The stranger squinted at me through the blizzard and asked again. "Katsuko?"

In this weather, I couldn't make out the man's features, nor could I tell how tall he was because he was on the horse. His voice was vaguely familiar though. But not familiar enough to be coming from someone who knew my true name. Aki groaned, reminding me that this was no time to play guessing games. I simply indicated my increasingly heavy Aki burden and said, "He's been shot."

My rescuer was enough of a man of action over words to leap off his horse take on part of Aki's weight. Between the three of us, we managed to get Aki onto the horse. "Can he last long enough to get home?"

Home? Where is home? Again, I tried to place the man. He was perhaps a few years older than I was, with medium brown hair… and… nope. No idea. Sorry, dude.

"He's a tough old bird." I pitched my voice loud enough for Aki to hear, and received a grumpy, "insubordinate" as a reward.

I let my rescuer lead the horse and simply trudged along beside him. Hopefully, he would not notice I had no idea where we were going,. "It sounds like you know this guy?" There was no small amount of jealousy in his tone of voice.

"Well. He's my father." No reason to keep that a secret.

"Your father?" The man looked at me with a frown. That frown… seemed familiar.

I do know who this is!

Sasuke's travelling merchant friend. Yuki. Yuki who has only seen me disguised as an old man. And while he might possibly have recognized me on the street, he definitely should not have known my real name.

"I didn't know your father was alive." This was spoken in tones that suggested I would have told him. He sounded hurt that 'Katsuko' hadn't mentioned this man to him.

What the hell is going on here?

"It's a recent development. I just found out myself." I gave Aki a glare. "He's a very shifty old man."

"I heard that." Aki's response was between a cough and a grumble.

"You were meant to."

Fortunately there was a posting station near the river a few kilometers from where Yuki had found us. Yuki was able to obtain another horse, in fact it might actually have been one of from his "home" as people who often needed to travel far and fast kept extra mounts at these stations, if they had the means to. I elected to ride with Aki, hoping to avoid revealing to Yuki that I still had no idea where he was going, and figuring I could use the "need to make sure my father stays on the horse" excuse to prevent conversation.

"Home" turned out to be a large low castle/manor hybrid spread out from behind two moats and a long wall. More or less protected, but not super defensible, although the fierce looking warriors at the sentry post were a sort of living wall. It had only been just about over an hour away from the posting station, and the weather had slightly warmed up in the meanwhile.

The snow hadn't stopped, but the consistency had changed from icy pellets to softer flakes. (I like snow, I do, but not when it's flung in my face on a constant basis.)

Muramasa had zipped ahead of us, baying happily, and he seemed to be a familiar sight to the guards. So was Yuki, who had been addressed as "Lord Yukimura." Ha! I knew he hadn't been a traveling merchant. The sentries apparently knew me as well, deferentially calling me, "Lady Katsu."

Huh so this really was 'home'? Am I a year or two in the future? That would explain a lot.

But how was I connected to Yuki…mura?

Please don't tell me this is my husband.

Not that Yukimura was unattractive. But to go from 'I thought you were an old man' to 'wife,' would be quite the leap. Not to mention, going from loving Mitsuhide to … marrying this guy. A lot would have needed to have happened.

Just sayin'.

I didn't think we were married though. Yukimura wasn't acting like a husband. More like someone who considered me one of his closest friends.

We relinquished our horses at a stable, and Lord Yukimura rushed to help Aki dismount. Aki roused himself enough to protest this, saying, "I will walk on my own." I stuck close to his side, though, just in case, as the three of us made our way into the dwelling.

The servant at the main entry let Lord Yukimura in without comment, then did a double take when he got a look at me. Presumably this was someone whose name I was supposed to know. To cover for the giant gaping hole in my knowledge, I simply gestured to Aki and said, "We need a healer – he's been shot."

The servant galloped off with any further questions. This galloping was echoed by smaller gallops and then two small children burst into the room and launched themselves at Yukimura, yelling "Yuki!"

The younger one, a girl of maybe two years, flung herself into Yuki's arms. He used the momentum to swing her into the air. "Miss Mayumi, you're twice as big as the last time I saw you."

Mayumi? This child was named after my mother?

The little boy however, halted at my feet, put his hands on his hips and glared up at me suspiciously. "Are you a Yokoi?"

At this point... anything's possible.

And then the servant returned followed by a tall man who paused, then calmly looked from me to Aki. "Akihira, there are a lot of people looking for you." Then he smiled down at me. "Hello Katsu. It seems the timeline has run amok again."

Huh? This one knows me too?

"What?" That had been Yuki.

And then a woman, her fingers stained with ink, hurried in from a different direction, and the tall man pulled her to his side. "Devil, here's another one."

The women finally turned and looked at us, her eyes widening when she saw Aki… and she was...

…me?!

What the hell is going on?

"What the hell is going on?" Yuki was nicely doing the work of broadcasting my inner thoughts.

"What the hell is going?" The little boy echoed Yuki's statement with a look of utter hero-worship on his face.

Other-me winced. "Hana's going to kill us if we return them with an enhanced vocabulary." Then she bowed to Aki. "Four years. Four years and all we get is one letter?"

Yuki looked from me to other-me. Future me? She did seem slightly older than I. "Katsuko, is this your sister?"

"Not exactly," the tall man stated, but by then, my concern had shifted to Aki, who winced and swayed.

"Dad!" It slipped out. But somewhere along the way I had begun to think of him as my father.

Other-me finally looked surprised. "Dad?"

The tall man nodded. "I... had my suspicions." He pulled her closer, gave her a brief kiss on her forehead, and whispered something in her ear. She closed her eyes and leaned on him. For a moment they were the same kind of bubble I had seen surrounding Mai and Hideyoshi. Them against the world.

Then he turned to nod at some of the servants who had gathered in the hallways, and announced in a loud voice, "Katsuko's sister and father have come to visit. Please prepare rooms for them."

Once they had all scattered, he smiled down at me. "Angel, I'm certain you have many questions, but let's get your father settled first, then discuss this in a less... public... setting." Then he kissed the other-me. "Apparently, the wormhole is not finished with us yet."

It was substantially more than an hour before we were able to gather in a room not far from where Aki was now uncomfortably resting. A local healer had been dragged in from the storm, only to keel over at the sight of Aki's bloody shoulder.

"I could take the bullet out myself," Aki had glared at the lump of healer on the floor, then passed out too.

The tall man, who I had finally learned was Takeda Shingen had looked over Aki in concern, and said that at the moment, all we could do is let him get some rest and warmth.

"Are you a healer too?" I had heard Yoshimoto praise his cousin as a man with a multitude of skills, but not that medicine was one of them.

"I've had a lot of experience at being ill," was the only explanation he gave.

I hadn't wanted to leave Aki, but other-me stationed one of the maids in the room and instructed her to call for us if Aki's situation worsened. Now, we were in what looked like Lord Shingen's private office; the desk was stacked with reports and correspondence, and a wall of built in shelves contained an impressive collection of texts on history, philosophy, and political theory.

"If you aren't Katsuko's sister," Yukimura asked me, once we were all gathered around a before-it's time-Kotatsu, "Who are you?"

"Well, I'm Katsuko. Just not that Katsuko. Um. At least, I don't think I am that one." I sighed. "I've been going by Kaya recently anyway, if it makes it easier."

"Never liked that name." Katsuko gave me a sympathetic look.

"Me either." Which yeah, of course. She was me. I've had a lot of surreal experiences, but this easily topped the list. "I think Mitsuhide made me use it for that reason."

"Mitsuhide!" Even without Yukimura's sputter the name landed like a bomb in the room. Yuki edged away from me. "What were you doing with that snake?"

I didn't want to discuss that in depth. "Um it's a long story – he was helping me look for Aki and I was helping him look for Mai and Hideyoshi, but I'm not really sure if that part really relates to how I got here...? Uh what year is it?"

"Fifteen-eighty-six." Katsuko was the one who answered me. "I take it you got here from 1582."

"Are you a future me?" But that wouldn't make sense? Or would it? A lot could have happened since 1582. Except if she were future-me, she should have known that I had come here from 1578… and I was already confusing myself with the paradox.

"No. I'm a multiverse version of you. Sasuke uses the term alternate." She turned to Shingen. "We should send for-"

"Already ahead of you, Devil. Though it will take a better part of a week for him to arrive." Shingen retrieved a basket of what looked like chestnut buns from behind his desk, and offered it to me. I nearly took one, until I got a look at a warning head-shake from Katsuko.

"Ha! It's Sasuke. He'll ninja himself here in four days." Yuki pulled the kettle off a brazier which was set cozily in the back of the room, obviously very much at home in his friends' castle.

I was still stuck on the term 'alternate,' trying to piece my way through an explanation of the situation I'd found myself in. "Ok, so this 1586 is not my future, but a different timeline." Aside from Yukimura, everyone else was being awfully calm about this.

Katsuko nodded. "Yep. You're the third version of myself that I've met." She turned and poked Yukimura. "Don't you remember that Sasuke explained it all... with strings, back before we sent Shingen to the future?"

"I remember, but it made as much sense then as it does now." He shrugged. "I just never understood why you would focus on the future when you have to live in today."

"An admirable philosophy, Yuki." Shingen lightly patted his friend's shoulder. "In any case, Katsuko has had experience getting stuck in the wrong timeline, so I surmise that's what has happened to you."

"That would make sense." I gave them a brief explanation of what had happened to me when I realized Aki had disappeared, although I skimmed past the details of the whole Mitsuhide part of it. From the look Lord Shingen gave me, it was clear he knew there was more to it than that, but he let it go.

There was an even longer period of shock and awe when I showed them the odd device that had seemed to activate the time travel without a wormhole (but further discussion of that was tabled – we would wait for Sasuke to arrive). "After Iekane and I went over the castle wall, I landed on a battlefield in 1578, which is where I found Aki. I only knew it was 1578 because I saw Sasuke save Kenshin. That wormhole, Sasuke's wormhole, was still open, so Aki and I went through it, and ended up near the Kawaguchi shrine a few hours ago."

"All this that happened with Yoshiaki, it was already winter... Eleventh month?" At my nod, Shingen continued. "That confirms you are from an alternate timeline rather than the past. At that point in our timeline, Katsu and Yuki were fighting Iekane near Togakushi, and I was already in modern Japan getting treatment." He rubbed his throat, and yeah, now that I knew to look, I could see a surgery scar.

"I'm pretty sure that is where my timeline's version of you is too. Sasuke mentioned that he was going to the future with a sick friend." I supposed that meant that whatever Shingen had had, it was the same illness across all timelines.

Picking up on my train of thought, Katsuko said, "I'm glad, I have to admit, I sometimes worry about the alternate Shingens and whether they are getting treatment." She rested her head on his shoulder.

"Trust Sasuke to find a way to convince me... or Yuki to figure out how to send me there without warning." He smiled down at her, and curled his fingers in her hair.

Awwww. I supposed it was nice to know there was a version of me happily... married? That reminds me…. "The children - the little boy and Mayumi. Are they yours?"

I had never been interested in motherhood. Specifically not the whole giving birth part of it. With my family history, I just didn't want to put myself on a path of postpartum depression leading to clinical depression. But had other-me gotten past that?

After a moment of silence that was almost awkward, Katsuko shook her head. "Oh gosh, you haven't found Toshiie then. They're his children."

"Toshiie's here? In this house?" I jumped up, ready to run from room to room until I saw him, until Shingen spoke up.

"No, he's in China right now. He and his wife, who is an herbalist, went to research medicine." Almost on cue, Mayumi toddled unto the room and crawled into Shingen's lap. She blinked her eyes at him twice, then dropped off to sleep. He brushed his hand over her hair, then added. "This one is apparently convinced I'm her bed."

Ok, Katsu. Catch up here. "Where did you find him?" I'd just have to retrieve him from wherever once I got back to the right timeline. If… I could figure out how to do that.

"Ikuno." Yukimura was the one who answered my question.

"He's not there. Not in your original timeline, I mean." The explanation come from Aki, who had apparently had enough of 'the whole lie down because there's a bullet in your shoulder thing' and was gripping the wall to keep himself upright. "Each timeline is different. In some, he made it back to modern Japan. In yours, Katsu," he nodded at me, "I'd had word that he could be in Sakai, but I got waylaid in another timeline before I could check it out."

"You should be lying down." I jumped up to steady him before anyone else could react. His face was grey and sweaty and I could feel heat radiating from his shoulder. The bullet might not kill him, but the infection could.

"Yes. You should. Dad." The inflection in Katsuko's tone was flat. Ok. I was pissed too, but the level of her anger suggested that other things had happened between them that I wasn't privy to.

Yuki found a low chair with actual back and arm support and slid it into the conversation area, and Aki dropped heavily into it. Whatever strength he'd used to propel himself into the room was now gone.

"Akihira." Shingen addressed him as a peer, not an authority figure. "I understand the concept of multiple timelines. What I don't understand is why there seem to be many versions of myself, of Katsuko, of Sasuke, and Mai… and only one of you."

"Because I was in a place where time has no meaning when the timeline splintered." He closed his eyes, as if completely spent. My need for answers clashed with a bigger need to keep him alive. I had chosen Aki over Mitsuhide, and if he died after all this it would all be for nothing. Selfish Katsu! It's not all about you! I couldn't help my thoughts though, even as I felt guilty for thinking them.

"That hidden room in your manor." Shingen nodded. "Kayten told us time had no meaning there."

Hidden room?

Aki managed a brief thumbs up. The modern gesture seemed odd on him. He had blended so well in this era, I had never thought to question him. "I heard you had found it."

"We found it at the same time as Okatsu and Mitsunari came through from their timeline." Katsuko swirled her tea. "I don't know which of the four of us was the most surprised."

The surreal feeling of displacement returned. Okatsu and Mitsunari?

"Ah. She didn't see the other two. It's too bad – it might have saved me a rather large amount of trouble if she had." He turned to Yukimura. "Would have saved you a few headaches as well."

I looked around the room to see if anyone else had any clue what he was talking about, but all that I got was universal confusion. As much as I wanted to know what he was talking about, Aki wasn't looking well. For the last few moments he'd been shaking uncontrollably. "That's enough. Aki should be lying down."

"I don't think that's going to help." Aki put his hand on my head. "As far as I know, there's no treatment here for a septic wound."