Growing Up

It has been almost seven years since the world pianist competition, and Akane turned twelve today. Akane looked at her four trophies again, remembering the times where she competed against all kinds of people.

She remembered the traumatized boy that made her teacher angry upon seeing him, she remembered Anastasia Yerokhin, the Russian girl that tried to taunt her in the continental competition, thought that she had a chance and then proceeded to get crushed. Majeta Königskrone, the prodigy from German that had an amazing aptitude for musicians of this time, she hoped that she didn't crush her self-confidence too much.

And the two more important people, the first one was the girl from the semi-finals, Emilia Brun, her distant friend, strangely enough, on the day where they prepared her uniform they unexpectedly bonded, they quickly became friends, and even though she lives in Italy and Akane in Japan they managed to contact each other at least once a week. Akane had fun talking to someone she could relate to somewhere, even though the two girls were as different as they could be, they shared two things with each other.

The passion for music and their fangirling of very old famous indie games, like the project Touhou. Even though it was more often so that the girls had difficulties starting a conversation because of their differences, they immediately turn into two geeks upon reaching these two topics.

And the other important person, Aoki Kuzue, they wouldn't fall under the definition of friends, yet the two would call each other friends immediately upon question. They were strange together, to say the least, they rarely call each other and even though they live in the same country they didn't even try to visit each other yet. Though they knew that they could trust each other it's about secrets, sometimes when they are both bored, they would call each other and talk about their lives, ranting and complaining about things. She remembered the day were they seemingly got closer by a lot.

"Can you tell me about the girl that motivated you back in the pianist scene?"

He was quiet for a moment, before he chose to tell her the story.

"It's nothing exciting or special or anything, I got traumatized by my mother one day as I played differently then she wanted, beat me up severely, just wanted her love, but she beat me up. After that I couldn't touch the piano again, without breaking down."

Akane nodded, there was a time where she tried to get the recognition of the people around her, even though they didn't deserve it.

"Then one day that girl came into my life, playing the violin, I was mesmerized by her performance, turns out she knew about me and started to drag me around for a while, she had cancer right before the final stage, she lied about that to me though, said that she only had a weak and sickly body, but if I am honest, I think she was the most beautiful she could have been in her life. She earnestly tried to enjoy the last months in this world, falling in love, enjoying her profession, learning new things and the most important for me, helping me to get over my fears, to forgive my mother, to play again. That's what happened right before we meet Akane."

"Huh, interesting. You don't have to worry about me though! I really only have a frail and weak body!"

"Huh? You frail and weak?"

"Yes, the only reason I am not sick constantly, is because I intensely exercise each day and stubbornly do me daily routine, even if I am sick! If I had cancer, I would beat it up by continuing normally with my life! It's either them or me and it's always them, because I am stubborn person that doesn't know the word 'lose'!"

Hearing this Kuzue didn't know what to say, but then he bursted out in laughing.

"Yeah, that totally sounds like you, I admit that!"

Hearing her friend laugh so joyfully, Akane followed suit.

Akane stared at her showcase. Many things happened in these almost five years, she learned the violin and started to sweep up the same competitions, sadly everyone was scared of her talent, so she couldn't make any friends during these events, this disappointed her a bit. And lately she picked up singing, her teacher Angelo one day as a joke even gave her multiple instruments to try, surprisingly she could play all of them at a decent level.

If she would describe it in F/GO terms, her pianist A++ skill turned into musical genius C-, she could learn all instruments on instant, if she just picked them up. Angelo was excited upon seeing this aspect, it would ensure her that she would surpass the jack of all trades and turn into a master of all trades in music. Akane was Angelos' masterpiece that continued to grow better and better, he was happy to be alive at this time.

But Akane still preferred the piano, the violin and her voice the most. It was something about staying true to her roots.

She stared at her ten golden trophies, two normal cups, two decorated cups, two grandly worked on cups, a gold replica of a piano and a gold replica of a violin and the two other cups were some locale talent shows she stumbled in upon accident.

She looked at it and remembered how much happened in these five years, she learned so much that she could easily instantly skip into UA, heck she even theoretically had enough knowledge to get into a university if she wanted to! But she wanted to go at everything at a relaxed pace, build a strong foundation. She trained so hard that she got over her weak body condition, she worked even past that and could be called a fit girl.

The training was hard for her, each day she would wake up and do a marathon, she walked 40 kilometers each day, made five reps of pull-ups, push-ups, squats and back extensions, each rep consisting of 200 repeats of each. She even does the plank for half an hour straight.

Akane trained madly to get her body to a fit state and even with that insane training regime Akane wasn't happy with it, so she tried to push herself more, each day more challenging, more difficult, more tiring. But she never has, or will give up, because she was determined to show them.

Akane was excited for the next day, her first day at middle school!

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Fumio found something strange, her daughter didn't wake up yet and it was already 7.50, she should have been already awake since a long time, Fumio was worried.

"Akane are you awake yet? Or do you want to get late to school! You don't have to worry Akane, I'll gladly excuse you and say that you were a bit sick that day!"

Fumio called out to her daughter, but no response came, she was worried as that happened and wanted to go upstairs to check if she is feeling well. Then suddenly the front door was opened, revealing a sweat drenched beautiful girl, with long white hair and closed eyes in a training outfit.

"Mommy, I am here, you don't have to worry about me, I am going to take a shower."

Fumio shook her head, even though Akane was now a teenager she didn't change the least with her behavior to her mother, she still called her mommy and tried her best not to stress Fumio too much.

She shook her head.

"I have a too good of a daughter, don't I?"

Akane finished quickly with her shower and then walked to her mother's car to bring her to school. They arrived on time for Akane to introduce herself to the class.

Prim and proper and beautiful, Akane entered her classroom in an orderly and elegant way, taking everyone's breath away, she stood in front of the class and smiled beautifully at all of her classmates. Before she introduced herself, she wrote her name in a calligraphy way on the blackboard with chalk, before she turned around again, smiling a radiant smile.

"Hello, I am Seigi Akane, the famous pianist and violinist champion of the world, I am a girl that turned 12 today, I don't know much about schools and everything, additionally I am blind, so I hope you can go easy on me if I make a mistake, please take care of me everyone."

Everyone in the room was stunned for a moment, before the teacher regained her senses and told Akane to find a place to sit down.

Akane nodded at her teacher and searched for a place to sit down, she accurately navigated through the classroom, trying to find a place to sit down, a seat was free at the front row, the seat right next to the door, Akane stooped right in front of the seat and looked at the teacher.

"Sensei! Is that seat free or is the person that should be sitting here absent?"

The teacher was surprised by her question, but quickly answered her.

"Oh no, that seat is empty, you don't have to worry about that."

Akane nodded and sat down onto the place.

The lesson was nothing special, Akane already learned all of that already since a long time ago, Akane was bored, very bored even so, then Akane remembered again that she could dive down in her soul without using an instrument by now, so she did that, she dived down into her soul.

And there she was again, she didn't really remember when, but one day the place turned into a kind of hud, there was a floor, entrances and walls that Akane could follow, some entrances lead deeper down, other entrances lead to rooms and still others lead to more entrances, most of the rooms weren't anything special, they were just there to store the Easter eggs.

But there was this one room that she just couldn't get out of her head, since a while. It was a puzzle room with the color tile labyrinth, Akane loved that puzzle despite everything, so she prepared herself to solve it again. She tried to remember the rules again, the rules that she figured out, there were seven different color tiles, which each had different rules.

It went something like this:

1. Pink tiles have no effect and can be walked on freely.

2. Red tiles act as solid walls.

3. Green tiles call a monster the player had to battle if they stepped on one, but the tiles don't stack, so it doesn't make a difference if the player stepped on one or 100 tiles, the monster encounter would trigger after successfully solving the puzzle or failing it and starting from new. However, no monster volunteered on doing that, so no encounter can happen even if she stepped on one.

4. Yellow tiles force the player back to the last tile they stepped on, because they are electrical.

5. Orange tiles change the player's flavor to Orange.

6. Purple tiles are slippery and force the player to slide to the next tile in the direction they are moving, additionally they change the player's flavor to Lemon. (No not that Lemon you perverts -Author)

7. Blue tiles, also known as water tiles, vary in function depending on three factors, if the blue tile is adjacent to a yellow tile, the blue tiles act identically to a yellow tile, electrical, if the player's flavor is Orange, the Piranhas in the water tile would come out and bite the player, forcing them back one tile and the final condition was, if neither of the above conditions is met, the blue tile acts identically to a pink tile and you can walk through them freely.

Complicated, right? And so, Akane tried once again to solve the tile puzzle.

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The first time Akane found the tile puzzle:

Akane stepped on a pink tile.

"So, I can walk through these."

Akane tried stepping on a red one.

"Huh, even though there is nothing in front of me, this feels like a wall."

Akane stepped on a yellow.

"Ajajajajaja, what the heck! They are electrical! Better not step on them."

Akane stepped on purple, she slipped up.

"AAAAHHHHHHHHHHHhhhhh! Hey this isn't so bad, and? Do I smell like lemon now?"

Akane stepped on blue.

"Huh, nothing happened, guess they are different colored pink tiles."

Akane stepped on orange.

"Nice, I smell like orange!"

She stepped on blue again.

"What the heck! Where are these piranhas coming from? I'm walking on solid ground!"

She theorized it was because of the orange smell, she tried finding a purple one, because she remembered that they are changing her smell to lemon, after a while she managed to stop on one.

She stepped on another blue one, again.

"Ajajajaaja! Ouch it's electrical, guess it's because of the yellow tile beside it."

There was only one tile left, the green one, she stepped on one, but nothing happened, aside from a ding sound. The she heard a voice.

"Battle activated, please prepare for a battle after you leave the puzzle."

Akane wasn't thrilled of the prospect of a battle, but she accepted it, after a while she left the labyrinth, waiting for her opponent to appear, but nobody came, then suddenly a piece of paper landed on her head. It said:

"Sorry costumer for not battling you, we are currently understaffed and can't send you someone to battle you, we are terribly sorry!

-Dear tile puzzle administration"

Akane looked at the letter, looking dumbfounded, her soul was understaffed?