Just when we thought the turbulent Shibuya Incident arc has come to a close, Gege Akutami took us by surprise and a big one at that. Rather than the Jujutsu sorcerers healing themselves to fight against the national threat launched by Geto, this week’s chapter took us to a time-skip. But the bigger surprise was waiting for us.

He is here! The man most talked about (well, only after Gojo Satoru, please give the sensei his respect) has finally appeared in the Jujutsu Kaisen story. Yes, it is Okkotsu Yuuta, the famous third-year student of Tokyo Jujutsu College. His whereabouts were unknown in the manga ever since he freed Rika in Volume 0, leaving us hanging.

Until today, all of us were like Todo, waiting for Okkotsu to return. He is finally here, albeit not in the way we wanted.

Okkotsu Yuuta makes his return

The authorities & higher-ups are facing an unprecedented crisis with thousands, if not millions, of curses running rampant in Japan currently. There is no news on the jujutsu sorcerers from the Shibuya Incident.

As a lone child in what seems to be an abandoned grocery store is about to fall into the luring of a cursed spirit, a shaman swiftly executes it. This is none other than the man of the hour: Okkotsu Yuuta. He saves the little girl and calls out Rika not to overdo the exorcism of curses. Yes, we are asking the same questions: is Rika still alive? But the bewilderment does not stop there.

We see Okkotsu talking to an unknown but definitely suspicious person later, most probably a higher-up of the Jujutsu world. What went so downhill at Shibuya, making Okkotsu even willing to create a binding contract with this person? And that too for killing a student of his teacher, Gojo.

While we thought that Okkotsu might appear as a messiah to clean up Geto’s mess, what is happening is the opposite. The people who could actually explain the situation to Yuuta, like Maki, Inumaki, and Panda, are out of the picture right now. According to Gege Akutami, Yuuta is indecisive. It is possible that the higher-ups easily manipulated the situation to convince Yuuta to make a rash decision.

Is Okkotsu Yuuta fooling the higher-ups?

From this chapter, we can also speculate that Yuuji (and possibly the others) are on a run. Yuuji’s execution was almost certain after Sukuna going berserk at Shibuya and Gojo’s sealing. Here is what does not make sense to us: why appoint Okkotsu to kill Yuuji? He surely won’t rush into killing Yuuji just because the authorities said so. Not while his teacher and relative, Gojo Satoru, loathed the authorities in question.

So what is going on? Is Yuuta trying to fool the higher-ups to get close to Yuuji and the others? Maybe he does want to kill Yuuji but also find the others. He might just be acting out of care for his friends. From his perspective: Panda nearly died, Maki is severely injured, Inumaki has lost a hand, Gojo is sealed, an execution issued for Yaga, Todo brainwashed, and millions dying at the hands of Sukuna.

We can see where his will to kill Yuuji comes from. It is not a stretch to think that the binding contract might be a bluff too. He might want the higher-ups to trust him to extract as much information as possible. But then. Yuuta also gave the higher-ups an option to form a binding contract with him. This points to the fact he might be serious about taking down Itadori. This also ties in with his indecisive attitude.

One more possibility arises out of Utahime mentioning a traitor among the higher-ups of the jujutsu world. This influential person could also be pulling strings for the so-called abetment carried out by Gojo. This is a great opportunity for the higher-ups that shared a mutual hatred with Gojo (like Kyoto College’s ojiichan) to get rid of a nuisance.

The traitor possibly influences the declaration of unsealing Gojo as a crime. But it is the worst move to make. The authorities are focused on eliminating Gojo rather than eliminating the curses with his help.

Do you think that all that happened in Chapter 137 was an elaborate plan orchestrated by Yuuta? Or is the invisible traitor at work? Let us know!