"Welcome!" What welcomed Elizabeth and company was….a dinner, a quite normal dinner.

  Like most, it was filled almost to the brim with people; what was different from most other pces Elizabeth had gone to was the feeling of a shadow covering the whole pce; it wasn't an ominous feeling or anything like that; it was more like a warm presence that promised everything would be okay.

  "Your friends Eli-Eli?" Also, the other thing that was different was the fact that most of the current customers turned to look in their direction, more so when Rossie asked that seemingly innocuous question.

  "....I felt a brother or sister, but it doesn't seem like one of them is." One of the patrons said as they eyed each of them.

  "Maybe the Pink one? She reeks of death," Another one chimed from the far end.

  "The red one smells like blood too," The people here didn't seem to be quite….contained.

  "Let's pick a table Elizabeth," Of course Jenna didn't seem to care either as she walked to an empty table.

  "This is….quite interesting company," Rena merely said as her eyes traced the people here, "They don't seem…..friendly."

  No matter where one looked, they found two things that made the people here stick up from everyone else.

  First was their hair, while it wasn't uncommon, it was rare to find such a high concentration of this color of hair, it was obsidian bck, not merely bck like what Akira once had, no. It was the darkest of bcks, darker than bck, if you would say.

  The hair, like the eyes, was a way to gauge what type of mana one had an affinity with; it was uncommon to find a green-haired person who wasn't either a pnt or wind-type user. Just like how Rena, who had red hair, could use Fire Mana with more ease than any other type, even though she was not, strictly speaking, a fire user.

  There were cases where this was not, it wasn't something like a w. Like Elizabeth who was blonde and had higher affinity with Shadows than with Lightning.

  Not that she didn't have an affinity with Lightning, of course.

  Or how Chloe had an affinity with Lightning even though she was a bck-haired girl.

  The next one, however, was harder to mask.

  The eyes, as people say, the eyes are the doors to the soul. And while it didn't mean that you could enter someone's soulscape using their eyes, it helped to know what type of mana one wielded. Before red eyes was akin to the Taint, and as such, it was a sure way to know who was tainted and who wasn't.

  Not that natural red eyes didn't exist in the world. Once again, Chloe was a good example of this, as the girl had natural red eyes, unlike Elizabeth's red eyes when using her Alice persona.

  Not that the current Alice had red eyes because of the Taint…

  Anyway, the people here didn't have red eyes, as there was no taint anymore. Instead, they had azure blue eyes. All of them, bright blue azure eyes.

  Same azure that Elizabeth had when she was wielding her Divinity even…

  Or, well, the same azure blue that Papa used when he got serious…

  All of them. Even the waitress…

  "What can I serve you?" Speaking of, the waitress was the same girl that Elizabeth had seen before, only, unlike before there was some kind of wall that she was putting between herself and them.

  And also, while she was hanging out them menus, on Elizabeth's there was a note, it read 'Please leave, this is not a safe pce for your kind.'

  "I'll have a cup of coffee and whatever is the menu of the day," Jenna was the first to say while Elizabeth noticed her pick up the note and set it apart.

  The note didn't remained long there and was teleporetd away however.

  Elizabeth… didn't felt space mana, she felt [Shadow Mana].

  "To be precise, she is using Space mana by means of Shadow Mana. Just like how you used to do it before Mistress, it is an imperfect variation of your Shadow Step." Aura's voice resounded in her mind.

  “....same….only….juice….instead….” Lily said giving back her menu, she didn't even open it…

  "I'll have some hot cakes and a cup of Te." Rossie said smiling and handing back the menu, the girl almost gave a jump back as she took it back.

  So Elizabeth fred her Senses for a second to read what had caused the issue, and she found that Rossie had written on the note something, to be precise, 'Bring it on bitch’.

  Rude…Also hot, but mostly Hot, I mean, mostly rude!

  "I'll have a parfait." Rena said handing back the menu, this one also hadn't open hers, even though she had read Rossie's menu, so it was fine!

  "I'll have….the menu of the day and a cup of juice." Elizabeth said, "Also, it's fine, I have been here before."

  "....right…." The girl said bowing to them, and the next second she teleported away in a fsh of shadows.

  It really was…

  "Your Shadow Step Eli-Eli?" Rossie said, turning to Elizabeth, "Is that how you came up with it?"

  "So you visited this pce during the first year and used her as an example?" Rena asked too.

  "....No, when I came, she was Tainted and didn't have control over her skill…" Elizabeth said answering the question.

  Only for a Shadow Spear to lodge itself beside Elizabeth, Rena jumped out and unsheathed her sword as Magic Circles materialized around their table in all directions; Rossie hadn't even [Shifted] yet.

  Jenna and Lily did nothing by the way.

  "We don't like that word here," A man wearing a secondhand suit said, stepping out, "Nor do we like you….[Normies] pretending to own this pce."

  "Cut it out Archie," Came the voice of the man who ran this pce, Elizabeth couldn't quite remember his name, but she knew he had a skill simir to the crazy old man, "Stop bothering my clients."

  With his words, Elizabeth felt the pressure shift around, as if isoting them from the other people, "Also, you girl, mind your words. I don't know what kind of fancy house you came out of, but here you are in the capital of shadows. And [Tainted] is a bad word. It has a bad connotation to us."

  Elizabeth couldn't help but grimace, "I know, I also hate that word." She said back, only to get ughs for her words.

  "What would you know about [Tainted] girl?" The man, Archie, said in a mocking tone, "Did you piss out your bed cuz you had a bad dream about the mean [Tainted]? Did your momma scare you with tales of how they would [Taint] you?"

  Elizabeth really didn't like that condescending tone.

  "This is the real world girl, and here…we aren't [Tainted] no more, so you better respect us." The man said as shadow spears came out of his shadows, one by one…slowly…

  Elizabeth smirked at that, it was…pitiful.

  "Right…I know you are [Tainted] no longer," Elizabeth said nodding, "But so what? An asshole is still an asshole, [Taint] or not."

  "What?" The man, Archie, said as one of his Shadow Spears got shot at Elizabeth.

  Rena was about to move to intercept, but a mere gesture from Elizabeth got her to stop, the same for Rossie.

  "You are one pitiful man Archie," Elizabeth said raising her hand and catching the shadow spear, she toyed with it, "Badly molded mana…Badly refined mana…this is not a shabby work."

  Elizabeth toyed with the Shadow Spear, she had a thing for Shadow Spears, it was one of her favorite ways to attack, or at least was.

  "W-what?" The man, Archie, didn't seem to understand what was happening and kept shooting the other Shadows Spears at Elizabeth.

  Elizabeth didn't turn to look at them and merely extended her Dominion over Shadows and made them stop in front of her.

  "That is no way to use Shadows Archie," Elizabeth said as her Shadow started spilling out.

  She felt the energy from the owner of the pce attempting to corral her, but a flick was all it took to pierce those defenses and spread all over the pce.

  "This is how a Shadow User wields their powers Archie…" Elizabeth said as she dropped the shadow spears into her Shadow.

  Her Dragon Maws came out from the floor to eat them, each crunch making Archie and his friends bnch and attempt to take steps back, the other people all staring in their direction.

  "Y-you….who….who are you?" Archie asked, as he fell into the floor.

  "Who am I?" Elizabeth asked, snapping her fingers, less than a second ter Shadow Spears bloomed from under Elizabeth's feet, actual solid obsidian spears, unlike the badly energy-looking shadow spears. "I am Elizabeth."

  Elizabeth said making a small curtsy.

  "I was [Tainted]," She said, pointing at the floor, "I was blessed with Shadows."

  Some of the people there stared wide-eyed at her at the phrasing.

  "Yes, Blessed, it was not a curse to have these powers. I do not bme the Shadows for what happened to me, but I do bme the man who made the [Taint]." And Elizabeth would probably continue to curse the name of [The Stygian Bane] for as long as she could.

  "I was a [Powered] who came to this city and found questions and answers to [The Taint]," Elizabeth said, remembering how Zoe came to her to talk, how she found out about [The Taint]. "I was a Minion under [The Hydra's Fang]."

  Even if she never actually worked for them.

  "I am someone who fell into a coma after [The Advent]," Elizabeth said and turned to look at the people who was paying attention to her, everyone looked at her, their Azure eyes staring at her, and Elizabeth feeling how they all attempted to cim some control over the shadows here.

  And how the shadows said no.

  "I am…." Elizabeth said as she picked out the correct shift from her list, ready to reinforce the Security Nodes, she hadn't given her full name, and they all would probably remember more the fear and the dragon maws than her, "Shift - Shadow Empress."

  So she used her shift and turned into one of her former shifts, the one who was welcomed by the [Tainted].

  "I am your [Shadow Empress]," Elizabeth said, her voice sounded malevolent, and her eyes shining in azure light under her helmet. "And I want to speak with [Echidna]."

  Elizabeth let those words hang around, waiting for someone to answer her.

  "Hah!" Only to end up hearing someone ugh, "Good luck with that, there is no [Echidna], not anymore."

  Elizabeth turned to that voice, and there….she found the same girl that had come to her before, Zoe Acedia.

  "Now she is happier being [The Mother of Shadows], even if that means ignoring us all and going to run around to py [Hero]," Zoe spat to the floor, making a hole with her highly toxic saliva…even if said hole closed up a few seconds ter. "If that's all, cut up the crap, I want to eat in peace without your stupid lizard pets eyeing me from the shadows, its creepy."

  The people all turned to stare at the shadows and then looked confused; it seemed that Zoe could feel or see the shadow armada, while most of the other people couldn't.

  "Right…" Elizabeth said folding her Shadow Domain back into her Shadow, the pce returning to normal.

  It took less than a second for Archie and his goons to leave,leaving Elizabeth with her friends and the other customers looking nervous.

  "You all can leave or not, I don't care. Just don't bother me," Elizabeth said sitting down on her table.

  She decided to discard her external shift and leave the internal one active, she wasn't sure how much Zoe remembered of her, but if she remembered her, she probably did as Alice.

  So she left that part up.

  After sitting down again, Elizabeth couldn't help but turn to look at Rena and Rossie. Rossie didn't look bothered by her appearance and instead just waited for her food to arrive. Rena seemed...surprised, but after a few seconds shrugged and continued as normal.

  Jenna seemed mildly confused, and even added "So...that was really a shift?" Asking still unsure.

  "Yes," Elizabeth answered.

  It was...somehow weird? She was aware that her shifts were different to her of course, that was the whole motive of them, but now it was feeling more like wearing someone's clothes.

  As if she was puting on the clothes of a little sister.

  Alice:Well excuse me for not having two kilograms of extra fat like you!

  Oh...so that's why her chest felt different... Elizabeth said dismissing the bck screen and looking down on her chest, it was indeed more... modest.

  "So?" Jenna said as the waitress reappeared once again with a tray filled with food. "What was the deal with the student council?"

  Right...they had come to expin that, and it was a good moment as any since most of the other people had left, leaving only a few people.

  Namely, the boss, the waitress and Zoe Acedia who was eating as if it was no one's business in a table far away.

  "Well..." Elizabeth said, taking her parfait and setting herself up for a sweet dessert.