Chiba Erika’s day started very early in the morning. Every dawn, her
training of blood and sweat was her homework.
Until the age of 10, she had followed her father’s instructions without
question.
Until the age of 14, when told of who she was, she wanted to be a
Chiba swordsman more than anyone else.
Until last March, she always did this out of habit.
Yet, since last April, since she first met him, this was now her own
wish.
By her own will, to become even stronger.
At dawn, she doesn’t hold a sword. Accurately reading Erika’s ability,
her father diligently raised her to be the user of the Secret Arte –
Yamatsunami, no, trained her for the sake of her becoming the wielder
of Yamatsunami. The technique imparted to her struck like the wind
and descended like lighting, a sword of agility. Hence why during her
training, the conditioning of her legs and the ability to run were
especially important. In days of sloth where she had lost her goal, the
long distance running that she had long neglected was never forgotten
again once she vowed by her own will to “become stronger than
today”.
This morning, Erika woke with her alarm clock and rose from bed. By
temperament, Erika wasn’t a morning person. Even if her body had a
physical reaction, mentally she wasn’t entirely awake yet. Even so,
thanks to the tens of thousands of repetitions that engrained this habit
into her, her feet swung off the bed.
Fighting down a yawn, her feet remained steady as she meandered
over to her private bathroom. Despite calling it a private bathroom, the
only facilities inside were a bathing area and a sink, but the fact that
Erika had one of these in her own room was because she was the
daughter of a capitalist, and not reared in just any normal family.
The head of the Chiba household was not miserly enough to treat
children differently at least on a material level.
The hot water heater was left off even at the height of winter, allowing
Erika to use ice cold water to wash her face and finally wake up
completely. As she stood in front of her dresser and prepared to put on
her sports clothes, she noticed her mailbox was lit with notification of
new messages.
It was still before dawn. By the local time, it was 5:30 in the morning.
She went to bed at 2330 hours last night and there were no unread
messages, meaning that this must have arrived late during the night.
Possibly out of some promotion that she couldn’t explain herself,
Erika immediately opened the message.
Precisely because of its ease of use, e-mail remained in use to this day
without being abandoned. Once the subject heading came to view,
Erika’s brows became furrowed. After reading the entire message,
Erika’s teeth audibly ground against one another as she managed to
grit out.
“That idiotic brother of mine…… What the heck did he ask that
moron to do……”
Violently tossing her pajamas to one side, she changed her
underclothes.