[center][color=#FFC0CB][h1]Akizawa Nadeshiko[/h1][/color][/center]
[sub][color=#FFC0CB]Location:[/color] 
Ishin Academy | Sapporo[/sub]
[right][sub][color=#FFC0CB]Interacting with:[/color] 
Nobody[/sub][/right]
[hr]

The gentle, rhythmic clacking of the railway cart as it dutifully sped along well-worn tracks towards Sapporo provided a welcome distraction to Nadeshiko. It was steady, even, easily predicted. A monotonous sound followed by an equally easy to foresee bump every few seconds. Nothing like what awaited her at the station, or more pressingly, beyond the station. Apprehension was a kind way to describe the feeling that balled itself within her gut, one more aligned with the typical experience of a freshly minted high school student crossing the country to attend a new, strange school. How many tens of thousands of school girls felt that nagging worry, the unease that comes with the unknown this very morning all across Japan? 

But apprehension was just that—a kinder way to phrase what she was feeling. What she felt wasn't the disquiet that others felt in the face of new friends, new challenges and fleeting youth, but fear. Genuine fear for the future, though behind the lengthy strands of pink goo that covered her face none would see it. Not that she wanted anybody to see it, or her. Even sequestered away behind her bangs the anxiety that filled her made her feel exposed. Five freshly laundered sailor fukus had arrived at her home some months prior, one of which she had dawned before leaving her hotel room in Hakodate earlier in the morning for the last leg of her long journey. She had liked them at first, used to regimentation to the point that the total lack of customization hadn't bothered her. But now? She would do anything for the chance to have taken along hoodie. Something baggy atop her school uniform to try and give her a shield to shrink behind. 

Such regrets were for naught. Mother would not have allowed her to take one in the first place.

The crackle of an intercom roused her back to the reality at hand. Five minutes, then they would arrive at the terminal in Sapporo, and a quick walk to campus that she—in her restlessness—had rehearsed a thousand times in her head would follow. Ishin Academy was one of the best schools in the country, only narrowly beat out by UA. It was about as good an education that any aspiring hero could get, the place that would prepare her for the rigors of a bright and lucrative future. A future truly worth striving for. 

The only future worth striving for. 

For as long as she could remember, Ishin Academy was it. No other direction. No other paths. Nadeshiko had come into a preordained destiny that would lead her to the steps of the grandiose academy one way or another. Failure had not been an option, not during the years of schooling to ensure her grades remained exemplary, nor the exams she had taken to qualify, the interviews and the tests to apply. She could not fail because there was nothing for her but acceptance at Ishin. Acceptance that she had managed to achieve, or she would not be on a humble train pulling into a chilly, northern station. 

That was the source of her [i]apprehension[/i], Nadeshiko came to understand as she disembarked the train and began to carefully navigate crowds of salarymen and students alike, making herself small among the crowds until she could break away from them. She had finally reached the payoff for all her hard work. The light at the end of the tunnel; only to be met with another tunnel, one darker and longer than the one before it. She had no overbearing parent to push her unflinchingly towards excellence here. She had no companions—here or in general, truthfully—to help her along the path. 

She had lived by the mold of outside ambitions for so long that she had no idea how to conduct herself now that she was a thousand miles from home and by herself. Yet even without the comfort of its constraining walls, she still bore the shackles of that ambition that had seen her arrive in Hokkaido; succeed, for there was nothing else but success. 

It all made her feel like throwing up. An odd thing, considering she lacked the capacity to do so, but a sensation none the less. So caught in the maelstrom of her own anxiety and trepidation, she was robbed of any of the awe or glee that could be felt as she approached Ishin's campus after her lengthy walk. As if she could feel such things at the sight. She hadn't wanted this. It was a bitter fact that she had known for a long time, but often swallowed down without complaint. Ascending the stairs of this academy, surrounded by the fresh faces of so many peers and seniors alike, so excited to begin or resume their academic careers... it made the taste almost too much to bear.

Her eyes remained locked down and forward, avoiding the gazes of all those around her as she navigated by memory through the halls of her new home. She was never very good at introductions at the best of times, and the morning had frazzled any want for socialization right out of her. Nadeshiko spoke not a peep all the way to the auditorium, and only spared a fleeting glance through her ropey bangs at the ensemble of classmates who had begun gathering in her section. 

Steeling herself against this reality she so desperately wished to shirk away from, the goo girl made a straight line towards the back of the seating arrangements, and planted herself down in a chair. The suitcase she had been dragging along behind her settled in front of her, and she absentmindedly toyed with the handle to distract her erratic mind. Now the waiting would begin.