A/n: here's the music to set the tone for this chapter hehe.

It was when Sergey Fedorov found the ten years old Arina in the Belaya Posadka Front unit and brought her back to her father. The man was blown away at first but soon converted into being disgusted. However, he had an idea in his head, which he tricked Arina by being nice to her and led her to a strange operation to fulfill his evil plan.

Days passed and after receiving enough love and attention from her Father and respect from others, Arina just...returned to her true nature. On the other hand, the cost of it was to lose all the memories she had in that false self, but her body memories remained.

"Cease that, child!" general Fedorov slapped the little girl's hand from putting snow in her mouth.

"It's that good!?"

Arina smiled at him and nodded.

"You have a problem," he said coldly and proceeded to approach the Comrade Chairman on this matter.

"Notice her growth spurt compared to others? Your daughter is suffering from malnutrition. Wouldn't you at least let her eat something?"

"Hmm, I don't know, Fedorov. What should I feed her then?" spoke Alexei, standing up from his seat in the office and turning away from the general, gazing down at his young daughter building a snow castle through the window.

"The stuff you eat!" piped up Fedorov.

Oh dear, he didn't mean it. He didn't mean to raise his voice at the Comrade Chairman. And now the man was shooting his deadly, piercing pair of eyes at him.

Eventually, Fedorov reckoned he shall never address this issue with the dictator again. Being a man of action as he was, although Fedorov acted like he didn't care, deep down he loved little Arina like his own daughter. It was him that found her in a vulnerable state and brought her back to her father. But now was he supposed to raise this little girl too?

Although they said parents played such a big role in developing a child's personality, Arina's case was odd. Even though she spent most of her time with someone as cold and stoic as Fedorov, she somehow was not affected by his characteristics and values. She HAD a strong set of values of herself and it seemed to come out of nowhere.

"One vanilla ice cream, please," requested Fedorov to the seller.

When the child first tasted that creaminess and sweetness, her tears began to invade her whole face. It was a taste made in heaven, never had that poor child had such a thing. What was ice compared to this? She seemed to imagine that ice had a sweet flavor her whole life, but when imagination was no longer an imagination, her ceaseless tears just had to escape.

"Cease that, child! What's wrong with you!?" scolded Fedorov, unable to fathom Arina's behavior. She was sniffing like insane. Nevertheless, he bought her another one, unaware that he was responsible for forming an addiction for a child.

After returning to her father as an uneducated little girl, Alexei had to hire the best private tutor in the nation and so Arina had to embark on her journey of being homeschooled. During her intense studying hours, she studied various themes and subjects and soon caught up to the kids her age.

There was one odd thing -- Alexei was in utter shock when he found out his daughter could speak Japanese fluently. Like how? When did she learn it? And who did she learn it from?

Though Arina didn't remember how when she was asked, and only saw it as something natural. Out of all subjects, she quickly found her love for literature.

"Isn't it wonderful that you get to express yourself through a form of art? Which in this case is literature. Oh, general Fedorov, people laugh at me when I use big words. But if you have big ideas, you have to use big words to express them, haven't you?"

Which is unfortunate for her when she had to move to Japan for a while and had to relearn big words again. She only came out speaking Japanese fluently but didn't learn how to write or read or big words.

During the time she stayed at Normady, there was something little naive Arina couldn't ever grasp. Whenever she came in to visit her dearest father, there was always a different woman each time sitting on top of her father.

Who was her mother then? The child contemplated every single time. And seeing all those women made her feel emotional. Arina got along with all of them, that's it. She'd cast her arms around those women claiming them as her mother, only for the next day the Comrade Chairman dumped them and got together with another one.

"I suppose Father is never in love. Because when you're truly in love, you won't ever want to see them get hurt. But Father always makes them hurt by getting with others. Perhaps he is just in love with the feeling they give him and tricked himself into thinking he's in love with them, do you ever suppose so, general Fedorov? Then true love won't ever gonna involve jealousy then."

In addition to her education, Alexei also found out about Arina's sniping talent and paved a path for her. Being the daughter of the ultimate Comrade Chairman, she graduated from sniper school after two years of training. She was a gem, indeed. Exceptionally talented. It was a huge blessing from God that she was this talented at such things, as though it was a doorway to her destiny in the future, or else she wouldn't have survived a long time ago.

One day the twelve years old Arina came running to Sergey Fedorov with a mournful look on her face, almost dissolving into tears.

"It's finally the day, general Fedorov -- it's finally the day!"

"What day?" he said curtly.

"February twenty-ninth! I've waited years for this," mourned Arina in despair, already dissolving into tears.

"So?"

"My birthday! Oh, general, it's my birthday!" cried Arina, falling into the depth of despair. "My birthday only occurs once every four years, and I've seen my Father and everyone else get celebrated for their birthday before. When IS mine then? When -- when? It's supposed to be special and important since it's the day you came into this earth, isn't it? But why can't we arrange the calendar to fit every single day in? Why is February twenty-nine left out? They're so terrible at math coming from a girl who is bad at math! And why don't I get to celebrate my rare birthday, oh, why-y-y-y-y--"

She was so devastated that she collapsed to the floor and began to weep louder. General Fedorov, upon seeing it, only said:

"It's no one's duty to remember your birthday. Go celebrate it yourself."

Eventually, all Arina got for her once-every-four-years-birthday was a regular ice cream like any day. Sitting on a bench in the cold street, the young girl who hadn't debarred from gratitude, gazed at the white sky before her, in merry.

"At least I still got something for my rare birthday! Oh, I'm so dearly glad I live in a world where people celebrate birthdays."

Oh, young girl, what will your future be like? There were moments when she gazed into the sky full of stars and contemplated her existence. Someone like general Fedorov couldn't give her the right answer to her question, 'Why do we come into this world, for what purpose?'

"Perhaps it's not that gruesome at all when you happen to leave this world right after you accomplish your dreams in this divine life. It's because you already completed your life even if you hadn't reached a certain age. Death is nothing to be feared -- death is rebirth. But what worries me is that Father, general Fedorov, Mr. Ant, his friends, and all my other loved ones will properly miss me when I leave. Will they? Am I that important to them compared to billions of lives out there in this vast world? After all, every soul is equally important," the young girl told herself whilst lying on the soil of the earth, gazing into the shimmering stars before her.

And young girl, it will be fine. One day, I will take your hand and guide you to the right path. You may feel like you merely are a dreamy little girl who does nothing but daydream but never takes action, fate will set you up and lead you to meet someone who will help you execute those big dreams. Someone who is result-oriented and an adviser, and possesses traits that will cover your weaknesses. Someone who will not hesitate to criticize you even though they love you. Someone you might not like at first for the differences, though at times you will see the complementary while being with them.

Young girl, it will be okay. Possible death is the price to pay for seizing power but it's fortunate that you understand death isn't something to fear. You have no idea how powerful you will become in the future by just viewing your current dreamy self. But I assure you, things will go just as the universe planned. Whatever happens, don't be afraid, alright? Accept your fate, no matter how dreadful it will be. But there are no dreadful things in life, only things we can learn from. There will be no protest against wars if wars never were a thing. There will be no revolutions if famines and absolute monarchy were never a thing. There will be no extra emergency resolutions for all the ships today if the Titanic hadn't sunk that day. You might wonder why you have to bear through more adversities than most, it's because you're blessed to learn more than them, Arina Avenira. Because you have the biggest destiny ahead of you. You are the Savior.

The first time when Arina set foot in Japan along with general Fedorov by her side, she failed to have a single sound escape from her mouth. She was awestruck. That was the first time in her life that she had been outside of the Orlas Union, and it had the same effect on Arina when she first tasted that corn of ice cream.

She instantly burst out crying in the middle of the street, unable to believe the reality she was seeing wasn't merely her imagination any longer, but the true reality. The bright atmosphere, the happy people, no military troops, no tanks on the street, no death, just living. Covering her mouth, Arina's tears persisted in streaming down like waterfalls. This was the best thing she had ever seen in her whole life. It moved her to the point she carry on crying for the next five days.

"Dear new world," she murmured, "You are very lovely, and I'm glad to be alive in you. And deep in my heart, I hope you could reach folks everywhere on the planet. They also need you -- desperately."

But it wasn't until Arina first saw the white cherry blossoms that had her dropped to her knees and gazed out into all the loveliness before her for two hours straight. Suddenly all that was present were the wide-spreading cherry blossom trees and the snowy petals detaching off them, swirling and dancing around in the air, one of which landed on Arina's nose. At that moment she couldn't even acknowledge strangers were staring at her as though she was an alien, nor was general Fedorov scolding and trying to get her up, yet failed miserably.

Arina's eyes glistened in delight. Oh, wasn't it beautiful? Wasn't it such a lovely creation from mother nature? Suppose she was going back to her gloomy country soon! She would imagine she wasn't. There was scope for imagination here.

Its beauty stroke the child dumb. Even when she and the general had passed out the cherry blossom road she never spoke a word. Still with rapt face she gazed afar into the cheerful city, with eyes that saw visions trooping splendidly through the smiles on every adult and children's faces, and pets -- non-military ones. When three more miles had dropped away behind them the child had not spoken. She could keep silence, it was evident, as energetically as she could talk.

"The government had rented you a house in this area. Hello, are you hearing me?" Fedorov snapped his finger at Arina.

She came out of her reverie with a deep sigh and looked at him with the dreamy gaze of a soul that had been wondering afar, startled.

"Oh, general Fedorov," she whispered, "can I stay here forever and ever?"

"NO!" growled the general. His face easily went red hearing her ridiculous request. "DO NOT FORGET THE REASON WHY YOU'RE HERE!"

The reason why she was there, Arina kept thinking to herself -- she was there to spread the gloominess in her nation to these lovely parts of the world like a pandemic?

Thereupon she lost her dedication to her father. At one point Arina realized she didn't love her father as much as she used to. And without the brainwashing Orlas government beside her, she eventually came out to realize that her father...was in fact... no more than a dictator.

And her journey was supposed to end the moment the Kunugigaoka Science Lab ended her internship, but why did the Comrade Chairman decide to continue to let her stay in Japan was very suspicious. It was, after all, for the secret operation he had on his daughter years ago...

That was the sole reason.

Though Arina truly believed it was due to her father's love. She had always been.

***

One more week until the Junior High Figure Skating Championships. There will be many schools attending with their brightest participant. Ozawa Miku from class 2-B, despite hurting her back still had to participate in the short program nevertheless.

However, the chairman still hadn't announced to anyone that Arina Avenira was going to take part in the free program, not Miku, which, the students all ignored the championships this time knowing their school would lose anyway.

Why do they always lose and never had they had a single medal for the Figure Skating Championships? Well, it was something that had to do with the girl from their neighbor school -- Hidaka Mami -- the professional figure skater who competed internationally.

Even add more to the Kunugigaoka students' belief that they would never be able to claim the cup in this sport even for another ten years was that Mami had a weapon. A dangerous one, in particular, a triple Axel.

Until now, Arina couldn't even jump a triple Axel herself. It was odd since they said quads were harder to jump than triple Axel but she ended up finding quads easier and really admired those who can jump the triple Axel.

Unlike quads, the triple Axel was a common technical element in the men's singles discipline. Although for women skaters it was still fairly rare.  And those can who can jump it, including Hidaka Mami, were considered highly professional and skilled. Thus what did the Kunugigaoka students hope for then? Their male and pair skaters were also sucked compared to other schools. It was this one sport that they could never achieve any high ranks.

Meanwhile, Asano Gakushuu was still bothered about Arina's identity and the whole thing with the Kunugigaoka Science Lab as ever. He had gone too far sometimes just to enlighten the mystery but all his attempts were unfortunately in vain.

And finally! It was pure luck that one time while he was sneaking in, rummaging through the stuff in his father's room for any information about Arina that he...actually ran into one.

There was...no way, right? After all these times he spent, there was finally an answer to his wonder. And it was beyond what he could imagine.

His grip on the official personal files about Arina Avenira wasn't firm as he nearly drop them to the floor due to his extreme shock. He was too shocked to the point he couldn't even express in words how shocked he was at that moment, to learn that his hypothesis was a hundred percent CORRECT!

Arina Avenira WAS the infamous Alexei Avenir's daughter!! AND she was a part of the Belaya Posadka Front unit for years already served a role as a sniper and had officially graduated sniper school at the age of twelve was too beyond what Asano could have ever fathom as he quickly took pictures of the files' pages, placed the files back to where he found and retreated to his room. There he laid himself on his bed and thought about this crazy discovery even for days after.

'I knew it! I knew something was off since the beginning!' Asano told himself, gritting his teeth.

Things hadn't been the same between him and Arina. Actually, it was merely from his side. Now, whenever he looked at her there was a sense of guilt he felt for daring to cross the boundary with the dictator's daughter. Out of a sudden, Asano's nobility drove him to speak to Arina in a more respectful way as the foreign girl was left for confusion every time he did.

'Should I confront her or not?' he often contemplated to himself. Either what he chooses, Arina was too busy preparing her free program nowadays that she barely had any time for other things, even just for small talk with her friends.

"Jeez, I wonder what she's up to!" complained Seo for the third time already this week. "That girl is very suspicious!"

Indeed, everyone else also found Arina suspicious, but only Asano was the only one who was willing to sacrifice his time to unravel the truth around him. Although, this time Arina wasn't involved with any of those political things as opposed to what Asano initially thought.

The day of the Figure Skating Championships finally arrived, as not many of the Kunugigaoka students come to see it, sadly. Nonetheless, Asano and his minions still went to see it somehow, just to expand their social network...

And what a surprise to them that they will witness a history-made performance on that day. And to mark the day Asano Gakushuu officially surrender his heart to someone, unexpectedly, and called it quit with Lilliana Chadwick.