Identity

Chapter 1

Like some other nights, Cid Kagenou returned to his dorm room after going through a rigorous training deep in the wood. He sat idly in front of the desk with a single paper sheet on top.

"Hm Hm."

A certain thought had been forming in his head. Grabbing the pen, he jot down the precious ideas which came to him on a whim because he was feeling bored. Yes! Got that right. Lately, the boredom was chewing on him. The daily day time of being a mob character and the daily night time of portraying his alter ego as Shadow have been rather bland. He didn't manage to collect that much money from the bandits anymore. Funds of Eminence in the Shadows were almost empty and he'd thrown most of what he managed to collect throughout the week into Mitsugoshi Bank. That was barely a hundred zeni he got for Alpha and the others, anyway.

Just yesterday, it was only a small chest of gold coins and jewels, and a few more sacks of coppers looted from those guys' pants. There was also a map he found, but Cid doubted its usefulness. It looked too old, too tattered to earn the title "Valuable Item." Nah, the term didn't even pop into his head in these moments.

"Done!" Cid announced eagerly to no one.

He put down the pen, enthusiastically snacked the sheet off the bed stand and raised it to his eyes level. As he stood by the window, the moonlight almost made his nonsense scribble on the paper see-through. But Cid didn't even let half of his mind pay attention to that. His heart has focused on something else greater. The outline, the details and the drawing of a figure clad in the same black cloak as Shadow.

If anyone else saw this, they would think it was made by an elementary school kid. But Cid wasn't serious in the making. Just this one night, he didn't ask the pen to dance gracefully in his grasp. He was currently a mob character so it's fine. It's still look good to him. This was one of his special mob techniques after all.

"Aside from Shadow, a new identity will be born. Someone with an unknown origin, living the unrenowned life as a mysterious wandering warrior while he follows the way of the undefeated martial-art!" Cid rehearsed the line he'd been wanting to say.

Well, he just wanted to say it out loud because it seemed kind of fitting the mood. However, the undefeated martial-art wasn't just a random words he picked. It was an idea coming into fruition.

"Man, I totally forgot about this character design. Should I start roleplaying as this person instead of Shadow by tomorrow? Tomorrow is Sunday."

Simple. To Cid, this description ticked all the boxes of his newest fantasy.

A mysterious past. Checked.

A name no one has ever heard of. Checked.

The silent type of person who kept things to himself. Checked.

A stylistic, hardened warrior who fights using nothing but his fists. Checked. Reason? Martial-artist, DUH!

A shadow eminence. Double Checked!

More importantly, this new identity will be an excuse for him to put into use a combination of various fighting styles he'd been practicing. Yeah, maybe he just wanted to do just that instead of the usual swordplay and overpowered magic output. Sometime, you have to try a new experience.

"Yeah. This is good." Cid nodded to himself, smiling from ear to ear. "Starting tomorrow, Shadow will temporarily step down from the world stage, gone missing and a new existence will rise from the absence of darkness incarnated!"

Again, he was saying random things just for the heck of it.

"...eeh..."

Suddenly, he flinched. As if a realization struck, Cid looked back at the drawing of his character creation and pondered for a moment.