Chaoskouji

Arc 6 Chapter 4 - Training

"Yes, I truly am a perfect being! None can match my potential. Disgusting and insignificant classmates, you waste my time with this tiny competition."

Another famous Kouenji-ism came out of his mouth, but everyone let it slide. At least this time, Kouenji had proven that he did deserve to say such things.

"Demon-boy, time to prove your value." Saying this, Kouenji passed me the device, letting the score fall away. "I'm expecting a challenge, at least." There was a dangerous look in his eyes, and at this junction I didn't dare risk upsetting him.

Shrugging, I took the device and squeezed it, letting the numbers climb rapidly.

"Wait, you too Ayanokouji?!"

Miyaki was someone I hadn't spent much time around, and unlike Hirata or Sudou, he didn't have a good idea of how strong I really was. The device that Hirata had used was slowly being passed around the rest of the boys invited, but no one was really paying any attention to their scores.

Unlike Kouenji I didn't bother putting on a show, and increasing it as slowly as possible. It still took a while to reach my top strength, but eventually, I couldn't go any further.

"121.4"

"Well, it seems you truly live up to your name. Ha! I am still the perfect existence though, to every ordinary person on the planet."

Saying this, Kouenji returned to polishing his fingernails, clearly satisfied with our little competition. The rest of the group remained in awe, until Hirata spoke up.

"Well, I guess we have the four people for the tug-of-war. Kouenji-kun, Ayanokouji-kun, Sudou-kun and myself. Miyaki, do you mind being a sub in case one of us drops out?"

It was a reasonable request, and an important safety to have in place. Miyaki was the only other person to produce reasonable results, with a 56.8, and having him as a backup would make a lot of sense.

"Sure. To be honest I didn't think I'd be so outclassed. Heh, we have a lot of strong people in our class," he noted.

"Yeah. But if only some o' them were more helpful," Sudou exclaimed, giving me and Kouenji a glare, that we both ignored.

The rest of the boys, led by Sudou and Hirata, began to discuss the participants in other events like the pole toppling and scavenger hunt. The girls and boys had slpit the number of participants for the latter, since it was impossible to show any particular aptitude when it came to luck.

I walked away from the arguments and lay down on the ground. The results with the strength test were exactly as expected, and matched what I had on the real participation table. The only question I had was Hirata or Miyaki, and it seemed I chose correctly.

There was no point squabbling over such things, since it was already set, but no one else knew that.

Instead, I pondered on Ichinose and her class. The last time I had cooperated directly with her was with Sudou's trial. I wondered if she still remembered all the details of that incident, and her promise to me.

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The next few weeks progressed as expected, mostly ordinary but broken up with training sessions for the upcoming festival.

Both the boys and girls had been practicing diligently, and the class had come up with their participation table. Unsurprisingly, it wasn't significantly different from what we would be using on the day, but I had some slight improvements in mine that were discarded due to personal preference interfering with the classes decision making.