"So there always have been jujutsu sorcerers working behind the scenes." Amai was shocked at the revelation.
Once the initial trust was established, Amai started asking questions. It turns out that the boy could be a bit of a chatterbox. It is that, or he just really wanted someone to talk to after what he had experienced in the last 10 days.
Answering a few of his questions was no big deal. The cat was out of the bag anyway regarding Japan hosting a bunch of superpowered individuals. So, I ended up explaining about Jujutsu Society and the current situation to him.
Needless to say, he had a hard time digesting everything.
"Anyways, Amai… as I stated before, I need your help." I said, cutting his thoughts off.
"My help…"
"Yes… I'm hunting for points. As you might already be aware, with 100 points we can add new rules to the game.
My current goal is to gather enough points and add rules which could let others leave the colonies if possible.
I need to find individuals with high point accumulations for that. I hardly know anything about these colonies. I can really use your help in that regard."
Amai nodded; he expected as such. He didn't know whether making a rule to let players leave was even possible, but he was willing to help if it was.
"If you're looking for players with a lot of points, then there are honestly only two." Amai muttered with a thoughtful undertone in his voice.
"Who?"
"Reggie Star and Higuruma."
Reggie Star and Higuruma were two completely new names to me. There was no mention of them in the JJK story until Season 2. Meaning they were indeed new characters.
"How many points are we talking here?" I asked. Depending on that, I might be able to estimate their strength.
"That I don't know." Amai shook his head. "I never actually met either of them. I just know that they are arguably the strongest in this colony. In fact, there were a lot more sorcerers in this colony when the game started. And most of them have fallen to both of them."
That's dangerous, huh…
"Do you know where I can find them?"
"Yeah… Reggie Star is in Shinjuku, while Higuruma would be in Ikebukuro, most likely. I can't say for certain, though. I last checked five days ago."
"I see… and what do you think, between the two, who is more dangerous to deal with?"
"Hmm…" Amai pursed his lips. He thought hard about it. He didn't know either of them personally to give a confident answer, but after hard thought he replied…
"I can't be certain, but if I have to put my bet on who's stronger between the two, I'll say it's Higuruma."
"Oh… and why do you say that?"
"Because he has by now killed almost the same number of players as Reggie Star, and Reggie Star has minions working for him, unlike Higuruma. He works all alone."
Well, isn't that a charming little choice to be made.
Choosing between fighting multiple weaker fighters or one strong one. And that's just the order in which I will challenge them. Ultimately, I had to go through them both.
Peachy…
"By any chance, you don't happen to know anything about their techniques, do you?" I asked, hoping for the best, but Amai just shook his head in return.
Thought as much. Why would sorcerers of their calibre let others know about their techniques and then leave them alive?
So, the choice is between one strong opponent or multiple not-so-strong opponents.
"By the way, which one is closer to here, Shinjuku or Ikebukuro?" I asked offhandedly.
"That would be Shinjuku." He answered after a while.
"Well, that explains it, isn't it." I shrugged.
Reggie Star it is then.
As for where exactly he might be in Shinjuku, I had to figure that out myself.
"That would be it then. Thank you for the help. I appreciate it." I said with a smile to the boy, who looked like he wished to say something but in the end chose to remain quiet.
"And as I asked you before, you have the power to help people. If possible, please find those in need and help them out. Gather them in a place where they would be safe and wait until I remove all the hostile elements from this colony." I gave my last remark before suddenly my hair started to morph and three helicopter blades emerged from it.
"This…" Amai took a step back in surprise.
"But this is Aiko's. How do you…" He was baffled, looking back at my hair, the Hair-Copter blades, and then back at me in surprise and disbelief.
"Let's keep this between just us, okay." I made a shushing gesture at him and then took off.
Amai, who seriously wished to convince me to avoid both Higuruma and Reggie Star, knowing how dangerous they were, let the worry go.
Clearly the person he had just met was much stronger than he looked.
"Okay… it's time I start doing what I promised Yami-san…"
-x-
Flying sounded far easier in theory than it actually was.
Within the first minute alone, I nearly clipped the side of a building twice, overcorrected my balance so badly that I spun almost sideways, and came dangerously close to crashing into a traffic light that stood several stories below me.
Keeping myself airborne was not particularly difficult; the cursed technique handled most of the lift automatically. Keeping my head attached to my body was.
No wonder those two from earlier had so much cursed energy reinforcing their heads and upper bodies. Without it, it felt like my neck would snap at any moment due to the amount of weight of the body being directed at it.
But that too was fixed with a simple Self Trade.
The real problem was everything else. Steering, adjusting altitude, compensating for the wind rushing between skyscrapers, and remembering that momentum still existed all demanded far more attention than I had anticipated. Every small mistake threatened to send me into a wall, and after several close calls I swallowed my pride and slowed down considerably and even went ahead and saw how that Hair-Copter man used to do it.
The worst part, however, turned out to be navigation. Walking through Tokyo and flying above it were two entirely different experiences. Streets that had always seemed straightforward from the ground now blended into an endless maze of rooftops and intersecting avenues.
More than once I had to descend almost to street level, hover awkwardly beside road signs while pretending not to notice the abandoned silence surrounding them, memorize the direction I needed, and then climb back into the air before continuing.
Unfortunately, my sense of direction proved just as unreliable from above as it had always been on foot.
"...I swear this road wasn't here five minutes ago," I muttered to myself after making yet another unnecessary detour.
Several minutes later, I sighed and descended once more, staring up at another overhead sign before rubbing my forehead.
'How does Nishimiya do it?' I honestly wondered.
"Anyways... Shinjuku is that way. Hopefully."
By the time the familiar skyline of Shinjuku finally appeared in the distance, I felt more mentally exhausted than I had after fighting both Hanyu and Aiko. My shoulders were stiff from constantly correcting my posture, my concentration had been stretched to its limit by repeatedly checking my surroundings, and I had developed a newfound respect for anyone capable of flying without losing their way every five minutes.
As my feet finally touched solid ground again, I immediately cancelled the technique and let out a long breath of relief.
"Fun as it was, I'm changing this technique the first chance I get. It's fortunate enough that I didn't go for the rocket hair, otherwise God only knows how I would have survived."
Only then did my stomach growl loudly enough to remind me of another problem entirely.
I froze.
"...Come to think of it..."
I had left Jujutsu High before sunrise, somewhere around four in the morning, hoping to enter the colony as early as possible and get ahead of everyone else. Between traveling, fighting, questioning Amai, and then spending what felt like an eternity trying not to get lost in the sky, I had completely forgotten one rather important detail.
I hadn't eaten a single thing all day.
Another growl echoed from my stomach, louder this time.
"...Right," I sighed, rubbing the back of my neck. "Finding Reggie can wait another half hour. Winning is always better with a full belly, and hey, if I'm losing the upcoming fight, I at least won't die hungry."
With that thought in mind, I turned toward the nearest shopping street, my attention shifting from hunting sorcerers to searching for something infinitely more important at the moment.
Food.
xXx
A/N : Do tell me how you guys like me going into the details and nitty-gritty of techniques and fights when it write them, or should I not go that deep and make the story faster?
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