Chapter 19

A trio of warped corpses turns up at Kinema Cinema in Kawasaki City. Yuji is brought along by Kento Nanami, a blunt and orderly sorcerer, to look over the eerie crime scene. Elsewhere, the sole survivor who saw it happen decides to track down the killer in hopes of learning the ways of cursed spirits.

A teenager named Junpei muses that he could never push a button to kill someone he simply disliked, yet would not hesitate to push it for someone who disliked him. At Kinema Cinema he sits among rude classmates who heckle through the film until their bodies are twisted into unrecognizable shapes, seemingly dead. Junpei spots the blue-haired, patchwork-faced figure responsible and trails Mahito into an alley. The cursed spirit asks whether the victims mattered to him, but Junpei stuns him by asking instead if he could learn to kill people that way.

Meanwhile, Nanami, a grade 1 sorcerer, walks Yuji through reading the residual cursed energy a technique leaves behind. Yuji fumbles at first, and Nanami tells him to prioritize sensing over seeing. When the student finally picks up the trail and fishes for praise, Nanami flatly states he is there to enforce the law, not to flatter or scold. Satoru then turns up to needle Nanami as an office-worker dropout, while also vouching that he is more reliable than most sorcerers, having genuinely left a corporate job.

Nanami explains he took up sorcery only because it is less foolish than office life, and that although he trusts Satoru he cannot respect him given how jujutsu society operates. For the same reason he refuses to acknowledge Yuji as a sorcerer and challenges him to prove his worth despite carrying Sukuna. Worn down by being called weak lately, Yuji asks for patience as he grows. With no footage of the killings, the two must question the remaining witness, and a pair of curses ambushes them on the roof. Yuji insists he not be underestimated, but Nanami sees protecting children as an adult's duty. Drawing his weapon, he tells Yuji that enduring small losses is exactly what shapes a person into an adult.