Chapter 117

Clinging to life after Haruta Shigemo's surprise strike, Megumi falls back on a desperate trump card and locks the curse user into a doomed exorcism ritual aimed at the wild shikigami Mahoraga. Victory is impossible for Shigemo, yet Sukuna steps in to rescue him, because Megumi must survive for the King of Curses to fulfill his own scheme.

Bleeding and spent, Megumi retreats while laying out the Ten Shadows Technique. Its inheritor first receives a pair of Divine Dogs, and any further shikigami can only join after the user, aided by those dogs, summons and beats it, a process repeated until ten are gathered. Bored by the stalling, Shigemo urges him to wrap it up, but Megumi keeps moving across the road and leaving a blood trail. He notes Megumi refuses to let him close even on his last legs, then watches the boy collapse to the ground, seemingly proving the fight already won. A flashback recalls Gojo telling Megumi the source of the feud between the Zenin and Gojo clans: long ago, perhaps the Keicho era, the two household heads slew each other, one a Limitless and Six Eyes wielder, the other a master of the Ten Shadows. Gojo suggested Megumi might one day reach his level, a claim the boy still cannot fully believe.

Megumi continues, explaining that a helper in the ritual cancels the technique once the shikigami is felled, rendering it a pointless exorcism, though even that serves his purpose. As Jogo's Maximum: Meteor strikes in the distance and steals Shigemo's attention, Megumi reveals the crucial rule: a user cannot field any shikigami until it has been exorcised, but may call one through an exorcism ritual at will. Sensing the boy's surge of cursed energy, Shigemo turns back as Megumi declares that no Ten Shadows user has ever exorcised the beast he is about to bring out. He drags Shigemo into the unbeatable rite by calling forth Mahoraga, the so-called Eight-Handled Sword Divergent Sila, also titled Divine General, then silently apologizes to Yuji, wishes Shigemo luck, and falls. Mahoraga slams him into a building. Picking up on the wrongness after his bout with Jogo, Sukuna leaves Uraume and snatches Shigemo away an instant before the shikigami kills him, knowing the curse user's death would drag Megumi down too. He mends the boy with a reverse cursed technique, says he still has need of him, and decides that exorcising the shikigami will collapse the entire ritual before squaring up to fight.

Falling within the Shibuya Incident arc near the station and the Shibuya 109 area, this chapter features Megumi's Ten Shadows summon of Mahoraga and Sukuna's Reverse Cursed Technique. A trivia note points out that the official English release made the parting lines of Megumi and Sukuna identical, while the Japanese wording differs, with Sukuna's phrasing closer to see you again. Episode 41 of the anime adapts these events.