At the corner of the teaching building's corridor.
On his way to find Horikita Suzune and Nanase Tsubasa and check the results of their special training.
Chris walked along with a seemingly nonchalant air.
But in truth, through a virtual screen only he could see, he was savoring everything happening back in the classroom with great relish.
Honestly, watching Ayanokouji calmly plant a flag before the fight even began, he'd nearly failed to keep a straight face.
And as it turned out, the power of a causality weapon was not to be underestimated.
Even though his opponent was merely Ryuuen stripped of his cybernetic body's enhancement, under the flag's influence, in the first few exchanges Ayanokouji inexplicably slipped on the mat, nearly handing Ryuuen an opening to slam a heavy punch into his temple.
Fortunately, the foundation of the White House's greatest masterpiece was still there. Relying on his muscle control and on-the-spot reactions, Ayanokouji forcibly clawed the disadvantage back in the end, crushing his opponent through pure technique and taking the duel without any real danger.
'As expected, when the gap in raw strength between two sides is too large, a so-called flag still can't completely dictate the outcome.'
'The ones who can pull off a multiverse-level power move and still not have to loot corpses are ultimately a rare few...'
Chris quietly ribbed him in his heart.
Still, setting IQ aside, the Ayanokoji Kiyotaka the White House had cultivated over these dozen-plus years was indeed pretty decent in the realm of pure physical combat alone. But... it seemed martial prowess was about the only thing worth mentioning about him.
He'd always been curious. Ayanokoji Atsumi founded the White House, supposedly to artificially manufacture a "perfect genius" surpassing everything, and thereby prove the theory that "acquired education can absolutely reign over innate genes."
What exactly did that mean?
If you really could start from zero and forge any ordinary person into a genius...
Shouldn't he also be mass-producing utterly talentless mediocrities—like Kanji Ike or Haruki Yamauchi—into existences on Ayanokouji's level?
But the reality was, the White House's elimination rate was terrifyingly high.
This survival-of-the-fittest, Gu-King mode... felt, in essence, not all that different from the Black Sphere exams at the very beginning.
"And a fair number of people really did die in the White House." Chris stroked his chin.
By contrast, in the Black Sphere exam, aside from the few unlucky souls he'd handpicked, the rest of the eliminated intruders—he'd merely had GANTZ alter their memories and sent them back to live ordinary high school lives.
Compared like that, he, the mastermind pulling the strings, had instead become a "great benefactor."
Just as Chris's thoughts wandered—
He suddenly caught a faint sound of footsteps.
The sound was very light.
Tailing him at a distance neither far nor near—not far enough to lose sight of him, not close enough to expose their presence—the spacing controlled to near perfection.
The kind of tail an ordinary person could absolutely never detect.
But Chris didn't even need to use his brain; in one second he guessed who the tailer was.
After all, in this school, the number of people capable of such covert tailing, and who had both the reason and the motive to choose to follow him... could be counted on one hand at most.
This wasn't like the original timeline, with its everyday battles of wits where you had to shadow each other to probe one another's secrets.
Under the crushing pressure of the Black Sphere exam, everyone was too busy just trying to stay alive.
Thinking it over and over, aside from Amanatsu Kazuha, it was hard to come up with anyone else.
Still, Chris had no intention of stopping to call her out.
Amanatsu Kazuha had clearly seen the situation for what it was, and decided to abandon the White House—which obviously had no future at a glance—planning instead to find a more reliable "keeper."
This sort of drama was one of the flavors you simply had to sample in the world of Classroom of the Elite.
Since it had come knocking at his door, he naturally had no reason to refuse.
Soon, Chris arrived at the room previously used for special training. He raised his hand and lightly knocked twice on the closed door.
"Come in." Horikita Suzune's cool voice came from within.
Chris pushed the door open and stepped inside.
Meeting his eyes were Horikita Suzune and Nanase Tsubasa, each holding a brand-new wooden sword, standing at opposite ends of the arena and facing off from afar.
Though the two girls wore only ordinary athletic wear, their gazes were sharp, as if they were rehearsing in a spiritual world.
Chris gave a slight nod as a greeting.
Seeing that the newcomer was Chris, Nanase Tsubasa immediately put away her wooden sword, reached for the zipper of her athletic jacket, and asked obediently:
"Senpai, are we starting with practical sparring again today?"
That posture clearly meant she was preparing to follow the previous "rules," stripping off her jacket to train wearing only her Combat Suit.
Seeing this, Chris couldn't help but twitch the corner of his mouth, raising a hand to stop her from pulling the zipper:
"That's enough, keep your clothes on. No wooden-sword sparring today."
He raised the Black Sphere Watch on his wrist: "I'm taking you two into the Hyperbolic Time Chamber for a real, no-holds-barred fight. We've got [Crazy Diamond] as a safety net now anyway, so there's no need to worry about wasting S points getting hurt in there."
As he spoke, Chris tapped a few operations on the watch, sending the two of them an invitation to enter the Time Chamber as a party.
Receiving the invitation, Nanase Tsubasa was slightly stunned, her heart full of confusion.
'Since Crazy Diamond can serve as a safety net and there's no need to worry about injuries... then why didn't Senpai just use this method yesterday? Why insist on making us spar with wooden swords in the real world?'
After a brief moment of doubt, Nanase Tsubasa quickly supplied herself with a logical answer.
'I get it! It must be because yesterday I was a newcomer and hadn't yet earned Senpai's true recognition! He was using yesterday's basic sparring to test my resolve. And today is the real beginning of him bringing me into the core circle!'
Yes, the girl very successfully convinced herself.
She completely failed to consider... that Chris might simply have wanted to see them in skintight rubber suits.
Seeing Horikita Suzune click agree without the slightest hesitation, Nanase Tsubasa also raised her hand and pressed the confirm button on her watch.
Accompanied by a momentary daze in their eyes—
When their vision refocused, the three of them were already inside the pure-white space of the Hyperbolic Time Chamber.
Chris raised his hand to summon the room owner's control panel, and skillfully selected a scene of a barren, rock-strewn wilderness.
Once the surrounding whiteness faded and yellow sand and towering boulders rose from the ground, the scene fully constructed—
Chris spoke to the two girls:
"This time, same as yesterday, I'll trade a few blows with you to see the gap in your practical skills, then I'll give you guidance."
Hearing this, Nanase Tsubasa raised her hand and summoned a war sword from her Black Sphere Watch, nodding as she assumed the standard opening stance of ancient-style swordsmanship. Horikita Suzune, however, didn't immediately follow suit.
She paused slightly, then asked with a hint of yearning:
"Sensei... that move you used last time facing the Darkness Devil, and later when sparring with Kiryuuin-senpai—it's called 'Dimension Slash,' right?"
Chris nodded in acknowledgment: "It's called Dimension Slash, that's right."
He arched an eyebrow, looking at the light the girl couldn't hide in her eyes: "What, you want to learn it?"
Horikita Suzune's eyes lit up in an instant, her breathing turning a little rapid:
"Can I?!"
Beside her, Nanase Tsubasa also chimed in reflexively: "Is this... is this the kind of move an ordinary person can learn?"
Chris thought for a moment, then with a flip of his wrist brought out the [Enma Blade] along with its sheath, holding it in his hand as he explained:
"To be precise, the principle isn't really that difficult."
"The core logic is to use an external object to distort the space in front of you, folding the distance between two originally parallel points together. Then, in the instant the space overlaps into a rift, you complete a high-speed slash, and finally return to your original position."
Chris drew the Enma Blade out half an inch: "Those blue blade-marks you saw are actually the residual afterimages of light distortion, left after space is forcibly cut open."
"But if you want to pull off this move with a tool other than the [Enma Blade]... then you'll need to possess the corresponding ability yourself."
Hearing this, Horikita Suzune's eyes drooped a little, at a loss for words:
"I see..."
"So in other words, even if everyone can now buy past items in the mysterious shop of the presiding god's space, without this blade, it's absolutely impossible to learn Dimension Slash."
"You could put it that way." Chris nodded truthfully.
But seeing Horikita Suzune's expression—as though she'd lost the whole world, her brows laced with a resigned disappointment as if she'd expected it all along—Chris changed his tune:
"However, since you now understand the principle, there's more than one road forward."
"Perhaps someday when a suitable tool refreshes in the mysterious shop, as long as you can draw the connections and achieve a similar effect, it's not impossible."
'Things like Demon Essence, a Zanpakuto, or a special Devil Fruit...'
After all, Vergil's Dimension Slash—what action-game-flaunting gacha title hasn't cribbed a move or two from it?
If you really dig into the lore behind it, how many of them can perfectly reproduce its effect?
Bluntly put, a lot of the time it's just piggybacking on the flashy visuals.
So, as long as you can get your hands on a highly versatile tool down the line—whether it's genuinely cutting open space, or merely simulating that cool, screen-filling web of blade light—
As long as you can achieve the ultimate goal of looking "cool," then it counts as a success.
With that thought, Chris straight-up tossed the [Enma Blade] in his hand, sheath and all, over to Horikita Suzune. "Snap." Horikita Suzune hurriedly caught it, looking at Chris with eyes full of confusion.
"Borrow it and give it a try," Chris explained.
"You haven't started reinforcing yourself yet anyway... take this chance to get a feel for the Enma Blade in advance—it's a good thing."
"However," Chris changed the subject, "if you're going to use the Enma Blade today, then to show respect for this top-tier, 160-S-point piece of equipment, I'll have to use [Demon Possession]."
Horikita Suzune reached out and gripped the Enma Blade tightly.
The pads of her fingers rubbed against the diamond-patterned hilt, and she could even faintly feel the residual warmth left behind from Chris's palm.
The girl's cool eyes were suddenly dyed with a vivid luster—sparkling and bright, carrying an elation she simply couldn't hide.
"I'll work hard! I absolutely won't let you down, Sensei!"
Horikita Suzune snapped her head up, earnestly making the promise to Chris.
Chris nodded in satisfaction: "Then let's begin..."
Beside them, Nanase Tsubasa watched this scene, and though she couldn't help feeling a bit envious inside, upon hearing the command she quickly gathered her focus.
Both hands gripping her Black Sphere war sword, her gaze locked onto Chris, who had already completed his [Demon Possession] transformation.
But in truth, the reason Chris had so generously lent the Enma Blade to Horikita Suzune wasn't purely because he wanted to satisfy her yearning.
The more important reason was...
He'd long intended, in the exam to come, to have [Demon Possession] break past its limit once, arranging for himself a hidden-BOSS scenario of a reasonable berserk rampage.
By then, facing the berserk Dragon Transformation Demon Possession, having Horikita Suzune—who had been studying swordsmanship under him all along—wield the Enma Blade as the final defense-breaking means to awaken him... would undoubtedly be the most reasonable script direction!
And to have Horikita Suzune wield this blade properly at the critical moment, corresponding practice in the early stages was naturally indispensable.
You have to understand, although the Enma Blade had already been modified by Chris and no longer strictly required a "demon bloodline" as a prerequisite—
The more powerful a weapon, the higher the cost of using it.
Whether using Ripple, Ki, or directly drawing on life energy—
With Horikita Suzune's current physical fitness as an ordinary person, pouring all her energy into unleashing a single "Dimension Slash" was likely already the very limit of her stamina.
Not to mention, her technique was still nowhere near mastered.
And things did indeed turn out just as Chris had anticipated.
In the ensuing real, no-holds-barred clash where she teamed up with Nanase Tsubasa against Chris—
Horikita Suzune quickly and clearly felt the Enma Blade's terrifying drain on her stamina.
Each time she tried to cut open space, she had to expend several times more mental focus than usual just to barely keep the rhythm of the Ripple and "Ki" circulating within her from collapsing.
In this high-pressure battle, Horikita Suzune relied entirely on the Hyperbolic Time Chamber's built-in "reduce fatigue and rapidly restore stamina" buff to grit her teeth and hold on, continuing to fight in coordination with Nanase Tsubasa.
This not only made Horikita Suzune feel the strain—even Nanase Tsubasa, providing support from the side, couldn't stop clicking her tongue inwardly.
'Chris-senpai... how on earth does he manage to keep holding the Enma Blade in actual combat and fight at that high intensity without so much as a change in expression?'
Nanase Tsubasa assisted from the side while analyzing in her heart.
You have to understand, without undergoing bodily modification by injecting [Super-Soldier Serum] and [T-Virus] the way Ayanokouji had, Chris's ostensible foundation was only the Black Sphere Combat Suit plus Demon Possession.
But by rights, high-score armor like [Demon Possession] should have a terrifying stamina cost on its host too.
'That is to say, without any serum modification at all, Chris is effortlessly powering the consumption of two top-tier pieces of equipment worth nearly two hundred S points combined?!'
'What level of monster is this... how is it that Senpai's current normal state feels far more absurd than even Ayanokouji-senpai, who's dosed on a double serum?'
'Could it be... just as we guessed, that he's a seasoned veteran who's been through countless life-and-death situations before?'
From their idle chats during downtime, Nanase Tsubasa had also heard, from Chris's own mouth, about how after Ayanokouji withdrew and returned, he'd kept the parasite retained within his body.
This naturally led her to think along deeper lines.
After all, at school, although you couldn't use Black Sphere tools other than the Combat Suit—
Inner arts like "Ki" and "Ripple," gained purely through cultivating the body, were completely unaffected, weren't they?
Recalling what Horikita Suzune had said—
At the very start, without even wearing a Combat Suit, Chris could effortlessly crush Horikita and Ichinose—who were wearing Combat Suits—with nothing but his mortal flesh.
Add to that his current bottomless reserve of stamina... it was hard not to think that he'd actually been cultivating Ki gong for who-knows-how-many years already.
Still, unlike Sakayanagi Arisu, Nanase Tsubasa didn't develop a similar desire for control.
In Nanase's eyes, she simply thought Chris was very strong.
Strong enough to be reassuring.
Without a doubt, her initial decision to take Chris as her master and cling to his coattails had been absolutely correct!
While Nanase Tsubasa was still lost in her wandering thoughts—
Horikita Suzune, the main attacker, had already cast aside every stray thought and entered a selfless state of "flow."
She could even, from time to time, carve out several visible arcs of faint blue blade-Ki amid her swings of the Enma Blade!
Watching this fierce blade light, Nanase Tsubasa, while envious, couldn't help but marvel inwardly—as expected of Senpai Horikita.
Her personality might be a bit cold, stubborn, not fond of smiling, and not very honest with herself...
But once she'd locked onto a goal, that fierce drive of hers truly made her a very impressive, very serious, and extremely reliable person!
In the fierce exchange, time slipped by in a flash. Before they knew it, the training was nearing its end.
"Haaa—!"
Accompanied by a delicate battle cry—
Finally, under Chris's deliberate guiding assistance—
Horikita Suzune seized the opportunity, drove power from her waist, and the Enma Blade carved several perfect faint-blue full moons in mid-air! "Crack—!"
Although, because it was her first successful execution, her aim was wildly off, completely missing Chris—
When several spatial rifts burst open in the air, leaving behind a spiderweb-like patch of blue shattered marks—
That ultimate exhilaration, as if it could sever anything, was seared deep into the girl's mind, lingering and refusing to fade. "Clang..." A single swing seemed to drain every last ounce of strength from her body.
Horikita Suzune's legs gave out, and she collapsed, exhausted, right onto the sand-covered ground.
Just at that moment, the set training time ran out.
The surrounding scenery peeled away like shattered glass, and the three of them reappeared in their original spot in the training room.
Chris stepped forward two paces and reached out to pull the slumped Horikita Suzune up.
Looking at the girl's still-slightly-trembling legs, he couldn't help feeling a little helpless:
"The Enma Blade drains a lot of energy. You didn't have much experience to begin with—why force yourself right at the very end?"
Horikita Suzune barely straightened herself using the support of Chris's arm. Though her legs were still trembling, the little face she lifted couldn't hide that heartfelt joy and excitement:
"But I succeeded!"
"Sensei, Nanase, you both saw it just now, didn't you? I succeeded!"
Nanase Tsubasa nodded repeatedly at the side, praising from the heart:
"Senpai really did succeed—that slash just now was truly so cool!"
"But what a shame—because you cut it right to the last second... there wasn't time for the Time Chamber to restore your stamina. Senpai, you're in really bad shape now, so today's special training might have to end here."
The corner of Horikita Suzune's mouth curved up, and for the first time ever, she revealed a smile.
She shook her head, not really minding:
"It's fine, coming back tomorrow is just the same."
She lowered her head and glanced at her own hands, her tone drifting, carrying a hazy, almost tipsy feeling:
"I feel so light right now..."
"Fighting while carrying such a blissful feeling—this is a first for me."
"I've already... got nothing left to fear..." "Stop!" Hearing this classic line, Chris hurriedly cut off her chanting:
"What you've got right now is purely too much mental drain—a bit of adrenaline overload, you're just riding way too high..."
"Quit talking nonsense, hurry back and rest first."
Chris inwardly wiped away a cold sweat.
He really hadn't expected that the girl's guillotine line wouldn't come from Sakayanagi Arisu, who had the same kind of ability, but would instead pop out of the mouth of the ever cold and aloof Horikita Suzune!
This really wasn't the kind of thing to go blurting out carelessly!
With that, Chris turned his head to look at Nanase Tsubasa and instructed:
"Nanase, head back with her. Give her some support. As a guy, it's not proper for me to see her up to the girls' floor."
Nanase Tsubasa nodded obediently, not refusing.
And so.
In the eyes of Amanatsu Kazuha, who had been observing for a long while from the shadows at the corridor corner—
She only saw that Chris had gone in for just a few minutes.
And very quickly, he came back out bringing two girls with him.
And one of them, Horikita Suzune, had turned into a bizarre sight—legs trembling, face flushed, eyes dazed, and looking utterly high out of her mind!
She even needed Nanase Tsubasa to prop her up just to barely shuffle along!
Watching this scene, Amanatsu Kazuha couldn't help sucking in a cold breath.
'Hsss... how long was that, even? He's this strong?!'
'Even factoring in the time differential of the Time Chamber... the impact of a sight like that is way too much!'
The red-haired girl bit her nail, the light in her eyes flickering unsteadily.
'Should I maybe also consider pulling in Ichinose as a "strategic ally"?'
'After all, relying on myself alone, I feel like he might eat me up until not even bone scraps are left...'
____
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