Inhuman Makyo Shinjuku Showdown, Part 11

Gojo is cornered. With Mahoraga steadily learning to overcome Infinity and his strength draining away, defeat becomes a real possibility for the first time. What grips him, though, is not dread but a strange, deep sense of contentment.

A slash from Mahoraga's blade slips past Infinity and opens a wound across Gojo's shoulder. Yuji argues their teacher is still in this, reasoning that without Infinity the two combatants stand on level footing, yet Shoko cautions that falling cursed energy is dulling his reverse cursed technique. The unthinkable, that Gojo might lose, sweeps through his students and through Gojo himself, who recalls Toji Fushiguro. The memory brings not panic but fulfillment, a gift Sukuna has handed the lonely strongest sorcerer.

Striking back, Gojo rains blows on Mahoraga's head and finishes with a twin palm thrust, then chants Red to restore his depleted output. Sukuna, lurking in his shadow, deploys Rabbit Escape to blind him, but Gojo, certain the curse is still rattled from Black Flash, fires Red into the shadow. A thrown fire extinguisher detonates against Infinity; Sukuna vaults the smoke and mimics Piercing Blood, loosing a high-speed jet of water while Gojo is locked against Mahoraga, costing him an arm to block. Gojo grasps that Sukuna pounces each time Mahoraga cancels Infinity, a two-on-one rhythm. He marvels that Sukuna conjured Max Elephant's water with no shikigami present, recognizing that Shrine and the Ten Shadows Technique cannot run together absent a domain, though more shikigami are now usable since Mahoraga adapted. Sukuna then calls up Merged Beast Agito, tipping it to three-on-one. Red barely scratches Mahoraga's skull, confirming a piecemeal adaptation, so Gojo settles on the lone method that can fell it outright and grins, set on closing the fight with Hollow Technique: Purple.

Gege Akutami penned this as the two hundred thirty-third installment of Jujutsu Kaisen, slotted within the Shinjuku Showdown Arc. Weekly Shonen Jump ran it in issue 39 of 2023 on August 28, and it was later gathered into Volume 26 across its nineteen pages. The Toji flashback and Gojo's musing on the solitude of overwhelming power supply the chapter's emotional core as the tide turns against him.