Tempest in Time

by 12thNightProject

Nearly seven years prior to the Honno-ji incident, a wormhole swept adrenaline junkie Katsuko and her brother Toshiie into Sengoku Japan. After an attack by bandits, the two are separated and Toshiie disappears. Katsuko is taken into the household of the enigmatic Yamaoka Akihira - initially as a maid. But Katsuko has other ideas. (Prologue for all routes).

O time, thou must untangle this, not I. It is too hard a knot for me t'untie.

-William Shakespeare, Twelfth Night

"Did you repair the drone?" I didn't bother with a greeting.

Toshiie remedied my omission. "Hello. How was your week? I've missed you." His snark burned through the 4G network. You've heard those stories of exploding telephones? If sarcasm could explode a phone, my brother would have killed three of mine already. "And yes, it's fixed."

I impatiently picked at my toenail while I went through the niceties with my twin. "Sorry. Hello. How was your week? I've missed you." I had missed him, actually.

"Someone threw up in bio lab. That was the highlight."

"Ew." And he likely wasn't being sarcastic. Knowing Tosh, it might have truly been the highlight of his week. He was studying nursing, with an eye to someday going to Medical School, so vomit and bodies never bothered him. As a perpetually overworked student, his life was the lab, homework, and sleep.

Good thing he had me to break him out of his patterns. "Just dropped a pin to your phone – can you meet me there in an hour? Bring the drone."

A loud sigh attacked my eardrum. "Katsuko, I have exams to study for. So do you."

I was half-heartedly studying physical therapy. Very half-heartedly. These days there wasn't much I was doing full hearted. Except…

"Please, please, please!" I had already changed from the outfit I had worn to class that morning, into sports bra, tank, and sweats. I stuck the phone between my ear and my shoulder, so I could I tape up my wrists. I knew Tosh wouldn't turn me down.

"Fine. See you in sixty."

This time, Tosh was the one who skipped the greeting, hanging up without a goodbye. That's typical of us. I hate saying hello. Tosh hates goodbye.

Sixty minutes was enough time to grab my beloved blue hoodie, my phone, a couple bottles of water, and some vegan power bars. I stuffed them all in my backpack, and ran out the door…

... and ran back in to grab my IC card.

As I dashed out the building again, I bundled my turquoise streaked hair in a messy tail, IC card clenched in my teeth as I chased down the bus.

In less than an hour, I was warming up in front of a three-story building, plotting out my route.

Tosh was late, as usual. I sometimes teased him about living on Toshiie time, but I was used to building an extra ten minutes into a schedule if I really needed him to be punctual. Ah, there he was. I watched him park his moped, then jog down the sidewalk, ignoring the admiring glances he was drawing from men and women alike.

You know how in some families, one kid gets the looks, and one kid gets the brains? Beautiful, brilliant Toshiie got both.

Me? I got the –

Thwack!

I winced as Tosh tripped over air.

-Coordination.

He stumbled a few steps toward me. I rushed forward to rescue his gear bag, knowing it was full of expensive camera equipment.

"Oh sure, save the bag, let your brother fall on his face," Tosh grumbled.

"You just got this fixed from the last time." I unpacked the drone.

He nodded, seeing my point. "What's your route?"

I gestured to a series of railings, the exterior stairs, and the roof. "If you can, get hand-held for a wide angle, and send the drone above. Once I'm on the roof, meet me behind the building – there's a park, and get ready to track my descent."

I didn't expand any further. What's the phrase – it's better to ask for forgiveness than permission?"

I finished warming up, then centered myself with a handstand while Tosh set up the cameras. Once he gave me a thumbs up, I flipped back to my feet and took off…

It's called Freerunning. That use of obstacles to propel yourself through space, using your hands, feet and the environment as you nearly fly up, down, across, and under the landscape. Martial artists might call it by the French term, parkour, but I love the word freerunning. Free running.

Running free.

I hopped from one railing to another, balancing briefly on metal as I jumped over the side of the stairwell, then bounced to the wall of the next landing – zig zagging up levels until I flipped onto the roof. With a handspring for extra flair, I zipped across the rooftop.

When I was little, my mother, "exhausted" (her word) by my bouncing around our apartment, enrolled me in artistic gymnastics. That was fun for a few years, but I got bored with all the rules. Now, it's me and the sky.

In winter, that means snowboarding every chance I get. In summer?

Running free.

At the other end of the rooftop, a metal safety rail lined the edge. I jumped up on the railing and impulsively tried a handstand and – I caught an odd glance of something wavering in the corner of my eye, almost like the horizon was put together unevenly, no, that must have been the drone in my peripheral vision— I shook my head to clear it, then-

Whoa! Ok. Balance check there. That could have been bad… but what a rush!

Off I went again, ricocheting between the walls of the two buildings, and somersaulting into the park. I vaulted over the railing, jumped up to catch a bar of the jungle gym, using momentum to swing to another bar before throwing myself toward the soft sand at the end.

Out of breath, I slammed a water while Tosh recalled the drone and played back the footage.

"Fuck!" He was frowning into the camera.

"What, didn't it record?" I rested my chin on his shoulder to peer at the replay. It looked like it recorded. It was already uploaded to the cloud, in fact.

"It recorded." He rewound the video to the moment where it looked like I had almost fallen off the roof railing. "Katsuko – you could have been killed."

"I wasn't, though." I broke into my energy bar stash and offered him one.

He pushed it away. "I'm done."

I didn't pretend to misunderstand. "Wait. Don't. I'm sorry."

"No, you're not." But he hugged me in spite of his harsh tone. "I can't keep watching you chase death."

"Stop it. I'm not like that." I'm not like her. "That's not what I'm doing."

"What are you doing?"

"I…I don't know." It was the truth. All I knew is that I had to keep running, or there would come a day when I wouldn't be able to get out of bed. "Let's get out of here."

I didn't have to specify where. When Toshiie and I needed a place to talk or to think, or both, we'd head out to the Togakushi Shrine area. It was the one place that seemed to speak to both of us, although I knew that Tosh preferred the shrines, while I was happiest on the trails.

We took his bike out to the shrine, and once there, walked quietly through the 400 year old cedar trees that marked the path to the upper shrine. Finally he asked, "If I begged you to stop, could you?"

"What is this? An intervention? It's not like I'm an addict."

"I think you kind of are, actually."

Seriously? His Introduction to Psychology course was going to his head. But I knew that he meant every word. "Wait, ok, how about this. I'll stop taking extreme risks, ok?" I could do that. At least I wouldn't take any risks if he was watching. In a few months, when the mountains were covered with snow, I'd take my board out to X-JAM as often as possible, and scratch my risk-taking itch on the half-pipe. So… really, I only had to behave through the rest of summer and fall.

CRASH! BOOM!

Distracted by our discussion, we hadn't noticed the weather changing, until the crackle of lightning startled both of us. Within minutes, rain was pouring buckets.

I hurried to put on my hoodie, while Tosh tried to keep the rain off his camera rig.

"Once again, the weather forecast was completely wrong," he muttered.

I love storms. Something about the electricity in the air makes me feel more alive. I tilted my face to the sky and –

"That's weird."

"It's water, doofus." Getting rained on makes Tosh cranky.

"Tosh, have you ever seen a fog bank in a storm?"

"What are you -?" He finally looked up from his camera. "You're right. This is weird."

It was still thundering and lightning, but the rain had turned to a thick soupy fog that blotted out almost all light, the seeped around and into my body. We were fading, becoming as unsubstantial as the mist that poured through us.

Tosh raised his hand. It looked translucent. "What the hell?!" His words came out as a whisper, as if the fog had invaded his throat.

I felt dizzy and ill, like the time after I broke my ankle and had had an allergic reaction to the anesthesia. Tosh grabbed onto me, his arms spasmed around my back. I closed my eyes and buried my face in Tosh's shoulder. I could feel he was shaking, or maybe that was me, and then-

THUNK. The two of us crashed onto the ground, onto a carpet of what smelled like pine needles?

I cautiously opened my eyes. Yep. Pine needles. The storm had passed as quickly as it had begun, and the sun was as bright as midday, though it had to be close to eight or nine p.m. But in the bright sunlight, I felt cold. And… was that sn-?

"Snow?" Tosh held his hand out to the swirling flakes.

I shivered – my hoodie was not nearly warm enough. But I was better off than Tosh in his windbreaker. "But, it's summer," was all I could think to say. I rubbed my hands together. "Reverse global warming?"

"Actually global warming has been known to cause odd weather patterns," Tosh said absently as he fiddled with his phone. "No bars."

I got mine out. Nope. No bars, no GPS.

Something else seemed… eerie. It was silence. The daily hum of electricity, distant traffic, airplanes, that background white noise was all the more conspicuous for its absence.

"The footpath is gone," Tosh noted.

"So are the cedar trees." We were still in a forest of sort, but the comforting presence of the giant cedars was no longer there.

"Theory?" I asked. In the back of my head was a rather loud voice telling me that there had been an apocalypse and we were both dead. Funny, after spending the last year of my life not caring whether or not I lived or died, now that the possibility was in front of me, I really hoped I wasn't dead.

"I got three. Apocalypse – like the snap in The Infinity Gauntlet."

So he was on the same mental path that I was. But were we victims of the snap, or the only ones left behind? "Or…?"

"Or maybe we've somehow slipped into a different version of our universe? Or, maybe it's something simpler. One of us is dreaming."

"You couldn't have led with the theory that doesn't involve mass death?"

Tosh shrugged. "I went with the bad news fir-"

"Shhh!" I put my hand over his mouth.

What was that noise? The clang of metal. Harsh voices… hoofbeats… horses? Tosh and I held still, unsure whether this new twist was an improvement or was about to make things worse?

A group of men in armor – dressed as samurai?! – burst out of the trees, brandishing swords and pikes.

"Whoa. Someone's LARP group is uber committed," Tosh muttered.

The person who appeared to be their leader barked something at us, but their dialect and accent was harsh and unfamiliar. I wasn't entirely sure what they were saying. But the gist was something along the lines of robbery and enslavement… I think…? Tosh and I looked at each other, and wordlessly decided that our best bet was to run.

Unfortunately, immediate danger didn't make Tosh any less clumsy. He went sprawling over a log, and while I was trying to help him to his feet we were surrounded.

"Tosh, do you understand what they are saying?" I whispered.

"I think they want to sell us… to the namban?"

I had no idea what the namban was or why it wanted buy people, but they were examining us like merchandise, so that was probably the correct interpretation. They pulled my hair out of its ponytail, marveling over the turquoise streaks, which apparently meant they could get more money for me?

That's enough! When one of them checked my teeth, I bit him. That earned me a hard punch to the stomach. Another man was fascinated by the zipper on my hoodie. When he managed to unzip it and got a look at my thin tank top, he muttered, "Woman."

Alright, the good news at least is that I was developing a better ear for their dialect. The bad news was that I didn't actually want to know what they planned to do with a female prisoner. When the leader came in to take a closer examination of my body, I reacted instinctively and kicked out. I saw the punch coming at me a moment before I felt it… then I blacked out.

What brought me back to consciousness was the sensation of cold and damp - I had been dumped into a snow bank. I heard sounds of fighting, and I opened my eyes. The apparent leader of the bandit gang was fighting with an old man (said "old man" would, if he could hear me, object to me characterizing him that way, but in that moment, he seemed quite elderly). The old man had amazing fighting abilities, whirling and punching with a spear.

In no time, my captor was groaning on the ground, his leg bent at an odd angle.

"Come on child," my rescuer said as he wrapped me up in a warm cloak. "You'll catch your death of cold."

"Wait. Where are the others?" Where's Toshiie?

"Others? There was this one man and you." The man gave a shrill whistle, and a horse whinnied in the distance, then trotted up to us.

I explained what had happened with the bandits. "The rest of them must still have my brother. We have to go back to get him."

"They're long gone by now," the man muttered. But he took me up on his horse, and we headed back through the trees. His prediction was correct though – they were long gone.

"Is there a way to track them?" I asked. If this man could fight, then maybe he could-

"Not in this storm." The snow had increased from light cotton balls to a swirling curtain of fat flakes. I shuddered, partially from the cold, partially from the fear that this was another storm that would pick me up and dump me somewhere else. Somewhere worse, than wherever here was. I flinched from the thought of what would be worse than armed bandits who wanted to sell me into slavery.

Dinosaurs. Dinosaurs would be worse.

After a long, and very cold ride we arrived at my rescuer's home near the top of the mountain. The storm was raging, and my teeth were chattering by the time we arrived. He gave my outfit a critical look. "Do you have any other clothing? Anything more suited for a woman?"

"No. When I left my – home – this afternoon, I expected to return in a couple hours."

He helped me down – my legs had gotten cramped and stiff during the ride. "Where is your home? When the storm ends, I can send one of my apprentices to take you back."

"It's not going to be that simple," I said, after getting a good look at a building that looked like it had been constructed recently – but it was an architectural style that I recognized from samurai houses that I had visited on school trips. That, along with the evidence of the missing cedar trees, and the men in armor, was leading me to a conclusion that I wouldn't have believed if I hadn't been in the middle of it.

But to announce that I was from a few hundred years in the future seemed to me to be the fastest way to get a one-way ticket to whatever this era's version of a psychiatric hold was, so, instead, I simply said, "Our home was destroyed by the storm."

He gave me the universal "I don't believe you," look, but he didn't press the issue. In the years since, I have never told Yamaoka Akihira (that's his name, but he lets us call him Aki) the truth about where I came from, but I've also managed, thanks to him, to become a much better liar.

"Alright," he finally said, as we entered his house. "Do you have anywhere else to go?"

"No," I said, grateful that I was out of the wind and snow, and not particularly interested in going back outside.

He rubbed his chin – a gesture that I've since come to recognize as his only "tell" that he's calculating out several moves in an extended mental shogi game, before saying, "I suppose it's a good thing that I hadn't yet found a new maid."

Maid… I mentally grumbled to myself, several weeks later as I scrubbed the floor of the training building, while his student/apprentices – three young men about my age – drilled with each other and Aki in hand to hand combat.

I wasn't sure what was the worst thing about being a housemaid – the work itself, which was an unending cycle of floors, dusting, cleaning, cooking, and then floors again – or the utter tedium of it all.

I stared idly at the young men – Iekane, Takauji, and Okitane – while their training switched from hand to hand, to swordsmanship. Iekane looked in our direction and winked.

My fellow maid, Niwa, sighed. "They're so handsome."

"Eh, I suppose." Iekane, with his floppy dark hair and easy smile was pretty hot, and the other two were definitely built. Although in my ill-fitting maid's clothing and hacked up hair (Fume, the chatelaine, had ruthlessly chopped the "devil's" turquoise streaks out of it) I couldn't imagine that any of them would be interested in me. Anyway, I was more envious of their freedom to fight and run, while Niwa and I were stuck –

"Aren't you girls finished yet?" Stop flirting with the boys and come help in the kitchen!" Fume came out to chide us both.

Ok. Fume was the worst thing about being a housemaid. Not only did she chop off my hair, but she refused to use my name, telling me that "Katsuko" was too grand a name for a maid. To Fume, I was "Kaya," if she wanted my attention, or "that devil girl" if she was talking about me behind my back. She never abused me, but I was constantly aware of her disapproval.

She was glaring at me, unfairly, because I hadn't been the one flirting.

Niwa giggled some more, but I felt myself flush with resentment. I didn't want to flirt with "the boys," but I did want to play alongside them - especially when they got to work out on an apparatus that trained them to climb walls, swing on beams across the ceiling, and flip down again.

I can do that better, I thought to myself when Takauji stumbled and fell on his climb down.

"Girls," Fume warned.

With one last look at the apparatus, I picked up my rags, and retreated to the main house, where I spent the rest of the afternoon stripping willow bark to replenish Fume's supplies for medicinal tea.

It wasn't merely the tedium. I also chafed at my inability to find out what happened to Toshiie. I knew enough to understand that I would never survive outside Aki's manor if I took off to look for him myself. Aki might have the resources to help, but every time I sought him out to ask, he was already busy with his students or entertaining a wide variety of messengers and visitors. Or… not around at all.

A clatter awoke me from my sleep. As usual, there was that moment of limbo when I managed to forget that I'd been hurtled into another era. Then my fingers smoothed the rough fibers of my blanket, and I remembered.

But… it wasn't morning. I looked over at Niwa's half of the room, and saw her guiltily fumbling with the lantern. She put her fingers to her lips.

"Where are you going?" I whispered.

She jerked her head toward the doorway, where Okitane was standing. It looked like all of his things were stuffed in a large leather pack. "We're getting married. Okitane has a cousin who has an Inn in Himeji, and we're going there to help run it."

"Please don't tell anyone," Okitane said. He glanced over at the wall that Niwa and my room shared with Fume's room.

I didn't care whether or not they ran away… although, ugh, that would mean double work for me. I doubted anyone else would care either, but if they wanted to play out their Romeo and Juliet fantasies, who was I to stop them?

Then, I had a thought. "I won't tell… but can we make a trade?" I took off my earrings – I had no need for them here- and addressed Okitane. "I want some of your clothes."

The next morning, instead of putting on my maid clothes, I got dressed in Okitane's clothing and presented myself along with Iekane and Takauji.

Aki acted as if he'd been expecting this development. "Is this what you wish?"

I nodded. What his apprentices got to do was more interesting than scrubbing floors.

Takauji bowed to me and introduced himself. "Are you newly arrived?"

Iekane elbowed him. "Idiot. Kaya's one of Fume's maids. She's been here all winter."

Aki simply nodded at him. "Katsuko will be taking Okitane's place. When she is training with you, I expect you to treat her as if she were a man. Katsuhira."

"Katsuhira?" Iekane stated the name like it tasted like ash in his mouth.

"Just use Katsu." I told him. It was a step up from being called Kaya by Fume anyway. Might was well simplify things.

Aki turned back to me. "Fume will expect that you continue to perform some of your maid's duties."

Of course she would.

"What is it that you actually do?" I asked Aki one afternoon while I was practicing archery. He was back from what I called (privately) one of his disappearing acts, and had stopped by to monitor my progress.

"What is it you think I do?"

It had been about two years since he had taken me in. That particular day, I had the grounds to myself, as Iekane was delivering messages and Takauji was recovering from a fractured arm sustained when the rope he was climbing broke and sent him hurtling to the ground. Up until this point, I had been learning martial arts, swordsmanship and archery. Not to brag, but I was the best of three of us, in the latter. Though if I were being honest, I was the worst at swordsmanship, so it all balanced out.

"I figured you were some kind of military training for boys that don't have a clan connection that allows them to apprentice to a cousin or Uncle." From talking to the others, I knew that Takauji was the son of a merchant who had lost his money after a shipwreck, and Iekane was illegitimate.

"Not a bad guess. However, incorrect." He waited until I sent my next arrow zipping toward the target. "Don't forget to account for the wind."

"I did account for the wind," I said. "Then it changed."

"Then you should have accounted for that too." He handed me another arrow.

How could I account for something that hadn't happened?

I held myself still, waiting a long moment, listening for the rustling of the wind in the long grass, and realized that I could hear it change before I felt it. I let the arrow fly, smiling when it hit the target square in the center.

Aki merely grunted at my success. "Better. And you haven't hit the stable once today."

"If you don't want arrows in the side of the stable, don't set up the target so close to it." The punishment for hitting the stable involved fixing the holes that I had put in it, so I worked hard to avoid that fate.

"Let's see if you can still hit the target if you can't see it at all." He took a strip of fabric and used it to blindfold me.

Really? If this was a prelude to telling me I should use the force, I'd… ok, well actually, that would be pretty cool. Rey from The Force Awakens was one of my spirit guides. Rey, and Black Widow.

"Any time now, Katsu."

Oh, Right.

Whiz. THONK.

And that was the sound of me spending tomorrow afternoon fixing another hole in the stable wall.

"We'll have to work on that one," Aki said, sounding like he was holding back a laugh.

I pulled off the blindfold, and circled back to the previous topic. "What is it that you do?"

"I'm an information broker." He moved the target about a meter further back.

"A spy." That made sense of the vast amount of correspondence and the sheer number of messengers who came in and out of the manor. Although it didn't explain why he hadn't managed yet to find my brother. You'd think a spy would be better at finding lost people.

"Spies collect information. I know what to do with it. Then, I fix things."

I wasn't sure I liked the sound of that. It brought to mind the idea of mafia and assassins. "What do you mean?"

He picked up two stones from the ground and handed one to me. "You see that pear hanging off the tree? Try to knock it down."

I flung the stone with all my strength to the pear – but it looked like I was a little off course.

CLINK!

Aki had thrown the other stone right after, hit mine, and diverted it back to the pear. The pear shuddered, and fell to the ground. Ok, that took mad skills, and I definitely wanted to learn how to do that.

"Impressive!" I retrieved the pear and offered it to him. He gestured for me to keep it. "I don't understand though." I took a bite of the pear, then wiped my chin on my sleeve when the juice attacked me.

"The rock you threw was on the wrong path. I fixed it," Aki said. "In the same way, sometimes things need a little nudge to get on the correct path."

"How do you know what is the right path?" And what is the right path? Right for whom?

"That's where the information comes in, plus research in tactics, strategy, history, and of course shogi."

Huh. If Aki has an addiction, it's to the game of shogi. Visitors were always cajoled into a game, and he also has an extra game board set up where he was playing a long slow game by message with one of his frequent correspondents. "What if you're wrong?"

"I'm never wrong." He picked up an extra bow and arrow, and shot three arrows into the target, one after another. They all hit the center. "In any case, with Takauji still injured, I'm going to have you start delivering messages and doing some scouting." He rubbed his chin. "And instruction in tactics… history… shogi… and manners." He gave a pointed look at where I was again wiping my chin on my sleeve. "You're becoming rather feral."

I enjoyed being a courier. It allowed me to get out the manor and run free from place to place. Aki gifted me with a horse upon my "promotion," lovely charcoal colored mare with a white crescent on her nose that I named Moonlight. Well, she was a little temperamental, especially in wet weather, but usually we understood each other.

As a messenger, I was fast and I was reliable. Moreover, I learned that not only was I supposed to deliver messages efficiently, but that my job also entailed observing what was going on around me – from the people in the villages to the residents of castles.

Aki always expected a long report of everything I observed, and after a few months, he also began to ask for my interpretation of what I reported. Of course, he was quick to point out when I came to the wrong conclusion.

"No, I doubt Oda's primary motivation is conquest," Aki said. "I think he wants to bring this country into the next century."

"Mm." That wasn't going to happen, I knew, because he was going to be dead in about four years. I had decided however, not to ever share my origins with anyone here. I was afraid of completely screwing up the timeline – what if somehow, I prevented my own birth? Or worse, set the world on a course for a third World War? Honestly, though, after being trapped in this era for so long, my other life was seeming more and more like a dream. What if I had already changed things somehow, and the dreamlike quality of my past (the future) was the result of that?

Realizing that Aki was still waiting for my response, I finally said, "The opinion of the people I've talked to in the village is that he's a ruthless killer."

"He is ruthless, but fair." Aki walked over to the table that contained two shogi boards. On one, he was teaching me to play the game – so far I hadn't managed to defeat him. In my defense, the rules weren't the same as they were in the future, and I kept getting them mixed up.

On the other board was the on-going game he had been playing with his penpal. Given the speed of the mail (a.k.a me), it was likely going to be another year before they finished, because as far as I could tell, he and his correspondent were evenly matched. Aki studied the board for a long moment, then laughed before making a move, slapping down a tile with unnecessary force. He then wrote down the move in a post-script to the missive he'd already written, and handed it to me.

"I'm beginning to think that the most important parts of these messages are the game moves," I joked.

"Don't you read them?" Aki asked, looking surprised.

Dude! "Of course not!" I glared at him, feeling insulted. "I would never read someone else's mail."

"Katsuhira, I expect you to read them."

I must have looked shocked at that, because he laughed as he handed me the hood I used to hide my hair when I went out as Katsuhira. "The most important currency in the world is information. Bank some for yourself."

Ok then.

I started to open the message.

"Not now! I expect you to read it, but to pretend you didn't."

Way too complicated, but this was Aki's dance that I was trying to learn the steps to. "Alright." I stuffed the message in my pack.

"See you next week," I said as I headed out.

In the stables, I saddled Moonlight, passing Iekane who was returning from a journey up North. He winked and greeted me with a flirtatious smile. I ducked my head to hide my blush. "Kaya. Off on another shogi mission?"

"Yep. Can't let the game go on without an answer. Any interesting news from Ezo?" He followed me as I led Moonlight out into the yard. She looked ready to get off to a good gallop. So was I.

Iekane escorted me toward the main gates. "Nothing of note." He glanced around the yard, then pressed a quick kiss on my lips. When I first arrived at Aki's, Iekane had been engaged to a merchant's daughter, but that relationship had ended suddenly, and without any explanation on his part. However, Iekane seemed unbothered by it, and had recovered quickly enough to up his flirting game with me.

I wasn't unaffected by his smiles and winks. So far, we'd only exchanged a few kisses, but we'd also had a few longish conversations, and discussed our families. Both of us were illegitimate – something that we could bond over, although I gathered Iekane at least knew his father's identity. I'd even told him about my mother (the story heavily edited to remove references to the whole traveled through time thing). Maybe when I got back from Azuchi, we'd take things further.

It was too beautiful of a day to spend too much time daydreaming about Iekane, and I had a long ride ahead of me. As soon as we'd made our way past the more steep and treacherous slope of the mountain, I encouraged Moonlight to up the pace, but - "Girl, what is your problem?" She was certainly being more temperamental than usual, dancing, and almost shying at nothing. I gripped the reigns tighter. "Come on, sweetness, we don't have time for-"

She actually was trying to buck me off.

Houston, we have a problem. I stopped her and climbed off. Immediately she calmed down. "If you're trying to tell me I'm too heavy, think again. Rude."

Upon examination, I found that there was a thorn had gotten caught in the saddle. I guess when I had changed my balance before encouraging her to gallop, it had driven into her back and scratched her up. "I'm sorry. You were trying to tell me the best way you knew how, and I didn't listen." I found some salve in my pack, and ran it over the scrapes. I put a cloth between the saddle and her back.

The cuts would probably heal up by tomorrow or the next day, but as for now…

"Looks like we're walking." I led Moonlight along the road. Good thing I had extra food in my bags.

Eventually I reached a village and bartered with a farmer to let me sleep in one of his outbuildings overnight. I traded some of Aki's dried pears for this privilege, and that night I joined him and his wife for dinner. Over the meal, we exchanged stories, and I made them laugh when I told them about the Portuguese merchant who had been flummoxed by chopsticks.

"How did you come in contact with a Portuguese merchant?" the farmer asked.

"My lord sent me to Osaka to purchase some Chinese silk." was my official answer. The longer answer was that since my best guess about what happened to Toshiie involved a Portuguese (I'd learned that "the namban" were the Portuguese) ship, I'd become highly motivated to learn the language. Aki agreed that Portuguese was a skill he wanted at least one person in his household to have, and he made arrangements with a Portuguese merchant to stay with us for a few weeks. Francisco hoped to be learning Japanese in return, although he so far, hadn't been picking it up very well. He had however (and inexplicably) developed a fondness for Fume, and made plans to stay with us over the winter.

"You've seen a great many wonders," the farmer said, with a hopeful tone in his voice.

I had, most of which wouldn't exist for a few centuries. But the farmers here had never been more than a few kilometers from their villages, so I described Kyoto as best as I could.

"Anyway," I said later as we lingered over tea. "I'm sure that if you thought about it, you would realize that you've seen wonders too." I'd been thinking of the simple wonders of sunrises, and spring, so the farmer's answer was all the more surprising.

He scratched his head. "Well, I don't know about that. My neighbor though, he said he saw the ghost of Uesugi Kenshin riding through the woods."

"How did he know that is who it was?"

"The eyes. The sword." The farmer finished his tea, and brought out a bottle of sake to share. "So many legends about a man who's barely been dead a year. Some say they saw him brought back from death on the battlefield by a demon in a white cloak."

As it turned out, Moonlight needed a couple of days before her back had healed enough to ride, but as I didn't want to stress out my farmer friend by taking too much of his scant food stores, I got back on the road, and walked her for a couple more days. I had been tempted to leave her temporarily with the farmer, and go on foot, but I knew he couldn't afford to feed her. At least the weather was still nice - slogging through a rain storm would have been a pain.

I made up some time, by traveling a few hours after dark, but I was still three days late to meet my contact when I got to the booksellers in Azuchi that Aki operated as an information hub. The shop was staffed by an ever-changing stream of Aki's couriers and former apprentices.

"Katsuhira!" My contact Kyubei looked relieved when we finally connected in front of the shop. "I expected you days ago!"

"Were you worried?" Should I feel flattered that he was concerned, or insulted that he thought I wouldn't be able to handle any problems? "I had a slight injury to my horse." I showed him where the thorn had scratched her back. "We walked for a couple days to give it a chance to heal."

Kyubei frowned over the injury. "How did a thorn get in there? Do you think someone put it there on purpose?"

"What? No! Why would they?" It wasn't that I was naïve, but what would be the logic in trying to hurt a lowly messenger? While Aki had enemies, he kept a low enough profile that none of them would go to the trouble of inserting themselves into his household – and if they did, there wouldn't have been much point in going after me, when Aki was right there. "I was careless and didn't check her saddle closely enough."

Without any further discussion, I passed him Aki's latest message. Kyubei tucked it away. "Did he tell you to wait for a reply?"

"He didn't, but since I was already delayed, it would probably be best if I did. He'll be happy to get the next shogi move, if nothing else." Anyway, I was hungry, and wouldn't mind taking the time to get a hot meal in one of the food stalls that lined the market area. I was never invited to follow Kyubei back to his employer – I gathered the man was more secretive than Aki.

"Good. I'll return in a couple hours."

Kyubei headed off, and after I grabbed something to eat, I wandered through Azuchi with a portrait of Toshiie. Azuchi wasn't close enough to any big ports for this to be any more than shot in the dark, but it did have at least some contact with traders from Hyogo and Osaka. The portrait itself was thanks to the efforts of our Portuguese friend Francisco, who had some drawing skills and with only my verbal description, had managed to produce a fairly accurate rendition of what Toshiie had looked like the last time I had seen him.

I stopped at one stall that looked promising – it had a jumble of goods, some which had clearly been acquired by trade from Europe - and showed the portrait to the merchant. "Pardon me, I'm wondering if you've ever seen this man."

The merchant examined the portrait, and shook his head.

"What is this? Are you peddling art now, Tadayo?" came a voice from behind me. I turned to see an elegant man posing languidly against the wall, as if his own slight weight was too much for him.

"No, I've told you, Yoshimoto, there's no profit in art for me," replied the merchant.

The man – Yoshimoto – flicked open a fan. "Shame." He turned his gaze to me. "And you, young sir, are you an artist?"

Ha. I can't even draw a curve. I passed him the portrait, and explained about my search.

"Hm, clever of you to commission a portrait. Unfortunately, this young man does not look familiar." Yoshimoto excamined the portrait. "How long have you been looking for him?"

"Three years."

Yoshimoto and the merchant exchanged looks, which clearly said that after all this time, my search was unlikely to end in success. Annoyed, I added. "I will find him. I have to."

A flash of what looked like pain and regret crossed Yoshimoto's face. "I wish you the best of luck in your search then. And if I do encounter your brother, is there a way to get the message to you?" He handed the portrait back.

I carefully rolled it up and placed it in my pack. "I'm not often in Azuchi –"

"Nor am I," Yoshimoto said. "I shouldn't even be here now, but am drawn to the shops."

"In that case," I pointed out Aki's book shop, "You may send a message to me – Katsuhira – in that shop. They'll know how to reach me."

Yoshimoto bowed and promised to keep a look out. I had no idea how much that promise was worth, or if Yoshimoto had much of a memory for faces, but this was better than no help at all.

By late afternoon, I reconnected with Kyubei, who had brought along not only a message, but also a person. A really grumpy looking man, at that. "That's a big message," I joked to Kyubei, although I hoped that I wasn't going to have to lead this man's frowning ass all the way back to Aki's manor.

The grump looked more annoyed at my words. "I'm here to treat your horse."

Oh, well, then in that case, if Eeyore was here to help Moonlight, then I could put up with his attitude. "Thank you."

"I'm not doing it for you, I'm doing it for your horse," said the man, who Kyubei hastily introduced as Tokugawa Ieyasu.

Ieyasu – Eeyore. Potato - Potahto.

He schlumped over to Moonlight and examined her back. "I don't converse with people who mistreat their animals." He spread some kind of salve over her cuts.

I agreed with the sentiment, but not the accusation. "I don't mistreat animals. Once I found the thorn, I walked her until it healed enough to ride again."

Kyubei patted Ieyasu's arm. "I'm sure he didn't mean you purposefully hurt her."

"Don't put words in my mouth," Ieyasu muttered. He handed me the container of salve. "Put this on her in the morning, at night, and after every ride."

"I will." No reason to antagonize him. He was trying to help, in his dark cloud of a way.

Aki examined the shogi board, having updated it with the latest move from the correspondent who I now understood to be Akechi Mitsuhide (yes, this time I had read his message). "Hrm. I will need to think about this a while."

"I picked up some additional information while I was on the road," I told him as I readied a pot of tea.

"Oh?" Aki was still apparently focused on his game.

"Although it could be no more than a rumor born out of a drunken farmer's ramblings."

Finally turning away from the shogi board, Aki gave me one of his 'I taught you better than that' looks. "The craziest legends often have a beginning in truth."

"Which is why I'm telling you this one. Anyway, apparently the ghost of Uesugi Kenshin is haunting these mountains – this is after his body had been carried off the battlefield by a –" I stopped, because Aki wasn't looking at all surprised. "And you already knew this."

"More or less," Aki said. "Though it is always nice to have additional confirmation. Besides, I'm happy you're beginning to take some initiative."

I shrugged. Glad though I was to be praised, I honestly didn't have any ambition to be any more than a courier. I enjoyed the work.

It didn't occur to me until much later that night, when I was nearly asleep, to wonder why Aki was sending so many messages to Mitsuhide, who had… or I guess would… kill Oda in about three years. Was Aki part of that? And if he was part of it, was I now part of that as well? But Aki seemed to approve of Oda and his apparent plans, so why kill him? I couldn't warn Aki, could I? Not without creating a temporal paradox, at least per the rules laid out in Star Trek.

I tossed around on my futon, staring up at the ceiling as my mind ran through the possibilities. I supposed the prudent thing to do would be to let it play out? Aki would not have told me to read his messages if he'd thought there would be something in then I shouldn't see. He knew me well enough to know that I wouldn't want to be part of an assassination plot. So that seemed to suggest that he wasn't in on it. If it existed yet. I rolled over, burying head under the covers. I was too tired to figure it out.

"Kaya, wake up!"

"Mmmph." My head was still under the blanket, but surely it was too early to get up.

"Katsu! … Katsuko!"

I opened my eyes when it dawned on me that Iekane was in my room. "Why are you d-"

He put his hand over my mouth. "Shhh. I don't want to wake up Fume."

Nobody wants to wake Fume, but if he didn't explain why he'd come into my room uninvited, I would wake her up by screaming. I pushed him away. Just because we'd kissed a few times was no reason for him to invade my bedroom.

"I got a lead on your brother," Iekane said triumphantly.

"What? Really? Where?" Iekane was generally sent to Chugoku region, which had more than one port. It was definitely possible that he'd run across Toshiie, or had word of him.

"Come on, hurry!"

"Wait, does Aki know?"

"You're so naïve, Katsuhira," Iekane said Aki's name for me sarcastically, as he tossed my clothes to me. "He's known for a year, but didn't tell you because you're useful to him."

That… was possible.

It wasn't until we got on the road that I pressed him for more details. "Aki was correct that your brother is on a ship," Iekane said.

We were carefully making our way down the path by lantern light. It had gotten chilly in the night and I could see my breath. I alternated flexing my fingers. Between the chill and my own tension, they were pretty stiff. "And?"

"It's a pirate ship, and a well guarded one at that," Iekane finally said.

"Can we bargain with them?" I couldn't attack a pirate ship with a bow and arrow.

"That's not a good idea." Iekane turned back to look me over, and gave me one of his practiced smiles. "You're pretty enough – more likely they'd grab you and either keep you for crew entertainment, or if you're too annoying, sell you." We'd reached the place where the narrow mountain path widened and were riding side by side. He reached out and touched a lock of my hair, then tucked behind my ear. In my haste to leave, I hadn't bothered to bind it back and tuck it under my clothing. "I'd hate for something terrible to happen to you."

He leaned over and kissed me. The heat from his hand warmed the side of my face. Or maybe I was blushing. Things between us had been growing slowly. Maybe once we found Toshiie, we could explore this… whatever this relationship was. But now wasn't that time. "Do you have an idea then about how we're going to get him off that ship?"

Iekane had a plan that involved me hiding in a crate – large enough for me to lie down in. As I looked up at Iekane, I almost felt like a vampire in her coffin. I sat up again. My crate was one of several identical crates of merchandise that were about to be loaded onto the ship.

"Once they load the crates on board," he gestured to the other crates, "you ought to be able to climb out at night and track down your brother." He showed me where there was a latch on the lid, and I tested the escape mechanism.

"The ship isn't planning to leave for a few days." He handed me my bow and arrows. "Light one of these on fire and shoot it into the air. I'll wait on the dock with our horses."

"Understood." Iekane was obviously better at planning and tactics than I was. I wouldn't have come up with this plan. I put my hand on his arm. "Thank you for this."

He smiled down at me, then brought his hand up to grip my chin. Then he kissed me again. It was longer kiss, but I was too worried about not messing up the plan to get caught up in it. "Goodbye… well, good luck, I mean."

I lay back down in the crate and Iekane closed the lid. A few moments later, I heard another voice. "You there! What are you doing with my … shipment?" Footsteps came closer to the box. I held my breath. Now would not be a good time to be discovered. And I hoped that Iekane wasn't in trouble either.

"Finishing up unloading them!" I heard the lid on another box open, and the clink of metal. Crap. Of all the crates to pick, we'd somehow gotten mixed in with someone's weapon smuggling outfit.

"Wait 'til they get a load of these, heh heh." The clunk of that lid. I prayed that this guy wouldn't inspect every box.

Another voice, this one with a European accent that I couldn't place through the walls of the crate. "I'm happy you approve, Motonari. You, boy, help us move these."

"Of course." That was Iekane's voice.

I felt the box being lifted. It almost felt like being rocked in a cradle, and in spite of my anxiety, I felt myself becoming sleepy. But after about half and hour or so, my crate's journey ended with a thunk. And then more thuds – oh the other crates.

The clink of coins. "Pleasure doing business with ye!"

I held myself very still. If they were going to look inside, it likely would be now. But instead the footsteps all faded away in the distance. Now, to wait until it was safe to come out. Maybe I would continue that almost nap…

Some time later, I woke up with no concept of how much time had passed. It was as dark as it had been earlier, and I was feeling a bit cramped. Yeah, I really needed to move around. I grabbed the latch and –

The lid didn't budge.

Hm. Maybe I wasn't doing it right? I tried the latch again, and again. No, it was definitely unlatched, but the lid wasn't moving. It was like there was something on top of the… another crate maybe? I pushed on the lid harder, but I couldn't move it. That's when I started kicking.

Nothing.

My breath started to come out in sobs – was I trapped in here? How many crates was my crate under? How long would it be before someone came to get them? If I screamed, would anyone be able to hear me?

I felt my throat begin to close in panic…

As I pounded on the walls of that dark coffin for hours, my life in this era, which had always had a sense of dreamlike haze, developed sharp edges. Though I had been living in this time period for almost three years, it had felt like a black and white drawing, with blurred edges. My real life, the three dimensional world, was out there somewhere, though I had no idea how to return to it.

But now it was clear that this world was vast and colorful and very real and very very much out to kill me. My old life was the life that seemed black and white with blurred edges, like an unfinished drawing that I'd likely never get around to finishing before I lost interest.

And it didn't matter anyway, because I was NEVER GETTING OUT OF THIS CRATE.

Time passed – I lost track. I was hungry and thirsty and phased in an out of nightmare filled dreams and dreams of rescues that became living nightmares when I woke up again.

Until during the waking nightmare I heard footsteps.

Once again, I screamed and pounded on the crate, with a voice that was hoarse and thin. I didn't care if whoever heard me might be an enemy inclined to kill me on the spot. If death was the price of getting out of here, I would welcome it.

I kicked harder on the side of the crate, and I finally, finally I heard, "Is someone in there?"

"Yes! Please let me out!"

There was a muffled sound of disbelief, then the crates were moved, and finally, the lid opened and I squinted up into the scarred face of a… monk? Even with the harsh scar across his face, there was something comforting about his presence. Although, in my state, I might have found Jack the Ripper a comforting presence.

"Child! What in heavens name were you doing in there?" he asked as he helped me climb out.

I was so exhausted and overwhelmed that I could do nothing more than collapse at his feet. My legs were too cramped to hold me.

Muttering an oath under his breath, the monk picked me up in his arms – I was a sweaty smelly mess, with my hair matted around my face and tearstains on my cheeks. My breath was still coming out in panicked gasps. "Outside. Please, I need air."

He carried me out into the street. It was all I could do to breathe, as he held my hair out of my face. I hadn't realized it, but I was crying.

There was a shout from down the street, and I looked up to see Aki running toward us, looking more unsettled than I had ever seen him before.

"Katsuko," he gasped when he reached us. "Thank the Gods."

Still sobbing, I clung to my rescuer, who looked at the crowd of curious onlookers circling us and suggested we retreat to where he had an encampment outside the city.

"My horse?" I looked at Aki, not sure if I remembered the location of where I had stabled her, yesterday? Had it been yesterday? I hoped she was ok. "And Iekane?" Was he safe?

"I've got your horse," he said. "Iekane got away."

Got ….away? Had he trapped me on purpose?

The monk, who finally introduced himself as Kennyo, asked Aki what was going on.

"I'm not sure, aside from this foolish girl impulsively leaping into a trap." He softened his words by putting his arm around my shoulders and brushing my hair out of my face.

"Girl?" Kennyo looked at me more closely, then made a hrmmm of acknowledgement.

Kennyo's camp turned out to be in the middle of the forest, a short ride away. By some unspoken agreement, Aki and Kennyo avoided discussing anything too serious, and instead spent the journey making small talk about the weather and the best kind of fruit to grow in a mountainous terrain.

Once we reached camp, Kennyo directed a younger monk, a beautiful boy named Ranmaru, to loan me some clean clothing. Ranmaru was a smiler, an kept up a friendly chatter while he found something for me to wear, but I wasn't paying a lot of attention to him. "Pardon, what?" I finally said, once I realized he'd asked me a question.

"Do you want to wash up? There's a lake over that way," he pointed downhill, "where the water isn't too terribly cold."

I hesitated. I did really want a bath, but I didn't feel safe venturing too far away. Ranmaru probably did not want my dirty self in his clean clothes. So I nodded, and followed Ranmaru to the lake.

"I don't bite." Ranmaru gave me another dazzling smile. "Not unless requested."

He did have a beautiful smile, but I wasn't in the mood to appreciate it. Or to trust it. Still, that was no reason to be rude. "Sorry. It's been a really… long… day… two days, actually." I explained to Ranmaru what had happened and he looked properly appalled.

"Anyway, no insult intended, but I'm not feeling especially friendly, but it's nothing personal. I do appreciate being able to clean up," I continued as we reached the lake. I dunked one foot in the water. "Yikes! That's your definition of not too terribly cold?"

Ranmaru laughed. "As long as there no ice chunks floating in it."

Must be a monk stoicism thing. And speaking of… "Would you mind turning around? I promise to scream if I'm drowning."

He looked embarrassed. "Oh yes, of course you want some privacy." He turned around then treated me to a long stream of cheerful prattle while I hurriedly dunked myself in the lake and tried to scrub away the memory of the past couple of days. When I tuned back into to radio Ranmaru, he was talking about the soap he'd given me.

It did smell pretty nice. Did they make at his monastery? Did Monks make soap?

I scrambled out of the water, dried, and got dressed in Ranmaru's clothes. They were a little large, but not overly so. He was not much taller than I. "It's ok to turn around now," I said as I braided my hair and secured it with a leather tie that Ranmaru had thoughtfully provided.

"Are you and Kennyo on some kind of pilgrimage from your temple?"

Ranmaru lost his friendly expression. "No. We have no permanent temple these days."

"How come?"

"It's not a short story, and it's not my story in any case."

We rejoined Aki and Kennyo, who were sitting at a fire pit, and Kennyo again asked what had happened.

"I do not know," Aki said, and told them that I was the daughter of a late friend of his. I had foolishly eloped with one of his vassals, and apparently been betrayed.

That's what he was going with? Making me seem like a lovesick idiot? I felt awful enough for having kissed Iekane a few times… worse, I had told him things that I never told anyone. But I would not have eloped with him. "I didn't run off with him. He told me he'd found my brother. We were going to rescue him."

Aki frowned. I was supposed to take my cue, not contradict. But I really objected to being characterized as a failed elopement, especially with someone who had tried to kill me.

Unlike me, Aki could take a cue. "Katsuko's brother went missing in battle a few years ago, and I have been trying to track him down."

Oh. Ok. Now I see why the elopement thing was a better cover story. Because they were going to wonder why we didn't go to Aki before getting on the road on our own.

"Iekane said Toshiie was on a ship that was due to leave port. We looked for you, but Fume said you were out hunting and we didn't want to lose the opportunity."

"I see." Aki was silent a moment. "We will speak more of this later."

Translation – I was in trouble.

He turned to Kennyo. "I owe you many thanks for retrieving this one." (This one?) "She is constantly in trouble, but I keep her on in memory of my friend."

"It was no more than being in the right place at the right time," Kennyo said. He was cooking something fragrant over the fire pit, reminding me that I hadn't eaten in a long time.

"Regardless," Aki continued. "If you ever need a favor, you can call on us."

"Yes." I nodded. "If you hadn't heard me yelling, I don't know how long I would have been there. It could have been months before someone wanted their… things."

Wait. What had Kennyo been doing in there? Were those weapons his? What was he planning? But… he had saved my life. I couldn't thank him by accusing him of stockpiling guns.

Kennyo looked closely at me. I kept my expression as bland as possible. Finally he said, "Perhaps one day we will meet again, and you will have the opportunity to even the scales."

How could that sound both reassuring and ominous in the same breath?

After that, our conversation became more casual. Ranmaru and I stayed mostly silent as we listened to Kennyo and Aki exchange news about the current wars.

Though it was still relatively early, exhaustion caught up with me, and I excused myself to retreat to a tent. I soon fell into a fitful sleep, interrupted by nightmares about being trapped in the crate. After the third time waking up gasping for air, I got up and dragged my bedding halfway out of the tent, and felt better once I could see the sky. With the night air on my face, I finally slept peacefully, until Ranmaru tripped over me the next morning.

Aki and I set out early for home, and knowing that he was still angry with me, I kept my mouth shut for the better part of an hour before he finally spoke. "Katsu, I thought you knew better than to run off without checking in first. What got into you?"

I explained what Iekane had told me.

"That was a lie."

"I know that now. How was I supposed to know that in the moment? He's one of us."

Aki rubbed his chin. "Rule number one. Don't trust anyone."

"Except you." I had gotten into this mess because I hadn't trusted Aki.

There was a long pause. At first I thought he was concentrating on the path, which had become steeper as we got into the mountains, but eventually he said, "No. Don't trust anyone." He rubbed his chin. "You can trust me. Theoretically. But don't."

"That's reassuring, in a totally not reassuring way."

"The only person you can ever know well enough to trust is yourself," Aki said.

At this point, I wasn't sure that I trusted myself, but I got his meaning.

He continued. "Everyone has a motivation or a reason for their behavior. If you can learn what they want, then you can generally determine how trustworthy they would be in certain situations. The higher the stakes, the more willing someone might be to betray you if you get in the way."

I felt a belated wave of homesickness for my own time. Maybe people were as trustworthy, or not so, as they were in this when, but at least usually the stakes weren't as high.

"That's why knowledge is currency – the more you know of someone, the better you can predict how they behave. Then you don't need to worry so much about who to trust."

That made sense. It was sad, but it made sense. For a while we both were quiet as we rode through the early morning sunlight. It was burning off the lingering mist from the night before, and I turned my face up to it, enjoying the warmth on my cheeks. I would never again take for granted sunlight and fresh air.

Which reminded me…. "What was Iekane's motivation then?"

"Jealousy? Envy? He's always had a chip on his shoulder because of his illegitimacy. I thought I could exploit that in a positive way, but once the girl he was engaged to broke it off to marry into an honored family, he became twisted inside."

Which still didn't explain why he'd turned that on me. But apparently Aki was going to go with the "he went insane" defense. With Aki's lecture on "trust" still lingering in the air, I sensed that there was a lot more to the story that Aki wasn't telling me.

"I expect you've learned from this experience." Aki had his lecture face on again.

"I've learned that I have a lot more to learn," I said.

"You do." It was spoken almost as a growl, as if I ought to have known that already.

I've learned that I never want to be fooled the way Iekane fooled me again. "Can you teach me how to tell who is lying? And how to lie so that people can't tell that I'm lying?"

"Yes. But- there's no going back from that."

I could live with that. Especially if it meant, being not-dead. "Can we begin now?" We had a long ride back to The Mountain.

Aki rubbed his chin. "I don't see why not. First of all, remember that it's better to tell the truth when you need to, and avoid a lie when possible."

"What do you mean? Isn't that the same thing?" I had been expecting to learn about lies, not be told to be truthful.

"Avoiding a lie means either leaving out information that you don't want the other person to know – you can tell the truth around it. Or, when pressed, you can also rephrase their question as another question."

The latter sounded vaguely like gaslighting. I saw what Aki meant about not being able to go back. But again. Not-dead was the goal here.

"Oh, and another rule. Don't use these techniques on your mentor, because he'll see right through that." He gave me a fierce look, but that distant affection was finally back in his eyes, so…

"Do you really think I would do that?" I gave him my most innocent expression.

He laughed, as I had intended him to do, and I felt better that our relationship was on its way back to where it had been before Iekane had ruined it.

As promised, Aki taught me how to lie and how to spot a liar. My skills improved – some more than others. I'd never be more than an average swordsman (swordsperson?), but thanks to Francisco, the Portuguese merchant who still visited Aki (and Fume) fairly regularly, I'd become fluent enough in the language to be useful as a translator. Not to brag, but I wouldn't be exaggerating if I said that I'd become a really good archer. And, an accomplishment I'm prouder of? Sometimes I can defeat Aki in Shogi. (He claims that this is because my impulsive strategies are so erratic that they're impossible to plan for.)

Not much else had changed - I hadn't found my brother (bad), but nobody had tried to kill me either (good).

Over the ensuing years, I had witnessed a few battles from a distance, in the role of scout for Aki (and whoever hired him). Once, not too long after Iekane tried to kill me, I got to see Kenshin on the front lines. From my safe perch in a tree, his prowess was something to behold. It was like watching someone wield lightning.

What would it be like to be that good at something? They called him the God of War, and having seen him fight, I could see why. But if he was simply a man (not that I was one hundred percent sure of that), what had driven him to become that battle possessed? Was he fighting because he had nothing to lose? Or everything?

Still wrapped up in my thoughts, I flipped myself down from the tree, only to find myself in the path of the man I'd been thinking about. He raised his sword and glared at me, his mismatched eyes gleaming with bloodlust. "Do you wish to fight me, boy?"

"No, no, not at all. I wasn't watching where I was going." I bowed. "I have seen you fight, and I would not be a worthwhile opponent. In truth, I would likely bore you."

"Everything bores me," he said. He didn't put down his sword, but he slightly relaxed his posture. He inclined his head in the direction I had been heading. "Go on then."

I didn't need another hint. I walked away, pride not letting me break into a run, until I was sure the sounds of my footsteps wouldn't carry back to him.

A couple weeks after my encounter with the God of War, I was travelling to Ezo with a packet of messages, when a tree called for my attention. "Hello, down there."

I looked up. Yep, that was a tree. As I continued to stare, I caught a glint of reflected light - there was person in the tree. "Hello, up there," I replied.

"I hate to be a bother, but – I appear to be stuck," said the man in the tree.

Generally, people don't climb up into trees if they are afraid of climbing down, but when I looked closer, I saw that his clothing had literally gotten tangled up in the branches, and he was too twisted to be able to reach his sword. "Looks like you found the one carnivorous tree in the forest," I said as I scampered up to set him free.

"Thank-you," he said formally, and with as much ceremony as a person could have when they're stuck in a tree. "I'm not sure what I would have done if you hadn't come along."

"I imagine you would have figured something out sooner or later." Yeah, he was really twisted there. I sawed at the branches, hoping to save as much of his clothing as possible.

"Maybe. I'm learning on the job. I suppose I could say, I'm a not-quite-adequate Ninja." He paused, as if he was trying that out in his head. "Yes, Sasuke, the not-quite-adequate Ninja."

"Well, I'm sure that in no time, you'll work up the ranks to adequate, then above par, and aspire to …" What would be the next step in the Ninja ladder of excellence?

"Moderately awesome," Sasuke said.

Hashtag goals.

"There, I think that's done it," I said as I worked the last branch from his clothes.

I flipped down from the tree. Yes, I was showing off. Sometimes I can't help it. He slowly climbed down after me. "Are you?"

"Am I what?" I rooted around in my bags, found some dried fruit, and offered it to Sasuke. It seemed to be the thing to do to seal our odd bonding experience.

"A moderately awesome Ninja." He traded some dried rice for the fruit. "Or even an awesome one."

"Not at all. I'm only a courier. Katsuhira, the extremely competent courier." And sure, sometimes a scout, sometimes a translator, and unfortunately, sometimes still a housemaid. "It was nice meeting you, not-quite-adequate Ninja Sasuke. I expect that next time we meet, you will already be adequate."

I did occasionally see him on the trails over the ensuing years, and as predicted, he grew into a moderately awesome ninja. Even so, I sometimes teased him about getting stuck in a tree the first time we met.

As time passed, I'd gotten, well, if not content with living in the Sengoku period, at least used to it. I'd been here for over six years, and if there was a way to get home, I hadn't discovered it. Not that I would go back – go forward? – anyway. Not without my brother. I might possibly have been in kind of a rut, but I was ok with that. As I said, at least no one had tried to kill me in a while. My life had settled in predictable, relaxed pattern.

The thing about getting comfortable, is that as soon as you do, something happens to break the pattern.

Honno-ji. Not only did it change the pattern of my life, it changed history as I knew it…

The morning of the Honno-ji incident, I was in Osaka, with my packet of messages and my ever present portrait of Toshiie. I was showing his portrait to a street vendor when I heard someone frantically trying to get my attention in a mixture of Japanese and Portuguese.

It was Aki's merchant friend Francisco, who even after four winters with us was not as fluent in Japanese as he thought he was. He and Fume communicated with each other in a combination of sign language and long, lingering glances. And other things at night (her room was still next to mine, and I had, by osmosis learned more about both of their sex lives than I needed, or wanted, to know).

I hurried over to Francisco to see what the problem was – he seemed to be in a face off with a fierce looking warlord – one who wore authority and confidence like a comfortable cloak. The man's sword was out, and pointed at Francisco's throat.

"Ola, Francisco, estás com problemas?" I asked him – which was a stupid question, since there was a sword pointed at his throat. I then greeted his companion in Japanese, since he looked like he would be the type who would be insulted if I ignored him.

"I'm not sure, Katsuhira," Francisco said, looking upset and confused. "I was trying to tell Senor Nobunaga that I have a merchant in Constantinople who is interested in trading carpets for some fine dyed silk, and then he drew his sword on me."

Nobunaga… as in Oda Nobunaga? Oh Francisco. You're going to die, and I really hope you don't take me with you.

"What specifically did you say to him?"

When Francisco repeated his conversation, it was all I could do to not facepalm. "Francisco, you told him you were bringing in a Persian army and you expected to find him cowering under a rug."

"Merda! Katsu can you please explain me?"

I turned to Nobunaga and gave a respectful bow. "Senor Botelho offers his apologies. His grasp of our language is not as strong as he hoped it was. His intention was to broker a trade involving fabric and Persian carpets. I am happy to act as a translator if you are still willing to conduct business."

As it happened, Nobunaga was willing, and I followed along with them to a restaurant, where they were able to work out deal, that, surprising was sealed with a bag of candy.

Once a grateful Francisco had departed, Nobunaga offered me some candy as a thanks. "Katsuhira, are you looking for employment? I imagine that if my endeavors are successful, I will have a greater need for a translator in the future," Nobunaga said, more free with an offer of employment as he was with his candy. "I have business in Kyoto tonight, but will you still be here when I return?"

Kyoto?

Oh.

Merda.

Unless I had my dates confused, he wasn't going to return from Kyoto. Up until this point, I had been careful to not let my knowledge of future history to affect my behavior in this world… but now that I had actually met Nobunaga, could I really allow him to go off to his death at Honno-ji? But if I said something, what would that do to future Japan? And what would I say anyway? I mean maybe I could say I had heard something in my travels… but… shut up brain, what about the butterfly effect?

Nobunaga impatiently waited for a response. "I did not think it was a difficult question."

"No, and I am honored by your offer." Geez, Katsuko, you're sounding like a Victorian maiden refusing a proposal of marriage. "However, I am already employed by a merchant in the North who has been like a father to me, so I regret I that I must decline."

"Your loyalty does you credit," he said, as we exited the restaurant. "I wish you safe journeys."

"Thank you… and you as well," I said quietly, while my internal debate still raged on, even after he strode down the street. He intimidated the crap out of me, but once the language difficulties had been sorted out, he had turned out to be charismatic and almost likeable. I wouldn't want to hang out with him on a regular basis, but he would be ok in small doses.

I was still conflicted enough, that a couple hours later, I turned my horse toward Kyoto, instead of taking my normal shortcut back to the mountains.

Internally, I was still debating. Part of me rationalized that if Kenshin was mysteriously still alive, then this timeline was already fubarred. But then Kenshin's survival wasn't common knowledge. Who is to say that in the timeline I had grown up in, he had faked his death, then lived on for years, happily causing a ruckus but under a different name? In which case, if I stopped Nobunaga from going to Honno-ji, then I'd be intentionally messing up the timeline – a thing I had been resolved never to do.

I don't know what I would have decided, but the decision was taken out of my hands by a sudden fierce rainstorm. Moonlight was never at her best when wet, and a bolt of lightning spooked her. Still twisted up in my mental argument, I was caught off guard, and she threw me.

By the time I'd managed to chase her down, it was too late.

The fire that burned down the Honno-ji temple was already raging when I arrived. The grounds were in chaos. Not knowing what else to do, I joined the brigade of people trying to put out the fire, figuring that at the very least, I'd be able to give Aki an eyewitness report. But at what was basically ground zero, it was all confusion. Nobunaga was dead. No, he wasn't dead, he'd escaped at the last moment. No, someone had been seen leaving the temple as it burned, but it wasn't Nobunaga.

Well, I wouldn't be getting any clear information down here in the confusion. Once the fire was out, I followed some soldiers into the woods, then climbed a tree to see if I could learn anything from them, or any of the other troops who were swarming the area.

The tree was already occupied.

"Katsu?"

Wait, was that…? "Sasuke? Are you stuck again?"

"No. What are you doing here?" he asked, as he moved up a branch to give me room.

"I was heading home from Osaka when I saw the fire. Stopped to help put it -" I broke off when below us, the soldiers I was following met up with one of their commanders.

"Is Nobunaga safe?" one of them asked.

"Hideyoshi got him back to camp. But the concubine who rescued him ran off into the woods – Masamune is searching for her now. Oda wants her back."

They continued out of earshot. I considered following them, but was nearly knocked out of the tree by Sasuke, who urgently climbed down. "My apologies, Katsu, it's an emergency."

He rushed away.

I hung out in the tree a bit longer before deciding that I had learned as much as I was going to. There had been a bit more troop movement about, but no one seemed to know any more information – lots of wild speculation and theories. Then, there was another rustling through the underbrush. I watched as a tall figure strode along the path, his scarred face looking like death.

I knew that face.

Though I recognized him as the man who once saved my life, something about his expression made me realize that on this night, he was not that man, but another creature that shared his body.

I shook my head. No. I was being fanciful.

But on this day, when I finally had clear evidence that history had gone haywire, I was allowed a few fancies, and I stayed frozen in place long after he passed.

Without announcing myself, I burst into Aki's private reception room. After checking that he didn't have any visitors, I waited for him to acknowledge me.

"Well, Katsuko, I hope this is worth interrupting my reading time." He set aside the book he'd been studying.

"Yes," I replied, then paused, not sure where to begin.

He gave me an impatient look. "At the beginning is generally a good place."

I hate it when he does that.

"I take it you witnessed some interesting things while you were hiding in a tree." He reached over and pulled a leaf out of my hood.

I took a deep breath and relayed the events of the day, and concluded with, "apparently Nobunaga was saved from assassination by a concubine. There's a lot of disagreement about who was responsible, but the most popular theory is that it was Mitshide." I wasn't sure how Aki would react to this news, given that Mitsuhide was one of his most regular correspondents, but Aki merely rubbed his chin. "There are many people who want Nobunaga dead."

True. And in my timeline, it was accepted (by many) that Mitsuhide had succeeded. But now, in this new history, I had no clue what was going on any longer. "I saw a lot of different troop movement in the woods. The Uesugi forces were definitely out and about. I also saw Kennyo." I paused for a moment, trying to decide whether my feeling about him was worthy enough to report. "He looked…" Demonic. "Furious."

"I want to look into this. Assassinations, whether they succeed or not, tend to destabilize a region." He glanced over at his shogi boards, his fingers tapping on his desk the same way they tapped when he contemplated several moves in advance. "I'm sending you to Azuchi to keep an eye on things."

"In and out?"

"No, you'll need to scout around for a while, gage the feelings of the people there. I'll put you in the booksellers."

Of course, taking over the booksellers in Azuchi meant also taking over the proprietor's disguise that we all had to wear when we worked there. The Bookseller was an old man with long hair, a moustache and a beard. Aki's reasoning was that people would be suspicious if the shop was staffed by a continuing turnover of management, so the disguise would perpetuate the idea that the same person was working there every day. So he said. Or maybe he makes up these crazy disguises for his own personal amusement.

Crazy, itchy disguises.

With a sigh, and a secretive scratch under the edge of the wig, I busied myself with straightening the stock, while I kept my eye on the people out in the streets. So far, no one had seemed terribly worried over the idea of a coming war. It seemed that they thought living so close to Nobunaga's castle would keep them safer than if they lived further out in the countryside. I guess they expected that war wouldn't show up on their doorsteps.

Oh… hey! There was Sasuke. What was he doing here? At the last minute, I stopped myself from calling out to him to say hello, remembering that I was in disguise. Or, double disguise – Katsuko pretending to be Katsuhira pretending to be elderly Katsuhira.

Sasuke continued past my shop, to confer with a travelling merchant who had set up a stall across the street, in the large temporary market used by the transient sellers. I'd noticed the stall previously because he wasn't doing much in the way of sales. In fact, he was basically chasing his customers away. Which meant, he either was a spy, or he was a soon to be an impoverished merchant. Since he was talking with Sasuke as if they were good friends, it was probably the former.

My musings were interrupted by a customer, as a young man with a shy, angelic smile came in and asked to see my stock on military tactics.

"Of course. They're over on that wall," I said, then rushed to rescue a stack of books on herbal remedies that he walked right into.

"Oh! I'm very sorry," he said, as he backed up into a shelf.

I leaped to catch a large volume before it landed on his head, as he ricocheted into another stack, sending them all tumbling to the ground.

We both bent to pick them up, and banged our heads.

Ouch.

"Wait. Don't move." I cleared a path for him, and walked him over to the books he had wanted to see.

"I didn't ruin any of them, did I?" His attention was on the books.

"No, it's all good." He'd made a mess, but I was afraid if I told him that, he would try to help me clean up. Aki's store was unlikely to survive that.

He grabbed a few books, then sat on the floor, put on a pair of glasses, and started reading.

Ok then.

Since he was laser focused on the book, I went ahead and cleaned up while I had the chance. He didn't pay any attention to what I was doing. In fact, he sort of reminded me of Toshiie, who could immerse himself in a book for hours before coming up for air.

I glanced over – yup still reading. I grabbed a broom and swept the place, using that as excuse to edge closer to where Sasuke and his friend were talking. On my travels, I had seen Sasuke out riding with Kenshin, and if he and his so-called merchant friend were here to spy on the Oda, Aki would want to know why.

"-it's a stupid risk to take for a girl," the other man said to him. "Especially one you only met a couple weeks ago."

Oh. Not so important as a prelude to war then, but still interesting. I tried to imagine Sasuke going nuts over a girl, but it wasn't computing. He was usually so calm and composed.

"She's from my … village," Sasuke said. "I feel a bit responsible for her."

"That's going to be one hell of a task, keeping her in one piece. She nearly flung herself over a – Hey!" He'd noticed me lurking in the door of my shop. "Are you listening to a private conversation?"

"Not at all," I said, as if the idea of eavesdropping would never have occurred to me. "I was about to ask you if you could watch my shop for a moment, so I could get something to eat." I really was hungry, so it wasn't a lie.

Sasuke looked me over – closely enough that it was obvious he'd seen through my disguise, but thankfully he didn't out me to his friend. "Actually, I'm hungry too. If you don't mind the company, I'll walk with you. Yuki – watch this man's shop."

"Me? Why?"

"Because if you're not selling anything in one shop, you might as well not be selling anything in two."

Yuki agreed with a grumbled, "At least bring me back something to eat."

Sasuke nodded and the two of us headed off to find a restaurant.

"Katsu, what are you doing here?" Sasuke asked once we were out of Yuki's earshot.

"Probably the exact same thing you and your inept friend are doing." We halted at a place that looked like it served some portable food.

"Yuki's not inept. He's, exceedingly… um, ept."

"Not at sales."

Sasuke wisely did not argue that point. "Why are you dressed like that?"

I sighed. "Because the man I work for has a warped sense of humor."

He nodded. Given his job with Kenshin, he probably understood difficult employers.

"In any case, it's for a couple of weeks. If this area is about to destabilize, Aki wants some fair warning." Or, more warning. Aki was probably getting some information from Mitsuhide, but who knows what that man was keeping to himself.

"Consider this a fair warning then," Sasuke replied.

I was afraid he was going to say that. For a while we were both silent, as we waited for our food. Once we were back on the street, I said. "So. Not that I was eavesdropping, but,-"

"You were most certainly eavesdropping." Sasuke didn't seem bothered by it.

"What's this about a girl?" I put a teasing tone into my voice.

Sasuke pushed his glasses further up his nose before answering. "As I expect you heard, she's from my village. I lost track of her four years ago, and finally found her again."

"Awww." I elbowed him.

"It's not like that. She's a friend. That's all. And, she works for Nobunaga, now."

"Ouch. Bit of a conflict for you, given that you work for," I glanced around, "one of his enemies."

Sasuke stopped suddenly. "How – "

I gave him a look.

He sighed. "Is anyone in this town not a spy?"

"I'm simply a highly observant courier."

"And extremely competent," Sasuke added, calling back to the conversation we'd had when we met three years ago. But, reminded of the inevitability of listeners, we both fell silent as we returned to the shops.

Yuki accepted the food Sasuke handed him then stage whispered to me, "You've got someone in there reading."

"I know. I imagine he'll come out when he gets hungry." At least I hoped he would.

As it turned out, the reader did not emerge at meal time, even as the aroma of my own meal filled the store. He was so still, I wondered if he had had a silent heart attack and died.

I put a cup full of rice crackers at his elbow and asked him if he was hungry.

No response. But his eyes were scanning the text so I at least had proof of life. And when I checked back later, the crackers were gone.

Finally, as I was thinking it was time to close up for the evening, two more men arrived – one of whom I realized was the cranky warlord who had tended my horse three years prior. Eeyore! Er, Ieyasu. He was frowning as much as he had been that other time too… was it true that faces could freeze that way? Maybe that was what happened to him.

He was with a taller man, who had a harried air, as if someone had replaced his favorite comfy socks with the itchiest wool possible. But he favored me (or the elderly bookseller he thought I was) with a friendly smile and a respectful bow before scanning the room.

"He's not here, Hideyoshi," Ieyasu said to his companion.

"It's his favorite bookseller – where else he would have gone?" Hideyoshi said.

"Why don't we look for a trail of destruction – Mitsunari is sure to be at the end of it," Ieyasu grumbled.

Ah ha! Trail of destruction. I softly cleared my throat and pointed to where my clumsy bookworm was sitting on the floor behind a table.

Hideyoshi smiled again, and followed the direction of my finger. He crouched down. "Mitsunari, it's time to head home. You should be hungry."

There was no response.

"I did give him a snack," I told them. "But I was afraid if I fed him a full meal, he'd follow me home and then I would have to keep him." I was joking, but I wouldn't have minded that much. Mitsunari was peaceful to be around.

"Oh, is that the secret? I'll have to bribe Nobunaga's cooks to stop feeding him," Ieyasu said, as he casually browsed through the medical texts.

Meanwhile, Hideyoshi was snapping his fingers in front of his friend. "Mitsunari, come on, it's late. I'm sure this man wants to close up for the night."

And, still no response.

"Eh leave him here. He'll be ok on his own for the night." Ieyasu was still trying to pawn him off. "He'd probably enjoy it."

That was something I didn't want to contemplate. This Mitsunari left alone in a bookstore overnight was a Mrs. O'Leary's cow situation waiting to happen.

Ieyasu continued, "And maybe I'll have one meal without someone spilling something on me."

Oh, he's as pleasant as he was three years ago. Well, at least it wasn't only me.

Hideyoshi finally gave up on subtlety and pulled the book out of Mitsunari's hands. Mitsunari came out of his book induced trance. "Hideyoshi! Ieyasu? Are you shopping too? I found some medical books over there – "

He swung his arm out wide, but I was ready this time, and lifted a stack out of the way.

"We're heading back to the castle. It's dinner time," Hideyoshi said.

"Is it?" Mitsunari flashed a sweet smile at Ieyasu. "Thank you for coming to find me. It's so nice to have friends like you."

"Are you sure you don't want to keep him?" Ieyasu asked me. "He doesn't eat much."

I had no chance to respond though, as Hideyoshi pushed both of them out of the shop.

"Thank you!" Mitsunari called over his shoulder and waved a cheerful goodbye, before they disappeared from view.

Finally! I could not wait to retreat to the inn and get out of the itchy wig and beard.

The next couple weeks I was stationed in the bookstore were uneventful. Despite the fact that we were not a lending library, Mitsunari appeared every two or three days to sit and read. I ought to have pressed the issue and tried to sell the books to him, but then Aki would have to go to the trouble to acquire more to fill in the stock – and Mitsunari read so quickly that it would have been a lot of stock to replace. We weren't a library, true, but technically we weren't merchants either, so who was I to press the issue?

At the end of the day, someone from Azuchi castle would come down and fetch him. Usually, Hideyoshi, but once it was a pretty woman about my age. Unlike the others, she seemed mystified as to how to break him out of his book induced spell. She waved her hands in front of his face, said his name at increasingly loud volume, and tapped him on the shoulder. I took pity on her and said, "They usually have to take the book away."

"Oh." She carefully removed the book from his hands, and once he realized what had happened, he smiled at her so brilliantly that she in turn, had to blink to clear her vision.

"Mai! Hello! Did you come here to buy a book?"

She helped him to his feet, and said, "Mitsuhide told me to find you. There's a war council going on."

War council?

But I was unable to learn more, as Mitsunari seemed to flip a switch and in front of my eyes become serious and far more adultlike, and he hurried out of the shop.

Mai turned back to me before she left. "Does he need to pay for anything?"

I shook my head.

Once they had gone, I started a message to Aki, one I never finished, because ten minutes later, the man himself strolled into the store. "Aki? I didn't expect to-"

He glanced around the store, as if to confirm it was empty, and then said, "Katsu, I finally have news of your brother."

Knowing that I would prefer to investigate this personally, Aki stayed in Azuchi, while I ditched the old man disguise and headed to Sakai. The thing about port cities is that they generally have a transient population of sailors – and therefore much of the business in there to either attract or take advantage of (or both) said sailors.

Which is why after working my way down the street with the drawing of Toshiie, I was in a brothel when the fight broke out.

I didn't begin the fight.

I didn't plan to join the fight.

I was minding my own business – discovering that the man who everyone I had asked said looked like Toshiie, was not actually my brother – when a couple of sailors took exception to the popularity of a tall flirtatious warlord. True, he did appear to have every woman in the vicinity hanging on every word out of his mouth, but jealousy is a stupid reason to start a fight.

Then again, it's also a really common reason.

One of the women yelled, "Shingen, look out!" and then the next thing I knew, there were swords, and fists, and crockery flying.

Ok. We're done here.

I rolled under a table then kicked a stool into the path of a sailor who was about to pile on. The sailor fell over the stool, which was good, but now he was in my way. To the right of me, another sailor, who in his drunken state, decided he was going to fight the closest person.

I was the closest person.

Reluctantly, I pulled out my sword, hoping I wouldn't actually be required to use it.

He waved his sword at me.

I was being required to use it.

I backed up, until I collided with – I peeked over my shoulder – the back of the tall warlord. He gave me a quick glance, then turned his attention back to his own battle. Well, on the bright side, he provided decent cover, and I wouldn't have to fight him.

The drunk sailor lurched toward me, swinging wildly. I parried the swing, and then jabbed my elbow toward his face. He reflexively pulled back to avoid it, slipped in a puddle of – well hopefully it was sake – reeled wildly, then fell down. And stayed down.

I glanced around. The tall warlord had taken care of the rest of them with apparently a lot more skill and efficiency than it had taken me to handle one clumsy drunk. He gave me a brief nod, and then as if nothing had happened, turned back to the woman he had been flirting with before it all started. "Now, where were we, Angel?"

Ugh. Well that was a total waste of a day. Although at least I got out of the wig and beard for a little while. I collected my horse at the inn yard, and headed back toward Azuchi.

Once away from Sakai, I let Moonlight have her head – she needed a good run as much as I did. With the wind in my face, and the scenery flying past, I began to feel, well, not better – that would have been too much to hope for – but at least less like I wanted to savage the next person who crossed my path.

A couple hours later, I became aware of another horse and rider a few paces away – a man with an eyepatch riding a huge stallion. He was heavily armed, but he didn't seem to be chasing me. Just a warlord out for a joyride, apparently.

For the heck of it, I encouraged Moonlight to increase her pace.

The warlord sped up too – was he actually chasing me? Oh, ah ha ha, he wanted to race.

Well, why not?

I grinned at him and pointed to a grove of trees up in the distance.

He nodded, and the race was on! Apparently, he had been holding his stallion back, because he blew past me and galloped to the trees a good fifteen seconds ahead of me.

"Good race, lad!" he said, when I caught up to him.

I patted Moonlight's side. "Ah well, she's built for distance and mountains, not speed – but some days call for a good run."

"They do indeed," the one-eyed man said. With a cheerful wave, he set off again.

When I got back to the store, Aki was deep into a game of Shogi with a silver haired man. Of course he would manage to find an opponent anywhere. Not wanting to bother them, I ran out to grab something to eat, then sat down in the courtyard behind the store to wait them out. I could still hear the comforting clack of tiles.

After another hour or so, I heard Aki offer his congratulations – really? Aki lost to a random stranger? – and I scooted inside to see if I could get a better look at this prodigy. But he had already left.

I went over to the game board. "You lost?"

"Mitsuhide is a challenging opponent."

Oh? That was the infamous Mitsuhide? I wished I had gotten to see more of him than the back of his head. I glanced out at the street, but of course it was too late. I glanced back down at the game board, and then… hmm. "I'm sorry you lost, then."

"Sometimes you win more by losing." Great. He was in his "I'm about to give you some vague advice and then drop the mic" mood.

"Well, then, I won a lot today." What with all the times I had been on a false trail to find my brother, I was possibly the biggest winner of this era.

"I did as well. And it's time for us to return to the mountains – I need to check something else out," Aki said. "Takauji will come down to keep an eye on things."

"Tell him to bring cream of some kind. The beard itches."

Aki headed out that night, and I stuck around (in beard and wig) for a couple more days until Takauji arrived. Then I headed for the stable where I had been boarding my horse. And there, I encountered Sasuke's familiar face.

"Katsu, are you leaving?"

"Yeah, I'm not sure where he's sending me next, but hopefully I'll see you on the road way before winter." The winters around Aki's manor were intense, and sometimes it could be weeks before we dug out from a blizzard. I'd never encountered another storm as bad as the one that had dumped me and Toshiie in this time period (although the one that sideswiped me on the way to Kyoto the night of Honno-ji was close), but every time the clouds mounted and the thunder rolled, a little voice in the back of my mind wondered if this one would sweep me off somewhere else, and keep my separated from my brother in both distance and time. Not that this worry was anything I could explain to Sasuke. He'd think I was crazy.

"I'll look forward to seeing you again, Katsu. Perhaps you'll be traveling as yourself."

I knew he was talking about the beard and wig, but… he never had met me as myself, as Katsuko. He didn't know who I really was.

At this point, I wasn't sure I knew either.