[center][url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RwouO-SKR5k][img]http://i.imgur.com/HPgGcZa.png[/img][/url][/center] Cold. Shinobu hugged herself in the desolate city, trying to stay warm and silence the sound of her chattering teeth. The night had been harder on her than she imagined, what with the sounds of everyone else’s breathing and her own grumbling stomach. The small sandwich she had before leaving Ari’s home wasn’t enough, and the brunette could only clench her teeth, willing her stomach to stop groaning. It had been perhaps ten minutes since the Headmistress, an equally petite but infinitely more powerful young girl, announced that they were to look for cards within the ruins of the desolate city, before marching to the other end. Right now, there was no doubt that other Chaser-candidates were marching through proudly, striking down any stray youkai and wrestling cards from the grips of demonic entities. Shinobu, on the other hand, was still trembling, trying to calm herself, trying to breathe. That white-haired man’s words last night hurt, but they were painfully correct as well. She was too small, too underdeveloped, too magically lacking, too utterly useless to even be noticed by any others. And it wasn’t even like she was pretty enough to get any attention from any boys, unlike that youkai with the big forehead, who kept on coughing from another man’s cigarette smoke. Ah, maybe she shouldn’t do this after all. [i]“But you should, Shinobu-chan.”[/i] No, she can’t. There has to be another way to pass the test, right? [i]“You already know the answer to that, my dear.”[/i] Yeah, isn’t that a shitty truth. But she’s going to fail, so maybe she should just wait until she was bigger. [i]“Every year that passes is another year since my death. Don’t make me wait too long, please.”[/i] She knew that, but… [i]“You spent five years, after all, and caught the eye of a recruiter, after all. Be proud, Shi-chan!”[/i] Caught the eye of a recruiter only because Ari introduced her. [i]“Stop thinking about those useless things. Are you just going to run away, after taking your first step?”[/i] … No. NO! She will not run away. She will train until her body breaks, then recover, and train even harder afterwards. She will continue on and on, never wasting a single day, so that she can give meaning, give value to all the lives that she trampled on in order to live. The trembling stopped. The pain numbed. Slowly, Shinobu drew Remembrance from its scabbard, gripping its black-leather hilt until her knuckles turned ghost-white. She closed her eyes, seeing the blurry face of the father who abandoned her. And when she opened those too-large eyes once more, a feral violence etched itself into the sea-green irises. She was fifteen minutes late. The others had a fifteen minute head start. But Shinobu was used to disadvantages and disparities. The night breeze of the Crimson Sky blew away the words she muttered to herself as the petite girl walked into the labyrinth, carrying an oath to the starry heavens.