[h1][center][color=00746b][b]Tanegashima Wakako[/b][/color][/center][/h1]


[right][hr][color=gray][b]Sapporo, Japan[/b]
Ishin Academy, Auditorium. April 7th[/color][hr][/right]

It was finally time. For so long, Wakako had been living on and off her mother’s blasted ship, getting her education as a mix of homeschooling and brief stays at schools in various ports. It was a mess, but her mother had many expectations, all of which involved shutting up and putting up. It was almost liberating to know that she would finally be settling down somewhere, just like before that fateful day she decided to travel with her mother, blissfully unaware of the ordeal that awaited her. Of course, given all the talk about Ishin and the fact that her mother [i]adored[/i] the place suggested it would be a scant improvement over the rigid naval life she was about to leave behind. But, no matter what, at least her mother wouldn’t be there, and she would just be one of many students.

However, to call her just another unremarkable student was hardly appropriate. Due to an unholy combination of her genetics and her mother’s harsh and deliberate sculpting, Wakako was taller than just about all the students she could see around her, and ludicrously muscular to boot. The first day she was asked why she was wearing the [i]girl’s uniform[/i] at one of the schools she went to, she cried in the bathroom shortly afterwards. Whether it was true or not, she could [i]feel[/i] eyes upon her. She was deathly worried that the school’s reputation for conservatism was going to nettle her over the entire span of her stay here. Sometimes she wondered how her mother ever got used to looking the way she did. Somehow, Sanae Tanegashima, the Warship Hero, managed to embrace the amazon aesthetic wholeheartedly. Wakako wasn’t sure she’d ever get used to it.

But Wakako had not come this far just to wallow in misery. She had made up her mind long ago to grin and bear it all, whether “it” was her mother’s harshness, the leering of others, or the rigours of her tenure at Ishin Academy. She had already practised her smile so often in anticipation of this moment; it was a nice, warm, toothy, beaming smile. Ironically her mother liked to smile too, but it wasn’t a nice smile. Sanae Tanegashima was better known for a casual smirk that donned her face as she waltzed around taking down villains. Wakako had never asked, but she assumed that it was meant to be domineering and dismissive of those she fought with. That was the kind of thing she expected from her mother, and the exact kind of thing she never wanted to be. She may have never worked up the courage to oppose her directly, but she would never be the [i]person[/i] her mother wanted her to be. She would get through this ordeal and come out of it her own person.

Wakako passed through the front gate, smiling and waving at those that caught her eye. They weren’t guaranteed to be looking at her, but just the same, best to put on a brave face. No point in cringing in fear and looking down, that would just invite trouble, and she knew from experience that not everyone found a six foot one girl with large muscles impossibly intimidating. She passed through, into the building, and took her seat with the other first years. She hoped she wasn’t going to end up sitting in front of someone who needed to see past her, because that had been an issue in the past.

As she sat there, her thoughts wildly vacillated between imposed optimism and doubts that crept into her head. But through it all, she repeated to herself; [color=00746b] [i]You’re gonna be a hero, Wakako. Your own hero. Just get through it. You’ll be fine. You’ll be great. Just show your stuff.[/i][/color]