For Myself

Megumi prepares to exorcise Yuji as a curse, but Yuji raises his hands to show he is in command of himself. Before Megumi must decide, Gojo appears, having stopped for souvenirs after the elders fretted over the cursed object. Examining Yuji, Gojo confirms the boy has fused with Sukuna and tests his control by asking him to yield to the curse for ten seconds while Gojo fights and Megumi holds a local sweet. Gojo dances around Sukuna's strikes with ease, repels the rubble the curse throws up, and counts down until Yuji effortlessly reclaims his body.

Impressed, Gojo knocks Yuji out, telling Megumi that waking as himself would prove genuine potential as a vessel. He honors Megumi's plea to spare Yuji and later explains the arrangement: the elders ordered an execution, but Gojo argued for suspending it so Yuji could consume all twenty of Sukuna's fingers, a feat valuable to the jujutsu world. After visiting the hospitalized Sasaki and the still-unconscious Iguchi, Yuji collects his grandfather's ashes at the crematorium and swallows a second finger, struggling only with the disgust rather than any loss of control, confirming a gift not seen in a thousand years. He resolves to fight curses and gather the fingers rather than be executed.

Gojo drives him to the mountain campus of Tokyo Metropolitan Jujutsu Technical School, one of two such facilities in the country, disguised as a religious school but serving as the heart of the sorcerer community. Principal Yaga, who holds final say over Yuji's fate, interviews him while sculpting puppets. When Yuji says he only wants to honor a dying man's wish, Yaga rejects the answer as fighting for someone else's desires and sets a cursed corpse on him. Pressed to discover his own conviction, Yuji finally grasps that stopping Sukuna is something only he can do, restrains the doll, and declares he must do it to live without regret. Yaga admits him, and Gojo notes that the trio will soon collect the third first-year, Nobara Kugisaki.

Gojo confirms Yuji's bond with Sukuna and tests it in a brief fight against the curse. Yuji's execution is suspended on the condition he consume all of Sukuna's fingers. Yuji swallows a second finger at the crematorium, proving rare control. Principal Yaga interviews Yuji and accepts him after he finds his own reason for becoming a sorcerer. Gojo reveals plans to pick up the third first-year, Nobara Kugisaki.

The episode adapts most of Chapter 2 and Chapter 3, introducing Masamichi Yaga and Nobara Kugisaki. The anime extends both the Gojo versus Sukuna clash and the fight against Yaga's doll Cathy, relocates the finger-eating scene to a crematorium, and adds a grave visit. A trivia note observes that Yuji performing the chopstick ash ritual alone underscores his grandfather's wish that he not end up isolated.