Chapter 147 — Return From Death
His heart had stopped beating.
His entire body was charred black.
Even Reverse Cursed Technique couldn't bring back a man whose flesh had already turned to coal.
And when the spatial rift finally closed—
everyone understood:
The jujutsu world…
had been saved by someone who didn't even possess cursed energy.
A silence heavier than death followed.
The irony…
was absolute.
Yuki knelt beside Shinsuke, gently brushing her hand across his burned, cracked face, her expression an unreadable knot of emotions.
Gojo and the others said nothing.
The strongest jujutsu sorcerer of the modern era stood frozen—
saved by the man he hated most.
Saved by someone the jujutsu world had rejected.
A debt he could never, ever repay now anchored itself in his chest.
But as everyone mourned—
Shinsuke's body was changing.
---
Inside His Consciousness:
Within his mindscape, the mysterious scripture trembled.
Terrifying cursed energy surged within it, glowing with blinding gold.
That cursed energy—
devoured, refined, converted—
transformed into an overwhelming tidal wave of pure life force, fed back into Shinsuke's ruined body.
Sukuna had taken over Tengen's body, evolving into a higher form of existence—
neither sorcerer nor curse, but something far beyond both.
But the scripture…
still classified him as Tengen.
Still treated him as a curse spirit.
Which meant—
With Sukuna's death,
the scripture naturally absorbed the unfathomable cursed energy inside him
—including the enormous pool accumulated from over ten million non-sorcerers—
and converted all of it into vitality, pouring it into Shinsuke.
The result—
A volume of life force greater than everything Shinsuke had ever possessed combined.
---
"Thump… thump… Thump… thump…"
At first faint.
Then stronger.
Two clear, powerful heartbeats thudded through the silence.
Everyone froze.
"…Whose heartbeat is that?"
The moment their eyes followed the sound—
They widened.
They held their breath.
They began to tremble.
Because the heartbeat was coming from—
Zen'in Shinsuke.
A man who should have been unquestionably dead.
His charred eyelashes trembled.
Consciousness returned like a rising tide.
Slowly, painfully, his eyes opened—
And he found himself surrounded by stunned faces.
He blinked.
"Sukuna… is he dead?
And why are you crying?"
He glanced at Yuki, whose tears were spilling uncontrollably as she collapsed onto him.
For a moment, she couldn't speak—just cried harder.
Shinsuke tried to lift a hand to wipe her tears, only to realize his body wasn't fully responding.
He lowered his gaze—
saw his own charred, cracked chest still glowing faintly like cooling magma—
and exhaled deeply.
"Looks like… my luck's better than I thought."
He could feel it—the scripture's power still flowing in him.
In the end, even after all that…
His golden cheat still had his back.
---
Yuki wiped her eyes, shaking from relief.
"We all thought it was over…
The entire jujutsu world owes you a debt it could never repay."
And everyone knew—
It was true.
Gojo exhaled deeply, his gaze complicated as he studied the man before him.
Every time he thought he had finally uncovered all of Zen'in Shinsuke's secrets, the man would shatter his expectations again.
He was terrifyingly strong.
"Relax. All of you can just kneel and thank me later."
Shinsuke looked up at the sky and cracked a joke.
If Sukuna hadn't insisted on killing him, would he really be lying here half–charred?
Gojo snorted.
"You still have the energy to joke. Seems like you're not in bad shape after all."
Shoko, meanwhile, stared at the resurrected man with a mixture of shock and fascination.
A man with no cursed energy—
who created his own power system—
and who came back to life after unmistakably dying.
Even she wondered whether he had some kind of monster living inside his body.
"Hey, maybe stop staring? I'm alive, not 'fine.' Can someone bring me back for treatment?"
Lying stiffly on the ground was starting to feel uncomfortable.
Yuki immediately scooped him up gently.
"I'll take you back."
---
"Ahh… it had to be Zen'in-sensei,"
Kusakabe muttered, lighting a cigarette with trembling hands.
He had been clenching his jaw since the battle began. Now, finally, he could relax.
He hadn't contributed, but the psychological damage alone was enough to kill a man.
At this point, he swore he'd build a shrine to Shinsuke in his home.
Everyone else remained silent—what words could they even say?
And yet, somewhere far away, in a realm that could only be described as a passage before death—
---
In the Afterlife
Sukuna had reverted to his original human-sized form.
He glanced at Uraume, unbothered.
"And why did you follow me here?"
Uraume answered with complete conviction:
"Wherever Lord Sukuna is, I will be."
"…Fine. Then let's go."
He accepted his loss calmly. Even as the newly ascended "ultimate being," he had been defeated—
and he accepted it wholeheartedly.
To witness such overwhelming strength…
To push someone to unleash everything they had…
It was worth losing for.
As he turned to leave—
"Don't rush off. Wait for us—we might as well travel together."
Sukuna turned back.
A man and a woman stood behind him.
Kenjaku's true body—
and Tengen, restored to her original feminine form.
A faint smile touched Sukuna's lips.
"Kenjaku. Back to your original face, huh.
And you—Tengen—I still prefer your curse-spirit form. It suited you better."
To meet two familiar figures from a thousand years ago in the afterlife was strangely comforting.
Tengen crossed her arms.
"My curse-spirit form was hideous. This is much better."
Kenjaku suddenly raised a hand.
"Actually, I've always wondered—Sukuna, Tengen…
are the two of you siblings?"
Before either could answer—
Uraume exploded.
"Impossible! Lord Sukuna would never be related to that thing!
Kenjaku, watch your mouth!"
Even in death, Uraume protected Sukuna without hesitation.
Sukuna only gave Kenjaku a sly smile.
"What do you think?"
Then he turned and walked toward the distant light.
Uraume followed.
Kenjaku hurried after them.
"Hey hey hey—come on, just tell me! We're dead anyway, don't leave me hanging!"
He looked to Tengen for answers instead.
"Tengen, seriously—what's the relationship between you two?"
Tengen shot him a cold look, sped up, and left him behind with only two chilling words:
"You guess."
"…Hah?"
Kenjaku scratched his head in genuine frustration.
Of all times to play riddles—
why were they still acting mysterious after death?
---