Highlights
- John Smith and Yukime are planning to bring down Shadow Garden and the Major Corporate Alliance before rebuilding it from scratch.
- Gamma, one of the Seven Shadows, is unathletic and clumsy, causing chaos during missions and relying on her magic power instead.
- The fake bills created by Yukime are discovered by Mitsugoshi and the Major Corporate Alliance, leading to a conflict between John Smith and Shadow Garden.
Warning: The following contains spoilers for The Eminence in Shadow, Episode 24, "He Who Pulls the Strings," now available to stream on HIDIVE.
In The Eminence in Shadow, after donning his new disguise, John Smith is on his way to cause mayhem alongside Yukime, a leader of one of Lawless City’s three towers. While playing his role as a super-elite secret agent, John Smith has hidden his identity from the members of Shadow Garden, and he plans to bring them down alongside the Major Corporate Alliance before rebuilding from scratch. However, as The Eminence in Shadow series continues, will his plans ultimately come to fruition?
Meanwhile, as John Smith and Yukime scheme and execute their next step, the plan for creating and distributing the fake bills is already in motion. Moreover, Gettan seems to have a plan to bring down Mitsugoshi, but will he succeed?
Eminence in Shadow: Shadow's New Disguise
Back in the capital of Midgar Kingdom, Shadow has taken on a new form and has new schemes in mind.
The Unathletic Member of The Seven Shadows
As the Seven Shadows serve as the higher echelon of Shadow Garden, each of them is highly skilled and talented in a certain area. While they all have their specific strengths, they generally possess an above-average combat sense and magic power, but one of them serves as an outlier when it comes to busting out cool combat moves.
Gamma, the third of the Seven Shadows, serves a pivotal role in the organization. Thankfully, this role doesn’t include her using her combat skills, as while she has a ton of magic power, her clumsiness keeps her from fully realizing it. In season one of the Eminence in Shadow series, Gamma was seen tripping around while she was engaged in conversation with Cid. While this portrayed her lack of athletic skills, it seems that fans may have underestimated just how unathletic she actually is.
In the last episode of the series, the Clovers, a group of elite assassins handpicked by Gettan himself, were sent to Mitsugoshi to allegedly kill Luna, the head of the corporation. While Alpha sent Nue to intercept them, Gamma decided to go instead. With her involvement, rather than the stylish, swift, and efficient way that Shadow Garden does things, Gamma makes a huge commotion by continually tripping and destroying her surroundings rather than her enemies. Moreover, it seems Cid didn’t make it any better, as after deeming her to lack the talent for combat that involves athletic moves, he simply taught her to use her immense magic power to hack away at her enemies.
Alexia’s Hunger For Power
After the large commotion that Gamma caused was covered up as an explosion that occurred at Mitsugoshi, Alexia is seen training with Cid. With Cid playing his background character, he promptly loses against Alexia but notices that she’s drastically gotten better at using a sword in a short amount of time. While Cid murmurs about her development being either because she came to a realization or had a change of mindset, Alexia comments on how her recent development isn’t enough and about how she needs more power. She also talks about her determination being due to her helplessness and inability to help Rose Oriana, her friend, who has gone off to who knows where despite the Oriana kingdom being a real mess. While Alexia gives a monologue about her lack of power and helplessness, Cid, being Cid, simply comments, "Uh-huh..." Exasperated, Alexia comments on how carefree Cid is and wishes he could remain that way for the rest of his life. However, she then gives a smirk that could have a hidden meaning underneath.
The Fake Bills Get Exposed To Mitsugoshi And The Major Corporate Alliance
While John Smith schemes in the dark and Cid carries on his everyday life, the production of the fake bills gets completed, and Yukime and John Smith plan to begin distribution. Using an old abandoned mine at the edge of a disinterested local magistrate’s region, Yukime prints the fake bills. The bills then get temporarily transported to Lawless City to hide the real origin of the fake bills and the distribution channels. Using this to delay people from finding out about the fake bills, the bills then get transported to the Royal Capital of Midgar. As the distribution of the fake bills begins, Yukime talks about how she plans to take down Gettan personally, drawing attention to who the Sword Devil could be and his relationship with Yukime. Meanwhile, after the fake bills reach the capital of Midgar, Mitsugoshi quickly discovers their existence and lets the Major Corporate Alliance know about them. Interestingly, Gettan of the Major Corporate Alliance is also revealed to have had the same idea as John Smith and Yukime courtesy of the Cult of Diablos; however, the plan was not to be put into motion yet as large amounts of the Cult’s money are still within the Major Corporate Alliance, and initiating a distrust of credit at this time would lead to disastrous losses for the Cult. Fortunately, John Smith unknowingly sabotaged the Cult’s plan to take down Mitsugoshi while sacrificing the Major Corporate Alliance for their goals.
John Smith On The Move
As expected, Shadow Garden was the first to discover the method through which the fake bills were being distributed to the Royal Capital of Midgar. Numbers 664, 665, and 666 were given a mission to recover the bills from the train through which they were being distributed. Unfortunately, the trio met none other than John Smith as the sole guard of the train. However, he was more than enough. Using a magically reinforced thread, John Smith quickly disposed of all three. Despite number 666’s quick thinking and efforts, she was no match for the man known as John Smith. After John Smith quickly made short work of the trio, the leader of the group, number 664, ordered a retreat as they were clearly no match for John Smith. Meanwhile, number 666 wallowed in her powerlessness, but if she knew that the man who easily defeated her was the same person who gave her the newfound power she has to face her adversaries, perhaps her thinking would have been different.