Chapter 25: The Plan to Win Over Class B (Patreon)

Chapter 25: The Plan to Bring Class B on Board

...

As chairman, Sakayanagi couldn't reveal much, but what little he did share still carried real weight.

Clearly this was his way of repaying Anjouin for helping Arisu Sakayanagi, so Satoru Anjouin didn't linger in the infirmary to intrude on father and daughter.

He returned to the Class 1-A classroom, which was still in some disarray.

Kohei Katsuragi's technique, paired with his bizarre Heavenly Restriction, was frankly hilarious.

But the state Arisu Sakayanagi had been in earlier had killed most people's urge to keep laughing.

"Anjouin, you're back?"

Seeing him return, Katsuragi stepped forward at once — he clearly understood he'd nearly gotten Arisu Sakayanagi killed.

"Is Sakayanagi all right?"

"Don't worry, she's fine now."

The moment Anjouin said that, the mood in the classroom shifted.

"Thank goodness."

"Still, the princess really is frail, huh."

"Yeah, I suspected it before — her legs looked fine, but she still needed a cane."

"So it really is a congenital heart condition?"

"Could be."

The Class A students chattered on, buzzing with talk.

It really had been frightening — on only their second day of school, a classmate had nearly died from a heart condition.

"Don't bring up anything too intense from now on, Katsuragi. This wasn't your fault, anyway."

Anjouin patted Katsuragi on the shoulder.

After all, Katsuragi hadn't meant to joke around at all — if anything, the bizarre combination of his technique and his Heavenly Restriction had left his face thick with confusion.

"Learn some elbow techn— ahem, learn some hand-to-hand combat from me."

"In the jujutsu world, plenty of sorcerers have no technique at all, and plenty more have one they can barely use. So hand-to-hand combat makes up the bulk of most fights."

"The girls should pick up some fighting skills too. Personally, I recommend Krav Maga."

Once Anjouin finished talking, Katsuragi visibly relaxed.

Meanwhile, the girls in class grew curious about the fighting style Anjouin had recommended.

"What's Krav Maga?"

"I want to know too."

Then, thanks to an explanation from someone with combat experience, the girls learned it was a fighting style with no rules of competition — one built around fast counterattacks targeting vulnerable spots like the eyes and throat.

Its whole purpose was instinct-driven, split-second reactions aimed purely at surviving self-defense.

"Huh?"

"That's..."

Hearing that it involved eye gouges and groin kicks, the girls flinched.

The boys felt a chill run somewhere unmentionable and eyed Anjouin with something close to fear.

"A sorcerer's enemies were never just curses."

Anjouin hadn't even mentioned yet that there was competition between Classes A, B, C, and D — sure, using Krav Maga on classmates felt a little dishonorable.

But in the original story, Class C, under Kakeru Ryuen,

had used plenty of underhanded tricks.

In Anjouin's eyes, a lot of that behavior was no different from outright thuggery — well past normal competition, even excessive by the standards of ordinary society.

At least by any reasonable common standard, society didn't condone violence.

Even though violence was arguably the single most important capability and bottom line for maintaining social order.

He wasn't personally an advocate for violence, but he did believe people should possess the capacity for it — having violence and choosing not to use it was a completely different matter from not having it at all.

"Katsuragi, why not try a wig first and see if it helps? If not, you could try a hair transplant."

Anjouin suggested to Katsuragi.

For the time being, if neither a wig nor a transplant worked in his case, he'd have no choice but to use a binding vow to give up his technique in exchange for physical talent.

When it came down to it, if you played binding vows well, there were countless tricks you could pull.

Take, for instance, a clever trick Anjouin had come up with the night before.

A binding vow whose cost was developing hemorrhoids, and whose effect was boosting his technique's power.

Another whose cost was losing feeling in part of his body, and whose effect was extending his technique's range of effect.

And yet another whose cost was sacrificing a small amount of flesh and blood, and whose effect was increasing his technique's range.

See — a perfect little loop.

Of course, the Intel System's binding vow templates didn't include anything this ridiculous, so whether it would actually work was up to him to test.

He'd actually tested the real effects in secret several times the night before.

Although Anjouin currently lacked the ability to set a complete growth-type binding vow, setting a few binding vow rules wasn't especially hard.

For instance, a cost of having to consume enough nutrients every day — plenty of meat, eggs, and dairy — in exchange for boosted physical development.

A fixed rest schedule every day, plus keeping his body clean, could be exchanged for faster cursed energy recovery, and so on.

The rules of a growth-type binding vow could target every system in the body — the digestive system, the respiratory system, the musculoskeletal system, the endocrine system, the reproductive system, the immune system, the nervous system, the circulatory system, and more.

From there, he could trade physical talent for cursed technique talent, and cursed technique talent for physical talent.

Like taking out one small loan after another from a bank, until he'd scraped together a sum big enough to build an ocean liner.

Constantly optimizing his body, his cursed energy, and every other aspect of himself.

Literally, quite literally, achieving the perfect body.

Honestly, Anjouin had considered that, given his surname was Anjouin, it wouldn't be too strange to awaken some kind of "Automatic Technique Generation" technique.

But thinking it over carefully, the more powerful a technique was, the greater its limitations, and the higher the talent it demanded.

Take the Gojo family's Limitless, for instance — a formidable technique that could manipulate space, but with an obvious weakness: it cost far too much to use.

Only when paired with the Six Eyes could Limitless's true power be unleashed.

With the Six Eyes' support, moves that should've cost a terrifying amount of energy could reach near-zero consumption — in other words, every ultimate move became as cheap as a basic attack.

And if he himself awakened the "Automatic Technique Generation" technique, without something as convenient as the Six Eyes to back it up, a technique that powerful would be nothing but dead weight.

Sure, it wasn't impossible he could create a technique to cut down the cost, but Anjouin didn't trust the odds of that happening.

Bottom line — awakening a Binding Vow technique actually suited him better than awakening something like the Ten Shadows Technique.

Backed by a growth-type binding vow, he could obtain physical talent just a notch below a "Zero Cursed Energy, Heavenly Tyrant" build, and cursed technique talent just a notch below a "Zero Body" build...

Anjouin settled the class down.

Fortunately, Arisu Sakayanagi made it back to the classroom right as lunch break ended.

"Sorry for scaring everyone."

"No, the fault's on me," Katsuragi said, his face full of sincerity. "Please, let me apologize, Sakayanagi."

"Fine."

After all, he'd nearly had a death on his conscience, and his guilt was plain enough that Arisu Sakayanagi couldn't very well refuse him.

Right there in the classroom, Katsuragi gave Arisu Sakayanagi a heartfelt apology.

An apology alone couldn't wipe the incident away, but at least Katsuragi meant to make it up to her somehow.

Before long, the mood in Class A gradually returned to normal.

Still, given how genuinely frail Arisu Sakayanagi was, more and more students started gathering around her. She'd always had a way of stirring people's protective instincts, and now even more of them wanted to look after her.

Masumi Kamuro, who'd joined the food-run group, felt a pang of guilt too.

She hadn't expected Arisu Sakayanagi to end up in danger the moment she stepped away.

After that little incident, the afternoon's two classes wrapped up.

Since the club orientation hadn't started yet, the Class A students stayed in the classroom, taking Anjouin's guidance while trading information.

Such as their outreach to Class B.

"How's it going with Class B? Are they willing to cooperate?" Anjouin asked Arisu Sakayanagi.

"They're willing, but Class B wants the cooperation limited to the first exam."

"Looks like the bait we dropped at the student council meeting worked on Ichinose."

Anjouin quietly let out a breath of relief.

Whether it was strength-first or jujutsu-first, if you didn't have overwhelming power, your only option was to seek strength in numbers.

And in this year's cohort, Class C had no shame and Class D was uncontrollable — cooperating with either one carried way too high a risk of a knife in the back.

"That works fine — Class A's reputation can build up through each round of cooperation too."

"Anjouin, if we want to tie Class B to Class A, what about letting them sit in on our classes?"

Katsuragi suggested, sitting two desks away, not quite daring to come closer.

"Oh?" Anjouin, Arisu Sakayanagi, and the rest of the class all turned to look.

"You said it yourself — at this school, Points can buy anything. So... if Class B students buy the right to audit our classes, they won't need to buy the jujutsu specialty courses themselves."

"And at the same time, that ties them fully to Class A... we could even pool both classes' resources to buy the specialty courses, so we can catch up with the second- and third-years in progress."

After all, the first-years had only just enrolled — they barely had any Private Points saved up.

Even though the specialty courses had a weekly cap, there was no way a single grade could buy out the full course load in its very first month.

"That's a pretty solid line of thinking," Anjouin said with a nod.

Arisu Sakayanagi looked at Katsuragi with new respect.

"No, it was Anjouin who gave me the idea."

"Is that really okay? Feels like Class B's getting a free ride," one student worried aloud.

"But Class B really isn't much of a threat."

Some of the Class A students had originally aspired to be police officers or firefighters, and had some understanding of jujutsu sorcerers whose duties overlapped with those jobs.

They knew perfectly well that Class B's well-behaved students posed no real threat to them.

Bringing Class B in against Class C and Class D would preserve Class A's edge and let them keep enjoying Class A's privileges indefinitely.

Granted, Anjouin's analysis suggested that a grade-wide confrontation was pretty likely this year, but before they were first-years in general, they were Class 1-A students first — and their priorities naturally leaned toward Class 1-A's interests.

Some supported the idea, some opposed it.

In the end, it would come down to the class's three representatives to decide.

Even on the very first official day of classes, Class A had already split, faintly, into three little factions.

"Then I'll keep handling the negotiations with Class B."

When her own interests were on the line, Arisu Sakayanagi wasn't in the mood to play around.

In the original story, she hadn't cared about being expelled or about her class ranking, because even if she got expelled, her family background meant it wouldn't affect her at all.

She was a VIP, here just for the ride.

Not everyone cared about Class A's 100% advancement and job placement rate.

Neither Anjouin nor Katsuragi had any objection to that.

Soon it was time for the club orientation.

Most of the first-years headed to the gymnasium, and following Anjouin's advice, the Class A students all went to check out the athletic clubs and ask their questions.

Especially when the Class A girls asked about Krav Maga — the senior members of the judo and karate clubs who actually knew what Krav Maga was just went quiet.

They couldn't help but think this year's freshmen were a little extreme.

The afternoon was just for club introductions, but the student council was also looking for new members, telling anyone interested to come by the student council office the next day.

Most of the Class A boys signed up for the karate club, while the rest, just wanting to get in shape, joined various other athletic clubs.

Since the school had no club that actually taught Krav Maga, the Class A girls planned to petition the student council for one.

By comparison, the other classes behaved pretty normally — plenty of them still treated this like an ordinary school.

Still, joining a club earned Private Points, so it wasn't a bad choice either — especially for classes whose Class Points were bound to run dry fast.

That night, a thunderous boom kicked things off.