Tokyo Prefectural Jujutsu High School (Yuji Itadori, Megumi Fushiguro, Satoru Gojo) | Kyoto Prefectural Jujutsu High School | Cursed Spirits (Mahito) | Curse Users (Ryomen Sukuna) | Culling Game Players | Zen'in Clan | Others
Megumi Fushiguro
Voiced by: Yūma Uchida (Japanese), Natsumi Fujiwara (Japanese, young), Robbie Daymond (English) Foreign VAs
Age: 15
Cursed Technique: Ten Shadows Techniquenote
"You always want to save as many people as possible... But who's to say that someone you save won't kill someone in the future?"
A dark-haired teen with a stoic and detached personality. Megumi is the son of an outcast from the Zen'in clan. He became a jujutsu sorcerer in exchange for the school supporting him and his sister following the separation of his parents.
He was born with the Zen'in Family's esteemed Inherited Technique, the Ten Shadows Technique, which allows him to generate a shadowy, liquid substance he can summon up to ten different Shikigami from, as well store objects in it.
open/close all folders
A — I
- Achilles' Heel: The Hammerspace function of his shadow manipulation allows Megumi to carry objects around with him, but it can't negate the weight of the objects stored within the shadow, with the physical burden instead being placed upon Megumi. Too much weight from too large an object could crush him outright, thus Megumi can't store too many objects in his shadow at once, nor apparently pull people into said shadow without also taking on their own weight as well, hence him making extensive use of his shadow's teleportation ability to move around instead of physically moving too much and only using it against a single opponent at a time, rather than multiple ones.
- Achievements in Ignorance: More inexperience than ignorance, as he is aware of his shortcomings, but his inability to construct a proper Domain barrier leads to an incomplete Domain Expansion that doesn't have the sure-hit effect that is a Domain Expansion's greatest advantage. On the flipside, however, it still greatly improves the strength of his techniques and cannot be negated by Simple Domains, leaving no certain ways to protect oneself against it.
- Adaptation Dye-Job: He has light green eyes in the manga, but dark blue eyes in the anime.
- All for Nothing: He works with Yuji during the Culling Games to gain enough points to save his sister Tsumiki. Once he gains enough points to exempt her from the Culling Games, he reunites with her and transfers his points to her so she can use them to exit the barrier, only to discover to his horror that an ancient sorcerer named Yorozu has possessed her and leaves to challenge a fight with Sukuna, making all his efforts to save his sister in vain. And to twist the knife even more, Sukuna manages to gain control of Yuji's body for a full minute using the binding vow he tricked the boy into making to possess Megumi's body for his own and gains full control and freedom. Once Sukuna finds Yorozu, he brutally kills her and Tsumiki's body to fully break Megumi's spirit to gain full control over his body, rendering all his efforts in risking his life and his allies lives to save his sister for nothing.
- Animal Motifs: Of the shikigami summoned with his Ten Shadows Technique, Megumi is most associated with the Divine Dogs. In Japan, wolves are symbols of proud loneliness, fitting with Megumi's aloofness and tendency to rely on solely himself to not endanger his friends. Remi thinks of men as wolves who will do anything for her, which nearly bites her hard when Megumi is about to kill her with his Divine Dog until the thought of Tsumiki stops him.
- Anime Hair: Notably has wild, messy hair with long spikes that stands out in a series where several characters have more naturally messy hair. Hakari calls him "sea urchin head".
- Anti-Hero: Megumi, on top of being very outwardly stoic and aloof, hates good people who are too merciful as much as bad people with unearned pride. Tsumiki is a perfect example of a good person to Megumi, but he was annoyed with her hypocrisy whenever she would get upset at him for hurting bad people. He's also easily irritated and Yuji has noted that Megumi seems like he's always slightly angry.
- The Anti-Nihilist: Megumi believes that the world is unfair and that good people like his stepsister Tsumiki will be treated unfairly while bad people don't get their comeuppance. So, as a jujutsu sorcerer, he saves good people so that they'll receive the fairness that they deserve.
- Awesomeness by Analysis: He is very good at deducing the specifics of an enemy's cursed techniques. In Shibuya, he figures out Awasaka's "Inverse" technique and later on he is the one who realizes how Kirara's ability works. During the Culling Game it doesn't take long for Megumi to figure out Reggie's cursed technique and think up of a counter-measure with his Max Elephant's water attack.
- Bash Brothers: With Maki, his first cousin once removed. His shadows act as storage for her Hyper Space Arsenal, which has led them to train extensively in close-quarters and multi-melee combat together.
- The Beastmaster: The primary use of the Ten Shadows Technique is the ability to summon ten different types of Shikigami, each with their own unique powers. However, this comes with the weakness of having to defeat them in combat first before being able to use them and if any of them is destroyed before he dispels it, it’s permanently killed.
- Better with Non-Human Company: Megumi is an asocial loner with the official fanbook stating that his cause of stress is people and according to the author, he was created to care less about strangers' fates and more about animals' deaths.
- Big Brother Instinct: Inverted. Megumi is Tsumiki's younger stepbrother but he holds her in high regard and is concerned about her comatose condition. When learning about the Yasohachi Bridge incident, he worriedly contacts Ijichi to check on her. After she awakens and becomes a sorcerer thanks to Kenjaku, Megumi asks Yuji for his help to save her in the Culling Games.
- Big Sister Worship: Deeply respects his older step-sister Tsumiki for her kind nature, thinking of her as the epitome of someone compassionate. His goal of saving good people stems from how Tsumiki, despite her kindness, was cursed. The thought of her scolding him leads Megumi to stop himself from killing Remi after she had tricked him.
- Blood Knight: He shows this more as he hones his sorcerer skills and relies moreso on his abilities and wits instead of his Dangerous Forbidden Technique, laughing ferally when he uses a Domain Expansion for the first time in his fight with a finger bearer and smugly smiling when he catches Reggie off-guard to crush him during their fight.
- Brainy Brunette: Megumi has spiky black hair and a tactical mind in a fight, quickly figuring out his enemy's cursed techniques and making the most out of his versatile shikigami to adapt to situations.
- Bully Hunter: In junior high, he beat up bullies and delinquents in the local area so much that he could often be found sitting on top of a pile of them, lecturing them that human interaction is based on not violating someones' dignity. It got him scolded by his older step-sister Tsumiki because he took it so far that he was basically bullying the bullies into submission instead of trying to put them on a better path. Itadori and Kugisaki are taken aback by Megumi's kingpin status when they visit his old school.
- Butt-Monkey: If there is someone who is guaranteed to get the short end of the stick, be it in fights or in light-hearted moments, that person is him.
- Casting a Shadow: His abilities deal with shadows as a power in small ways, but don't often go beyond storing weapons in shadows and using their shapes to summon creatures. Upon discovering and activating his Domain Expansion technique however, he gains the ability to create shadow decoys and teleport between his opponent's shadow.
- Character Development: At first demonstrates a shaky sense of self-preservation and regularly lets enemies break his spirit, shown by his tendency to attempt his Heroic Sacrifice technique when he believes he's pushed into a corner. Gojo's advice helps him break free from this mindset and show greater resolve in not dying, which in turn allows him to focus his energy into a Domain Expansion.
- Chronic Hero Syndrome: Megumi has a self-sacrificial nature, willing to endanger himself or use his Dangerous Forbidden Technique to save others, which is indicated in his bunting while playing baseball by Gojo. A talk with Gojo points out that in death he'd die alone, which helps Megumi get past this mindset and be more willing to survive.
- Clueless Chick-Magnet:
- One of the few things he inherited from his father was a prodigious talent for attracting the opposite sex, but unlike Toji's Casanova charms, it's completely unintentional and usually to Megumi's confusion, if not outright chagrin. Nobara has even accused him of only drinking his coffee black to play up his Tall, Dark, and Snarky image for impressing women, which he denied.
- Mai, Remi and Hana Kurusu all pine for him. Several Juju Scrolls show that even Maki and Nobara are not above finding his comment over Panda smelling "like the sun" cute enough to reduce them to Luminescent Blush. Exaggerated further in one particular skit where Gojo, Yuji, and Nobara have different battle formations for when they perceive Megumi to be getting hit on.
- The Comically Serious: Megumi's role in comedic moments amounts to metaphorically rolling his eyes at the antics of his allies, or getting dragged into them.
- Dangerous Forbidden Technique: When pushed against the wall, Megumi can summon Eight-Handled Sword Divergent Sila Divine General Mahoraga, a powerful rampaging Shikigami with the ability to adapt to the attacks thrown at it. Problem is, he has no control of it, meaning it'll likely kill him as well as whoever he's fighting.
- Dark Is Not Evil: Megumi has black hair with pale skin and his cursed technique uses shadows. Despite this, he's a jujutsu sorcerer who wants to help good people.
- Dark and Troubled Past: Manifesting the Ten Shadows Technique almost led to him getting sold to the horrifically abusive Zen'in clan. He and his sister Tsumiki lost their parents when he was five and in middle school Tsumiki, at this point the closest thing he had to a parent, eventually fell into a coma with no indication that she would ever wake up.
- Death of Personality: This is what Sukuna is trying to accomplish by taking over his body. The longer Sukuna remains, the more likely Megumi's soul will be destroyed. The "bath"note helps speed up the process, but Sukuna states Tsumiki Fushiguro's death will be the final nail in the coffin, which he accomplishes in his battle with Yorozu. Subverted since its later shown that Megumi is still there after Sukuna kills Tsumiki, but he's so broken emotionally that he can't do anything to resist.
- Death Seeker: His body being used as a vessel by Sukuna to murder his sister, teacher and other people has sadly reduced Megumi to this, which Yuji discovers when he's able to briefly access Fushiguro's consciousness within the King of Curses.But... when it came to the will to live... Megumi Fushiguro's soul had already...
- Deconstruction: Mahoraga is a much harsher take on the Dangerous Forbidden Technique trope. Gojo states that Megumi's belief he can always sacrifice himself to ensure victory is actually damaging to his growth as a sorcerer, as it means he's relying on a crutch.
- Deconstructed Character Archetype: He's very much one to the Stock Shōnen Rival- a dark-haired, talented, morose and introspective young boy who acts as a Foil to the bright-haired, talentless, hyperactive and sociable main protagonist. Where Megumi begins to diverge from this archetype is that a lot of the personality traits that make this character archetype confrontational or aggressive are removed. For instance, his inability to forgive evildoers for their crimes is painted as a good thing, since that means Megumi really cares about the livelihood of innocent people enough to not let bad deeds go unpunished. Megumi is talented and naturally gifted, but his relationship with Yuji is far from antagonistic and the two of them rely on each other in battle quite a bit. Being a Stock Shonen Rival doesn't work in Jujutsu's exceptionally brutal world, so Megumi lacks a lot of the personality traits that could jeopardize the heroes' objectives. Megumi is also explicitly contrasted with Todo, who notably does have many of these confrontational personality traits and the result is him being The Friend Nobody Likes who barely anyone can cooperate with.
- Usually, the Shonen rival has access to some kind of Dangerous Forbidden Technique to help them get an edge over the main protagonist: Sasuke's Amaterasu being one example. Their willingness to rely on it often makes them a match for the main protagonist in more ways than one, but Megumi's reliance on his own instance of this trope is a huge detriment. True, Mahoraga is extremely strong, but summoning it is a death sentence against Megumi and everyone around him, akin to killing himself with an explosion to defeat his foes. His reliance on it starts limiting his own development, since Megumi subconsciously feels no desire to improve while he has Mahoraga in stock to fall back on.
- Defeat Means Friendship: An integral part of his Ten Shadows Technique. His Divine Dogs are the first and only ones of his Shikigami he could control from the start. The other nine start out hostile and when summoned have to be defeated in combat for Megumi to gain control of them. And while he can bring other people to help him exorcise these familiars, he won't gain control of them unless he defeats them completely by himself.
- Defrosting Ice King: Early on in the story, he starts out as cold and ideologically opposed to Yuji's desire to save everyone. After Yuji's death, he softens up more and by the time of the Death Painting Arc he's both much more comfortable around his friends and trusting of them.
- Demonic Possession: On the receiving end by Sukuna, having more or less turned one of Yuji's own fingers into a Cursed Object containing his soul and force-feeding Megumi said finger.
- Despair Event Horizon: When Yuji enters Megumi's soul during the climactic battle against Sukuna to try to save him, Megumi makes it clear that he's so broken after everything Sukuna did to him that he lacks the willpower to resist.
- Determinator: Megumi is this moreso as he learns to rely less on his Dangerous Forbidden Technique and becomes more reliant on his own abilities to survive. Case in point with his fight with Reggie, he takes a lot of damage like having potted plants land on his head, a knife to the arm and a kick to the face, but continues to fight in a battle of endurance, resisting being crushed to death.
- Deuteragonist: Of Jujutsu Kaisen as Yuji's foil who makes his debut in the very first chapter and has the second longest screentime of all the characters after him.
- Didn't Think This Through: Despite wanting to save his stepsister Tsumiki from the Culling Game, he never considered the possibility that she could be an incarnated sorcerer impersonating her until it was too late.
- Disappeared Dad: He’s Toji’s son, and after Megumi’s mother passed, when Megumi was about three or four, he discussed pawning him off to the Zen’in clan. This was because, after his wife died, Toji thought he could never be the father his son needed. Megumi, however, believed that Toji had just abandoned him, without knowing he had died.
- Discard and Draw: If any of his Shikigami is killed in battle, he loses access to ever summoning them again. However, as a trade-off, their techniques are passed down to his surviving Shikigami. Early on, he loses Demon Dog White and Orochi, but their deaths allow his Demon Dog Black to assume a more powerful hybrid form and grants Gama the ability to divide into smaller winged frogs.
- Distressed Dude: In the climactic battle against Sukuna in Shinjuku, Megumi has been taken over by the King of Curses as a vessel. In addition to killing Sukuna, the heroes are also trying to save Megumi by expelling Sukuna's soul from his body.
- Domain Holder: Imagining himself going beyond his limits, he uses his Domain Expansion (albeit an incomplete version of it), Chimera Shadow Garden, for the very first time against a special grade curse holding one of Sukuna's fingers, flooding the floor with liquid shadows to create multiple shikigami, form shadow doubles of himself and hide in and teleport between shadows. He shows a more refined, but still incomplete version, when fighting Reggie.
- Eerie Pale-Skinned Brunette: Has black hair with a blue tint and on the paler side compared with the others. The eeriness shows when Megumi is Laughing Mad during his fight with a finger bearer and Reggie.
- Elemental Hair Colors: Megumi has spiky black hair and is a user of the Ten Shadows Technique, summoning shikigami from shadows and gaining more power over shadows while using his Domain Expansion.
- The Farmer and the Viper: Remi's interactions with Megumi bring to mind the parable of The Scorpion and the Frog, in which a scorpion stings a frog helping it across a river despite the frog being the only thing keeping the scorpion alive, which is exactly what Remi does once both her and Megumi are under attack. Remi's scorpion motif and Megumi's association with toads only furthers this comparison.
- Fatal Flaw: Pessimism. Gojo states that Megumi's tendency to always start preparing for the worst case scenario instead of believing he can achieve victory without resorting to drastic measures is damaging to his effectiveness as a sorcerer. His decision to summon Mahoraga on Haruta during the Shibuya Incident accidentally attracts Sukuna's attention and leads to one of the worst losses of human life Jujutsu Society has ever seen.
- Fighter, Mage, Thief: Yuji fights near-entirely with his bare hands and only uses cursed energy to augment the strength of his blows, making him the Fighter. Megumi, who wields the most powerful cursed technique and factors it the most into combat, is the Mage, while Nobara's preference for hiding how her Straw Doll Technique works and fighting at range makes her the Thief.
- Fighting from the Inside: After Sukuna takes over his body, Megumi manages to disrupt Sukuna's cursed energy output and techniques to help Yuji. However, after Sukuna takes a bath in essence of pure evil and uses Megumi's own Cursed Technique to kill his sister Tsumiki, Megumi is left too broken to resist.
- Foil:
- To Yuji. Yuji is upbeat and friendly while Megumi is serious and aloof. Yuji desires to save the lives of everyone he can, while Megumi only wants to help those who are good and kind. Yuji's cursed energy comes from swallowing Sukuna's finger and he fights using martial arts that makes use of his natural superhuman strength. Megumi, on the other hand, was born with great potential as a wielder of the Ten Shadows Technique and fights mostly by summoning Shikigami to attack enemies on his behalf.
- To Maki. Megumi was born with the Zen'in family's coveted Ten Shadows Technique while Maki was born without a cursed technique at all as part of her Heavenly Restriction. For this reason, Naobito desires Megumi to be the next family head, despite Megumi having the surname Fushiguro and not wanting anything to do with the clan and shuns Maki, who herself wants to be the next family head to spite the House of Zen'in for their disparagement of her.
- To Noritoshi Kamo. Both were illegitimate children of the three ruling families of the Jujutsu world who ended up being actively desired for the position of heir after the legitimate children proved insufficient, but Kamo openly accepts and displays a sense of obligation regarding it due to his mother, while Megumi openly rejects it and wants nothing to do with the family.
- Foreshadowing: During Shibuya, Gojo (in a flashback) tells Megumi that in the past, a head of the Gojo family with the Six Eyes and a head of the Zen'in clan with the Ten Shadows ended up killing each other during a battle, with Gojo implying to Megumi that he could one hypothetically reach a level in which he is on par with Sukuna. In hindsight, however, this anecdote is actually foreshadowing Gojo's death at the hands of Sukuna who possessed Megumi, hijacked his Ten Shadows technique, and used it to bypass Gojo's Infinity.
- Freudian Trio: The Superego to Nobara's Id and Yuji's Ego, being the most calm and collected among them.
- Friend to All Living Things: He has a soft spot for animals fitting with his cursed technique, getting sad over animals' deaths and becoming depressed whenever his Shikigami are destroyed according to the official fanbook.
- Fusion Dance: He can combine his Shikigami, as is the case with his The Well's Unknown Abyss technique from Toad and Nue to create winged toads. They can be destroyed without being lost forever at the cost of being weaker than either of the parent Shikigami.
- Gender-Blender Name: His first name Megumi is usually reserved for females. He absolutely abhors it because it was given to him by his father, who didn't even remember Megumi's gender.
- The Gift: Megumi was born with the Zen'in clan's highly desired Ten Shadows Technique which leads Sukuna, the king of curses and the strongest sorcerer in history, to take an interest in him and Megumi to be considered as the next clan head even if he doesn't want the position. Gojo tells him that hundreds of years ago the heads of the Gojo and Zen'in clans, who had the same techniques as Gojo and Megumi, killed each other in battle, implying that Megumi could be as strong as himself one day.
- Godzilla Threshold: Summoning Mahoraga will probably defeat his opponents, with a high likelihood of him and everyone in the area dying as well. Nevertheless, he's made the hand symbols for it when faced with a foe he absolutely has to beat, like Sukuna.
- Good Is Not Nice: He refuses to save the dead body of a guy who hit a girl walking home from school, his second time driving unlicensed. Yuji's death and his own moral judgement get the best of him however, leading him to take the guy's name-tag for his mother to keep.
- Good Is Not Soft: Makes it clear that, unlike Yuji, he'll do anything and kill anyone he needs to obtain 100 points in the Culling Games. Even after Yuji adds the points transference rule, Megumi still continues with killing sorcerers he's fighting because they're life-or-death fights and it's simply easier for him to kill them.
- Guile Hero: Megumi has great tactical intelligence to make the best use of his versatile Ten Shadows Technique. He figures out that Hanami's Achilles' Heel is his branches and helps to defeat Jiro by figuring out his cursed technique. His fight with Reggie has him figure out his cursed technique and counterattack it with a water attack, use his Domain Expansion and deactivate it to catch him off-guard, and finally defeats Reggie by misleading him into thinking that his Divine Dog was down.
- Hair-Contrast Duo: Compared to the friendly, selfless light-haired Yuji, Megumi is a pragmatic, abrasive Anti-Hero with black hair.
- Hammerspace: He can store people and items, particularly cursed tools, in his shadows, seemingly without limit. His fight with Reggie Star reveals there is actually one limitation, in that Megumi is able to store the objects in a personal sub-dimension without holding their physical forms, but in exchange, he's forced to bear the weight of whatever object he stores within his shadow, thus in essence he's still carrying around the cumbersome side-effects of holding a weapon. Too much weight can pin him to the ground and threaten to crush him outright, which Reggie attempts to take advantage of by summoning cars with his technique whilst within Megumi's Domain Expansion to crush him with 2.4 tons of weight.
- Has a Type: As long as a person* is compassionate, that's all he needs, which Todo unfortunately sees as boring and even decides to viciously fight him because of it.
- Hates Their Parent: Megumi has a low opinion of his father, bringing up how he didn't even know his gender and gave him a female name and abandoned him but is still alive as a lack of Laser-Guided Karma in the world. He doesn't know that Toji is dead in the present day, interrupting Gojo when he was about to tell him as a child because he didn't care, and that it's him he's talking to when they meet when resurrected in Shibuya before committing suicide.
- I Am Who?: While Itadori is the protagonist, there's something about him that makes Sukuna take an interest.
- I'm Not a Hero, I'm...: Delivers this as an acknowledgement of his selfish actions in saving Yuji's life, and his own moral code.Megumi: In the end, it was a selfish, emotional decision. But that's okay. I'm not a hero. I'm a jujutsu sorcerer. That's why I've never regretted saving you. Not even for a moment.
- Ineffectual Loner: An interesting example, crossed with a bit of Chronic Hero Syndrome — for as aloof as he is, Megumi does internally acknowledge his friends and how helpful they can be. The problem is that his focus on the safety of his teammates and sense of personal responsibility leads him to isolate and put himself into trouble if it means they'll stay out of trouble. It takes a pep talk from Gojo for him to realize that he needs to focus on his own preservation and underestimate his teammates less.
- Irony:
- Megumi has the Zen'in Family's desired cursed technique, the Ten Shadows Technique. Despite this, he was born to a father without any cursed energy whatsoever who left the family due to their mistreatment of him, hence his surname "Fushiguro" instead and Megumi himself wants nothing to do with the family.
- Megumi's Ten Shadows technique is based around the principle of him summoning familiars from his shadows. As Reggie Star deduced during their fight, People with a similar ability are best equipped to exploit his Domain Expansion's Logical Weakness. As Megumi is forced to bear the weight of whomever is inside his domain in exchange for boosting the strength of his Cursed Energy output by 120%, he can only really use it against singular opponents or small groups of people. If somebody is capable of summoning objects or animals larger than themselves inside the Domain, they can instantly increase his burden and run the risk of crushing Megumi outright from the sudden weight.
- Ironic Name: "Megumi" means "blessing". Yet to say that Megumi himself had a rough start in life would be an Understatement.
J — Y
- Jack of All Stats: Megumi is a capable close-quarters fighter, a competent strategist and wields a versatile Innate Technique. But he's not as skilled or strong as dedicated melee combatants like Yuji or Mei-Mei, fails to reach the Xanatos Speed Chess level talent of Nobara, and the functions of his Shikigami are usually poor when compared to a Cursed Technique that does the same thing (i.e. his Max Elephant's water manipulation is much cruder then Dagon's Disaster Tides) but holding at least basic competence in so many facets of Jujutsu makes it fairly difficult to catch Megumi unprepared.
- Jerk with a Heart of Gold: He's abrasive, uptight, and tough to get along with, but in the end he's just a good guy trying to save the world from things that are much worse.
- Karmic Jackpot: A believer in this. He thinks that the world is unfair like with how his kind stepsister Tsumiki deserved to be happy but was cursed instead. So Megumi wants good people to have fair treatment and chooses to save good people as a jujutsu sorcerer."If only more good people... could receive fairness. I'll save people... whether or not it's fair!"
- Kung-Fu Wizard: Sukuna notes that Megumi's skill in hand-to-hand differentiates him from other Shikigami users, who tend to rely solely on their familiars.
- Laughing Mad: His reaction upon tapping into the peak of his cursed energy and activating a Domain Expansion. It's made especially jarring considering his usual disposition.
- Like Father, Unlike Son: Megumi is a cold yet good-natured individual who wants to help those who're good as a jujutsu sorcerer, and was born with the Zen'in family's coveted Ten Shadows Technique. His father Toji, on the other hand, is a merciless assassin-for-hire and was born with a Heavenly Restriction, being the only human without any cursed energy at all in exchange for superhuman physicality. Though both of them have proven to be very calm and nonchalant while also expressing a twisted smile or laughter in battle (though Megumi has only done this once when activating Domain Expansion).
- Macguffin Super Person: Megumi's Ten Shadows Technique makes him one to the Zen'in Family. The Inherited Technique is believed by many (including even Gojo Satoru himself) to be one of the few things capable of unseating the Six Eyes and Limitless as the pinnacle of Jujutsu, So many in the Clan are very eager to get their hands on the boy in the hopes of having Gojo's successor as the World's Strongest Man among their ranks.
- Magical Gesture: The hand signs Megumi uses for his Ten Shadows Technique correspond to the form of the shikigami he is summoning.
- Martyr Without a Cause: Megumi tends to think about sacrificing himself the moment he starts losing a battle by summoning Mahogara, trying to summon it during a brief sparring match against Todo in school and later summons it in Shibuya against Haruta. Gojo points out this extreme self-sacrificial nature, telling Megumi to stop trying to throw his life away for no reason and advising him to break out of this mindset.
- Meaningful Name His surname "Fushiguro" has the kanji for "crouch/prostrate" and "black", fitting with his Ten Shadows Technique, which usually has him in a crouching position and using shadows to avoid detection.
- Me's a Crowd: Can create shadow clones of himself when using his Domain Expansion, Chimera Shadow Garden. He uses them to beat down on Reggie.
- Messy Hair: Has spiked black hair that juts out in different directions. Akutami states that Megumi's hairstyle tends to be erratic.
- Missing Mom: His birth mother died shortly after he was born and his stepmother abandoned him and Tsumiki when Megumi was only six.
- Morality Pet: To Toji. Despite being a ruthless assassin with a hatred of jujutsu society who stated that he didn't even remember his child's gender or name and would sell him to the Zen'in clan, his Last Request to Gojo was to not let him get taken by the Zen'ins before dying. When he gets resurrected during the Shibuya Incident, it's revealed that he sold Megumi to the Zen'in clan in part because it would be beneficial for someone with potential like him. When Toji regains his senses, he kills himself to not fight his son after asking him his surname, glad to know that he has his surname and isn't part of the clan that ruined his life.
- Multi-Melee Master: Wields tonfas, swords, and even briefly uses a three-section staff (though he finds that last one hard to use). Maki, another Multi-Melee Master, was the one who taught him, and both happen to keep their weapons within his shadows.
- Mythical Motifs: The markings on his Ten Shadows Technique shikigami come from the emblems of the Ten Sacred Treasures in Shinto.
- The Needs of the Many: A firm believer. Megumi believes that the role of a sorcerer is in part to ensure fairness for good people in an unfair world. To him, this means that he won't save a life if that life could go on to hurt others in the future. However, his moral judgement allows him to make concessions, as seen when he returns a name-tag to a grieving mother after they failed to save her son.
- Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: In Shibuya, a dying Megumi summons Mahoraga as a last resort to get rid of Haruta Shigemo, since the shikigami would just vanish after killing both of them. Unfortunately, he understandably failed to predict that Sukuna had taken over Yuji's body and would come to save him, leading to a massive amount of casualties in the resulting clash between the two entities.
- Nom de Mom: Megumi has his mother's surname, which his father took after cutting ties with the Zen'in family.
- Not Afraid to Die: Megumi has shown a fearlessness in sacrificing his life if needed, as seen when he nearly uses the strongest shikigami against Sukuna and Todo. This improves when he gains a stronger resolve to not die thanks to Gojo's advice. But when on his last legs fighting against Haruta, Megumi summons the Eight-Handled Sword Divergent Sila Divine General Mahoraga, trapping them in an exorcism ritual and telling him that he'll be the first to pass on before he gets attacked by the shikigami and left collapsed and bleeding out. Luckily he's saved by Sukuna.
- Not So Stoic:
- Megumi begins laughing maniacally when he images himself going beyond his limits and uses a Domain Expansion for the first time.
- He gives Haruta a spiteful smile, saying that he'll be the first one to pass on and wishing the curse user good luck, before summoning Mahoraga to kill him.
- O.O.C. Is Serious Business: During his fight with a finger bearer, Megumi manically laughs from sheer adrenaline upon awakening his (incomplete) Domain Expansion.
- Parent-Child Team: A very unlikely example occurs during the Shibuya arc. While Megumi is within Dagon's Domain and using his own Domain to counter Dagon's Zerg Rush technique for his allies, his father Toji suddenly breaks in and defeats Dagon while he has the opening created by his son's ability. What makes this so unlikely is that Toji had been dead for over a decade at that point, having been reanimated as a mindless berserker through another curse user's technique, and had only been drawn into the Domain due to the strong presences within. Neither Megumi nor Toji were even aware of who the other one was while they unintentionally combined their power to defeat the mighty Disaster Curse.
- Parental Abandonment: His father vanished from his life not long after he was born, and his step-mother likewise just abandoned him and Tsumiki when he was 6.
- Perpetual Frowner: Even when he was a kid, he never so much as smirked, and when he does do more than smirk, it's always a Slasher Smile.
- Personality Powers: The gloomy, pessimistic Megumi, who also tends to be distrustful of others, uses a cursed technique involving shadows. He also has a soft spot for animals, moreso than for humans, and the Ten Shadows Technique summons bestial Shikigami.
- Pragmatic Hero: Megumi abides by his own personal code of moral judgement. He is particularly abrasive towards those he deems to be bad people and will refuse to save them. In spite of this, he is an unmistakably good person, and only wants to avoid hurting the people of the future by saving the wrong person in the present. During the Culling Game, once Itadori manages to add the rule about points transference, thus negating the need to actually kill the participants, Megumi still goes ahead with killing the sorcerers he's in a fight with at the time because he's in the middle of a life-or-death fight and they won't let him walk away without giving up all his points, so its simply easier for him to kill them and move on.
- The Quiet One: By far the most taciturn of the main trio, especially when compared to the friendly Yuji and short-tempered Nobara.
- Real Men Take It Black: He vehemently denies Nobara when she claims it's for this reason - and for impressing women - that Megumi drinks black coffee.
- Red Oni, Blue Oni: The Blue to Yuji's Red. Yuji is outgoing, excitable, and much more optimistic, wanting to save everyone he can. Megumi is sullen, collected, and much more cynical, only wanting to save those he believes deserve to be saved. Visually as well — Yuji has pink hair, a red hoodie, and red shoes while Megumi's black hair has a blue tint and he has blue eyes in the anime.
- Ritual Magic: His Ten Shadows Technique. To gain more shikigami of the technique, they have to be summoned in an exorcism ritual and defeated by Megumi for them to be fully under his control. Megumi weaponizes this with Mahoraga, trapping himself and Haruta in the ritual to take himself with him.
- Secretly Selfish: Zig-Zagged. While his goal of saving good people as a jujutsu sorcerer is wholly selfless, Megumi acknowledges it as a selfish, emotional decision because it's out of his own personal moral code and he refuses to save the lives of bad people. It's because of this he doesn't call himself a hero.
- Shadow Walker: Can hide in and teleport between shadows, which becomes much stronger when using his Domain Expansion.
- Squishy Wizard: Defied. To avoid the weakness of other shikigami summoners, Megumi has trained himself to fight with cursed tools that he stores in his shadows.
- Stealth Expert: Becomes this after learning his Domain, as he can submerge himself partially or fully in shadows, including other people's while they are moving. He effortlessly infiltrates Hakari's compound by hiding in his henchmen's shadows and then jumping out to make them fall asleep with a surprise submission hold.
- Stock Shōnen Rival: Downplayed. Megumi has many of the traits, being the black-haired secondary lead with a cold demeanor, desire to not be outdone by Yuji, and an ideology that clashes with Yuji's. Despite this, Megumi wants to help people who are good, and becomes one of Yuji's closest companions.
- The Stoic: Generally quiet, aloof, and focused on the task at hand. It makes the moments where he acts emotionally stand out all the more.
- Straight Man: His more sullen, serious demeanor contrast with Yuji and Nobara's more energetic, cheerful dispositions and Gojo's immaturity at times.
- Strong Family Resemblance: When first meeting Megumi, Gojo noted the resemblance to his father, Toji. Megumi himself has similar facial features and the same green eyes as his father.
- Summon Magic: Megumi's primary use of cursed energy. By making shadow puppets with his hands, he can summon up to ten different creatures which obey his every command. Except for one...
- Superpower Lottery: Megumi's Ten Shadows Technique allows him to defeat and tame up to ten different shikigami each with different abilities, giving him great versatility in his technique. Gojo implies that, based on the equal strength of the heads of the Gojo and Zen'in clans hundreds of years ago, Megumi can be as strong as himself one day.
- Super Mode: Rather than boosting his techniques strength and accuracy like most Domain Expansions do, Megumi's incomplete Domain, Chimera Shadow Garden, boosts the strength of his Cursed Energy output by 120%. It makes him strong and fast enough to completely outclass a Finger-Bearer, a Curse not even Yuji could track the movements of.
- Swiss-Army Superpower: His Ten Shadows Technique has a lot of different applications involving shadows: storing weapons, moving through and hiding within them, and summoning his shikigami which pass on their techniques to surviving ones when they're destroyed.
- Taking You with Me: Megumi has to defeat and tame a shikigami in order to get it on its side, but can summon untamed shikigami as well. As a last-ditch attack, he can summon an incredibly powerful shikigami in the hopes that it will take out his opponent as well as himself.
- Trauma Conga Line: The tail end of the Culling Games has not been kind to him. The very moment it appears that he will save his sister, it turns out that she is possessed by a past sorcerer, who immediately betrays their trust. This is immediately followed up by Sukuna jumping at the opportunity to possess Megumi's body. Sukuna then decides that his top priority is to suppress Megumi's soul by crushing it it in despair, first by bathing in the essence of evil, and second, murdering Yorozu and Tsumiki, by extension, solely with Megumi's technique no less. Even with Megumi's soul quelled, Sukuna decides that he is still not done with him and uses him as a mental shield for Gojo's Infinite Void consecutive times.
- Tsurime Eyes: Has eyes that slant upwards, denoting his harsher, colder personality.
- Took a Level in Badass: Imagining himself going beyond his limits during his fight against a finger bearer lets Megumi use a Domain Expansion, albeit incomplete, for the first time, boosting his cursed technique to form a shadow double, hide in shadows, and summon multiple shikigami at once.
- Übermensch: Has shades of this, following his own moral code that he's a jujutsu sorcerer, not a hero fighting for justice by choosing who he saves. When trying to convince Yuji to rejoin him, he tells him that jujutsu sorcerers like themselves can never truly be judged and have to continually prove their worth by saving others.
- Unexpected Successor: Despite Megumi's own desire to not want anything to do with the family and to the shock of Naoya, Naobito names Megumi the next head of the House of Zen'in over his own sons because of his cursed technique.
- Unwitting Pawn: Turns out he was the one Sukuna wanted as a vessel due to his potential with the Zen'in Clan and his Ten Shadows Technique, and Sukuna snatched the opportunity the moment Megumi dropped his guard.
- Wise Beyond Their Years: From a young age, likely due to his lack of parents, Megumi showed a hardened, pragmatic personality, having disowned his father, figured out that Tsumiki's mother is gone, and asking about Tsumiki's well-being if he were to join the Zen'in Clan.
- You Are Better Than You Think You Are: Both Gojo and Sukuna believe that he has massive potential in Jujutsu Sorcery more than Megumi himself thinks he does; the former telling that he could possibly surpass Yuji while the latter questioned why he ran from a Special Grade Curse earlier on.
- You're Not My Father: Told Gojo when he first met him that he doesn't care where his father is or what he's doing as he hasn't seen him in years and doesn't even remember what he looks like.
Ten Shadows Technique Shikigami
Divine Dogs
A twin pair of white and black dogs, and the first shikigami every TS user receives upon awakening their technique. Swift, deadly and versatile, the wolf-like hounds are Megumi's go-to offensive shikigami for most of the series.- Absurd Cutting Power: Totality's claws are able to cut through Hanami's skin. Against Reggie Star, one swipe of it's paws was enough to tear through the man's entire body when caught off-guard.
- Big Friendly Dog: While they're absolutely vicious in combat and can eat Cursed Spirits for sustenance, they're also large fluffy dogs that Kugisaki and Yuji immediately fall in love with and promise treats. Fittingly for this trope, they are also the friendliest of Megumi's familiars as they were the only ones he did not have to defeat in combat to gain control of.
- Eating the Enemy: They eat the remains of Curses they kill, possibly to keep them from just regenerating.
- Fusion Dance: Divine Dog: Totality is the result of the White half of divine dog and Great Serpent's deaths powering the Black dog. The Black dog can still appear in its original state whenever Megumi just wants something tracked down.
- My Death Is Only The Beginning: White Wolf is permanently killed by the Finger-Bearer in the juvenile detention facility, but it and Great Serpent's deaths feed enormous power into Totality, which becomes one of Megumi's best and most reliable trump cards from then onwards.
- Off with His Head!: A Finger Bearer sticks the White Dogs' head into a wall.
- Our Werebeasts Are Different: Divine Dog: Totality, a giant beast of a wolf with a more humanoid build.
- Savage Wolves: They're twin wolves that can track scents and tear apart Cursed spirits with their fangs.
- Starter Mon: Anyone with the Ten Shadows technique is only initially given two Divine Dogs. Any further Shikigami must be "tamed" by the user and the wolves in tandem until they have more Shikigami to work with, eventually gathering enough power to enslave truly powerful Mon like the Max Elephant and in theory, Mahoraga.
Nue
A huge owl-like beast with a skull mask, Nue is among Megumi's most versatile and treasured summons. Its wings carry a nasty electrical charge, and its speed is sufficient to pull off effective hit-and-run attacks against all but the swiftest enemies. Alternately, Megumi can use it to break his falls or to briefly take flight, though this is difficult to maintain for very long.
- Flight: A large application of his Nue. Thanks to being a giant winged shikigami, it gives Megumi an edge in mobility by carrying him and flying through the air.
- Giant Flier: When invoked by Sukuna in Megumi's body, the resulting Nue is so massive that it casts a shadow over the entire neighborhood, with the top of a skyscraper neatly fitting in one of it's claws.
- Ominous Owl: A giant owl with a skull mask and large, creepy eyes.
- Shock and Awe: Nue has electrically-charged wings, which can temporarily paralyze his enemies.
Toad
A toad shikigami large enough to carry a human in its mouth, Megumi tends to use the Toads long tongue to restrain enemies or retrieve allies from perilous situations, as well as to quickly get around.
- Overly-Long Tongue: The Toads use their long tongues to ensnare enemies, throw them, and/or move someone out of harm's way.
- Swallowed Whole: They can fit humans at least the size of Nobara in their mouths.
Great Serpent
A shikigami in the shape of a massive serpent, with huge jaws and extended range thanks to its great size.
- Fusion Dance: After being completely destroyed by Sukuna, its abilities are passed onto the other Shikigami, primarily the Divine Dogs.
- Snakes Are Sinister: A giant white snake summoned from a shadow to bite a target. Unfortunately, it was destroyed in his fight against Sukuna.
- We Hardly Knew Ye: Sukuna reduces it to Ludicrous Gibs during his fight with Megumi, though Megumi at least retains the ability to grant its powers to other Shikigami.
Max Elephant
A shikigami the size and shape of a dwarf elephant, it can also spew large volumes of water from its trunk. Alternately, Megumi likes to spawn the thing mid-air to literally "get the drop" on his opponents with a multiple-ton burden. However, summoning it consumes a terrific amount of Cursed Energy.
- Death from Above: Has been used more than once in this way by summoning it mid-air and letting gravity do the rest of the work with the elephant's weight. Even Sukuna got in on it.
- Making a Splash: It can shoot a large volume of water from its trunk, enough to flood an entire building floor. Sukuna demonstrates the ability to use the water it generates himself as a water-cutter, in a similar vein as the Kamo Clan's Piercing Blood.
- War Elephants: Is designed as such, markings and all.
Rabbit Escape
A massive swarm of rabbit shikigami that serve as a distraction or smokescreen. Unlike the other TS shikigami, individual rabbits will not be permanently destroyed even if exorcised and can spawn indefinitely so long as the user remains alive.
- Rascally Rabbit: Rabbit Escape summons many white rabbits that swarm an enemy, if only to block their sight and movement.
- The Swarm: They’re weak even as a group, so Megumi uses their overwhelming numbers as a distraction.
Tranquil Deer
A massive shikigami in the shape of a four-eyed deer, capable of Reversed Cursed Technique, healing its summoner with positive energy while dispelling enemy Cursed Techniques.
- Anti-Magic: The biggest advantage of its positive energy production is the instant dispelling of most enemy attacks and techniques.
- Good Thing You Can Heal: If merged with other shikigami, it also lends them near-instant regeneration.
- Healing Hands: One of the main applications of its Reversed Cursed Technique is continuously healing the Technique user.
Piercing Ox
An ox-like shikigami whose charge packs a hefty punch. Though it can only move in a straight line once summoned, it gains strength the more it moves before impacting its target.
- Brutish Bulls: A bovine shikigami whose main power is a steadily-escalating direct attack capable of knocking down even a powerful Heian-era sorcerer.
Mourning Tiger
A tiger-like shikigami which has yet to be seen as a separate summon.
- The Ghost: The last TS shikigami to be named, it has yet to appear outside of its merged form within Nue: Agito, which has the tiger's stripes on its chest.
Fusion Beast Agito (Major Spoilers!)
A Totality consisting of Nue, Great Serpent, Mourning Tiger and Tranquil Deer.
- Good Thing You Can Heal: Agito is the combination of various shikigami including Tranquil Deer, which is a shikigami that has access to Reverse Cursed Technique remotely from it's summoner. When combined into Agito it confers a nigh-instant Healing Factor to anything but decisive blows.
- Humanoid Abomination: Like Mahoraga it is a towering pale Monstrous Humanoid, but that's about where all similarities end. It has huge bulging eyes, a serpent for a tail like the Greek Chimera, antlers and the powerful furred limbs of a tiger, with the latter's stripes decorating it's naked female chest.
- We Hardly Knew Ye: Despite appearing for a few chapters, Agito barely does much more than hand to hand combat and when Satoru decides that it is the most urgent threat to deal with due to it's ability to heal Sukuna remotely through Tranquil Deer. As such, Satoru relentlessly keeps the pressure on it before unleashing his Blue that caused a Black Flash, eradicating Agito for good.Satoru Gojo:"Ya know, I've been thinking you just don't fit in with this crowd!"
Eight-Handled Sword Divergent Sila Divine General Mahoraga (Major Spoilers!)
An extraordinarily powerful Shikigami. It is said that no user of the Ten Shadows Technique has ever managed to tame it.
Mahoraga's Cursed Technique is the wheel on its back representing Furu's Incantation of the Ten Sacred Treasures
, allowing it to rapidly adapt both its attacks and defenses to whatever it is fighting at the time.
- Achilles' Heel: As game-breaking as its Adaptive Ability is, Mahoraga first has to survive a type of attack before it becomes immune to it; So it's vulnerable to something capable of a One-Hit Kill. Sukuna kills it by shooting with a fiery projectile that expands into a pillar of fire so huge it can't survive first contact and burns up; and much later Satoru does the same to it under Sukuna using Unlimited Hollow Purple.
- Adaptive Ability:
- After getting hit with a technique, the wheel on Mahoraga's back will turn and its physical attributes will reconfigure in a fashion designed to let it perfectly counter a similar attack. Sukuna illustrates how much of a Story-Breaker Power it can be by comparing it to always getting to throw second in rock-paper-scissors.
- Mahoraga's adaptation also isn't just limited to defensive applications but can enhance its own offensive abilities to boot. When it fought Sukuna and its Sword of Extermination's positive energy proved ineffective, the shikigami quickly adapts to use cursed energy instead. Against Gojo, after initially adapting to bypass his Infinity technique, Mahoraga eventually learns to throw its slashes in a way similar to Sukuna's Dismantle, allowing it to attack from a distance. As it turns out, Sukuna was actually banking on such an adaptation because observing it gives him a way to apply the same effect to his own technique.
- Adaptation Expansion: The anime adaptation of the Shibuya Incident shows a little more of Mahoraga's adaptive powers, such as seemingly changing size depending on the situation (among other things, becoming Kaiju-sized and throwing a train like a nunchuck after it trapped Sukuna inside), and growing gills when trapped underwater, as well as expanding its lungs for Super-Scream purposes. How extensive its regeneration is also gets shown in its full glory, resulting in The Juggernaut levels of Unflinching Walk as it stomps forward unimpeded even while getting diced apart by the maelstrom of slashes Sukuna's Domain is bringing down on it.
- Adaptational Badass: Mahoraga, while extremely strong in the manga, was taken down in less than two chapters by Sukuna. It lasts far longer against the King of Curses in the anime and comes across as far more capable of keeping up with him.
- Artificial Intelligence: Mahoraga and its ability can be closely likened to an advanced computer program, with the strengths and weaknesses that come with them. For instance, Mahoraga does not possess an actual will of its own and defaults to following the commands of its summoner, leading to lapses in judgment, such as failing to take into account its immunity to Limitless Blue's gravity that prevents it from stopping Hollow Purple in time. However, Mahoraga possesses inhuman computational skills, as it does not stop analysis of any phenomenon even after adapation is completed, allowing it to output superior adaptations given enough processing time.
- The Berserker: Mahoraga seems to have attack mode on at all times. As shown it will indiscriminately attack anyone in the vicinity, even it's own summoner. This was especially shown when it battles Sukuna, as it starts destroying several buildings in its path filled with innocent civilians, and even walking through the latter's Domain Expansion without any signs of stopping.
- Dangerous Forbidden Technique: Megumi only tries summoning Mahoraga as a last resort, fully expecting himself to die in such a situation. We are shown via Sukuna's fight with it at fifteen fingers as well as shown via Gojo vs Sukuna's fight exactly why it is both the Zenin clan's prized treasure and why until Sukuna, no original ten shadows user was able to tame it for centuries.
- The Dreaded: Mahoraga is feared like the plague by Cursed Spirits, to the point where the Special-Grade Finger Bearers will jump away in avid terror as soon as Megumi starts the incantation, seemingly due to its sheer power and Sword of Extermination.
- Eyeless Face: Its face is covered in 4 wings, rather than eyes.
- Healing Factor: It rapidly renegerates from any damage it takes much like the Disaster Curses, shrugging off being delimbed or outright sliced apart by Sukuna and immediately continuing to try and run his pockets the moment it is back to a fighting state.
- Hoist by His Own Petard: Mahoraga completely adapting to Gojo's Blue technique backfires when it needs to quickly get to a Blue sphere hovering in the air. Having completely adapted to it, Mahoraga cannot be affected by its gravitational pull, while Gojo still is, meaning he can intercept Mahoraga by taking advantage of Blue. The resulting Unlimited Hollow Purple destroys Mahoraga and critically wounds Sukuna.
- Humanoid Abomination: It’s humanoid in shape, but at least three times a human's size and nothing about it resembles any known animal.
- Irony: Mahoraga is the pinnacle of the Zen'in Clan's prized curse technique, being an all-powerful Shikigami with the ability to adapt to any and all phenomena, making it all the more ironic that the Zen'in Clan's destruction was caused by their inability to adapt to modern times.
- Lightning Bruiser: Even putting aside its Adaptive Ability, Mahoraga's physical capabilities are absolutely monstrous, being strong enough to launch Sukuna through several buildings with one punch, earning an appreciative "not bad" from the sorcerer and turn cars and entire metro trains into an Improvised Weapon, and being fast enough to keep up with both him and Gojo in a brawl.
- Logical Weakness: Mahoraga can adapt to any attack it survives. Therefore, the only way to defeat it is to hit it with an attack so powerful that it kills it before its adaptation can kick in. Sukuna defeats it by using a fire attack that nearly melts Shibuya; Gojo defeats it with a direct hit from a Black Flash-induced Unlimited Hollow Purple.
- Mythical Motifs: Mahoraga are subterranean Python-like Hindu, Buddhist and Jainist deities whose slithering supposedly causes the rotation of the Earth, as well as being the cause of earthquakes.
- Not the Intended Use:
- The summoning ritual for the Ten Shadows Technique allows its users to gain control of the summoned Shikigami after defeating it in battle, but he has to defeat it on his own to gain control of it, even as the ritual can be done with other people, though this voids the Ten Shadows user getting control of the defeated Shikigami. However, Mahoraga is so absurdly powerful that no Ten Shadows user has managed to defeat it ever. As such, Megumi uses it as a suicide attack to defeat opponents he can’t beat on his own, ensuring the unbeatable opponent's immediately following demise. He theorizes previous users of the Technique such as the Zen'in clansman that dealt a Mutual Kill to Gojo's ancestor used it the same way he does.
- While the intended use for Mahoraga is for it to be a nigh-invulnerable ally in battle that is able to take hits and adapt accordingly, Sukuna prefers to take the "process" of the adaptation himself and summons the Shikigami only during crucial moments. This is to prevent the summon from being destroyed prematurely before the adaptation is complete, a very real possibility against opponents like Gojo, so Sukuna summons Mahoraga during a moment of crisis simply to destroy Gojo's Domain only to immediately recall it.
- Mahoraga continues to adapt to phenomenon even after adapation is completed, allowing it to output alternate or superior means of adaptation. Sukuna takes advantage of this trait to use it as a makeshift AI, feeding it the input of Gojo's Infinity and training it to output an attack capable of bypassing it that is also possible for Sukuna to emulate. This allows Sukuna to strike down Gojo himself even after the loss of Mahoraga.
- Overly Long Name: It's usually just called Mahoraga for short. The Eight-handled Sword, or 八握剣, lit. "Yatsuga-no-Tsurugi", being one of the Ten Sacred Treasures of Japan.
- Semantic Superpower: Another aspect of its core ability that makes it so tricky to deal with is that it isn't quite clear how broad its adaptive countering is. After it learns how to deal with Sukuna's Dismantle, the King of Curses briefly considers using Cleave but defaults to Malevolent Shrine due to being unsure if Mahoraga would only counter Dismantle specifically or slashing techniques in general. Even during the showdown between Sukuna and Gojo, the matter of whether Mahoraga's power needs "Experience" (as in whether it needs to endure a certain amount of punishment from the Technique it's adapting to or it simply starts adapting from the moment the Technique strikes it) remains an enigmatic question that Sukuna keeps the answer to up his sleeve because revealing it as part of a Binding Vow would just be handing Gojo a potential win. Ultimately, it turned out to be both, with additional attacks by the technique accelerating the adaptation process. However, Sukuna kept waiting for it to adapt to Infinity in a way that Sukuna could duplicate even once he deactivates Ten Shadows or loses the Mahoraga.
- Slasher Smile: Is perpetually smiling, which combined with its eyeless face, gives off an unnerving effect and generally spells doom for whoever it is summoned against.
- Summon Bigger Fish: Because no sorcerer can subdue Mahoraga in single combat and gain its loyalty, Megumi instead uses it by exploiting the rules of the subduing ritual: this ritual can be initiated at any time, and while a sorcerer must defeat a Shikigami in single combat to master it, other people can still join the fight, which simply invalidates the result and doesn't allow the summoner to gain control of it afterwards. This means that any user of the Ten Shadows Technique can summon Mahoroga at will, it'll just be in an uncontrollable state. When faced with Haruta while too injured to fight back, Megumi decides to initiate the Mahoroga taming ritual as a last resort, knowing that while he won't be able to win, Mahoroga's rampage would at least let him take out his enemy.
- Superpower Lottery: It's strong and fast enough to keep pace with the likes of Sukuna, and its Adaptive Ability makes it almost completely indestructible. It is also revealed that Mahoraga doesn't stop Adapting to a technique when it is confronted by another identical attack. It simply keeps Adapting even further to find a way to reach its enemy target however it can. Its ability is so dangerous that a big chunk of the battle between Sukuna and Gojo revolves around its adaptation.
- Weapon of X-Slaying: It wields a Cursed Tool called the "Sword of Extermination", which is filled with the type of positive energy generated by the Reverse Cursed Technique and thus corrodes the bodies of Cursed Spirits on contact. it failed to work on Sukuna as he is not a Cursed Spirit.
