Chapter 218

Wrapped in an insect shell, Yorozu insists she will school Sukuna in love by fighting him to the death. He rebuffs the idea, keeps his Shrine sheathed, and turns the full breadth of the borrowed Ten Shadows Technique against her.

Yorozu had been an accomplished Heian-era sorcerer whose one flaw was poor cursed energy economy, a serious problem given how much Construction devours. To compensate she designed efficient gear, and after hearing of insects able to cross the sea she settled on a carapace as her technique's high point, still wielding liquid metal at range. That style let her defeat the Five Empty Generals, an elite Toh unit on par with Takako Uro's squad. Empowered, she blitzes Sukuna with punches, circles behind him, destroys his unstable shadow dog, and kicks him into a wall while taunting his refusal to use the Shrine.

As she begs him to cut her open and see her love, hurling a web of spikes through the corridor, Sukuna summons Round Deer to heal and clear the metal with reverse cursed technique, then Piercing Ox to ram her horns-first. His earlier unstable Divine Dogs had widened the technique's range while avoiding total loss, trading away independence and power that his huge cursed energy output offset; Round Deer and Piercing Ox, fully stable, embody the technique properly. Piercing Ox cracks her eye plating, and Yorozu notices it only charges straight but grows stronger the farther it runs. Sukuna deploys Rabbit Escape to surround her, then drops Max Elephant from above, shattering her insect armor and nearly leveling the stadium. Mocking that this is all her love amounts to, he provokes her, and she resolves to construct her very heart as the true shape of her love.

This nineteen-page chapter released April 3, 2023 in issue 18, part of the Culling Game Arc and collected in Volume 25, with Yorozu on the cover. It showcases the difference between Sukuna's unstable shadow summons and the fully stable Round Deer, Piercing Ox, Rabbit Escape, and Max Elephant shikigami.