The door closed, Akane plucked down in her favorite chair with a sigh of relief. She had been on her feet since she woke up this morning, five hours ago. There had been a time, a long ways back, she was sure she could remember it, when she had been allowed to sit down to eat breakfast. Once she reached a certain age, it was considered a waste of time. Akane's feet were sore and her arms were tired from the tedious task of organizing the scrolls and spell books on the numerous shelves. She had to do it several times, because her mistress, the one she had been apprenticed to when she was only four, wasn't satisfied with it. Cologne usually left the house earlier, today however, she had stayed, working with her new potion, and making sure Akane was cleaning the kitchen.

Akane could vaguely remember the time she had spent as a child, playing with her mother and older sisters; their faces were fading now, she had no pictures to refresh her memory. Her mother had died; suddenly she was just gone. Her father, not being used to having the family finances in his hands, spent everything that his wife had managed to save and then some. The family was in bad shape; they were going to loss their house and their business, the dojo. Her father hit upon a brilliant (or so he thought) idea, he would sell something to get the money he needed; there was only one problem, there wasn't anything left to sell. Just when things were looking their blackest, an opportunity arose. Soun Tendo was not the cleverest man in Japan, but he knew that opportunity is not a lengthy visitor and he took the offer. He sold his youngest daughter.

An old witch had been looking for an apprentice to pass along her knowledge, but she couldn't have just anyone, they had to have the gift. This old witch had met Akane Tendo when she came to her for treatment after springing her ankle. Cologne took one look at the vivacious four-year-old and knew that she had it, she had the gift. She fixed Akane's ankle and walked home with her. Once at the Tendo homestead, she went right to the father and laid out her offer plainly. It was a good offer; the amount she offered would pay off all Soun's debts and allow the family money to live off of for more than a year, if used wisely. Soun didn't have any other options, even if he had, he probably still would've taken it. Akane Tendo was sold, put under contract to live and work with Cologne until she was twenty-one.

At first little Akane had been excited about the idea of becoming a sorceress; who wouldn't want to be able to perform magic, but sadly reality often has little in common with dreams. Akane's life with Cologne was little more then servitude. Everyday she had to wake up early, cook (which she wasn't much good at), clean everything, Cologne demanded her house spotless, and if she finished before it was time to cook the evening meal and Cologne was in the mood, she would learn a little. It was not what she had expected to learn, nothing interesting. She learned how to brew up simple healing potions, for diseases such as chicken pocks and the flu; she could make seeds germinate in less then an hour, useful for gardening, not much else; there were a few other useless things she had been taught. The one interesting thing she had learned hadn't been taught to her be Cologne, she had learned it herself.

If by chance, there was an evening where she didn't drop from exhaustion the moment she laid her cheek on her pillow, she would read. Her reading matter was not what most sixteen-year-olds read; she would take one of Cologne's spell books from the shelves and learn spells for herself. Of the ones that weren't written in Chinese, only a very few of them were simple enough to learn on her own. She had failed so many times, that she almost gave up. One night she came upon a book (luckily written in Japanese) that had the most fascinating spells in it. There was one in particular that caught her fancy, the shield spell. It wasn't overly complicated and within a few weeks, she had been able to master it. The whole trick to the shield spell was concentration; the shield itself could be conjured with an incantation, but to maintain it, you had to focus on it with your entire being. A single thought about anything besides the shield and it would collapse.

Even with the endless task of keeping house for Cologne, Akane would still end up with huge amounts of pent up energy. She was the kind of person who needed to exercise. She tried several different things; one time she tried jogging, that lasted about a week. It seemed to work really well; she'd get up before Cologne and jog around the town for an hour or so, then return in time to fix breakfast for Cologne. It might have lasted a lot longer then it did, had not some meddling old lady seen Akane jogging and told Cologne. Akane still had a few scars left from that confrontation; Cologne may have been a powerful sorceress, but she was quite willing (at times even eager) to get violent when the mood struck. After the unsuccessful jogging incident, Akane decided that she needed to find a form of exercise that was taxing, but wouldn't attract attention.

She was washing dishes after supper, when it suddenly hit her; the answer came so abruptly, she nearly dropped the plate she was holding, nearly. Had she actually dropped the plate, she would have a couple more scars. She remembered back to the days when she was still living her happy and carefree life in Nerima with her family. Her father had taught her a few basic moves of the art; not the art that she was supposed to be learning with Cologne, but a different sort of art, martial art.

The next morning she got up early, carefully sneaked past Cologne's bedroom and into the small building behind the main house. She carefully slid open the door and snuck inside. She slowly began to go through the kata that she had developed when she was four. It began slowly, she had to think very hard about each move, what came next, where did her hands go, her feet. After a few tries, it came faster and faster, she began moving with assurance and by the time she had gone through the routine a dozen times, she could do it perfectly. After she was sure she had it just right, she did it a few more times and went back in, the sun was beginning to rise, another day had begun.

For the next year that was her routine, she'd get up before dawn, go practice in the shed out back, return to do her daily chores, and study spells before she went to sleep. It became normal, she stopped even bothering to remember how unhappy she was, what good could it do her anyway? It was her life and there didn't seem to be any chance of change in the future. Then one day, Cologne said six words that changed the foundation of her world,

"I have a job for you."