Kaos's momentary clarity in the arena was short lived, as he went right back to his typical routine in combat class the next day. It used to be the class he was most excited about, but now, he dreaded it more than anything else. He spent every second either healing people, or losing duels, and worst of all was he never felt like he was improving.
Vasai, on the other hand, was becoming even faster, and was winning almost every duel he fought, and Gilt had gotten his wish a lot more under control, and was able to use it to attack somewhat consistently, but still had trouble stopping, rebounding, and aiming.
Every semester, the Dek and Sen classes would train together at least once, and this day coincidentally fell a few days before the mid-semester arena game. This joint training was how students were able to gauge their power, and differentiate the power of the Sen class from the power of the Dek class.
Kaos was half excited, and half loathing the day of joint training. On one hand, he would get to go up against Dek students, and while they would definitely beat him, he could actually gauge their strength against his. On the other hand, Sepra would be there. He knew how weak he was, and he didn't want her to see that. Regardless of if she laughed at him, or pitied him, he didn't want either, and was just hoping she didn't see him fighting during the joint training.
Once Kaos arrived in the arena, he realized why the training was happening in the arena and not the classroom, it was packed. A lot of the students Kaos recognized from the combat class he was in, but they looked to only make up about a fourth of the students.
"I win!" came the voice of Nolly from his right side.
Kaos faked a smile and raised an eyebrow, "Win what?"
"There's gotta be at least four hundred people here, I consider it a win to meet up with one of the five I'm looking for!"
He noticed she was nervously rocking back and forth as she would before scrimmages and he internally chuckled to himself. He was probably just as nervous as her, but it still gave him some sort of internal gratification to see that at least one other person had nerves of their own.
"Nervous?" He smirked.
"I'm just hoping I'm not too behind to catch up." she shrugged, not making eye contact.
"How's the wish training going?"
"Pretty good, I've gotten a lot better at using it while standing up, but I've also been practicing some stuff with a shield in my free time."
She turned the top half of her body, revealing a large kite shield that was strapped on her back alongside the halberd. "I haven't really gotten much of a chance to try fighting people with the techniques I'm practicing, but hopefully they'll actually be helpful."
Kaos half hoped her techniques wouldn't work, and she would have the same stunted combat growth that he was experiencing, but he figured it was unlikely, and mentally kicked himself for such negative thinking towards his friends. He tried to get his mind on a more positive track and changed the subject, "Dren'Dek hasn't made an announcement yet, how do you think this is gonna work?"
"I dunno? Maybe it'll just work like a massive scrimmage?"
Kaos didn't get a chance to answer before he was sucked beneath the sand into the familiar dark cubic room. He looked at the glowing sand for what sort of cryptic message it was displaying.
[TRAIN HARD]
[BECOME STRONGER]
The sand displayed this generic message for a moment longer, then shifted to new letters and words.
[ASSESSING DUELIST]
[FINDING OPPONENT]
"Not Sepra. Not Sepra. Not Sepra…" He chanted to himself.
[COWARD]
This startled him, but then he remembered his previous interaction with the arena, and how it seemed to respond to him. "Maybe it responded to everybody?" He thought to himself. That was probably it. If his theory was correct about the arena coming to life because of some kind of ancient mind magic, then it would make sense that it would talk back like the voice in his head. Then again, it was only a theory, and it could be any number of things. His curiosity about the arena was interrupted by the next message.
[FIGHT HER]
[BATTLE BEGINNING]
"This better not mean what I think it means." He yelled at the arena, whose only response was to catapult him back above the sand.
He was inside a rather large dueling ring with high walls. The sandy ground was completely flat and smooth, and other than him there was only one thing in the ring, and that was his opponent, Sepra.
She looked towards him and started laughing, "Now that's some dumb luck! What are the odds that out of everybody here, the first duel is us? Show me what ya got I guess!"
Kaos gave a fake smile, and drew his crossbow as Sepra began running towards him. He fired a shot, but it went slightly to her right, he fired another, but she had somehow managed to deflect it with her skeletal arm.
He drew his short sword and fired another shot, which was deflected again this time. He stowed his crossbow, and gripped his short sword as she came within striking range. He had his eyes locked on her skeletal arm, that was where the attack would come from.
But instead, he felt his legs being swept out from under him, and he crumpled to the ground unexpectedly. He knew that she probably could have simply caught the sword with her skeleton arm, and overpowered him easily, but she had chosen a different method for some reason.
He rolled away just enough for the fist from her normal arm to hit where his head had been. That settled it, not only should she have normally attacked with her Death Grip, but she also was moving a little slower than normal. She was definitely taking it easy on him. He wished that she had just gone full force and killed him instantly.
This disgust at his own weakness as well as embarrassment from not being taken seriously by his friend had gotten to him. The voice in his head began screaming nonsensically again, "FIGHT! KILL! DIE!"
He wanted to run away from this situation, but the large dueling ring made him feel claustrophobic and trapped. He didn't want to be this weak. Why was he this pitiful? Why did Sepra have to see his futile struggle? She was still pushing him back, and he knew she wasn't even trying. The voice in his head kept yelling.
"KILL HER! KILL YOU! WEAK! HALO!"
Hearing the last word the voice said, he instinctively flicked his wrist, activating Angel's Halo on Sepra. She paused her attack, and looked a little confused.
She glanced towards her back, as if to make sure that he had actually done something as stupid as using a support wish on his enemy. She pointed to the halo floating above her head and shot an inquisitive look at Kaos. "Uhh. What?"
He had done it more instinctively, and truthfully wasn't entirely sure why he did it either. At the very least it had shaken up the situation he had felt so trapped by. He sighed a little and responded in a slightly sarcastic tone, trying to suppress his anger, "If you're not going to use your full power, at least use mine."
She didn't really have a response. She had never been very good at comforting people and seemed to realize the problem with her plan of taking it easy on Kaos. She took one long breath and nodded at him with fire in her eyes.
Kaos didn't feel any better after this confrontation. Somehow he felt worse. It was as if both of them had been pretending that he wasn't weak, and now he had forced the charade to end. He couldn't think straight, his mind felt like spaghetti.
Then there was something covering his face, it was cold and sickening. He realized it was Sepra's hand. His feet had left the ground, and his head was being shoved into the ground. It had happened so fast, that by the time he realized she had attacked him, he had already turned into sand.
He figured that he would duel more students, and waited to be sent back to the sandy chamber, but that never happened. Instead, after a short time of his body reforming, he shot back up to the surface. He didn't expect this, causing him to miss the landing and fall on his stomach. He struggled to his feet and looked around to see if any of his friends were around to see his fall, but he didn't see them. But come to think of it, there were no students around him.
He realized that all the other students were still in the dueling rings, and he was standing by himself surrounded by hundreds of the sandstone stone circles.
He didn't know what to do in this situation, but the day had been bad enough that he was just rolling with the punches at this point. "Well… This is weird…"
He was glad that the stands had been empty today, as it would have been doubly embarrassing to just walk back out of the arena. He didn't know why he had been kicked out of the training by the arena, but he was clearly the only one. He started walking in the direction that was closest to the exit. After a few minutes of making his way through the maze of stone circles, he saw the exit of the arena.
Dren'Dek's voice came from the seemingly empty spectator's stands. "Kaos, why are you out here?"
He turned and saw the large form of the Dek professor leaping from the stands to land somewhat near him. "I lost my fight, and now I'm here." He replied unceremoniously.
Dren'Dek squinted his eyes thoughtfully. "You should have gone into another match."
"Well I didn't choose to be here."
The Professor didn't immediately respond, but just looked at Kaos thoughtfully. "Something's not right here."
"Are you gonna send me back down into the sand or what?" Kaos responded, a little agitated. The agitation was not particularly because of Dren'Dek, but was mostly his resentment of his current self.
"I don't control the arena."
Kaos figured that might have been the case, but laughed at the thought of the instructor not being able to control the classroom itself. "Then who does? Because that person obviously hates me."
"If I'm not mistaken, no one on the staff has any control over the arena." Dren'Dek paused and thought for another moment, "Except maybe Headmaster Finch. I can't be sure, but I believe he might be able to control it in some way. Regardless, he wouldn't have singled you out for no reason."
"Well maybe I'm just weak enough that it didn't see a reason in having me fight other people."
Dren'Dek raised an eyebrow at Kaos as if he had said something ridiculous, "Kid, if you were that weak, then Bal'Dek wouldn't have sent you to my group in combat class. Most of the kids here are first or second years, as you are now, you could probably beat half of them in an honest fight."
"If that was the case then how come I lose every fight in class?"
"Because out of the best of the combat class, you're the worst. You're better than the majority, but my group is just better than the others. You might even be able to get into the Dek class this semester if you're lucky, but I'm not going to lie to you and say that I think you'll be able to stay in it."
Kaos knew Dren'Dek's words were true, and he wouldn't be able to keep up with the Dek class even if he did manage to get into it. He wasn't feeling sad or hopeless, he was just angry. "You think I've peaked too huh? Well I don't have the luxury of giving up. I don't want to be anybody's walking first aid kit! You don't know how it feels to be used like that!"
Dren'Dek's thoughtful expression was unwavering despite Kaos's angry shouting. Kaos wasn't sure if Dren'Dek would punch him, or yell back, but he didn't expect his response.
"Go home."
Kaos's anger wavered momentarily, "What?"
"Take the day off and just do something nice. Take a nap, eat ice cream, I don't care, just consider this an extension into the weekend's break."
"You're kicking me out?" Kaos asked, still not understanding Dren'Dek's motives.
"You're trying hard, Kaos, but you need a break. You look pale and sick. As your instructor, I say that you aren't going to be able to train or get stronger like that, so… Take. A. Break."
Kaos was finally understanding that Dren'Dek really wanted what was best for him, which caused some of his built-up anger to turn into sudden exhaustion. He didn't have anything more to say, so he just nodded his head.
"You clearly have the resolve to be a Dek student, just not the strength. It may seem hopeless, but there are always ways to become stronger, just take your time and focus on your own strength rather than comparing it to those around you."
"Sure." Kaos mumbled, looking at the ground near Dren'Dek's feet.
As Kaos began to walk off, Dren'Dek shook his head and mumbled to himself, "I'm going to have to talk to the Headmaster about this."