Chapter 160

When the Culling Game opened on November 1st, every person already sealed inside one of the colonies received a single opportunity to flee. Yuji's high school acquaintance Setsuko Sasaki seizes that chance, with Kenjaku himself guiding her out of the Sendai barrier. Twelve days afterward, Yuji and his allies stand ready to step into the Tokyo colonies and start the contest.

Kenjaku appears beside Setsuko as she sleeps. Startled awake, she stares up at the odd man looming over her and asks who he is. He tells her he is the sorcerer responsible for walling Sendai City inside a barrier, and that this region has been picked to host a deadly tournament where players battle to the death. Horrified at the idea of people slaughtering one another, Setsuko nervously quips that they shouldn't do it in her house. Kenjaku praises her humor and goes on explaining the setup: an old execution ground anchors the barrier's center, its radius stretching roughly five to six kilometers. Because the barrier cost him such effort, he cannot demand the impossible, so anyone who starts inside, like her, is granted one exit. If she accepts, she will wake beyond the wall. Puzzled, she asks what he means and wonders if she is still dreaming; the gap between dream and waking, he answers, is a curse.

Taking her hand, Kenjaku cautions her about the impatient players already loose outside. With her eyes shut he leads her safely past the carnage spilling across the battlefields, and before they separate he thanks her for befriending his son. Setsuko comes to outside the barrier at the call of her friend Takeshi Iguchi, relieved to spot a familiar face amid the chaos. He points out the towering barrier wall and notes everyone saw the man in the kesa. She asks whether the man spoke of a son to Takeshi too, but he did not; she puzzles over whether he meant Yuji Itadori from school. All of this happened at 6:00 AM on November 1st, the moment the Culling Game began.

The story jumps to November 11th, where Yuji and Megumi keep scheming alongside the others. They cannot pin down the player called the "Angel" but expect to recognize them on sight. Hakari decides he and Panda will take Tokyo No. 2 while Yuji and Megumi take No. 1, with Kirara staying outside. Hakari means to face Hajime Kashimo, the top-scoring and probably strongest player, personally, while Panda sniffs out the Angel. He explains Yuta hasn't reached them because phones get no signal inside the barriers, so they need Kirara watching from outside. Yuji starts to suggest he and Megumi travel apart because of Sukuna, but Megumi snaps at him to quit being selfish since the senpai can't rework their roles for that; the pair square off nose to nose until Panda breaks it up. The next day, at noon on November 12th, each of them arrives at the barrier set aside for them, Kogane describes the lethal game underway inside and asks if the newcomers will declare themselves players, and Megumi, Panda, and Hakari all agree without hesitation as the mission to rescue Tsumiki begins.

Numbered 160 in the Gege Akutami manga, this nineteen-page entry sits in Volume 18's Culling Game Arc and was adapted as anime Episode 54. An author's comment flags an earlier error: two chapters prior, Kogane's player data wrongly listed Itadori as already being in the Tokyo No. 2 Colony.