Jujutsu Kaisen Manga Chapter 156

   

 Summary:

Megumi and Panda want to convince Kirara that they are not enemies so that the negotiations with Hakari can go smoothly. However, Kirara refuses to believe that Megumi and Panda are not spies for Jujutsu High and resists them. In order for this brawl to end and for real dialogue to begin, Megumi must first navigate her way around Kirara's complex cursed technique.

Plot:

Megumi uses Rabbit Escape to summon a large flock of rabbit shikigami on the roof of the fight club. He notices that each of the rabbits is marked with an "★Acrux" symbol. None of the rabbits are able to reach the monitoring room, where Megumi notices a "★Gacrux" symbol placed on the door.

A mass of rabbit shikigami spread all over the roof, so Megumi could see where they could and couldn't go. Kirara pushes them away, wondering what the point of conjuring so many rabbits is. Kirara's innate curse technique marks the cursed energy, registers the shikigami just like the wizards Kirara believes Megumi will attract all the rabbits and suffocate, but suddenly scatters them all.

Megumi asks Panda how Rabbit Escape was only for his senpai to comment on his cuteness. Annoyed, Megumi clarifies that he meant which areas of the roof Panda noticed the rabbits could and couldn't approach. Panda confirms that the shikigami were drawn to him and to the second floor, but couldn't reach Kirara or the door to the monitoring room. Panda was marked with "★Imai" and Megumi was marked with ★Acrux. Megumi isn't sure what's going on, but she knows that Kirara's cursed technique is very likely based on a constellation of stars.

Kirara notices Megumi approaching to find out how their technique works and focuses their attention on him. Megumi makes eye contact with Kirara and says that it could be based on the Southern Cross constellation. Kirara is surprised that he guessed right and Megumi is also surprised that he did. They both gave it away with their reactions, frustrating Kirara. Kirara now knows that Megumi wasn't sure if the Southern Cross was the motive behind the cursed technique, but Kirara's reaction confirmed it to him. They know that if Megumi continues to find out how the technique works, she will eventually get into the monitoring room. Kirara decides to hold him back and stop him no matter what.

Megumi silently thanks Tsumiki for teaching him about the Southern Cross, but he still doesn't know much about it. He is also confused because the Southern Cross is supposed to have four points. Megumi and Panda are able to get close and take the opportunity to discuss Kirara's cursed technique. At first, Megumi thought she had assigned them each a point on the Southern Cross to keep the distance between each point. However, this cannot be the case as Kirara can approach the door and Megumi can approach the Panda. Megumi realizes that it is more likely that the cursed technique has a designated route, where there is a sequential order of who can approach what based on which point it was marked.

Panda believes that the technique does not affect the user, but Megumi refutes this as Divine Dog: Totality was unable to get close to Kirara earlier. If both Kirara and the door had stars that repel Megumi and Panda, then Kirara could simply flee to the monitoring room. They stay outside to make sure Megumi and Panda don't meet the conditions of the technique. Megumi and Panda believe that this must mean that the Southern Cross has five or more points. If there were only four stars, one of them should come close to Kirara. Since it isn't, there must be a fifth star between them that they must pass through to get to Kirara and the door.

Panda asks what they should do when there are six or seven points, but Megumi says that five is already too many to make sense of crossing. Knowing that they may soon be thwarted, Kirara goes on the attack. They furiously jump on the hood of the car and tag her ★Imai and send her to Panda. The car flips into Panda, but he barely catches it, assuring Megumi that he's fine and to go ahead and find the other star. As Megumi runs away, Panda throws the car away from him. Concerned, Megumi reminds Panda not to throw the car or the ★Imai mark will simply pull it back to him. That's exactly what happens as the car comes right back at Panda and hits him in the head.

Megumi assumes that the user must make contact to locate the star. Kirara marked Megumi by marking his cursed energy through the Divine Dog. In order to mark multiple objects, such as the door of a monitoring room or a car, they need to be charged with someone else's cursed energy beforehand. Megumi focuses on seeing the cursed energy residue on the car and finds some from someone other than Kirara. Continuing her theory, Megumi assumes the technique doesn't have much more range and looks around for more remains. He eventually finds a parking stop marked with the fifth star "★Mimosa".

Megumi quickly touches the parking marker, not noticing any debris. She knows that Kirara's cursed energy is already marked with a star, so she thinks that Kirara can't use their cursed energy to mark another object with ★Acrux and attract more of them to her. However, to Megumi's shock, a bunch of ★Acrux-marked items are already heading straight for him.

Kira's innately cursed technique is called Love Rendezvous. It denotes five stars with a Southern Cross motif that focuses on cursed energy. In order for one star to approach another, it must follow a set order, otherwise it will be attracted to one of the targets with the same star. The order follows the stars from closest to farthest. The constellations look flat on the diagram, but there is depth in space and each star is a different distance from Earth. Megumi has been marked with ★Acrux, so she must travel through ★Mimosa (parking stop) and ★Ginan (Kirara) to reach ★Gacrux (monitoring room door).

While Panda is incapacitated, Kirara admits that they are impressed that Megumi has figured out how the Love Rendezvous works. That being said, Kirara believes that Megumi was too quick to jump to the conclusion that no more objects can be thrown at him. While Kirara cannot mark their cursed energy with more than one star, they can simply remove ★Ginan on their cursed energy and mark other things with ★Acrux instead.

Suddenly, Kirara is the one who jumps when Divine Dog reappears behind them. Divine Dog quickly immobilizes Kiraru and confuses them until they realize that Megumi never dispelled this shikigami. Megumi was able to guess which one with the same star would attract the other and maneuvered so that there was a wall between them. He waited until Kirara was directly between them before unblocking Divine Dog from the wall to take advantage of Kirara now being accessible.

When Divine Dog takes Kirara straight to Megumi, they are forced to cancel the Love Rendezvous.Megumi holds Kirara down and Divine Dog watches over them, but he simply asks Kirara to listen to what he has to say.