"Entertain me."

The two worst words you could hear from him.

"Kade, no. I'm not playing your game today." Hideo immediately backed off, glancing at Mikan next to him. Kade shifted his attention to her.

"And you? Surely you wouldn't refuse a simple game of tag," he goaded her, knowing she couldn't refuse a straight up challenge. Mikan's fist clenched, her stubby fingernails digging into her palms. Stubby, because of a certain someone.

She had lost to Kade the last time she accepted his game after he noticed the light pink nail polish on her fingernails. She had known of his reputation, his skills and intelligence but still couldn't refuse a challenge. As a result, she had to resort to clipping her nails right to the edge of the nail bed and keeping all color off of them. Later, she realized Kade had had her benefit in mind. It was better for her to keep them short because of the grueling training as well as the mental stability of keeping personal grooming to the minimum so as to not lose her focus, though one might think that having longer nails is better to scratch the enemy. That would be their fatal mistake. If one had to get close enough to scratch, they are already dead.

What she was angry about was the way he went about it. Kade thought people would not understand that anything he said to them was for their own benefit.

"Alright, Kade," Mikan relented. "I'll play your game on one condition."

He tilted his head, curiosity glinting in his light blue eyes. He dragged a hand through his hair, laughter bubbling out of him as he read Mikan's posture and stiffness.

"What's your condition?"

"Be serious."

Kade paused, regarding her with a blank stare.

"You want me to be serious?" he asked in a neutral tone. Mikan shuddered slightly at his eerie gaze. By this point, everyone else had paused in what they were doing to pay attention to the front where this was all happening. She lifted her chin haughtily, exuding an air of confidence.

"Yes."

That simple three-letter word had power. And did Mikan feel even a sliver of regret for uttering that word? Zilch. Nada. None.

She braced herself for Kade's reaction; knowing him, he would jump right to the duel without letting her prepare. The other kids stared at the trio, not believing the events unfolding right before their eyes. They hadn't known of Mikan's previous duel with Kade and so thought she was crazy for accepting a serious match with the Number 1 most powerful Alice in the whole school.

Clap. Clap. Clap. The sound broke everyone out of their trances as a person strode up to the front of the room.

"Alright guys, break it up."

Three pairs of eyes turned.

"Oh there you are, Alex!" Hideo exclaimed. The blue-haired man strode up to them and surveyed the trio. As his gaze slid over Mikan, his mud-brown eyes seemed to harden slightly.

"Kade, it's time to train. Unlike you, these two do not have the luxury of indulging in your useless games."

Kade stiffened in response, then chuckled, running a hand through his evergreen-colored hair.

"Alright, fine. I'll go along with what you say this time, Alex," he shrugged nonchalantly. He walked away, whistling random notes in an odd melody. Mikan and Hideo watched him leave. Alex just sighed and shook his head in exasperation.

"Ok kids. Today's menu is gonna be a bit different." Alex glanced behind him at the rest of the trainees. He nodded once and then stepped to the side. Hideo and Mikan, confused as to what was going on, stared at their instructor as if he had gone crazy.

"Go."

All of a sudden, all nineteen Dangerous Ability Class students, minus Kade, rushed the pair in a chaotic yet organized scramble. As startled as they were, the duo readied themselves mentally, knowing this would turn out to be a lesson for them. After all, their instructor was not the type of person to randomly assign their class to attack them without having some sort of lesson in mind.

"Right," Hideo decided.

"Left," Mikan responded.

One of the basic lessons their instructor had first taught them was to establish boundaries of attack. Hideo, being the one who had chosen the right side, would attack and defend against the students on the right. Mikan immediately responded and agreed with the other side. They set up mental lines and whenever a student crossed the line, the one responsible for their side would immediately add that student to their list.

The fight didn't last long, seeing as the pair were higher up in terms of both combat experience as well as Alice abilities. And it helped that Hideo was the strongest in close combat. But even with their abilities, the pair were stopped when a student stepped in from Mikan's blind spot, and Mikan, being preoccupied with another pair of students to either side of her, didn't notice until the last second.

The gleam of the steel knife rested against the side of her neck, strange letters scrawled on either side of the blade. The student smirked and backed off, as did the others. Alex stepped forward and surveyed the damage.

Hideo and Mikan were nearly unscathed, both sporting the odd bruise and some minor cuts here and there. 14 out of 19 students had enough injuries to keep them out of the fight but not major enough to immediately need medical attention. The remaining five had been focused on the pair, two on Hideo and three on Mikan. He nodded his head in approval, then immediately focused on the pair.

"Not bad. Not bad at all, considering you didn't have any time to prepare," he relented. "But!"

He waved at Mikan, signaling her to speak. Ashamed and slightly embarrassed, she hung her head.

"I wasn't careful with my blind spot. I didn't sense him until the last minute and by then it would have been too late."

Alex nodded again in approval.

"Yes. That is exactly correct. You also did not notice that I was standing outside your guys's window earlier today."

The pair started in surprise, exchanging looks with each other. They both hadn't noticed that Alex was outside the window but what worried them the most was whether he had heard their conversation.

Alex chuckled to himself, shaking his head at how young the kids were.

"Let's keep going."