Chapter 74

With the assignment finished, Toji delivers the corpse of Riko to the Time Vessel Association and assumes the violence is behind him. Instead, the man he had already killed, Satoru Gojo, stands alive outside the building, waiting.

The exchange takes place at the association's base, where the Star Religious Group's people keep the Children of the Star. Shigeru Sonoda, speaking for that group, receives the vessel's body, verifies the death, and adds a bonus for the trouble. A short history frames the moment: during the Nara Period, Tengen carried Japanese Buddhism into the country and planted the ideas that later matured into jujutsu sorcery. Faith and jujutsu never made peace, and out of that division the association itself was formed. Under those terms no sorcerer may touch the group, so ordinary people become its ideal agents, and the organization would sooner die alongside the star than tolerate an impure merger. Convinced Sonoda is unhinged, Toji wonders aloud why the maid was left alive, and the middleman reveals that sparing her built a false sense of comfort, a favor he counts as a debt owed. Both chuckle over having ferried the hostage to Okinawa by private jet, yet Sonoda will only share Toji's company over business or in hell.

Out front, Toji meets a fully mended Satoru, stunned that his kill is breathing again. Satoru reveals that Reverse Cursed Technique healed him and faults Toji for never taking the head off. Forcing the Six Eyes to handle Limitless while reversing his cursed energy has scrambled his mind, leaving him crazed and muttering about how, on the edge of death, he understood cursed energy at its core. Offended by the talk of having lost, Toji draws his Inverted Spear of Heaven, insisting the real fight is only starting, which excites Satoru. Toji lunges with rapid slashes, but Satoru dodges, gets behind him, and lifts into the air. Routing positive energy through Limitless, he loses Cursed Technique Reversal: Red and flings Toji hundreds of meters back. Hovering with a deranged grin, Satoru leaves Toji to call him a monster.

The chapter brings in Shigeru Sonoda and starts the rematch between Satoru and Toji. Techniques on display include Limitless, Cursed Technique Reversal: Red, and Reverse Cursed Technique, with a mention of Shoko Ieiri's healing. Suguru and Shoko appear solely in flashback. Its pages were adapted across the twenty-sixth and twenty-eighth anime episodes.