Minita is at the front of the classroom, “I hope you’ve all been training hard as the AAs are only a few days away, please remember to get a good night's sleep. We all need to meet here tomorrow, the journey isn’t too long but we could only get the bus at 6 pm so we will have a stayover in a small hotel, we’ll then take the bus over to where the tournament is being held. Please also remember all the other academies will be there so be responsible, friendly and above all remember you’re representatives of Titan academy, you’ve all been selected because we believe you have what it takes to be incredible heroes, remember that when you are fighting! Don’t forget to believe in yourselves”. Tatsuo raises his hand, “if the tournament is simulated why are we taking a bus to get there, can’t we just do it from here at the academy?”.

Minita replies “technically yes, however, it's a tradition to meet all the other students in person during the tournament, the tournament has been going for many years now and the simulations you all have today are very new technology, therefore we must respect tradition”. Kenikai whispers to Ryota. “Plus, if we go, there will be loads of cute girls from other schools”. Ryota’s nose begins to bleed and a devious smile comes across his face. Suddenly they both fall backwards off their chairs. Hiro sarcastically speaks “oops, I wonder what happened”. All the other students begin to laughs and Minita shouts to the class, “Ok that’s enough. To answer your comment yes, there will be other students from other schools, please remember you’re there for the tournament, don’t let other things distract you from the main reason you’re there. Alright, that’s it for school today, thank you guys and enjoy your evening”. Ryota and Kenikai get up and everyone else stands up and starts getting ready to leave.

Ryota and his family are at the dinner table, Shimamoto, Ryota’s grandmother addresses Ryota. “Hino I just wanted to wish you good luck on your journey tomorrow and throughout the competition”, Matsuzaki his grandfather continues “Yeah I’m sure you’ll do the Ryota name proud, especially since this is the first time a Ryota has entered the arenas”. Kiba and Kaba laugh “do we really think he’s going to do well? He can barely do anything useful, what are you going to do with a couple of magic tricks? Knowing Hino he will probably get knocked out in the first round”. “It’ll go something like this... and the coin was behind your ear all along, oh wait, I’m dead”. The girls begin laughing and Imamaru jumps in “girls be nice, I’m sure Hino will do great, and he will also be supportive of you guys if you ever decide to join an academy and do the arenas as well”. Ryota whispers to them “I’ll make sure to curse you both with a bad luck spell”.

Kiba points her finger at Ryota and hand signs a frog, suddenly Ryota burps out a frog onto the table and they both smile at him mockingly. Ryota pushes himself away from the table, “I hate you both” Suzuki jumps in “ok that’s enough children, Hino I’m sure you’ll do great bud, remember I’ll be there watching, as your mentor I’ll be supporting you the whole time”. Ryota smiles and then suddenly sneezes, when he looks in his hands he realises he has just sneezed out slugs. He looks over at Kaba who’s making the hand sign for a slug. He stands up and runs towards them, “that’s it I’m going to…” Imamaru points her finger at Ryota and then twirls her finger around in the air, suddenly loads of rope appears around him “alright, like you’ve already been told that’s enough”. Kiba and Kaba stick their tongues out at Ryota.

Around the same time at Shuichi’s house, Shuichi is just finishing dinner with his family and gets up to walk upstairs, his brother follows behind him “Hey little bro, I just wanted to wish you luck for the arenas coming up, I know one day you’re going to be super strong, but I thought maybe I could give you a little help, so I got you this” Shuichi takes the present and opens it up, inside is a beautiful sword, it has a black and red handle and the sword itself is also black, Shuichi picks it up and holds it, “Woah Hatanaka thank you for this but how could you afford it” he smiles “I picked up a side job working in a restaurant, my seed never activated and I never gained any power but I knew as soon as yours came you’d be incredible one day, I just wanted to be able to help you get there a little faster”. Shuichi replies “wow, thank you”.

Hatanaka points his thumb behind him. “Wanna give it a try outside”. Shuichi nods and they both head into the garden, Shuichi swings the sword around in a controlled manner and pauses for a second holding it in a defensive stance, “this feels incredible” suddenly a pop-up appears ‘new relic obtained, Sibling’s sword, divinity attached’. The sword begins to glow, ‘relic has been blessed, new relic obtained, Sibling’s sword supreme’. They both look at the sword and his brother looks amazed “Woah, I didn’t know you could do that” Shuichi looks at the sword “neither did I”. He swings it again, this time it makes an incredible sound as it slices through the air. “I don’t know how but my power has somehow made this sword stronger, I feel like I could cut a tree with a single swing”. Hatanaka smiles and crosses his arms. Shuichi sheathes his sword and bows to his brother, “thank you again, this present is more than I could ask for”. His brother bows back and they head inside. Shuichi starts to get ready for bed and begins brushing his teeth. He heads into his room and gets into bed. He turns off his light and goes to sleep.

Daisuke is in his home also brushing his teeth, suddenly the brush falls through his hand and into the sink. His mum walks past “is someone nervous for the tournaments?”. He spits out his toothpaste and replies “I’ve barely got control of my powers, what happens if we are all in a big team event and me messing up causes us all to get eliminated?”. His mum smiles “just remember at least your powers are working, from what you’ve told me and your father some of your classmates are struggling even more than you, just remember to learn to appreciate what you have and realise you are the only one who can say whether you can do it or not, just stay calm and use your training. I’m sure your powers will work perfectly when you need them to”. Daisuke smiles and his mum continues “now have a good night and don’t stay up too late”.

This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

Mizo and Yuka are sitting on a bus next to each other. Mizo turns to Yuka “so are you excited for the tournament to start”. Yuka nods. “And you, are you nervous at all?”. Mizo nods “a little but I’m actually just excited to see how much the training with Titan has paid off”. Yuka nods and then faces forward, for a while they sit in silence. After a little time has passed Yuka turns to Mizo “hey random question but, do you want to kiss me?” Mizo looks shocked and starts to blush “Urm yeah sure” they both lean in and prepare to kiss each other. Suddenly Mizo’s alarm goes off, she wakes up and sits up in her bed. She begins to blush. “Oh my, well I guess it was just a dream”. Yuka turns to her in bed and puts his arm over her. “Good morning beautiful, what was just a dream”. Mizo again wakes up in bed with the alarm clock ringing, she hits the alarm clock and turns around in her bed to see that it is empty. She sighs heavily and falls back into bed.

Later that day all the students begin arriving at the school, they all slowly start to get on the minibus. Mizo goes up the steps to get onto the bus, when she looks in she sees the only free seat is next to Yuka. She awkwardly walks over and sits next to him, they both sit there silently and Mizo begins to blush. Yuka turns to her “are you excited for the tournament as well, with your power you’re sure to do great”. She sits there in silence for a second then pinches herself. She nods, smiles and turns to reply to Yuka “Yes I’m very excited thank you for asking, I hope I do well but I’m sure you’re going to do great also”. For a second they continue to stare at each other without saying a word before quickly realising what was happening, they both quickly turn away from each other, smile and begin to blush.

Etsuko is sitting behind and is making 2 small stones twirl in a circle just above her hand, Daisuke leans over the chair from behind “looking good Etsuko, don’t worry we are going to great tomorrow, I’m sure Minata Sensei will be proud of us no matter what, as will all our friends and family. Oh,you’ve got a hair let me get that for you”. He reaches over and moves the hair from her mouth and tucks it behind her ear. She looks at Daisuke for a few seconds and begins to blush, as she does she losses concentration and both of the rocks fire at him, one passes through but the other hits him on the head “Ouch”. She panics and begins to flail around before freezing and looking at him awkwardly, “I’m sorry Daisuke, I didn’t mean to do that”. He smiles and begins to laugh, “it’s ok I know, just remember though if we have to go against each other in the tournament, I’ll finally get to pay you back for all the times you took my head off in training”. He smiles and sits back. Hiro, who is sitting next to Etsuko, leans against the window, rolls her eyes and whispers to herself, “boys”.

Kenikai is writing in his book, he overhears Ryota muttering to himself. He turns to him and sees he is meditating. “What are you doing?” asks Kenikai. Ryota opens his eyes “I’m trying to focus on the magic essence and convert it into magic power to use for spells, to do that I need to chant the incantation, right now I’m working on some LVL 1 spells, hopefully, I can activate some today before the tournaments begin tomorrow.” He shuts his eyes again and goes back to muttering under his breath. Kenikai looks confused “hold on why are you chanting incantations, when your dad did his demonstration, he didn’t need to say anything he just used some hand signs” Ryota opens his eyes and turns to Kenikai “To be able to use a spell, first we need to activate it, the first time we use a spell we need to chant the incantation, if it activates it will then be usable through hand signs without having to say the incantation, if it doesn’t work and doesn’t activate I need to continue trying until it does.” He shuts his eyes again and continues chanting. Kenikai nods and watches Ryota. “So urm, are you going to do something cool or…”. Ryota opens one eye and glares at him. “Please shut up, im trying to concentrate”. Kenikai snickers to himself.

Minita is seen in the front seat with Hotaka. She speaks to him quietly “I’m worried”. Hotaka looks confused and replies “About what?”. “I don’t think they know what they are getting into, there are going to be other students there who may have already mastered their abilities, I’m just worried they’re not prepared for how tough the competition may be”. “Well there are only 2 things that can happen, either they get knocked out very quickly and will learn from the experience, realising they have a way to go and therefore need to train harder, or they will surprise you and do well, in that instance you have nothing to worry about”. She smiles and nods. “True,plus some of them have come a long way, I’m sure they’ll do great, what’s the worse that could happen”. Yuka and Mizo continue to sit in silence. He goes to speak to Mizo then stops and faces forward, Mizo looks at him and then returns facing forward. Again he turns to face her “so urm… did you… sleep well?”. Mizo turns completely red and replies without looking at him “Yep.” Yuka nods his head and they continue to sit in silence.

At the end of the journey the bus begins to pull up to a motel, all the students get off and Minita gathers everyone together. “ok please can you all wait here for me, we’re going to go get checked in and get the keys, don’t forget to get your bags off the bus”. Minita and Hotaka go into the reception and speak to the receptionist. Outside a group of people are standing in a shadow, one of them shouts out “So this is the famous Titan Academy, the worlds number one hero has a chance to pick 10 incredible students and yet he chose you lot, looks like he’s worried about how strong the new generation are and that one day they might steal his fame and glory so he decided to choose and train a bunch of weaklings” the group of people start to laugh. Yuka shouts back “Hey, who the hell are you guys?”. a group of 10 students dressed in a different school uniform begin to walk out of the shadows, the person who spoke earlier continues, “who are we, we’re ONI academy, the number one academy in all of Japan, aren’t you the kid that wrecked the evaluation centre and got rejected from our academy, looks like you’re not the only reject in your school, in fact from the looks of it, you guys don’t stand a chance tomorrow”.

Yuka goes to step forward but Shuichi stops him and steps forward instead “Hi we’ve not met before, I’m the class captain Shuichi Ogaru” the other student replies “sorry, am I supposed to care?”. Shuichi continues “Please don’t worry. We’re not here to cause any trouble or to try and take away your number 1 academy title, we’re just here to join in the tournament and try to learn about our powers together, maybe we can all help each other improve”. The students laugh “See that right there is why you’ll be knocked out in the first round, a tournament is a test of skill, and from the looks of it you guys don’t have any, so… I won’t worry. This tournament will prove who has what it takes to become a hero, that’s the reason we’re all here. Don’t even bother coming tomorrow because you all clearly don’t have what it takes”. The students leave. Hiro speaks to the group “Well they suck”.