Perfect Preperation Arc

## Perfect Preparation Arc

The **Perfect Preparation Arc** (葦 (あし) を啣 (ふく) む編 (へん) , *Ashi o Fukumu-hen*?) is the eighth arc in Gege Akutami's *Jujutsu Kaisen: The Star, The Blight, and The Rose*. It follows the Tokyo Jujutsu High students and their allies as they continue to deal with the fallout from the Shibuya Incident on top of preparing for Kenjaku's next great act of jujutsu terrorism: the Culling Game.

## Synopsis

### Contacting Master Tengen

Megumi convinces Yuji to help him combat the Culling Game and rescue Megumi's sister Tsumiki and Nozomi's childhood friend Ai.

With Yuta and Choso, Megumi and Yuji return to Jujutsu High to form an unlikely team and contact Master Tengen. They sneak into Tokyo Jujutsu High and team up with Maki, Nozomi, Oboro, and Yuki Tsukumo. With Satoru Gojo sealed and Geto's motives unknown, Yuki believes this is their only chance to contact Tengen in order to get answers.

With Choso's guidance through Tengen's concealing barrier, the group reaches the Tombs of the Star. The main shrine appears to reject them at first, but before everyone leaves, Tengen decides to show themself.

Tengen offers answers to the questions they seek, but only in exchange for bodyguards. Now that Tengen has evolved, they've become a target for Cursed Spirit Manipulation. The man possessing Geto's body is revealed to be named Kenjaku and he plans to force the evolution of humanity by merging them with Master Tengen. The Culling Game is a ritual to begin the complex merging process.

Yuki and Choso willingly volunteer to be Tengen's bodyguards alongside three new faces that emerged from behind Tengen, Oboete, Seraphim and Taiyototsuki. Along with them, three others emerge from Tengens barrier, one yawning about dramatic entrances, while the other calls the long-haired boy with a halo too laid back. Tengen then introduces them as Tsubasa, the brother of The Angel, and Sora Sage, an ancient sorcerer working under Tsubasa, both of whom intend to aid the group and participate in the Culling Game in order to find The Angel. In exchange, Tengen reveals there is a "back gate" to Prison Realm in his possession. However, the only way they can open it and free Satoru Gojo is using the cursed technique of a Culling Game player named the Angel, Hana Kurusu. The Angel has the power to extinguish cursed techniques and is located in one of the Tokyo colonies, one of ten colonies created by barriers around Japan.

The group discusses the rules of the Culling Game and formulates a plan while taking on their roles. Maki is to return to the Zenin clan and collect cursed tools to fight with. Yuta will enter a colony right away to take part in the Culling Game and gather information. Yuji, Megumi, and Nozomi must go recruit Kinji Hakari the suspended third-year student for his strength.

### Masamichi Yaga's Curse

In accordance with the notice released by jujutsu headquarters, Masamichi Yaga is to be executed for his role in inciting the Shibuya Incident.

This is obviously just a scheme by the higher-ups to pressure Yaga into revealing how to create fully independent cursed corpses. They had done so in the past shortly after Panda was born, arresting him under the pretense that Yaga could develop an army if he knowingly developed a cursed corpse with self-sufficient cursed energy. This is why Yaga has always kept the creation process a secret.

At one point he made an independent cursed corpse for Atsuya Kusakabe's sister to help deal with the loss of her son. Using Takeru's soul information, Yaga was able to develop a cursed corpse with his personality but it could not live with her because it had to remain a secret. Regardless, it helped Kusakabe's sister feel again, and Kusakabe has always been grateful to Yaga for that. Panda was arrested by the higher-ups in an attempt to draw out Yaga but Kusakabe frees him as a show of gratitude for Yaga.

After saying goodbye to Takeru and the other small independent cursed corpses, Yaga returns to Tokyo to meet up with Panda. However, he's intercepted by a sorcerer who demands he reveal how to develop independent cursed corpses or die on the spot. He's accompanied by Principal Yoshinobu Gakuganji, who gets into a fight with Yaga and critically injures him.

Once the other sorcerer is dismissed, Yaga reveals to Gakuganji exactly how to develop an independent cursed corpse. Confused, Gakuganji asks why to explain it now and not before. With his last words, Yaga replies that this knowledge is "*a curse from me to you*". Panda finds Yaga shortly after he dies, but he does not attack Gakuganji. Instead, he mourns and sheds tears for his father.

### Curse of Death Scythe

In accordance with the notice released by jujutsu headquarters, Death Scythe is to be executed for his role in participating in the Shibuya Incident due to causing active harm to his fellow sorcerers while under the control of Toji Fushiguro

This is obviously just a scheme by the higher-ups to pressure Death into revealing the inner workings of his cursed technique, as they believe he could create an arsenal of special grade cursed tools that could be used against them in a rebellion sparked by Satoru Gojo. Hence, why Satoru stored the manuscript about Death’s inherited technique and told him not to reveal it to anyone outside of Tokyo Jujutsu High.

In an effort to pressure him, the higher-ups sent weak assassins after Death, which he easily defeated, allowing the higher-ups to label him a curse user and expel him from Tokyo Jujutsu High, offering to retract this statement if Death revealed the truth about his technique, which he refused, going on the run as the higher-ups sent more assassins to pursue him. After 2 days of running, Death began to believe that the whole of jujutsu society had abandoned him, with all of his friends having not once come to his aid, with Death unknowing about the levels of secrecy the higher-ups had taken to execute him. Upon resolving to destroy the jujutsu world, Death fully embraced his new identity as a curse user, killing a random civilian, which drove Kusakabe to find him, to which Death fatally injured the sorcerer, claiming that his “new life was the one that *they* forced him to walk”, which Kusakabe called childish as Death left him behind to die but to death scythe unknown he wasn't betrayed to begin with.

Upon killing 6 more jujutsu sorcerer's and civilians in a few hours, Death was confronted by Kenjaku, who offered him a place within his group. Death, while skeptical at first, accepted the offer, much to Doku’s disgust, calling Death a mistake to his face. then Doku and many of the group started to see Scythe’s ideology was slowly turning into that of Suguru Geto’s, the worst curse user of the Modern Era aside from Chiharu. Death at a hotel in a now Abandoned Shibuya started to remember every thing was looking into the mirror as his face was showing a broken expression with growing hatred. As word reached Tokyo Jujutsu High about Death’s conversion to a curse user, the students were shocked and outraged, with Oboro stating he would kill Death himself if he saw him for betraying his friendship.

### Annihilation of the Zenin Family

Maki returns to the Zenin clan with a key to the cursed warehouse granted to her with permission from the new head of the clan. On the way, she's harassed by Naoya and her mother, but Maki presses on to the warehouse. She's surprised to find that the vault has been emptied and there are no cursed tools in sight. The only thing inside is Maki's cruel father, sitting in front of his other daughter Mai, who he sliced across her abdomen, and Kaito Yuki, a first-year at Kyoto who had come with Mai and apparently dealt Ogi a wound, to which he sliced his neck.

The upper echelon of the Zenin clan refuses to hand over the family fortune and the clans political power to Oboro, who had previously openly insulted the entire clan, and planned to use the clan to monitor the Culling Game. They conspire to have him removed from the clan under the guise of executing Megumi, Maki, and Mai for attempting to free Satoru Gojo, and putting the blame on Oboro. Willing to execute his own daughters, this is a plan Ogi formulated himself, with the clan having Oboro sent to a false mission miles away from the estate during the plan.

Maki stands against her father using Dragon-Bone, Juzo Kumiya's masterpiece of a cursed tool that she retrieved from his workshop using information from Tengen. She manages to break her father's katana but loses the advantage just before dealing the decisive blow. Ogi cuts down his own daughter using his cursed technique to produce a flaming blade. He sheds tears and tells the twins that he couldn't become head of the clan because of them, the real reason he wants to dispose of them from his life.

Ogi drags his bloodied daughters and Kaito to a disciplinary chamber where curses grade 2 and below will feed on them. Before Maki bleeds out, Mai resuscitates her and brings them both into a dream space on a beach. In jujutsu, twins are considered to be one person. Mai was born with the cursed technique and what little cursed energy Maki possesses is holding her back. Mai decides to use her construction technique to make something, knowing the strain compiled with her injuries will kill her. As Mai's life fades away, she takes all of the cursed energy with her, allowing Maki to reach her full potential. In Mai's last moments, Kaito uses his technique to keep Mai in a suspended state of death, leaving her body barely alive while her "soul" moves on, clinging to the Split-Soul Katana she made for Maki.

In exchange for Mai's sacrifice, Maki receives a heavenly restricted body that has broken away from cursed energy. Even so, what has happened to Mai is tragic and it is a somber moment for her big sister. Mai only asked Maki one thing in return for giving her life. She made Maki promise to "'**destroy everything'**". Maki begins by exorcising all the curses attempting to devour them and then effortlessly bisects her father's head to start, "leaving Mai" to Kaito.

Word of Ogi's death spreads quickly around the clan and the alarm sounds across the grounds. The Kukuru Unit is dispatched to deal with Maki but she slaughters them one after another using the sword Mai constructed until none of them are left. The Hei ambushes her immediately after with combinations of powerful cursed techniques in an attempt to kill her once and for all. They recognize that Maki has become like Toji and a threat to annihilate the clan completely. Despite their best efforts, Maki annihilates the Hei, including Ranta, Chojuro, Nobuaki, and Jinichi.

This leads Maki to come face to face with Naoya. He is one of the few people who recognizes Toji's strength in the entire clan, yet he still stubbornly refuses to acknowledge Maki's. Naoya's desire to be the one who stands among the strong like Toji and Satoru fuels him in a fierce fight to defeat Maki, who he sees as an imposter. Naoya even angrily claims that Maki is the reason Oboro left the clan, to which she grinned and said he was never gonna stay with him as an older brother.

Naoya manages to maintain an advantage over Maki in battle by building up subsonic levels of speed. Just when Naoya thinks he's achieved victory and proved Maki is an imposter, she turns the tables on him by figuring out the rules of his cursed technique, remembering Oboro’s “crappy explanation” in the past. Her new heavenly restricted body can keep up with his insanely fast movements, allowing her to finish the fight with a single devastating punch.

Maki's vengeful wrath reaches her own mother as well. After being dealt fatal wounds, Maki's mother finds Naoya vulnerable. He survived his fight with Maki but Naoya is stabbed in the back by her mother, ensuring that both their lives end. Momo Nishimiya arrives at the clan too late to help Mai. Maki leaves her sister's body with Momo and Kaito so she can continue executing her vengeance. Maki intended to keep to her promise and destroys the rest of the Zenin clan members who weren't present on that day, but was shocked to find Oboro had killed all the remaining clan members himself, having caught on to their plan too late.

The official record states that no residuals were found that could lead to a culprit other than small trace amounts from an unknown cursed tool, with the only known cursed energy residuals being from the Clan Head, Oboro Mu at the murder scenes of Zenin Clan members who were not present at the estate. Just days later, the Kamo and Gojo clans voted to remove the Zenin clan from the Big Three Families. Jujutsu headquarters is keeping the verdict on hold.

### Hakari's Underground Fight Club

Since being suspended from Jujutsu High, Kinji Hakari has been running an underground fight club between sorcerers. As agreed during the meeting with Tengen, Yuji, Nozomi, and Megumi's role is to recruit Hakari to handle the Culling Game. They go to Tochigi Prefecture and decide it's best to hide their affiliation with Jujutsu High since Hakari is taking part in illegal jujutsu activities. Megumi is able to get Yuji in as a fighter and fortunately for Yuji, his first opponent is none other than Panda.

Yuji and Panda exchange information while dazzling the crowd with their battle. Hakari and his partner, Kirara Hoshi watch on the monitors in their base of operations. Yuji earns a meeting with, but not before being inspected by Nashi Tamekomu, the other suspended third-year, who Panda remembers "is kind of a hot-head". Hakari and Panda meets up with Megumi and Nozomi to sneak them inside the fight club. Megumi and Panda want to ensure that Yuji's meeting goes smoothly and they sneak past all the security measures only to be caught by Kirara.

Megumi tries to explain that they just want to ask Hakari for help but Kirara doesn't believe them. Kirara protects the monitor room where the meeting is, preventing Megumi or Panda from even getting near the door. Only Nozomi, who created a barrier around himself, was immune to Kirara's technique, much to her astonishment. Meanwhile, Nozomi is stalled by Nashi's technique, which he calls "fodder" due to its poor matchup to his technique, angering her to use more lethal force, much to Panda's suprise. After some time, Nozomi and Nashi come to an understanding around when Megumi is able to figure out Kirara's constellation-based technique after some time and stops Kirara, but not before they send a warning to Hakari.

In Hakari's meeting with Yuji, he explained that he believes in the "fever". The fever refers to people's addictive passions and Hakari wants to control all of Japan's fever with his fight club. He was so impressed by Yuji's performance he was willing to invite him along to take part in his fever. However, Hakari gets a call from Kirara, which is code for something suspicious is going on. Hakari accuses Yuji of being a Jujutus High spy and attacks him.

Their fight ends up outside the monitor room where Megumi and the others are. Yuji decides to stop resisting and allows Hakari to beat him down. He needs to convince Hakari no matter what, so he keeps getting back up until Hakari breaks. Hakari is forced to recognize Yuji's fever and decides to cut a deal with his group. He hears them out and is surprised to learn what happened to Satoru Gojo and Masamichi Yaga.

Hakari decides to help them combat the Culling Game but only if they help him in return. Changes in jujutsu regulations are inevitable due to the long-term implications of the Shibuya Incident. Hakari wants to take advantage of this to legalize his fight club and Megumi convinces him he can do so with his status as head of the Zenin clan. Unbeknownst to Megumi, Maki annihilates the entire clan the next day.

Yuji's Kogane interrupts their conversation and announces a new rule has been added to the Culling Game by a player named Hajime Kashimo. Megumi and Yuji decide to use Kogane to look up players with one hundred or more points who can be persuaded to add rules to the Culling Game. They need to offset the rule that enforces cursed technique removal after nineteen days by adding a new rule that allows players to transfer points between each other. Hiromi Higuruma, Hajime Kashimo, and Kosen, who both have more than one hundred points, are designated the priority targets.