Perhaps it’s too early to say goodbye to him.
Major manga spoilers ahead!
Summary:
- Sukuna defeated Kusakabe in Chapter 254.
- Kusakabe’s death hasn’t been confirmed.
- Sukuna’s plan might have been to kill Ui Ui instead.
Jujutsu Kaisen Chapter 254 had caused quite a controversy among fans. The story is becoming more repetitive with each chapter, characters keep losing to Sukuna, and new characters keep joining the fight.
Kusakabe might be dead
The latest chapter added one more victim to the endless list of sorcerers who tried to battle Sukuna and failed, Kusakabe. As he was trying to aim for Sukuna’s heart, the King of Curses caught the katana with his fingers, and the next thing you know, Kusakabe is lying on the ground, motionless and with his chest slashed.
The wounds look bad indeed, and the initial reaction of the fandom was “Kusakabe is dead.” But his death hasn’t been confirmed, and it’s not like he was sliced in half (sorry, Gojo), so there’s still hope that Kusakabe’s story is not finished.
Sukuna doesn’t hit someone just to toy with them, so he had to try to kill Kusakabe. But what if that’s not true? What if killing the man was never his intention?
He was after Ui Ui
Ui Ui keeps taking the bodies of defeated sorcerers away from the battlefield, and Sukuna himself says that it’s getting annoying at the end of Chapter 254. He’s so quick to appear behind Ui Ui’s back that it feels like he’s been waiting for the boy.
That’s why there’s a theory that Sukuna wanted to deal with Ui Ui actually. He knew that if he wounded Kusakabe significantly, but didn’t kill him, then Ui Ui’s hasty revival would make more sense. Why risk and waste the powers on a dead man’s body?
Fans are not the only ones who are getting tired of the same things happening all over again in the manga — Sukuna is also annoyed. He doesn’t want sorcerers to be healed and come back to fight him again. He wants to be done with them.
That’s why Ui Ui is the most irritating obstacle in his way, and he wants to deal with him already.
The best way to do so is to orchestrate a small ruse. So he might have decided to use Kusakabe for that. After all, he could have sliced Kusakabe in half to make sure the man was 100% dead. But his wounds, while terrible, look healable.
Because of that, a number of manga readers think that Kusakabe might still be alive and perhaps even capable of being saved.