Chapter 155

Yuji finally earns an audience with Hakari, who holds forth on the "fever" that pulls people toward gambling and which he intends to exploit through his fight club. Before Yuji can make his appeal, Kirara's warning reaches Hakari and the meeting collapses into a fight. Outside, Megumi and Panda keep working to convince Kirara they came only to ask for help.

Hakari repeats his get-rich pitch, then admits it is the classic con where swindlers sell worthless tips, marveling that people still fall for it. He credits the fever: both the cheat and the mark are caught up in a desperate drive to change their lives, the same heat behind falling in love. The most direct way to engage it, Yuji guesses correctly, is gambling. Hakari argues that everyone gambles and that what people truly hate is losing and being ruined. He wants to harness the entire nation's fever now that cursed spirits are public knowledge and jujutsu regulations are bound to change, expanding his operation in plain sight of headquarters.

Inviting Yuji to chase the fever alongside him, Hakari is interrupted by a phone call he lets ring out. He offers the underage Yuji a drink, mentioning that Satoru Gojo cannot drink either; when Yuji pretends not to know who Gojo is, the lie exposes him, since every sorcerer knows that name. Hakari bluntly asks whether Yuji is a spy and flings his glass at him. As Yuji deflects it, Hakari activates his technique, conjuring two huge sliding doors that try to crush him between them. Yuji leaps clear and headbutts him, pleading for cooperation, but Hakari refuses now that his fever has gone cold.

Meanwhile, locked in a stalemate by Kirara's technique, Megumi seizes the chance to talk, insisting they are not aligned with the school yet need Hakari's strength. Panda explains the rift, that traditionalists resent how Hakari fused jujutsu with technology. Kirara scoffs that the school always relies on Satoru Gojo to clean up its messes, and reacts with comic disbelief when Megumi reveals Gojo has been sealed. Megumi then activates Rabbit Escape, flooding the area with rabbit shikigami, reasoning that winning over Kirara, the person closest to Hakari, will smooth the whole negotiation.

This nineteen-page Volume 18 chapter formally opens both the Yuji versus Hakari and the ongoing Megumi and Panda versus Kirara fights, and is divided across anime Episodes 52 and 53. Hakari's monologue establishes the gambler's fever as the philosophical core of his character and the test Yuji will eventually have to pass.