Chapter 22

Young Fish and Reverse Punishment, Part 4 (と --) is the twenty-second chapter of Akutami Gege's Jujutsu Kaisen.

Summary
Nanami and Mahito being their battle beneath Kawasaki city. Above ground, Yuji makes contact with Junpei for the first time.

Plot Details
Mahito compares Nanami to Gojo when it comes to their superficial attitudes and dark strength. He wraps his hands in cursed energy and attacks but Nanami deflects both hands and kicks Mahito back. Nanami winds up his blunt sword and reveals Mahito's weak points. Mahito attempts to guard Nanami's blade with Cursed Energy but his arm is cleaved most of the way through.

Mahito examines his hand hanging by a thread and asks if this is Nanami's Cursed Technique. Seeing that this is obvious, Nanami expresses his displeasure with open-ended questions. The curse says he's glad his opponent is willing to talk and Nanami decides to speak with him in order to gather more info on his level of intelligence. Nanami has reason to believe that Mahito is directly connected to the other unregistered special grade that Gojo encountered.

Suddenly, Mahito asks Nanami whether the human body or the soul came first. Nanami humors him and says the body came first but Mahito disagrees. He believes the soul should always exist first and the body should be modeled from the shape of one's soul. Mahito fixes his arm but he claims not to be healing it using the usual method a curse would use. Instead, Mahito reveals his Cursed Technique is the ability to reshape the soul. By reinforcing the shape of his own soul, he's able to reform his body.

Mahito pulls out a few small humans he disfigured and reshapes one of them into a full-sized curse-like being using Idle Transfiguration. He wants to experiment on a strong Shaman and see if they can survive the process. Nanami ignores Mahito and checks the time on his watch. He calculates the time he's been working and realizes he must clock out within the next half hour to avoid working overtime.

Elsewhere, Junpei encounters one of his teachers. He asks Junpei why he wasn't at his friend's funerals, irritating Junpei. The young man asks his teacher how people in their profession can continue to live in ignorance of the real world. He prepares to use a Cursed Technique, but Yuji interrupts to stop the Cursed Spirit Ijichi let loose to test Junpei's awareness. Five minutes before, Ijichi botched the mission by letting out the curses too early while Junpei was talking to his teacher.

Yuji interrupts their conversation, irritating the teacher who asks Yuji not to be rude. In order to get rid of the pestering man, Yuji takes his pants and runs away with them. Once the teacher runs away from the area, Yuji returns to speak with Junpei alone. Junpei comments that Yuji could've just dragged him away instead, but Yuji responds that he noticed Junpei didn't like that guy anyway.

Meanwhile, back underground, Mahito taunts the Grade 1 Shaman, who's been slightly injured. Nanami ignores Mahito and notices the time on his watch. Mahito realizes that Nanami's Cursed Energy has spiked all of a sudden. Namami returns his focus to Mahito and reveals that he's now working overtime.