Preface

You know how it is by this point.

Recommended Pre-Readings

Historical Heian vs JJK's Heian [Just the Sexuality and Courtship section.]

Sukuna’s Loneliness Part 4 (Sukuna’s Negative Rizz) [The whole thing.]

Sukuna’s Loneliness Part 5 (Sukuna Did Nothing Wrong in the Heian Era, Probably) [The whole thing.]

Optional Readings

Sukuna's Loneliness Part 2 (Sukuna is a fraud and it's funny.)

Yes, Some of the JJK Fights are Gex (An Exhaustive Look at 2 Homoerotic Fights in JJK.)

Disclaimer: Not a Goldfish (to Sukuna)

It is strongly implied that Gojo is the goldfish (Carassius auratus) Kenjaku refers to in the Kenny/Takaba fight.

Since Goldfish were introduced to Japan after the Heian, it's unlikely that Sukuna would know much about or have social context for them. I think this is the fish species Kenjaku views Gojo as given how it's contained in a bag from the goldfish scooping game. If you didn't know, domestic goldfish grow to massive sizes if released to the wild, making them a particularly troublesome invasive species. This parallels how Kenjaku needed to keep Gojo contained for the Culling Games so he wouldn't become a massive problem to them.

Goldfish Fun Facts:

Goldfish come from same Asian carp family that koi do. Sometimes they get mistaken for each other and can even cross-breed artificially.

Goldfish see more colors than humans, infrared, ultra violet, and polarized light. (This fits Gojo pretty well too I think.)

𓆛 𓆜 𓆝 𓆞 𓆟 𓆞 𓆝 𓆜 𓆛

The Fish on the Cutting Board

About 1,000 years ago, the common carp or koi was introduced from China to Japan. They were kept in ponds as food and their feces were used as fertilizer. Color mutations were selectively bred over time by farmers until they became nishikigoi, or decorative carp known for their brilliant scales and longevity. Nishikigoi became symbols of success and perseverance—a fish that thrives against all odds, making them quite popular with samurai. (See Koi Carp: Symbolism, Folklore, and Beauty in Japan by Elle of a Kind for a better summary.)

On it's face, this suits Gojo quite well. He was selectively bred to serve humans, is beautiful, and persevered through terrible odds with a samurai-like mentality. But that's not why I picked koi.

Knife Ceremonies

See the following experts from "Hocho" Knives, Developed and Refined Alongside Japan’s Food Culture by GOOD LUCK TRIP.

"During the Heian period (794 to 1185), two new knife-related cultural developments emerged.

The first was the custom of using different knives for different ingredients. As Chinese cuisine arrived via the Korean Peninsula, beauty in the cross-sections of ingredients and the arrangement of dishes came to be valued at the imperial court. As a result, cooks were provided with various kinds of knives, strengthening their role as cooking tools.

The second was the birth of ceremonial knives in the early Heian period (around 860). As attention began to focus on the knife skills used for fish, chicken, and other ingredients, rituals involving knives emerged, and Emperor Koko, known for his love of cooking, adopted them as court events. The ritual was called 「庖丁式」, and with a knife in the right hand and long chopsticks in the left, practitioners beautifully cut multiple ingredients without touching them directly by hand."

Sounds familiar to a certain someone's Cursed Technique (CT), right?

[Btw the knife associated with Dismantle is a sujihiki, while the knife associated with Cleave is a burja. The sujihiki is primarily used for scaling and filleting fish. You know, like for Gojo Satoru, the fish Sukuna scaled then bisected with Dismantle. The burja is used for percision cutting. Fits the precise nature of Cleave imo.]

Sukuna's CT, Shrine, which uses slashing attacks likened to knives, uses the kanji 御厨子 (mizushi) which means shrine or imperial chef. In fact, his entire arsenal doubles as cooking wordplay, and that is a very deliberate choice given his Heian origin. The knife ceremonies the imperial chefs practiced historically had a significant religious component to them. To explain that, I will mostly be citing Food and Fantasy in Early Modern Japan by Eric C. Rath.

If you recall from Historical Heian vs JJK's Heian, the Fujiwaras were the dominant political force the Heian. They are mentioned explicitly in JJK.

"The family’s founder, Shijō Chūnagon Fujiwara Yamakage (also known as Masatomo) (824–88), has been called the deity of Japanese cooking for allegedly inventing the cutting knife ceremony." (Pg 41)

The knife ceremony originates as an upper class practice, suggesting that Sukuna may have been employed by nobility to perform them.

"...medieval chefs who performed knife ceremonies were not ordinary chefs: they were at the top of their occupation, employed only by the military and aristocratic elite." (Pg 40)

This may seem strange given that killing animals and spilling blood of living beings was against Buddhist teachings. However...

"...the knife ceremony was both an aesthetic practice and a powerful ritual considered able to reverse the bad karmic effects of killing and consumption of animal flesh—though limited to fish and game birds—by both liberating the animal and accruing longevity and merit for the chef and his patrons." (Pg 42)

The knife ceremony functioned as a religious loophole, making every aspect of it divine.

“This is the knife that invites the presence of the divine [hōchō kanjō].” Thus the ceremonial knife not only symbolized religious truths but was also a tool like a shaman’s wand used to summon divinities to the ceremony. These divinities were not conjured to feast at the sacrifice, for it is made clear in the description of the cutting board that the animal was liberated after death for salvation in a Buddhist paradise." (Pg 48)

And exactly what Sukuna does to Gojo—he uses his Shrine (knife) to acquire the Divine General Mahoraga, who helps him cut Gojo to death in a beautiful way that liberates him from the suffering of being The Strongest. On it's face it seems very cruel violent, but with historical context, it becomes a sacred ceremony.

"While the knife was an instrument for summoning divine forces, the cutting board, according to this description, already had supernatural forces residing in it, making it akin to a sacred statue or some other venerated object housing a divinity." (Pg 49)

This insult? Gojo being a fish atop his cutting board. One that he's going to cut into pieces? It's a compliment. Sukuna (through abstract social norms no one in the modern era would understand) is saying that Gojo is a deity worthy of an equally divine ceremony.

"Shikibōchō writings—beginning with the earliest, the 1489 Shijō School Text on Food Preparation—note that certain places on the cutting table had names...Celebration [ensui] is for being quiet and composed, performing in a stable way. Morning Worship [chōhai] is for carefully honoring deities harmful to the lord, and it represents integrity. Four Virtues represents the benevolence of the ruler, the grace of the sun and moon, and the compassion of parents. Protective astral bodies have descended into these places from heaven. One should not think this is untrue. The Five Agents protects all four. These five agents are wood, fire, earth, metal, and water." (Pgs 48–49)

Though the idea that the cutting board metaphor is complimentary is strengthened by their battle taking place in the morning, the 5 Agents [gogyō] (kind of sounds like Gojo) are on Sukuna's fingers.

Since Sukuna seems to be performing a knife ceremony on Gojo, it is reasonable to assume that the fish species Gojo is to Sukuna is the most common one used for these ceremonies: Koi.

"Turning to the second way to appreciate knife ceremonies—seeing them as reminiscent of the art of flower arrangement—chefs created stunning visual displays that evoked the seasons and were attuned to the setting and specific events. Secret Writings on Culinary Slicing (Ryōri kirikata hidenshō), published in the mid-seventeenth century, provides names and illustrations for forty-seven different ways to cut carp, in the same way that writings on flower arrangement, calligraphy, and painting supplied models for students to copy, and audiences standards for making aesthetic judgments. The names of these are suggestive for the occasions they suited: Departing for Battle Carp (shutsujin no koi), Celebratory Carp (iwai no koi), Taking a Bride/Taking a Son-in-Law Carp (mukotori yometori koi), Flower Viewing Carp (hanami no koi), and Moon Viewing Carp (tsukimi no koi). Other names sound poetic: Snowy Morning Carp (yuki no asa koi), Long Life Carp (chōmei no koi), and Carp within a Boat (senchū no koi)." (Pg 45)

“The carp is a most exalted fish, the only one which may be sliced in the presence of the emperor.” (Pg 46)

I don't think I need to explain how several of the listed ceremonial carps may apply to the Sukuna/Gojo battle. This is probably why Sukuna didn't specify the species. 1) In his time, it would be understood that the fish was most likely koi. 2) If he said that out loud, it'd erase the plausible deniability Sukuna gets from pretending Gojo is an ordinary fish. (It should be noted that he does not call anyone else a fish.)

That is to be expected. The knife ceremony practitioners left their performance up to interpretation.

"Broad movements of the blade, standing up from a kneeling posture, and creating gestures with the knife and chopsticks reminiscent of Buddhist sacred gestures called mudra were all devices to capture the audience’s attention. If these specific motions had meanings the way some Noh kata do, these were for left the audience to ponder, since Ishii did not offer any clues." (Pg 44)

Dragons

Believe it or not, there's a lot more significance to divinity of koi outside of Japan. When they were imported from China, they brought with them a legend that is the basis for Magikarp evolving into Garaydos in Pokémon: A carp that swims upstream and leaps over a waterfall becomes a dragon.

The Japanese version of this tale however leaves out critical geographical context unique to China. In the Chinese legend, the river that carp swims up is none other than China's Pride and China's Sorrow: The Yellow (Huang He) River. If you don't know about the Yellow River, first refer to this post to see it in action. See all that brown water being flung into the air like a giant 3-way fire hose? That's all sediment. Sediment that reaches the ocean in quantities of 1,100,000,000 tons per year, accounting for 17% of the entire world's fluvial sediment discharge. Unlike most rivers that carve their path via erosion, the Yellow River builds its own path with this sediment. Vertically. Until the high-silt content of these river-made bluffs give way and flood everything below them in the watershed. This type of flooding killed 1–2 million in 1887. This type of flooding is largely attributed to ending multiple Chinese Dynasties such as Xin (multiple 3–11), Western Han (14), Song (1048), Yuan (1344), Ming (1642). A fish that can swim up 3,395 miles (5,464 km) of what is essentially a waterfall zig-zagging sideways hard enough to wipe out cities is a dragon as far as I'm concerned.

The actual waterfall from this tale exists too, but it's a bit more complicated to explain. In the Chinese legend, the waterfall that transforms the carp into a dragon is called a Dragon Gate (Longmen). For a waterfall to be considered a Dragon Gate, it must originate from a legendary mountain and there are many legendary mountains that feed the Yellow River. This means there are multiple waterfalls considered Dragon Gates. The waterfall doesn't even need to feed the Yellow River to be considered a Dragon Gate. It just needs to be very steep and very tall (aka difficult to climb).

The original tale is most likely referring to the Dragon Gate at the part of the Yellow River that leaves the Loess Plateau through the southwestern tip of Mount Longmen (Shanxi). Though not the source, the plateau is where the river gets its color and nutrient-rich sediment critical to life downstream the mountain. The actual source of the Yellow River (and several over major rivers) are the Gyaring and Ngoring/Eling Lakes cradled in the Bayan Har Mountains. These mountains are a part of the Kunlun Mountain Chain, which is basically the stairway to heaven in mythology.

Though Japan lacks a river as infamous as China's, it does have many "rivers" that are basically chains of waterfalls due to its mountainous geography. The general idea that a carp leaping over a steep waterfall becomes a dragon and a symbol of preserving against all odds translated well. The waterfall being a part of an unwieldy natural disaster of a river spanning thousands of miles (km) did not.

If Gojo is the koi going against the current to become a dragon, Sukuna, who is referred to a natural disaster (while easily overpowering the Natural Disaster Curses), is the metaphorical Yellow River and Dragon Gate. As established in Sukuna's Loneliness Part 4, Sukuna knows his Chinese literature and therefore would know of the original tale. And based on his incantations for World Cutting Slash, he recognizes Gojo as a dragon.

According to @mizushidokoro's post "Ryuurin, Hanpatsu, Tsugai no Ryuusei" -- the incantation for World Slash, and an epitaph to Gojo Satoru, each part of Sukuna's chant corresponds to an aspect of Limitless, two of which reference dragons. In summary:

龍鱗 (Ryuurin) Scale of the Dragon = 無限 (Mugen) Infinity

反発 (Hanpatsu) Recoil = 茈 (Murasaki) Purple

番いの流星 (Tsugai no Ryuusei) Twin Meteors = 赫 (あか) (Aka) Red & 蒼 (Aoi) Blue

Quoted directly from said post:

"First, "ryuurin" (dragon scales) describes the basic application of Limitless, a strong defensive barrier like the scales of a dragon. This one is the most obvious, hinted at by Sukuna's words at the beginning of the fight, telling Gojo he plans to "strip away his scales." More will be said about the dragon references, in the discussion of the third phrase.

Less relevant but still interesting - there’s also a Buddhist reference here, according to this forum post:

At surface, straight value, it is just the literal scales of a dragon. The word can also be used to mean "a large quantity of things". Ryurin is also a metaphor for the power/authority/influence of heroes and of the Heavenly People (the residents of the Japanese version of the Devaloka, where devas and gods reside. Just a heavenly realm, basically.) Lastly, Ryurin means a dangerous condition/situation or a dangerous thing. So. For Sukuna, its basically 'dangerous divine power/authority'."

(Skipping over "hanpatsu" (recoil) since it doesn't reference dragons.)

"Finally, "tsugai no ryuusei." [twin meteors] A few things here. First, the wordplay and translation. Like ”Ryuurin”, this term references dragons. Here Ryuusei, meaning meteor or comet, is also pun on the word dragon, ryuu (which isn’t novel, see the Japanese word for Pokémon move Draco Meteor, et al.). Second, how dragons are relevant to Sukuna’s mythology. In Hida, there is a temple Senkoji said to be founded by “Ryomen Sukuna … approximately 1,600 years ago. A central architectural feature of the temple it Dragon Ceiling, a portrait of two dragons painted by Kano Tansetsu on the ceiling of the main buliding...

...According to this Reddit post, the temple’s founding tale describes how Sukuna fought off a dragon god living in the mountain and built a shrine in its place. So — from the fact that dragons are the mythological enemy of the figure Ryomen Sukuna, we may infer that the words of the incantation refer to an enemy or target of the World Slash technique...

...Another potential connection to Red/Blue rooted in dragon mythology is the tide jewels — the tide-ebbing (a repelling force, like Red) kanju and tide-flowing (an attracting force, like Blue) manju, possessed by Ryuujin, the Sea King."

To give more credence to this claim, I would like to draw attention to how Gojo rises from the sea upon being released from the Prison Realm, something Kenjaku thought would kill him. What else but a dragon could do this?

No Ordinary Fish

I would like to continue stealing from Tumblr user mizushidokoro, this time about the World Cutting Slash (WCS)...

"Assuming what I've previously argued is true (the incantation describes Gojo's Limitless), this gives Sukuna's last words to Gojo another layer of significance. When Sukuna tells Gojo he will never forget him, it's not just an expression or a promise, but a statement of the binding vow Sukuna has to make in order to land the killing blow. In other words, the cost of killing Gojo is having to remember him forever, to integrate him into Sukuna's own technique through a verbal invocation that must be made every single time Sukuna uses the world bisecting slash."

In addition to the WCS chants metaphorically recalling Gojo, they also linguistically recall him. Most of this was lost in translation since the English version prioritized communicating the base concepts over very easy to miss wordplay. (The S in Sukuna stands for Subtle/Subtext.)

As you can see, Gojo's chants contain a lot of consonance (repeated consonant sounds) and assonance (repeated vowel sounds) with words such as Isou, Ikou, Henkou, Shoumyou, Hitomi, Hyouri, and No. (Isou (Phase) in particular is duplicated as the initial phrase for both Red and Blue, further supporting they are what the Twin Meteors reference.) Sukuna seems to copy Gojo's style by replicating the Ryuu sound in Ryuurin and Ryuusei, with additional assonance in Hanpatsu and Tsugai.

Gojo ends his chants for all 3 techniques with a phrase that contains the hiragana の (no): Chie no Hitomi (Blue), Hakari no Hashira (Red), Hyouri no Hazama (Purple). Sukuna copies this by ending his chant with Tsugai no Ryuusei.

WCS was made to honor Gojo Satoru in every aspect. It was created by a divine being to kill a divine being and is inseparable from his memory, using hand gestures and words that echo him. For Sukuna to use WCS is to evoke Gojo Satoru, not as an ordinary fish but as a dragon that almost killed him. It's probably why he reserved WCS for opponents that were an immediate threat to his life like Gojo; Kashimo, Higuruma, Yuta, and Maki. (Kashimo finished off Megkuna, Higuruma's Executioner's Sword can inflict instant death, Yuta's Jacob's Ladder can separate Sukuna from Megumi, and Maki's Split Soul Katana can separate Sukuna from Megumi.)

Including the initial WCS with Gojo, Sukuna only uses it 5 times (which coincides with the 五 (Go) in 五条 (Gojo) that means 5). His refusal to use it on Yuji and others seems to indicate Sukuna is selective about who he considers worthy of a knife ceremony a little less fancy than Gojo's.

3/4 of these characters are directly compared to Gojo too, Maki being the exception. Though she is indirectly linked to Gojo by being an improved Toji. Toji killed Gojo and Gojo did dress up as Toji for his Sukuna fight. Not sure if Sukuna knew that. Each time WCS with chants is used, Sukuna gets more sneaky about it too, suggesting that he may have felt the most threatened by Maki if not indicative of his fatigue as the fight dragged on.

Regardless, this is not something you do for someone who is just a fish.

Why is this fish so special?

Sukuna's initial fascination with Gojo began with his strength. Their 10 second encounter lead to him planning his slaughter for 6 months. Though this is a typical reaction from those who want to get rid of him in some capacity for their plans (see Toji, Geto, and Kenjaku), I've theorized that Sukuna took an actual liking to Gojo because he advocates for unwanted children Jujutsu law declares non-human/executable (aka someone who under other circumstances would've looked after him). I still believe that to be the case, but thanks to this post by @sulky-cabbage, I think I've figured out what made Gojo clear his skies.

Despite being the King of Curses and the Strongest Sorcerer in All of History, Sukuna fears death. He fears it enough to use WCS on those with the potential to kill him and be visibly shaken whenever he comes close to it. Megumi calls him out for this, taking shots at how Sukuna postures and intimidates to hide this fear.

His fear of death is so great that he has a hard time accounting for the suicidal samurai mentality of modern sorcerers. To him, those weaker than him shouldn't be able to directly face something he can't, hence him low-balling Yuji's willingness to die for his friends.

To be fair to Sukuna, this a fear he's held for a very long time. He admits to Mahito in the afterlife that he feared being immolated by his own curse. This is not a metaphor. In Japanese he uses 焼き殺されるにとを (yaki nirosareru ni to o), literally to be burned to death. Him finding Uraume in the process of involuntarily freezing to death after doing the same to those around them most likely reminded Sukuna of himself. (Makes you wonder how he felt about Kashimo's self-cannibalizing CT.)

He hides his intentions of course by taking in Uraume as a replacement fridge and servant, but underneath all that emotional fraud, Sukuna recognizes them as someone who offers reprieve from his curse. Their ice keeps his fire at bay in the same way his fire keeps their ice at bay.

But that doesn't address the fear of self-immolation. Sukuna seems to be searching for proof his flames can be withstood. In Uraume's absence, he challenges Jogo, a curse born from human's fear of volcanoes, to a contest of fire. When Sukuna emerges the victor, he doesn't celebrate. I think it's telling that he's more excited to see Uraume right after.

...So we know for certain that Sukuna fears death. We know that he fears his own power to an extent. You know who doesn't fear death or his own power? Gojo Satoru.

It's something Sukuna couldn't anticipate. A bit different from Yuji who chose death to win, Gojo gambled with death to win. Not just by destroying parts of his brain, repeatedly, for domain clashes, but by blowing himself up with his most powerful attack. This is what cleared Sukuna's skies—Gojo proved to him that he could survive his own curse.

As a metaphorical Toji and as himself, Gojo became Sukuna's greatest teacher. And what better way to honor your divine fish-dragon teacher than by implementing his lessons for life after a ceremony that sends him to heaven?

Conclusion

I don't know how to end this so please take this final excerpt from Food and Fantasy in Early Modern Japan by Eric C. Rath.