Chapter 203

As Kenjaku breaks into the Tombs of the Star, Choso takes the role of first defender. The fight will kill him, Yuki Tsukumo warns, yet Choso will pay any price to destroy the father he loathes and shield his brothers.

A flashback shows Choso seated at a table planning alongside Tengen and Yuki, where he volunteered to face Kenjaku alone first, since fighting beside Yuki would only slow her, and proposed instead to bait out Kenjaku's techniques and maybe even his domain so Yuki could strike once the enemy committed. Yuki said again that he would die, but Choso answered that his own life mattered less than his brothers staying safe.

Back in the present, Choso opens with Piercing Blood. Kenjaku arches backward to slip the beam and sends a small cursed spirit crawling along it, so Choso bends the stream to shred the spirit and tears up the floor. Riding the rubble, Kenjaku flings a stone, then ambushes Choso with curses leaping out from behind it. Choso scatters compressed blood and blows them up with Supernova, but Kenjaku exploits the opening to close in and land bare-handed blows, only to eat a point-blank Supernova from blood Choso left waiting, which Kenjaku stops by raising a cursed spirit as cover.

Pressed on what he wants from Yuji, Kenjaku says the boy was merely a vessel for Sukuna, a beacon for the endless chain of curses and the still eye of a new era. Choso rejects the notion that Yuji breeds suffering and flings the charge back at Kenjaku, firing another Piercing Blood that Kenjaku shrugs off. Curses then clamp Choso's feet from under the floor, and Kenjaku floors him and stomps him, sneering that he sees through the Death Painting Womb, whose whole aim is baiting him into exposing his powers to Yuki. He has used nothing but weak spirits, scorns the brothers as botched creations, and a centipede-like horde flings Choso skyward before driving him down, ripping his clothes and leaving him gravely hurt.

This Culling Game Arc chapter ran in issue 49 of 2022 and released on November 7, 2022, collected in Volume 23, with Choso, Yuki, and Tengen on the cover. Its English title is Blood and Oil, Part 2. Near the end, Kenjaku lectures that special grade means power to topple nations, true of Gojo and of Geto's Cursed Spirit Manipulation, which floods the field with reinforced curses. Tengen tells Yuki to step in, but she waits, sensing more from Choso. Stung at landing no blow, he rises to make his father pay for sneering that the brothers were dull, calling on the younger Death Painting Wombs to fire and drawing renewed strength from his siblings. Featured powers cover Choso's Blood Manipulation set and Kenjaku acting as Suguru Geto.