Ascendant of Shadows: The Monarch and The Eminence

The grand arena of the Midgar Royal Spellsword Academy was a sea of anticipation. The energy, however, was not one of thrilling excitement, but of morbid curiosity. The semi-final match was about to begin: Cid Kagenou, the "Lucky Mob," versus Sung Jin-woo, the "Walking Jinx." It was a battle of two students who had reached the penultimate round without demonstrating a single, coherent sword-skill between them. The betting pools were in shambles.

In the royal box, King Midgar stifled a yawn, viewing the match as little more than comic relief. His youngest daughter, Alexia, leaned forward, her knuckles white where she gripped the balustrade. Her eyes were sharp, analytical, dismissing the tales of luck and misfortune. She knew something was wrong with those two, and she intended to find out what.

Beside her, Iris Midgar, the Steel Princess, was a statue of focused intensity. Her gaze flitted between the two contestants. "Their demeanors are wrong," she murmured, just loud enough for Alexia to hear. "One feigns nervousness, but his footing is perfectly balanced. The other appears vacant, yet his presence feels like a hole in the world. This is no joke match."

In the center of the arena, Cid finished a series of overly dramatic, clumsy-looking stretches. Jin-woo simply stood motionless, his hands in his pockets, projecting an aura of supreme boredom.

"Begin!" the announcer shouted, his voice lacking its usual fervor.

Cid, playing his part, let out a nervous yelp and charged, his wooden sword held awkwardly. He swung wildly, a telegraphed, sloppy overhead strike.

Jin-woo sidestepped with the economy of a ghost. Cid's sword whistled through empty air, the momentum carrying him into a "clumsy" stumble.

'Perfect!' Cid thought. 'Now he'll counter with some "accidental" move, I'll dramatically fly out of the ring, and my legend as a lucky-but-weak mob will be cemented! Then I can go get some lunch.'

But Jin-woo didn't counter. He just stood there.

The two circled each other for a moment. The crowd began to boo. This was even more boring than they had anticipated.

"Just fall over already!" someone shouted.

Spurred by his internal script, Cid lunged again. This time, Jin-woo met his wooden sword with his own.

CRACK!

The sound was not the dull thwack of wood on wood. It was a sharp, resonant crack, like a lightning strike, that vibrated through the entire arena. A shockwave of pure kinetic force erupted from the point of impact, kicking up a ring of dust around them.

Cid's eyes widened in genuine surprise for a fraction of a second. He had expected Jin-woo to use a flimsy, weak block. That impact had felt like hitting a mountain.

Iris shot to her feet. "That sound! That was not the impact of wood!"

Alexia's heart hammered in her chest. "What was that?!"

Before anyone could process the anomaly, the sky above the arena darkened. A massive, complex magic circle of sickening purple and black energy materialized, covering the entire stadium. Chains of pure, malevolent magic rained down, not on the arena, but directly towards the royal box.

"CHAINS OF PENANCE!" a voice boomed from the stadium's rafters.

Panic erupted. The crowd screamed, a wave of terror washing over them. The Royal Guards instantly formed a shield wall in front of the King, their own mages desperately trying to weave a counter-spell.

"Glory to the great Diablos!"

Dozens of figures in the tell-tale robes and masks of the Cult of Diablos appeared throughout the stands and leaped into the arena, their blades drawn. They were a coordinated, elite force.

In the center of it all, Cid's brain lit up with pure, unadulterated joy.

'A TERRORIST ATTACK! IN THE MIDDLE OF MY MATCH! YES! YES! YES! The script just got flipped, burned, and rewritten into a masterpiece of chaos! My boring semi-final has become the stage for a world-shaking incident! This is the greatest day of my life!'

As the chains descended upon the royal box, Jin-woo acted. He knew this was Alpha's plan. He just had to play his part. With an almost imperceptible flick of his wrist, he sent a blade of invisible force, a microscopic sliver of Ruler's Authority, slicing through the air.

The chains, moments from impacting the Royal Guard's barrier, shattered into harmless motes of purple light, their magic instantly and inexplicably nullified.

The cultist leader, a hulking man with a claymore, stared in disbelief. "What? Who...?"

Iris and Alexia saw it. For a nanosecond, they saw the air shimmer around the chains before they broke. Their eyes snapped back to the arena floor, to the two students.

The cultists charged, swarming the arena floor.

"W-what's going on?!" Cid yelled, his voice a perfect symphony of panic. He was "pushed" by the shockwave of a cultist's fire spell exploding nearby, sending him stumbling backward directly into a squad of five charging cultists.

He spun with the grace of a falling sack of potatoes, his arms flailing. His wooden sword's pommel "accidentally" connected with the temple of one. His elbow "accidentally" jabbed the throat of another. His foot "accidentally" kicked the leg out from under a third, who then crashed into the other two. In a single, fluid, clumsy-looking motion, an entire squad was left in a groaning, tangled heap.

Jin-woo, meanwhile, simply stood his ground. As three cultists lunged at him from different directions, he didn't even seem to move. The first one suddenly tripped, his face planting in the dirt. The second swung his sword, only to have it inexplicably slip from his grasp and fly into the air. The third froze, his eyes wide with terror as a terrifying, ant-like visage momentarily flashed in his mind—a psychic assault from Beru, channeled through his master. The cultist collapsed, foaming at the mouth.

The two fighters, one active and clumsy, the other passive and unnerving, were now surrounded. The chaos naturally pushed them together until they stood back-to-back in the center of the ring. It was an iconic, heroic pose formed from pure coincidence and masterful stage-direction.

"Who are you people?!" Cid shrieked, playing his part.

"Terrorists," Jin-woo replied, his voice a deadpan monotone.

Cid had to physically restrain himself from squealing with delight. 'He's so cool! That's the perfect line for the stoic hero!'

"Try to look scared," Jin-woo murmured, just for Cid to hear.

A hint of Shadow's true voice slipped into Cid's reply, a chilling whisper only Jin-woo could catch. "The stage is set... Let the dance begin."

And so it began. It was not a battle. It was a performance.

Jin-woo was a phantom. He never took more than a single step. A cultist would charge, and Jin-woo would subtly gesture with one hand, using his Ruler's Authority to make the man's own momentum betray him, sending him crashing into a wall. He would raise two fingers, and a thread of shadow would snake out and trip an entire line of charging fanatics. He dismantled the enemy with the bored efficiency of a god swatting flies. To the audience, it looked like the most extreme case of bad luck in recorded history.

Cid, in contrast, was a whirlwind of slapstick violence. He "panicked" and ran, leading a group of mages on a chase that ended with them "accidentally" blasting each other with their own spells. He "ducked" a sword swing, causing the blade to get stuck in the arena floor, then "tripped" over the stuck sword, sending the cultist who owned it flying into the stands.

The crowd's terror slowly morphed into stunned disbelief, and then into a roaring, thunderous ovation. They were witnessing the impossible. The two joke contestants, the two outcasts, were single-handedly holding off an elite terrorist force with the most bizarre and unbelievable fighting styles they had ever seen.

"I don't believe it..." the King whispered, his eyes wide.

"Their synergy..." Iris breathed, her analytical mind failing her. "It's perfect. One controls the battlefield through sheer presence, the other through chaotic action. They cover each other's weaknesses flawlessly, without a single word or signal. How is this possible?"

The cultist leader, seeing his forces in disarray, roared in fury. "ENOUGH! I'll kill the weak one myself!" He gathered a massive amount of dark energy, forming a swirling "Chaos Orb" and hurled it directly at Cid.

Cid saw the orb coming. 'The boss's ultimate attack! My moment to shine!'

Jin-woo saw it too. He subtly flexed his will, and the time-space around the orb warped for a hundredth of a second, slowing its velocity just enough to be perceptible to someone with Cid's reflexes.

To Cid, it just looked like a surprisingly slow projectile. He enacted his master plan.

"WAAAAH!" he screamed, and "tripped" forward with all his might. His wooden sword flew from his "sweaty" grip, spinning end over end through the air like a thrown baton.

The crowd gasped. He had dropped his weapon in a panic!

The spinning wooden sword, on a trajectory governed by impossible luck and masterful physics, connected with the Chaos Orb. It didn't hit it head-on. The tip of the sword struck the orb's unstable magical matrix at its most volatile, critical point.

BOOOOOOM!

The Chaos Orb detonated prematurely with the force of a bomb, the explosion engulfing the cultist leader and his remaining cronies. A wave of heat and purple light washed over the arena.

When the light faded, the cultists were all unconscious or gone. The arena was a wreck. And in the center of it all stood two figures.

Sung Jin-woo, hands back in his pockets, without a speck of dust on him.

And Cid Kagenou, standing amidst the smoldering aftermath, holding a "surprised" expression as his wooden sword fell from the sky and landed perfectly back in his outstretched hand.

The arena was silent for a full five seconds. Then, it erupted into a sound so loud it shook the very foundations of the kingdom. It was the birth of a legend.