Nobara Kugisaki — Jujutsu Kaisen

During the mission connected to Yasohachi Bridge, Nobara and Yuji confront Eso and Kechizu, incarnated Death Painting brothers whose Decay technique spreads through their blood. When their blood infects her, Nobara deliberately drives a nail into herself and uses Resonance to inflict pain on both brothers through the connection. The maneuver helps Yuji attack while they are distracted. Both students also land Black Flash, and Nobara finishes Kechizu by detonating a nail with Hairpin. Afterward, the two recognize that the brothers possessed human bodies; the victory is not as uncomplicated as destroying an ordinary curse.

During the Shibuya Incident, Nobara encounters the curse user Haruta Shigemo while helping Akari Nitta. She struggles against him until Kento Nanami intervenes. Although Nanami tells her that the situation has become too dangerous for her grade, she eventually returns to the conflict.

Nobara then fights a double of Mahito. Resonance lets her damage the real curse through that double, making the technique a threat to an opponent who can otherwise evade ordinary bodily harm. When Mahito switches places with his double, his real body touches her face with Idle Transfiguration, causing a catastrophic injury to her left eye and face. She collapses before Yuji, leaving him devastated. The narrative does not immediately establish that she has died.

Arata Nitta administers emergency treatment after the attack but cannot promise that Nobara will survive. Subsequent conversations fail to settle her condition for readers, and she is absent throughout the Culling Game and most of the final battle. Her absence is a prolonged uncertainty in the manga, not definitive proof that she died in Shibuya.

In chapter 267, Nobara is revealed to be alive, having only recently regained consciousness. She wears a patch over the left eye injured in Shibuya. While Yuji battles Sukuna, Nobara strikes Sukuna’s remaining finger with Resonance from a separate location. The finger links her technique to Sukuna despite his physical distance, disrupting his attempted domain expansion and helping Yuji seize the opening that leads to victory. Her return matters because it builds directly on the technique she has used since her introduction.

Nobara rejoins Yuji and Megumi after Sukuna’s defeat. A letter left for her by Gojo reveals that he found the whereabouts of her estranged mother; she reacts with obvious displeasure. In chapter 271, the reunited first-years investigate a curse user targeting ordinary people and work together to stop him. The final numbered chapter leaves Nobara alive, back at work with her friends, without inventing a distant future for the trio.

The additional epilogue published in the final collected volume follows up on Gojo’s letter. Nobara visits her mother but does not seek a tender reconciliation. She confronts her for failing to raise her properly, explains that she came partly out of respect for Gojo’s wishes, and reveals that she has brought her grandmother, to her mother’s alarm. The scene ends the family thread on Nobara’s own uncompromising terms, rather than suggesting the two have become close.