Chapter 252

Megumi remains unsaved, but Yuji and Yuta still hold a backup card. They hand Maki the opening she needs, and her strike drives Sukuna's power further down. Even so, the King of Curses has not begun to take the battle seriously.

Outside the barrier of Authentic Mutual Love, Kusakabe lays out the operation to Ino. The sorcerers will spread out to erase blind spots while Maki waits to strike the instant Yuta breaks the domain wall as a signal. Ino suggests sending more fighters inside, but Kusakabe refuses, since that would tip Sukuna off and ruin the ambush. Maki drops into a sprinter's crouch and waits. When Yuta shatters the barrier, Sukuna lowers his guard, and Kusakabe calls it both the best and worst outcome at once. Rika carries Yuta's unconscious body to Ui Ui, who teleports him to safety, while Maki closes in.

Backing off from Maki, Sukuna deduces the broken barrier was bait for the heavenly restricted fighter, that her lack of cursed energy let her slip through undetected, and that her cursed tool had been planted inside beforehand. He then notices the wound from the Split Soul Katana healing far slower than the rest. The blade's cuts cannot normally be mended with reverse cursed technique when its wielder perceives the soul, since repair demands exact knowledge of the soul's shape. Sukuna does sense his own soul, sharing a body with two, but the aftermath of his clash with Gojo blocks a proper fix.

Yuji charges back in but buckles, coughing blood from an unhealed wound among his four fatal injuries; Choso appears and coaches him to picture his body reforming through his blood vessels. Maki and Sukuna brawl across Shinjuku, and she throws him into a bridge, which he carves apart to bury her in rubble while quietly chanting Dismantle. Maki hears the incantation and barely slips the enhanced slash. Sukuna likens her perception to Mahoraga's during Shibuya, and Maki taunts his decayed state, though he brushes it off. In a frosted stretch of the city, Hakari fights Uraume and predicts his allies will win, but Uraume scoffs that Sukuna's energy only dips when he loses interest, and that no one since Gojo has made him fight seriously.

The chapter appears in Volume 28 and ran in issue 14 of 2024. It spotlights Maki's heavenly restriction against Sukuna's weakened condition and confirms the Split Soul Katana's lasting wound. Ui Ui's teleportation and Uraume's Ice Formation also feature, with Gojo and Megumi referenced.