The Binding Vow of Lazarus

Chapter 7

Satoru watched carefully as the three second years, the four third years, and the two fourth years were briefed on the school goodwill event. He knew all of them from before of course, but somehow he hadn't remembered what happened to them. With the slow rising of curse activity over the years, a few of them had died and he was pretty sure one of them gave up the life completely.

The two fourth years were Tadao Miyasato and Yūdai Mori. He remembered specifically that Mori could increase his size and fought like a hulking beast. Miyasato though, he couldn't quite remember. He had some sort of technique that worked well with a teammate but he was largely useless alone.

The third years were Chiyoko Kagawa, Toshio Nishimura, Satoshi Hano, and Yuichi Itoh. He barely remembered them at all either. As far as he could recall their techniques weren't all that impressive to him, but then again back then nothing was.

Takao Tsutsui and Shou Kuwahara were two of the second years but the third was oddly missing. He remembered vaguely that his last name was Murano but not even what he looked like. Upon pondering it a little longer he did recall that Murano was sickly but his technique was interesting.

None of them were people he'd ever called friends or even took an interest in. From day one he was already well known, but most of them had distanced themselves from him immediately. That suited him just fine back then. He'd been so arrogant that he likely said some pretty awful stuff, not that he wasn't arrogant still. Even though Sukuna had sliced his ass in half he knew he still was the strongest. That wouldn't change.

Suguru and Shoko sat beside him on the steps as the others were introduced to the Kyoto students. As usual, the first years weren't allowed to participate, but Suguru had insisted they go to at least watch.

"It's Hano," Suguru said quietly, "The second year? He's also a cursed spirit manipulator like me."

Satoru nodded as he sized up Hano. Once Suguru had reminded him it flooded back to him. Hano had been the one that was so angry with Satoru when he pointed out that he could never be a special grade even though Suguru was. That was of course because he couldn't extract techniques the way that Suguru could, but he also hadn't explained any of that. He'd just taken the opportunity to be an ass and take an older sorcerer down a peg.

"I'm interested in seeing how he operates," Suguru said with a smile.

"He's not as good as you," Satoru scoffed, but then grinned, "But yeah, maybe you can get some ideas or something."

Across the way he of course saw Utahime and Mei-Mei. Utahime was a third year and Mei-Mei as well. He vaguely recognized some of the others, but they'd never struck him as anyone interesting.

Satoru pursed his lips, deep in thought. Maybe this time he'd take the time to learn who they were. One of the things he'd resolved to change this time was the shortage of sorcerers and at least getting to know them would likely change things. Anything at all would make at least some kind of difference. The butterfly thing, right? That's how time stuff worked?

Satoru, Suguru and Shoko settled in to watch. The first event of the day had just begun: a competition to exorcise as many cursed spirits as possible. The stakes were high, and the atmosphere crackled with tension as both teams fanned out across the forest.

The competition flip-flopped throughout the day. Kyoto would pull ahead, but for every curse exorcised by Kyoto, Tokyo seemed to catch up quickly, the two teams neck-and-neck as the clock ticked down. The air was filled with the sounds of battle—cursed energy crackling, trees splintering, and the distant roars of curses being exorcised.

With minutes left in the competition, Kyoto surged once more, this time with the big one leading the charge directly at the heart of the cursed hotspot. His overwhelming strength allowed him to decimate several powerful curses in quick succession, pushing Kyoto back into the lead. The final bell rang, signaling the end of the first round, and when the results were tallied, Kyoto emerged victorious by a narrow margin.