The highest spire of the Royal Palace of Midgar was a place of winds and whispers, a needle of dark stone that scraped the heavens, rarely visited by anyone save the royal masons and the occasional, melancholy gargoyle. Tonight, under the eerie, dual-toned light of the twin moons nearing their full eclipse, it had been chosen as the stage for a masterfully crafted piece of theatrical deception.
Sid, in his full, glorious persona as Shadow, stood at the very apex of the spire, his dark coat swirling in the high-altitude wind. He looked down at the sprawling, glittering city below, a god surveying his chessboard. The atmosphere was perfect. The celestial timing was impeccable. His plan was flawless.
He had felt the subtle, almost imperceptible, ripple in the arcane ether – the symbolic destruction of his letter. So, the Tempest had received his invitation. Good. Now, he waited. He expected Saitama to arrive in a storm of confused rage, perhaps accompanied by the Royal Princess, ready for a grand, tragic confrontation. He had his lines rehearsed, his dramatic poses perfected. He would reveal just enough truth to sow maximum chaos, turning hero against ally, before vanishing back into the night, leaving the world on the brink of a self-inflicted wound. It would be his most brilliant performance yet.
He heard a soft crunching sound behind him. He didn't turn. Perfect. The Tempest had arrived. No dramatic entrance, no booming challenge. Just a quiet, unassuming presence. It fit the narrative.
"So," Shadow said, his back still to Saitama, his voice a low, cool baritone that carried perfectly on the wind. "You have come. You have seen the truth in my words. You have realized the depth of their betrayal."
"Nah, not really," a calm, cheerful voice replied from directly beside him.
Shadow froze. Not behind him. Beside him. He turned his head slowly. Saitama was standing right next to him on the impossibly narrow spire-tip, his hands in the pockets of his hero suit (the Royal Tailor had finally, blessedly, added pockets), looking out at the view. He was holding a half-eaten corn dog.
"The view's pretty good up here," Saitama commented, taking another bite. "You can see the whole city. And that little bakery on Azure Street. They have really good cinnamon rolls. You should try 'em sometime."
Sid's mind, a place of intricate plans and carefully constructed narratives, went completely, utterly, blank. All his planned lines, all his dramatic poses, evaporated in an instant. The script was not just torn; it was on fire, sinking in a swamp, being eaten by a particularly grumpy badger.
"H-how…?" Shadow managed, his cool baritone cracking almost imperceptibly. "I did not sense your approach."
"Oh, I was just quiet," Saitama said, shrugging. "You were doing your whole 'staring dramatically off into the distance' thing. Didn't want to interrupt. Seemed like you were having a moment." He finished his corn dog and carefully tucked the stick into a pocket. "So. You're the guy who sent the letter, right? 'A friend'?"
Shadow slowly regained his composure. This was a setback, a severe blow to his dramatic timing, but the core of the plan could still be salvaged. He needed to be enigmatic. He needed to control the conversation.
"I am the one who seeks to illuminate the shadows they cast," he said, falling back on his practiced, cryptic rhetoric. "I offered you the truth. That the King and his council seek to betray you, to steal your power."
"Yeah, about that," Saitama said, turning to face him, his expression no longer goofy or bored, but surprisingly direct. "I asked the princess. The grumpy one. She said you were lying."
Shadow felt a flicker of genuine surprise. He… asked? He didn't rage? He didn't fall into a pit of paranoid despair? He just… went and asked for clarification? This… this was a level of straightforward, rational problem-solving that Sid's entire chuunibyou philosophy was fundamentally unprepared for.
"And you… believed her?" Shadow asked, a note of genuine, unscripted curiosity in his voice. "Over the evidence I presented? The clear motive?"
"Well, yeah," Saitama said, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world. "Your letter was all sneaky and complicated. It sounded like a lie. She just… told me what was going on. It sounded like the truth." He paused. "Also, she brings me snacks sometimes. You just sent a creepy letter. So, you know. I'm gonna trust the snack lady."
The flawless, intricate, psychologically devastating gambit of the Eminence in Shadow, a plan designed to shatter a kingdom's hope and turn its greatest hero into a tragic villain, had just been completely and utterly defeated by a bag of candied griffin gizzards and a basic, functioning sense of trust.
Sid felt a wave of something he hadn't experienced since his previous life: the profound, crushing humiliation of being outmaneuvered not by a superior intellect, but by simple, unadorned common sense.
"So," Saitama continued, his gaze unwavering. "My turn to ask a question. Why'd you do it? Why'd you lie to me and try to make me fight my friends?" His voice was still calm, but the earlier coldness, the quiet fury from Oakhaven, was beginning to creep back into its edges. "That's not a very nice thing to do."
This was it. The moment of truth. Sid knew he couldn't talk his way out of this. He couldn't out-logic a man who operated on a logic entirely alien to his own. The narrative had collapsed. All that was left was… the performance. He had to be Shadow. He had to be the cool, powerful, enigmatic rival. It was all he had left.
He let out a low, dark chuckle. "Nice?" he said, his voice dripping with practiced, theatrical scorn. "Kindness? These are the delusions of the weak, the playthings of the light." He took a combat stance, the darkness around him coalescing, his slime suit and coat writhing with contained power. "In the world of shadows, there is only power. And the will to use it. I sought to use you as a piece in my game, Tempest. You proved… more unpredictable than anticipated. A miscalculation."
"So you're just a bad guy who likes to play games and mess with people?" Saitama summarized, his own fists clenching at his sides.
"I am the one who stands at the pinnacle of the shadows!" Shadow declared, his voice booming as he unleashed his aura, a torrent of refined, purple-black energy that swirled around the spire, a visible manifestation of his immense, perfectly controlled power. "And you, Tempest, are the one who stands in my way!" It was a declaration of war. A challenge. The one thing he knew might, just might, get the reaction he wanted.
Saitama looked at the swirling vortex of dark power, at the dramatic pose, at the figure who was, for all intents and purposes, declaring himself the final boss. And he felt… a profound sense of disappointment.
"You know," Saitama said, his voice flat, the cold anger fading, replaced once more by that familiar, weary boredom. "I was really hoping you were gonna be the one. The guy from the desert. The one who might actually be a real challenge."
He took a step forward, his own, non-existent aura causing the swirling vortex of Shadow's power to flicker and recoil.
"But you're not," Saitama continued, his voice heavy with a final, crushing disillusionment. "You're just like all the others. A big talker. A guy in a fancy costume who likes to make dramatic speeches and play sneaky games." He looked at Shadow, not with anger, but with an almost pitying look. "You're not a rival. You're just… a chuunibyou."
The word, a piece of forgotten slang from his own world, a term so specific, so perfectly, devastatingly accurate, struck Sid with the force of a physical blow.
Chuunibyou. Eighth-grader syndrome. The delusion of having secret powers, of being the secret protagonist of the world. It was the core of his being, the very foundation of his entire reincarnated existence. And this… this oblivious buffoon from another world had just diagnosed him. Perfectly. In the middle of his coolest, most dramatic moment.
Shadow's aura wavered. His perfect stance faltered. The carefully constructed persona of the Eminence in Shadow, the cool, enigmatic, all-powerful master of the night, cracked.
"What… what did you just call me?" he stammered, his voice losing its baritone coolness, reverting to the slightly higher-pitched tone of a confused, deeply offended, teenager named Sid.
Saitama just sighed, the last of his hopeful excitement dying completely. "This is a waste of time. I'm going back. I think Kaelan was making pudding."
He turned to leave.
And that was the final insult. To be diagnosed, dismissed, and then abandoned for pudding. It was more than Sid's chuunibyou soul could bear.
"Wait!" he shrieked, his voice a full octave higher than he intended. All pretense of being Shadow was gone. This was pure, unfiltered, adolescent rage. "You can't just… walk away! I am the Eminence in Shadow! I have secrets! I have ultimate techniques! I am… I am awesome and mysterious and cool!"
He lunged, his ebony blade a streak of desperate, self-affirming darkness. "Face me! I… AM… ATOM—"
He never finished the word.
Saitama, his back still mostly turned, just flicked his hand backwards, an annoyed, "go away, you're bothering me" gesture.
His knuckles connected lightly with Sid's forehead.
Bonk.
It was the most pathetic, most anticlimactic sound in the history of ultimate confrontations.
Sid's eyes went wide. His grand, world-unmaking ultimate attack fizzled into nothingness. His mind, filled with a final, horrified thought – He didn't even look at me! – went completely blank. His body went limp, and he crumpled to the stone spire, unconscious, a small, comical lump on his forehead the only evidence of the "battle."
Saitama glanced back at the unconscious form of the most dangerous, most manipulative man in the world. "Man," he grumbled. "What a let-down."
He then leaped off the spire, a yellow-and-white streak heading back towards the palace, his mind already moving on to the far more important and engaging prospect of a good, jiggly pudding.
The Eminence in Shadow had finally met the one force in the universe his narratives could not contain, his manipulations could not touch, and his ultimate techniques could not overcome: the profound, soul-crushing, anticlimactic power of being told to just grow up. The performance, it seemed, was over.