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1.) He tells Cain, when he attacks him, that Satan made him an offer which he could not refuse (riches, power, standing, for Cain’s life).

Cain asks him “WHY?” and the parasites - as you see above - are closely watching Sid. The fact is, the reasons he tells Cain are not what Satan actually promised him. Satan told him, he would get “the one thing” he wanted if he gave Satan everything else for it. But the “one thing” Sid wants is Cain to live safely and with that, Sid will not trust Satan (”Take it all, but I will not trust you with the safety of the King”). What he answers Cain instead of the truth, are more likely the reasons he told the parasitic demons inside him, who would otherwise stop him from his plans if they did not see a gain for themselves.

2.) We have him say that he does not want to die a “meaningless death” in a war that Cain cannot win.

Sid is sure that Cain can not win against Satan. First of all, he thinks Cain is too “good hearted” for that - if you could use this phrase with a demon. Secondly Cain is a part of Satan and Satan is the only one who could suck Cain up - and as long as normal laws rule not the other way around. Yet all that Sid says in the end, is that he does not want to die in that futile war. However, this does not mean that he will not die for Cain. And in fact, in chapter 43 he says “I’ve imagined (...) what it would be like to die by your side. But (...) I couldn’t allow that to happen to you”, meaning he will not let Cain die.

3.) The demons inside him frequently talk about how they want to bring down the King (Cain).

Of course they do. Sid had to make them believe that what he was planning was because he wanted more power, more safety for himself. They do not care if Sid loves somebody, cares for somebody or wants to protect somebody. All those parasites care about is staying alive themselves, and whenever Sid does something that seems threatening to his own well-fare and thereby theirs, they try to interfere.

It’s important to note at this moment, that the only ones, who ever phrase something like “let’s kill/end the King” are those parasites. Never Sid.

4.) Sid steals the compass for “Sneaky-snaky-demon-boy” to find and kill Aaron, the only one he presumes could easily heal Cain from the wound he receives in chapter 1 (the shard). He sends the other medic, who tried to heal Cain and told him about Aaron, into the front line of the next battle where he is missing in action.

He needed Cain hurt by that shard because it slowly drained his Mana and kept him from recuperating easily. I will come back to this in the post about what I think he actually is doing, but at this moment just let me mention that Sid says at some other point, that as long as Cain’s Mana is low, he could hide Cain in the human realm and Satan would never find him.

Also, though Sid gave the compass to the other demon to get rid of Aaron and tried to kill him in the moment, Aaron was telling Cain about the compass, Sid later on never pulls through with killing Aaron, even if he could have done so easily. The reason is that at that point, Aaron being dead or alive is not important for Cain’s safety anymore.

5.) He steals other weapons from Cain’s territory to weaken him.

Yes, he definitely is trying to weaken Cain’s forces for the sole purpose of stopping the war in which Cain will ultimately die if he keeps going. Without weapons and men, Cain will have to retreat for now and will not be able to oppose Satan and his forces in hell. He also had to make Satan think he was indeed working for him.

6.) He seems to be at odds with all of Cain other generals and subordinates.

Sid is not easy to deal with, yes. There are moments in which he is an arrogant bastard and we would probably need a long psychology session to find out why. Jealousy? Fear? Mocking? The need to hide the parasites? Who knows? In the end, Sid has to be as secretive towards those who serve Cain as he has to be towards Cain himself and towards the demons inside him. That means, he couldn’t be a team player, even if he wanted to.

7.) He allowed demons into the human realm and had them attack Cain.

He did so because he needed to weaken Cain, and probably to keep him occupied. But some of those were in fact sent by Satan, not by Sid.

8.) He fights with and almost kills both Cain and Ben.

And yet, he never does kill any of them, even when he has the chance. There are moments where he could have killed Joon, Cain, Aaron, Jin, Ben, Gayle with the flick of a finger, but he didn’t. He always fled the scene and the parasites inside him reprimand him because of it.

In fact, in chapter 70 he leaves Ben alive and tells him to stay by Cain’s said. It makes Ben wonder, why a traitor would ask that of him.

9.) He teams up with Jude, which up till then we don’t know.

Yes ... but Jude is not with Satan. Jude is with the angels who in the end happen to safe and help Cain as well.

10.) He teams up with Metatron ...

He does, at a moment when he thinks he lost everything and won’t be able to safe Cain anymore. Furthermore, it’s not like he comes with Metatron fully of his own volition. Metatron keeps him locked in several times and meddles with his mind and feelings. He also switched off the demons inside Sid and that honestly must have felt like suddenly finding Paradise.

In the end, when Sid has to decide between Cain and Metatron, he saves Cain from the other.

Tl;dr: Sid is turncoat in many ways. He makes everyone think he works for Satan: To make the parasites work along, to make Satan halt the war and wait for Sid to deliver Cain. He also weakens Cain’s forces so he can not attack Satan in that war he can’t win. But if he had truly turned on Cain, he could have killed him several times. He never did.

But first let’s start with something else: Who is Alex and what do we see of him in the “Innocent Eyes”-arc...

---> Who is Alex?

Alex’ full name is Alexander NoLastName. He works for Asami’s brother Maxim - in what capacity is not exactly explained, but he seems to be the kind of man who does the dirty work for others. And that would make quite some sense as we find out right away that at some point in his earlier days he was a mercenary. That’s where he met and worked with Asami.

Now, I have seen some people describe Alex as an old friend of Asami, but it’s made pretty clear that they were never particularly close in fact. When Alex walks up to Asami, Asami looks at him and then goes “Alex... you’re Alex right?”, to which Alex is pretty astounded that Asami remembers him and his name. Had they been close this scene would certainly not have played out like that. Sensei wanted us to know that they knew each other, worked together, but that’s it.

Alex might be French judging from his “ça va?”-greeting and the “merci” later, but I have a friend who yells “Na Sdorowje!” whenever he as beer and no, he’s not Russian ;)

That is very much all we know about his background.

---> Short summary of Alex in the Finder “Innocent Eyes”-arc

Alex is part of the group of people who are sent in by Maxim to get Asami from the Hong Kong hospital. They drug the staff and other patients with sleeping gas, then steel Asami and take him to Maxim’s mansion in Croatia.

5 months later Asami is regaining his strength to walk around alone. Enter: Alex. He walks up to Asami, they talk about their mercenary days briefly, then about Asami’s dad, share a smoke, then Alex lends Asami his phone and Asami calls Kirishima. He is told about Akihito having disappeared from the hospital as well.

Asami confronts his brother and snatches Alex’ gun to threaten Maxim to let him leave. When Asami gets out, Alex joins him, then Asami gets the call from Kirishima informing him that Akihito has just been found in Warsaw.

There, Alex and Asami find Akihito with the police and take him to the hotel. When - after the failed murder attempt - Akihito dashes from the room Alex can be seen outside the room having a phone call. On Asami’s order he tries to catch Akihito, but is fenced off and Akihito is gone.

Quickly Alex and Asami are joined by Kirishima, they have the video call to Fei Long who informs them about the involvement of Chernobog in Akihito’s disappearance. Alex seems somewhat surprised or even distressed about Asami being in contact with the head of the Chinese Mafia.

For some days they make their own search in Warsaw for the car in which Akihito was taken from the hotel and then finally receive information on where Akihito is, because Fei Long has caught Sakazaki, who was the one to steal Akihito from the hospital in the first place. They learn that Akihito is at the mansion of one certain Dr. Simon Novak.

Alex, Asami and his men dress up in combat gear, attack the mansion, find a lot of armed defense, but manage to fight them and find Akihito, give him a sleeping drug and run off. Cliffhanger!

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Now the villain-proof:

1. ---> “Innocent Eyes”-arc double page cover.

Remember this picture? It’s the first one we ever see Alex on and at exact that moment I thought “that’s the way i would depict a new character that we later find out to be the villain”.

If Alex was one of the good guys, one we should honestly love, one that might be doomed to be lamented over by us because of his sacrifice, one we will love because of his friendship to Asami, then I would never depict him like that.

I would have had him smiling at the “camera”.

Smirking in the background, that’s a place you put someone who later proofs to be a villain.

Furthermore - and I know this is very meta - the name of the arc is “Innocent Eyes”. And there is exactly one person in that 5 character title page that has his eyes closed: Alex. Because Alex is not innocent.

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2. ---> The “Sakazaki/Hospital” situation

‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎a) Sakazaki shows up at the hospital in Hong Kong to get Sudou for himself and to take Asami out of there to give something to Chernobog. He explains as much to Fei Long and Mikhail. Sakazaki does not know that Akihito is there. He didn’t even know he was at the warehouse.

‎ ‎ ‎ ‎Walking into the hospital Sakazaki is astounded that everyone is out cold - he does not know about the sleeping gas. How convenient however! But do we really believe that he just happened to be there at the right moment? At this point about 4 weeks after the warehouse fight have passed, but Sakazaki walks into the hospital the very moment it would be a good idea to be there?

‎ ‎ ‎ ‎My guess is, he was tipped off by someone who knew that Sakazaki would find minimal resistance that moment. This person probably knew by some means that Sakazaki would definitely go for Sudou at one point (and even if that person did not know that Sakazaki would try to get Asami as well), that one decided to give Sakazaki a good time frame. It might have been to cover up his own tracks, to make it seem like Asami was taken by those who took Sudou later (not that Kirishima and Fei Long fell for it for a second). Or it was on a bigger scheme because that person claimed to work for Maxim who wanted his brother out of there, while indeed being on another’s pay check as well.

‎ ‎ ‎ ‎b) Sakazaki quickly finds out that Asami is gone, but he can’t be bothered too much. He cares about Sudou and that is his priority. But there is this guy with him, who happens to walk into another room and finds Akihito.

‎ ‎ ‎ ‎Now imagine: We are not in London or Paris or Warsaw or Rio where two asian looking people in neighboring rooms probably might have made you wonder. We are in Hong Kong. There is very likely an asian looking person in every room.

‎ ‎ ‎ ‎Still Sakazaki’s handyman, who might very well be working for Chernobog or whoever, walks into another patient’s room by pure coincidence and says to Sakazaki: “Hey listen, do you happen to know this other asian person in this asian hospital in this asian city? Yeah, he is one asian dude among a hundred, but might he be by any means related to the one you just took piggyback?”

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3. ---> Been here 5 months, but say hello only now, hey we found Akihito!

‎ ‎ ‎ ‎Alex walks up to Asami the moment he is finally pushing back against the control of his brother and walks around alone outside. The very moment Asami decides he can’t wait any longer but must find out what happened to Akihito. Convenient again!

‎ ‎ ‎ ‎Now Alex has been working for Maxim for months at least. He seems to be able to move around the house freely, but only walks up to Asami in this moment. Of course he hands over his phone to help Asami gain access to Kirishima and his men, then he lets Asami take the gun from him as if the was a complete Rookie and not a professional.

‎ ‎ ‎ ‎Next thing we know is that Akihito has suddenly, now, today, this moment been found in Warsaw.

‎ ‎ ‎ ‎Let me spell it out again: After months of being at the same place Alex walks up to Asami the moment he is able to get out of bed properly and that very day they find Akihito.

‎ ‎ ‎ Do it the other way around: Do you think it’s very likely that the very day Akihito shows up in Warsaw in what proofs to be a trap for Asami, Alex happens to finally decide to say hello by pure coincidence?

‎ ‎ ‎ ‎Surely, Alex jumps in to accompany Asami to Warsaw right away.

‎ ‎ ‎ ‎

4. ---> Should I really run after him? Really? Really now? Ok!

‎ ‎ ‎ ‎When Akihito runs from the room after the failed murder attempt, Alex is outside having a phone call. Though that isn’t really suspicious in itself, I happen to wonder why he was in front of their room... Doesn’t he have a hotel room for himself? He surely had.

‎ ‎ ‎ ‎Now we see Akihito dash away, Asami runs to the door and tells Alex to catch Akihito. Alex’ reaction is somewhere along the lines of “yeah? should I? you reckon? you mean now? As in right now? Ok”, then he runs after him.

‎ ‎ ‎ ‎And let’s remember that from all we saw and see later on he is a very well trained assassin, able to dispose of the enemies in Simon’s mansion - who are well equipped and trained killers themselves - pretty easily. But he is startled by someone running by naked? Shouldn’t his reflexes be better? Shouldn’t he be quicker? Faster? And probably also not so squirmish about the hot water? Yeah, ok, it hurts. But it still looks like he was a bit lax there despite his training?

5. ---> They’re dressed up in combat gear by pure coincidence

‎ ‎ ‎ ‎When Asami, his men and Alex attack Simon’s mansion to get Akihito back, they are set upon quickly by armed forces. And they find Akihito all dressed up in what looks to be a tailored assassin’s armor. What a coincidence!

‎ ‎ ‎ ‎Not to mention that Simon and Sudou are nowhere to be found. Obviously somebody tipped them off. But who could have? Kirishima? Suoh? Fei Long? Mikhail?.... or Alex?

Conclusion: