Chapter 57

The Death Painting Womb spews acidic blood at Yuji, who dodges, kicks the curse back, and studies what it spat at him, while the spirit marvels at his strength. Nearby, Nobara works Resonance on the spots where the burrowing curse keeps surfacing; many of its emergence points blow apart, yet the curse itself slips each hit by popping up elsewhere at speed. She frames it as whack-a-mole, and Megumi agrees she should keep collapsing the exits. The wide reach of the curse's technique, he reasons, leaves its core unable to strike back, and the strain of maintaining the affected area and the barrier seems to be wearing the main body thin.

Megumi had expected the curse to be powerful given its victim count, but concludes the real danger is the one Yuji faces. Suddenly another spirit reaches into the Domain and drags Nobara out; she waves off Megumi's attempt to save her. The curse Yuji is fighting recognizes its older brother and likewise exits the Domain, so Megumi sends Yuji chasing it beyond the barrier to protect Nobara. Outside in the forest, Nobara is hauled off by a strange newcomer she cannot place as either curse or curse user, who tells her his and his brother's errand does not involve killing sorcerers and that they are all here for the same purpose.

Megumi presses the tunneling curse, dismissing its tricks as too simple, and finally cuts it down with Divine Dog: Totality, clearing every exit and earning a brief rest. Then a fresh tunnel opens and the Domain proves to still be active. Megumi connects the first death in June to the month Sukuna incarnated, and a special grade curse like the one at the detention center appears before him, bearing the very Sukuna finger the Death Painting Wombs are seeking. The chapter introduces Eso, belongs to the Death Painting Arc, features Kechizu's Rot Technique, Megumi's Ten Shadows Technique and Divine Dog: Totality, plus Nobara's Straw Doll Technique and Resonance, and adapts into Episode 23.