Chapter Forty-Five – The Grey

I can't keep watching you chase death.

Is this how she felt? Is this what my mother had lived with every day? The unrelenting greyness that muffled all sound, blinded sight, reached inside and amplified everything dark, muffled everything bright?

My fingers were getting numb… I couldn't feel my toes. I couldn't feel.

Come on child. You'll catch your death of cold.

Had it been like this before? Too long had passed since my last journey through the wormhole. It was familiar, and yet not. No. This was not what I remembered. I could see nothing but grey. The fog invaded my eyes, my lungs, my throat. It was…

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

Shingen… Sasuke… had we crossed paths in the wormhole? Were they back in the Sengoku with Yuki, while I was … wherever this was? Or were they trapped in here too? For all I knew, they were inches from me, also trapped in this unrelenting grey?

No… they weren't. If he were in here, I would sense him, wouldn't I?

I could sense nothing.

How could I escape from a place that appeared to be part of me? I was as one with the fog. There wasn't a step I could take, a direction I could move that would separate me from the grey. Someone looking at me would only see a fading shadow, perhaps darker in some places, and translucent in others.

The darkness would fade last.

You learn to put what must done in one part of your mind, separate from the you that lives through every day, walled away from your heart. You have to, or one day you'll no longer be able to function. But it's still within you.

It was as if I were back in that crate, as closed in and impenetrable as a coffin, yet without any physical walls that I could pound on or kick. I tried screaming but nothing came out of my mouth.

Kaya, don't hurt yourself thinking so hard

you were only a convenient tool.

Messenger, maid, daredevil, spy… so many roles you've played.

How could I stop from dissolving if I didn't know what to hold onto? Who I was? The adrenaline chaser running away from her mother's death? The housemaid with dreams of escape? The messenger who played at being a spy? Moon Goddess? Angel? Devil?

Find a piece of yourself that you can hang onto through all of the roles you play. Some thing. Some goal that's more important than who you are portraying at that moment in time. If you lose that piece, you'll lose yourself in the game. You might never find your way out again.

I can't stop thinking about the look you get on your face when you're trying to solve a puzzle

The little boy who had fallen into the river. Was this how he felt before a hand reached out to him?

Puzzles.

The little boy… who said to me…

Thank you. I am not careless – I was pushed.

I am not careless – I was pushed.

I am not careless – I was pushed.

I was pushed.

I was pushed.

Pushed

Iekane's fingers dug into my shoulder. His voice rasped in my ear. "You are indeed stupid, putting me right where I wanted to be."

Then he flung me away—

For making my heart stop when you fell out of the tree?

I didn't fall

You are indeed stupid, putting me right where I wanted to be.

I am not careless – I was pushed.

The little boy. Who would push a peasant into a flooded river? And though it could have been one of his sisters, playing a joke that was not at all funny… I did not believe that was the case. The little boy. Somebody pushed a small child into the river. Why?

When I got out of here. Yes. When. This was a puzzle I would solve.

When I found my way out.

I wrapped my arms around my chest, holding on to the memories of the nights safely wrapped in Shingen's arms, when his comforting presence helped me fight off the dreams. I shut my eyes to the grey. The darkness behind my eyelids was better than greyness. I retreated into my mind, pictured that field of flowers that Shingen would someday take me to. I would live there in my mind until the fog lifted.

The fog would lift. I only needed to hold on until it did.

How long was I in there? There was no way to determine the passage of time. It could have been an hour. It could have been a day. I stopped paying attention.

But… I didn't stop caring. I held on to the fear, to the curiosity, to the love, sensing that as long as I held onto to those, I would not dissolve into the fog.

I have you.

I'm not sure what caught my attention first. Was it a whisper of a breeze? I cautiously opened my eyes to see the fog was breaking up. I put my hand out and felt the brush of bark under my fingertips. Cold and wet against my cheeks – snowflakes. The cedar trees. That hum of electricity.

In the distance, someone's phone chimed an alert, and I heard a female voice, sounding like it was on speaker say, "I gave her the message, but I think Mitsunari recognized me."

Then, as I took a hesitant step along the path, I heard, "Theoretically, that would be ok, if that means they'll take the message seriously enough to protect Hikosane." I turned toward the sound. I know that voice. And then the voice choked out a gasp of surprise. "Kay- How did you… wait… you're not… Katsuko?" That was uttered in such shocked tones that I wondered at it.

"Sasuke?" He was wearing an unzipped metallic parka over a lab coat and holding a cell phone – several generations newer than the last one I had ever owned. But he was by himself. Where was…? "Where's Shingen? Is he ok? Did the treatments help?"

Sasuke wore an expression that I had never seen before on him. Shock. He glanced down at his phone, looked back at me, then took a deep breath. "Katsuko… you're in the wrong timeline."

I'm what?!

My face must have reflected the surprise on his because he went on. "I'm not the Sasuke I assume you know."

Then he glanced at the boiling sky, and behind me, where wormhole still raged. "You can't stay here."

He wants me to go back into that thing? I'd finally gotten out it. If I went back in, I might never escape.

"How do you know I'm the wrong Katsuko?" No. Wait. He didn't need to answer that. Likely he already knew where this timeline's Katsuko was… or where she was supposed to be. "Never mind. Were you the one who told Shingen that I was in the river?"

He looked up from his device. "Well. I will now."

"What?!" Did I just make it possible for Shingen to pull me out of the flood? "Do you need me to be more specific – dates? Location?"

"My apologies for the temporal paradox humor." He shot a concerned look at the wormhole. Was it beginning to fade? "Yes, that was me, but you must tell your timeline's version of me not to poke around too much."

"Why not?" Lightning and thunder still crackled around us, and the wind pelted us with a slushy combination of rain and snow. I kept a worried eye on the wormhole, caught between the need for more information and the worry that I was going to end up trapped somewhere.

"Because that me will probably poke around that timeline and the timelines are already messed up without me crossing the streams – which may happen anyway if I don't get you out of here." He grabbed my arm, and we began running toward the wormhole.

Did he just drop a Ghostbusters quote? At a time like this? "What do you mean messed up?"

Before he could answer, his phone crackled with static and I heard the woman's voice again, sounding both affectionate and tolerant. "Spidey, did you just drop a Ghostbuster's quote? Where are you? We need you in Tokyo to help find Kenshin before he tears the city apart."

I knew that voice as well, but I didn't want to ponder the implications of it. It certainly confirmed that the timelines were a mess. Aware that he was urging me faster as the storm's fury abated, I asked, "Sasuke… what happens if I don't manage to catch the wormhole? Or even if I do? What's going on out there?" I waved my hand vaguely – out there apparently not only meant this world, but multiple others.

"Don't worry. Theoretically, if I can get you back, your timeline will stabilize. Our team is working on the others." We put on a burst of speed - the fog indicating the wormhole's tether to the ground was dissipating. "You'll have to jump."

I didn't want to go anywhere near that thing again. But somewhere, in some when, there was a grey-eye flirt hopefully waiting for me, and if the only way to find him was to go back into the wormhole, then… so be it. "Will I end up in the right timeline?"

"We've improved the accuracy of lateral travel, so theoretically, yes." Sasuke bent low, offering me his shoulder as a vault. "Go!" I didn't question how he knew to do that, I just took a running leap, planted my hands on his shoulder, and flipped back into the void.

The grey.

Again.

But I closed my eyes to it and listened for a heartbeat, imagining that it would lead me to Shingen. Those rubber bands that snapped us together over and over – they must be good for this one last journey. I took a deep breath and let them pull me through…

I tumbled out into a quiet evening of Autumn chill.

When was I?

The ground below me was damp, as if it had recently rained.

An airplane roared overhead.

So, I was in the future. A future. Hopefully the correct one this time.

I was alone.

No one was waiting for me.

That… as Sasuke might put it… was non-optimal.

I should have asked the other Sasuke… Sasuke Mach II? where my timeline's Sasuke and Shingen were. They might be in Kyoto? They might have made it back to the Sengoku era? There were other possibilities, each less palatable than those. I wouldn't think about those yet.

I supposed the best option for me would be to make my way to Kyoto, to the University where Sasuke studied when he was in the future. Maybe he would still be there, or if not, I would be able to find someone familiar with his research. I should have asked Sasuke (either one of them) what his advisor's name was – but it had never occurred to me that I would need it.

Getting to Kyoto with no money – bigger problem. While my sword seemed to have been lost in the wormhole, I still had a dagger strapped to my leg. It might be worth something at an antique store. Hopefully enough to get me to Kyoto and get a hotel room for a couple of days. Oh. I would need to buy some modern clothes too.

Ok. That was a plan.

I felt better with a plan.

I was exhausted, alone and lonely, but at least I knew what I was doing next.