The Magician of Sound

Kai and Tasha went to school together. They were in Tokyo. Even though Japan changed its name to United Asia, the names of the cities didn\'t change. They rode a bus that had been modified with Magical Energy. The bus didn\'t have wheels and was floating a few centimeters off the road.

Surprisingly, their home was not that far from the school. After a ten-minute ride, they finally arrived at the school gate walking together. Of course, there were a lot of students around them. Most of them knew about Tasha.

"Woah!"

"That\'s Tasha Carter!"

"Indeed. The only S-rank in the academy. Now that I think about it, only a few people in the world have that rank."

"I came to this school because I admire her."

"Look, she\'s with someone. Who is he?"

"I don\'t know."

"Ah. If I\'m not mistaken, he must be her younger brother, Kai Carter."

"What? Her younger brother? Do you know him?"

"Not really, but I\'m super envious. I want to be her younger brother as well. Look, they look so intimate."

Even with his big noise-canceling headphones, he could hear the conversations from his surroundings. His symbol was sound. From childhood, he had an extensive hearing. In other words, even if it was far away, he could hear it. After multiple tests, he found out that his hearing range was about a few kilometers. He wore those headphones to suppress it.

It was very taxing for him, especially when he was about to sleep. He used the headphones to limit his hearing. To be honest, it was pretty stressful for him to hear everything. Who would want to hear a fight between a couple from a kilometer away? Or something like that.

\'Walking together like this is considered intimate?\' Kai questioned in his heart. He remembered that his sister always wanted to jump on him at home or on the bus. She even tried to hold his hand. Of course, he managed to dodge all of them.

Fortunately, she seemed to be able to maintain her image at school. She was waving her hands, greeting the other students.

When they arrived, Tasha needed to do her job. "Ah, right. I\'m the student council\'s secretary, as well as the second-year representative. Although it saddens me, I\'ll see you later, Kai. By the way, the ceremony will be held in the gym. It\'s that building."

Kai nodded his head in response. Tasha walked away while waving her hand until she disappeared from his sight. Kai then walked toward the gym.

"Hey, you. Stop right where you are. Why are you wearing headphones? That\'s quite rude, don\'t you think? You need to pay attention to others." Kai heard a woman\'s voice behind him. He turned around to see a lady around the same age as him, sporting long brown hair. She had black eyes, a small nose, as well as cherry-red lips. Her figure might be equal to Tasha, though not that he cared much to think about it. What he cared about was the star on her uniform.

He had seen that star on her sister\'s uniform. Her sister said it was a star for representatives. Judging from her age, she must be the first-year representative.

"These are noise-canceling headphones. But don\'t worry, I can hear you just fine." Kai said in a casual tone. He had gotten used to this situation. But then again, it would be quite rare to see someone wearing noise-canceling headphones. Other people would think that he was blasting music through it.

"Even so, it\'s still rude," she said while crossing her arms.

Kai wasn\'t offended by this. He took out a health certificate and showed it to her. "Consider me a special case, if you will. It\'s for health reasons."

This certificate always saved him in these kinds of situations. When he presented it to other people, they would back down and shut their mouths.

After looking at the certificate, she was shocked. Unfortunately, she wasn\'t shocked by his certificate. Instead, she was shocked by his name. Kai Carter. He was someone who had the same family name as Tasha Carter. "You… you\'re Kai Carter? The younger brother of Tasha Carter?"

"Yes."

Her eyes widened, then she started scanning him from head to toe. She couldn\'t see anything special from him, prompting her to ask, "Are you really her younger brother?"

She was perplexed because she also came to this school because of her. His sister was that famous. But the most shocking thing was that when Tasha was asked by others, she always said that it was thanks to her brother that she could become who she was now. The people didn\'t believe it though.

She tried to find anything special from him. Sadly, she didn\'t find anything. Even so, since he was her idol\'s younger brother, she still decided to be polite to him. She then introduced herself, saying, "My name is Kudo Ayaka. Nice to meet you, Kai Carter."

"…The pleasure is mine." Kai didn\'t immediately answer her since he felt that this name was a bit familiar. It was as if he had heard it from somewhere. He couldn\'t remember it, so he answered with a bit of delay.

"I will guide you to the gym."

"No need, the gym is there."

Kudo Ayaka was surprised to see that this guy was indifferent in front of her. He might not know her full identity, but she thought that as a beautiful girl whose appearance did not lose out to his sister, he should at least get excited. Unfortunately, he didn\'t have any of those thoughts. He only considered her as another acquaintance which he had only just met. Whether they will become friends or not, he left it to the future.

She let out a wry smile while saying, "Well, the gym is over there. See you later."

Kai only nodded and walked away.

The gym was brimming with people. They had around two thousand students in here. It seemed that the third-year students occupied the spot in the center, the second-year students occupied its surroundings, and the first-year students\' place was on the second floor.

Kai searched for an empty seat. It took him a while to find one, as the gym was filled with people.

Finally, he found an empty seat in the corner. Beside that seat was a blonde young man. Kai didn\'t know why, but he noticed that this guy seemed to radiate the vibe of an elegant prince. He shrugged the feeling off and approached the seat.

"Is that seat next to you taken?" 

The blonde guy noticed him and turned his head. After he saw Kai\'s face, he just smiled. "Not at all. Feel free to sit here."

"Thank you." Kai nodded and sat.

"What is your name? Which class? What is your rank?" The blonde guy asked him hurriedly. He then realized something, "Oh, that\'s right. How rude of me. My name is Inshov Tanas Georgiy. If you feel it to be too long, you can just call me George. I am a student of class 1-A, and my rank is B."

Kai was surprised. He thought that this guy had an elegant prince\'s vibe, but as soon as he heard his voice, the feeling wore off. Instead, his opinion of him was now that of a cheerful and easygoing guy. "1-A, Kai."

"So we are classmates… By the way, why do you wear headphones…" He noticed something off from the headphones. Although he was cheerful and seemed to be careless, he was, in fact, a sharp person. He noticed this little detail. "Those aren\'t headphones for music."

"Noise-canceling headphones. Medical reason."

"Hmm…" He looked at Kai mysteriously and eventually said, "You\'re an interesting guy. Let\'s be friends, Kai. You\'re my classmate, so we\'re gonna be together for the entire year."

Kai was surprised to see that this guy found out that his headphones were different. Not many people could spot this at their first meeting. "Well, nice to meet you then. But please refrain from saying something that can invite misunderstandings. People will mistake you as a homosexual with your last sentence."

"Eh? Did I?" He was clueless. He often spoke like this, but no one complained to him. Or maybe they were just scared of his status. But this \'Kai\' guy seemed not to know his real status. He thought that this \'Kai\' was fascinating. "Haha, I\'ll make sure to be careful. But you can truly hear beyond those noise-canceling headphones, huh…"

Kai nodded. Before George said another word, the principal finally came up to the podium. The opening ceremony was about to start. The principal was a muscular middle-aged man. He had spiky brown hair and seemed to be your typical muscle-brained guy.

"Hello, everyone, I am your principal. My name is Kazato Kenzo. I welcome you to Genesis Magical Academy. First of all, I would like to thank you for…"

The principal began his speech. The speech was a bit boring since it was just the usual speech. After a few minutes, the speech was finally over.

"With that out of the way, I would like to invite Yajima Haruko, Tasha Carter, and Kudo Ayaka as the representatives of their grades. First off, Yajima Haruko is our student council president, as well as the representative of the third-year students. She is also a rank A magician like me. Tasha Carter is the secretary of the student council. You might already know this, she is the only S-rank in our academy, and the first S-rank to appear in this academy. She is the representative for the second-year students.

"The last one is Kudo Ayaka, the heiress of the Kudo group, the number one weapon provider company. We are honored to have her as our student. She is also a rank A magician. Let\'s give them a warm round of applause."

A roaring round of applause soon echoed inside the gym. As expected, the claps were far louder than the principal. Three beauties were walking toward the stage. Kai had seen two of them. He looked at the third person, the third-year representative, who was also the student council\'s president.

She had long red hair with a beautiful hairpin on her hair. Every step she took was elegant. It seemed that she was also a young miss from a prominent family. In fact, Kai was surprised to hear that Kudo Ayaka was the heiress of the Kudo group.

He finally understood why he felt that her name was familiar. They started giving their speech, starting from Yajima Haruko, to Tasha Carter, then Kudo Ayaka.

Their speech was similar, but the applause from the students was loud. As expected from them, it seemed that they had their own fan clubs. Unfortunately, the number of men in this world had been reduced to a pitiful amount. If there had been more of them, the applause would most likely have become louder. Heh…men.