A/N:
Apparently getting sick enough to be forced out of my obligations allows me to spend whole hours writing. I kinda like it, but also — the physical suffering? Gross. Make it stop.
;
After crashing into a building, Emiya picked himself up from the ground, only to realise he had landed in the middle of a fight between the dark-haired martial master from earlier and a mob of transfigured humans.
To call the scene a fight was generous.
The dark-haired man tore through the mob like an unhinged wild animal. Juryoku was primarily energy controlled by the mind, without natural channels like magic circuits or the nerves of one's body to dictate its unconscious flow. The dark-haired man's soul had returned to a physical vessel by way of the old lady's jujutsu; however, the juryoku that had been actively maintaining the jujutsu had now dried up. The man's soul was now sitting in a vessel without an "electric current" to bridge instructions. The body genetically reflected his soul, but had no conscious direction except to target the nearest strongest opponent per the old lady's last command.
The man's soul could wrest control over its superficial vessel by way of complete focus, but this was mentally taxing and inefficient. He currently exemplified "incomplete" reincarnation.
Which created a new problem for Emiya: surrounded by transfigured humans, the counter guardian was the nearest strongest opponent around.
The dark-haired stranger whipped his head Emiya's way.
Shing!
Shing!
Shing!
Cold sweat lined Emiya's brow even as he cleanly deflected heavy swings of steel bars and bare knuckles. Against the dark-haired man, Emiya knew he couldn't risk employing a suicidal fighting style. The instant he'd give his opponent the slightest momentum, the dark-haired man would undoubtedly blow through him like a fired bullet. From the dark-haired man's brain down to his blood vessels, the man had physically restructured his new body to perform solely as a weapon where even breathing wasn't necessary to keep him alive. Emiya had to wonder what the man had been like in his first life, for his soul's basic design to default to kill-mode. If Emiya wanted a chance at surviving this encounter, he had to somehow talk his mindless opponent down.
Or, find the man someone stronger than Emiya to fight with.
While Emiya simultaneously defended himself and drew their skirmish towards the north, his mind raced. A saint graph was essentially the CPU that ran instructions to the body based on information from the soul; it was the bridging point that Emiya's incompletely reincarnated opponent needed. In past missions, Emiya had heard of external modifications of one's saint graph. Such procedures had been performed through the marriage of high-quality magecraft and cutting edge technology; neither of which Emiya was capable of nor had access to, but he had been exposed to the information all the same.
He wasn't a faker. He was the faker.
The only theoretical hurdle left was the fact that modifying a saint graph required a physical interface for an amateur like Emiya to touch, like a saint graph core. Even Emiya's expertise with gradation air couldn't touch the higher plane of true creation. If Emiya had to help the dark-haired man modify his saint graph to best suit him, the stranger first had to be fooled into already having one.
Enter the "map-territory relation."
This concept was summarised in the famous artwork, "This is not a pipe." Someone looking at the artwork would know it was merely a drawing of a pipe. However, their mind would automatically immerse itself, believing that a 2D artwork was an extension of reality. Thus, ink on paper would become a "pipe." Human beings had to consciously remove themselves from a medium like artwork to recognise the line between reality and imitation. If Emiya couldn't find a bystander who was stronger than him to distract his opponent, then he needed to convey the concept of a saint graph to his opponent instead.
How long could Emiya hold out for a distraction—? Never mind, he just had to go for it.
Ow.
Blood and a large chunk of Emiya's strength burst as the dark-haired man blew a hole through Emiya's chest, nicking his saint graph core. The dark-haired man's eyes widened at the sudden exposure to an active CPU; constant instructions of what Emiya's relative strength and spiritual aspects should be all leapt up at the dark-haired man like a live wire. Just as Emiya's suicidal fighting style promised, he simultaneously landed a retaliating blow on his opponent, piercing the dark-haired man's chest in the same location.
Instinctively, the dark-haired man reared back, even if his heart had shifted aside with his physical restructuring.
Emiya narrowed his gaze. Gotcha.
"Trace on!"
…
..
.
The dark-haired man's name was Fushiguro Touji. Emiya knew so, because the no longer mindless corpse wouldn't shut up.
"If you don't want me to kill you, at least give me a name."
In response, Emiya wordlessly pushed Touji towards the northern curtain. Touji gave him a look.
"For someone eager to tell me what to do, you're a silent guy."
Emiya didn't want anything from Touji after convincing him to not waste his second life on a weakling like Emiya. Touji was a reanimated corpse who could no longer contribute to mankind's consciousness. However, there was still a risk of Touji relaying information about magecraft to the living, so Emiya had to keep an eye on him. That or kill him, but with Touji fully reincarnated, Emiya doubted he could do so without revealing prana to all of Shibuya. At the moment, Touji was an indestructible anomaly Emiya had to bring along to work — an anomaly who naturally suspected ulterior motives from Emiya, and was trying to weasel them out of him by establishing trust. Emiya would've done the same in his position.
The curtain before them suddenly dissolved. A sudden stroke of good fortune?
Emiya's wariness sharpened, just as Touji abruptly perked up like a bloodhound and shot off for an underground mall complex.
"You—!" Emiya cursed.
He gave chase into a ruined mall where a small domed curtain — the outer layer of a domain expansion, Emiya's downloaded knowledge supplied — filled the mall's main lobby. The top of the dome cracked like an egg before Touji swiftly axe-kicked straight through it with a shatter. Emiya snatched thin air as Touji dove into the domain expansion where the man proceeded to brutally pulverise a curse with his bare fists and then a three-section staff. As agony and rage consumed the curse from losing to a "human with no juryoku," Emiya distantly wondered if forcibly calming down Touji through the manipulation of his saint graph had basically converted a pseudo-Berserker — Touji's incompletely reincarnated state — to a pseudo-Assassin — Touji's most natural, level-headed state. Evidently, no one including the curse's four original opponents could sense Touji's presence despite visually seeing him, and the curse had even erred in initially dismissing Touji's arrival. Emiya distantly recognised one of the four original opponents as the "Ino" shaman from earlier.
The elderly of the four original opponents suddenly leapt towards the hole in the dome's ceiling to support Touji's fight with a flash of a — film reel? Photograph? As if the elderly man had suspected that Touji would terrify his opponent enough into trying to flee.
Touji's scarred lip quirked at the curse's shrieking. "I might be a trashy father, but I ain't letting you touch my son!"
Emiya clicked his tongue.
Fwish—
BAM!
Three arrows suddenly speared the curse's body and slammed it into the domain's sandy shore. Emiya tossed his bow aside from where he stood at the edge of the domain's broken ceiling and "drew" Kanshou and Bakuya from over his shoulders.
The curse spat sand at Emiya as it recovered. "Human, this is the height of arrogance! You're attacking me with weapons that don't have juryoku? Those blades might as well be large sticks!"
Emiya chuckled humorlessly. "I've never been good at cursing anyone but myself. If I could create juryoku—"
Emiya seemingly teleported above the curse.
"—You would already be dead."
BOOM!
Snatch.
Touji whipped his head. "Hey—!"
Emiya leapt out of the domain with a grip on Touji's collar. "You can't tell your son anything about me."
"The world doesn't revolve around you, princess—!"
"YOU DARE TURN YOUR BACK ON ME!?"
The curse bulleted through the dissolving domain after Emiya as he dashed off with Touji. The dark-haired man twisted in Emiya's grip one moment, and was suddenly stabbing the curse with his staff the next. Emiya slammed his heels straight through reinforced concrete to brake hard, then pivoted back for his local headache. Emiya had no idea if Ino, the elderly man, or the teenage boy among the curse's original opponents was Touji's son — Emiya just needed to separate Touji from anyone he'd feel chatty with.
"Stop it, Fushiguro," Emiya snapped.
The teenager perked up. "Me?"
Touji tugged his sharpened staff out of the curse. "Stop complainin' — it's already dead!"
Emiya sprinted off with Touji in hand before the latter even finished. Behind them, a teenage voice cried out, shrinking with the distance Emiya put between them.
"Wait—!"
"Don't bother," an elderly voice distantly rebuked. "That man is too dangerous for us to be near."
"But how is his name also Fushiguro—?"
Emiya tightened his grip on Touji, reinforcing his body where the man kept rebelliously striking. "The dead aren't meant to lead the living. Especially a zombie like you."
Touji snapped a hand out, disabling Emiya by the funny bone. They stumbled to a stop somewhere deep in Shibuya station as they faced off, Emiya cradling his elbow with a pointed frown. Without entrusting prayers and the future to the living, one could not be a "heroic spirit." Similarly, existences like Emiya and Touji weren't meant to be leaders among the living. A long-dead man trying to build a relationship with his grown son was the height of meddling.
"How do you know how to do all that anyway?" Touji gestured. "Revivin' the dead sounds like a jujutsu, but you ain't usin' any."
Emiya flexed his numb arm. "You can tell?"
Touji grinned menacingly. "I got sharp senses."
Sharp enough to see energy that was as invisible as emotion? Right. Emiya definitely couldn't kill this man without using prana.
Touji's grin widened. "Am I scarin' you?"
Emiya straightened up with a dry voice. "I'm always scared."
Their heads whipped to the side where a man in dress shoes suddenly clacked into sight. The blonde stranger fixed his tie, then his goggles, then finally the cleaver sparking with juryoku in his hand. "…Curse users are even hiring mercenaries now, huh."
Emiya raised his hands. "They don't pay me enough to fight a shaman head-on."
The goggles glinted. "That staff is Zenin Maki's."
CLANG!
Emiya swiftly pincered the blonde as Touji defended against an unusually effective strike from the cleaver despite where it hit. The anomalous blows continued as Touji and Emiya found their strength crippled by perfectly ratioed swings. Touji and Emiya were still faster with a cut of the blonde's cheek and a crack of his goggles, but they seized the chance to recover their hold of their weapons as the blonde leapt back, tossing his shattered goggles away.
"I owe you one," the blonde directed at Emiya, likely marking him in charge over Touji given the stark difference in their armour. Touji was clad in a sweater. "I must tell you that I ordinarily suppress my juryoku to about 80-90% when I'm officially on the clock for work. Since I'm working overtime however, my juryoku is currently at 110-120% max capacity."
Emiya's brow twitched. Was gloating a genuine cursed technique?
The blonde was still talking. "My innate technique can further divide a target with ten lines and forcibly create a weak spot at the 7:3 ratio point. The target's lines don't have to match up with the target's length or wingspan. I can freely choose which part to divide, including the subject's head, torso, arms, and legs. This technique is also applicable to non-living objects."
Bakuya suddenly shattered in Emiya's hand.
Ah, so not gloating — just spitting facts.
Darkness immediately exploded in Emiya's face, narrowly redirected by Kanshou to instead fracture his ear with an instinctive strike at the blonde's blade closing in. Okay, what the hell!? That attack hadn't even been at a 7:3 ratio point!
"Black Flash!" Touji remarked as the dark-haired genius adjusted, exchanging fatal blows with the blonde in moves that Emiya had difficulty following. His vision subtly swam and his ear rang with a piercing shriek that hopefully didn't signal a concussion. "I'd only heard about it in theory! So this's how it feels like – good to know!"
Touji dodged an explosive attack and kicked the blonde through a wall.
None of the blonde's chatter from earlier had applied to the swing at Emiya — save perhaps the blonde's conditions for increased juryoku, which Emiya couldn't alter regardless without spontaneously controlling time itself. He shook his head, vision clearing in time to witness a curse with a volcanic head stroll into the scene.
It clicked its tongue, revealing ashen teeth, and raised a steaming hand. "Humans, shamans — you're all in my way."
Half of the mall space erupted into molten concrete, steel, and vapour before Emiya's eyes where he had leapt back from, and a quick scan of his surroundings confirmed Touji had also leapt clear of the attack. The blonde stranger hadn't fared as well, stumbling against a crumbling wall with half of his body boiling to death. The curse hadn't stopped walking, eventually vanishing through the steam for the direction Emiya had been running from with Touji in his grip. The sounds of battle instantly followed, along with desperate cries of an increasingly louder and familiar teenage voice.
Emiya warily eyed Touji as the dark-haired man strode over to their blonde opponent. Touji ponderously hummed at the blonde's skin stitching closed under a burnt suit, before glancing back at Emiya.
"You doing this?"
Emiya hesitated.
Touji rolled his head to the side, neck cracking. "I mean, is this some sorta binding vow? You revive people from the dead, and we gotta help you do whatever?"
A binding vow?
Touji lazily glanced in the volcanic curse's direction, not fooling Emiya. The dark-haired man was itching to rescue his son, but wanted to have a clear grasp of Emiya's ability to hinder him first.
The blonde suddenly groaned awake at Touji's feet. "Well your vow certainly isn't Revealing One's Hand." The stranger slowly peered up at Emiya. "Nanami Kento. You are?"
Nanami had sworn to Emiya that he'd owe the counter guardian if Emiya listened to what Nanami had to say. Then Nanami had made the binding vow likely called "Revealing One's Hand" to reveal how his jujutsu worked in exchange for increasing its effectiveness.
This had ended up saving Nanami's life.
The shaman had essentially made a pact with a part of the Counter Force for more power.
It hadn't been an agreement to become a counter guardian after death, like an Emiya Shirou had once sworn. However, Nanami had promised his future to Alaya; a future of someone whose time of death had passed, of someone who should have been dead already. If a comparison was to be had, then Nanami had become similar to Okita Alter when she had been alive. In a rare timeline, Okita Souji's sister had prayed for baby Okita to be cured of a terminal illness, in exchange for promising Okita's future to the Counter Force. Thus, this alternate Okita had been able to reach the pinnacle of Okita Souji's potential, and become a counter guardian after death.
Nanami was now someone whose continued survival from a terminal condition was tied to the Counter Force. The grey area he walked meant Emiya's impression on Nanami couldn't impact mankind's consciousness.
However, this would only last while the sworn part of the Counter Force, Emiya, was around. Which meant Nanami had to die before Emiya left this timeline.
Emiya jerked his chin where Touji was already blurring away to save his son. "Make sure he doesn't mention my technique to anyone."
Nanami stood up. The two of them held tense eye contact before the blonde eventually ran after Touji, his cleaver flaring with juryoku. So long as there were curses to kill, it seemed the shaman was content to play nice — for now. Emiya's senses as a counter guardian tugged him the opposite direction towards his mission target, yet he materialised his bow and carefully drew closer to the distant battle to keep an eye on his two charges. Hopefully they would die in this battle.
X
They did not die.
Nanami, Touji, Touji's son, Ino, the old man, and the girl with them all fought the volcanic curse until they finally destroyed it and a quarter of Shibuya Station. Since Nanami was someone whom mankind recognised should have been dead already if not for the pact he had made with Emiya, the weight of death thus hung over him, contributing to a sudden cap increase to his juryoku. If the blonde had been annoying with his overtime nonsense, he had been dancing alongside Touji against Mr. Mount Fuji. Even Emiya had intervened with his bow and arrows when the fight had risked destroying the entire train station. He still had a job to do somewhere in it.
Touji straightened up from rubble and shouted at Emiya. "Hey, red mantle! The curse sensed Sukuna's fingers that way – we're gonna go hunt 'em down!"
"You two aren't," Emiya snapped.
The martial artist frowned. "It'll be a hella good fight!"
Maybe, but Touji clearly just wanted to protect his son who was the one invested in some fingers. Nanami limped towards Emiya, shoulder-checking Touji who was the only one to leave the last battle mostly unscathed.
"I intend to stay alive long enough to secure Shibuya," Nanami muttered, meeting Emiya's gaze. "What do you need us to do?"
Emiya pivoted. "Follow me and don't get in my way – and don't talk to minors."
Touji frowned, grudgingly following the two of them. "Whatever. Take care of yourself, son."
The teenager spluttered. "Why do you keep calling me that––?"
Emiya grabbed Touji and Nanami by the collar as soon as they were close enough, and darted off to where his instincts were drawing him. "The dead aren't meant––"
"To lead the living, yeah yeah," Touji finished, striking at Emiya's funny bone. Emiya dropped Touji and Nanami before the blow could land, slowing down to top human speeds instead of superhuman speeds to make sure they were following him. Emiya's narrowed glances in their direction kept them warily on his tail. "I dunno about the logic behind your technique, but it's obviously got a lotta conditions. Not very useful."
Nanami winced from his injuries as he ran. "You can revive the dead, but you can't control them?"
"Meh," Touji reacted. "He cut the bloodlust outta me."
"And yet you're eager to see what else he can do?" Nanami deadpanned. "I can sense it; he's empowering me with more juryoku than I usually have. His jujutsu resembles another I've encountered: transfiguration of souls. However, I can barely sense any juryoku in him."
Emiya said nothing.
Alaya was preventing his soul's decay by binding his soul to a magic core for a vessel, then constantly feeding it prana like a magus would for a Servant. Since Emiya Shirou hadn't had juryoku when he had been alive, Emiya's soul didn't have the information for his current vessel to be able to generate juryoku. To fit in, Alaya was also naturally feeding Emiya enough juryoku to pass as a local of his mission world – but only that much. Emiya's boss believed in minimum effort. In shamans' eyes, Emiya possessed as much juryoku as the girl named Maki – possibly less, but not zero like Touji. Ironically, that would have made Emiya stand out.
Touji jabbed a finger. "Hold on, you're empowering blondie but you ain't givin' me any boosts?"
Nanami eyed him. "Can you use juryoku?"
"Nah, but that ain't the point!"
Nanami was apparently toeing the line of etiquette with Emiya, not eager to suddenly drop dead at Emiya's will, while Touji expressed his wariness in a cruder, less obvious manner. Regardless of their personalities, they both suddenly froze just as Emiya hastily halted, Kanshou flying. A monk with stitches across his forehead paused where he was ascending a stalled escalator.
Shluuk!
The falchion severed the monk's neck, boomeranging back into Emiya's hand as he raised Bakuya and leapt forward. The monk's reaction speed had seen his head not completely severed, allowing the monk to settle it back on his shoulders at the same time he summoned a mass of curses he threw at Emiya.
Behind him, Nanami remarked, "Getou Suguru?"
So that was Alaya's target. Emiya cut the curses down but not out, redirecting them past him for Touji and Nanami to survive against on their own. Emiya flipped and landed at the top of the escalator where Getou froze just one step below out of Emiya's reach.
"I don't get it," Emiya muttered.
Getou mutely watched him.
Emiya frowned. If Alaya had wanted Getou dead, Emiya would have been sent to kill Getou as a baby. So why now…?
Grey eyes flicked past Getou in a vague direction. With Getou and the pink-haired boy named Itadori in a certain vicinity of each other, Emiya could sense it, fainter than spider silk in the dark:
Resonance.
In a paradox where the same soul existed in reality twice, the soul's duplicates would attune to each other as naturally as both eyes closing when a person blinked. Even if two eyes saw different perspectives, they still functioned as "one" to feed the brain the "same" vision. It had happened when Emiya Shirou and EMIYA had participated in the Holy Grail War at the same time, allowing Shirou to acquire Emiya's knowledge and skills. The paradox had in fact been Emiya's reason for being summoned: "Emiya Shirou" killing "himself" would have created an even greater paradox so as to utterly destroy Emiya Shirou's existence and free Emiya from Alaya's contract.
Yet Emiya could sense it now, between Getou and Itadori. It wasn't a true paradox like them being the "same" soul. However, compared to indistinct negative emotions which could come from anyone, Getou and Itadori shared an emotional haecceity. If they were to kill each other, Emiya suspected they would experience a flow of knowledge similar to how Emiya and Shirou's had been.
A flash of insight.
A quicksilver thought.
A memory that had never happened.
Or….
Emiya's grey eyes refocused from the brief rumination. So that was how it was. The soul in Getou was fated to die. However, if it had been killed prematurely, then the Itadori kid would have never existed as he did now.
Somehow, Getou caught the understanding in Emiya's eyes. A sharp, humourless grin split his face. "You can actually tell? I have to give you props for that."
Emiya wasn't sure what the curse user was referring to. The safest bet was to avoid confirming or denying it.
"You're not one of mine," Getou continued, juryoku spiking from him. "A parent knows these things – so while your skills are impressive, you have no role in my plans."
Shing––
BAM!
Touji's three-section staff – Playful Cloud, a cursed tool, special grade – lanced Getou's neck, before Emiya tore the traced weapon across the stiff tissue and sent Getou's head flying into the swarm of curses. Emiya hadn't held back in strength or speed – he could always attribute his work to Touji – but to be sure, he needed to find Getou's head and see with his eyes that it was as dead as Getou's headless corpse tumbling down the escalator. A box riddled with eyes slipped out of the monk's clothes to Nanami's feet before the bloody blonde hastily picked it up between swings of his cleaver. Touji scared off the rest of the curses while Emiya dismissed his traced staff and swiftly joined them.
"Did you see a severed head?" Emiya sharply questioned.
Nanami and Touji blinked, turning to look at the sea of fleeing curses. Rubble and rubbish trailed after the curses where a head would've easily been caught up in the mob. Emiya's intuition nudged him in the same direction. He sheathed Kanshou and Bakuya to grab at Touji and Nanami, but the two men were already running after the mob, visibly resistant to Emiya's style of transportation.
BOOM-M-M!
The train station around them suddenly shook, entire floors collapsing overhead to reveal the night sky.
The outermost curtain had fallen, and Emiya could hear the sounds of fighting in the distance. Based on the battle cries, shamans and curse users were engaged in an all-out war. Nanami slumped against a wall, his adrenaline no longer able to sustain his heavily-injured body, and Touji slung his Playful Cloud over his shoulders to crouch down and peer at the box in the blonde's hand. Emiya quickly scanned their body language, determining they weren't going anywhere for now, and turned for where his intuition pointed.
"Stay," Emiya commanded, then leapt to the surface.
Sure enough, his hawkeye noted curse users – led by a pair of twins – fighting other curse users, while Itadori, Touji's son, and a variety of shamans including a panda were simply fighting everyone. Emiya's intuition instantly split directions the moment he reached the surface, lighting up irritation in his chest. Where did Alaya want him to go now? Hadn't he accomplished his mission? All he needed to find was a severed head!
A bell-like voice sang out from above. "We reaaaaaally messed up this time, Emiya."
He whipped his head around.
What the…?
"Majin," he identified.
Atop a squat, ruined office building, Majin Okita Souji peered down at him with one thigh-high boot crossed over the other.
She hummed. "You know that doesn't count, right?"
Emiya frowned. "I solved this one without being 'perceived' by the people of this world. If I've truly failed, then I'll be sent to another timeline to clean up my mess."
Okita coughed. "Ah. See, that stitched-forehead guy was actually my mess. Your target is somewhere else."
Emiya froze.
"But don't worry!" Okita waved her hands in front of her. "I was keeping an eye on your target, just for you! Besides, you know how it is. We're two white blood cells! Alaya sends us in the general direction of the problem and expects us to just solve everything on our own."
Emiya stared hard at the ground, eventually succumbing to his awful luck. It was true that counter guardians preferred completing their mission in one go, else they risked entering a vastly more difficult scenario. Case in point, Okita's clean-up overlapping with Emiya's mission.
He grudgingly turned to look up at her. "Where is my target?"
Okita shrugged. "I was keeping an eye on him. Then I found you with my target."
"You fell asleep."
"No I didn't!" Okita's face flushed with transparent embarrassment. "Besides, you're quick on the uptake, Emiya. You'll find him eventually."
With swan-like grace, Okita swung her legs and leapt off the building in an arc, landing effortlessly on her nine-inch platform boots. She hefted a sheathed Rengoku over her shoulder and shot Emiya a confident look.
"I didn't fall asleep!"
Emiya crossed his arms. "You're going out like that?"
Okita stammered with the sudden digression. "T-There's a reason that Stitches – errr, Kenjaku had originally been my target. If I'm noticed by the people of this timeline, I'll just be a curse with a stunning resemblance to Okita Souji. Except I'm taller and bustier."
Emiya let the last comment pass. This version of Okita Souji had also insisted she be called "Ms. Majin." Considering Emiya preferred to be called "Emiya" if anything at all, he accepted the alternate Okita's new name. People who became counter guardians weren't the kind to have lingering attachments to whoever they had been while alive. Even now, Alaya always summoned Okita to a mission world with a deteriorating saint graph that would slowly, eventually self-destruct as a fail-safe, so that Okita could never fail as a counter guardian.
Even if it meant sinking a city into the sea.
With any witnesses eliminated in the explosion, the status quo would dismiss the event as a natural disaster like the destruction of Krakatoa. Emiya could also sense significant juryoku in Okita as if the weight of death over her was defining her, disguising her as a curse or a transfigured human. At least Alaya helped somewhat.
"How did you do it?" Emiya asked. "Mess up?"
Okita blushed furiously. "I-It's all the Six-Eyed user's fault! I tried my best!"
Emiya nodded in loose understanding. Okita had influenced someone with an ocular jujutsu to kill Kenjaku, thus obeying the rule that counter guardians couldn't leave an impression on humanity. However, since this had not resulted in Kenjaku's certain death, Okita's mission hadn't ended. Unfortunately, Emiya didn't know if he could employ the same strategy for his own mission.
Okita stomped her foot. "Kenjaku is an exception to the rule that people die when they are killed. Ugh! This time, I'm gonna kill him until he dies to death!"
"So who's my target?"
"Won't you show some sympathy!?" Okita slumped in surrender, gesturing where her own intuition pointed. "Your target's a curse with way more stitches than Kenjaku, you can't miss him. Promise! He's somewhere over…there…."
The two directions of Emiya's intuition suddenly converged as a distant figure plummeted into the ground.
Okita winced. "Ehe…?"
Emiya caught his head just as all of Shibuya suddenly erupted into a massive earthquake, toppling entire skyscrape̴rs and cutting off surrounding battles. Juryoku flared where Okita had pointed, signalļing the arrival of – transfiġured humans? Curse users? Shamans? – at the epicentre and even more joining in. A massive battle was consuming northern Shibuy̵̏a. Emiya barely noticed it as his internal missɨon compass went haywire. Had Okita's target killed Emiya's? If so, wḩy hadn't Alaya recalled him yet?
He distantly heard Okita panic. "Yikes, Stitches is going at it! I've gotta go!"
Emiya felt nauseous. He didn't recognise these sym̵̟̭͗͋̍ptoms from Alaya. Had his mission param̸͎̠͋̀e̵ters change̴͝d? Despite his splitting migraine, Emiya focused on the paǐ̴̦̠̝̃n̴̜̈, pin-pointing its origin.
No̴̐rth…?
Sout̴͇̘̞̦̽̂̓͝ḧ̴̢͎͔͓…?
No.
Ţ̶̱̬̘̹͖̖̦̞̥͔̎͌̎͋̃͗̓̊̌̓́̉͊̽̕h̷̡̛̛̪̩͍̤̞̲͍̬̞͚͚͇͈̭̍̎̒̕̕e̷̛͔͌̔̓̈́̓͌̎̔̍́̕͜͠͠ ̵̧̟̯̘̮̠͙̘͇̬̯̉̾̀̃͒̅̇͐͊̊̂̇̐̚͝ͅt̷̡̨̮̣͈͎̼͍̆͐̈́̇̾́́̚͝a̴̛̩̮̘̗͍̬̣̟͆̔͊̒̉̾͂̒̋r̶̯͎͓̰̲̪̘̹̦̳̯̣͔͎̓͝ͅg̸̛̦͕̦̙̩̫̉͗e̶̢̫̘͓͉̟̝̜̳͌̊̊̓͛̌͌̊̅̊͐̂͠͠t̶̘͇̼̼̳̻̒͠ ̷̹̠̰̹̦͖̠͈̣̻̞̇́́́̊͊͑̓̃́̃̍̄͝ͅh̵̹̥͇̮̠̭̙͎̘̼̳͎͑̕͠ạ̷̡̫̝̹͍̪͖͈̦̞̖̗̜̈́͠ͅḑ̴̛̛̞̘͆̎͆̃̂͑̓̒̒ ̴̧̻͖̼͎̽̊̉e̷̪͖͗̓̀͋͌̾͌͐̄̚͝v̷̪͕̰̹̇̔̉͐o̸̜̭̘̙̖̬̯̓̇ļ̸͉̱͇̟̿͂̉̏͒͗̅͂̐͑͌v̸̢̛͕͕̪̜̺͕̪͕͓̜̀̃͐̄̿̔̓e̶̢̜̜̞͇̜̠̅͗̀͊̎̃̽̏̾̃͘͠d̶̛͕̫̯̟̿̑͑́̚̕͝͠.̵̡̜͉̬̹̝̪̭͈̯̪̯̭̤͒
"Hey!"
"What's wrong!?"
Hands shook Emiya's shoulders, drawing his mind out of his head. His eyes registered Touji and Nanami shouting at him while a battle between curse users, shamans, and curses ramped up in the distance. Nanami was still clutching the strange box.
Emiya shakily pointed. "If you intend to pass that off to a shaman…do it soon."
Touji pinched Emiya's ear, forcibly grounding him in the present. "I don't plan on wastefully dying a second time! What do ya need to stay conscious!? Are you losin' it!?"
"Nanami-saaan!"
A teenage girl with a woman in a suit propped up against her was slowly limping their way. Nanami straightened, lips pursed and mind visibly racing. "Kugisaki-kun, take Gojou-san's prison and head south. Ieiri-san should be there. I have to go!"
The box went sailing the girl's way while Touji threw Emiya over his shoulder. "Keep that zombie jujutsu of yours maintained, red mantle! Stay awake!"
Nanami reached out and Touji grabbed his arm, before bulleting off to the east, far from any transfigured human, curse user, or shaman. Emiya bodily winced as the source of his frayed intuition began to solidify. His target must have shifted from a person…
…To an area, an effect.
An idea.
X
X
Codex entry: Threats Against Mankind
Humans who qualify to serve the Counter Force must act within the boundaries or "rules" of a counter guardian after their death. Any deviation from the rules results in a counter guardian's reassignment or relocation.
The second rule of a counter guardian is:
2. Eliminate threats against mankind's continued existence.
Alaya judges anything that risks mankind's extinction as a threat. This can be an individual who will grow up into a dictator, or an event that will bud into a nuclear holocaust. Alaya usually acts indirectly by nudging humans into place to neutralise the threat, or by empowering humans who are opposing it. A series of "coincidences," for example, might clear up a doctor's path to finding a cure against a plague. However, when indirect intervention is too risky, Alaya enlists a physical agent such as a counter guardian to deal with the threat.
When a counter guardian is summoned, the threat is by definition too far along to be neutralised by safe means. So long as the other rules of a counter guardian are observed, a counter guardian is permitted to destroy a threat's surroundings along with it. For example, if Alaya is threatened by the existence of Japan, a counter guardian is allowed to sink the entire country.
;
A/N:
Emiya: i can't leave an impression on the living
Nanami & Touji: i've been dead inside for years
Yeah, Touji has self-suggestion. It helps me visualise how terrifying Void Shiki would be if she popped up. Imagine if Touji had a sight that surpassed Six-Eyes — in JJK, there would be no story. In Type Moon, there would be eight movies and an OVA.
Is Okita Alter livelier than usual? Yes. Not all the counter guardians should be gloomy. *Side-eyes…all of them*
Changes from canon:
^ Ino didn't suffer an injury at the tower and Megumi thus didn't have to bring him to Shouko. Megumi and Ino chose to hunt Emiya down for possibly more curtain pins while Yuuji went ahead to look for Gojou's prison. Megumi and Ino ended up in Naobito and Maki's fight against Dagon. So far as Team Ino's concerned, the curse users (including Emiya) at the skyscraper had a falling out.
^ Touji didn't drag Megumi aside for a fight. Touji didn't kill himself, and Megumi didn't summon Mahoraga.
^ Team Zenin survived their encounter with Jougo, who died. Team Zenin plus Ino then interrupted the twins before they could feed Sukuna's fingers to Yuuji. A battle of the twins vs. Team Zenin, Ino, and Yuuji began.
^ Members of Getou's cult came across not only Kusakabe and Panda, but also Team Zenin, Ino, and Yuuji fighting the twins. The battle grew to consume all nearby members of Getou's cult, against all nearby Jujutsu Tech-affiliated shamans (including those from Kyoto), and all curse users unfortunate enough to be in the way. Yuuji never lost control to Sukuna.
^ Mahito discovered Yuuji's location due to the battle and tried to kill him, evolving the battle into "Cult vs. Curse users vs. Curses vs. Shamans." Mahito never killed Nanami or fought Nobara. The pin maintaining the outermost curtain* shattered due to the battle, revealing the events to the outside world and restoring Shibuya's cell reception.
^ Nobara and Akari delivered Gojou's prison to Shouko. Team Jujutsu Tech acquired Sukuna's fingers from the twins to feed to Yuuji slowly, not all at once like the twins intended.
*I don't clearly remember how this curtain came down, and neither do you. If you saw any grammatical errors in this fic, no you didn't. I'm surprised by this chapter's quality given I'm currently a walking stuffy-nosed headache high on cold medicine. I think this chapter is "quality" but I also feel like God and I'm probably going to come back to this and cringe at my past self.
It seemed like a good idea, Future Me. What can I say.
Thanks for reading!