"So, let's get back to the main point—"
"Wait. I'm a lawyer. Since you want to talk business, let's start the timer. Every thirty minutes, it's 5,000 yen."
Just as Mukuro was about to get serious, Higuruma suddenly interrupted him with a straight face.
Then, after glancing at his watch as if it truly mattered, he raised five fingers.
"Sure."
"Actually… huh?"
Mukuro's immediate answer made Higuruma freeze. He had been about to explain that it was a joke.
The role he was playing just now should have been that of a greedy, unethical lawyer he himself despised… right?
For a moment, he couldn't tell whether something was wrong with himself or with the man in front of him.
"…Forget it. Go ahead. What do you want from me?"
Shaking his head, Higuruma pushed the confusion aside and brought the conversation back on track.
"You have the highest points in this colony, and you've already passed one hundred. I want you to help me add a rule," Mukuro said plainly, without any attempt to hide his intent.
"What are you trying to do?"
Higuruma sat up straight now. This strange man had caught his interest, at least a little, and he wanted to hear him out.
"The general goal… is to end this boring game."
"I refuse."
The interest in Higuruma's eyes vanished as he leaned against the edge of the bathtub and casually rejected the request.
As a lawyer, he had witnessed far too much helplessness in the courtroom, where sometimes the law was powerless. Even when the rules were clear, he still couldn't save those who were truly innocent.
But the Culling Game gave him something different, a light in the darkness.
The power he gained was real, the points he carried proved it, and the killings he committed were undeniable.
Then what about the rules of this game? Could they truly function the way they claimed?
There was no need for appeals, no need for prosecution, and no need to spend massive resources gathering evidence. Under these rules, those who committed wrongs would face punishment exactly as defined.
What a beautiful thing that was.
Just like Yaga and the others believed, Higuruma also saw "removal of technique" as equivalent to taking a life.
But he wanted to observe more. He wanted to see how this Culling Game truly operated.
He wanted to witness, with his own eyes, the moment "removal " was carried out, to see that absolute law in action.
He admitted it. The rules of the Culling Game were far from perfect. They weren't friendly, nor were they reasonable.
But this was something he had never touched in his life as a lawyer.
This… was the "justice" he had longed for.
So he had no intention of letting the game end so easily. Even if more people had to die, it didn't matter.
"So there's no room to negotiate?"
"Have you ever killed someone you couldn't stand? It feels better than you'd imagine."
Their conversation continued back and forth as Mukuro stood up from the audience seats while Higuruma stepped out of the bathtub, water splashing across the stage.
Before entering the Culling Game… Higuruma had already killed.
A prosecutor.
And a judge.
They were exactly the people he meant when he said "people he couldn't stand." They ignored the law and evidence, forcefully branding an innocent person as guilty.
"I'm going to start."
Higuruma spoke politely first, and then behind him, a human-faced figure draped in black appeared, with two scales hanging where its hands should have been.
It was a shikigami shaped like a humanoid balance, the Judgeman.
"Domain Expansion: Deadly Sentencing."
Without hesitation, Higuruma expanded his domain.
The surroundings changed instantly as the theater stage transformed into a circular platform. On it stood two smaller platforms, each only large enough for one person, facing each other.
Back when he was still in university, before Japan introduced its newer legal system, Higuruma had already passed the notoriously difficult old judicial exams with ease.
To him, exams were nothing more than storing necessary knowledge in his mind and retrieving it when needed.
In the field of law, anyone who knew the name Hiromi Higuruma would not hesitate to call him a genius.
Yet no one expected that his talent in jujutsu would be even more absurd, something seen perhaps once in a thousand years.
After awakening his technique, he needed only a short time studying the domain that came with his shikigami to grasp the barrier techniques involved.
Even more astonishing, he used barrier techniques to work backward, learning cursed energy control and even how to reinforce his body through the flow of that energy.
And after achieving all that, once he entered the Culling Game, he easily killed large numbers of cursed spirits and counter-killed over twenty players who had targeted his points.
A path that would take ordinary sorcerers years, even over a decade, he completed in less than a day, reaching a height most could never touch.
His talent in jujutsu was already approaching that of Sukuna.
Now, as the master of the domain, Higuruma stood on one of the platforms.
But what surprised him was that Mukuro did not appear on the opposite platform and instead stood casually off to the side.
"…Strange."
Higuruma's domain was simple.
Deadly Sentencing was not like Malevolent Shrine or Idle Transfiguration. It was not meant to achieve a near "guaranteed-kill" effect.
Its function was only "guaranteed-hit."
That was the true essence of domains.
However, within this space, neither Higuruma nor the Judgeman could apply that guaranteed judgment onto Mukuro.
Higuruma wasn't originally a sorcerer from the jujutsu world, so he had no idea that something like the Heavenly Restriction even existed.
"First, let me answer your question. I've killed many people I couldn't stand."
Whether he would be targeted or not, Mukuro had no intention of hiding such things.
What he had done, he had done, and what he hadn't, he hadn't. The strong had no need to deny their actions.
"But if you're asking whether it felt good… no. I don't feel anything from killing a bunch of noisy monkeys or crushing ants that try to bite me."
Those words shook Higuruma to the core.
As a seasoned lawyer, he had long seen through one truth. Humans were weak and ugly.
Lady Justice blindfolded herself so that all would be equal before the law, yet humans, in order to protect themselves, always chose to turn a blind eye and lie again and again.
Higuruma remembered the first time he killed.
A judge and a prosecutor sat high above, and even with clear evidence, they still sentenced an innocent man to life imprisonment just to calm public anger.
As the court was about to adjourn, he clenched the gavel in his hand and slammed it down repeatedly, drawing everyone's attention.
"Everyone, come back… we're having a retrial."
In this world, so that those with no one to help them would not fall into despair, Higuruma chose to keep his eyes wide open.
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