A/N

This chapter was a pain in the ass to write, not because I was out of ideas, but I got scared about the parts where I had free reign on what to do. It kind of blurred the line between fanfiction and an original story for me. Also, I'm ashamed to admit this, but because of Nanami's death, I kinda stopped reading after Shinjuku (hence the urge to write a fanfic in the first place). But surprise I actually caught up after relying on JJK wiki after a long time.

Also, fair warning, below would be an author's note of the character analysis of our SI/OC if you haven't caught up with it yet. Just to answer a few questions I got. Skip it if you want to figure out yourself, don't want to be spoiled, or just don't want that long-ass a/n in general.

So instead of thanking everyone below (lmao), I'll do it here. Thank you to everyone who followed, favorited, and commented.

Not beta-ed so I apologize for some minor grammar mistakes.

3041 September 16

Sugiyama Kouki found himself in a dire situation. He was about to die.

The boy had to scratch his head out of desperation. If his master had been more insistent on reminding his junior disciple never to leave the human camp unless necessary, then he would not need to save Daiki's sorry ass. It was all the boy's fault, although he did not see how blaming him right now would save his life. Kouki only hoped he escaped from the place or else his sacrifice would be in vain.

He held the cursed tool in his hand a little bit harder as he tried to sense the presence of the grade 1 curse around the area.

"Hsss, hsss, hssss!"

Kouki pressed his hand over his mouth and stopped breathing. He also minimized the cursed energy around him, praying the cursed spirit would not find him once it passed among the ruins. The curse was way beyond his league and he started to regret skipping most of his midnight training.

The teen did not expect Daiki to get captured, nor did he expect he would attract the attention of the curse for someone who always irritated the hell out of him. Because fuck it, of all the time he would play hero, he had to choose this specific time. He should have let the boy die earlier!

"Hsss, hsss, hssss!" The hissing got louder, and he could feel the presence of the enemy get nearer. The area turned silent, and the only silver lining he could see was that the curse did not bring any friends.

The teen perked his ears when the hissing disappeared, so he had to look. Climbing up the boulder, he tried to take a peek at where the opponent stopped, and to his surprise, he met with the slitted yellow eye of a snake.

"AAAAAAH!" He shouted, scurrying to the opposite way where the cursed spirit came from. Kouki had already expended his energy when defending his co-apprentice earlier. The cursed whip he was holding was only for props now since he could not even use an ounce of cursed energy to utilize it.

The slithering of the cursed snake spirit resounded around the area, and under the red sky, it became hard to see whether it was coming near or far behind. Kouki did not want to risk anything, so he avoided looking back; his thoughts only consisted of wishing for his master to save him right now and that it'd be nice to live a life without regrets. The latter was utterly impossible, considering his sensei was a couple of miles away helping another human camp exorcise the horde of curses. At the same time, the former was something that he couldn't achieve in this life. The teen realized there was turning back now and hoped that the bastard Daiki would live a good life from hereon or else he would come back as a cursed spirit and haunt him as payback.

"Rebound: Air release!" Kouki swung the whip from his hand right after he turned his heels. He came to a horrible conclusion that he had made the right call since the enemy was only a few meters away from him. The weapon acted as if it was alive, coiling around the cursed spirit after releasing waves of air. "Bind!"

Instead of incapacitating the snake, the whip flicked his hands, rendering him weaponless after failing to control it. Kouki was deadman now; he had no cursed energy left, and he would faint very soon.

"Hiss, hiss, motherfucker!" He grabbed the dagger behind him and charged forward, fully aware that this was his last attempt at self-sacrifice. "If anyone would save me right now, I'll treat you with food!" Kouki shouted, not expecting anyone to reply.

But there was one. "Then we have a deal. No take-backs."

Before he fainted, all he could remember was hearing a woman's lazy voice as if anything and everything did not bother her. Then the cursed spirit that he had almost sacrificed his life for ripped into pieces mid-air, its fangs a few centimeters away from his face before it completely dissipated.

Finally, darkness.

Two years.

Emi had been staying in this goddamn place for two years. After entering that black hole, she was teleported in the middle of the godforsaken gang of cursed spirits. The girl had not even acclimatized to the place yet, and she had to fight for her life. All she wanted to do was rest and die of old age; who the hell made things harder for her? At this point, she believed that if she decided to die early (frankly, she was getting super tired), someone would drop her in another story in her original world. What was worse, it could be a plot she had never read before.

"I want to thank you for saving my disciple," the man did a full dogeza showing an expression of gratitude. 'Japanese,' Emi thought, realizing she rarely saw her kind these days.

The girl crossed her arms, starting to feel burdened when the older man took a long time to prostrate himself in front of her. "I can't accept your thanks," she started helping the man up then dusted the clothes of the man that painfully reminded her of her Ojii-chan. "We agreed on a deal. That's why I saved him."

"Then what kind of deal is it?" The man gave her a well-practiced smile while he patiently waited for her answer.

"He told me he's going to treat me to food." Emi did not bother to hide the teen's supposed last wish then realized it might be an enormous burden for them to feed another mouth. Food was hard to come by, especially when lower grade cursed spirits ran rampant around the community. It was made worse by the lack of manpower because of humanity's low population.

"Ah, then you should join us when you can. If it's okay with you, can I ask for your name?" What she meant was not only a one-time deal but a complete supply of food as long as she stayed in their place—Emi saved a life after all. The older man did not look troubled when he heard about the sort of request.

The girl nodded, unbothered about giving her name to strangers. "Tokunaga Emi."

"Then I'm Fujita Shohei. The teen you saved was Sugiyama Kouki, while the boy who brought you here was Miyata Daiki. Both are my disciples in terms of being a sorcerer." The man introduced, guessing the girl would stay with them for a while. Shohei finally put his guard down when he realized she would not cause them harm; the grip on his clothes loosened slowly.

Emi found out a few things during her two-year stay. First, it was a thousand years from the period she was in, and somehow the world turned out for the worst. The human population was at its all-time low, and even though most of them were jujutsu sorcerers, it did not change the fact that there were many cursed spirits. Kenjaku succeeded with what he aimed to do—Tengen was used to create large disasters around the globe, and it was again, like the Heian period.

The girl did not know where her friends were when all of this happened, and she never believed they would fall this low to let it occur. That was the reason why there was a significant possibility that it was not her dimension. Instead, it could be an alternate one, just beside hers. But kami forbade her if this was her original one. Then she had to beat their asses until they could think straight.

During this time, she never stayed in one place. Emi had to settle for make-shift lodgings and hunted animals for food. Sometimes, she would help people on the way, as she did with Kouki, then maybe stay in their place for a month or two, then leave. There was no reason for her to remain that long nor get attached to the people; she was not from here. The girl knew the implications of being too comfortable in a place she was not supposed to, which could mean she would lose all opportunities to return home.

Home. Emi ached for it, and suddenly all the paperwork did not sound that bad.

The girl had done all she could, but she was still holding on. She had asked different human camps for any sorcerers that had the technique to manipulate time and space. So far, her investigations had directed her here. There was only one, that was what they said, and he was already old. Emi was sure he was a Gojo descendant of some sort. Perhaps someone who inherited the cursed technique? Possibly. What she was unsure of was if the man could help her or if she could convince him to help her.

Emi grabbed the broadsword behind her and dragged it to the room that they assigned to her. She was dead tired, and it had been a while since she slept on a real bed. If only all people would be as nice as them.

3041 November 05

"Emi-san?" The boy called out from outside of her room as a routine he did every day. Daiki smiled broadly when she opened the door showing the toothy smile of a nine-year-old. "Good morning!"

Emi debated whether she should greet back, considering the blue sky she was used to before had already turned red in this one. "Good morning, Daiki-kun."

The boy did not act clingy like all the other children she had visited before. Instead, he showed patience way beyond his age. Daiki would wait by her door every morning even though she had already said no a couple of weeks before. Then he would wait for her to get ready so Emi could join them for breakfast. The girl would then go out to hunt and investigate around the area, and by then, he would be waiting for her at the building entrance to ask her again to join them for dinner.

One girl and one child entered the dining hall. Daiki cheerfully pulled the chair where she usually sat while Emi tried her best to avoid scolding the child. He looked so happy that she was around during this time, and she would be ruining the mood if she continued to distance herself. The girl sat silently with a wave of her hand; the chair beside her abruptly moved backward with a deep sigh.

"Thank you, Emi-san!" Daiki seemed a little too glad to sit beside the girl, so he accepted the unspoken invitation.

The woman that was preparing the table watched this exchange with a smile. "Would you go outside again, Tokunaga-san?"

"Maybe not today, Lis-san. I have things to take care of, and I need the rest too." This was true; Emi was continuously gathering resources and intelligence by herself while she was also exorcising a ton of curses on the way.

"I'm glad you listened to Shohei-sensei and me." Lis could not hide the amusement on the western features the girl was very familiar with as she handed her some chopsticks to start eating. "We know it's a little rude since we just met, but for a child more or less the same age as Kouki, you've been pushing yourself too hard."

The woman was indeed not Japanese, albeit it did not matter now with this broken world. Racism was almost non-existent except in places that practiced extreme traditionalism. Although organizations readily led people, they also became a mixture of culture and traditions. On the other hand, slavery was rampant, and even selling dead bodies of your relatives was considered a valid way to gain money. It was not so bad if you believed that some humans would rely on their worst coping mechanisms to survive. As a person who grew in a place of prosperity and peace, it gave her an enormous culture shock.

The silver lining was human camps existed, and depending on how large they were; it also correlated with how good the governing bodies were. The place where she was residing now was one of the best she had seen so far, and people, even non-sorcerers, were able to live an everyday life—at least in this time's terms.

"Is Shohei-san here?" Emi asked, aware that the older man would usually visit this human camp's elders as the leader of one of their best sorcerer groups.

"No, sensei left earlier than usual. He was called at dawn to make their strategic plan for next month. You know how things are. Cursed spirits would come in groups to attack human camps for fun."

Human camps were surrounded by a barrier created by jujutsu-shis who specialized in this. However, it would weaken at the end of the year, and they had to renew it. The cursed spirits who had consciousness knew about this, so they always used this opportunity to create negative feelings by scaring the non-sorcerers, further increasing the number of curses more than they already were. Because of this, every organization had to create a tactical plan to safeguard its organization every year.

Changing the barrier frequently was also another solution but impossible to do and to maintain for a longer-term. It took a lot of cursed energy to make one that drove away curses once a year, and even if they did, it would only work on the first year since they would be caught up with the change.

Emi finished her meal after a few minutes, bidding goodbye to Lis and Daiki to return to her room. This world's a lost cause, but if she could come back to her current timeline, she would try her best to change it and finally take a goddamn break.

3042 February 11

Daiki eyed the girl with a lopsided smile as he exchanged glances with Kouki. All those days where he patiently waited outside her room did not go to waste, and he did not know how to express his happiness. Emi gave in a month ago and decided to teach them some things that their sensei had a hard time teaching. Thankfully, she was not that hard-hearted, and they could now see how she exorcised curses.

"Isn't Daiki too young to start learning about this?" Kouki shifted under the girl's stare, realizing he had asked a rather dumb question.

"I was three when I started manipulating cursed energy," she said matter-of-factly, not feeling bad that she outright lied to the two when she could already control her technique right after birth. "And I was eight when I trained in martial arts."

Daiki, who listened to their conversation, took her words as motivation to try harder. "But if I don't have any cursed energy?"

"Gaki, all the dangerous people I know did not have any cursed energy," Emi recalled how Zenin Toji outright slammed her on the wall when she checked how his marital life was going.

"But I don't know any people like that," he replied with a pout on his face, thinking she only said that to console him if he turned out to be a non-sorcerer.

Emi smirked, then shook his head at the child. "Are you telling me I'm a liar? If you don't know one, then be one."

"But Emi-san, where did you come from, and where are all these people you were always talking about?" Kouki sank tiredly on the floor because he ran a couple of laps around the camp that morning as per the girl's orders.

"… they're in a better place."

"A better place than this? Our camp is the best!" If Daiki did not think she was lying earlier, then he certainly thinks she was spouting nonsense right now. Everyone knew this base was wealthiest and most well-protected compared to others. Cursed spirit attacks were very minimal since the sorcerer population was highest in this region.

Emi sounded so done that they did not have much faith in her, so she slapped the boy's butt with a stick. "Then stop making me tell stories and focus on bringing out your technique."

Daiki and Kouki scowled at the same time, regretting that they had asked the girl for guidance. Emi was strict, and even if they wanted to complain, there was no way they could not. If she told them to run around the camp 20 times, then she would run with them. If she told them to risk their life, she would stand behind them, ready to save them. It was hard, and if they could vent out their frustrations, they would start to cry.

"Now continue what you're doing and stop slacking," Emi ordered, using her technique stealthily to grab them from afar in case they decided to quit.

"Aren't you being a little too hard on them?" Shohei asked, not offended Emi took the helm since he was too busy with the camp's affair anyways, and they could not leave the children in a dormant state rather a little concerned about the way she taught his disciples.

"Will the cursed spirits go easy on them once they go outside?" Emi shot back, her words laced with sarcasm as she drank her tea. "Fujita-san, I'm sure you did not become a special grade sorcerer because you got it too easy. The only difference between you and them right now was how I deliver my teaching. I'm making sure that I'm communicating with them the repercussions if they decided to slack off while you had to fight for your life when fighting outside."

Shohei rested his chin on his hands, realizing what she said was the truth. "Did you find the person you were looking for?" He asked, changing the topic when he remembered why she was staying at their camp in the first place.

"Not yet. Although I'm sure, I will find his whereabouts before July."

"He sure is giving you a hard time." Shohei could not help but let out a light-hearted laugh while looking at the girl's serious expression. "This is the first time I see you so irritated since you stayed here."

The girl had stayed in their camp for five months now. Shohei would see her helping Kouki and Daiki by taking them outside of the base occasionally. From the time Emi stayed here, he had already formed a good impression of her. She was undoubtedly calculating when needed and unpredictable in decision-making. She could empathize with people easily, and that would be her greatest weakness. Well, he was not the one to talk since he tended to rely more on his emotions, too.

Nonetheless, the girl's existence helped make their lives easier. Her unhindered showcase of cursed energy in broad daylight surely scared most of the elders of the human camp. Without her, he would be forced to abdicate in his position. From the looks of it, Emi was aware of it and was helping him out willingly.

Lis arrived mid-conversation to bring another batch of fresh tea. While refilling his teapot, she looked the least concerned about the two children. "Sensei, I think you should listen to Emi-san. There are things I wish you had taught before, you know?" Ah, so she was eavesdropping and somehow placing the blame on him. "You're too soft-hearted," she added as if pointing another arrow at his fragile heart.

"I get it, I get it. I'm too old now, and I can't even teach properly." Shohei expressed with faux sadness, holding both of his hands near his chest.

Emi looked at him nonchalantly, tired of his antics. "For someone pushing eighty, you sure have a flair for dramatics."

"That's the charm of sensei." Lis shot back immediately, coming to the defense of her master.

"Ah, Emi. You should be glad you've known me first. Those other old people from the council don't even have half as much humor as me." Shohei was truly proud he could relate to the youngsters these days. It was difficult for people with a large age difference to understand each other.

Funny enough, he did not know that the kid he was talking to was the one who could not relate to their jokes since she came from a different timeline. The kid in question decided to keep silent in order to preserve her dignity.

The conversation ended at the same time the two boys finished their training. Shohei decided to talk to the girl about some of his plans. One of them was the reformation of the camp leaders, and with a powerhouse like Emi, it would be a breeze. Regardless, he was not in a hurry so that those things could wait. What he needed to prioritize was the preparation. If the girl agreed, it would be easier, but he did not have much choice if she did not.

He could not force a young girl, could he?

3042 April 23

The morality of killing.

Emi had not touched upon the topic of what to consider a morally good murder. If forced into a corner where you had to decide whether to kill or be killed, choosing to preserve the life of your enemy would turn into a matter of privilege. That was precisely what happened to her two years ago, a few months after she was thrown into this chaos. A traveling lone human girl, whether a sorcerer or non-sorcerer, was a perfect victim of slavery. She was kidnapped, bound using a rope that disabled her technique, and thrown into a crowd of women and children with empty eyes.

"Ah, this is irritating." Emi scratched the back of her head, vexed at the bustling scene in front of her. Humans and sentient curses were gathering in one place under some conditions that allowed them to benefit from one another.

Emi swung her broadsword, not discriminating against humans and cursed spirits. Hot blood spurted out from freshly sliced bodies while grade 1 cursed and below automatically dissipated into thin air.

"What the hell?"

"FUCK! Who is that?!"

Emi loathed the deaths of innocent lives. Thankfully, these people were far from upright. "Domain Expansion: Asura's Path."

A black dome covered the area in an instant. Curse users and curses alike immediately stood frozen on where they were, paralyzed for an unknown reason. Emi's domain expansion was the opposite of Satoru's, and if the boy could overload a person with information rendering them immovable, then she could remove everything. Dreams, hopes, aspirations, and thoughts. And unlike the white-haired boy, she could not directly estimate how long she could use it, making it all guesswork. It was no problem, she had a lot of cursed energy, and she could maintain this nightmare for as long as her reserves could hold.

Emi's domain expansion was an exact, realistic replica of what she had to go through every freaking night.

Slicing through the horde of people and special grade cursed spirits with the broadsword she stole during a slavery auction like this, Emi felt disgusted with the smell of blood. There was no way she could go back and face Daiki and Kouki like this.

The girl struggled to wipe the blood off her broad sword as she stood on top of the pile of corpses. "Haaah, how more do I have left? Three? Four?" She asked herself, mentally calculating if she could completely eradicate more slave auctions on the face of the earth before she could join those people again for dinner.

She despised being in the same place with those slave masters.

Suppose Satoru felt it was difficult to empathize because he was built like a damn computer. At the same time, Suguru had a hero complex and some 'holier-than-thou' potential, and Shoko readily ignores her body and mind's call for help. In that case, Emi was akin to a moderator. She was empathetic when required, sacrificial when needed, and was aware of her limits as a person.

That was a good thing, though, and she wanted it to stay that way. Being way too comfortable with taking someone's life from others would cost anyone their humanity. That was something she would always remind her friends of.

"Okay, you're back shiny," she muttered to herself, looking at her reflection from the now shiny cursed tool.

Emi snorted when she thought back on her promise to Satoru. The white-haired boy would ask her casually in random circumstances about what would happen if she was accidentally separated from their group. She dismissed it as impossible in an instant because what kind of place would she go to that made it difficult to find her? However, after the boy threatened to give her additional work, she promised she would always return.

Even without the promise, she would come back. Emi still needed to beat some sense to Satoru, after all.

3042 June 15

"Are you sure about this?" Emi asked after staring at Lis, aware that, in general, sorcerers did not like sharing their technique for safekeeping and assurance. They were outside the camp, in an isolated place cleared from cursed spirits.

"I'm sure you're not someone who spills another person's secret. Plus, you're not affiliated with anyone; you're the best person I could give this to. If you're still burdened, then treat this as my gratitude for saving and teaching Daiki and Kouki." Lis grinned at the girl's tired-looking face. "Isn't there an old saying that goes like this: give a man a fish, and you'll feed him for a day, teach a man to fish, and you've fed him for a lifetime? You've helped us enough. I would look like an ungrateful person if I didn't do this." The kid pretty much set her sensei's younger disciples for life; this was the least she could do.

Emi glanced up at her, visibly perplexed. "If you insist."

Admittedly, if the girl only saved the two kids, she would not dare to do this. But Lis was sure Emi was a person who was clear about gratitude and revenge. If she helped her now, there might be a possibility where she would save the boys again. It was an extra measure in case something terrible happened to her and Shohei. The woman could feel something brewing under the shadows, and it would be wrong if curses took the two's youth away.

Sharing someone's technique was not impossible, but it was certainly tricky. Some conditions need to be considered: (1) it should not be innate in someone's bloodline, and (2) the sharer needs to have mastered it perfectly. In short, it should be some sort of extension technique that she could share. Both applied in Lis' case since she had no history of being a part of a clan and had the best understanding of this method in this continent.

"Then, as you know, my innate technique is canceling others' technique. What I'm going to share with you is a technique derived from it—technique arsenal." The woman formed a circle with both of her hands, a black ball forming in the middle. "Jujutsu-shis treated their derived techniques as precious as their life, so I would appreciate it if you wouldn't share it with someone you distrust. The perfect example of a derived technique was the reverse cursed technique which was a healing technique that had branched out from an innate one."

"Isn't it powerful enough as it is?" Emi inquired with hesitation as she laid her eyes on the ball in her hands.

Lis nodded thoughtfully with a smile, facing away from the girl with the turn of her heel. "That's right! That means if you only have the reverse cursed technique, there's a large chance that's not your innate one rather your extension one. "The ball floated in the air, a few meters above their head.

"Is that ball the technique?"

"No, this is the container where you put others," she shook her head, observing the movement of the black sphere. "Taking someone's technique could only be done for a limited amount of time—if they're alive, that is. It would also cancel their technique temporarily. But there are certain conditions, and sometimes if your opponent is much more powerful, you need to give something of yours."

Technique Arsenal required the user to do two things; one, they needed to be more powerful than the opponent, and two, their willpower. The higher the will, the longer you could take hold of it. If nothing applied but the user insisted, the worst-case scenario would be death. This process was closely related to the soul and person's mental strength, so both conditions needed to be fulfilled.

Lis was already 28 years old, and she could probably contain techniques from a grade 1 sorcerer for a week. Longer than that, and it would strain her mind and body. Of course, keeping it for later use was also possible. This was under the impression that you were aware of the enemy's technique. It would be highly embarrassing if you were fighting someone to death and you accidentally healed your opponent.

For now, the woman had techniques of grade 2 sorcerer's and below. Lis would sometimes release the stronger ones if she could not handle them.

Lis faced the girl again; the ball turned smaller slowly then disappeared in her hand. "This technique relies on how efficiently you can control your cursed energy. It's a puzzle, Tokunaga-san."

"Then, I guess I'll do okay. I'm pretty competent with cursed energy control." Emi gave off her usual lackadaisical energy, the corner of her lips raising in the slightest bit.

Lis was forced to maintain her smile when asked how it went by Shohei.

The girl said she would be at most decent when learning about her technique. There was nothing merely 'decent' about what Emi did. She completely bulldozed through her lectures and finished mastering her method in a short amount of time. Albeit her performance was still a little rough considering she had to get used to it during combat, her performance was terrific nonetheless. In truth, her control and release-regulation of her cursed energy were top-notch, and even though the woman had not seen her fight, she knew she could fight exceptionally well.

"At least, tell me if she has the chance to learn it." Shohei nagged her, turning his head to look at the girl's fading figure as she walked to her room.

"Chance? What do you mean by the word chance? She learned how to use my extension technique in four hours." The woman was exasperated, and she did not need to finish the bulk of the lesson, but she did. The idea of lying down on a soft mattress sounded good, suddenly.

"Four hours?! That's overkill!" Her sensei's lip twitched, visibly impressed at Emi's talent. Even he had to take at least a day to learn someone's technique.

Lis felt satisfied that she was not the only one who had that reaction. "Maybe we're really old?"

"Don't get me started with that. You're in your late 20s. I'm in my late 70s—we're not the same."

The woman scoffed, neither agreeing nor disagreeing. She had known her master for quite a long time now. It was fate that led the two of them to meet each other. Shohei adopted her back when she was five years old after her mother used her to pay for her father's debt. Lis was unsure how her life had fared if she continued to stay in the abusive household, but she was damn sure she was happy with her sensei. Granted, she needed to take care of his gambling issues which thankfully disappeared after he got much older.

Now she saw herself in Emi. Lis and Shohei were indebted to her in many ways, and the least they could do was provide her with a place to live in and hot food to eat. However, it did not seem to relieve the blank look in her eyes.

A/N

To Amatsumi, Emi, as a part of the plot, was like the balancing act. Emi was a character that was supposed to fill in the gaps of the three characters. And I originally made her someone who could partner up with Satoru, and unless she could be on par with him (in terms of specialty and power), I'll be creating another nutcase like Suguru. Being OP is undoubtedly a requirement (besides that I like my OC's OP) to stay in the group, or else she would be like Ijichi, and as much as I adore the man, non-sorcerer skills are just not enough. One thing to consider is that our mc likes to work on the background (relationships with people, long-term planning, grounded mindset). At the same time, Gojo is a show-off (arrogant, never considered other people's feelings unless he recognized their value, impatient, and straightforward when dealing with problems). So it's a fill-in-the-gaps thing, and how far I could experiment with this story until most of their endings are justifiable satisfying/acceptable. There might be angst here and there, but it's there to contrast how far the story has come.

Further clarification, the political stand that Emi somehow had gotten herself into is just the butterfly effect of her interpersonal relationships with other people. It's not something she planned to do, she just happened to get close to the important people in passing because they're either work or friends she made along the way.