– Mom, I'm home! – Magatsu shouts to his mother, who is cooking something in the kitchen as he rushes to his room, not listening to Agatha's answer.

He drops his overused, camouflaged backpack on the floor of his modest black room with a thud before immediately changing into his dojo uniform, the one Master D. gave him as a gift.

He hears his mother knocking the wooden door.

– Aren't you even going to eat? – She asks, concerned.

– Don't worry mom. I already ate at school, and also brought a quick snack, so no worries. – Magatsu says while jumping a few times. This time, he'll break his own record, reaching the dojo in mere eight minutes.

– Ok, honey. Don't be reckless. Last time I had to explain myself to the principal and that wasn't very nice, you know.

– And I already apologized. Come on, mom, give me a break! – He says with a sarcastic voice while leaning his head back. She knocks the door with quite some force this time around.

– I'll get you when you get out of there, you little...

Before she has time to finish the sentence, Magatsu opens the door and gives her a deep kiss on her cheek, forcing her to blush while rubbing the place.

– Oh... Someone's excited. – She asks while looking to her son, a 15 years old boy with short, messy black hair, navy blue eyes, tanned skin, a slim but muscular body, and a consistent blissful smile that he feels proud of always wearing no matter what.

He opens his arms wide. – How could I not be? Today's the day Master D. will personally test his students! It only happens once every year, and I'm more than prepared for this time!

He rapidly punches the air several times in front of him before finishing with a high kick, around the same height as his not so tall mother. She sighs.

– You know that if you want to defeat your father, you'll have to get through him first, right..?

The air suddenly gets considerably heavier with the mention of Magatsu's father, but he quickly dismisses the tension with a chuckle.

– I'll worry about that later. I have more important stuff to deal with right now. – He then grabs an apple he took from school from his room and bites it, savoring it with a pleased face. – But now, I have a record to break.

Before he leaves he checks himself. His attire, a black gi with a black belt around his waist, doesn't have anything off about it. His running shoes are properly laced, something he dislikes seeing. To him, laces are annoying and ugly, but he still didn't have the chance to grab a pair of laceless shoes yet, so he contents himself with what he has.

– I love you, son. – Agatha says while leaning for a kiss on his forehead. He chuckles innocently while rubbing it.

– I love you too, mom.

Now in the front yard, Magatsu stretches his legs, ready to start running. He, however, is stopped by someone on the other side of his neighbor's fence.

– I give you ten minutes, at least. – A girl with a wild long white hair with a blue tip calls him before he has time to leave his front gate. He looks at her with a challenging expression, his smile fitting it perfectly.

– Ten? Sasha, I'm gonna finish this in 8 minutes flat. If I do, you'll have to go out on a date with me.

Sasha laughs mockingly at his request.

– Dude. No way in hell I'll go out on a date with you. You're just not my type. – She lays her chin between her open index and thumb while looking to Magatsu with her light green eyes from top to bottom, slowly nodding at the end. Magatsu didn't know what that meant but didn't care much either.

– Well, I have no time for this. It's already 1:00 PM and I don't wanna waste any more time here. See ya later.

Magatsu gives her a wink while still smiling. He doesn't see it, but her cheeks turn a mild pink for a split second. She mumbles something to herself while entering her house.

– Knock someone out for me, ok?

– I'll think about that. – And with those words, Magatsu does one final stretch before looking straight to beyond his front gate, a wide smile across his face.

– Eight minutes... I can do this. – He thinks while taking a deep breath.

Then, with one impulse, he crosses the front gate, around one meter tall and made of steel, with a single jump that easily doubled its height.

After landing on the sidewalk, he starts mentally counting while sprinting forward with olympic speeds.

Throughout his race, he dodges several bystanders with sidesteps, an incoming car with a front flip and even tries to outrace a bicycle. The latter didn't quite work as he still wasn't fast enough for that.

And after a relatively short race, he finally reached his master's dojo.

Unfortunately for him, it took more than eight minutes to get there.

Not being able to stop the momentum of his speed, Magatsu simply jumps high up, climbs the house's front and soon reaches the dojo's rooftops.

Despite being an official dojo, it really looked like a normal two-story beige house that had its first floor modified to have as much space as possible. Pretty standard, nothing fancy.

– Come on, Magatsu – Don, a boy taller and bigger than Magatsu calls for him while coming outside, tightening the knot of his belt around his white gi. – , Master D. is about to start his lesson. Stop fooling around and come in already.

– Right, right... – Magatsu isn't paying him much attention, instead mentally cursing himself for being so slow.

– Nine minutes! A bit faster and that would have been a solid eight! Dammit!

He knows that those things won't matter once he is actually down there, his fists clashing with someone else's, so he takes a leap and falls hard on his feet on the sidewalk, the impact generating a loud thud. He turns around after sweeping his legs with his hands and enters the house. It didn't have a yard.

Once in, he sees a couple of parents chatting here and there, a lot of students warming up with quick jabs and kicks and even jogs around the over 50 meters square green room. Their sweat kind of proves to Magatsu that he really is gifted with something none of them have because even after that long race from his house to here he still isn't tired one bit.

– Alright, students. – Hearing his master's voice fills Magatsu with an extra pack of determination and excitement as he fidgets in his spot. – I know all of you have been waiting for this, so let's avoid wasting too much time with formalities and dive straight to the fun stuff.

– About time, dad. – Coming from upstairs, Master D.'s son, Shinda, walks down with a smirk.

Master D. had quite a reputation for being quite strong, and being his son gave Shinda loads of privileges and advantages over others. Because of it, he always looked down on others as commoners and never trained with any of them.

Except for one.

– Come down here, you punk. – Magatsu says while pointing his index to him. – You've been slacking off. No need to be ashamed, you can tell us.

Everyone let a quick laugh slip as Shinda straighten his eyes while taking the final step from the staircase, now standing on the first floor.

– Me? Slacking off? Good one, Magatsu. – He crosses his arms while tilting his head sideways. – Can I say the same about you?

– In your nightmares!

Now close enough, they both go for a manly bro hug, three taps behind each one's backs.

– Are you ready? – Shinda asks while cleaning some nonexistent dust from his shoulder. Magatsu answers with a wide grin.

– You bet I am. Shame you won't take part this year.

– I get to fight my old man almost every day, you know. Today isn't special to me like it is to you. Heck, not even the others are that excited about this, because they know how bad they'll get their asses handed to them by my father.

– That is no way to talk about your colleagues, son. – Master D. scolds his son, who merely shrugs in return with a smirk.

– Sorry, sorry.

– Anyway. – Master D. loudly clears his throat, gaining everyone's full attention.

Magatsu takes a closer look at his master's outfit, a japanese male black kimono that had several white and grey illustrations of things such as dragons all over the place. It felt comfortable, despite not being very stylish. Regardless, it fitted his old age quite well.

Seeing Shinda's gi revealed that it had a similar white dragon behind on its back, and was looser than what people would normally wear. Magatsu always wondered how that never got in their way when it came to fighting, or even normally moving around.

– Come here, students. Before we begin the annual graduation exam, we must first, as usual, have a quick warm-up spar with a desired opponent of a similar level. I hope you already chose who you'll fight this year.

Magatsu took a quick glance around him. In total, thirty teenagers and young adults were there, not including the parents further in the background nor himself, meaning that someone would be left out.

And honestly, he knew who it would be.

– Obviously, there is the exception... – Master D. weakly says as he gestures at Magatsu while not trying to show just how big the gap between him and everyone else was.

Magatsu frequented D.'s dojo ever since he was a toddler. He was given special and exclusive treatment for being a Wind Adept, something they discovered when he first had an outrage over something and manifested his strength with a barrage of unnaturally fast punches for someone his age.

And because of those two little factors boosting his potential, Magatsu was fated to be stronger than the norm.

People just didn't expect him to be so much stronger.

At age ten, he almost caught Master D. off guard and knocked him out. Was him a bit faster, he would have pulled that off. D. never lowered his guard while around Magatsu after that.

At age twelve, three years ago, he fought half of the dojo and almost won. He only lost because one of his opponents was a Fire Adept. Magatsu could never see a fiery flying kick coming. After that, he re-challenged the boy and won easily.

And last year, he was ganged up by some random hooligans inside school grounds that didn't like how he always smiled. All of them went to the hospital and he gained a three days suspension for going a bit too far with them.

Because of his considerable experience and natural potential, Magatsu could top any of his colleagues in a fair 1v1, and with where he was sitting he could even defeat all of them at once if the right moves were done at the right moments.

Keeping that in mind though, Master D. had a back-up plan.

– And because of it, for this warm-up section, Magatsu will fight my son. Shinda, forward!

That was quite expected by Magatsu. After all, he was the only one there who could match him, and given that even though he wasn't going to do the trial he still was wearing his gi something definitely smelled fishy to Magatsu.

None of that made the news less exciting.

– You and me? – Shinda says with a disdainful smile. – Come on, Magatsu. You know you can't beat me. Remember last time?

– Last time was a fluke, you lucky bastard. – Magatsu's smile fails slightly for a second as he falls for the taunt. – This time, nothing will hold us back. I'm so gonna wipe the floor with you.

Magatsu was already bare-footed, one of the dojo's rules, and readying a fighting stance, his legs spread open and leaned slightly, his arms just as further from one another, his right one in front and his left one next to his head. All of it was done in a sideways pose like he was imitating the stance of a crab.

– Right. – Shinda cracks his neck with two heavy side tilts. Quite cool, actually.

He doesn't take a fighting stance from the get-go, annoying Magatsu.

– Take this seriously, Shinda.

Everyone else was already far away with their partners, their fights breaking out with fists clashing with fists. Shinda laughs.

– Please, Magatsu. I am taking this seriously.

He slowly copies Magatsu's pose, only mirrored.

Another glaring difference was that his hands had a blue feeling to them as if Magatsu was seeing a photo with a cold temperature.

Shinda was a Water Adept.

And Magatsu didn't have full control over his own powers yet.

This would be a tough fight.