Inhuman Makyo Shinjuku Showdown, Part 9

The duel grows so absurd that none of the observers can predict the next turn. To cope with Infinity, Sukuna relies on the adapting power of Mahoraga, while Gojo means to settle the fight before that adapting finishes. With that, the countdown toward the climax of their battle starts.

Wanting to make his point, Kusakabe asks which of the spectators has ever absorbed a genuine punch thrown by Gojo. Panda and Yuji both attempted to strike him and came up empty, while Hakari and Yuta have eaten blows that carried the Limitless. Kusakabe explains that Gojo not only reinforces his punches with cursed energy but also draws in the surrounding space using Blue at the very moment of contact. Hakari compares the sensation to a counterpunch that still connects even after you brace for the impact, and when Kirara asks the two how badly it hurts, both confess it made them throw up. In a flashback, Nanami impresses on Yuji that measuring oneself against Gojo is futile, since the critical hits Nanami struggled to land were nothing more than light jabs to him. The lesson Kusakabe is driving at: going forward he has no way to foresee whatever Gojo dreams up next.

After a heavy right hook, Gojo drags Sukuna along the face of a building, throws him aside, and tries to pin him in rubble with Blue. Sukuna breaks free quickly, and Gojo follows with a flying kick that Sukuna ducks, only for Gojo to have already laid a field of attraction overhead that drives Sukuna's head toward a descending axe-kick. Sukuna shrewdly flips forward and harnesses Blue's pull to hoist his hips and legs upward, then blackens Mahoraga's wheel with domain amplification as he tries to bring down a spinning axe-kick himself. Gojo vanishes and conjures four clones to throw him off, but Sukuna sees through the ruse, locates the real body, and lands a punch Gojo cannot fully block, sending him flying. Landing atop a streetlight signal, Gojo watches the wheel suddenly spin, worrying the watchers that Sukuna may have already adapted. Gojo observes that Sukuna can still amplify but no longer expand, since the brain damage has crippled the part responsible for casting barriers, while Sukuna reasons Gojo sticks to Lapse so that he cannot also adapt to Reversal. The signal turns green and both fighters clash right on it; Gojo wields Blue to fling the streetlight toward Sukuna, who snatches it and hurls it back, only to have Infinity halt the throw cold. Sukuna keeps Mahoraga in reserve for now, and since adjusting to Unlimited Void had demanded five separate domain collisions, Mei Mei, Hakari, and Kusakabe reason that countering any application of the Limitless takes more than a single rotation of the wheel. Gojo knows precisely three more turns will let Mahoraga adapt to Infinity, startling the onlookers. Sukuna boasts there is a countdown until Gojo's smirk vanishes, which only widens his grin. Confident he will kill Sukuna before the third turn, Gojo prompts Hana to wonder if he has forgotten about rescuing Megumi; Yuji agrees he might have, and when Kashimo says it would be fine either way, Yuji and Hana flatly disagree.

Gege Akutami numbered this Jujutsu Kaisen chapter two hundred thirty-one, and it lies within the Shinjuku Showdown Arc. It was carried in Weekly Shonen Jump combined issue 36-37 of 2023, dated August 7, was collected in Volume 26, and runs nineteen pages. It locks in the three-turn countdown that fuels the tension across the rest of the fight.