The Origin of Obedience, Part 5

Winning his fight leaves Megumi running on fumes, and as his collapsing domain melts away he sways on his feet while clutching Sukuna's finger. Sukuna, watching through the severed digit, is delighted by what the young sorcerer pulled off. Megumi throws up and drops to the ground, his mind drifting back to his middle school years. In those memories he is the boy who roughed up the local bullies, telling them that respecting another person's dignity is the one boundary nobody should cross. The teenagers he flattened never grasp why he came after them, and an old caretaker named Takeda eventually steps in to break things up.

The flashbacks fill in how Megumi came to live alongside Tsumiki. His father wed her mother during his first year of grade school, then the pair vanished almost at once. Gojo turned up to explain that the Zenin clan had effectively bought the boy, with Jujutsu High footing his support in return for future sorcery work, leaving Megumi bitter toward the white haired teacher and the entire profession. Tsumiki, irritated by his habit of brawling, once cracked a milk carton over his head after he sneered that decent people are revolting. She later fell under a sleeping curse that has never lifted, and at the present-day bridge Megumi quietly begs her to wake before exhaustion finally drags him under. Across the area, Nobara and Eso both clock the vanished domain and reason that whoever beat the Finger Bearer must be hurt.

Eso lunges for the finger, but Nobara moves to block him, prompting a threat on her life. The standoff breaks when Kechizu surfaces with Yuji hot behind him, confirming both sorcerers can see the warped face riding Eso's back. After Nobara clubs him across the skull with her hammer and questions his strange outfit, Eso reveals that the stench around them rises from that very back. He triggers his Rot Technique through Maximum: Wing King, sprouting wasp-style wings formed from his blackened blood. This installment marks the opening of the duel pitting Yuji and Nobara against Eso and Kechizu, and it aligns with the anime's twenty-third episode.