Jujutsu Kaisen Modulo Reveals Yuji’s Endgame and It’s Sadder Than Ever

Yuji Itadori’s return in Jujutsu Kaisen: Modulo has arrived like a cold gust. The sequel manga is barreling toward its finale as Yuka Okkotsu’s desperate duel with Dabura Karaba plays out, and Yuji’s reappearance in Chapter 19 has shifted the tone from hopeful to quietly tragic. 

Long confirmed to be alive decades after the original series and shown not to age, Yuji arrives not as a savior but as a solitary force with a new, harsher code. He will slaughter cursed spirits that spill from Tokyo, but he won’t pick a side in human conflicts. And he’ll only “clean up the mess” if the Okkotsu siblings fail. Chapter 20 reveals his choices, and this choice leaves fans with the image of the old protagonist standing aloof at the top, carrying loss like armor.

Yuji Itadori Returns as Jujutsu Kaisen’s Coldest Force

A manga panel of Yuji Itadori attacking Simurians and sorcerers alike in Jujutsu Kaisen: Modulo. [Credit: VIZ Media]

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Yuji reveals he doesn’t care about Yuka fighting Dabura in Jujutsu Kaisen: Modulo Chapter 20. [Credit: VIZ Media]

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Yuji reveals that he cannot just attack the Simurians and leave sorcerers alone in Jujutsu Kaisen: Modulo Chapter 20. [Credit: VIZ Media]

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A manga panel of Yuji Itadori attacking Simurians and sorcerers alike in Jujutsu Kaisen: Modulo. [Credit: VIZ Media]

Yuji reveals he doesn’t care about Yuka fighting Dabura in Jujutsu Kaisen: Modulo Chapter 20. [Credit: VIZ Media]

Yuji reveals that he cannot just attack the Simurians and leave sorcerers alone in Jujutsu Kaisen: Modulo Chapter 20. [Credit: VIZ Media]

The immediate drama in Jujutsu Kaisen: Modulo centers on Yuka’s gambit. Armed with the Ten Shadows Style, Yuka summons the legendary Mahoraga and hides inside its shadow, forcing Dabura into an exorcism ritual as the two powers collide. The clash produces massive cursed-energy fallout that sends lower-grade curses running and drags sorcerers, Simurians (the alien antagonists), and civilians into chaos around the duel site. 

Meanwhile, Tsurugi Okkotsu fights Cross in a desperate bid to protect his sister. This is a parallel struggle that underlines how personal this conflict has become for both families and nations. Yuji’s entrance in Chapter 19 was the long-anticipated moment many fans wanted.  He appears at the scene of the duel and demonstrates power that belies the years he’s lived. Yet Chapter 20 strips that fan-service of easy satisfaction. 

Instead of joining human allies against the Simurians or clearly siding with Yuka, Yuji knocks out both Simurians and human sorcerers who get in his way, then declares that he will only deal with curses that leak from Tokyo. He further says that “old soldiers” usually don’t die but fade away, which felt like him hinting that the old version of him has faded away, and the current Yuji doesn’t care about saving the world anymore, as he says in chapter 20, pages 8-9 (via Viz Media):

“They say old soldiers never die, they just fade away… This is for the best, isn’t it, sensei?”

When a sorcerer confronts him, a brief but chilling exchange makes clear his detachment. He refuses to play by anyone’s banner and will not be moved by appeals to old loyalties. His “Piercing Blood” technique, which in the chapter cuts across friend and foe alike, is a physical sign of the new moral bluntness he brings to the battlefield.

Did Decades of Loneliness Turn Yuji Into a Ruthless Guardian?

Modulo layers this change over decades of loss. Unlike other characters who have aged and died, Yuji remains unchanged because he physically cannot age. It is also important to remember that Modulo takes place 68 years later, and during the Culling Games, he was around 17-18 (give or take a few years). So, that makes him around 85-86 in Jujutsu Kaisen: Modulo. But time has frozen for him, and he still looks like an 18-year-old. 

Those decades of watching friends and students grow old and vanish have hardened him. Where Gojo once dreamed of a future in which everyone lives in a world where kids are not forced into wars by the Jujutsu society, the world became messier and crueler. In Modulo, Yuji doesn’t intend to help anyone, and the happy, optimistic kid in him is long dead, just like his sensei. 

Jujutsu Kaisen: Modulo began with hints that old favorites would return and that Yuji’s presence could tip the scales against the Simurians. Instead, Akutami’s sequel delivers a protagonist who has outlived his dear ones and now enforces a harsher judgment on the world. Not as a hero, but as its ruthless guardian. 

Where Modulo goes next is the question on everyone’s lips. With the Mahoraga–Dabura duel still unresolved and Yuji’s motives only partially revealed, upcoming chapters will show where the series is now pursuing. Whether Yuji’s cold pragmatism will crack, or whether he will become an unstoppable, impartial arbiter in Akutami’s world, remains to be seen.

Jujutsu Kaisen: Modulo manga chapters are available on VIZ Media and the Manga PLUS app by Shueisha.