We returned to the capital as quickly as possible with our new friend. The guard at the gate didn't question why I had a new person with me, but Hans definitely would when he sees us. I left Maine at the stables again and brought Higuruma to our inn to stay for the night.
"Let's just sleep in for today. Higuruma, I'll buy some clothes for you in the evening. Your suit is nice, but you're gonna have to wear something else eventually." I offered, knowing that until we could find a reliable tailor, we would be forced to wear these clothes, not that they were bad.
"I will take you up on that offer, but I want to make a request. I want to have a walk around the area." Higuruma said, wanting to confirm a nagging thought in his head.
"You're that desperate to find a potential case already? Talk about being hardworking~?" Mahito jumped in with his usual sarcastic remarks. But inwardly, he was still curious about Higuruma's character.
"But why? If you want to know the area better, I can just give you a tour when we're freshened up." I replied, confused about why he was requesting such a thing at such a time. Maybe he just wanted to secure the surrounding area or something?
"It's nothing like that. I just need to get my head cleared up." He said, already starting to walk away. "If there is any trouble that the Cursed Spirit can't handle, just shout for me." He waved his hand at us without meeting our curious gaze.
Mahito snickered at Higuruma's retreating figure, already beginning to talk bad about him behind his back, "Trying to look cool, huh? He might have actually been a dirty lawyer before coming here." He nudged me lightly, trying to get a reaction. Of course, he already had a considerable insight into Higuruma's character.
'He's probably one of those 'willing to walk the extra mile' types of humans.' Mahito concluded internally, while following me inside.
With Higuruma, he was walking around the general area. It was still pretty early in the morning, so besides some knights, there were barely any normal civilians around. He analysed their way of life, their facial expressions, their temperament, and most importantly, if they possessed the same flaws as the human beings he had always cared about.
He ignored the curious gazes of the knights and civilians who were looking at him, obviously because of his clothing and looks. He was only concerned with whether he could reconcile with himself fully after killing that judge and prosecutor.
Sure, he remembered why he had chosen to be a lawyer in the first place after meeting Yuji Itadori, but anyone with a sensible mind would realise that if the people of this new world were morally different, then your own morals might have to change too.
'I just hope it's not as bad as I think it's going to be...' Higuruma thought tiredly. He was truly annoyed by how corrupt the justice system and discrimination itself could get.
'But maybe this is my second chance, to right my wrongs.' I won't fall into despair again like last time! Higuruma looked at his closed fist and at his gavel. He had used them to murder two innocent people last time. But now, he would never kill an innocent person again.
After concluding this decision in his mind, he returned to his new 'friends'. He instinctively trusted Luke but was still wary of Mahito. No normal sorcerer could just accept being friendly with a Cursed Spirit, a being who should be pure evil.
While Higuruma was still outside, Mahito and I were fast asleep. Correction, I was asleep. Mahito never really needed to sleep, so he was just keeping watch or doing some nonsense like always.
Even though I had woken up fresh a few hours ago, the use of my Cursed Technique fully drained me. So when I hit the bed, I just blacked out and fell asleep. I hope Higuruma is alright...
'His Cursed Technique is genuinely incredible. If that maniac, Kenjaku, were here, he'd probably be ecstatic. But I guess... that's not an impossible future now.' Mahito thought while looking at me sleeping. He was just sitting beside the window, looking at all the humans walking around. It surprised even him that he could resist killing a human for this long. Luke allowed him to kill bandits and other 'bad' people only, and, begrudgingly, he had accepted.
'And of course, there's also that sorcerer- well, speak of the devil~' Mahito's contemplation was interrupted when he spotted Higuruma returning to the inn. Their eyes locked with each other before going out of view.
'We didn't tell him our room number. But if he's really as smart as he probably thinks he is, he should find us quickly~' Mahito grinned silently, and after a few seconds, faced the door right before it opened. Higuruma opened the door and then closed it calmly, before sitting on the nearby chair.
For a while, everything was silent with neither talking to the other. Higuruma had his head hanging back on the chair with his hands covering his face. Maybe he was tired, or he was thinking about the things he had concluded right before.
"You do realise we can't just not talk to each other the entire time, right~?" Mahito spoke up after about half a minute of awkward silence. There was mutual dislike between them, but they were gonna have to work around that inevitably.
"We have nothing to talk about. We don't harm each other and protect Luke, that's about the limit to this 'partnership'." Higuruma put down his hands and replied boredly. "And more importantly, your nature is pure evil, not killing you right here is already difficult for me..."
Hearing his words, Mahito stood up and put his arms up, as if ready to fight. "Maybe you shouldn't hold back so much then~?" His arms glowed purple as Cursed Energy swirled around them.
'At this close of a distance, I can touch him before he can expand his Domain. He definitely realises this too. The most important thing right now, though, is if he can figure out what I'm trying to prove here.' Mahito flared his Cursed Energy even more, seemingly close to attacking.
Seeing this, Higuruma raised his brows a bit before hanging his head back on the chair again. "I know what you're trying to do. In this position, you could kill me easily... But you're not." He raised his head again and looked Mahito right in the eyes. "Your instincts must be screaming at you to kill me, but you're holding them back. Either for his sake or mine."
"At least you're not an idiot~" Mahito dropped his stance and sat back down again, watching the humans go about their day. "I didn't fully trust Luke the first day. I thought all humans were basically the same with their unrealised hypocrisy. But his proving me wrong was an unexpected welcome."
"What you're trying to say is that the Jujutsu world's view on Cursed Spirits is flawed?" Higuruma asked, intrigued. He understood what Mahito was trying to imply. What Cursed Spirits were to sorcerers is exactly what sorcerers are to Cursed Spirits. So in this situation where they have to work together, they were practically the same.
"Take it however you want, I don't really care. But what I do care about is making a presence in this world for us. And to do that, I'll help Luke every step of the way. Can you do the same?" Mahito turned back around to face him, his face serious.
"...Yes." Higuruma replied simply before going back to resting his head, while Mahito went back to watching the crowds. It wasn't clear if their conversation had actually changed anything, but it was a step in the right direction.
I woke up a little after noon, having no idea that the two people sitting weirdly in my room had stepped aside their differences temporarily. Everything I did after that wasn't that important, however.
As I promised before, I gave Higuruma a tour around the general area and bought him some spare clothes to wear. Neither of us wanted to stop wearing our original clothes, though, but we still hadn't found a good enough tailor. The common tailors we did find charged a ludicrous amount of money for a single custom-made dress.
Subaru is a lucky piece of shit for being able to get Rem to make MULTIPLE copies of his tracksuit for FREE, HAPPILY. Granted, Roswall is pretty rich and definitely had access to high amounts of materials to make those clothes...
The trickier part was integrating Higuruma into the city. He had no interest in becoming a knight, as expected. He wanted to become a defender of justice, but in a different way. The obvious route was becoming a judge or lawyer, but this was where the problem came in.
Even ignoring the obvious discrimination he would face by not having any background, he had no clue about the laws and political structure of the city, let alone the entire kingdom. The second was that I didn't remember there ever being a lawyer or judge in the story. The closest thing was the Sage Council, and they were all racist tards.
"There's no chance you could join the council, but you should still learn the legislative system of the kingdom, which would help us regardless. You can go to a library for now and buy the books you like." I gave him some silver coins, figuring that even dozens of books wouldn't cost above a few silver coins.
"Thank you. I will use your reputation to get a free discount from the receptionist." He said flatly, looking like he was fully serious, which he might have been. Spirit Knights were rare, and that's the only reason I was confident in Higuruma not facing any targeted social problems.
Following this, the next few days were uneventful. Mahito and I fulfilled our daily task of patrolling around the area and occasionally talking to Reinhard when he would try to look for the 5th candidate, while Higuruma stayed in the inn, studying the mountains of books he bought. The funniest thing is that he was finishing like 3 books a day, fully ingrained in his brain. Even though he is a genius, his motivation and drive were also clearly fueling him forward.
And then comes today, the faithful day of the main character's arrival. But obviously, I didn't know the exact date and time of Subaru's arrival.
Mahito and I were on our usual patrol, with the occasional knight and civilian greeting me respectfully. I knew it was one of these days when Subaru would arrive, but I was smart enough not to just be there when he arrived. I couldn't just break away from my assigned patrol route for a long time without warning, and not only that, Subaru had to get his reality check.
"Whoa, she's pretty fast~" Mahito nudged my back, and I looked to where he was facing. I already broke out a smile when I noticed Felt running across the rooftops.
"Mahito, follow her until you find a reason not to. Don't worry, I'll be fine." I lightly pushed him to get him going. He was silent for a moment before chasing after her, already used to me hiding information.
'Knowing his personality, he's definitely going to find Subaru interesting, and when that happens, I'll know the sign.' I was confident in my plan, having known Mahito long enough. As I saw Mahito leave, I continued my patrol. It's not like the usual thugs could see whether Mahito was with me or not.
"Stealing this was easier than I thought!" Felt exclaimed excitedly as she ran across the rooftops, clutching what looked to be an emblem with a glowing red gem in the middle. She was unusually fast, so she could never have expected that Mahito was sprinting behind her casually.
Elsewhere, Subaru was in the infamous alleyway, complaining about his lack of powers and cute girls, and whatever else. And of course, the usual things happen with the idiot trio threatening him. The only difference was when Felt appeared.
"Hey! Are you the cute girl who summoned me!? Wait, why is there a creepy-looking guy with you!?" Subaru shouted out to Felt as he looked at Mahito chasing behind her, which made him genuinely surprised that he could see him.
"I don't know what you're talking about. I'm in a hurry, though, so stay strong!" Felt instinctively glanced behind her for a moment, but found no one and sighed in relief, confirming that the guy was just crazy.
"So... Did that make you guys not want to hurt me?" Subaru asked jokingly, which of course received a negative response. He then hit two of them, thinking he was the main character, before grovelling in terror at Rachins' knives.
"Hey, dude! Help me!" Subaru pleaded with the creepy guy who had stopped chasing the little girl. He didn't know why everyone was ignoring him, but he wished he had that power too, because right now he was getting jumped to death.
While this was happening, Mahito was standing casually at the side, looking at Subaru intently. He stopped chasing the little girl because he found the boy much more interesting. He was wearing clothes pretty similar to the ones found in Japan. Not only that, he had a high enough Spirit affinity to actually be able to see him.
"Fine, I'll help you~" Mahito used his technique to turn his hand into a giant one and picked the three idiots up, much to Subaru's shock. He wasn't going to kill them, of course, he wasn't allowed to(sad), but he could still have fun. The screams of terror of the 3 goons were already music to his ears; he couldn't wait for the screams of pain.
But before he could start slowly squeezing them, an ice shard almost pierced his head. His reaction speed was good enough to prevent him from being harmed by the surprise attack. As they both looked towards the perpetrator, there was an incredibly beautiful woman standing there with her hand outstretched.
"Stop right there, villain!" She spoke out righteously and confidently. An interesting part about her was her pointed ears and ethereal beauty, clearly not a human.
'I can sense absolutely no negative energy from her, and she can also see me. What a pure and strong innocent girl~ I've been waiting for a good fight~' Mahito dropped the three thugs, as they ran away terrified. Subaru was still staring at her face, amazed and longingly.
"You're breaking my heart~ Having fun with some thugs shouldn't make me a villain~" Mahito grinned and rubbed the back of his head, chuckling, while his other hand returned to its original shape, making Emilia widen her eyes in shock, and the necklace around her neck also started to shake.
"But it's not like I hate being one~" Mahito smiled and readied his stance, his hands swirling with Cursed Energy, though neither Emilia nor Subaru could see that since they didn't possess enough Cursed Energy.
"Hey, dude, thanks for helping me, but we really don't need to fight her." Subaru called out to Mahito, expressing his gratitude for being saved, sadly not by the beautiful girl whom he didn't want to see get hurt. However, his words got an undesired reaction from the girl.
"I KNEW IT! You two are working together and also stole my insignia! I will defeat both of you! But a two-on-one might be pretty hard." Emilia was still shaken by the way Mahito just changed the shape of his arm, and knew he would be a dangerous enemy. So, she had no choice but to take help from her Spirit, who was also weirdly desperate to come out.
A flash of light emitted from her necklace as a flying cat-like creature came out, his expression already wary and on guard. "Emilia, RUN AWAY! That... thing is not a human! He's a spirit made of pure negative energy!"
Mahito grinned even more evilly, somehow, as Puck's words reached everyone. Emilia didn't think such a thing could even exist while Subaru looked at Mahito, not fully comprehending what he just heard...