to make ends meet. But she hears a bump from behind her door, and when she opens it, finds a huge bag of gold coins on the ground. Whether Cid intended it or not, she happens to catch a momentary glimpse of Shadow.

I love how he’s reflected in her green eye. Maria, realizing the same person who saved her in the Lawless City is continuing to watch over her, will most certainly never give up. I don’t know if she’ll ever join the Garden, but she’d make a valuable addition with her steadfast determination and tolerance for unpleasantness.

By the time we check back in on 559, we learn she’s been fighting the Cult officers for three days and three nights. 665 and 664 lie nearby, defeated and bloodied, while 559 herself is missing and arm and is low on magic, blood, and time.

Her haughty Cult opponent begins to describe how he’ll torture her before she dies, but we get another cool reflection of Shadow, the yellow full moon behind him, in 559’s eyes. Her grim expression turns to pure giddiness at her lord’s arrival, her arm is immediately regrown, and she slashes the Cult guy so definitively he explodes in a cloud of blood and viscera.

The first thing Cid wants to know is where the ruins are, because he wants treasure. Instead, 559 reports 666’s defection. Cid doesn’t get it, wondering if that’s an Employee ID number or something. When 559 recommends 666 be immediately executed for her betrayal, 664 and 665 protest, as 666 was only protecting her mother.

As 559, 664, and 665 continue to bicker, Cid isn’t really paying attention. He checks a newspaper that happens to fall into his hands with an article about Princess Rose planning to marry Perv Asshat. Because this doesn’t fit the plan to seize power he thought Rose was implementing, he becomes enraged, and promises that Rose Oriana’s “betrayal will be punished.”

Like Maria, 559 misinterprets these words to mean he agrees with her recommendation. But as he flies off towards Oriana, Cid is actually pissed that his latest plan to become a really good Eminence in Shadow is being undermined by Rose suddenly deciding to get married.

If there’s one thing me and Cid agree on, it’s that such a marriage can’t happen. He’s going to ensure Rose becomes Oriana’s next ruler, all while standing out by not standing out when standing out.

The Eminence in Shadow – 26 – Once It’s All Over, You’ll Understand

Episode 26 usually marks the end of a two-cour anime, but thankfully we’ve got another half-cour left of Eminence to enjoy before the second season is out. And things escalate quickly this week, with Alpha and Gamma dispatching Delta to deal with John Smith. It’s reasonable that they assume even if he can defeat Shadows in the 660-range, he can’t beat the fourth Greek letter.

Smith, who is reading his journal of random notes, suddenly sees something moving extremely fast in parallel to the train. It suddenly maks a beeline for his cabin and blasts through the window. Smith’s magical threads stop her in her tracks, but Delta is able to burst through them, and even blast the roof off the train car.

Shadow counters by using the threads to bring all of the wreckage of the car on top of Delta, paralyzing her. She lies there under hundreds of pounds of metal, growling, until she has a good sniff at her foe and realizes it’s Boss! Unlike the 660s, visual disguises won’t work on her canine nose.

While I’m sure Cid didn’t intend for the Seven to discover him so quickly, he’s not surprised by how quickly they did and takes it in stride. He reminds Delta that an order from Lord Shadow countermands any order from Lady Alpha (whose anger Delta legit fears), and gives her a new mission: go hunt Juggernaut in the Lawless City.

That Delta does not return from her assassination mission, and when a lock of her hair is found, Gamma and Alpha expect the worst: Delta couldn’t have disobeyed, so she must have been killed. Gamma also reports the worsening credit situation, and a furious Alpha realizes Smith’s plan was never to profit off the market, but to seize it in its entirety once they and the MCA crumbled.

Gettan gets a visit from two Cult reps, who blame him for letting things get so out of hand to the point the Cult is going to take massive losses. He beheads them and orders every entrance and exit in and out of the city to be monitored. It’s a desperate move from an increasingly impatient Gettan who has yet to grasp just how thoroughly he’s been outplayed.

Two people who don’t seem concerned with the economic situation at all are Alexia and Iris. The latter encounters the former with a tall stack of books, and Alexia explains how she’s studying as much as she can about … everything to become a better warrior. That Iris walks away without saying anything makes me think she’s not interested in such a route, which is why it’s entirely possible Alexia could surpass her one day.

Cid actually makes an appearance as Shadow in his gaudy apartment with all the windows open. He sits near a brazier and shivers and sneezes as Beta gives him a report. He’s also taking notes, which she finds odd. Beta can’t help but tear up when she reports Delta is missing.

Cid can’t very well tell her the truth, so he simply says she’s “somewhere far away,” then offers a page from his notes (in a strange mix of Japanese characters, Western letters, and Arabic numbers), says he’ll teach her if she can decipher the code, and then takes off.

He’s aboard a train out of town, and even though Rettan’s henchmen have barricaded the track, he breaks through it with his thread and continues uninterrupted. Then, just as suddenly and even more stylishly than Delta, Alpha is facing off against him.

Alpha may be far more powerful than Delta, but she is still no match for “John Smith.” But just as Delta was able to sniff out her Boss, Alpha is able to determine he’s Lord Shadow by how he fights. But while she now knows Shadow and Smith are one and the same, she can’t understand why, and that breaks her heart.

Her whole life, all she’s sought is to be of help to Lord Shadow, the man who saved her life and those of her sisters. To support and understand him. Now, it feels like he’s discarding her. Could it be he doens’t need her anymore? All he’ll say is that Delta is far away, and that when it’s all over she’ll understand.

That’s not good enough for Alpha; not here and now. She continues her attacks, insisting that he allow her to remain by his side and let her keep supporting him. She even uses her Mistform, but he catches her blade in his bare hand, then blasts her off the train, just as easily as he did the 660s.

While I understand even Cid isn’t entirely sure what he’s doing, so he’s not being intentionally malicious, it still sucks that he has to hurt Alpha and mess with her emotions to such an extent. For all her power, when it comes to Shadow she’s still a scared, insecure, lonely girl who fears him abandoning her above all else.

Instead, he meets up with Yukime, who has procured a good chunk of the MCA’s gold reserves. She details how this will lead to economic chaos in the capital as the people demand redemption of their funds and business fall like dominoes. She then provides more of her backstory, revealing that Gettan was to be her husband in an alliance of Great Wolves and Spirit Foxes.

Everything was hunky-dory until the Cult got to Gettan and he burned her village and literally stabbed her in the back when she refused to submit to the cult as well. She blacks out just as Cid, in Stylish Bandit Slayer persona (with the bag on his head), slashes one of Gettan’s eyes while saving (and inspiring) Rose back in the day.

Yukime never met Cid, but worked her way up to Queen of the Lawless City so that she could take everything from Gettan the way he took everything from her. Since Cid is reclaiming all that he believes to be his (unaware it already is all his), he and Yukime make for perfect allies in this scheme. It’s all going their way so far, but I hope it’s worth it.

The Eminence in Shadow – 25 – Nothing But Paper

When Alpha learns that they have some “guests” from the MCA in the form of the elite Clovers, she prepares to send Nu to “welcome” them. But Gamma volunteers, and when she’s ignored she volunteers again. So Alpha sends her, along with Kai and Omega.

She does so fully aware that Gamma is the clumsiest person alive, but who can refuse that cute determined face? They get a jump on the Clovers, but while her escorts take care of two of the three, their leader manages to bop Gamma on the head.

If she were an ordinary human, she’d have died instantly. But she’s Gamma, and she’s back in action tonight, baby! Things go about as well as you’d expect for someone with ridiculous magical power but is made entirely out of thumbs. And yet, Alpha still gave her a chance, bless her.

Mind you, what makes Gamma so goshdarn endearing and fun to watch is that she never makes excuses and is never discouraged by her setbacks. Indeed, while she ends up blasting a giant hole in the department store, she manages to accidentally take out the top Clover when he tries to flee. No one is better at claiming the accidental as intentional.

When Garter gives Gettan a report on the Clovers’ failure, Gettan laments the Cult’s current deficit of resources, and makes clear he only needs the MCA to stay afloat long enough to serve his particular purposes. In a flashback we see him witness what looks like Cid in a paper bag mask massacring his village.

Meanwhile, Cid takes some time out of his busy schedule to spar with Alexia, who makes her season two debut. Alexia was one of my favorite characters from the first season so I’m glad to see her again, even it it’s only briefly. Driven by a desire not to be a passive bystander, she’s determined to get stronger for her sake as well as Rose’s, and Cid can’t deny she has gotten stronger.

That night he’s back in his John Smith persona, meeting with Yukime, who has a fresh sample of counterfeit MCA bills for him to inspect. And while you and I both know he can’t tell the real bill from the fake, he still pretends he does and manages to convince Yukime he does. The reality is that the counterfeits are actually of higher quality than the real thing.

Word soon gets to both Alpha and Gettan that the counterfeit bills are circulating in the capital. It occurs to Alpha that their rivals may be trying to tank their paper currency on purpose, since it will hurt Mitsugoshi as well. She’s actually spot-on in that assessment, even if Gettan is the only one who knows of the plan to inflate the MCA credit well beyond its means.

But here’s the thing: that Cult plan shouldn’t have been implemented yet…and indeed we know it hasn’t, because Cid—er, Mr. Smith unknowingly copied the Cult’s plan and beat them to the punch.

Gamma sends 664, 665, and 666 (AKA Rose) to intercept a cargo train out of the Lawless City carrying the counterfeit bills. 664 warns Rose to obey her orders and not improvise. However, like all members of Shadow Garden, 664 probably expected less resistance in this mission.

Shortly after boarding the suspiciously unoccupied train, 664 and 665 end up tangled up in webs of magical thread Rose manages to dodge. The producer of those threads reveals himself: it’s John Smith. Now Cid is officially actively working at cross purposes with his Shadows.

That said, he has no intention of harming them. When Rose rushes at him, demonstrating her power, he suspends her in webs with ease, then tosses all three of them off the train. By the time they gather themselves, it’s too far off to catch, but even if they did, they don’t have a plan to beat that masked man.

Rose curses herself for being “so weak”, not knowing that she was up against the strongest freakin’ guy in the world—and definitely not knowing that’s the same guy who gave her a cheeseburger a lifetime ago. The tragic irony is that Rose is extremely powerful; both back when Alexia could only stand by and watch, and even moreso now that she’s with Shadow Garden. She’s just no match for Shadow.