In Jujutsu Kaisen Chapter 266, Itadori Yuji’s battle with Sukuna reached a critical point when the claws he had been using broke during their fight.
This occurred while they were inside Itadori’s domain. Sukuna had initially been experiencing a Cursed Technique (CT) burnout. However, much to Itadori’s surprise, he regained his cursed technique by gambling on Gojo’s risky maneuver and healing his brain using RCT.
Sukuna subsequently attacked Itadori, resulting in the breaking of the claws on Itadori’s arms.
And this is when we get a surprising revelation: Itadori was missing two fingers on his left hand.
This has sparked much speculation among fans, raising the question—what exactly happened to Itadori’s fingers?
What happened to Itadori’s fingers?
The loss of Itadori’s pinky finger can be traced back to Chapter 212. In this chapter, Sukuna, after seizing control of Itadori’s body, broke off his pinky finger and transformed it into a cursed object.
This was a calculated move by the King of Curses, who then fed the finger to Megumi Fushiguro, facilitating a vessel switch.
From that moment on, Itadori has been without his pinky finger – since he hadn’t learnt the RCT back then, and Shoko can’t exactly grow back missing limbs on others.
While the loss of the pinky finger is clearly documented, the disappearance of Itadori’s ring finger that’s more mysterious.
Unlike the pinky finger, there is no clear instance in the manga where the ring finger is shown being severed. During the Shinjuku showdown, Itadori’s hand was covered with the cursed tool (the claws, yes), with no signs of any damage happening before 266.
Furthermore, prior to his training, there were no indications of the finger being lost either. This has led to the conclusion that Itadori may have lost his ring finger during the one-month training period leading up to the events of Shinjuku showdown.
The intrigue only deepens when we consider what happened next in JJK 266.
On the final page of the chapter, a finger that closely resembles Sukuna’s fingers is shown.
This reveal immediately follows the discovery that Itadori is missing two fingers, leading to the assumption that this finger might actually be Itadori’s ring finger, which has been transformed into a cursed object.
However, that’s just one of our two assumptions.
The First Theory: Itadori’s Ring Finger as a Cursed Object:
The first theory suggests that Itadori may have made his ring finger into a cursed object, similar to what Sukuna did with his pinky finger in Chapter 212.
This theory is supported by a couple of key pieces of evidence.
First, in Chapter 220, while relaying what Ieiri had told him, Itadori mentions that he has become like a cursed object steeped in Sukuna’s cursed energy.
This statement implies that Itadori’s body, or parts of it, could be used in a similar manner to Sukuna’s fingers, which are cursed objects of immense power.
Furthermore, the timing of the reveal in Chapter 266, where the finger is shown immediately after it is revealed that Itadori is missing two fingers, strongly suggests that there is a connection between the two.
Now, I know that turning a part of yourself into a cursed object is an extremely complex task, as pointed out by the angel. Only a super skilled sorcerer like Sukuna was able to pull it off, by just experiencing the process once.
However, Sukuna created a cursed object when he was in Itadori’s body. That means, Itadori subconsciously experienced the process first hand.
And, similar to how Sukuna using complex and top of the line cursed technique enabled Itadori’s rapid growth as a sorcerer, this too could have fueled Itadori’s understanding of cursed objects and their creation.
Itadori is already someone who had a good understanding of the contours of the soul. And cursed objects essentially carry the essence of a person’s soul.
Combining that with the fact that Itadori is stated to have the same latent potential like Sukuna, creating cursed objects doesn’t seem like an immensely difficult task.
So, it is possible that the finger in the last page could be Itadori’s, transformed into a cursed object through Sukuna’s influence.
If this is the case, it raises questions about whether the finger contains Itadori’s essence, Sukuna’s, or perhaps a combination of both.
Why? Because we shouldn’t forget that Kenjaku, the mastermind behind many of the events in Jujutsu Kaisen, had previously sealed one of Sukuna’s fingers inside Itadori.
There is also a possibility that the finger shown in Chapter 266 is actually Sukuna’s, unsealed from Itadori’s body, or possibly the final finger which Sukuna couldn’t get his hands on.
This brings us to the second theory.
The Second Theory: Yuta Okkotsu’s Connection
The second theory revolves around Yuta Okkotsu. If the finger we saw in the final page is the one Gojo had hidden away (not the one sealed inside Itadori), then how exactly was Yuta able to Cleave?
Well, there are theories running in the fandom that Yuta might have eaten Yuji’s finger instead to get cleave and dismantle.
In Chapter 251, Yuta mentions that Sukuna never got his hands on the last of his fingers. However, he does not explicitly state that he made Rika, his cursed spirit, consume the finger.
Instead, this is an assumption made by Sukuna himself.
The possibility that Yuta consumed Itadori’s finger is intriguing, but it also presents some downsides. For one, Itadori only awakened Sukuna’s Shrine, the source of the Cleave and Dismantle techniques, during his battle with Sukuna.
This raises the question of whether Yuta took a significant gamble by consuming the finger, hoping that Itadori would eventually awaken these techniques.
Alternatively, were Yuta and the others totally confident that Itadori would inevitably develop Sukuna’s Shrine abilities?
Regardless, if the finger shown in the final panel of Chapter 266 is indeed the one Gojo Satoru had hidden away (and not the one sealed inside Itadori), it would raise further questions about how Yuta was able to access Sukuna’s abilities without having consumed Sukuna’s actual finger.
What are your theories on Yuji’s missing fingers. Let me know them in the comments below!!