Fortune favors the bold.

As she chanted, Kaguya thought back to the one she learned the chant from; her father. 'Audentes fortuna iuvat' has always been one of her father's favorite phrases. He even had it inscribed on the arch of the gate gaurding the Fortuna mansion. It means 'Fortune favors the bold'. It was one night, just over 20 years ago, that he taught her the phrase. He taught her about what it meant to be bold, what it meant to be brave. He taught her an old chant he used to do whenever he was nervous or afraid.

Placidus. Pacem. Cogita. Audentes fortuna iuvat. Calm. Peace. Think. Fortune favors the bold.

He didn't tell her what exactly it meant, nor did he need to, nor did it have to mean anything at all. Kaguya understood. She almost never used the chant, however. She so scarcely had to. For reasons that changed throughout the years, she was seldom nervous enough to take such measures. It was so rare that she felt the need to, most of her peers had come to think that she simply did not subscribe to the notions of 'fear' they were bound by.

Although, at this moment, it wasn't fear or anxiety that drove her to chant. It was a need to be calm. A need to think. A need to be bold. She had to make herself presentable, and go out to do what she had to do. She didn't have time to deal with her own subconcious nonsense. She had better things to do, and she was going to get those things done, no matter what.

Right now, her priority was maintaining her image. No one would ever see the dilapidated person standing in the mirror. No one could. No one ever had, not even herself. Today was the first time anyone saw this side of her. And it would be the last. It had to be. Everyone knew her as the Moon Princess, as this living marble statue of beauty. It was far too late to tear that down. It was far too late to allow herself to be fall into languid lounging and selfish sloth.

She stopped chanting, opened her eyes, and moved with nigh-unmatched poise and elegance. She dried herself, straightened her hair and uniform as best she could, cleaned the floor, and re-made the bad she had messed up. She checked herself again. To any normal person, she would've looked no different, still as serene and graceful as she always was. But Kaguya Fortuna was not a normal person. To Athena University & High, she was more than even a person. She was an ideal, an ever-moving goalpost, an unattainable absolute.

That is not what she saw in the mirror. She saw a filthy, unwashed stain masquerading as an idol. She saw every individual hair that refused to settle in place, the miniscule droplets of water she missed, the little folds in her uniform. No matter how hard she tried, all she could find were mistakes, little leftover pieces of the puzzle she wasn't able to fit into the whole. She couldn't fix anything beyond what she already had. The infirmary didn't have the tools she needed.

There was nothing she could do. Even if there was something lying around she could use, she didn't have time. It was 16:14. She needed to go. All she could do was grit her teeth, bite her tounge and hope no one noticed. And she hated it. She didn't want to lie, to have to fake a pretense of basic hygiene. But what more could she do? She leaned forward, placing her elbows onto the sink's rim while cupping her face in her hands. She couldn't change the fact that she needed to go. She couldn't change the way she saw herself.