Chapter 53

Deep inside a swamp well removed from the campus, Haruta Shigemo grumbles that he managed nothing during the operation, conceding that Hanami, by contrast, overexerted himself. With half his frame gone, the spirit drops. As the curse user reaches for a blade, Mahito reins the man in and verifies the prize: two sets of sealed special grade objects, namely six of Sukuna's fingers plus Death Painting Wombs numbered one through three. Suguru had drawn up the path beforehand, slipping through Tengen's Barrier by marking a finger that Jujutsu High possessed with Mahito's energy to pinpoint the vault, with the Curtain doubling as a distraction so Gojo would notice nothing.

Originally Hanami was tasked with cutting down students under cover of the diversion, yet Pseudo-Geto called it off, sensing one of them posed a threat to Sukuna. This raid forms the first stage of a scheme to lock Gojo away in Shibuya on the thirty-first of October. Lifted back up, Hanami grants that suppressing a curse's urge to kill is no easy thing, a remark that satisfies Mahito. Back at the school, Ijichi reads out who died and confirms Mahito's hand in the theft, while interrogators get nothing from a captive Juzo beyond a claim that a monk tricked him. Gojo concludes plants were the route past Tengen's barrier, built only to conceal the campus instead of guarding it.

Though the principals favor canceling the Goodwill Event, Gojo insists the choice does not rest with them. Over in the recovery ward, Megumi is eating when his two classmates drop in; pressed by Nobara about him and Aoi, Yuji brushes it off, saying he had not been himself. Yuji is relieved his friend bounced back, since running empty on cursed energy let Shoko pull out the Cursed Bud. Megumi clocks how much stronger Yuji has become and swears to pass him, then Aoi barges in praising his brother's companions. Yuji bolts, unable to account for the bond now that his head has cleared, and the event gets reshaped into a baseball matchup pitting the two schools against each other. Uraume debuts here; the chapter sits in the Kyoto Goodwill Event Arc and became Episode 21.