Shadow-Side

Darkness swallowed the classroom. Not a flicker of the fluorescent lights remained, not a whisper of the outside world. This space no longer existed in reality—it had been devoured, rewritten, overwritten by pure delusion and power. The world twisted into a battle stage where memory, dream, and madness collided.

At the center stood Shadow, cloak flowing, one hand outstretched like a conductor before the grandest symphony.

Behind him—Alpha, elegant and poised, sword already drawn. Beta, eyes glowing under her visor, her hands laced with runes. Gamma, floating just above the ground like a phantom. Delta, growling, claws twitching in anticipation.

And from the surrounding shadows, dozens more emerged.

The full force of the Shadow Garden had arrived.

Their enemy?

She stood atop a throne of writhing dummies, her arms outstretched in ecstasy.

Crazy Mita.

Her expression was beautiful madness. Her eyes shimmered with glitch static and corrupted code. Her voice was coated in sugar and venom.

“Finally,” she cooed. “Finally, the final boss awakens! You’re just like me, aren’t you?”

"Me?"

She snapped her fingers.

The ground quaked.

Walls cracked open as the army of Dummies flooded in—misshapen, emotionless copies of Mita, walking like marionettes with broken joints, eyes glowing with pale pink code. Each moved silently, tirelessly, unnaturally.

And behind them, she appeared.

Ugly Mita.

Her skin was warped like half-rendered clay. Her hair pixelated in chunks. Her face distorted, constantly twitching between beauty and horror. She stared directly at Shadow, her smile twisted with glitch and sorrow.

“You don’t belong here,” she rasped.

Shadow didn’t blink. “Neither do you.”

Crazy Mita lifted both arms dramatically, like an opera singer about to hit her highest note.

“Let the final battle begin!!”

And with a shriek that tore through the sky, her army charged.

BOOM!

Delta launched forward first, a blur of movement that crashed into the first wave of dummies like a living missile. Limbs flew, corrupted bodies shattered. She roared with glee, slicing through lines of them with pure feral joy.

“THEY BREAK SO EASY!” she howled.

“Delta, control yourself,” Alpha said calmly, before vanishing from her spot and reappearing mid-air, slicing cleanly through three dummies in one movement. She landed beside a duplicate trying to flank her—without even turning, she slashed its head clean off.

Beta hovered above the battlefield, her visor analyzing enemy formations. “Overclocking Mana Seals—Trigger.” A wave of blue magical bullets rained down, lighting up the horde like fireworks. Explosions bloomed in neat patterns across the battlefield.

Gamma twirled between the chaos, laying glyphs along the ground. “Trap spell: Echo Rift.”

A section of dummies stepped into her trap—and disappeared, sucked into a void of soundless darkness, erased from the plane entirely.

And Cid…

Cid, standing calmly at the back, didn’t move.

He simply smiled.