Having traversed countless realms, can you possibly be as clever as me?

Light Yagami was not joking. If he said that, then he really was 'Kira', the one who had killed countless sinners.

In this country, excluding those who don't fit in is a tradition.

This has nothing to do with strength or weakness. The bullying and exclusion of anyone who does not conform is a stubbornness rooted in the Japanese people's bones. In ancient times, this habit even had a special term called "village eight-part".

Among them, those who possess power and are stained with blood will be extremely ostracized by the group, regardless of their motives.

Whether it's revenge, justice, or accidental killing—once blood is stained, it seems to become utterly heinous.

Hiromi Nichisha felt the same way, because as a lawyer, he considered any act of killing at will an unforgivable crime.

But after experiencing the Oe case and then seeing the information that Light Yagami sent him—can he still think that way?

Should justice be subject to change?

Of course, if we strip away everything and view justice as simply right and wrong in a broad sense, then justice should have no stance. Justice with a stance is never pure. What is unwavering is not justice; it is merely standing firmly on one side.

Hiromi Nichisha, both then and now, has always firmly believed that he stands on the side of justice called Japanese law.

He still believes this now.

"...Why are you suddenly telling me this?" Hiromi asked in a low voice after a long silence.

"Because you, senior, are also someone chosen by Him, just like me."

Light Yagami smiled and took out the jet-black Behemoth, and this gem, which represents the ability to transform humans into non-human beings, opened its eyes between them.

This means that they both have the potential to become 'demons'.

Or rather, only when the two of them are together can they both become true sinners and demons.

"Do you want me to become someone who kills indiscriminately like you, or those two great monsters?" Hiromi's gaze grew cold.

He was indeed talented; even without the awakened spell, he still saw the forms of the Gun Demon and the Blood Demon.

"Why not?" Light Yagami countered.

"I've recently started challenging myself to do things I wouldn't have done before." Hiromi Higurashi loosened his collar and suddenly laughed.

"It's funny that someone in their thirties starts to go bad."

"It's kind of funny," Light Yagami laughed. "We're all the same."

He swung his fist, striking Yagami Light squarely in the cheek. The young police inspector, who hadn't dodged or evaded, was knocked to the ground. Hiromi Higurashi watched as Yagami Light got up, holding the Behemoth he had snatched from him.

"Using violence to change the world is absolutely wicked, but—maybe I really should give it a try?"

The moment he picked up Behelit, the technique of non-action transformation directly rewrote the structure of Riche's brain, instantly awakening the technique that existed within him but could not be awakened.

Hiromi Higurashi, with his deadpan expression, immediately understood what he possessed. He forced a smile that was more like a grimace, and then—

"Expand your domain—" He raised his gavel and gently tapped it beside him.

"Execute and order death"

His own, the pitch-black shikigami judge, emerged behind Hiromi Higurashi. It was a black shikigami with a pitch-black body, a face like a white mask but with its mouth and eyes sewn together, and scales extending from both sides.

At the same time, a pair of jet-black wings extended from Light Yagami's back—Ryuk, the Shinigami, also appeared there.

The same awakened technique, the same acquired 'shikigami'—just like the intention of Behemoth that Light Yagami presented, their relationship is closely intertwined.

871 >>

Hiromi Nichiba, sitting in the plaintiff's lawyer's seat, held up a thick file folder in his hand and said softly...

"This is the 'evidence' presented by the judge in this case. It may not necessarily substantiate your evidence, but..."

"There's no need for that," Light Yagami said with a smile.

"I plead guilty, completely. I did kill them, and I will not deny it or try to justify it."

【guilty】!

Confiscated!!

【death penalty】!!!

The judge opened his eyes and roared. In an instant, the spell was activated, and Hiromi Higurashi grabbed the Death Note from Light Yagami's hand.

Moreover, he now wielded a golden sword called the Executioner's Sword, a sword that represented the death penalty and could kill anyone sentenced to death.

"...There's no excuse." Hiromi Hirakawa paused for a moment, then sighed softly, his gaze sharp.

"In that case, Yue, you must be prepared!"

He gripped the executioner's sword tightly, charging towards his juniors and friends, the gleaming blade plunging down with a sudden, powerful thrust—

"Senior Hikari, it seems you can't kill me." Yagami Light looked at the executioner's sword pressed against his chest. (Chapter 590: Judgment of the Demon - Hikari Hiroshi, Seeing the Demon of Death - Yagami Light is now available. Click http://)

“When you also become someone who can use power to decide the life and death of others, using that power to execute me is no longer in line with the justice you have always upheld.”

"Are you implying that even if I killed you, I'd become a cliché like you?" Hiromi Hiroshi said coldly, his eyes lifeless.

"But the reality is that I can easily kill you if I just draw this sword!"

"But—shouldn't someone like Hikari Hiromi be walking the path of justice alongside me?" Yagami Light calmly looked at Hikari Hiromi, picked up the document, and said indifferently.

"As we discussed before, senior Nichisha, are we following the law to protect those who made it or to protect the innocent victims? If it's the former, I have nothing to say. If it's the latter, then we are right."

"All my actions are based on this justice!" Light Yagami raised his voice and shouted.

“I dare say that every single person I’ve killed was absolutely deserving of death! Their crimes were enough to warrant the death penalty, but the law chose to pardon them, or rather, they themselves escaped punishment by enacting the law!”

"There is no absolutely correct law. Do you want to replace the existing laws with ostracism?" Hiromi Hiraki retorted.

“No.” Light Yagami grasped Hiromi Higurashi’s wrist, looking at the trembling Behemoth, a slight smile playing on his lips.

"Hasn't Senior Nichisha already experienced this power? An absolutely ruthless court, an absolutely correct field. In this court, neither wealth nor power nor anything else can affect the fairness of the verdict and the absoluteness of the rules!"

"We can do it, as long as the verdict is absolutely fair and the trial is absolutely merciless, then all that's left is to keep making the right laws."

"Yes, there is no absolutely correct law! Therefore, the law should be constantly revised and changed, but we can eliminate 99% of the injustices in the world and extend a helping hand of justice to 99.9% of the people!"

"The goddess of justice is blinded by the principle of equality before the law, and people turn a blind eye to everything in order to protect themselves. In such a world, if we, who have the power and the right, don't do it, then who will?"

"Is there anyone else besides us who could do this?!"

Light Yagami spread his hands, letting the executioner's sword point at his heart. His voice grew increasingly intense and soaring, like that of a speaker.

Hiromi Hiraka lowered his head, remained silent, pondered, and then asked his last question.

“Moon,” he said softly, “tell me, are you truly doing this out of complete selflessness?”

"...Of course not." Light Yagami remained silent for a moment before finally choosing to speak frankly.

“If I could, I would want to possess this power all to myself, to be the judge, the police, and the executioner. But I clearly cannot do that, for this power is ultimately a gift from a higher realm, from a great being beyond our comprehension.”

"Therefore I will submit to him, to the only justice. That's why I came to you, because I alone am not allowed to have such presumptuous power."

“I can be death, an executioner, a police officer, but I will not be a judge, a jury, or a plaintiff’s lawyer. I cannot have such power, so you will be that kind of role, Senior Nichisha.”

"Why don't you choose someone you can control?" Hiromi Nichisha retorted.

Light Yagami smiled without saying a word. From the beginning, he knew that Tsugumi would not give him such absolute power so easily. Death is the result of the trial, and the result needs to be restrained. If death is just, then the trial must be just!

871>>>>

The growth he has experienced over the past ten years since graduating from high school has not been in vain; he is no longer the immature teenager he was in high school.

"Death is the only thing in the world that is absolutely fair; at least for each individual who is also human, it will always come sooner or later," Light Yagami said softly.

"If my embodiment of death is the embodiment of absolute fairness, then the judgment and the law should be equally fair. And among all the people I know, the one closest to this outcome is you, senior Nichisha."

"To be able to escape outdated and flawed laws, to understand the inevitability of the rise of law in a new world, and to be willing to sacrifice one's noble soul to become one of those who, together with me, establish the rules of this new world and constrain me!"

He reached out his hand towards the swaying sunroof with almost fanaticism.

"Come, senior, join me! Tonight at dawn I will become the god of death, and you will be the god of judgment who restrains me!"

"...What noble soul? It has long been filthy."

Hiromi Higurashi said with a self-deprecating laugh, and the executioner's sword in his hand instantly vanished.

He didn't truly agree with the other party in his heart, but he understood that killing Light Yagami here would be meaningless, as the Crimson King could choose the next death and the next judge at any time.

Light Yagami is absolutely right: when a more powerful being establishes rules that are more irrefutable, the old, weak laws will inevitably be swallowed up.

Rather than drowning in this corrupt law that he himself had utterly lost faith in, he might as well try to seek the justice he truly desired within this new set of rules and laws.

He closed his eyes, wanting to kill the self within him that believed in the law; that noble soul had already been killed along with the great river.

I promise you.

He responded to the echo in his heart, gripping Behemoth tightly. The next moment, the vortex of cause and effect engulfed him, while Ryuk, with a grotesque laugh, transformed into countless black feathers and merged into Light Yagami.

The Demon of Judgment and the Demon of Death were born in that instant.

[Blood] [Gun] [Judgment] [Death] — Although one of them is indeed somewhat mismatched, for Tsugumi, it's enough to reach the number of Apocalypse Knights.

Of course, adding another member to complete the 'God's Hand' combination wouldn't be out of the question, but Tsugumi has run out of patience.

It's time to begin proclaiming his rule and authoritarianism to the world!

In the next instant, at the same time, the calm, emotionless voice of Hiromi Hitsugaya rose in the minds of everyone in the world.

[Court is now in session for the trial!]

---

P.S.: I think Higurashi is the most outstanding character in Dead Man's Chest. He's a very complex person. Actually, I feel like I'm a little out of character here, but let's just say it's the influence of Yagami Light.

872

591. Trial and an ending worse than death

"Young man, just because you own a domain doesn't mean you can do whatever you want."

An elderly man in a kimono straightened his collar, his tone carrying a condescending mockery.

“Young man, do you know who you're going against? You have no family, no faction, not even a decent backer. You think you can—”

【death penalty!】

【death penalty!!】

[Everyone is sentenced to death!!!]

Before this group of members from the Spellcasting Academy who still believed they were in control of the situation, the judge, representing Hiromi Hiraki's will, delivered his verdict with a piercing scream.