Riku pushed his way through the mass of students ignoring his calling for Sora. He didn't bother apologizing to the jerks that refused to move before he shoved them aside and into other people. It was their fault for being a hindrance.
Once he got to the edge of the circle, he again called for his best friend, this time pleading with him. "Walk away, Sora! You're better than this!" Their schoolmates looked at him like he had seven eyes. There was no way Sora was walking away from this without some serious bruising. …Or so they thought.
Since returning to the Destiny Islands, Sora had become the target of a group of bullies. They pushed him, they called him names and they threatened to beat the crap out of him. They even stole his carefully-prepared lunches. Luckily for him, the girls in his class adored him and had no problem sharing their food. The perks of being a teenage heart throb.
Within a week and a half, Sora had had enough. He called the bullies out; challenged them to a fight on school property. No weapons, he'd demanded, knowing that he would have no choice but to really do damage should any of the boys brandish a knife. His bullies sneered at him and accepted immediately.
Riku said all he could to talk Sora out of it. "You can't do that!" he whispered in class, "You could seriously hurt them! And they could hurt you!" Every time he tried, Sora smiled his stupid smile and told him everything would be fine.
The bully took the first swing, his fist aimed right for Sora's face. It never connected; instead, he stumbled a few feet. When he turned around, there was Sora, standing where he'd initially been. The bully swung again, missed and swung a third time, again missing his target. The other students gasped. Riku covered his face and groaned.
"Hey, you know, you should probably quit. You'll never hit me," taunted Sora. He put his hands on his hips. "While you're at it, you should stop bullying other kids. You're hurting them!"
The bully growled and charged him. No matter how many fists he threw at Sora, none of them connected. Within minutes he was drained of his energy while Sora stood unharmed, looking at him with a mix of anger and pity.
"You need to stop, all right? You're hurting other people and yourself. You need to stop being such a jerk and grow up!"
Enraged, the other boy took a deep breath and put the last of his energy into a final swing.
Time stopped. Sora, the only one unaffected by the spell, walked up to the boy. He was taller and wider, but Sora had taken on stronger men than this bully. With a sad sigh, he stepped back, pulled back his fist and let the boy have it, once in the face and once in the gut. He walked around the boy and to the opposite side of the circle before he released the spell.
His hits were good. The boy fell to the ground, wheezing and crying. The students surrounding them gasped in disbelief. There was no way Sora could have done that from where he was standing. What happened?
Teachers came running from the school, calling for the circle of students to disband immediately. Some stayed behind to defend Sora, saying he'd never hit the boy and swearing he hadn't been the challenger either. Despite his not so stellar grades, the school's staff knew Sora as a passive boy and let him go without even a warning. Riku waited for him outside, but Sora spoke before he could get a word in.
"Sorry for the Stop spell. I didn't want you to get involved with the fight. I just wanted to teach that jerk a lesson he'll never forget!"
"Don't use that spell on me ever again," Riku warned, slinging an arm around his friend's shoulder. "…But you did teach that guy a lesson. There's a rumor going around saying you said you'd beat him up again if you heard he was still bullying kids."
Sora scratched the back of his head. "Well, I don't want to get in trouble again, but if he does keep bullying kids then I will beat him up. He's lucky I didn't set him on fire because I thought about it!"