Jujutsu Kaisen: Haibara’s Death Explained – Who Killed Him?

The second season of Jujutsu Kaisen introduced us to several new characters, and while the Gojo’s Past Arc focused primarily on Riko Amanai and Toji Fushiguro, another new character connected exclusively to this arc appeared and his name is Yu Haibara. Yu Haibara was a young and cheerful jujutsu sorcerer who was Kento Nanami’s classmate, meaning that he was younger than Gojo. Now, Haibara appeared in only a few scenes, and he did not have too much dialogue, but his abrupt ending was something that shocked fans and confused them as well, which is why we have decided to write up this article in which we are going to explain how he died and who (or what!) killed him.

Yu Haibara was a first-year student at the Tokyo Metropolitan Curse Technical College and Kento Nanami’s classmate. He was a cheerful and optimistic person who genuinely liked what he was doing, considering himself a great character judge. He was friendly with everyone, including Nanami, Gojo, and Geto. During Gojo’s Past Arc, Haibara and Nanami were sent on a mission to exterminate a seemingly weak curse that was too strong for them. Haibara was killed during this mission, while Nanami returned, and Gojo took over the mission and completed it.

The rest of this article will focus on the character of Yu Haibara and his ultimate fate in Jujutsu Kaisen. Yu Haibara was a truly interesting character with a very intriguing story, which is why his ultimate fate is of interest to fans, and that actually motivated us to write up this article, in which we will reveal everything that is known about his fate. This article might contain a significant number of spoilers, so do be careful while you’re reading.

Yu Haibara died on a mission he was not supposed to do in the first place

The story of Yu Haibara could easily be dubbed the tragedy of Yu Haibara, as his story was truly a short and bittersweet tragedy. Yu Haibara was 17 years old in 2006 and had a younger, unnamed sister. He was a first-year at the Tokyo Metropolitan Curse Technical College, where his classmate was Kento Nanami. He was a slim, brown-haired boy with a perpetual smile on his face.

He had an extremely cheerful and optimistic personality, and it seemed that nothing could really make him angry or uncomfortable. He was quite friendly to everyone, including Nanami, who wasn’t always thrilled with his outbursts, Gojo and Geto, with the latter two being his seniors. He was also very open with people. Haibara considered himself to be a good judge of character, saying to Geto that he was a good person, which Geto, who was in a crisis of identity at the time, commented with irony.

The first time we saw Yu Haibara was when Gojo, Geto, Misato, and Riko were in Okinawa. The school assigned the two of them to guard the airport where their plane was supposed to land, as Riko was the target of assassins.

Haibara commented how he was happy to be on a mission alongside Gojo and Geto, to which Nanami replied that such comments were inappropriate for a first-year. He also told Nanami the news of them staying in Okinawa for an extra day, which severely annoyed Nanami, whereas Haibara did not seem to mind it.

He is later seen after Riko’s death, approaching Geto while he is sitting alone in the school, lost in his thoughts. He approached him like a friend and told him he was a good person, which Geto received with a lot of irony. When Yuki arrived and asked Geto what his type of girl was, Haibara quickly replied that he liked girls who could eat a lot, despite Yuki not asking him. He would soon leave on a mission with Nanami, with Yuki commenting how he was quite cute.

The mission was an enigma, but we know some details, so we have decided to tell you everything we know about it. As Nanami explained later on in the story, the mission was supposed to be simple, and the two of them were supposed to handle it easily, as the Ubusunagami in question was supposed to be a weak curse. If you don’t know, the Ubusunagami, also called Ubushinanokami and Ubunokami, are kami, a collective term for deities, divinities, spirits, mythological, spiritual, or natural phenomena, or any other type of holy powers in Shintoism, that are associated with one’s birthplace.

They are actually tutelary kami of a birthplace, meaning they are the guardian deities of one’s birthplace. In Shintoism, they are usually not associated with evil. We have written about them in a separate article, so you can also check that out.

Be that as it may, the Ubusunagami was supposed to be an easy mission that two first-years could handle relatively easily. But it did not go like that. Before we continue, we have to say that the jujutsu sorcerers are assigned missions to exorcise curses based on their skills and the grade of the curse.

In this instance, Nanami and Haibara were assigned on a mission to exorcise a relatively weak Ubusudokami somewhere; no details related to this mission were ever provided to us, so we cannot really give you any precise information here, which means that we’re doing the best we can with what little information we have.

Based on their skills, Nanami and Haibara were obviously judged to be competent enough to exorcise the Ubusudokami – based on what we know, the Ubusudokami was probably corrupted by the negative emotions of its worshippers – but as Nanami stated, it turned out that the Ubusudokami wasn’t actually a weak, lower-grade curse, but a very powerful curse that the two of them were not really ready to handle. Had the curse been properly identified in the first place, we’re almost certain that Nanami and Haibara would not have been sent on that particular mission, i.e., that it would have been assigned to either Gojo or Geto.

So, what happened? Well, the mission was a failure. Nanami returned, angry and exhausted but alive, while Haibara returned as a corpse. The curse they were dealing with was so powerful that Haibara, sadly, died, being killed by the Ubusudokami. As we’ve said, this was a tragedy.

Nanami was furious, while this tragedy pushed Geto a little bit beyond the limit as well; Gojo ultimately took over the mission and completed it, but Haibara’s life was over, and his corpse was given to the school, as we’ve seen in the morgue. Haibara was a sweet and likable character, but at the same time, his story was too short, and we would have loved to see more of him. But, that is Jujutsu Kaisen for you, a great series that does not shy away from creating tragedy after tragedy, but somehow, that adds more quality to the story.