Chapter 220: Battle with Kill Teacher, Exchange!

Listening to Koro-sensei say this, Chris gave a slight nod.

Now that was more like it!

Just like how, right before Gojo got cut in half, even people like Kusakabe watching the fight on the livestream had thought Gojo had already won — until, in a twist nobody saw coming, a shocking reversal came out of nowhere: a zero-frame Space Slash instantly killed the healed-up Gojo.

If he followed that up in front of Koro-sensei with a line like:

"Koro-sensei, I don't think I'll ever forget you as long as I live." ...that would be a perfect recreation of Sukuna's iconic scene.

But the reason an iconic scene becomes iconic is that it's built on countless layers of setup beforehand, so that when the least expected result lands at the least expected moment, it delivers real, gut-punching tension.

Right now, though Koro-sensei carried the terrifying legend of a lab mouse blowing up the moon, he hadn't actually shown these students the full extent of his real strength yet.

If anything, in the eyes of those who actually knew the full picture, Chris was the one who was "terrifyingly strong."

Plenty of items, plenty of experience, and a background nobody could pin down — there was no way to gauge where his true limits actually sat. So as far as everyone was concerned, Chris beating Koro-sensei fell squarely into "unexpected, yet completely reasonable."

If anything, it would have been more surprising if Chris had struggled or even lost to Koro-sensei.

Unfortunately, Chris was the type who only ever picked the sweetest part of the peach.

After being unbeatable for so long, he genuinely wasn't used to deliberately playing weak and eating hits for the sake of a good scene.

After all, he wasn't like those old monsters in novels stuck at some capped realm with their path to ascension sealed off, forced to hold back their strength.

He was the one pulling the strings behind all of this — every rule of this exam ground, every power of life and death within it, moved at his will.

And so, with a roaring phantom of some massive Dangerous Species creature flaring up behind him, silver-white heavy armor swept over Chris's entire body in an instant.

"Koro-sensei, forgive the rudeness."

By then, Koro-sensei had already flickered into place right in front of him, Mach 20 speed whipping up a gale, several tentacles sharp enough to slice through iron like mud closing to within half an inch of Chris's faceplate!

Right at that razor's-edge moment—

"The World." Chris murmured the name softly. A low hum—

The world plunged into absolute monochrome.

Honestly, if all he wanted was to stop time, Chris could've just triggered his [Time-Pause Watch] with a thought — no need to bother with something as showy as summoning a Stand.

But at this point, for him, whether or not he used an item — or which item he used — didn't really make any fundamental difference anymore.

In a space where drifting dust, the barbs on Koro-sensei's tentacles, even the ripples of moving air had all been frozen solid, Chris gave a small shake of his head, strode toward the yellow octopus in front of him, and slowly drew the [Enma Blade].

Once he felt he'd done enough—

"Time, resume flow."

The instant color rushed back, to everyone watching, the scene looked almost like it had skipped a frame — eerie and disjointed.

Koro-sensei seemed to have flash-stepped right up to Chris on his own, and then...

Without so much as a chance to resist, he was sliced, in a chaotic flurry of pale blue blade-light, into perfectly even mince.

Plip, plip... "Wha—!"

Not far off, Chiaki Matsushita stared at Koro-sensei reduced to a scattered pile of chunks, none of them wriggling to reform right away, and froze for a moment.

Even knowing how strong Chris was, this — Koro-sensei getting one-shot this fast — was still absurd!

She didn't dare hesitate, hurrying to summon her pink-and-blue [Crazy Diamond].

"Dora!" Crazy Diamond's fist slammed down onto the scattered tentacle chunks, triggering its restoration ability.

Amid a flash of miraculous light, Koro-sensei's form was forcibly reassembled, as though time itself had rewound.

"Koro-sensei, are you okay?" Matsushita Chiaki let out a breath of relief seeing him whole again, then muttered dryly, "You really let your guard down there."

Newly reborn, Koro-sensei's big round face wore a rare, comically sweat-drenched expression.

He patted down his own undamaged body with several tentacles in exaggerated disbelief, his signature round little eyes bulging wide, looking like he couldn't quite believe it:

"Nyoro-ah!? Koro-sensei... Koro-sensei actually got one-shot!?"

"This is truly beyond incredible... Chris, you're way too fast on the draw!"

But despite what he said, nobody could hear a trace of regret or heartbreak buried in Koro-sensei's exaggerated tone.

Chris knew exactly why.

After all, the heaviest burden weighing on Koro-sensei was this: as an altered human implanted with antimatter tentacles, his cells divided far too fast.

Before long, his body would hit its limit and, just like that lab mouse that blew up the moon, spiral irreversibly out of control and self-detonate, wreaking devastating harm on Earth.

But now — having arrived in this world, there was already someone here capable of one-shotting him.

Which meant Koro-sensei no longer needed to worry about the "afterlife" question of whether he'd drag the whole Earth down with him when he finally died.

To him, that was a relief, if anything.

But once Koro-sensei calmed down and thought it over, mixed feelings crept in.

The terrifying strength Chris had just shown — strength so absurd that even Koro-sensei's Mach-20 dynamic vision hadn't caught what happened—

—meant his assassination lessons might not have much use here after all...

Oh, wait, no.

Koro-sensei stroked his chin with a tentacle, eyes rolling as an idea struck.

Maybe Chris just had absurdly high stats, or some unreasonable special ability.

Purely in terms of combat technique and adaptability, wasn't there still room to grow?

After a moment's thought, Koro-sensei decided to change tactics.

"That was fast."

"Even I, Koro-sensei, couldn't track the path of your blade just now." Koro-sensei dropped his comical expression, narrowing his round little eyes, and spoke with unusual seriousness:

"But that's exactly what makes it so wrong."

"This isn't just raw speed anymore. It's... you stopped time. Didn't you?"

At that, the corner of Chris's mouth curled slightly beneath his faceplate.

He knew perfectly well this was pure blind luck on Koro-sensei's part — a conclusion stumbled onto by pure instinct.

After all, even someone as good-natured as Honami Ichinose wasn't obligated to share every last one of the group's trump cards.

Especially top-tier items like the Stand [The World] or the [Enma Blade] — things with zero chance of ever going public, circulating only among a small circle of core members.

There was no way Koro-sensei could have learned any of that in this short a time.

But then Chris reconsidered.

Koro-sensei was going to stay and teach these students regardless — if his very first class ended with him humiliated and stripped of all authority, what would've been the point of bringing him here in the first place?

So Chris dropped his faceplate and offered his praise. "Your instincts are sharp, Koro-sensei." "Aside from a handful of people, no one else actually knows about this ability yet."

Hearing Chris's roundabout confirmation, Koro-sensei snapped straight back up, proudly dusting off nonexistent dirt with a tentacle, and said:

"Well~ Koro-sensei will admit it, Chris-kun, you really are strong." "But it still comes down to overpowering people with a special ability. The moment you run into an enemy with real resistance to it, or your ability's on cooldown, you'd probably be in for a rough fight."

Koro-sensei pointed a tentacle at Chris.

"For this next round, hold off on that Time Stop ability of yours." "Let your teacher test your combat technique and battle IQ instead!"

Chris raised an eyebrow but didn't refuse.

"Fine then. Let's find out whether I've still got room to grow."

Before the words had even faded — BOOM!

Both Chris and Koro-sensei vanished from where they stood at the same instant.

An instant later, deafening sonic booms erupted one after another, both on the ground and in midair!

Fierce gusts tore through like a passing typhoon, nearly knocking the watching students off their feet.

Matsushita Chiaki quickly grabbed the girl beside her and pulled her back, helping steady her footing.

Up above, in the blur of afterimages streaking through the sky—

Koro-sensei and Chris were locked in a fierce close-quarters brawl.

Having already been killed on Chris's first strike once, Koro-sensei wasn't about to underestimate him this time.

He went all-out from the very start, countless tentacles turning into a whip-shadow so dense no gap remained, every strike aimed at the joints and vital points of the Demon Possession Chris wore.

Chris, meanwhile, looked as though he'd been caught completely off guard.

For a moment he could only swing his blade defensively, dodging with visible difficulty and stumbling back again and again.

Watching himself gain the upper hand sent Koro-sensei's confidence soaring!

See — no matter how strong Chris was, when it came to basic combat instincts, there was still a place for him to shine!

Koro-sensei grew more and more excited the longer they fought.

But the excitement didn't last long.

He sharply sensed that things weren't going quite the way he'd expected.

Chris's movements were like a jammed gear finally getting fully oiled, gradually warming up.

Faster and faster, stronger and stronger!

Not only was Chris perfectly matching his attack rhythm, but the flow between his moves was starting to show the faint signs of overtaking Koro-sensei's own!

Bit by bit, fine beads of cold sweat broke out across Koro-sensei's round forehead.

'No good! I carry the title of the strongest creature alive — how can I lose to my own student again this fast!'

Koro-sensei gritted his teeth and cranked his focus up to two hundred percent.

'If ordinary attacks aren't working, then take this!'

'Twenty-meter-radius light-speed tentacle strike, plus compressed tentacle detonation!!!'

The move had Koro-sensei simultaneously controlling dozens of tentacles, unleashing a relentless barrage from every direction at speeds beyond Mach 20.

The instant they made contact, he compressed the tentacle tips in sync, releasing a massive shockwave that produced an explosive effect!

He even planned to secretly compress part of his tentacle energy mid-attack, sneaking in a high-heat laser beam from Chris's blind spot.

As the saying went, all's fair in war — for a professional assassin, that was just basic procedure.

Don't blame your teacher for going hard on you, Chris!

With Matsushita's Stand around, it should be fine either way — Koro-sensei thought smugly to himself.

But just as Koro-sensei's killing blow was about to close in completely—

—he was horrified to see a layer of translucent energy ripples suddenly swirl up around Chris's body.

It was one of the energies he'd first sensed on Chris earlier.

And it seemed to be actively drawing similar energy from the surrounding air, converging it around Chris, weaving together with his own power to form a blazing, sacred halo of light!

Right after that, Koro-sensei's tentacles — trailing shockwave blasts, turned into a sky full of afterimages as they struck at Chris from every direction—

—the instant they touched that warped halo of light,

a sharp hiss rang out.

Amid the warping air and blazing light, what hit the ground first were the severed stumps of Koro-sensei's own forcibly-cut tentacles!

"Nyoro-a-a-ah! Hot, hot, so hot!"

The instant he realized something was wrong, Koro-sensei reacted with lightning speed.

He decisively abandoned his follow-up attack and shot straight back down to the ground.

By the time he came to a stop beside Matsushita Chiaki, the entire octopus was glowing red, like a lobster fresh out of boiling water, white steam rolling off every inch of him.

"Ma-Matsushita...," Koro-sensei cupped his face with two tentacles, putting on a comically about-to-cry expression:

"Please, hurry and heal your teacher... or Koro-sensei's going to end up rolling on the ground screaming in front of everyone, so embarrassing... waaah."

Matsushita Chiaki opened her mouth, staring at the shameless octopus monster in front of her.

Even with her decent composure, Koro-sensei's utterly unhinged personality still caught her a little off guard.

A moment later, she smoothly summoned [Crazy Diamond] and got to work quickly restoring him.

Her own gaze, though, drifted blank, still searching the sky above for that one figure.

Until... she finally spotted him, against the glow of the sinking sun.

Chris had shed his armor, standing quietly against the vast sky.

Golden Ki and Ripple energy rippled around him, glowing with a divine radiance so bright it was hard to look straight at, reflected in the light of the dying sun.

That single glimpse left Matsushita Chiaki unable to tear her eyes away.

In her overly focused eyes, a flicker of light seemed to pass for just an instant, hiding a flutter of feeling only she herself understood.

A moment later, having finished showing off, Chris drifted slowly down to land beside her.

After giving Matsushita Chiaki, who was still watching him, a small nod, Chris turned to the now-restored Koro-sensei and spoke. "Sorry about that, Koro-sensei."

"Guess I didn't quite hold back enough force blocking your finishing move just now."

Hearing that, Koro-sensei — only just recovered — didn't seem the least bit upset about losing.

He simply rubbed his head with a tentacle, wearing a slightly regretful look:

"Really, I'm sorry — looks like there's not much of a big help Koro-sensei can be to you after all..."

"From here on, maybe you should go check out Jiraiya-sensei's and Gojo-sensei's classes, see if there's anything new worth learning."

"Koro-sensei's classes here are all about assassination technique and sneak attacks. For someone with your kind of overwhelming raw strength, I'm afraid it won't help much."

Chris shook his head, polite about it:

"That's not true."

"I've got plenty of clear rewards farmed from past exams, and I can use the Hyperbolic Time Chamber to run live combat simulations against high-scoring monsters from previous rounds."

"Honestly, those of us who go into the Time Chamber regularly aren't really short on basic combat experience. What we actually need is more on the technique side."

Koro-sensei's round little eyes lit up at that.

One tentacle stroked his chin while two more shot out in front of him, holding a small notebook and pen that had appeared from nowhere, scribbling down notes at blinding speed.

"Combat assassination technique, huh... now that's something I actually have plenty of insight on."

"Say what you want, but back when I was still human, I was the professional assassin the entire world called 'The Reaper' — I gave everyone headaches!"

On that front, Chris fully believed in Koro-sensei's teaching ability.

After all, in the original Assassination Classroom source material—

—that whole class of problem students who spent every day scheming to kill him had, through Koro-sensei's tailored teaching, been forged one by one into elites who could stand on their own.

They'd even ended up his close friends.

Teaching this group of Advanced Nurturing students, whose physical stats already surpassed ordinary humans and who only lacked technique — that should be a piece of cake for him.

"Then I'll go check out how things are going with Gojo-sensei and Jiraiya-sensei."

Chris said, looking at Koro-sensei.

Koro-sensei tucked away his notebook and let out a light sigh:

"Go ahead. I'll ask some students to record the rest of my class content."

"If you're interested, Chris, you can watch it whenever you have time..."

Chris nodded and was about to turn and leave.

Matsushita Chiaki, who'd stayed silent this whole time, suddenly spoke up:

"Um, Chris." "That golden light that appeared around you just now — was that Ripple, Ki, something like that? Or some special item?"

Chris glanced back.

Seeing Matsushita Chiaki had returned to her usual composed expression, he patiently explained. "It really is Ki..."

"But to create the kind of sunset-glow effect you just saw, I also need to fold Ripple into it. Since Ripple itself works as life energy, it can simulate sunlight as a backdrop — the two layered together is what makes it work."

Matsushita Chiaki frowned slightly, a little confused. "Ripple...?"

"Layered together with Ki, does it actually cause some kind of chemical reaction?"

Chris waved a hand, answering with total confidence:

"No real chemical reaction. Ki is basically just a strictly superior, all-around upgrade of Ripple."

"Then why..."

Matsushita Chiaki didn't even get to finish.

Chris had already jumped in with his answer:

"Because layering them together just looks cooler."

Matsushita Chiaki fell into stunned silence.

Utterly floored by how plain and unadorned — yet completely genuine — his reasoning was, she couldn't find a single word to say.

But watching Chris tap off with the tip of his foot and leap away, that dazzling light still shimmering across him in the sunset—

She pressed her lips together and silently added, in her own mind: Still, it really was pretty... not bad at all.

At that moment, Koro-sensei, watching Chris go, stretched out two tentacles.

One condensed a golden ripple at its tip, the other gathered a faint white cluster of Ki at its own.

He spoke, sounding a touch reflective:

"During the fight just now, Chris was using Ki to boost his instant burst output, wasn't he..."

"And I'd guess his mid-air flight was also thanks to that same exquisite control over Ki."

Ayanokoji Kiyotaka, who'd been watching from the sidelines the whole time, stepped forward, eyeing the energy on Koro-sensei's tentacles thoughtfully:

"Looks like you've only just started picking up Ki, Koro-sensei?"

Koro-sensei answered readily, without hesitation:

"It's some material the Director gave me, telling me to study up first so I'd have something to use when teaching you all."

Ayanokōji nodded.

Whether Koro-sensei had genuinely picked it up just from watching Chris in action, or was leaning on reference material the Director had handed him in advance, none of that really mattered.

What mattered was—

"Just as I thought — the stronger someone's physical stats, the simpler the method for cultivating Ki, and the faster the progress."

"Koro-sensei's only had this short a time with it, and he can already project it, however crude."

"Which means, thinking about it now..." Ayanokoji Kiyotaka murmured pensively:

"...for the rest of the ordinary students without a Combat Suit, rather than grinding away at slow-progress Ripple, they'd be better off switching to Ki, using the tough vampire body granted by the [Stone Mask] instead."

"That's the current meta answer."

Hearing this analysis—

"What, from the sound of it, you're telling me there aren't actually that many of you who can use this fluently yet?"

Koro-sensei glanced at Ayanokōji, a little surprised.

But no sooner had the question left his mouth than Koro-sensei worked out the answer for himself and relaxed.

After all, if everyone were as much of a freak as Chris, mastering things at a glance with zero instruction, there'd be no need to bring him in to help teach in the first place.

"Nyoro-fu-fu-fu! So it turns out Koro-sensei still has real value here after all!"

Koro-sensei planted his tentacles on his hips, confidence restored:

"What Koro-sensei's best at, after all, is cellular restructuring and energy control!"

"Too bad I've only just started with this cultivation method myself, so I haven't fully mastered it yet... well, once your teacher gets a bit more familiar with it, I'll put together a thorough, well-reasoned Ki-training plan for you all!"

Meanwhile, having left Koro-sensei's class, Chris was already standing high in the sky.

From up there, looking down, he had an unobstructed view of the entire Advanced Nurturing campus below.

Honestly, for a school of this scale, the layout was genuinely grand.

Especially considering that the entire sprawling campus and all its advanced facilities existed to serve only a few hundred students.

What's more, purely to satisfy his own amusement, he'd once used items to construct an entire rule-concept called the [Front World, Back World].

By day, this place was just a normal Advanced Nurturing High School, students living out their youth as usual. But at certain hours of the night, anyone marked would get pulled into the Back World...

This current spot was, in fact, one of the byproducts left over from that earlier flash of inspiration.

Still, all that was just leftover trivia from an old setup, nothing worth dwelling on now.

The priority right now was to properly gather some intel, probe a bit into these newly arrived 'teachers.'

Even if... it was mostly just for show.

Otherwise, as a 'suspected veteran' himself, if he just sat around doing nothing day after day, slacking off for too long, it really wouldn't make sense.

Thinking that, Chris raised a hand and summoned his Black Sphere Controller.

He opened up its 3D map function.

Watching the scattered green dots representing everyone's position appear on it, he pulled out his phone and, with an air of great seriousness, snapped a few photos of the radar screen and several specific directions around him.

Then he drifted down a bit lower, close enough to observe things from nearer range without alerting anyone.

By this point, in the areas assigned to Gojo Satoru and Jiraiya, both had already finished briefly explaining the basic principles of cursed technique and ninjutsu, respectively.

They stood in front of groups of high schoolers, waiting for the students around them to digest the information and decide whether anyone wanted to buy a "cursed energy seed" or a "Chakra seed."

Chris's blatant, unhidden flying-around-and-peeking act naturally caught Gojo Satoru's and Jiraiya's attention before long.

But — since Jiraiya had no way to stay airborne at the moment, and he saw Gojo Satoru, blindfold on, hands already in his pockets, rising straight up to intercept Chris himself, Jiraiya set aside the urge to go ask and turned back to dealing with the curious students in front of him.

Gojo Satoru rose into the sky and, from a short distance, used his Six Eyes to clearly make out the strange energy swirling around Chris.

"Yo, there."

Gojo stroked his chin, sizing Chris up from behind his sunglasses:

"So this is the Ki Koro-sensei was talking about, huh? Didn't expect it could actually let someone ignore gravity and fly — that's a pretty convenient feature."

"It really is a solid cultivation system, I'll give it that."

He grinned. "Just wondering, though — does your teacher here get a chance to take a look for himself?"

Back in Gojo Satoru's home world, aside from cursed technique users born with innate cursed techniques, free flight was a fairly rare ability.

If he could get Megumi and Yuji Itadori to pick up this kind of flying technique too...

Never mind how much it would boost their raw combat power — at the very least, if they ever ran into danger on a mission, got overwhelmed and needed to make a run for it, buying time for him, the strongest, to swoop in and save them would be no problem at all.

The only problem right now was—

He'd already accepted a single Sukuna's Finger from that entity called "GANTZ" behind the Black Sphere, as payment for coming here to teach.

The contract was already settled, so it seemed like he had no legitimate grounds left to ask the Black Sphere for a second salary...

Maybe he could go ask the Director about it?

He could give up the "unlimited free-meal voucher at a high-end restaurant" the Director had promised him and just swap it directly for this Ki cultivation method instead — he just wasn't sure whether the Director actually had that kind of authority.

Hovering across from him, Chris could tell at a glance exactly what Gojo Satoru was scheming.

He didn't bother holding back, casually breaking the silence:

"If you want it, Gojo-sensei, I can just give you a copy for free."

"This cultivation method itself is just a drop reward we earned in a previous exam, risking our lives to take down a high-score boss. We have full right to do whatever we want with it."

"In fact, we've already distributed it to students in every class to learn from. If you want it, Gojo-sensei, we obviously won't mind sharing."

Chris paused for a beat, his tone turning a shade more serious:

"All I'd ask is that all of you teachers hold nothing back going forward, and teach everyone everything you've got."

Hearing that—

Gojo Satoru blinked, then let out a light laugh and nodded in agreement:

"Didn't think it'd be this easy to get."

Sure, that's a fair trade. Teaching and raising students is my actual job right now anyway.

But he quickly raised a finger, getting ahead of things with a preemptive disclaimer:

"But let's get this straight up front — a sorcerer's power ceiling is tied heavily to individual natural talent. I'm only responsible for teaching. I can't guarantee everyone turns into a prodigy in a short amount of time."

"At the very least... the students who've spent points to buy a seed need to actually stick around in my class and grind for a while, right?"

Chris sighed, wearing a helpless expression of someone resigned to leaving the rest up to fate:

"There's no way to know that kind of thing for sure ahead of time — we just have to take it one step at a time. If someone genuinely doesn't have the talent to learn it, there's nothing we can do."

"Fundamentally, having outside teachers like you here to instruct us at all is just extra reward from GANTZ for the fact that people survived the Revival Round. Just being given seeds for a whole new system is already generous. Now, from what Koro-sensei's told me, you're even offering up a section of this place as a makeshift Time Chamber for everyone to practice in, free of charge... We really can't ask for much more than that."

Gojo Satoru nodded in agreement, then, as if something had just occurred to him, asked with genuine interest:

"Come to think of it, weren't you on the roster for Koro-sensei's class? What are you doing all the way up here?"

"Did you decide there was nothing worth learning over there and figure you'd defect to the light, switching over to study under me instead?"

Gojo Satoru stroked his chin, smiling with unabashed self-satisfaction:

"Yare yare~"

"If that's really the case, wouldn't that make my charm as a teacher a little too overwhelming?"

"Having everyone scramble to my class like this — it might actually start damaging the harmony between me and my fellow colleagues."

Watching Gojo Satoru's insufferably smug act—

Chris's mouth twitched, and he explained, a bit exasperated:

"You're overthinking it, Gojo-sensei."

"I just sparred with Koro-sensei for a bit. After I won, he just let me go, told me I was free to do whatever I wanted."

"He also said he'd get the rest of the class content recorded specially for me, so I can just watch the footage whenever I have time."

Gojo Satoru let out an "oh," the tail end of his tone rising slightly:

"Should I call that the special treatment only good students get?" "Still, though..."

His gaze bore into Chris through the fabric of his blindfold, one long, deep look:

"The whole reason we got summoned here in the first place is to help you brats get stronger and handle crises."

"If your own strength is already more than enough on its own, then honestly, whatever you decide to do, there's really nothing wrong with it."

With that, Gojo Satoru let out a rather regretful sigh:

"Ah, too bad you didn't pick my class from the start — I really would've liked to spar with you myself."

"After all, strongest versus strongest... heh heh~ Just thinking about it sounds fun, doesn't it?"

Chris didn't take the bait.

Fighting for the thrill of it wasn't something he needed to be doing right now.

He just looked down at the crowd gathered in one corner of the field below and changed the subject:

"Has anyone down there actually succeeded in awakening a cursed technique yet?"

Gojo Satoru smiled and pointed downward:

"You're free right now anyway, aren't you? Might as well come down and take a look together."

"While we're at it, we can jot down whatever intel might be useful to you all, and it'll keep my students from spacing out while they wait."

Chris frowned, thought it over, and didn't refuse the suggestion.

He'd already come this far anyway.

The two of them, one after the other, slowly descended onto the open ground the crowd below had claimed.

Actually, according to the original plan, to maximize efficiency, Gojo Satoru, Koro-sensei, and Jiraiya could all have just gathered together and taught one giant combined class.

But considering that, when first exposed to different unfamiliar power systems, students would easily get distracted trying to take in too much at once—

—the instructors, after a brief exchange of looks, had all independently chosen to split up and each claim their own separate area.

By now, among the students who'd signed up for the Jujutsu Class, apart from the handful who'd just come to watch and make up numbers because they genuinely had no points to spend—

—everyone else genuinely interested had already spent points to buy a "cursed energy seed," meant to awaken their cursed energy, through their Black Sphere Watches.

Watching this group, having already bought their tickets in, sit there frowning one after another, straining with dead-serious expressions and failing to produce so much as a fart's worth of progress—

Gojo Satoru let out a helpless sigh and clapped his hands to get their attention. "Hey, hey, everyone, snap out of it."

"Remember what I said at the start of class?"

"Cursed energy is negative emotion converted into raw power. A cursed technique is a dedicated program carved into your body. You need enough cursed energy as fuel to actually run that program."

Gojo Satoru held up a finger and walked in among the students:

"But even if the seed awakens it for you, that doesn't mean you can use it right away. It's like being handed a brand new computer — you still have to learn how to actually turn it on."

"If you want to feel the cursed energy inside you as fast as possible, the quickest way is to go somewhere quiet and oppressive."

"In places thick with pent-up negative emotion, there's naturally more residual cursed energy lingering around, which makes it easier for you to resonate with it and actually sense it."

Gojo Satoru glanced around:

"Your school's got this much land — I'd imagine a place like that shouldn't be hard to find, right?"

"Anything like an old mass grave, or maybe some abandoned mental asylum from before this place got converted into school buildings?"

Hearing that request, Arisu Sakayanagi pressed her lips together and spoke up, sounding a bit exasperated:

"Gojo-sensei, I think you might have some misunderstanding about this place."

"Advanced Nurturing is a national-level key project, funded and built with government money. There's no way they'd cut corners on the budget for something like that."

"Besides..." Arisu Sakayanagi glanced up at the sky above, "aren't we currently standing inside some kind of pocket dimension, similar to a Time Chamber, that you teachers built using your Black Sphere privileges? It's hard to say whether the actual geography here even corresponds to anything in the real world."

Hearing that, everyone sank back into troubled thought.

Right then, beside her, Hiyori Shiina — already wearing her [Phantom Mask] — suddenly spoke up quietly with a suggestion:

"If all you need is thick, concentrated negative emotion... I actually know a place."

Hiyori Shiina pointed down at the shadow beneath her own feet. "Inside the Kingdom of Shadows this mask connects to, sunlight never reaches, and the atmosphere is unbearably oppressive year-round. There's more than enough negative emotion in there."

"If it's alright to bring everyone in, doing your cursed energy perception training there might actually be a pretty good option?"

"Oh? Kingdom of Shadows?" Gojo Satoru stroked his chin, mulled it over for a moment, then nodded and decided on the spot:

"Sure, let's give it a try then."

"Since it's a training ground provided by GANTZ, I'd guess its compatibility isn't bad — it shouldn't clash too badly with the items you're already carrying."

As he spoke, Gojo Satoru smiled, his gaze cutting through the crowd to land on Chris standing off to the side:

"Besides, even if something really does spiral out of control in there..." "With the two of us 'strongest' here keeping watch, there's absolutely nothing to worry about!"

At that, the few familiar faces in the Jujutsu Class all turned their eyes toward Chris in unison.

Honestly, quite a few of them were still caught off guard by the way Chris had just dropped in from the sky.

Everyone knew perfectly well that Chris had never bought any special item that would let him fly.

So the only explanation for how he could pull off something that flew in the face of gravity like that—

—could only be the Ki cultivation method that had dropped in the Darkness Devil exam ground earlier!

As the very first person in the whole school to cultivate Ki to the point of breaking free of Earth's gravity and flying, and in the process patch up his own weak point—

—that genuinely deserved some attention.

Still, there were clearly more pressing things to deal with right now, so by unspoken agreement, no one voiced any deeper questions about the details.

And so, after a brief exchange of glances with Chris and a small nod of confirmation from him—

—Hiyori Shiina, and Kei Karuizawa, similarly masked on the other side of the crowd, stepped forward in perfect sync.

The two of them, well-practiced by now, channeled the mask's power together and summoned several Dark Shadow Legion soldiers of varying forms.

Under Gojo Satoru's keenly interested gaze—

—the soldiers made their way to each student's feet, spreading out like a swamp of shadow beneath them.

____

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