The Beginning

"Good work Hanabi, I knew I could count on you!" Said Grandmaster Zilong, praising his student, a beautiful long-haired raven girl full with natural talent. "Alright class, all the best for the examination tomorrow! Remember to always do your best and that it's okay if you didn't win," with that Grandmaster Zilong ended the class.

It's 5:00PM, and the Scarlet Sect were having their daily teachings in the training ground before ending the day with a sparring between a student and their sensei. All the students knew that among them, the only one that could ever be on par or better than their sensei is Hanabi, hence they watched the spar between Hanabi and their sensei in awe. At the end of the spar, the girls in the class dreamt of being her while the boys in the class dreamt of being with her but no one, except their sensei, had ever heard the voice of the talented girl. Not even once.

Her beautiful raven locks flew with the wind as she bowed to her sensei, silently thanking him for his praise before leaving the training ground and heading towards the marketplace. She walked through the usually quiet marketplace, squeezing through the crowds and bumping into the villagers who were either busy queueing at the stalls or eating. The marketplace was unusually busy as that day marked the beginning of the festival where every sect in the village gathered together to commemorate the start of Scarlet Shadow Ninja examinations.

Her face scrunched up as she starts to feel dizzy by the crowd of both her own village and one which she does not know of. She just had a tiring day at training with almost no sleep the night before as she was busy practicing alone at her backyard and now she had to brave through the crowd with a headache. She had only wanted to grab a dinner at the marketplace before heading home when her clouded mind had forgotten all about the festival AKA the crowds. Boy, her day just wasn't going to end well.

Just as she was about to reach the end of the marketplace, without her dinner of course, she started seeing black spots, indicating that she would black out at any moment. Hanabi then grabbed the closest person to her and the last thing she remembered seeing was a masked guy who was probably a ninja from the other sect.

"Oi, oi! Lady, what's wrong?" The unidentified masked guy asked, panicking but all he got was silence as Hanabi had passed out on his arms. The masked guy had just arrived in the village and had decided to walk around the marketplace hoping to grab some snacks when he saw the beautiful raven-haired girl having trouble walking through the crowd. Somehow she had caught his attention and he even thought of greeting her when she had suddenly grabbed him and fainted in his arms. It was a pretty awkward situation to him as they stood in the middle of the crowd where villagers just brushed past him but thankfully he spotted an empty bench on his left at the corner of his eyes where he planned to carried her over to. Setting her down on the bench, he decided he should at least cushion her head on his lap out of courtesy and that was when she woke up.

"Excuse me, what are you doing?" Hanabi asked, sitting up before glaring at the unidentified guy.

Taken aback, he awkwardly raised both his hands up in a surrender-position, "Calm down lady, I was only helping a stranger who suddenly grabbed me before fainting in my arms."

Her glaring eyes softened for a second as she thought back to what had happened before glaring at him once more. "You better not have done anything to me or I swear I would make living hard for you." She threatened before standing up and taking her leave.

"The name's Hayabusa and you're welcome." He said to her retreating back, "By the way, I wouldn't dare touch a lady out here in public." He shouted after her. She just waved it off and continued making her way home. Shaking his head, he said to himself "She is gonna be on my mind all day man," before hoping to see her again which was surprisingly pretty soon.

The next day, every ninja from the sect had gathered in the main stadium where the examination took place at. The Scarlet Shadow Ninja examination was a duel between the sects, lasting three rounds in which at the final round, the winner of each sect would duel against each other and the emerging champion would then hold the title of a Scarlet Shadow Grandmaster. Hanabi and her peers represented the Scarlet Sect while Hayabusa and his peers represented the Shadow Sect. Though both of them had not noticed that the other was present in the stadium until the final round whereby Hanabi, the winner of the Scarlet Sect, was up against the winner of the Shadow Sect, Hayabusa.

"Damn, I didn't know that you were a ninja and that we would meet like this," Hayabusa said. "By the way, Hanabi is a pretty name," he smirked, finally knowing her name.