Posted: July 26th, 2015

Times Edited: 0

Last Edited: Never.

Warning: Foul language, fighting, violence, and one whirlwind of an exposition.

Lesson One: Life

I was surrounded.

My knuckles were chafed and bleeding from the amount of carnage I had already dealt out to downed opponents and they tingled in anticipation at the thought of what they could do to my remaining opponents. Faces grimaced at me from the dark corners of these streets as my palms began to sting at the thought of putting another one of these people on their asses.

The streets of Namimori seemed to simultaneously turn against me. Everywhere I looked, there was an enemy that wanted to destroy me… but that was only a part of my job. Though, in a place that I was well-respected, it was an unfamiliar sensation to have this bloodlust directed toward me.

Which one of you is going to come at me next?

My dark eyes darted back and forth as the trees in the distance whispered in the wind and detached thoughts began to crowd into my mind. A much more comforting time in my life wafted over me as the glint of a weapon charged straight at me from my right side.

I met that weapon with my fist, hitting it from the side hard enough that it flew out of my opponent's hand. I hiked up my foot and allowed the force I had stored within the blow connect with the vulnerable skin of my opponent's neck. A scream tore through the air as the concrete met my feet and I had no choice but to go further into the street, spinning as my feet crossed over each other.

Try me again. I dare you.

The thoughts that threatened to burst forth from my mouth were almost violent, going against what my master had taught me. I silently shamed myself in the midst of the ongoing battle that I faced, knowing that peace was what my master had wanted.

The droplets that began to bead on my forehead slowly froze in the chilling weather and I furiously wiped at my forehead to rid myself of the sensation.

Hell, I'm going to make it out of here alive. I'm too young to die. I only turned fifteen yesterday. I'm too young to die.

I silently cursed the one who had sent me on such a dangerous mission, by myself no less.

I knew there was a reason why I prefer to be hired rather than tied down to work for someone. Once they know who I'm working for, they send out everything they've got.

I forced myself into a breathing technique as my master's words echoed in my mind:

"I know you're working hard, I-pin," he had said one day. "and you'll continue to work harder. All you need to do is breathe and continue. This is an important lesson that you'll always need to remember."

I took a deep breath with that in mind. My chest expanded and I used this brief moment to concentrate as I brought my hands up to it in a fighting stance.

I began my count.

One. No movement.

Two. No movement.

Three. No movement.

Four–

A movement from the corner of my eye stopped my breathing technique in its tracks as I mentally set myself up to attack.

Now!

I launched forward as an opponent made a fatal mistake; allowing me a clear shot to where they were positioned. I crossed the distance between us in a couple of fast-paced steps, but dread cloaked over me when I realized my own mistake:

I had let the enemy make the most of my confusion.

It was a blur as I felt reality slip out from underneath me. My limbs went limp and the heaviness of my eyes intensified. The fighting stance that I was in dropped almost immediately and I froze.

"You honestly thought that everyone wouldn't notice your little escapade? You honestly thought that I would just let you destroy what we've built?"

The voice that spoke to me faintly sounded familiar, but I couldn't place it in my delirious state. My thoughts scrambled every which way as I fought to keep my grip on reality, but there was nothing to figuratively latch onto.

I began to drown in the suffocating blackness that had begun to wrap around me. The enemy that I faced had disappeared as I struggled to turn my head to look every which way. The city surroundings faded away as my mind succumbed to the illusion and my consciousness began to slip away.

My mission had failed.

My whole purpose was a lie.

All of my years training under my master were wasted in this one moment.

I had been bested. My identity had been found out. They knew who I was. My job as an assassin was to be unseen and deadly. I had just taken every lesson that I had learned from my master and stomped on them.

All of my effort fell to pieces, gone like the reality that I was supposed to be in. The illusion that I was in had begun to sap my energy as a silent plea echoed into the depths of the only sane part of my mind:

Where the hell did I go wrong, Master?

We keeping waiting for that amazing thing to happen in the future that will be the key to our happiness… but this is it. Right now. Life continues to be a series of "right now's". So learn to love right now, and you'll have an amazing life.

Life is now.

Q&A:

Why did you decide to do this kind of beginning compared to the usual "died and reincarnated" thing that seems to be typical?

Well, I didn't want to make someone die again and I figure everyone's tired of those… so instead I started with one of those "I'll-show-you-a-scene-from-what-happens-later-so-that-you-can-see-what-I-have-planned-but-next-chapter-is-the-actual-exposition" things. I hope it turned out well to all of you; I didn't want to write too much in fear that I'd give a lot of stuff away.

What's with the "lesson" troupe at the end?

If you read "Anything but Champagne" or "Flowers", you know that I like to have my chapters tie up with a theme. This will be the recurring theme and I'm quite proud, if I do say so myself, of this development. Every chapter, I will have a life lesson that (hopefully!) ties in with what I revealed throughout the chapter.

Does I-Pin know about the canon that we know of?

Absolutely not; that takes the surprise out of it and it complicates things, often turning a story into a canon rehash that "deviates from canon" but… more often than not, not really. If you read any of my stories, you know I hate canon rehashes with a passion and this should exemplify that. I don't need to rewrite canon because we all know what happens, you know?

But wait! Why is the story titled "The Most Promising Assassin" when Fuuta ranked her as being the third most promising assassin?

I've got a plan and you're going to have to read to find it out :) Although I'm going to have to apologize for the vagueness of the chapter. While I love being vague, it does usually come out as confusing and annoying and I'm sorry.

Author's Notes:

I always liked I-Pin in the anime, so I figured… what if we make her a badass but at the same time a lot like her mentor?

Tell me what you think of this first chapter and I'll see what I can do and if I even want to continue. We all know I have a bad habit of starting stories I can't finish. If I end up deciding to finish it, I'll have to do a lot of research on Chinese culture. Let me know in the reviews what you think because I have been having serious doubts about my writing as of recent.

I've never written an "action" type story before, so I hope my scene was okay. This is good practice for me.

I'd apologize for the shortness, but at the same time, I write 8,000 word chapters for other stories… so a short chapter is a nice change for me. I guess this could technically be a prologue, but I'm still going to call it a chapter.

Feel free to check out my other stories in the meantime! I'm sorry for not updating most of them. Writer's block is not my friend.

~Teafully~