Yuji Itadori & Nobara Kugisaki vs. Mahito

Yuji Itadori & Nobara Kugisaki vs. Mahito is a battle fought by Tokyo Jujutsu High first-year students, Yuji Itadori and Nobara Kugisaki against the special grade cursed spirit, Mahito. It takes place in Shibuya Station and a nearby alleyway during the latter stages of the Shibuya Incident.

Prologue
Following Sukuna's rampage through Shibuya, Yuji is devastated by all the death and destruction that took place using his body.

At first, Yuji begins to cry and vomit erratically out of panic until he comes to an abrupt stop. Without any other choice, Yuji enters a state of cold focus and reminds himself he must continue to fight. If he doesn't, then Yuji believes he'll have spent all his time on this mission being nothing but a killer and a failure.

Inside Shibuya Station, a heavily injured Nanami walks through the empty corridors recalling his desire to relax and read some books. He sustained grievous injuries from his battle with Dagon in addition to the hellish burns from Jogo afterward. A swarm of transfigured humans confronts Nanami and he's left with no choice but to deal with them.

Despite his grueling injuries, Nanami cuts through the transfigured humans with great speed and skill using his blunt sword. Immediately after, Mahito finds Nanami, having seen him pass by earlier. He touches the 7:3 sorcerer's chest and asks if he wants to chat since they go way back.

Yuji arrives inside the station and sees Mahito and Nanami at the same time. The curse uses the opportunity to crush the young student's soul. With his last words, Nanami tells Yuji that he's got it from here. Mahito promptly activates Idle Transfiguration and obliterates Nanami's torso, killing Yuji's close mentor right in front of him. Enraged, Yuji yells at Mahito demanding to know what he is. Amused, Mahito tells his opponent there's no need to raise his voice in such close proximity.

Battle
Yuji rushes Mahito while the cursed spirit reaches into his back pocket. A few feet before Yuji reaches his adversary, Mahito flicks a small static transfigured human at him. It changes shape into a larger transfigured human with a sharpened head that attempts to stab Yuji. Yuji slides underneath the attack while Mahito runs atop the transfigured human. The spiked horn extending from the transfigured human spawns several more spikes that try to stab Yuji from above. Yuji rolls out of the way in time to evade danger, but Mahito reaches an advantageous position behind him.

By combining two transfigured souls, Mahito activates his extension technique: Soul Multiplicity. This is followed up by the activation of Body Repel, an attack that uses the negative reaction of the soul fusion to Mahito's advantage. This creates a merged transfigured beast-like creature that attempts to bite Yuji with its giant mouth and teeth. Yuji grabs onto the top and bottom rows of teeth t stop the jaws of the monster from chomping him. Suddenly, Mahito appears from inside the beast and lands a devastating right hook directly to Yuji's face.

The punch sends Yuji flying back by the hit and he grimaces longer than he usually would. Mahito climbs out of the transfigured monstrosity and reveals his fist was modified with a blunt weapon he meant to split Yuji's skull with. The Jujutsu High student's face is badly cut, but he gets back to his feet and demands to know how Mahito can aimlessly toy with people's lives. Disinterested in the subject, Mahito simply replies with the argument that he and Yuji are two sides of the same coin. The special grade belies that until Yuji realizes this, he'll never win a fight between them.

Regaining his focus by reminding himself that Nanami wouldn't lose his cool, Yuji takes his fighting stance and charges his palms with cursed energy. Mahito does the same, reinforcing his fists and planning to kill Yuji in a single blow instead of changing his soul's shape. The two standoff until Mahito makes the first move. He attempts to punch straight through Yuji's heart, but his opponent suddenly disappears from sight. Using Knee Release, Yuji reaches a lower position at Mahito's feet before delivering a powerful kick to his face.

Unleashing Taido Martial Arts: Manji Kick, Yuji utilizes the momentum of Knee Release to hit Mahito with a devastating attack. Yuji follows up with a straight left kick to his opponent's chest. Before losing the advantage anymore, Mahito transforms his arm into a spiked vine and slashes upward. It tears up the floor but Yuji avoids it completely, giving Mahito some space. Impressed, the special admits Yuji's kick wasn't bad and adds it's time for the battle to move on to the second round.

Mahito uses the spiked vine to slash laterally at Yuji. The sorcerer jumps over the Dogenzaka ticket gates to avoid it and chases after his adversary, Mahito prepares a small transfigured human in his hands before throwing it at Yuji. Yuji avoids it, but the transfiguration is delayed. The small transfigured humans suddenly shapeshift to create spikes that strike down at Yuji. Using his speed and nimbleness, Yuji narrowly moves out of the way and onto a railing. Mahito attacks Yuji from the other side to catch him off guard. He unravels a long arm that was wrapped around his torso to give it more striking power.

Yuji uses good head movement to avoid the punch and manages to grab Mahito's elongated arm. Knowing this means trouble, Mahito dismembers the arm before Yuji can hit his soul. The dismembered arm grows legs and follows Mahito as he runs away before they re-merge together elsewhere in the station. As Yuji pursues, he makes a mental note that Mahito has developed new uses for his cursed technique since they last fought. Mahito decides to stick to using transfigured humans to reduce risk and for another reason.

Mahito takes a sudden turn while running through the subway station and Yuji loses sight of him. Yuji happens upon two civilians while looking for the curse and tries to tell them both to hide. He believes Mahito headed upstairs but the cursed spirit was actually hiding inside one of the non-sorcerers. Mahito's enlarged arm erupts from the civilian's mouth and punches Yuji in the face. Mahito emerges from the man, shedding him like a layer of skin before transfiguring his friend into a sword. All this is to simply further irritate Yuji. The additional reason for using transfigured humans is because they're effective for chipping away at Yuji's spirit and resolve as well. In order to further this goal, Mahito plans on adding another card to the mix soon.

Meanwhile, in a nearby alleyway, a double of Mahito he created earlier encounters Nobara. Mahito cloned himself to find Yuji faster during his competition with Jogo. Nobara recognizes Mahito for being the patch-face curse that's good at running away and making trouble for Yuji. Interested by her boasting, Mahito prepares to fight the girl and earn a worthwhile kill. Feeling she doesn't have much to show for the Shibuya Incident so far, Nobara prepares herself to fight as well.

Nobara knows that Mahito's cursed technique involves manipulating the soul and is aware enough to avoid his hands. She tries to channel the feeling of accessing the core of cursed energy. The same feeling she felt when unleashing the power of Black Flash in past. Nobara levitates three nails imbued with cursed energy in front of her before launching them all at Mahito. The curse narrowly avoids it by dodging to the left. One nail clips his hair but Mahito openly claims that his opponent missed.

However, Nobara's attacked knocked loose a sign in the alleyway that falls next to Mahito. Nobara dropkicks the sign into Mahito shortly after it lands. The special grade blocks the impact, but Nobara jumps off the sign. She leaves two cursed energy charged nails hammered into it. After landing back on the ground, Nobara snaps and activates Hairpin, detonating both nails in the sign. The small explosion draws blood, injuring Mahito's forehead.

Mahito admits Nobara's skills aren't bad but doesn't believe her choice of offense will be effective on him. He realizes that she's a friend of Yuji's and plans on bringing her corpse back to him as a way to further destroy his mental resolve.

Back inside the station, Mahito finds more civilians and skewers them with his arm that he transformed into a hook-like weapon. Yuji chases him up a flight of stairs and Mahito slams the three bystanders into him as soon as he gets to the top. Yuji falls over and tries to check on the condition of the civilians, only for them to explode from the transfiguration. Their blood gets in Yuji's eyes, compromising his vision and allowing Mahito to get behind him. Approaching menacingly from behind, the cursed spirit prepares to finish the fight for good by shaping his fist into a large mace.

Meanwhile, in the alleyway, Nobara and Mahito's double continue fighting. Nobara avoids her opponent's hands because she doesn't know that the double can't transfigure souls other than his own. However, this Mahito can transfigure his own body as much as he wants without incurring any risk since he isn't fighting Yuji. He transforms his arm into an extending spear-like spike that Nobara narrowly dodges. The tip cuts her cheek and chops a tiny bit of her hair before shifts into a large ball of spikes. Nobara dodges to the right to avoid being hit and Mahito comes right at her to capitalize.

Trading blows in the collision, Mahito shapes his left hand into a claw and slashes open Nobara's left shoulder while hits him in the face with her hammer. The cursed spirit instantly heals, taunting Nobara and saying that her efforts are fruitless. Nobara claims that she knows it won't work but she's gotta try anyway. Unamused with her answer, Mahito enthusiastically avoids two nails that Nobara sends at him. He takes his eyes off Nobara for a moment, allowing her to climb up on the side of a building and get above him.

Nobara drops several nails at Mahito's feet and activates Hairpin, not seeming to have any effect at all. Immediately after Nobara jumps back down towards the ground, confusing Mahito with her erratic movement. While in the air, Nobara activates Hairpin again, skewering Mahito's legs with spikes of expanded cursed energy. Mahito realizes the first activation of Hairpin was simply to rattle the nails and point them upright so the second would land and immobilize him. Nobara lands on her adversary, mounting him from above but the special grade still doesn't believe himself to be in danger.

While levitating a cursed energy charged nail above her opponent's forehead, Nobara reveals that she's been thinking about how her cursed technique might be effective against patch-face's soul. Mahito realizes too late that Nobara was bluffing to make it seem like she didn't have a strategy. The Straw Doll Technique user activates Resonance by hammering her nail directly into Mahito's forehead. By using his body as the effigy for Resonance, Nobara attacks Mahito's soul directly. The effect not only damages the double but its effect relays to Mahito's main body as well. This effectively saves Yuji from certain demise, causing black spikes to erupt from within Mahito's main body.

The damage from Resonance then rebounds back to the double, greatly injuring Nobara's opponent. Shocked, this makes Mahito realize that Yuji isn't his only natural enemy because the Girl of Steel can attack his soul as well. After activating her technique, Nobara notes that she felt her cursed energy go off somewhere nearby as well. Furthermore, Mahito could've grabbed her instead of clawing her shoulder in the earlier exchange. This evidence is enough for Nobara to deduce that her adversary is a double of Mahito who can't use his cursed technique on others. Removing the nail from his head and sadistically smiling, Mahito's double affirms her theory.

Yuji recognizes the spikes protruding from Mahito's chest from fighting alongside Nobara in the past. The cursed technique's effects linger even after the spikes disappear, leaving Mahito unable to control his body or move well. Yuji punches the disoriented curse into a support pillar and barrages him with rapid-fire punches. He still feels that he's wasted his ally's efforts, he still knows he hasn't saved anyone, but Yuji thanks Nobara for reminding him that he's still not alone. He keeps up the pressure on Mahito, firing an endless flurry of punches meant the sinister special grade here and now.

In the alleyway, Nobara prepares for the real battle to begin. To her surprise, Mahito's double decides to run away instead of further engaging in a war of attrition. He runs down into the subway and Nobara decides to pursue him and make her way to Fukutoshin Line Platform after exorcising him.

Mahito's main body dismembers into several smaller versions of himself to get avoid further punishment Yuji's ferocious flurry. Yuji looks for the curse that contains the part of Mahito's soul he needs to extinguish. The sorcerer focuses on the one expanding the most cursed energy and smashes it with a kick. However, this was simply a feint created by Mahito by manipulating his cursed energy. It buys him enough to reform his body and run to a different area in the station.

Mahito and his double both meet in the same corridor of Shibuya Station. While chasing after the curse, Yuji notices the double and believes they're trying to merge in order to heal from Resonance. However, they run directly past one another, confusing Yuji.

Nobara enters the hallway on the opposite side from her classmate with both Mahito's in between them. With Nobara coming into his view, Yuji realizes Mahito's horrible intent. He immediately yells for Nobara to run but it's too late. Mahito's real body used itself to create a blind spot so Nobara didn't notice the switch. Additionally and she had let her guard down against his hands due to their earlier exchange.

Mahito scores a direct hit with his left hand to Nobara's face. Yuji smashes Mahito's double's head into the wall, killing the clone. He runs over to check on his classmate while Mahito backs up away from them. Mahito makes a mental note that Nanami wasn't killed by a single touch in their first fight. He waits to see if the same case will be with Nobara or not.

Nobara places her hand over her face where she was hit and recalls her life growing up. She always thought crazy people were always getting in the way of normal people's lives. That was until she met all the crazy sorcerers at Jujutsu High that changed her mind. She takes her hand off her face and turns to Yuji, whose worry is written all over his face.

As her face begins to transfigure and swell around her left eye, Nobara makes sure to tell Yuji that it wasn't so bad in the end. Immediately after, the left side Nobara's face tragically breaks apart and splits open. It splashes her blood on Yuji and he watches in horror as one of his best friends collapses and appears to die right in front of him.

Compiled with losing to Choso, Sukuna's rampage, and Nanami's death, Nobara's demise is too much for Yuji to handle. His mental resolve completely gives way as he trembles over Nobara's body. With his plan having been successful, Mahito expresses how proud he is of his work. He finds his own power to be exhilarating and believes himself to be a true curse. Impassioned, Mahito rushes Yuji and prepared a cursed energy infused punch, but surprisingly unleashes the power of Black Flash!

Mahito hits Yuji with Black Flash directly to his sternum. The impact ricochets Yuji violently off the walls of the hallway into another part of the station. While still reeling in the air from injury, Yuji is grabbed by Mahito's elongated arm and slammed into a wall. Then Mahito kicks him across the face and loudly taunts him about his pitiful resolve.

Mahito points out that he kills people without a second thought and Yuji does the same with saving people. As Mahito said before, he believes their two sides on the same coin, and Yuji will never win until he accepts this.

Utterly defeated with both his mind and body compromised, Yuji lays battered and broken on the ground. Mahito stands over him and asks if he's ever counted the number of curses he's exorcised. Yuji obviously hasn't and Mahito doesn't care about the number of people he's killed either. Mahito claims he'll forget about Yuji eventually as well. He shifts his arm into a praying mantis-like claw and prepares to finish the beaten sorcerer off.

Aftermath
Just before Mahito's slash rips through Yuji's face, a clapping sound sends Mahito to another area of the room. He looks over to see he's switched places with another jujutsu student with a top-knot. Aoi Todo has arrived in Shibuya!

Aoi recites a poetic metaphor that represents how the prosperous are destined to decline. However, Aoi believes that he and Yuji are the exception.

Mahito recognizes Aoi by his innate technique as the jujutsu sorcerer who gave Hanami a hard time in their fight. Arata Nitta, Kyoto first-year accompanies Aoi inside the station as well. After treating Nobara with his injury reduction technique, Arata tells Aoi that she probably won't survive. Aoi asks Arata to treat his best friend next and encourages Yuji to get back up because the battle has just begun.

Yuji replies that he can't fight anymore. He's still trembling on the ground, devastated by Nobara and Nanami's death. Arata already had a bad feeling about the situation and is shocked to hear a grade 1 sorcerer perished as well. Sukuna killed many people, more than Yuji saved. He sees himself as nothing but a murderer and can't forgive himself.