"Those are my pancakes!"

"I don't see your name on them."

"It's right here!"

SMACK

"Ow!"

Ren and Horo's argument drifted outside to where Xephon had been meditating since he woke up.

"Master perhaps it's time for you to get something to eat, I don't believe there will be any peace now that the others are awake." Weiss told his master quietly.

Xephon sighed and got up "Unfortunately I think your right, I wonder if there's anything left?"

Xephon opened the door and was greeted with one of the most bizarre sights he had ever seen.

Rio was in the kitchen wearing a frilly pink apron and was flipping pancakes. Horo and Ren were fighting each other and trying to stuff pancakes down the others throat. Jun and Pirika were arguing about something and were both having to yell in order to get heard. Anna was trying to make Yoh do his training inside oblivious of what was going on around them and Manta was running around the room with one of his oversized books on top of his head as a helmet. The spirits were trying to calm things down but just seemed to be making things worse.

Xephon watched this for a few minutes before he saw Tamao sitting at the end of the table eating quietly. As she was the only who appeared to be sane he made his way over to her and sat down beside her.

"Is it always like this?" Xephon asked still watching what was happening in front of him.

"No today's pretty quiet." Tamao told him.

Xephon looked at her, certain she was making a joke, when he realized she was being serious he said to her in amazement.

"They do this everyday and they're still alive?"

"Yep, they're good friends really so they won't kill each other, otherwise it would have happened by now." Tamao told him simply.

Xephon sighed and then picked up his fork and speared five Pancakes that that were flying through the air towards Ren's head, Xephon put the pancakes on his plate and began to eat, rising his fork a few times to spear more pancakes out of the air.

When he was finished he left the kitchen and went to explore the house to see if there was anything he could do until things quieted down. He entered the main living room and noticed that there was laptop lying on the floor.

'It must belong to Manta.' Xephon thought. 'I'm sure he won't mind if I take a look.' Xephon sat down, picked up the laptop and turned it on. Most of what was on there was a completely boring; school reports and revision notes for pop quizzes, but Xephon saw a file marked 'Shaman' and decided to open it.

It seemed as though Manta had compiled a database on everything there was to know on shaman, he spent a few minutes looking through it before Ren and Horo dragged their argument into the room. Xephon tried to ignore them but they were making too much noise, eventually Xephon gave up, switched off the laptop and put it back on the floor where he found it and tried to find some part of the house that wasn't occupied.

While Xephon was walking around he turned a corner and someone ran into him and fell down. Xephon looked down and saw it Pilika.

"You should watch where you're going." she told him.

"You're the one that ran into me." Xephon replied in a bored voice.

"No I didn't!"

"Then why are you the one on the floor?"

"Because..." Pilika thought for a moment and decided to change tack "Why where you wandering around here anyway?"

"I was looking for some peace and quiet."

Pilika laughed at him then saw he was serious, "Well you won't find any around here until Anna throws all the boys out to make them train, you'd be better off exploring the town for a little while."

"Thanks but I think I should do some training myself. Do you know anywhere that's usually deserted?"

"There's an old junk pile that normally empty this time day, it's on the edge of town so no one will mind if you make too much noise."

"Thank you, could you tell Yoh that I haven't forgotten about his lesson and that I'll see him around lunch."

"Sure." Pilika said shrugging and she walked off to find someone else to talk to.

Xephon collected his coat and weapon headed outside. It wasn't particularly cold but there clouds in the sky that were threatening to rain.

It took Xephon twenty minutes to reach the scrap heap that Pilika had told him about. Although scrap heap hardly described it, it looked as though there had been a massive battle fought out by cars and other metal appliances and no one had bothered to clean up afterwards, burnt out wrecks could be seen everywhere and there were huge towers of stacked cars that looked as if they really shouldn't be able to stand.

'Perfect.' thought Xephon, "All right Weiss lets get to work." Xephon Pulled out his weapon and waited for Weiss to enter it and formed his over soul, he ran his hand along the blade. Smiling to himself Xephon turned to face one of the perilous leaning towers of wreckage and jumped at it swinging his sword so fast that you could only see a dark haze. Landing a few feet away from the tower standing full on his feet he slowly stood and turned his head. As he did so the tower of wreckage that he had attacked crumpled into pieces and collapsed with a loud crash. Xephon's smile grew wider.

"Good, it looks like were finally getting this specific technique down." As he continued to train; he was slowly increasing the speed and power of his attacks until half of the junk heap had changed into metal confetti. Xephon decided to take a quick break and leaned against one of the remaining towers taking deep breaths to get his energy back, he was about to start training again when...

"Hah, I found you!"

Xephon looked up to see a girl about his age standing on a heap of burnt out cars.

"Weiss do we know her?" he whispered quietly to his spirit.

"I believe she was you last opponent in the preliminary matches master."

Xephon groaned inwardly. He remembered that fight all to well; it has been one of the most annoying in his life.

Flashback

Xephon had decided to get to the battle area early so that he could prepare ahead of time and concentrate on how to win the battle. It didn't really matter because he had won his other two easily, but Xephon never fought unless he gave it his all.

When he had arrived at the designated area, (a park with a fountain and a few trees) he sat down and began his wait while thinking to himself.

As he was sitting he saw another figure enter the park; it was a girl who appeared to be the same age him although she looked to be a head shorter, she had brown hair, which was fixed into a ponytail that reached down to her shoulders and was wearing black pants and a purple top, she also had a black bag slung over her shoulder. She saw Xephon and made her way over.

"Hi there!"

Xephon ignored her and continued to sit in silence.

"Watcha doing?" she asked him walking closer. She saw his blade sitting next to him, "Cool." she muttered "Is it real?"

As she said this she reached out to touch the sword, which promptly vanished from sight and into Xephon's hands.

"Hey what'd you do that for?" she asked disappointed.

"To stop you from hurting yourself, didn't your parents ever teach you not to touch things that don't belong to you?" Xephon said, annoyed that his concentration had been broken.

"No not really." she answered in a carefree tone of voice, she sat down next to him and began talking to him for no reason at all, asking him what his names was and why he was here.

"My names Xephon and I'm waiting for someone, it's suppose to be a private meeting." Xephon said trying to hint to her that she should leave.

"Who are you waiting for?" she asked still sitting down.

Xephon frowned; the girl was starting to annoy him, but he dug out his oracle bell and read off the name.

"Mia Sing, now could you please leave."

"Um no I don't think I can." the girl replied.

"Why not?" Xephon's voice now had an icy edge to it.

"Because your waiting for me." the girl answered simply.

"What?" Xephon said with deadly calm.

"I'm your opponent silly." Mia giggled as she said this, pulling out a memorial tablet and released her guardian spirit. It was women who appeared to be in her twenties and was wearing a striped leotard and had a carnival mask covering her face.

"Perfect a hyped up cheerleader." Xephon muttered under his breath.

The girl frowned and said "How did you know I was cheerleader?"

"Call it a hunch," Xephon looked at his watch and sighed, there were still an hour until their match was due to start.

That hour had been the most agonizing in Xephon's life. The girl had talked continuously, telling him about her life and family and how she had entered the tournament. When she asked him why he had entered the tournament he didn't bother replying, hoping that would take the hint and shut up. She stared at Xephon for a few seconds, and then answered the question herself, talking in an irritating sing-song voice.

By the end of the hour Xephon had heard all about her life; her parents, brothers, sisters and even the pet poodle she had.

Xephon was nearly ready to strangle the girl to stop her from talking when his oracle bell had started beeping, signaling the beginning of the match.

"Ooh it's time to start." Mia told him. As she said this she opened her black bag and pulled out some strange arched metal pieces of what looked to be part of something. Mia put on some gloves that had metal in the palm and finger tip areas, and then started to put the arches together. The result was a giant ring as big as her torso with the outside of the ring being bladed.

She integrated with her spirit and began swirling the ring on her arm and then jerked back her arm caught the ring and got into what Xephon assumed to be a fighting stance.

Xephon sighed and stood up pulling out his memorial tablet and releasing Weiss, who came out slowly and formed himself in front of Xephon with his back to Mia.

"Why did you not release me sooner master? Did I do something to offend you?"

"Not at all Weiss." Xephon muttered darkly, "I just thought I'd let you keep your sanity."

Xephon looked at his master quizzically for a moment but decided not to comment. He turned round and saw Mia for the first time.

"Is she our opponent?"

"Yes and I must say I'm looking forward to it." Xephon replied giving Weiss a dark grin.

"Why master? Is she powerful?" Weiss asked in excitement.

"I don't know," Xephon replied, "Its just that right now I really wanna kick her ass."

The shaman Council representative appeared and told them to begin.

Xephon instantly leapt forward and struck the girl with a spinning kick that knocked her off her feet she lay on the ground groaning for a few seconds.

"Hey no fair! I wasn't ready!" she told Xephon in a whining voice.

Xephon gritted his teeth and bit back the insult he had been about to use, now that he knew that she wasn't as strong as he was so he should take it easy on her.

The girl used Xephon's moment of indecision to attack and shouted,

"Razor Gail!"

She threw the ring at Xephon. It was heading straight for his head. Xephon waited till the last second and sidestepped so that the ring went spinning past him, but he wasn't fast enough and felt something hot on his cheek, he reached up to touch it and noticed that he was bleeding. Xephon considered he may have been wrong about her, that attack was headed for his head so he could guess that there might be some piece of a fighter in her.

But the thing that was going to be a major problem was the ring itself, that hot cut wasn'y made by the rings edge, it was made by the velocity and speed the ring was rotating at. The mere air itself was turning into an intangible razor. Xephon guessed that the spirit was doing that. If Mia was able to learn to throw and rotate the ring just by herself then have her spirit increase the speed further, Xephon was thanking the world for stupidity. Usually he didn't do that often.

"Master be careful don't let the ring get too close to you." Weiss shouted in alarm.

"Why thank you Weiss I never would have considered that, what ever would I do without you?" Xephon told his spirit sarcastically.

Xephon then heard something spinning to his left and threw himself to his right as the razor ring sped past him and another ripped through his coat.

"Hey your good, most people don't realize that they come back." the girl said in her cheery voice.

Xaphon uttered a curse and made his move.

Xephon charged at her but she jumped back before he could get within range and threw her ring again. Xephon kept running and deflected the ring with his sword knocking it to ground and tried attacking the girl again.

She retreated once more; performing a series of back flips that eventually landed her in a tree where she stopped to catch her breath. She then held out her hands and said,

"Watch out for the back wind."

Xephon looked behind him to see the ring pop out of the ground and level itself horizontally then move at him. Xephon jumped up and over the ring and he could hear the whistling of the wind made from the rings rapid spinning.

'She can control it at a distance by her will?'

The ring went flying into its masters hands, the girl instead of throwing it again, ran towards Xephon to attack; swinging her arms around her body and rotating the ring between arms in a rhythmic fashion, creating a deadly wall of razor sharp steel.

Xephon rushed to meet her but didn't use his sword, he waited until he was in range and aimed a diving tackle at her legs, feet first, knocking her over and stopping her attack.

However the girl didn't land face down as Xephon had expected, instead she turned the fall into a roll and came back on her feet ready for a new attack.

"Your really fast." she told him.

"You don't know the half of it."

Xephon ran to attack again but the girl continued to retreat out of range of his attacks.

'Damn it', Xephon thought, 'my attacks are no good if I can't get close enough to use them.'

"Why don't you stretch your legs?" Weiss asked his master.

Xephon smiled, the thought hadn't occurred to him. He had only recently mastered the ability and it was still relatively new to him.

"All right let's try it." Xephon dropped his defense and left himself wide open, waiting for Mia to attack.

"What are you doing?" She spoke in surprise.

"I'm just proving how pathetic your attacks are, I bet you couldn't even hit me from here."

Mia scowled and took the bait, "I'll show you pathetic, Reverse Hurricane!"

Her ring leveled itself again and began to spin again, only this time it was vertical and spinning so fast that the wind itself was forming a small whirlwind of blades around it but in an opposite direction proving how fast it was. Mia motioned forward with her arms and the ring threw itself straight at Xephon The metal was moving so fast and the wind was so concentrated around the ring that the earth was being torn up in a line behind the ring. Xephon was just standing there waiting and at the last second vanished.

"Huh? Where'd you go?" she cried in confusion losing her concentration, which caused her ring to crash to the ground. She looked round frantically searching for her opponent and didn't notice a slight breeze that blew past her.

Mia suddenly realized that someone was standing behind her but before she could turn around was struck in the back of the head. She stumbled forward dizzily but didn't fall down.

Xephon stood behind her and put out his blade, flat end facing himself and Mia. "Ewig Schlaf!"

Xephon slammed his right palm onto the flat of the blade and two wings spread out from the hilt then flapped causing a great gust of what could be described as a current of wind with black lines in it to have them visibly seen. The current hit Mia strait in the back.

Mia felt the blow from behind, this time she was sent flying forwards before crashing into a brick wall where she quickly lost consciousness.

Xephon stepped forward to speak to the council representative who had been watching their battle.

"Congratulations you have won all three of your battles." The representative said this with just a hint of contempt in his voice.

Xephon stared at him for a moment before asking why he was acting the way he was.

"You did not need to be so violent with the girl, you could have just left after you struck her. She had lost spirit control and was out of Furyoku."

"Really I hadn't noticed, I was too busy worrying about whether she would cut my head off." was Xephon's reply, which barely disguised his anger.

The representative clearly didn't believe him, because he continued to talk in the in the same contemptuous voice.

"Having cleared two of the three preliminary rounds, your next challenge is to find Patch village where the finals are to take place. If you cannot find the village or do not arrive in time for your match you will be disqualified, additional information will be sent to your oracle bell in one weeks time."

Xephon listened to this and then walked off without another word, he'd heard all needed and had no desire to stick around and talk with someone who clearly didn't like him.

End of Flashback

"What do you want?" he asked Mia in a bored voice.

Mia didn't answer immediately, she jumped down from the pile of scrap she had been standing on and walked towards him. Xephon then noticed that she was holding her ring in one hand and tensed himself in case she attacked.

Mia walked right up to him and poked him in the chest at the same time saying,

"You big meanie, I want a rematch!"

Xephon was slightly taken aback he had expected her to just attack him and not bother with the verbal challenge.

"Why? You lost the first match so get over it. A rematch won't change the original result."

"But you cheated!"

"No I didn't." Xephon replied determined not to loose his temper.

"Yes you did you- hey where are you going?"

"Sorry but I've got better things to do than look after a spoiled brat like you."

"Who are you calling a brat?" Xephon didn't bother to reply and just kept walking.

"Hey get back here!" Mia shouted and at the same time threw her ring, which missed Xephon by inches. Xephon stopped and turned to look at her.

"What makes you think you'll do any better this time round?"

"You couldn't touch me before you disappeared." Mia reminded him.

"That was because you kept running away." Xephon turned again and started walking again.

"Don't you walk away from me, I want my rematch!" as Mia said this she sent her ring at his back and flew straight towards Xephon. Xephon kept walking but at the last minute pivoted on his left foot, as he did so his coat went flying out behind him and was sliced clean off by the spinning ring.

Xephon saw half his coat lying on the floor and looked towards Mia again and said simply,

"Your going to regret that."