The Kyoto Sister School Exchange Event—more like an enemy invasion event, honestly.
The entire thing barely followed the school's competition guidelines, all thanks to Hayashi single-handedly throwing everything off course.
But Hayashi's approach wasn't wrong. If the students had split up and acted individually, the end result would've been them getting picked off one by one.
Just the special-grade cursed spirit Banko alone could've killed more than half the students—that much was certain.
Though Banko couldn't use Domain Expansion, its physical body was ridiculously tough, and it wielded powerful techniques along with Maximum.
Any lone student who crossed its path would've been taken out. Even someone like Todo Aoi running into Banko? Done for. It'd just take a little more time, that's all.
This incident rang alarm bells for the school. It also left an impression on Gojo Satoru.
Hayashi became the star of this event, handling most of the crises single-handedly.
As a result, the school held a secret meeting, and Hayashi, as the central figure, was invited to attend.
Inside the room, a group of people sat around an old, weathered table.
Yaga Masamichi, Gakuganji Yoshinobu, Iori Utahime, Mei Mei, Gojo Satoru, and Ijichi Kiyotaka standing off to the side.
With Hayashi included, that made seven in total.
After Ijichi Kiyotaka gave his report on the injured and some other matters, everyone's eyes turned back to Hayashi.
Being stared at by so many senior figures made Hayashi feel a bit awkward—especially with two particularly captivating women present, which only added to his unease.
"Everyone, don't look at me like that. I'll get shy," Hayashi said with a laugh, breaking the awkward tension in the room.
Iori Utahime gave Hayashi a complicated look and said, "I'd never heard anything about you before. I didn't expect you to be this surprising."
"Yeah, this isn't the kind of strength you'd expect from a first-year," Mei Mei chimed in, eyeing Hayashi with a meaningful gaze.
"Don't look at me like that—I'm scared you'll eat me alive," Hayashi said, averting his eyes from Mei Mei. What was this woman up to?
Mei Mei smirked and replied, "Don't get the wrong idea. I don't have any ulterior motives. You're not young enough for my taste anyway. If you were a little younger, though, I might consider it."
"Are you into little brothers or something?" Hayashi blurted out. Wasn't he young enough already? Just how young did Mei Mei want her "little brother" to be? Terrifying.
"Little brother, you're pretty rude, huh?" Mei Mei pursed her lips. "I can smell money on you."
"Uh…" Hayashi was dumbfounded.
"Aren't we getting a bit off-topic?" Gojo Satoru clapped his hands at that moment. "Anyway, this incident was a huge win for us. Aside from a few guards who died, there were no student casualties, and the items Lord Tengen was safeguarding are all intact. We owe a lot of that to Hayashi."
"You're too kind, Gojo-sensei. It's just what I should've done," Hayashi said, accepting Gojo's praise without a shred of modesty.
"But I really didn't expect you to take down a special-grade cursed spirit like that. Hanami, right? That one's no pushover," Gojo said, growing more impressed with Hayashi by the second. In Hayashi, he saw echoes of his younger self.
And Hayashi was still so young, with tons of room to grow.
"Yeah, I almost died," Hayashi said, playing it up a bit. If he claimed it was easy to deal with a cursed spirit like that, everyone would probably think something was off with him.
That kind of strength was abnormal. In today's world, aside from the Six Eyes, no one had ever been this exceptional at such a young age. So what kind of bloodline or innate talent did Hayashi inherit?
Not a single person in the room knew—not even Gojo Satoru had a clue about the mystery of Hayashi's origins.
Gakuganji Yoshinobu's aged eyes studied Hayashi. He couldn't fathom how Hayashi had managed to take down two special-grade cursed spirits and a curse user all by himself.
If Gakuganji had been there facing a special-grade of that level, his old bones would've been crushed outright. Winning? Impossible.
Only with numbers and teamwork could you beat something like that.
But what shocked everyone the most was that Hayashi, at his age, had already mastered a Domain—and it didn't seem weak, either.
According to the students' accounts, Hanami's Domain had overtaken Hayashi's, but that still proved Hayashi's strength. It sounded like he'd held his own against it for a while.
Right now, among the students at both Tokyo and Kyoto schools, not a single one could use Domain Expansion—except for Hayashi, the lone exception.
"Let's be clear: Hayashi's strength has already surpassed most of the people in this room," Gojo Satoru said calmly. But to everyone else, those words were anything but calm.
When Gojo said "most of the people in this room," he really meant everyone except himself.
Though no one present had seen Hayashi fight firsthand, the students' descriptions painted a picture of a battle that shook the heavens and moved the spirits.
The ground, the forest—everything had been torn apart. What else could you call that kind of terrifying combat power if not earth-shattering?
So everyone in the room understood that, in a certain sense, Hayashi had indeed surpassed them.
A student outshining their teachers wasn't unheard of. Back in the day, Gojo Satoru had outright crushed his own teachers—how do you explain that?
They'd still gotten along just fine. Gojo's overwhelming strength and invincibility hadn't made him insufferable.
Well, okay, Gojo was pretty insufferable and did whatever he wanted—but he knew when to rein it in and when to let loose.
Hayashi's expression turned serious as he spoke up. "Teachers, Principal, the current situation isn't looking good. The enemy's lurking in the shadows. The cursed spirits they sent this time were strong, but that's not their full power. There are even stronger ones out there who haven't shown up yet. One of them—Jogo—Gojo-sensei's fought before. As for the others who might still be hiding, I'm not sure. All I know is the future doesn't look bright."
"How much do you know?" Gakuganji Yoshinobu asked, eyeing Hayashi. The info Hayashi was dropping was a lot, but it was just fragmented memories. The current situation and the future had already shifted, making it impossible to predict.
"That's all I've got. I'm not omniscient—I can't see the future," Hayashi said. Then he suddenly shifted gears. "I'd like to ask for your opinions. How about I take charge of training the students from both Kyoto and Tokyo schools to boost their strength? What do you think?"
"I'm in!" Gojo Satoru raised his hand almost instantly, flashing a grin full of gleaming white teeth.
"Satoru, don't be so quick to decide. This isn't something you can settle on your own," Yaga Masamichi cautioned, glancing at Gojo. Gakuganji was here too, and something like this needed approval from the higher-ups. How could a student just take charge like that?
Even if Hayashi was strong, he wasn't on Gojo Satoru's level yet. He was still bound by the rules. And even Gojo, who stood above most rules, had to follow some things—it wasn't as simple as just saying it.