Chapter 32: Small Star Palace and Small Tea Pillar (Patreon)

Chapter 32: Little Hoshinomiya and Little Chabashira

...

Once the group of Class D students left, Satoru Anjouin also put an end to his childish antics with Ai Morishita.

"You lost."

Ai Morishita planted her hands on her hips, looking thoroughly pleased with herself.

"That's only ten wins to one loss."

"Liar, there's no way I lost that many times!"

Hearing Anjouin's made-up tally, Morishita flared up on the spot.

"Maybe it happened in a dream."

"What, you actually did that to me in a dream!" Morishita froze in shock.

"Could you not phrase it so weirdly?"

Anjouin didn't know whether to laugh or wince.

He had no interest in bickering with Morishita over this — he was bound to lose that fight.

"By the way, Morishita, why do you think that classmate is a jellyfish? It can't just be because her shikigami is a jellyfish, right?"

The bouncy jellyfish cradled in the busty girl's arms was obviously her so-called shikigami.

Then again, it wasn't strange for a cursed technique to come with its own shikigami.

A certain lawyer's technique came with its own domain, its own shikigami, and its own cursed tools — genuinely enviable.

All that could be said was that cursed techniques were just that miraculous.

"Obviously because jellyfish look pretty but are actually venomous."

Morishita tilted her head, looking puzzled. "You should be able to tell too — that girl's a total two-face~"

"Impressive," Anjouin said, the praise slipping out before he could stop himself.

"Mm-hmm~!"

Hearing the compliment, the girl puffed out her chest even more proudly.

"I suddenly want to eat jellyfish skin."

"..." Faced with Morishita's sudden whim, Anjouin felt a headache coming on.

Jellyfish skin came from a subspecies of jellyfish. Most jellyfish were venomous and couldn't be eaten raw — only specially processed jellyfish could be safely consumed.

Anjouin secretly snapped a photo of the Class D girls walking away. Though all he caught was a blurry shot of their backs, the busty girl still stood out unmistakably.

To prevent secret photography, phones on the island nation couldn't have their shutter sound muted.

A click sounded.

The girl cradling the jellyfish, surrounded by several other girls, instinctively glanced over toward Anjouin.

Anjouin turned sideways, pretending to take a photo of Morishita, while Morishita, perfectly in sync with him, struck a Kamen Rider transformation pose.

Without thinking, he snapped another shot.

He had to admit, it was kind of cute.

"Morishita, can I keep the photo?"

"Then you're treating me to dinner."

Morishita thought it over, then nodded firmly.

"Fine, with the discount, the other set meals aren't too pricey anyway."

Anjouin had three million points on his phone, so he wasn't too bothered by the expense.

Afterward, he sent the photo to the class group chat, asking the class's intel team to look into it when they had time. Since the other girl was flaunting her shikigami so openly, they might be able to dig up more information.

At its core, a jujutsu sorcerer's battle was a battle of information.

Knowing an opponent's fighting style and cursed technique ahead of time made it possible to devise a targeted countermeasure.

Precisely because of this, a Binding that voluntarily exposed one's own technique could, in exchange, grant a powerful boost to that technique's effects.

But the Three Great Families' inherited techniques couldn't be used this way.

After all, the Three Great Families' current standing had been built entirely on their inherited techniques.

Anyone defeated by the Three Great Families, anyone crushed under their heel, would inevitably study their techniques.

Information the enemy already knew wasn't a real disadvantage even if made public, so it couldn't fulfill the conditions for a "Binding."

Take, for instance, the Binding Anjouin had previously formed with Nagumo Miyabi.

Even though it was something of a cheat to get the other party to agree first, a Binding still couldn't be set arbitrarily — at the very least, Anjouin couldn't use a Binding to force Nagumo to hand over his entire cursed technique.

In the end, even if someone agreed to a Binding both out loud and sincerely, the Binding's scope would still be limited by what they'd actually intended when they agreed.

Take Nagumo, for example — he'd probably only meant to go along with Anjouin to some small degree.

So while he'd agreed to cooperate, he'd surely done so with some reluctance, and he was only willing to go along with it once.

Anjouin guessed that if someone ever agreed to hand over everything, his Binding could then be placed on them without any restrictions at all — potentially even stripping their cursed technique away entirely.

His thoughts drifted for a moment.

But that couldn't be helped — tonight he was going to meet the jujutsu world's [Strongest].

At noon, he'd received a text from Kento Nanami, arranging to meet at a certain shore at 9 p.m.

Thanks to his intel network, Anjouin already knew this meeting wouldn't just be with Nanami alone.

In the class group chat:

[Nishikawa: Huh, isn't that Kushida?]

[Yoshida: The one from Class D?]

[Takemoto: Yeah, Class D's little angel. I heard her dream is to be friends with everyone.]

[Sanada: Copy that.]

[Shiraishi: Kikyou-chan is so cute~]

[Kamuro: Heh heh — that's what Sakayanagi said.]

[Katsuragi: ??]

Anjouin nodded, marveling at how obedient Sanada really was.

But after he'd sent that photo, the conversation in the group chat had gradually started to go off the rails.

Some of the girls in class were jealous — of Kushida's looks, her good personality, her outstanding figure, and now even the fact that she'd awakened a technique that came with its own shikigami.

The boys, of course, kept themselves in check — at least they weren't like a bunch of apes openly discussing melons in public — but they still couldn't resist praising Kushida's gentleness and beauty.

[Anjouin: Making friends is fine, but don't treat her like a trash can for your negative emotions just because she's kind.]

In a sense, Kikyou Kushida's real talent was her charisma.

Sure, her academics and athletic ability were only average, but with her sweet looks and cheerful personality, she could easily slip past other people's guard and into their personal space.

That was how she'd learned other people's secrets straight from their own mouths.

In the original story, near the end of ninth grade, Kushida had been ostracized after her account was exposed, and it forced the whole class into a mass boycott of school.

The weapon she'd used was "the truth."

Lies never truly hurt anyone — only the truth could do that.

Still, a truth potent enough to collapse an entire class into a boycott could only mean that whoever got close to Kushida wasn't exactly upstanding to begin with.

Anjouin had brought it up in the group chat partly to keep his classmates from accidentally spilling their own secrets to her.

That little Starshrine's destructive power was nothing to underestimate.

...

Anjouin and Morishita reached the cafeteria and even went to scope out the second and third floors.

"Looks like there's no jellyfish skin tonight."

"Mm." Morishita looked a little disappointed.

"Did you really want it that badly?"

"Not really, and I don't even like it that much to begin with."

"??"

Hearing Morishita say she didn't actually like jellyfish skin, Anjouin froze for a second, then gave her a light, exasperated knock on the head.

"If you don't even like it, why'd you say you wanted to eat it?"

"I just suddenly wanted to try it," Morishita answered honestly.

The two of them started serving themselves food again. Anjouin was ready to treat Morishita to the pricey Set A, but she surprised him by heading straight for the free section instead.

"Didn't we agree I'd treat you?"

"This is fine. I just want golden chicken nuggets tonight."

"Guess we'll have to swing by the convenience store later, then."

Anjouin didn't object. But before the two of them could pick up their chopsticks, a figure strode quickly up to their table and set a tray down with a thud.

A cool, aloof black-haired girl, like an untouchable flower on a distant peak, simply sat herself down.

She wore a sour scowl, and her eyes looked like they could kill.

"Uh..."

"Eep."

Under that stare, Anjouin felt uneasy, and Morishita was outright startled.

"What are you doing here?"

"You said before... that my brother asked you to be my tutor. But you never contacted me after that day."

The newcomer was none other than Manabu Horikita's younger sister, Suzune Horikita.

She was essentially Classroom of the Elite's number-one heroine (glorified plot device) — aside from her personality, she excelled in pretty much every other regard.

People called her "Little Chabashira," "Budget Yukino," and so on.

"But... it's only been two or three days. I figured I'd still make it in time if I contacted you over the weekend."

Anjouin even counted it out on his fingers — it wasn't like ten days or half a month had passed; it hardly warranted being hounded over.

"...You asked me before to look into why the students in my class were burning through their points so fast."

The icy, stone-faced beauty stated her reason for coming to find him.

"Oh, right, I think I did ask that."

Anjouin's brain, like a rusty old machine that hadn't been oiled in a while, took a moment to recall the matter.

He'd never bothered keeping track of something once he already knew the answer.

Not to mention, the whole reason he'd sent Suzune to investigate in the first place was just to get her out of his hair.

Judging by appearance, Suzune Horikita was undeniably a beautiful girl. In the original illustrations, her cup size kept getting shaved down smaller and smaller, but in reality, that particular thing wasn't so easy to make shrink.

So even if she couldn't quite match up to the "monsters" of this year's batch, she was still one of the standouts among them.

Suzune arched an eyebrow, puzzled by Anjouin's attitude.

"Anyway, I've already gotten to the bottom of that matter."

"Go ahead, then."

Anjouin said, sounding entirely unbothered.

"It's the discounts. Nearly every item in the stores at the mall is much cheaper than what you'd find outside."

"The students didn't want to miss this 'new student discount' period, so they stocked up on a huge amount of goods in advance..."

"I stocked up on some emergency food and daily necessities too, ahead of time."

Suzune answered with a serious expression, a note of pride creeping into her voice.

I really am no longer the useless person my brother once knew—!

"Pfft."

Morishita clapped both hands over her mouth, clearly struggling not to laugh.

"A new student discount period, huh... Did you ask any of the store staff about it?"

"Hm?" Suzune looked confused.

"Did you notice any event names posted in the stores? Like an anniversary sale, or some kind of holiday promotion?"

Anjouin kept asking.

"Did you ask a teacher, or discuss this with any other students?"

Suzune's expression stiffened slightly — she hadn't done a single one of the things Anjouin had just mentioned.

The conclusion she'd reached was partly gleaned from eavesdropping on her classmates' conversations, and partly from her own investigation.

Naturally, she hadn't discussed the matter with any other students either.

It wasn't that she hadn't harbored any doubts, but in the end she'd simply taken too much for granted.

"Pff-hah!" Morishita completely lost the fight to hold back, light bursts of laughter spilling out of her nonstop.

"You got the reason behind Class D's heavy spending right, but as for the truth about this school — you're way off the mark."

Watching Suzune's expression sour, Anjouin figured he'd better patiently explain himself.

After all, he had to earn the payment Manabu Horikita had given him.

A million points, an old book, and a hint about the "Secret Archive" — that was more than enough to make him willing to look out for Suzune a little.