3rd June, 2015 a.t.b
"Faster."
A single long, perfectly straight row of girls, all of varying ages, moved and twirled in almost perfect sync. They all stared straight ahead, only the younger members of the dance allowing any form of emotion to slip onto their faces. The spacious hall they danced in could have been bustling with several more, longer rows, but the nature of the majority of the girls there put off anyone else that wasn't like them from joining.
All of the girl's hair were tied back in tight, sleek buns. They wore immaculate, creamy white bodices, that were attached to spotless tutu's. Their ballet flats were tied to their legs with long ribbons of silk that run up their shins but did not appear to be tied anywhere. Each girl also carried a fan of a different colour in their right hand, tipped with soft, downy feathers, and whisked them through the air, and snapped them open and closed in timing to create a low, constant rustle throughout the hall, that was as captivating as it was unsettling in the otherworldly silence.
At the front of the hall was a tall, severe looking woman with long dark hair also tied up in a bun, and long stick in her right hand. She walked up and down the line as the children danced, inspecting each dancer individually, and stopping for longer than was wanted on the older ones. No girl in the room could keep their anxiety to please her off their faces.
The dance had been going on for around half an hour now, and some of the younger girls could no longer keep up with the pace. As the more experienced dancers, spread evenly across the line could tell, their movements were becoming more sluggish, and they could no longer keep their heads up. Pain rippled through their legs in steady succession, though most knew to hide it from their faces.
Mercifully, however, the final music piece, played from an antique gramophone, came to an end. The dancers spun around to face the front of the hall, clasping their hands around their fans downward, and waited in silence for the woman's approval.
She walked up and down the line one last time, not stopping at any person but regarding them all with care, before reaching the end and slamming her long stick into the ground. The thunderous sound, that echoed off the dance hall's wall, was swiftly drowned out as all 12 girls collapsed to the floor, their exhaustion and muscle fatigue from enduring the long session immediately catching up with them.
The woman walked back down the line of heavily breathing girls and stopped in front of a timid, skeletal girl, who was staring down at ground apologetically. The woman towered over her and glowered down at her, her hand still wrapped tightly around the stick. The pale girl beside her, felt a rush of nausea run over her. She couldn't tell if Madame was going to speak with her, or the little girl next to her.
"Hana," she asked, her voice cutting cleanly above the sound of heavy breathing in the room. The older girl breathed a sigh of relief. It wasn't her. "I believe I've gone over this routine with you before. Is there any particular reason why your moves were so sloppy today? You've been losing your position in the line throughout, and leaning towards Sienna."
Yes, she had indeed been closing the gap between them throughout the course of the dance, Sienna thought. However, she had been at the school, and danced along with new students to know why. She was trying to copy Sienna's moves, that were well practiced and refined from 5 years addending Madame Crowley's small dance school. However, she also knew why Hana's moves had been so sloppy.
Madame Crowley glanced down at Sienna and tilted her head to the side. Sienna nodded affirmatively. They both knew the problem.
"Take off your flats, Hana." Madame instructed, kneeling down in front of her, all sternness wiped from her face and replaced with a look of concern. The girl's face widened into one helpless terror. She cast pleading glances over at the other girls in the line but was met with only looks of confusion, or among the older girls, amused pity.
Her short patience worn thin, Madame reached forward and slipped off one of Hana's flats. Her foot was red and beginning to blister, as Sienna already knew it would be. What surprised her, however, was the multitude of blisters from previous occasions. To have danced while her feet were in such a condition would have been immensely painful. That she kept the agony off her face was both impressive and tragic.
Hana tried to hide her foot under her tutu and fan, but to no avail. All nearby, most importantly Madame Crowley and Sienna, had seen the state of her feet. Madame sighed and pinched the brow of her nose.
"Hana, I though I told you not to push yourself."
Hana's body began to shake as small tears she couldn't keep in began to drip drop onto her tutu and clenched hands. "Yes, Madame."
"I told you that you would injure yourself if you did any more practice than outside those extra lessons I did with you."
The young girl lacked both the will and the words to say anything more than another, "Yes, Madame."
Both Sienna and Madame Crowley had dealt with situations like this before. The Japanese has been well know for hard work before the invasion, but this time Sienna thought that there was more fuelling Hana's desperation to learn than mere determination.
Madame stood up and slammed her stick against the ground twice. It was her signal, that she was about to give an order. "From now on, Hana, until your injuries are healed, I will not permit you to actively participate in dance lessons. You can watch from the side so you don't fall too far behind, but you will not be doing any ballet until your feet heal. Nyoko," Madame addressed the another Japanese girl, to Hana's left. "Can I trust you to keep an eye on Hana, and make sure she doesn't put any more excess pressure on her feet?"
Nyoko, who was lying on her back, exhausted, gave Madame a silent thumbs up. Crowley nodded and turned to speak with some other girl further down the line, but Hana shot up, her eyes wide and panicked.
"Madame, please! I can still dance! I don't need to be held back." Despite her desperate words, it was clear, to Sienna at least, from the way she was standing that she most definitely could not dance. At least, she couldn't dance without some serious pain. Madame turned her head and gave Hana an exasperated look. Over the past five years of her enrolment at Madame's dance school, Sienna had seen several of the Japanese students stuck in a similar mindset. It seemed that it was time for the school's newest student to have her parent's training undone as well.
Madame came back over to Hana and glared down at her, the irritation clear in her eyes. "Hana, I don't care what your parents told you. I am not like other Britannians. I will not send you back into the ghetto because you are too injured to keep up with the rest of the class."
The look in Hana's eyes changed from one of panic, to one of surprise and confusion. "But, Haha and Chichi said I would be expelled if I fell behind. Please, Madame, I don't want to go back-"
Madame cracked her stick against the floor again. "If you fail your exam, and then your remedial exam, you will be expelled. Not if you're falling behind. And I will take things like injury into account when grading you. You don't have to be so paranoid."
Sienna cast Hana a look of pity. She herself was not to blame for Hana's and the other Japanese girls predicaments, but she felt a sense of guilt none the less. After all, it was her nation, the Holy Empire of Britannia, that five years previously, had defected and occupied the island nation of Japan.
The war itself was something Sienna had studied extensively, as part of her education. The war had been instigated after the Empire's Emperor, Charles zi Britannia, colonised the Indonesian Peninsula. This action lead to harsh economic sanctions placed against the Empire from the United Democratic Republic of Europia, Chinese Federation, but most importantly, the then neutral nation of Japan. Japan was, and still was, the world's largest producer of sakuradite, containing an estimated 72% of the worlds global reserves. Sakuradite had become an invaluable superconductor to all of the worlds main superpowers; the EU, the Chinese Federation, and the Britannian Empire, and the Japanese government used this to their advantage; exploiting the rare mineral as a bargaining chip on the international market, racking up prices for all consumer nations to increase its own revenue.
The Indonesia incident had lead to Japan abandoning its neutrality stance and signing treaties with both the EU and the Chinese Federation, and thereby entering a state of hostility towards Britannia. However, the economic sanctions placed against Britannia by Japan and its allies, had only antagonised Britannia further. In the lead up to the war there were many incidents, in which Britannia attempted to goad Japan into a fight, to no avail. Most of the incidents, such as the Ishigaki incident, involved forces of the Britannian military, ignoring international borders and trespassing in Japanese territory, but not actually doing any damage so that Japan could not properly retaliate.
Finally, in early July, of 2010 a.t.b., negotiations for a peaceful resolution broke down and both nations severed diplomatic ties. Just a few weeks later, on the 10th August, the Holy Britannian Empire invaded Japan. Before the war, the Japanese people believed that if one superpower invaded Japan then the other two would move to protect Japan, in order to secure their supply of sakuradite. However, due to careful manoeuvring by Emperor Charles, to redirect international attention to west Africa, the invasion into Japan came as a complete surprise, as no one thought that Britannia would risk global reprisals by declaring war.
While opinions were very split on this matter, Sienna was one of the people whom believed that no matter how long the second Pacific war dragged on for, the EU and Chinese Federation wouldn't have intervened. As far as the vast majority of the EU's population was concerned, the invasion was just some incident in the Far East. The government was no better either. No nation wanted to go to war with Britannia for Japan's sake, so the national representatives in the Grande Council stalled any action, and spent their time discussing trivial or minor consequences of a Britannian occupation of Japan. As for the Chinese Federation, they were already aiming to install a puppet regime in Japan anyway, and didn't want to go to war with Britannia to protect Japan's independent. As a result, even towards the end of the war, the Japanese government turned down any and all offers of "protection" from the Chinese Federation.
As for the war itself, Britannia declared war by launching air strikes against strategically invaluable locations across Japan. They argued that the attacks would declare the war themselves, so there was no need to issue a formal declaration. As much as Sienna found that act dishonest, and dishonourable, she had to admit that there was a callous logic behind it.
Once Britannian troops landed on the Japanese mainland on August 13th (a Friday, no less), the Empire unveiled it's newest, and most advanced weapon; the Autonomous Knightmare Frame. The Knightmares were humanoid robots, equipped with speed, manoeuvrability, adaptability, and sheer destructive power, unmatched by other armoured land units at the time. As a result, the Knightmares overcame and obliterated the comparatively outdated lines of defence on the Japanese mainland. Despite their overwhelming success, however, KMF pilots saw high casualties throughout the war, due to the Japanese government's choice to declare do-or-die resistance; a decision many ordinary Japanese soldiers stuck to until the bitter end.
Britannian superiority in the air, as well as at sea, meant that the Japanese military was overwhelmed by the end of the month. Following the collapse of the official Japanese government, a provincial government was set up by the six houses of Kyoto, who formally surrendered to Britannia on the 2nd September. The Prime Minister, Genbu Kururugi, committed suicide upon hearing of his country's defeat.
Britannia renamed Japan, Area 11, as it was the eleventh formally recognised "protectorate" of the Empire. It's people, the once proud Japanese, were denied Britannian citizenship, and rechristened "elevens"; the exact same modus operandi the Empire had used on the people of Areas 3 through 10. The Empire built settlements across Area 11, such as the capitol of Area 11- the Tokyo Settlement, where Madame Crowley's dance school was located. The local government did nothing to rebuild the Japanese cities that had been destroyed during the invasion, instead classifying them as ghettos and the residential districts for elevens.
Under the honorary Britannian system, it was possible for conquered numbers to gain honorary citizenship in the Empire, but in Area 11 had been rare to see anyone but members of the former middle class, or those in real need of basic human rights applying for citizenship in the first few years of the occupation.
With the exception of Sienna, who was a full blooded Britannian, all the students at Madame's dance school were honorary Britannians. Their parents, all former Japanese middle class who had applied for honorary citizenship not long after the invasion, had heard of Madame's offer to take both full and honorary Britannians into her dance school, and many quickly applied to send their daughters there, as a way of getting them back into society. It didn't matter how smart or well educated the girls were; honorary Britannians would never be allowed to advance into respectable or high positions in Britannian society, so there was no point in the girls attending a regular school. Being dancers, however, gave them the chance to travel as entertainers across the area, one of the few careers in which honorary Britannians stood a chance of making a career out of - which was what their parents were counting on.
However, the girls would never be able to rise above a Britannian in standing. It didn't matter how good they were, or if they felt more Britannian than Japanese. They were not born Britannians, and that xenophobic racism that was so deeply ingrained into Britannian society would always hold them back.
It wasn't like Sienna had much going for herself either, though. The fact that she lived comfortably with, and excepted elevens as her equals, was a serious strike against her in the eyes of most of her fellow Britannians, the aristocracy, and the government. She had no noble lineage to call upon for social status or protection, and no connections to members of the court either. Even her name was dull; it just meant reddish-brown, not a very thrilling name for an aspiring... well, Sienna didn't know what she wanted to do with herself, even at 15 years old. Another strike against her in the eyes of Britannian society. In a country who's main philosophy was that of social Darwinism, one was expected to always be striving towards something; fighting a cutthroat battle with their fellows to emerge as the superior. Sienna had didn't have any long term goals to aim for, nor was she particularly competitive. Both traits frowned upon by Britannian society.
The only thing Sienna really had going for her was why she was an orphan. Both her parents had been soldiers (common soldiers at that, so it still wasn't much of a step up) who died in Britannia's service during the Second Pacific War. Sienna only had fleeting memories of her parents, not enough to remember their faces or any notable locations. After all, she had only been 10 when they died. While she did think it odd that she remembered so little, she brushed it off because, how much do people really remember from when they were 10?
Madame Crowley had been a close friend of her mother's, and after her and her father's deaths, Crowley moved her dance school to Area 11, and took Sienna under her wing as her first student. There had been several other Britannian families that had requested to send their daughters to the school as well, but when word got out that Madame was excepting honorary Britannians as students, all those families withdrew their applications.
There weren't many Japanese families that wanted to send their daughters to the school either though. Most of the girls there were in the Japanese middle class before the invasion, and a few, such as Hana, had been enrolled by their parents as a way of keeping them out of the ghettos. No one, not even Sienna, was in the school because they wanted to learn how to dance. It was simply a survival tactic. A way of staying out of the ghettos, securing a temporary location to rest in, and planing for the future.
The fact that (almost) no one in the school actually cared about what Madame was teaching them infuriated Madame to no end. As a full blooded Britannian, Sienna was the only one with a secure future, and could dream of better things than the dance school. Even though she didn't know what she wanted to do with her life, she did know that if she wanted to peruse higher education she wouldn't be able to do so if she graduated from a small dance school on the edge of the Tokyo Settlement. As a result, two days following the dance routine that saw Hana being put on injury leave, at Madame's encouragement Sienna found herself inside the main hall of Ashford Private Academy, sitting an entrance exam that little to her knowledge, would set in motion a chain of key events, destined to change both herself and the world, and permanently scar the annals of history with her name- Sienna la Asplund, the reaper of Britannia.