"You're off to training already?" Isabella asked as she was brushing her teeth.
"There's a lot I have to learn and I'm afraid I won't have enough time," Yamikuro replied while putting on his shoes.
"I see, well good luck with it. Don't forget we'll have to meet up with everyone at noon," Isabella said.
"I know, I won't forget," Yamikuro replied.
Yamikuro left off to train and soon after the others, Isabella, Kaminari, Deia and Cedar went to train as well.
After a rather few short hours, it was noon and they all met up in the school building.
"As all of you know, there's exactly three weeks until the exams begin," Kazuhiko said.
"We're aware," Kaminari replied.
"Alright, it's tough for me to train and prepare all of you for the exams at the same time, however I'm not going to do what most teachers are and hire professionals for each of their students. I'll try my best to make you the best you can be," Kazuhiko smiled.
"Is it because you don't want to spend money or...?" Isabella said satirically.
"No it's nothing like that, I've had studends before you guys and they've all passed after I helped them train," Kazuhiko replied.
"How much are we able to get stronger in just 3 weeks?" Cedar wanted to know.
"This will be up to you, depending how motivated you are," Kazuhiko replied proudly.
"We're starting tomorrow I assume," Yamikuro said
"Today. We're starting training right after this meeting," Kazuhiko replied.
"What?!" Kaminari yelled out loud.
"You want to pass right?" Kazuhiko said with a serious tone.
"I do want to pass but training too much can be harmful, right?" Kaminari replied while looking around.
"Don't give me those excuses, wasn't it your life goal to get strong?" Kazuhiko crossed his arms.
"You're right... If you can really teach us something you haven't already then I'm willing to give it my all," Kaminari also got serious.
"Let's go then," Yamikuro said.
They all walked to a building and when they entered there didn't seem to be much in it until they went to the basement floor. In there they saw multiple massive obstacle courses.
"I'm not sure if you already know this but for round one of the exams you'll be paired up with someone. That person may be one of you or someone you've never met," Kazuhiko started, "But there's currently five of us which means between some of these practices, one of you gets to rest."
"But we already know each other, how will that help when we'll be paired up with a random," Kaminari questioned.
"But have you all gone through obstacles together and combining your powers to get through these?" Kazuhiko said while thinking on who to pair up.
"Well... No..." Kaminari didn't know how to respond.
"Alright, up first we have Yamikuro and Kaminari paired up, and Isabella and Deia paired up. Cedar you get to sit this one out," Kazuhiko said in a loud voice.
"This is going to be easy," Kaminari looked at Yamikuro.
"If we get paired up, no one stands a chance against us," Yamikuro replied while stretching his arms.
"Are you ready Deia?" Isabella asked while smiling.
"I'm ready," Deia replied.
"Alright everyone, as you can see there's two different courses. Yamikuro and Kaminari you take the left one. Isabella and Deia you take the right one," Kazuhiko prepared them.
"Let's go, Yamikuro," Kaminari said as he was getting ready to start.
"Yeah," Yamikuro charged up his powers.
"Go!" Kazuhiko yelled.
Yamikuro got through the first obstacle, where they had to jump from wall to wall without falling in water, without a problem.
Kaminari almost slipped but got through without really struggling.
Isabella and Deia also got through without struggling too much.
The next part of this course was avoiding swinging obstacles.
Kaminari went first, dodging all of them and his movements were smooth. Yamikuro followed him after Kaminari reached the end of that part but Yamikuro's movements weren't as smooth, he almost got hit while trying to run around one of the swinging obstacles.
"You need to be more careful, if you got knocked down here, we would've gotten disqualified," Kaminari pointed out.
"That was my bad, I'm not used to moving so fast," Yamikuro replied.
On the other course, Isabella got through it without a problem, like Kaminari. Deia was hesitant at first and took her time but also passed without any issues.
"Wall climbing?" Isabella said out loud.
"It seems so, It's quite tall I'm not sure I can do it," Deia got nervous.
"Just follow me, you'll be fine," Isabella smiled at her.
Kaminari charged up with electricity and jumped up, he seemed to disappear for a second until he grabbed onto the ledge of the wall.
"Woah... I didn't know you could do that," Yamikuro said.
"What? I can't hear you!" Kaminari yelled to Yamikuro
Yamikuro didn't say anything, instead he started looking for ways to climb the wall. He saw a path that he could use so he started climbing.
Isabella and Deia were also climbing up at their own pace.
Eventually they all reached the top and went down to the other side of the wall.
Suddenly a thick wall came up from the ground.
"What is this?" Yamikuro asked.
"Seems to be a wall," Kaminari replied.
"Obviously it's a wall but what do we have to do with it?" Yamikuro was disappointed in Kaminari.
They both looked at what Isabella and Deia were doing.
"We'll probably have to destroy it," Isabella said.
"My powers aren't that good for destroying," Deia said to her.
"Mine aren't good for destroying a wall like this either, I don't even have my sword with me right now, but we have to try," Isabella replied.
"Alright," Deia said and created wind around her hands.
Isabella's hand turned into fire and she punched the wall and created a few cracks. Deia put her hands in front of her and managed to create wind so strong that it destroyed the wall.
"See? I told you we could do it," Isabella said as she started running to the finish line.
"So we just have to destroy it?" Yamikuro said and was ready to punch the wall.
Kaminari nodded and was ready to do the same. They both punched it at the same time and it flew to pieces. They then ran to the finish line and were a few seconds behind Deia and Isabella.
"Good job everyone!" Kazuhiko clapped.
"Now, let's switch the teams and do the same thing again," Kazuhiko said.
"There didn't seem to be much team work going on here," Cedar said to him.
"The courses are randomly generated after each use so they just ended up with a course that didn't require that much team work," Kazuhiko mentioned as he pressed a button that switched the course.
They switch teams so that everyone was able to go through it with each other and after that it was already dark outside.
"Good job everyone," Kazuhiko smiled, "We'll continue tomorrow where you'll have to face off against me."
"Can't wait," Kaminari said.
The next day arrived and they showed up at the same place they were yesterday but there weren't any courses, instead it was Kazuhiko standing in the middle of the room.
"Good morning everyone. I'm yet again pairing you up randomly and we'll go through every pair possible," Kazuhiko greeted them.
"Fine, who's up first?" Yamikuro asked.
"You and Isabella will be facing off against me first," Kazuhiko hinted at them to come forward.
"I brought my sword this time so it should be easy, Yamikuro," Isabella charged it up with fire.
"I haven't seen you use it yet so this is going to be interesting," Yamikuro looked at her amazed.
"Let's begin!" Kazuhiko yelled out loud.
They both ran towards him. Isabella tried to swing her sword at Kazuhiko but he crouched down, grabbed her arm and kicked down Yamikuro who was trying to attack him from the other side.
Kazuhiko then jumped backwards to make some distance between them.
"Just attacking him won't work, we need to come up with a plan," Isabella said.
Yamikuro whispered something to Isabella and she nodded back at him.
Isabella started running towards Kazuhiko and tried to send fire attacks towards him which Kazuhiko blocked holding his hand in front of him that created a water wall.
Yamikuro was running towards him from the other side but as he was running he sped up and ran behind Kazuhiko.
Yamikuro sent a wave of darkness towards Kazuhiko which made him feel paralyzed. After that Isabella ran towards Kazuhiko, holding her sword in front of his face.
"You guys did good. Especially you, Yamikuro, your powers exceeded even my expectations," Kazuhiko praised them when the paralyzed effect wore off after a few seconds.
"Okay, up next Cedar and Kaminari, come forward," Kazuhiko said.
They spent the rest of the day fighting against Kazuhiko and eventually that time turned into weeks and the exams were about to begin.