Episode 43

is the forty-third episode of the Jujutsu Kaisen anime adaptation and the nineteenth episode of the second season. 
== Summary ==
Yuji launches into a back-and-forth battle against Mahito, but he struggles against Mahito's ploy of using average people against him. Meanwhile, Nobara encounters one of Mahito's separated bodies as she returns to the battlefield.
== Plot Details ==
 
At 11:14 PM, after Nanami left Nobara and Akari behind, the first-year student refused to leave with the paramedic's team. Akari explained that Nobara wasn't informed about Shoko Ieiri's whereabouts in Shibuya so that she wouldn't do something reckless. However, Nobara ignored Nanami's orders and Akari's pleas and went off alone because she refused to escape while everyone else was fighting. 
In the present, inside Shibuya Station, Mahito skewers three innocent civilians and uses them to attack Yuji as he runs up the stairs. Yuji checks on the condition of one of the injured people, only for them to transfigure and explode. The blood gets in Yuji's eyes, leaving him vulnerable to an attack from behind as Mahito transforms his arm into a spiked club and prepares to finish him. 
 
Meanwhile, in Dogenzaka Alley, Mahito is still clashing with Nobara. She avoids Mahito's hands to the best of her abilities, not knowing that he is a double that can't transfigure other souls. Nobara tries to trade blows, but her attacks are ineffective, and she is eventually injured after Mahito slashes her arm. The special grade curse points this out to his opponent but Nobara insists she has to try anyway, boring the cursed spirit. 
Mahito casually avoids Nobara's projectile nails as she climbs up the side of the alley onto a higher platform. She drops a nail imbued with cursed energy at Mahito's feet and detonates it with Hairpin amidst several other nails before coming back down, confusing Mahito. While he's focused on Nobara, she activates Hairpin again and her cursed energy propels the nails around Mahito's feet to pierce through Mahito's lower body, immobilizing him. Mahito realizes the first explosion was simply to point the nails upright, putting them in the perfect position. 
 
Nobara mounts Mahito while he's injured and sticks a nail into his head. She then hammers it and activates Resonance. By using Mahito's double as the effigy, Nobara can use her cursed technique to attack his soul, causing nails to suddenly burst out of the original Mahito's chest and stopping him from finishing off Yuji, with the latter realizing that it was Nobara's doing. At the same time, Resonance also relays damage incurred by the original soul back to the double, causing Mahito's clone to spit out large amounts of blood while kneeling on the ground. 
 
Mahito's double is shocked and realizes that Yuji isn't his only natural enemy. At the same time, Nobara mentions that she noticed her cursed energy detonate somewhere else nearby. Additionally, she notes that Mahito's cursed energy is not as strong as it should be, and he didn't touch her when he had the chance. She concludes that this Mahito is simply a double that can't properly use his innate technique. Amused, Mahito licks the blood dripping from his face and admits his adversary is correct. 
 
Capitalizing on Nobara's attack, Yuji pummels Mahito with rapid-fire cursed energy-infused punches. With Resonance's effect still lingering, Mahito can't move well or fight back. While Yuji bashes Mahito into a pillar with a relentless barrage of strikes, he solemnly thanks Nobara for showing him that he is not alone in his fight as he keeps the pressure on and prepares to exorcise Mahito. 
Back in the Dogenzaka Alley, Nobara thinks that Mahito won't be launching any more continuous attacks now that he knows Resonance works on him and announces that their real duel has just begun. Instead of remaining fighting, the double decides to run away instead and heads directly into a subway entrance. Nobara chases, having a bad feeling about letting Mahito run loose and decides to exorcise him on her way to B5F. 
As Yuji lands a solid punch to Mahito's main body, the cursed spirit splits into several small, spherical versions of himself that run all across the room. As Yuji attempts to find the one containing Mahito's soul, he notices that one of them has more cursed energy than the rest. Believing that is Mahito's main body, Yuji crushes it against a wall. However, this was a feint, and the other doubles reform Mahito's body as he runs away. Yuji then gives chase while Nobara descends the stairs after the other Mahito. 
Both Mahitos enter the same corridor with the two jujutsu high students chasing them from opposite sides. Yuji initially believes Mahito is trying to heal by reuniting with his double until he sees Nobara. He immediately yells for her to run away, realizing the danger she's in. However, the warning comes too late as the original Mahito directly touches her face. Yuji easily kills the double with a single shot and runs over to check on Nobara. Realizing the end is near, Nobara touches her face and recalls her life in 2009. 
 
Nobara remembers herself playing Smash Bros. with Fumi's father as Fumi watched them. Back then, she believed everyone in her hometown was weird and she was the only sane person there. Fumi, a childhood friend of Nobara's moved into her small village on the countryside about the same time that she started grade school. Everyone in her class had either a red or black backpack, making her light blue one stand out. As a result, Fumi was bullied by her classmates, who put her backpack on top of the broom closet. Too short to reach for her backpack, Fumi stands on top of a chair to pull on it. As a result, the backpack almost falls on her, only for a young Nobara to catch it before asking for a trade, beginning their friendship. 
Nobara then beats up the boys who bullied Fumi before being reprimanded by an old man. After school, she returns Fumi's backpack and kicks her own away out of annoyance. Since that day, Nobara always stopped by Fumi's house to play Smash Bros. with her dad. Nobara didn't like the people in the village, as she believed that the village was so small that it was harder to be a stranger than it was to be a friend. At first, Fumi thought that was a good thing, only to realize what Nobara meant several years later when she was given red bean rice to celebrate her womanhood by a neighbor. This made her uncomfortable and helped her understand why Nobara didn't like it in the small town. 
 
One day while they were still kids, Nobara took Fumi to her "secret base". The "secret base" was actually the house of a girl named Saori. Saori was older than Fumi and moved into the village after her. She was always home and would welcome Nobara and Fumi every time they would randomly visit by providing them with black tea and sweets. Fumi believed Nobara changed after meeting Saori, becoming more refined. However, after several incidents of villagers vandalizing her home, Saori moved out of the village. All Fumi remembers about saying goodbye to Saori was Nobara's messy crying face. It was the first time she saw Nobara cry and so she wasn't able to remember much else of the event. 
 
In June of 2018, Nobara was approved to transfer to a school in Tokyo. Nobara's grandmother resisted the decision, causing her to enroll late. Nobara and Fumi met to say their goodbyes as the former prepared to board a train out of town. Excited to escape the village, Nobara made it a point that she would never return. Fumi was disappointed that Nobara didn't shed tears for her as she did for Saori, especially since they had not even spoken about Saori since the day she left. However, as she boarded the train, Nobara promised to eventually reunite with her and Saori together. Nobara holds back her tears as the door closes and the train begins to move. At the same time, Fumi cries and quietly agrees with her as she watches the train depart. 
In the present day, Saori is working in an office during the late hours of the night. Her co-worker asks if she would like to take a break, which she refuses since she has to finish her work before the next day, only for her colleague to reveal that it was already the next day. As Saori notices that she has a pimple, her co-worker comments on something dangerous happening in Shibuya and wonders if it is a terrorist attack. Saori then asks her senior if she ever thought about getting married, as she is unsatisfied by the future she found herself in. She then reminisces about her time in the countryside and thinks that if Nobara and Fumi saw her today, they would be disappointed. 
Meanwhile, Nobara holds her face and imagines herself surrounded by chairs while recalling her belief that everyone in the village was crazy. She realizes that not everyone was crazy, but the crazy ones were particularly loud and thus made her believe that everyone but herself would trample on other people's lives. That was until she attended Tokyo Jujutsu High and learned that that was not necessarily true. As she pictures her friends, Nobara turns around and sees Fumi sitting in a chair. Imagining a younger Fumi and herself sitting in the chairs, Nobara apologizes to Fumi for being unable to meet her again in the future as the chair her younger self was sitting on falls over.
Nobara looks at Yuji's concerned face and asks him to relay her final words to everyone, telling him that she had a pretty good life. Just then, the left side of her face swells up and bursts from the effects of Idle Transfiguration. Yuji watches in horror as Nobara's left eye violently flies out of her head and her blood splatters on his face before collapsing.
== Characters in Order of Appearance==
* Nobara Kugisaki
* Akari Nitta
* Kento Nanami (Mentioned)
* Shoko Ieiri (Mentioned)
* Mahito
* Dagon (Mentioned)
* Yuji Itadori
* Fumi (Flashback)
* Saori (Flashback)
* Satoru Gojo (Fantasy)
* Megumi Fushiguro (Fantasy)
* Maki Zenin (Fantasy)
* Toge Inumaki (Fantasy)
* Panda (Fantasy)
== Locations == 
* Shibuya
** Shibuya Station
** Dogenzaka Alley
* Nobara's Hometown (Flashback)
== Battles & Events ==
* The Shibuya Incident
** Yuji Itadori & Nobara Kugisaki vs. Mahito
== Jujutsu ==
== Music ==
== Anime & Manga Differences ==
== Trivia ==
== Navigation ==