Author: Alright. For all of you who read my previous story, (Drifters: Revolution and Freedom), you probably already knew this story was coming. Some of you might have even been anticipating it. Now some of you will probably be groaning since this story will probably take time away from my other story. And yes it will. Don't worry I will still aim to finish the other story by the end of the year. And look at it from my persepctive guys. It gets kinda boring just focusing on one story. By working on both at the same time, I found that it keeps my creative juices flowing and was generally quite fun.

Now here's an important annoucement about this story. See, I originally toyed with the idea of having a Choose-You-Own-Adventure style type of fanfic but I eventually gave it up after getting a headache from trying to actually make it work and decided that it would be impossible. But it did give me an idea. I thought: What if I used a Dating Simulation Game or Visual Novel Format to write the story. Now for those of you who don't know what a Visual Novel is, here's how it works.

Imagine yourself as the main character in some kind Romance genred game. There is the introduction arc where the character gets acquainted with his surroundings and all the possible heroines within the game. The decisions the main character makes within the introduction arc will allow the character to unlock a unique storyline of each induvidual heroine. This is called a "route". So in this story, you will have an introduction arc, where my character gets acuainted with his surroundings. And pehraps two to three Routes which you will read throught so it will kind of be like this.

Introduction Arc - Route 1 - Ending 1

Introduction Arc - Route 2 - Ending 2

And so on.

I honestly have no idea if this idea is going to work. I have never seen anything like this ever done before, but I'm willing to give it one heck of a try. But this it kind of an experiment so give me your thoughts about the idea. As I already implied within some of my previous stories, one of the heroines will without a doubt be Henrietta, and I also decided that the next would be Kirche, mostly because I don't think she was portrayed fairly in the anime. And the third one (If there is a third one, not making any promises), I'm kind of considering someone but I will let you guys vote on the third in a poll on my channel. Go check it out! Voting ends by the end of the Introduction Arc. There are five real choices at the moment so feel free to suggest your own.

One last thing, as I have a personal connection to this character there will be NO yaoi routes (Sorry BL lovers and fangirls) and for the moment no harem routes for the forseeable future (sorry fanboys) and no graphic lemons (sorry perverts).

I woke up with a strange sense of alertness, staring blankly up at the light blue ceiling. The dull grey of the morning sun filtered in through my window telling me that it was still quite early. I lay there for a couple of moments, listening for any sign of movement inside the house. Nothing. Aside from the occasional sounds of the city outside my window, the house was deathly silent. Good, that meant I was the only one awake. Quietly I slipped off my bed, easing my feet on to the cold hardwood floors as I crept towards the door without a sound. I tiptoed down the rickety staircase as quietly as I could, wincing at every creak it made until I finally reached the bottom steps. I stopped then, listening once again for any source of life within my household. So far, so good. I slowly unlocked the front entrance and creaked the door open, hoping that the rest of my family would still be asleep. The cold April air hit me like wave. Despite the fact that it was already spring, I was unsurprised. This was Canada after all and weather in Toronto was especially unpredictable. Ignoring the biting cold and still wearing my pajamas I slipped outside and opened the mailbox. Taking out the small bundle of envelopes, I quickly rifled through the content with one objective in mind.

"Junk, junk, junk, oh the electrical bill, junk, junk, Admissions office!" I pulled the envelope out of the small stack shoving the rest back into the mail box and quickly flitted back into my room. Once inside I tore through the envelope until it was reduced to little bits of paper on the ground and began reading letter instantly.

Dear Max Lee

The admissions committee has met and I am sorry to inform you that we were not able to admit you in to the University of Toronto this year. We have received an applicant pool of over 25,000 applications and we were able to admit a small percentage of that pool for an entering class of 2000 students.

We realize that you may be disappointed with this decision. We could not accept all the qualified students who applied to UofT in this admissions cycle. Our choices reflect the strength and size of our applicant pool and they are not judgments on anyone's ability as a college student.

Since the Admission's Committee made each decision in the context of other applicants we cannot provide specific reason why some applicants were not offered admission. We know this explanation is not consoling but it is as much as can practically be given. We wish you the best of luck in all your academic endeavors.

I stared at the sheet of paper emotionlessly for several moments, as if I couldn't quite comprehend what was written there. I stared at those final words as though they were a death sentence. I was aware of a throbbing pain in my stomach as though I had just been punched and my chest was tightening up into stiff, painful knots. I felt like puking yet no bile seemed to rise up my throat. In a less than a hundred words, I felt as though my dreams, my hopes, my life, had been crushed before my very eyes. At first I felt nothing but anger. Anger at the university, at my school, at my teachers, but most of all I felt complete and utter self-loathing towards myself. I should have never have taken biology, I should never have taken AP math, I should have studied harder and slept less and the self-abuse continued because deep inside I knew the despair I felt now was the fault of my-pathetic-fucking-self. Vaguely I could hear the rest of my family waking up and I snapped out of my near comatose state to begin dressing for school. Throwing on a set of clothes that lay on my chair in rumpled heap, I folded the rejection letter and stuffed it into the back pocket of my jeans before beginning packing for school. Fifteen minutes later I was trudging back down the stairs making sure to keep an emotionless mask on my face.

From the smell of things, I could already tell breakfast was ready as I stumbled my way into the kitchen. For once, my family was actually eating together. Immediately in front of me at the side of the rectangular table was my eldest sister Madison. An honorary student who graduated from the University of Waterloo, two years ago, she was now a top class accountant making more than eighty grand a year in from financial company based in Hong Kong. Apparently she would be in Toronto for a few days while she dealt with a client who happened to be based here in Canada. To her right sat the middle child of the family, younger than Madison but still older than me, was my sister, Jacqueline, also an honors student who was now almost finished studying for her engineering degree in the same university I just got rejected from only moments ago. And then there was me of course, the lousy screw up son who couldn't even get in to an arts program for his safety school. Now don't get me wrong. I was happy for my elder siblings and I had to admit even I was a little proud of them for achieving their goals. But like in any typically Asian family, my parents treated education like a gift from Buddha himself. Maybe it was a part of our Asian culture, like the Mandarins of Imperial China and Korea who would earn their positions in life through intensive study and examination. Maybe it was the concrete truth of life that the safest pathway to success was through a university degree. I really didn't know. But I did know this. The media had it wrong, Family Guy, Futurama, South Park, all those shows that often portrayed Asian parents as hard and unforgiving of failure. It was really tough love, because underneath all that, it was genuine concern. Concern that they only son would grow up working twelve hour shifts for minimum wage at some hazardous shitty ass job, struggling to pay his rent and having to beg their government for welfare like some hobo. My father, a middle class businessman who worked himself into the ground to see his children get the opportunities he never had, sat at the head of the table reading a newspaper just like usual. As I walked into the room he looked up from his paper at me.

"Checked the mail this morning," He told me, in an almost apologetic voice. "Nothing from the university so far."

My mother, like usual, was the last to take her seat at the other end of the table opposite of my dad. "Well, there's always hope." She said wearily while I suppressed a cringe.

Opposite of me, Jackie nearly choked on her rice as she snorted. "Oh please, like any University would accept you with those grades." Immediately, she seemed to realize how outrageous the statement sounded, before the words even finished leaving her mouth and looked back down at her plate, with an expression resembling embarrassment. "Sorry." She mumbled, still looking down at her plate.

"It's fine." I mumbled back, knowing full well she had spoken the truth. After a moment of awkward silence, breakfast went as it usually did. Conversation was passed around while I stared silently at my food, taking repetitive bites. When my bowl was around half full, I excused myself to go to school, unable to stomach anything more thanks to the queasy feeling in my gut.

"I'll just buy lunch from the cafeteria!" I called out as I ran out the door. I slung my bag over my shoulder and took out my bicycle from the garage. Moments later I was pedaling down the street as fast as I could go. Maybe I just wanted to get away. Maybe I just wanted time to think by myself. Think about the question that every high school student dreads having to answer, the question that I procrastinated on answering for years.

What the hell am I going to do with my life!

After a while, my legs started burning from the furious exercise I just gave them so I took the moment to calm myself down and think about the question for a moment. I suppose I would have to attend a community college. Perhaps I could even apply to be a CGA (Certified General Accountant). Suddenly life didn't seem so bad anymore, and I slowly felt as though my lungs were working at full capacity once again. My parents would be disappointed. I had no doubts about that. Whenever my mother talked to her friends every once in a while she would avoid talking about her youngest child while fully boasting the success of my sisters. I was fine with that. After all how was she supposed to tell her friends about what a failure I had been? How could I ask her to endure watching their disapproving looks and condescending tones? How is any parent supposed to deal with that?

As I crossed the intersection I got off the bike (safety first kids!) and slowly made my way across the street, still thinking about my imminent future. I was so deep in thought however, that I never even registered the minivan that was hurtling towards me.

It happens all the time. Every roadway in the world seems to have that one impatient driver, who slams their accelerator into the ground whenever they see the traffic lights turn yellow. By the time the driver even noticed the 6 feet tall Asian boy crossing the road, by the time he even noticed he was going at a red light, it was far too late. Even if the driver had managed to press his brakes down, the momentum of the car would still have sent the 5000 pound hunk of metal hurtling into my side. In hindsight, my bike probably saved my life since I had kept it to the side where car had hit me. But even so, the impact sent me flying into the air and the only thing that I could comprehend was that the world around me was spinning like a raging vortex. Vaguely I could make out an opaque oval light filling up my vision and the next thing I knew, my world went dark.

o0o

Radulfr was angry. Of that he was completely certain. He was the guardian wolf deity of Germania, the same one who had guided the first Germanian Emperor into uniting the Germanic tribes into a single nation more than five hundred years ago, the same deity that helped found the nation and write its laws into a single unified code. Since then, it had been his sacred duty to advise each and every emperor that had passed along the throne as a faithful companion. And in the cases where an emperor died without an heir or disputes arose among his candidates, it was both Radulfr's right and duty to choose the next emperor. And it was not as though the wolf himself chose personally. Due to the contract he had made with the first Emperor, Maximilian the Great, he simply possessed the ability to sense the most suitable candidate and was instinctively compelled by the contract to bless that said person with the Sacred Seal of the Emperor. Thus as the bearer of such power and responsibility, Radulfr felt justified to expect respect and deference to both himself and the traditions he carried… which of course was why he was so angry now.

When the last Germanic emperor, Ferdinand II, had passed on into the grave without leaving a single heir to the throne, Radulfr was immediately shown into an barren room under a lock and key for several days until finally, upon the seventh day, five Germanian noblemen walked inside the room and demanded one of them be chosen emperor. The sage wolf was furious. Traditionally, he should've have been released outside with a retinue of loyal guards, to expose himself to as many potential candidates as possible before allowing his ability to guide him to the next emperor, regardless of that person's descent. Instead, in an attempt for the throne, the nobles dared spit on the sanctity of the ritual with this underhanded trick. Radulfr glared at the nobles before him, all with triumphant expressions as though their position was already assured. It was true that Radulfr's contract compelled him to choose the new emperor by the time of the full moon. That was today. But he would be damned before he made any of the ill bred pups in front of him now, emperor. Thanks to his abilities, he could sense their intentions through smell. Most of them reeked of the disgusting odor of greed and lust. The last one however, overpowered all of those smells with the nauseating stench of blood and war. Radulfr made a mental note to keep an eye out for that one. For a moment, Radulfr was tempted to kill them all just to make an example of all those that had the gall to treat him in such a manner but reason told him better. For several moments Radulfr stood there, contemplating how to extricate himself from his increasingly dire situation when the answer came to him… quite literally in fact.

A blue light enveloped a room and several startled nobles yelped in surprise, pushing and shoving one another to escape the blinding flare. When the light finally dissipated, there was a young man lay sprawled over the floor. Then, Radulfr felt something ancient, something powerful move within himself. His spiritual instinct triumphed over any thoughts he may have had and without missing a beat, Radulfr was already at the boy's side in a flash. Before any of the nobles had a chance to react or even realize what he was doing, Radulfr drew his power up from within quickly recited the required spell.

"Gloria ennis milia decem. Decem milia annos honorem."

"Stop him!" one of the nobles behind him cried out. Radulf ignored him.

"Potestatem me dis. Rex homo hoc et!"

A flash of light erupted from where Radulfr stood and powerful winds seemed to vent from no known source. When the Germanic artistocrats finally looked up they saw Radulfr standing next to the boy, trumping his tail on the ground with an expression that could only be described as content.

"Who's the top dog now, you jackals?" Radulfr thought smugly.

Author: Special thanks to LastStandZiggy who, when I found myself in need of a main character who was such a loser that he lacked any sort of self confidence and ability, made me realize that I was the perfect loser (Without any sort of leadership skills or fighting abilities) to base that character off of. The beginning scene was thought up in my mind back in early febuary when I just completed my college applications and since I didn't really have any confidence in myself or my abilities, I had to go throught that exact crisis described above. (Except I didn't get hit by a car and get sent to another world. It would have been awesome if I did though). Anyways, it seems like I will be going to univeristy next year (Thankfully!), still probably writing fanfics instead of studying like I'm supposed to. Ciaos!

One last thing. I made up the Radulf's (whose name means "wise wolf" in German) spell which was

Gloria ennis milia decem

decem milia annos honorem

potestatem me dis

Rex homo hoc et

o0o

If you reverse the word order you get a latin translation.

o0o

Decem milia gloria ennis

honorem annos milia decem

dis me potestatem

et hoc homo rex