Young Fish and Reverse Punishment, Part 5

The contest between Kento Nanami and Mahito climbs to its peak. Right as the curse figures the victory is his, the former office worker drops his restraint and treats the bout like overtime. Far from there, Yuji starts pressing Junpei about the events at the Kinema Cinema.

A flashback rewinds to earlier in the duel, with Nanami slipping past Mahito as the curse twists small ex-humans into deformed monsters to throw at him. Hearing the creatures cry for rescue, Nanami remembers Shoko's instruction not to falter, while Mahito notes that disfigurement does not always finish the victim right away. When Nanami says it does not trouble him because he separates the job from his feelings, Mahito only laughs. Saying that the man's soul looks unsteady to him, Mahito asks his rank, learns he is grade one, and decides his strength is perfect for an experiment before darting past his guard to graze the right side of his abdomen and wound it instantly. Mahito explains that Nanami avoids becoming a hollow puppet only because his cursed energy is subconsciously guarding the soul, and brags that he sped himself up by reshaping his own soul and remaking his legs to end in hooves like a horse's. Two or three more touches to the soul, he warns, and Nanami stops being human.

Nanami brushes off the taunt, glances at the time, and recognizes he is now on overtime, so he pulls off his tie. Mahito watches his foe's cursed energy climb as the necktie winds around his fist, and deduces that Nanami caps his power according to the clock. The sorcerer starts explaining how his cursed technique functions and sprints toward the wall; Mahito gives chase, but Nanami knows he cannot outlast a curse that never tires, so he must close the fight in one shot. With Ratio Technique: Collapse, he strikes a weak point in the sewer wall, caving in everything around the two of them. Mahito moves to dodge, yet Nanami catches him by surprise and severs a leg, telling him they will meet again if both live before he departs; as Mahito lies there, the ceiling overhead drops to crush him. Meanwhile, Yuji waits beside Junpei at his school, unable to contact Ijichi, who is off chasing the second escaped fly head. Mahito had earlier warned Junpei to be cautious of students wearing spiral pins, calling them jujutsu sorcerers while also urging him to befriend any he could. When Yuji bluntly asks whether Junpei noticed anything strange at the theater where his classmates died, Junpei, aware he means Mahito, chooses to lie instead. The two wind up bonding over a film they each happened to watch, and from a distance Pseudo-Geto observes with satisfaction that his side has managed to get close to Sukuna's vessel.

Gege Akutami released this twenty-third chapter of Jujutsu Kaisen within the Vs. Mahito Arc. It appeared in Weekly Shonen Jump issue 38 of 2018, dated August 20, and was later collected in Volume 3 across twenty-one pages. The anime adapted its contents over Episode 10 and Episode 11. The chapter wraps up the duel between Nanami and Mahito and quietly launches the bond between Yuji and Junpei.