Chapter 159

A defense attorney drawn to the toughest criminal cases out of faith in the truth, Hiromi Higuruma is defending Keita Oe, a young man the failing justice system has wrongly branded guilty. Driven past his breaking point by repeated wrongful rulings, the man who will become a Culling Game player decides to hand down judgment himself.

Within a nation whose criminal courts convict in ninety-nine out of every hundred cases, Higuruma meets with his client Keita, who explains he ran from police while searching for his secret cat, kept against the rules of his residence. During March of 2016, the slaying of a mother alongside her daughter struck Morioka City, and prosecutors pinned the murder and robbery on local resident Keita. After he fled questioning, officers tracked him home and found a bloody knife whose stains matched the victims' DNA, yet he maintained his innocence.

Reviewing the case with coworker Shimizu, Higuruma argues Keita picked up the blade that was not his and fled out of trauma from past police harassment, while Shimizu reads the flight as guilt. Keita says he meant to hand the knife over later but his exploitative live-in job, a underpaying elder shelter that overcharged rent and housed people with records, kept him from calling police. Higuruma suspects the weapon was simply lying around and Keita is telling the truth. He sets a plan, gathering evidence while Shimizu handles logistics and even Keita's cat. A friend, lawyer Takagi, recalls Higuruma never changes, indifferent to money and perhaps worse, and asks how the work affects his mind.

The pair win an acquittal at the first trial, though Higuruma knows the prosecution will appeal, and the public wrongly assumes the verdict was bought. He reveals exonerating facts: nothing stolen turned up in Keita's room, a resident vanished after the crime, and store footage placed Keita elsewhere when the killing was estimated to have occurred. Keita thanks him for believing in him. At the second trial, however, Keita is convicted and sentenced to life, the underfunded defense outgunned by well-resourced prosecutors despite no new evidence, with a third trial almost certain to be refused. Recalling that he simply cannot ignore injustice and refuses to look away, wanting his eyes to stay open even if alone, Higuruma slams a gavel of his own as the judge sets the appeal deadline, a curse forming behind him. He declares no one may leave and a retrial is happening, his selection as a Culling Game player having awakened his powers.

Belonging to the Culling Game Arc, the chapter centers on Keita Oe and Hiromi Higuruma, with Shimizu, Takagi, an unnamed judge, and a prosecutor also appearing. The featured jujutsu is the shikigami Judgeman, and the events adapt into Episode 55.