Cursed Child Arc

Set apart from the main timeline, this storyline serves as the prologue to the wider franchise and contains the entire plot of the prequel volume. It centers on Yuta Okkotsu, a withdrawn teenager who is admitted to Tokyo Jujutsu High after the spirit of his deceased childhood companion, Rika Orimoto, begins lashing out on his behalf. The arc carries him from terrified outsider to capable special grade sorcerer while introducing the senior trio of Panda, Maki Zenin, and Toge Inumaki along with the threat posed by Geto.

As children, Yuta and Rika had pledged to one day marry, but a fatal traffic accident took her young. Her death warped into a curse that clung to him through his school years, savaging anyone who hurt him. After Rika mutilates a group of his tormentors, Satoru Gojo intervenes, sparing Yuta from execution and instead enrolling him so he can learn to govern the power haunting him. Classified a special grade, Yuta joins the first-year ranks alongside Panda and his classmates Maki Zenin and Toge Inumaki, who keep their distance given his volatile condition.

Gojo pairs Yuta with Maki to recover children vanished from a haunted elementary school. The two are swallowed by a massive curse, and inside it Yuta, desperate to prove he deserves to keep living, slips on Rika's ring and summons her fully manifested form to win the day. Months of training follow, after which Yuta and Toge are sent to purge a doomed shopping district. There the two learn to rely on one another to exorcise a stubborn spirit. Watching from above is Suguru Geto, who orchestrated those very curses to gauge Rika's strength.

Geto storms the campus to face Yuta directly and announces a coming Night Parade of a Hundred Demons, scheduled for Christmas Eve of 2017, that will fall upon Shinjuku and Kyoto alike, loosing a thousand cursed spirits in each city to slaughter the non-sorcerer population. When the day comes, Geto exploits the defenders' deployment to infiltrate the school alone and cuts down Maki, Toge, and Panda. Finding his friends dying, Yuta unleashes Rika in a fury, and the pair reveal the ability to copy other techniques, even healing the wounded and borrowing Toge's cursed speech. At the height of the duel, Yuta pledges his entire life to Rika, lifting the cap on her power through the strongest curse of all, love, and drives Geto into retreat.

With Geto defeated, Rika's vengeful form unravels. Gojo arrives to explain that Yuta himself caused the curse: descended from a legendary sorcerer tied to the Gojo bloodline, his cursed energy turned Rika into a vengeful spirit when he could not accept her death. Rika tells Yuta she found more peace as a curse than she ever had in life, then says her final farewell. Yuta resolves to remain a special grade sorcerer and stay among the friends he has gained at the school. The arc closes having established Yuta, Rika, the senior students, and Geto, while seeding terms central to the series such as cursed energy, domain expansion, and binding vows.