Shadow Garden

Shadow Garden (シャドウガーデン) is an mysterious hidden organization founded by Cid Kagenō also known as Shadow. Its primary goal was to eliminate the Cult of Diablos and prevent them from resurrecting the ancient demon, Diabolos.

History
The origins of Shadow Garden date back to a young boy's childhood: Cid Kagenō. Cid was determined to fulfill his dream of becoming an "eminence in the shadows," and to accomplish this, Cid repeatedly snuck out of his home to fight against bandits within his vicinity. During one such outing, he discovered a rotting but surprisingly alive body, heavily mutated by Demon Possession. Originally aiming to relieve it of its suffering, Cid noticed it possessed an abundance of magic power.

He performed multiple experiments on the body and accidentally restored the girl to her true self. Thinking she might be useful to his cause, he fabricated a story and convinced the elf girl that she was the descendant of one of the Three Heroes who defeated the demon Diabolos, the one responsible for cursing her bloodline with Demon Possession. He explained that the Cult of Diablos worshipped the ancient demon and had been planning to resurrect Diablos. The girl became enraged and swore loyalty to her new master, who renamed her Alpha. However, Cid's fabrication was revealed to be true to every detail, unbeknownst to him, and everyone else in Shadow Garden knows this to be true while he believes it to be roleplay.

Together, Cid and Alpha formed the organization Shadow Garden, and as time passed, the duo recruited six more girls, each possessing the same infliction as Alpha and cured just as similarly. They spent their time training and learning from their leader, studying subjects such as swordsmanship, economics, the arts, and literature. Furthermore, Cid's stories from his previous life inspired them to use those concepts to expand their influence, creating public personas that garnered acclaim and prestige by monetizing the knowledge he gifted them.

Seven Shadows
These members are the first seven members recruited and the only ones who had granted power directly by Shadow himself. The Seven Shadows stand in a league of their own in the Shadow Garden being the most powerful and skilled of ability. Part of that blessing is due to Shadow, who bestowed upon them part of his own magical energy. The other part is his direct teachings in martial arts, warfare, and other practices which contribute to a covert organization.

Also, their strength is on a completely different level from the rest of other members, as well as they are the ones with high authority to govern the Shadow Garden, overruled only by Shadow himself. So far, there are only two members other than the Seven Shadows who received the privilege of being granted power directly from Shadow himself, considered to be the highest honor for the organization.

According to Epsilon, they planned to make a Second "Seven Shadows" with powers on par with the original first Seven Shadows, and so far, Victoria is the only known candidate.

Numbers
The Numbers refer strictly to the order in which they joined, not a ranking system. However, each set of 100 tends to be a good deal stronger than the next, so the numbers end up being a decent measure anyway.

The highest Numbers member from 8 to 24 are a direct subordinate of the "Seven Shadows" and they are given a Greek name, if they are of nearly the same level of ability and strength as their superiors. They have their own functions to fulfill as well and possess a certain amount of authority to give orders to other members.

The Numbers member are regimented, and the rest of the members up to 600 are possibly divided into soldiers and squad leaders, researchers, spies, scientists, whatever role they need for the missions.

Every member with a double and triple-digit "number name" they got from when they originally joined the organization, have a chance to climbed into the higher ranks. The requirement is that the new member who just joined recently will challenge the old members who have joined for a long time, no matter how the numerical gap and then earned the right to challenge a high-ranking "Named Numbers" member.

Background
After Shadow and Alpha founded Shadow Garden, they trained and tried to find and rescue the possessed victims. While they search for the possessed, the two of them had destroyed the branch cult bases and killed several cult members, including members of Rounds over the last three years. Shadow and Alpha then found 6 girls, which they rescue and bring them to the Shadow Garden who would later be named Beta, Gamma, Delta, Epsilon, Zeta and Eta. Then, Shadow trained them in swordsmanship and taught them the knowledge called "Shadow Wisdom" that came from his previous life.

First Assault on the Cult
Two years ago, Shadow Garden immediately mobilized to find Shadow's elder sister, Claire Kagenō when she was abducted by Viscount Grease and then launched a full assault. With Cid's (accidental) help, they managed to find the secret hideout where she was kept, and Shadow Garden attacked the hideout at night, killing all guards aiming to capture Grease. Intending to extract information about the Order of Diabolos, Grease managed to escape from their grasp, but didn't get that far as Shadow intercepted him, and after a brief one-sided fight, Shadow killed him. Claire was rescued and Shadow Garden returned home.

Afterward, however, the seven members of Shadow Garden confronted their master and claimed that, in order to keep up with the Cult's movements, it would be best for them to split up and expand their influence. Not knowing that the Cult actually existed, Shadow assumed that the others had simply grown tired of their "role-playing" and wanted to live their own lives, which he allowed. As such, each of the seven went out into the world and began establishing public personas, allowing access with various avenues of society, and gaining new privileges to hunt for the Cult.

Searching for a New Base
When Shadow brought together his first seven, they lived in a small house made from recreated construction knowledge from Cid's past life. This was their home while they hid and served Shadow in his youth, and it was situated in a small abandoned town with no traffic, save for the occasional bandit and smuggler. They eventually refurbished the town into a secret base to conduct operations.

Although Shadow Garden had used the abandoned town as their base for years, it did not last forever, as The Cult had sent in their forces to investigate why their carriages carrying the possessed never arrived and this led to the town being discovered. After ambushing the intruders, Alpha and the others realized that they could no longer stay and were forced to abandon the town.

Zeta was tasked in finding a new base of operations and succeeded by revealing an ancient city once abandoned long ago, Alexandria, located east of the Sacred Land Lindwurm, beyond the Abyss Woods. The Seven Shadows, save for Eta, entered while the rest of Shadow Garden remained behind and reported back to Shadow in case they didn't return. Inside the ancient city, the Shadows encountered the Mist Dragon and were nearly killed until Shadow appeared and brought the dragon down to submission. Impressed, the Mist Dragon formed a pact and allowed Shadow Garden to use Alexandria as their new home.

Princess Alexia's Kidnapping
At Midgar Royal Spellsword Academy, Cid was framed for the kidnapping of Princess Alexia Midgar, so Shadow Garden activates to help him in finding her and discovers the act was a ploy by the cult. Their goal was to abduct the princess, take her blood for experimentation and frame Cid as the culprit to make him a scapegoat before executing him. Shadow Garden mobilized, uncovering and destroying their enemies' hideouts from the Fenrir's Sect in the kingdom's capital. Alpha defeated a rampaging monster and encountered Iris Midgar, while Shadow rescued princess Alexia and killed the culprit, Zenon Griffey, an swordsmanship instructor at the Academy and a high ranking member from Fenrir's Sect by obliterating him and the location by using his ultimate attack, "I Am Atomic". After this, the world learned of the existence of Shadow Garden and the Order of Diabolos.

Midgar Academy Terrorist Attack
Shadow Garden were investigating a series of serial murders targeting citizens by individuals publicly believed to be Shadow Garden. Cid comes to Mitsugoshi Company and finds out that the company is run by Gamma and tells them how their business is going and then gives a report about the attack which makes Cid have a clue as to who the culprit is, which Gamma introduce Nu to support him. Cid and Nu went out searching for these pretenders and successfully captured one, learning that the Order of Diabolos sent out Third Children with the purpose of luring out the real Shadow Garden and also confirming that a "Named" First Children, The Game of Betrayal Rex, had been seen in the royal capital.

Their major confrontation was when the cult took over Midgar Academy, using a magic blocking field from an artifact, in order to incriminate Shadow Garden. With Gamma the only one of the "Seven Shadows" in the capital at the time to taking command, Shadow Garden had infiltrated the academy and awaited orders. Also, Shadow already killed several Cult members, including Rex when he was looking for a way to remove the effects of the "Eye of Avarice" artifact. While the standoff was active, Shadow Garden collected intel and research before the school was set ablaze by the Cult to cover their tracks and add to Shadow Garden's infamy. When the magic blocking field was disabled, Shadow had already slaughtered most of terrorists along with their leader, Lutheran Barnett, while Nu and a squad of Shadow Garden members finished off the rest and rescued the hostage students.

After the incident, Shadow and his organization were labelled wanted criminals by the kingdom, due to Barnett ensuring they served as scapegoat for the attack. Despite being branded criminals, this did not impede Shadow Garden's mission with all members vowing to continue their leader's resolve. Alpha tells Gamma to assemble the available "Seven Shadows" to discuss their next move.

Holy Ground Infiltration
With their next operation to infiltrate the Holy Ground of Lindwurm to find out about the truth behind the history of the Three Heroes, Demon Diabolos, and the Cult of Diablos true objective. Alpha sent a letter to Shadow to visit it while Shadow Garden's target was Archbishop Drake for answers. However, he was killed by the cult executioner, Venom, so they decided to wait for the Sanctuary to open. Meanwhile, Cid Kagenō received passage to Lindwurm from princess Rose Oriana.

When the Goddess Trials event was about to end, Shadow appeared and summoned the Witch of Calamity, Aurora, surprising everyone in attendance by defeating the summoned ancient warriors. After Shadow defeated Aurora and left, the Sanctuary door suddenly appeared in the arena. Shadow Garden operatives made themselves known, with Alpha joined by Delta and Epsilon, who moved to capture Acting Archbishop Jack Nelson for questioning before he calling Venom to kill Epsilon only to find that Venom is already dead. After that, Epsilon bring Nelson heading into the Holy Ground along with Beta, posing as her public persona, Miss "Natsume Kafka", Princess Alexia and Princess Rose followed and were escorted around the Sanctuary.

Alpha explained to the princesses about the truth behind the Three Heroes and Demon Possession, from which the cult wanted to maintain under their control. Alpha and Shadow Garden even suspected that the Cult's goal wasn't just reviving the demon, thus they proceeded to see for themselves by exploring the Hero Olivier's memories.

After the group explored enough and arrived at the Sanctuary center, they learned the Cult's true objective was to create Tears of Diablos. The memories revealed that the Tears grant extraordinary strength and conditional immortality, needing to be taken annually, with the main ingredient of "Diablos cells" cultivated from the demon's body and the blood of the heroes' descendants. Alpha then exposed Nelson's true affiliation as a 11th Seat Knight of Rounds, which he confirms by revealing himself as Nelson the Avaricious and separating them.

While Alpha and Delta fight against Nelson and his deluge of copies in the Sanctuary defense system, Epsilon's group used instant cameras and gathered all information they needed from an archive about the Demon Possession to expand their hypothesis. After getting the required information, and learning about the Sanctuary defenses work and power source, Shadow Garden conclude their business and leave, just after Nelson called a memory of Olivier. Concurrently, Shadow was with Aurora and they met Nelson, fighting against practically unlimited Olivier copies until Shadow used his ultimate spell "I Am the All-Range Atomic", which unnerved Aurora by the amount of magic he had, in order to destroyed all Oliviers, Nelson and everything else inside the Sanctuary.

As Alpha's team was outside and saw Shadow wipe out the Sanctuary from existence, Epsilon reported that everything inside the Sanctuary had been obliterated, and Alpha noted that it was the simplest and most effective solution. Beta relayed to Alpha that she was working with princesses Alexia and Rose to learn more about the Cult, using her "Natsume Kafka" identity to infiltrate their inner circle. They also confirmed their theory that Aurora had another name, that she was the true identity of the Demon Diablos.

The news of the Holy Ground being obliterated had spread far and wide, causing the Midgar Kingdom's government to place more notoriety upon Shadow Garden.

God of War Tournament
Immediately after the Sanctuary incident, Shadow Garden started planning on investigating the Oriana Kingdom, suspecting it was the next target of the Order of Diabolos. Shadow asked of Gamma to use her cosmetic prowess to disguise him as Mundane Mann, so as to enter the God of War tournament as a dark horse contestant. While Shadow continued as he planned, he and Alpha also searched for Rose Oriana, branded a fugitive for attacking Duke Perv Asshat. As "Mundane Mann" reached the finals against Princess Iris, their bout ended with an upset win before Rose revealed herself in public and assassinated her father. Shadow protected Rose from capture, discarding his disguise to allow her to escape, before battling Princess Iris and Beatrix. Although Shadow demonstrated his superior prowess, both demanded to know why he didn't finish them and he tells them that Shadow Garden only kill their enemies. Before an ostentatious exit, Shadow reminds them to remember who their true enemy is. Outside the city, Rose was running away before she was met by Alpha, who convinced Rose to join Shadow Garden to seek the justice she wanted, to which Rose agreed to join.

Red Moon Incident
Beta suddenly learn from her master that a Red Moon will soon occur and decide to leads a small squad consisting of 664, 665, and 666 to infiltrate the Red Tower in Outlaw City to obtain the blood of the powerful Vampire's progenitor; Elizabeth, known as the Blood Queen for their research. When Elizabeth woke up and was about to destroy the world, Beta joined with other individuals to stop her. Only with Shadow's arrival that victory was assured.

Great Trading Company Conflict
Shadow Garden continued to grow in power through the Mitsugoshi Company, because of their innovative product and introducing banking notes to the world, which they learned about from Shadow's previous life, that would become very popular among the kingdom's citizens. However, this ended up drawing the envy of many of their competitors, especially the Great Commerce Alliance, who subsequently attempted to sabotage them by attacking their supply lines and even send their best mercenaries The Clovers to infiltrate at their Mitsugoshi Ltd's Headquarters along with Garter private army and their rear guard. Fortunately, the meager mercenaries hired by them were no match for Shadow Garden's well-trained forces and supplies kept running smoothly. Also, they are failing an attempt of The Clovers mission raid by killing all of them along with their support from behind.

Around the same time, Shadow concluded that he had lost control of his organization. Although the members remained blindly loyal to him and believed that he could easily see through his plans, they had, in fact, completely cut him out of the decision-making process. In addition, he was not receiving any share of the profits made by them. He thus planned to destroy the current Mitsugoshi Company and form a new company, one that would be completely owned by him.

Working together with Yukime the ruler of the White Tower of the Lawless City and the president of the Snow Fox Corporation under the alias "John Smith", Shadow stole the Mitsugoshi Company's entire stock of banking notes and replaced them with counterfeits. Faced with a potential financial collapse, Shadow Garden moved out to silence this "John Smith" and retrieve the stolen money, only to be shocked upon learning of his true identity. However, in his arrogance, Shadow sends his followers an encrypted message revealing the location of the money, allowing them to retrieve it and causing them to believe that this was his plan all along. Afterward, believing his followers could not possibly have decoded the message, Shadow assumed it was stolen by a rival company and subsequently beat its manager to death.

In the end, the Mitsugoshi Company not only won the Great Trading Company Conflict, but their position was now arguably more powerful than ever with the elimination of all of its competitors and Snow Fox Corporation's newfound alliance with Shadow Garden.

Oriana's "Black Rose" Civil War Wedding Incident
666 and her squad are tasked with investigating Saisho Stronghold, under the leadership of 559. They follow a group of 40 first Children led by "The Raging Gale Kouadoi" to a nearby ruins site, with Queen Reina where she retrieves the "Ring of Succession". 559 moves to engage the group to collect the ring because they feel it is the "Key", and decide to kill the queen. But, 666 saves her mother from being killed by 559's assault, to which 559 brands 666 as a traitor to Shadow Garden.

While 666 and her mother are taken to Duke Doem, 559 engages in combat and killing all 40 First Children, except Kouadoi. After running out of mana, she is saved from death at the hands of Kouadoi by Shadow himself. Upon 559 informing Shadow about the traitor in Shadow Garden's midst, Shadow moves to deal with the matter himself. However, Shadow was actually moving to interfere with the announced wedding between Rose Oriana and Duke Doem, unaware of Rose's identity as 666.

In the capital of the Oriana Kingdom, Epsilon (posing as Miss Shiron) masquerades as the genius composer and pianist, in order to infiltrate the royal castle. Upon recognizing Cid arrived at the capital, she offers to introduce him as her apprentice so he can infiltrate the castle himself. Cid takes her up on this and is led into playing a song to prove his validity as the apprentice of the famous Shiron. After playing "Moonlight Sonata" to high acclaim, Cid unknowingly steals the "Key" from Duke Doem's pocket.

Later Cid speaks with Rose, and after remaining in hiding as Duke Doem enters the room, he learns that Queen Reina is allegedly being held hostage to force Rose to comply. After mentioning to Epsilon that he would like to see the "Black Rose", unaware of its status as a weapon that annihilated an army of 100,000 Vegaltan soldiers in a single night.

Cid then infiltrates the castle and learns that Queen Reina and Duke Doem are in cahoots, that night assuming the role of Shadow and showing rose the truth. Rose faints, and after returning her to her room, he takes the part of Cid and talks with her briefly, before vanishing and leaving her with the "Key". Cid then frets after losing a ring he swiped from Duke Doem, unaware of its true identity as the "Key".

After returning, Cid informs Epsilon that the showdown will happen at the wedding ceremony. Upon hearing this, she gathers more members of Shadow Garden, along with Beta of the "Seven Shadows". During the wedding ceremony Rose activates the "Key" by slipping it onto her finger, after that a recording of the current king's projection appears which contains the truth of what happened, including the crime conspiracy of Duke Doem and the Cult that already exists in the kingdom. When Rose assault on Doem and defeat him, Mordred reveals himself after killing both Doem and the Queen Reina, also opens the now unlocked "Black Rose", letting loose hordes of Obsidian Beasts upon the capital. Shadow Garden then make their move to suppress the outbreak, with Epsilon and Beta confronting Mordred, 9th seat of the Knights of the Round.

Mordred then summons Ragnarok, Grand Ruler of the Fourth Realm through the Black Rose, with which Shadow himself engages in combat. While Shadow fights Ragnarok, Beta and Epsilon drive Mordred back before "checking their facts" with him. Shadow then defeats Ragnarok, sending its body parts flying one after the other much to Mordred's surprise.

After which, Mordred absorbs Ragnarok's power only to be destroyed, along with the "Black Rose", by Shadow's "I Am Atomic" technique. Shadow then dives into the now collapsing Black Rose, followed soon after by Beta before it closes in its entirety. Hearing the news, Alpha immediately rush over to the Oriana Kingdom to take charge of the damage control operation by rebuilding the capital and making a decision for Rose about her own kingdom situation.

Return to Earth
Shadow and Beta exited the Black Rose and arrived in Japan on Earth, Shadow's former world. They discovered that the once great nation had been ravaged apart by magical beasts and what remained of the population had settled in small communities and would occasionally war against each other for resources.

Posing as survivors of a magical beast attack, Shadow and Beta are taken in by a group called Messiah. Shadow, under the alias of Minoru, was taken under care by Nishino Akane. But Beta, disguised as her "Natsume" persona, was to be observed and studied by Nishino Akira. Beta believed that the plan was to obtain information from two different sources, but in truth, Shadow didn't want Beta to discover that he was actually from this world.

Shadow would secretly sneak out of the base to hunt and destroy numerous nearby magical beast nests, unknowingly thwarting schemes orchestrated by a rival human faction. Meanwhile, Beta would secretly steal technology from Akira to learn more, intending to implement them into Shadow Garden's plans. Shadow and Beta would find a way to return to their world, but not before Beta kidnapped Akane and took her with them.

After arriving back in their world via a "Black Rose" phenomenon, Shadow rushed to the Midgar Academy, concerned about the ending of academy’s winter vacation. However, given the urgency of his travel, Alpha suspected that there might be something important happening at the Academy, whether related to the Cult or perhaps even Diablos. Alpha then noticed that Zeta also have arrived from her mission and joined Shadow at the Academy for a new mission and continuing the meeting about Rose Oriana situation for becoming a new monarch of Oriana Kingdom for their plans.

The Academy Disappearances
Despite successfully taking control of the Oriana Kingdom using Rose as an ally ruler, they hearing the news that the cult managed to minimize Shadow Garden's gains by creating a faux story about the new queen, namely her act of patricide and blaming her for summoning the "Black Rose" in the first place. The international defamation resulted in Oriana becoming a heretic state, thus losing allies and trade capital. Although knowing that other nations will rally against them, Shadow Garden was not deterred and continued supporting the Oriana Kingdom from the shadows while they tried to find ways to expose the cult's activities to the world. Gamma decide to shut down Mitsugoshi Company branch in Oriana and establish their base. Gamma report to Alpha about the otherworlder and technology that Beta brought at the other world and notice that Fenrir Sect decide to make a move by kidnapping student from the Academy. with Zeta preparing for move. It's also revealed that Shadow Garden has managed to save most of the possessed students from the cult for breaking the seal of the demon Diabolos's right hand in the Sanctuary at Academy. They were quite surprised that Fenrir declined faction was still able to hold out, even with the severe enough damage done from the credit crisis to leave them out both of manpower and funds, to which they thought it was Fenrir's power from the earliest Round, also knows that Zeta hasn't made a move and is observing the cult's movement.

Meanwhile, Zeta's Branch infiltrated Midgar Academy to claim the right arm of Diabolos while eliminating the remainder of the Fenrir Sect, who also sought to claim the limb by resurrecting it by using four students with matching magic for the releasing process. The Fenrir Sect was defeated after Shadow and Zeta's group killed several members, as well as Fenrir, the eponymous leader. After discovering that Claire Kagenō was Aurora's host, Zeta forced the girl to absorb the limb into her, part of her secret agenda to immortalize Shadow.

Equipment and Artifacts
Thanks to the initial inventions of their Lord, Shadow, the 7 shadows were able to develop all sorts of tools, outfits, and things recreated from Shadow's ideas and memories (mostly thanks to Eta), not just improving maps and tracking. But also, to further assist them in their reporting and data collection about worship, among other things, these things are:


 * Slime Suit: Revolutionary apparel invention created by Cid Kagenō/Shadow with nigh limitless utility. Refined by Cid and the Seven Shadows since Shadow Garden's founding, the upgraded version of the suit is now used by everyone, from the Seven Shadows to all subordinates in the Numbers.
 * Slime weapons: The shapeshifting ability of the bodysuit extended and hardened into weaponry for close-range, distant, and melee combat. These weapons are as finite as the mass of the slime bodysuit.
 * Locator of Possess: An Artifact created by Eta, allowing Shadow Garden to locate the possessed girls all over the world.
 * The Rolapoid: An artifact created by Eta, based on Cid's 'Shadow Wisdom', that is a reverse engineered instant camera with self-developing film.
 * Homing Pigeons: Pigeons trained to find a recipient anywhere to deliver a message, a common form of communication in the world.

Known Members
The organization was initially established with seven members and has now grown to have over 600 members.

Leader & Founder

 * Shadow

Seven Shadows
The Seven Shadows are the original seven members of Shadow Garden. Due to being directly trained by their leader Shadow himself, they are each master within their respective fields: be it in combat, espionage, science, or economics. The power of the "Seven Shadows" far exceeds the rest of the other members, to the point that they rival the most powerful members of the cult and the strongest warriors in the world.


 * Alpha (Second-in-Command)
 * Beta (Provides support to all other shadows in their labors)
 * Gamma (Finance and Administration)
 * Delta (Main fighting force)
 * Epsilon (Espionage and Infiltration)
 * Zeta (Exploration and Reconnaissance)
 * Eta (Research and Development)

Numbers
The Numbers of Shadow Garden. They are those that go after the 7 Shadows of Shadow Garden, whose enumeration starts from 8 to the last, i.e. the last reaches more than No° 600.


 * Lambda (No. 11)
 * Nu (No. 13)
 * Kai (No. 22)
 * Omega (No. 24)
 * 89
 * 559 (Victoria)
 * 664
 * 665
 * 666 (Rose Oriana)
 * One Numbers member that used to be a former "Named" First Children

Zeta's Branch
A sub-branch of Shadow Garden secretly founded and operated solely by Zeta to revive Diabolos and grant Shadow the power of immortality.
 * Nina

Allies

 * Yukime

Trivia

 * Only 9 people, of more than 600 in the Shadow Garden, have received their power directly from Cid, these being are the 7 original Shadows, Victoria and Rose Oriana.
 * Apart from a few exceptions, the Numbers, as the name suggests, are each given and called upon by their number.
 * The orders given by Cid are considered absolute, so they have priority even if they contradict the orders of the 7 Shadows.
 * In terms of power, Alpha is the most powerful only behind Cid and above Delta.
 * Delta usually bites all Shadow Garden members that are weaker than her, so only the other 6 Shadows and the highest ranking Number members can deal with her directly.
 * The 7 shadows are extremely hostile against anyone who threatens or hurts Cid, to the point that they will not hesitate to slaughter the individual or group that poses a threat to their master.
 * Only Alpha and Epsilon can cure the people who had the demon possession beside Cid.
 * Until now, according to the light novel, the web novel and the manga, all the members, including Shadow, wear a mask to cover their identity, although on a few occasions they have taken it off in front of their enemies or acquaintances when they want to. But in the anime, none of the Shadow Garden members wear the mask, only wearing a black hooded cloak, which generates a small controversy with the fans of this work. Since the idea is that, no one from the civil public and the enemy must know their secret identities.