Chapter 56

Having handed a human vessel to one Death Painting Womb, Mahito sheepishly says sorry for immediately loading the freshly born spirit with errands. Up at the bridge, the three students turn up nothing of their quarry. Nobara floats starting fresh, but Yuji will not burn time given the case's flawless kill rate. Akari wonders aloud whether the jumping itself matters, a possibility they already eliminated. A delinquent from earlier rides up to talk with Megumi, his older sister, once Megumi's classmate, alongside him. Tsumiki, it emerges, had accompanied this woman to the bridge that night, and ever since her own auto-lock doors gape open at home, which is exactly why she felt she had to find Megumi.

Megumi keeps his fear hidden until the siblings depart, though Yuji catches how shaken he really is. He rings Ijichi to ask for reinforcements, only to hear none can be spared, with advice to fall back should the danger run higher than planned. Refusing to stall, he hangs up, warns the others the job has turned more perilous, and orders them home while claiming he is heading to the school. The truth is the opposite: he doubles back to the bridge alone to keep them out of harm's way, reasoning the curse sits behind a barrier reachable only by satisfying particular conditions, akin to the Detention Center Domain, which means no curtain is required.

Yuji and Nobara surface behind him, sore that he hoards everything to himself, and tell Megumi he can rely on them as friends. He admits Tsumiki is locked in an endless sleep and the spirit could end her life, so it has to be exorcised at once. Crossing the barrier demands moving at night, from beneath, and over the little river, an act heavy with jujutsu meaning. Within the Domain they meet the resident curse, but the spirit spawned from the Death Paintings shows up too; amid the confusion Yuji squares off with the newcomer while Megumi and Nobara take on the Domain's curse. The chapter belongs to the Death Painting Arc and adapts as Episode 22.