A week had passed since the discovery of the black folder, and Azure's world had narrowed into two realities: the city worshipping false light by day, and the archive warehouse full of dark truths by night. Yet, between those two realities, a steel resolve was born.

  Contemplating a strategy to oppose the Federation, Azure realized that a frontal assault was suicide. He had no elemental power, no allies, no resources. But he had something perhaps more valuable: obscurity. A Null, someone invisible in the eyes of the world. That was his weapon.

  The black folder was too dangerous to keep. Reluctantly, Azure photocopied the key documents using the old scanner in the warehouse, then saved the digital files on several cheap physical drives he bought at a nearby store. He hid each drive in a different place—one behind the loose electrical panel in his shabby room, one inside a hidden hole in the warehouse wall, and another in the pocket of an old raincoat he hung at the always-busy train station. He burned the original folder in the warehouse's heating furnace, watching the truth turn to ash and rise as thin smoke into the dark night sky. Yet, every word, every photo, was etched in his memory, more permanent than ink on paper. He began creating a private codebook from his old lecture notes, recording the patterns he found: how "spontaneous" monster attacks always occurred near new Federation construction projects, how hero broadcast ratings spiked sharply afterward, as if fear and admiration were two sides of the same coin.

  Azure began altering his routine. He took different routes to work, sometimes stopping abruptly to see if he was being followed. He learned to observe without being seen, standing in just the right spot so that shadows or crowds concealed him. He realized the city's surveillance cameras had blind spots—areas behind pillars, under bridges, corners untouched by holographic ad light.

  One night, as he was returning home late from work, something strange happened. The street was deserted, illuminated only by the flickering light of old street lamps, as if they too were weary from bearing the night's weight. Azure passed through a narrow alley he knew by heart. Suddenly, from inside a pile of garbage, a black cat jumped out with a swift movement, startling him and making his heart pound. Reflexively, he stumbled backward, his foot tripping over a stone. His body fell, and for a moment, his head felt dizzy.

  He fell right into the embrace of shadows within a dark, empty room adjacent to the alley. Cold and silent. That was when he felt it again—the faint vibration in his chest, but this time stronger, clearer, like a flow of something alien yet familiar. And something even stranger happened: his own shadow on the grimy brick wall, which should have been only a vague silhouette from the streetlight's reflection, suddenly looked... denser. More solid. As if the surrounding darkness wasn't reflecting light, but was being absorbed and gathered by that black form, making it look like a small hole into nothingness.

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  Azure sat on the damp ground, his breath caught. He stared at the shadow his hand cast on the wall. Slowly, very slowly, he raised his right hand. The shadow on the wall followed. Then he whispered, to himself or to the darkness, he didn't know, "Wait."

  He focused. Not on his hand, but on its shadow. He willed the shadow to remain still while he moved his actual hand down.

  The back of his hand was cold with sweat. His muscles trembled. And then, like an illusion becoming real, the shadow of his arm on the wall... lagged. It moved slower, disconnected from his movement for a moment, before finally catching up as usual.

  Not much. Just a brief moment. But it was enough.

  In the dark, foul-smelling, and lonely alley, with his heart still pounding in his ears, Azure no longer saw a helpless Null. He saw something else. A possibility. An unexpected weapon, born not from light, but from the most neglected place: his own shadow.

  He stood up, his body still trembling, but his eyes had narrowed, gazing at the night sky adorned with the distant holographic light of heroes.

  He tried again the next night, in the dark bathroom of his rented room. Holding his breath, he stared at his shadow on the floor. Concentrating. Feeling the strange, cold flow in his veins, not like fire or water, but like a dense emptiness. The shadow on the floor pulsed, then formed a simple pattern—a circle.

  Shadow. A rare element, often considered useless compared to Light or Fire. An element associated with loners, thieves, or—in Federation propaganda—villains.

  For Azure, it was a glimmer of hope in total darkness.

  He couldn't enroll in an academy. He couldn't train openly. But the archive warehouse at night became his training ground. Among the tall shelves full of documents and long shadows, Azure began to practice.

  At first, it was pathetic. Commanding a shadow to move felt like pushing a stone wall with his mind. After a few hours, his head would ache and his nose would bleed lightly. But he persisted. He found that his emotions—especially his deep-seated anger and cold determination—were like fuel for this power. When he remembered his father's face, or the cheers on the megascreen for Phoenix, the shadow at his feet would ripple like a pool of black water.

  A week later, he could make his shadow stretch several meters, touching a fallen key beyond normal reach. Two weeks later, he could shape it into a simple kind of "hook" to pull a folder from a high shelf—exactly how that black folder might have fallen in the first place.

  It wasn't the power to destroy monsters or fly across the sky. But for Azure, this was more valuable: the power to see without being seen, to reach without being touched, to know without being known.

  (To be continued)