Like the past two days, I wake up in my room. But something's different today, it takes me some time before I remember that the tournament starts today. The contestants are allowed to wear whatever they want, So I put on my what I would usually wear. A black hoodie with some red details along the sides, some jeans that were surprisingly flexible, and some sneakers I had with me from my original world. We're supposed to assemble in the big hall at noon. Before I get out of the room I grab my damaged glove from my training camp and put it on. I also pull up the hood from the hoodie, the hood has some cool details on it. I go outside and see Giovanni also leaving.

"Good morning!" I greet him.

He looks confused for a second but then sees me and says

"Good morning, Hikari! Are you excited for today?"

"Kind of, but not really. By the way, are your injuries okay? Again, I'm really sorry for hurting you." I say

"Yeah, they're okay now. Thanks to that armor, the injuries were minimized."

Giovanni answers.

We start walking together towards the exit, we're joking around and stumble upon Antoine and Maxime.

"Good morning guys. How're you doing?" I greet them

"Good morning, Hikari." The two of them answer

"We're doing pretty good, how about you guys?" They continue.

We answer their question and continue to walk towards the big hall, we're joking and laughing along the way. The sun is strong today and it's at least 25 C. We're walking through the long hallway that leads to the big hall. I look into the distance and see the girls, they wave their hands and moves towards us.

"Hey, wassup?" I say in a cool tone.

"What are you doing?" Juliette asked.

"I thought it would be funny." I say.

"hahaha, that was stupid." Charlotte says and laughs.

"Whatever, you're just jealous of my comedy genius." I say, it almost sounds as though I have a superiority complex. The girls join us and we continue to walk. It's even warmer here, It's insane. I look over to my right and see a Camille who is smiling awkwardly. Don't worry, I'll win this no matter what I have to do. I arrive at the big hall and it's just as big as last time, of course, why wouldn't it be? I see Jean-Pierre in the distance. He's talking to his friend, probably someone from his class. He seems to be some kind of king in his class, everybody's under his influence and do every single thing he orders them to.

"By the way, Hikari. Why do you have your hood on?" Charlotte asks curiously.

"Because it looks cool, especially with this single glove I have." I respond.

Everybody looks at me with shock for a couple of seconds, except for Juliette who just stared at me. They start laughing, again. As I sit down with Sofia, Marie and Giovanni the others go to the stage. Maxime approaches the podium and starts talking.

"As we announced before, we will be hosting the recruitment tournament to decide who'll join our squadron. Could the contestants please join us on stage?"

Everybody who was in the tournament rose up and walked up on the stage. We line up and I look around me. I take a look to the right and see Karl making a face towards Camille, who was looking pretty sad at me. Anger filled up inside me, but I quickly suppressed it. I needed to save all anger I had for the actual showdown, I just pulled a quick smile.

"We will now move towards the arena where the first battle will take place, in approximately 2 hours. But before we do that, let's get some comments from our contestants." Maxime says and points at Karl who is at the very right.

"I'll win this contest, no matter what it takes. I have personal stakes in this." Karl says, and immediately after he said it, a lot of people applauded. It's weird because that's kind of a standard thing to say. Maxime smiled and continued to the next person, who was Frederic. Frederic kind of looked like a martial arts enthusiast.

"My only goal in this tournament is to get some battle experience, and if I win it'll be a plus."

Maxime now pointed towards Sofia

"I'm looking to improve my battle techniques and, of course, join the best squadron, Squad 95."

She had a more noble goal than what I would've thought. Next up was Veronique. Veronique had blonde hair and lipstick on, she had an intimidating look. Now when I look at her I remember seeing her in my class. Maxime pointed towards Veronique and she proceeded to speak.

"My main goal is to join Squad 95."

That's a very standard, but reasonable, goal.

"... But my other goal is to crush Hikari."

Excuse me, What?

Why would she want to crush me!? I've never interacted with her before, and now all of the sudden she wants to destroy me?

"Well, well. That's an interesting goal, Veronique."

Interesting, really? Thanks a lot, Maxime. Veronique stares at me intensely, I feel very awkward especially since she's right beside---. OH NO, She's right beside me. That means I'm next, I have no clue what to say. Guess I'll have to do some improvising.

"Next up is the most surprising candidate, Hikari!" Maxime says and points right at my face.

"Hmm... My goal in this tournament is to win no matter what, I have some personal motivations for this and I won't let anyone stand in my way." I say. The room turns quiet for a moment, I notice Camille looking at me in a special way.

"Okay, next up is Jean-Pierre." Maxime says and breaks the silence. The big hall has large windows along the side and a painting in the back, I can't identify what's on it though.

"I have no choice but to win this, otherwise I'll get expelled." Jean-Pierre says. The room falls silent, even more so than when I talked. After some moments I hear something. It takes a moment until I realize that it's someone crying. I look towards the back of the room and see 2 dozen people crying in the far left corner, Immediately I knew it was his class. I couldn't help but dwonder how Jean-Pierre got that amount of power and authority in his class. Pretty much everybody else looked pretty mad. That meant that Jean-Pierre had a bad reputation outside of his own class. But still, I'm pretty curious as to why he would get expelled if he lost. This explains why he was so desperate for me to resign yesterday.

"That's wouldn't be very good at all. Well, good luck to you. Next up is Chloé." Maxime continues.

"Like everybody else here, I want to join Squad 95 and lead France to victory." Chloé says. I can respect that. Maxime points to François next.

"I'm here to hone my skills and bring glory and success to my country." François says.

"Okay, Thank you for participating. We'll now let you prepare for the battles. Everyone else, please come back in 2 hours for the main tournament." Maxime says and finishes the motivation quiz, if you can call it that.

The tournament is finally here, after all hard work and events leading up to this. It's finally time to help my friend and join Squad 95. I won't let anyone defeat me, I already made a vow to never lose again, didn't I?