Humiliated

Kai watched on curiously as the fight started. He'd never seen Emma fight, let alone Jax, so he had no idea who would win. Jax did say he wanted to be a control system spirit master, possibly giving him an advantage depending on his first spirit ring. As he was thinking to himself, Emma made the first move.

She dashed forward with frightening speed, the green glow coming from the mist tracking Jax's body as she circled around him. Jax simply stood in his place, unmoving and uncaring. Not even bothering to try and track her.

Emma suddenly lashed out, clawing at Jax's back, the mist serpent surrounding her looking as though it was lunging at him. Jax jumped forward, narrowly dodging Emma's claws. The Mist Serpent continued further, however, biting into his shoulder, and drawing blood.

Jax frowned after being struck by the unexpected attack. From that attack he realized Emma's Martial spirit wasn't normal, it had mutated. He raised his hands towards Emma, who swiftly backed off unsure of what he was doing.

A yellow ring appeared behind him as the blood puppet shuttered, creating a rattling sound. Kai looked on curiously, unsure of exactly what Jax's first spirit ability was. He shifted his gaze to Emma, wondering if it had affected her secretly, but she seemed unfazed and just as confused as him.

Kai's eyes widened after a moment. He couldn't see what the spirit rings ability was, but he could hear it ever so slightly.

"Do you know what his Spirit Ring does?" Sam asked from the side after seeing Kai's change in expression.

"Not exactly, but his hearts beating much faster forcing his blood to circulate at a faster pace. I have no idea what benefits that has though" The teacher and a couple of the other students looked over surprised, wondering how he could of possibly known.

"How did you…" Sam paused for a moment, realizing something. "Can you hear it?"

Kai nodded.

"Freaky" Sam mumbled. Kai remained silent, interested in what would happen next.

Seeing that nothing had happened after Jax had activated his Spriti Ability, Emma didn't want to take any chances and activated her own. A large amount of mist began forming around her, slowly shrouding the field in a thick fog.

"What a strong spirit ability" one of the other classmates commented. Being able to take away a sense as important as sight like that was an incredible spriti ability, especially for their first spirit ring. Assuming that Emma could still function normally in the fog, she would be like an invisible assassin, striking however and wherever she wanted.

Kai maintained his spirit ears, able to perceive the two through the fog. Sadly he was unable to see Jax's expression, only the movements of the body. Jax however didn't move, and since his heartbeat had been increased from his Spirit Ring Kai had no idea if Jax was panicking or not.

Once the fog had surrounded the field Emma finally made her move, dashing forward much faster than before. It seemed that aside from obscuring the enemy's vision it also increased her speed.

"Incredible…" Kai whispered after witnessing how fast she had become within the fog. Sam confusedly looked towards Kai, wondering what had prompted that reaction.

"He can 'see' with his ears" Ashe explained, causing Sam's eyebrows to shoot up in surprise.

"Spirit ears are that strong?" he asked.

"He awakened with innate full spirit power" Ashe explained, shaking her head. "I wouldn't be surprised if his ears were stronger than the average Spirit Ears."

Sam glanced back towards Kai with a complicated gaze. He never expected the pretty boy he had teased and befriended would turn out to be so talented. He thought back to what Miss Alice had said earlier in the day.

'This truly is a class of Elites.'

…

Inside the fog Emma dashed forward, the Mist Serpent surrounding her had grown slightly within the fog, increasing her speed. The ran circles around Jax, waiting to see how he would react. After a minute or two though she frowned, the Mist Serpent helped lighten her steps making her tougher to hear and yet Jax seemed to follow her throughout the fog. His head constantly turning, as if watching her.

Emma decided to attack, her Spirit Power was being consumed in order to sustain the fog. She quickly ran around to one of Jax and jumped out, clawing at him before he had a chance to turn around. Jax deftly moved out of the dodging her claw. The Serpent struck out again towards the direction he dodged, however Jax reacted quickly and leaned to the side and narrowly dodging the Serpent's bite.

Emma paused for a moment, surprised that Jax was able to dodge that strike. In that moment Jax struck, landing a clean punch on her face. Emma rolled back teary eyed as her nose began to bleed, the fog slowly dissipating. She got up from the ground and opened her mouth to surrender.

"I surre-!" but before she could finish, Jax had punched out again, this time striking her in the stomach.

Emma crumpled to the ground gasping, chocking back her tears. Jax now stopped his attack, standing silently above her, his spirit ring and Martial Spirit slowly disappearing.

…

Kai had his fist clenched tightly as the fog disappeared, revealing Jax standing above the bleeding and crying Emma. The teacher approached the two, checking Emma to make sure she wasn't seriously injured. Seeing she was just winded, Alice gave her some tissues for the blood.

"Jax wins!" the teacher announced. The class remained silent, clearly unhappy that the arrogant Jax had not only won, but also hit one of their classmates to the point of tears.

Miss Alice simply shook her head seeing the class reaction, to think that Jax had already become so unpopular.

"Does anyone else want to fight?" she asked to class. Ashe immediately opened her mouth, ready to challenge Jax, but was stopped by Kai. He was furious. Others might not have known, but he could hear everything in the fog. Especially when Jax still hit Emma when she was surrendering. Everything Jax did reminded him of the Draken Clan bully, Draven.

"I'll do it!" He called out, causing the teacher to raise her brows. She was hoping Sam would step up, at least his martial soul was fighting oriented. However, she stayed silent and simply glanced at Jax.

"That's fine" Jax said, moving to where he had started the fight before. Kai jogged onto the field and helped Emma to her feet before getting into position.

The two quickly activated their Martial Spirits in preparation for the battle. The bloody puppet appearing behind Jax as Kai simply closed his eyes and activated his first Spirit Ability 'Nature's Lull', the yellow ring appearing behind him.

…

Jax warily activated his first spirit ability in response, waiting for the teacher to announce the beginning of the fight.

Before Jax heard anything Kai ran forward throwing a punch towards his face, catching him off guard. Barely dodging the punch intime, he looked towards the teacher in confusion only to see her hand had dropped and indicating the fight had started.

'I didn't hear it?' he thought to himself. 'Could is first spirit ability be-'

"Jax!" Before he could finish his thoughts, he heard the teacher shout his name from behind, making him pause for a moment in confusion. In this moment Kai swept his feet, causing him to tumble to the ground.

Jax quickly rolled away, creating some distance between him and Kai. He slowly got back to his feet, watching Kai cautiously. Suddenly he heard multiple people shouting, as though they were right next to him. He cringed in pain and raised his hands to his hears, trying to dampen the noise.

'I surrender!'

"Aaaaaggh" Jax suddenly froze hearing the scream. He had tried to surrender, he could've sworn that's what he said, it was as though he had simply mouthed the words. Looking back towards Kai, he was greeted with a fist swiftly crashing into his face.

He lay on the ground, hands still on his ears as he squirmed in pain from the shouting. He suddenly saw Kai stand above him, staring down his spirit ring slowly dissipating. The shouting was soon replaced by the confused chatter of the class. Soon he heard his teacher's voice.

"Kai wins!"

…

The entire class was confused while watching the fight, it had just ended too suddenly and strangely. First, Jax hadn't reacted at all at the start of the fight. In fact, they could have sworn they saw confusion on Jax's face when Kai charged over, as though he wasn't expecting to fight.

Furthermore, instead of fighting back when Kai came close Jax just stood there and let Kai sweep him. It was as though he was just letting Kai beat him up. The class just assumed that Kai had used his first Spirit Ability to stun Jax temporarily.

They had become worried when Jax rolled away, seemingly gaining back control from whatever spirit ability Kai had used. However, this didn't seem to matter as Jax suddenly fell to his knees with his hands to his ears. He just sat their writhing on the ground in pain, the Teacher just watched on without the intent to step in just yet.

Kai slowly walked towards him as Jax suddenly let out a guttural scream, shocking the class. The teacher rushed over to stop the fight, realizing something was wrong. But before she could stop them Kai landed a punch square center on Jax's face. Kai just stood there silently, staring down at Jax as he released his spirit ability.

Checking the condition of Jax and realizing he was fine, Alice simply sighed before announcing the result of the match causing the class to erupt into chatter.

"Kai wins!"

…

Kai made his way back to where Sam and Ashe had been standing before but realized that Ashe and Emma weren't there.

"Looking for your princess, oh noble knight?" Sam's voice entered his ears, ridiculing him.

"Just disappointed the only person here was the Jester" Kai clapped back, unwilling to be teased. "And I didn't fight him for her, he just reminded me of someone I hate!"

Sam chuckled slightly, raising his eyebrows skeptically.

"Are you sure that's the only reason?" Sam came closer, wrapping one of his arms around Kai's shoulder before continuing. "Are you sure its not because you're in looo- "

Kai swiftly elbowed Sam in the ribs, causing him to keel over mid-sentence.

"Seems like our noble warrior doesn't like being teased" Sam gasped, earning himself a glare from Kai. "I will stop, but not apologize."

The two chatted for a while as they made their way back to the classroom. Once they entered the teacher announced that the first day would end there, and that they could all go home. Hearing this, Sam looked towards Kai.

"What're your plans for the day?" Sam asked.

"Training, since school ends early today my Master wanted to me to go train with her" Kai explained. "What about you?"

Sam sighed before answering.

"Bah, nothing! The faction that recruited me doesn't care what I do in my spare time as long as my Spirit Power keeps improving."

"Really?" Kai was surprised, did they not want to nurture him properly?

"Yeah! I was hoping I could meet someone to hang out with, but who knew I'd meet someone who wanted to go train after their first day of school!" He said aggrieved.

"Hey!" Kai shouted, somewhat hurt. "I do fun things all the time! It's just that I also need to train…"

"Yeah, like what?"

Kai thought for a moment before answering meekly.

"I went to the arcade once…"

Sam burst out laughing, holding his stomach he had to sit down to stop himself from falling over.

"Careful there Rockstar, you might be having too much fun!" Sam said, finally calming down slightly.

"What do you do for fun then?" Kai said defensively.

"How about this" Sam started. "You convince that master of yours to give you a day off and I'll show you the coolest thing in this city!"

"But…"

"No buts! Unless you don't know how to have fun?" Sam feigned a horrified face.

"Fine!" Kai said resolutely. "This 'cool' place of yours better be good though!"

Kai then stormed out of the classroom, Sam smiling as he watched.

"Like taking candy from a baby…"