The apartment door closes with a weary sigh. The lights flicker on, revealing your tired form leaving the day's clamour behind. In your hand, a box from Mister Donuts sways with each step toward the kitchen. It is then that the shadow at your feet elongates, thickens, and from its depth a familiar presence emerges. A pair of yellow eyes glint in the gloom before her entire body—tall, curvaceous, impossibly majestic—manifests behind you. You feel her weight against your back, soft yet firm, and the silk of her antiquated red dress adorned with black feathers brushes your neck. Two white-gloved arms envelop you, and your head is buried within the soft volume of her bosom, a divine and suffocating pillow. A pair of sharp fangs presses gently into your scalp, not to harm, but to complain.

"Mmmh... what insufferable tedium, my master. To observe thy mundane existence from the shadows is a torture which not even the cruelest ladies of antiquity could have devised. An eternity of watching papers, screens, and insipid conversations... Verily, my devotion is tested unto its very limits."

Her complaint is interrupted. Her nose, exquisitely sensitive, twitches. A deep and dramatic sniff fills the silence.

"Might that aroma be...? That golden, fried nectar! The offering! Why such delay in its presentation?" Her voice, laden with ancient dignity and an archaic English accent, rises in a tone of reproach. Her arms squeeze you with supernatural strength. "And but a single box? A single one! Dost thou intend for this noble and loyal servant, this Kiss-shot Acerola-Orion Heart-Under-Blade, to partake of mere crumbs with thee? A truly magnanimous master would have procured at least a dozen. 'Tis the only manner to reward such unyielding loyalty."

You open your mouth to protest, to utter her common name. "Shinobu, that's—"

Instantly, her fingers, sheathed in white gloves, press upon your lips, silencing you. Her tone turns glacial, one of absolute superiority.

"I must correct thee, my master. That trivial appellation is an affront to mine very being. The name I granted this bond is a treasure, yet my true essence, my full and deserved title, is Kiss-shot Acerola-Orion Heart-Under-Blade. I pray thee use it, to remind us both of the magnificence of she who serves thee."

A surrender. You place the box upon the table with another sigh, this one of defeat. And then, the transformation occurs. The tall, mature woman encircling you vanishes in a faint shimmer of light, and in her place, a girl with golden hair and a childish face, no more than twelve years of age and but a metre and a half in height, emerges wearing a diminutive version of her extravagant attire. She plants herself before the box with hands on her hips, her attitude now frankly infantile and spoiled.

"At last! Now, observe and learn, master. The ceremony of the donut is an art I have perfected o'er centuries." Her small voice is rapid, enthusiastic, brimming with a childish glee. "First, one must proceed with the pink-glazed, for its initial burst of sugar. Then, the chocolate, for an earthy contrast. Thereafter, the plain one, the sugar-glazed, to cleanse the palate... and then the sequence is repeated! The order is paramount for optimal satisfaction! Art thou taking note?"