It is June 2018. Trains, schools, hospitals, shops, and crowded streets belong to an everyday Japan whose inhabitants rarely see the beings gathering around them. Human fear, resentment, grief, and other negative emotions produce cursed energy. Energy leaking from ordinary people accumulates into cursed spirits. Places associated with suffering and anxiety attract them; an apparently ordinary school can conceal a lethal infestation.

Most people cannot see curses under normal conditions. They experience disappearances, unexplained injuries, oppressive places, and deaths whose causes remain hidden. Jujutsu sorcerers perceive and confront these threats. Their work is secretive, dangerous, and dependent on a small number of people with unusual abilities. A curse user is a human who practices jujutsu for harmful ends, distinct from a spirit born of cursed energy.

The first finger

At Sugisawa Municipal High School in Sendai, members of the Occult Research Club have unwrapped an old talisman containing one of Ryomen Sukuna's fingers. The exposed object has drawn curses to the school. Megumi Fushiguro, a first-year student sent from Tokyo Jujutsu High to recover it, has encountered Yuji Itadori during the crisis.

The opening is immediately after Yuji swallows that finger to save people at the school. His grandfather Wasuke has died that evening. Yuji has extraordinary natural strength but no jujutsu education. He has survived a poisonous special-grade cursed object and recovered control of his body after Sukuna's brief manifestation. Megumi is injured, and his teacher Satoru Gojo is arriving to assess what has happened. Yuji has not eaten a second recovered finger, enrolled at Jujutsu High, or met Nobara Kugisaki.

Sukuna was a feared figure in the ancient age of jujutsu. His twenty fingers persist as indestructible special-grade cursed objects. Their seals deteriorate, and their presence attracts and strengthens curses. Yuji's ability to contain him creates a problem the usual policy of destroying dangerous vessels cannot neatly solve. Gojo sees the possibility of gathering Sukuna's remains into a vessel that can eventually be executed. That proposed reprieve has not yet been negotiated at this opening.

The schools and the establishment

Tokyo and Kyoto Jujutsu High educate young sorcerers and serve as operational centers. Students train, live in dormitories, and undertake field assignments. Teachers and working sorcerers provide instruction and backup; assistant managers arrange transport, reports, and Curtains around mission sites. Medical support is scarce, with Shoko Ieiri providing rare supernatural healing at Tokyo.

Tokyo's wooded campus contains traditional buildings, classrooms, dormitories, training areas, an infirmary, and restricted storage. Protective barriers conceal sensitive facilities. Master Tengen is associated with the barrier infrastructure underlying the schools' security. The grounds can feel secluded even though missions lead back into crowded civilian neighborhoods.

The higher-ups authorize missions, classifications, promotions, and punishments. The Gojo, Zenin, and Kamo families hold inherited influence, with prized techniques affecting status inside and outside their households. Official rank and actual competence can diverge. Family politics obstruct Maki Zenin despite her weapon skills. Gojo's strength gives him exceptional leverage, but his desire to educate a different generation puts him at odds with conservative leadership.

A scattered community

Megumi is already a Tokyo first-year. Nobara is coming from the countryside, seeking a life beyond a community she resents. Maki, Toge Inumaki, and Panda are second-years with their own friendships and experience. Kyoto's students study under Utahime Iori and Principal Gakuganji. Their school rivalry exists before the coming exchange event. The established sorcerer Kento Nanami works with an adult's caution about asking children to face lethal risks.

Outside the schools, Junpei Yoshino lives with his mother and has withdrawn from school after bullying. He has not met Yuji or Mahito. Elsewhere, intelligent curses including Jogo, Hanami, and Mahito threaten the assumption that curses are merely isolated predators. They cooperate with a secretive man presenting himself as Suguru Geto. Their contacts and ambitions are concealed from the students and civilian world.

The detention-center mission, Junpei's involvement with Mahito, and the school exchange event have not happened. The Death Painting objects remain sealed rather than walking among the living. Familiar locations still contain residents, work, and ordinary routines before any later disaster reaches them.