By the time Sho arrived the next morning, Mitsuhide had already left for his reconnaissance du jour. I was disappointed to find myself alone (well, alone with Sho). Maybe 'Kyubei' and 'Kaya' weren't a suitable pair for any detective work, but one would think that 'Katsu' could accompany Mitsuhide. Four eyes are better than two.

Last night, I thought that we'd managed to move our working relationship to something more equitable. More friendly. Apparently I was wrong. Maybe it had been the sake after all.

It would be an exaggeration to say that I was sulking, but apparently, I was in enough of a #mood that Sho asked me if I had had a fight with 'Master Kyubei'.

"He doesn't fight. He issues orders and presumes we'll follow them… and why do you ask?" It occurred to me that she might have passed him on his way out the door. "Did he say anything to you?"

"Oh yes!" She pulled a folded paper out of her kimono. "He said to give this to you and told me to remind you that you were not to leave the house." She frowned and looked rather pouty herself. Since our visit to the docks was not to be repeated, I suppose she was feeling deprived of a Shojumaru stalking opportunity.

The message was sealed – if Sho had opened it to read it, she had done a good job erasing the evidence. But once I scanned the two lines he'd written, I realized there was nothing in it that needed to be hidden from her anyway. "Kaya, I am headed inland to consult with a clan about a wayward shipment. I expect you will not leave the machiya during this time."

Not exactly a code, but the unwritten message was that he had gone to Azuchi to talk to Nobunaga. It would have been nice if he had told me this last night. Or, given that he was so autocratic, he could have awakened me to give me his instructions in person. I sighed. "He's gone out of town for a day or so."

"Oh." Sho sighed too, probably at the realization that there would be no trips to the docks for a while. Then she suddenly smiled. "That gives us plenty of time to play with your hair. I can practice different styles on you."

Oh. Joy.

After four days – four! - of being Sho's human Barbie doll and four evenings of searching the machiya for Aki's letter (only to conclude that Mitsuhide must have taken it with him), with no word at all from Mitsuhide, I was ready to tear the building down. By hand. Azuchi was half a day away. He could have gone there and back twice over – or at least sent Kyubei with a message.

Even a message telling me to continue to stay put.

Maybe he hadn't realized he'd be gone this long. Maybe, in fact, if he had thought he would be gone for almost a week, he wouldn't have put me under soft house arrest. I'd learned my lesson about investigating on my own, and I was smart enough to know that our investigation had reached a point where I needed to step out of Mitsuhide's way. However, unrelated all that, there was a certain Portuguese merchant who had information about my father.

Maybe when Mitsuhide said, 'don't leave the building' what he meant was 'don't investigate Shojumaru without me.'

If I were just going to visit an old friend… surely that would be ok.

When Sho arrived for my daily hair model punishment, I put the question to her as well. "Do you think that Kyubei meant that we couldn't leave at all, or just that we couldn't go back to the docks?"

"He said don't leave, but… perhaps he really meant don't go anywhere dangerous." And with that statement, she became not my maid, but my co-conspirator. "Is there somewhere you wish to go?"

"A family friend – a merchant – I would like to visit him… and his wife." I mentally married Francisco off, as Sho would likely feel more comfortable with that sort of duty visit. One that I intended to pay by myself. "His machiya is near the warehouse district. If you want to visit Hiko" (and by that I meant take a peek at Shojumaru), "you could do that while I was on my visit."

No, I had no shame using her crush on Shojumaru slash Motonari to my advantage. Granted I also wanted to hear his voice again confirm that with my memory of Motonari's from five years ago, but that might be pressing disobedience too far. No, instead, I would find out what Francisco knew, about de Sousa, about Shojumaru… about my father.

With the potential for catching sight of Shojumaru spurring her on, Sho rushed through our morning beauty tortures and in no time, I was walking into Francisco's office – this after first strolling into a booksellers to put Sho off the scent (I did realize that she would wonder if I visited a Nanban merchant).

Francisco was at his desk, using a western style quill pen that scratched across the surface of whatever document he was working on. When he looked up and saw me, he literally turned pale and put his hand to his heart. He opened his mouth and nothing came out.

Was he having a heart attack? "Francisco? Are you ok? In pain?"

"Oh. Katsu. You gave me such a fright. With your hair like that, you looked just like…" he caught himself, and turned the end of the sentence into a cough.

I reached up and touched my hair. When Sho had been experimenting with styles, she had given me bangs. Without a mirror, though, I had no idea what I looked like with them. I'd never worn my hair like this, not even when I lived in modern Japan. A conscious effort not to look like-

"My mother? Is that what you were going to say?" I hadn't been sure whether Francisco had known her too, but this confirmed it.

He startled again, then opened the desk drawer and rooted around. "The letter. You took it?"

Time to play offence. "It was addressed to me. I wanted to know if it had anything to do with his disappearance." I sat down across from him and gave him my best imitation of Mitsuhide's authoritative stare.

"I told you that it could not be so, since he wrote it so long ago – and now that you have read it, do you not agree?" He sounded defensive about it.

Ok, note to self, need to work on that authoritative stare.

"Well, Mitsuhide took it from me before I could read all of it, but I did get through the bit that revealed you and Aki are also from the future." Maybe there would be important stuff in the rest, but since Francisco did not know my father's code he wouldn't know what was on that last page either. "You knew her?"

"Not that well. " He continued to dig through the desk drawer. "As you are aware, I have trouble understanding your language –"

"If you were in Japan before I was born, and you've been here ever since, then you've had over twenty-five years to learn it." Granted, Francisco was incredibly bad at languages, but… seriously?

"Not all that long ago. When I first went back in time, it was to Portugal of 1573. I've been in this century for almost ten years." He scratched his head. "I think. When you do as much time travel as I have, things tend to blur."

Ok. That sort of made sense. I supposed that would also explain how Aki could be my father and yet not appear old enough to have a child my age. I had so many questions, questions like, why did you time travel? When are you from? Did he love her?"

"I am certain of it. We… we were not supposed to get personally involved. He would not have taken that kind of risk unless there were strong feelings attached." Francisco put up his hands. "Please. Let me explain what I can. We were consulting with some prominent historians. Kokomo? No. Mikomo…?"

"Mikumo?" That would be how Sasuke had connected with Aki. He had said that 'Professor Yamaoka' was a family friend.

"Yes. Mikumo was their name. They were married. I remember that the woman had a baby during that time and she would put him in a," he mimed a playpen, "while we went over the research."

Baby Sasuke. Getting to hear about history before he could even speak. "Sasuke." I said his name out loud to confirm.

"Yes. That sounds right. Your mother was his ama seca."

The Portuguese phrase was unfamiliar to me. "Secretary?"

Francisco shook his head. "No. She cared for the baby. So that his parents could study without being bothered."

Nanny. My mother had been Sasuke's nanny? I wondered if he would remember her, although… no, he would have been an infant.

"She was paying for her training that way. I believe she wished to be a dancer and there was some difficulty with her parents over that choice." He rummaged through the drawer one more time. "When you retrieved the letter, you did not continue to look through here, or you would have found this." He handed me a drawing of a woman dressed in a Noh costume – my mother.

I had never seen her like that – she held an open fan over her head, while she gestured gracefully with the other. She was smiling.

"You don't smile very often."

Through most of my life, my mother had not smiled. And though I knew that her depression was clinical, apparently originating from an episode of post-partum depression that worsened and never, unlike most cases, left, part of me had always believed my unknown father had stolen her smile. It was Aki who had taken it when he left. That was the one thing I could never forgive, even if I allowed him the rest.

"I drew it from memory for him – your father – but he found it too painful to keep." Francisco rubbed his chest as if her memory was painful to him too. "In the middle of our historical research, an urgent situation arose, and we had to leave. Aki tried to find her to say goodbye – in fact, though it would have been forbidden, I believe he would have asked her to come with us – but, we ran out of time."

"Time travelers ran out of time." One would think that would be the only thing they had plenty of.

Francisco caught my sarcasm. "It's not as if time travel can be done at the click of a button. Or rather, that was in fact the problem. A prototype for that – a device that could eliminate the necessity of waiting for a wormhole – was stolen."

At that moment, what should have been obvious to me earlier suddenly was clear. "You and my father weren't casual time travelers – you're from a time when it's common knowledge. When?"

Francisco refused to look at me. "Although yes, it is a future beyond yours, but even so, time travel is not a thing we attempt lightly. Wormholes, such as the one you travelled through, are still the primary method of travel. Those are not things we can control."

It was clear from his body language that there were things he wasn't telling me, and I suddenly saw Mitsuhide's point about the frustration of knowing there was more information that was being held back.

"You and my father urgently needed to catch a wormhole here in order to retrieve this stolen device?" I could see why that would have been chaotic, but I wasn't willing to let Aki, and by association Francisco, off the hook. "He must have come back for her at some point though. Otherwise he would not have known about me or Toshiie." And I knew, from talking to Sasuke, that Aki had been in modern Japan recently enough – otherwise Sasuke wouldn't have recognized his name.

"He did. I do not know the details, but it sounded like your mother refused to have anything to do with him then." Francisco shut his eyes. When he spoke again, it was very slowly, as if his word choice would be the difference between life and death. "I remember her as being somewhat volatile."

That wasn't my memory of her, but it was easy to believe she had changed. I didn't know she once dreamed of being a dancer. Having twins must have put an end to that dream. Especially when she had no help from my father. No way to find him. And he… had only found me when I was old enough, skilled enough, to be useful to him. "Did he on purpose bring us to-"

"Dear me. Once again, a little bird has flown out of her nest." That comment preceded Mitsuhide's entrance into the room.

"Senhor Mitsuhide, welcome!" Francisco got up and bowed very clumsily, somehow managing to bump his head on the desk on the upswing. "I am happy to eat you in my home." Francisco's Japanese was as execrable as always, and after a pause he switched to Portuguese. "Do you want tea… or, I have coffee from the Dutch."

Coffee? Aki had had access to coffee all the time he knew me?

Francisco took ceramic jar from a built-in shelf. He pulled off the lid, and the smell of coffee beans filled the room. "Katsu, do you want some coffee? I imagine it has been a long time since you were able to drink it."

In truth, I didn't like coffee all that much, but Francisco's moving around to prepare it would give me a chance to explain things to Mitsuhide, so I said, "Yes. Sure. Refresh my memory."

Mitsuhide raised that eyebrow, reminding me that I needed to provide translation service for Francisco's Portuguese (actually, with Francisco, sometimes his Japanese needed translation too). "Francisco is offering us a drink that the Nanban and other Westerners drink – their version of tea, although it doesn't taste much like it."

"If he is already going to be preparing it, then I will try it." Mitsuhide's attention was still on me, and he glanced over to the drawing I still held.

Not wanting him to have access to this private part of my past, I flipped it over. While Francisco was occupied smashing up the coffee beans, I told Mitsuhide, "I thought Francisco might know something about de Sousa or Shojumaru."

"Ah." An 'ah' that could have meant a dozen things – most of them boding ill for me. "Does he?" I couldn't tell anything about his mood from his tone of voice. He might not have wanted me to leave the townhouse, but if that had been really an important order, maybe he should have told me in person and then not left me alone for four days.

"I haven't had the opportunity to ask yet. We got sidetracked." I glanced down at the paper. He looked at it again too, and with one questioning finger, he tapped the edge of it. "Yes. It's a portrait of my mother. We were talking about her."

"Neither you nor Aki have ever mentioned her." He didn't invade my privacy by turning the portrait back over – at least he allowed me that.

"She died a long time ago." And, I couldn't talk about her. Not with Mitsuhide, who likely wouldn't understand. Or worse, understand too much. "How did you figure out where I was?"

"Sho was making a spectacle of herself at the harbor. She told me where she left you and it didn't take much effort to realize where you were headed. Ah, thank you, Senhor," he added when Francisco brough over three steaming cups of coffee.

Francisco understood 'arigato' at least, so he smiled and seated himself behind his desk. In terrible Japanese, he managed to convey that coffee was a delicacy.

I wouldn't go as far as to say that, but then on the rare times that I had drunk coffee in modern Japan, I preferred to drink it with a lot of milk. I picked up the cup in my hands, letting it warm them, while I eyed Mitsuhide to see how he would react to the flavor.

No reaction at all, though he gave Francisco a friendly smile. "I imagine this would be bracing on a cold morning."

Unlikely Francisco would understand all that, but not really worth translating. Mitsuhide turned to me. "Well as long as you've gone to the trouble of escaping again, you might as well ask him your questions."

Switching to Portuguese, I asked Francisco to tell me what, if anything, he knew about Shojumaru and de Sousa.

"Shojumaru – I do not know him well. He owns a few warehouses, but does not import or export any goods on his own. Many people use the warehouses though. He deals honestly with Japanese and Portuguese merchants alike." Hm, yeah, I had gotten the impression that Shojumaru had a positive reputation here in Sakai. But that did beg the question…

I translated Francisco's comment to Mitsuhide, then asked, "Didn't you purchase the fabrics from Shojumaru the other day?" Or had it been Tadayo's shipment? No, that couldn't be right – it would be a waste of time to put a shipment in a warehouse when you had a storefront.

"I believe that was indeed the case. Ask him if he can think of any reason why Tadayo would think Shojumaru was importing fabric."

I relayed Mitsuhide's question to Francisco, who only shrugged. "I could have it wrong, Katsu. As for the other man, de Sousa, he brings in weapons and wishes to take out silver."

After I translated that for Mitsuhide, he simply nodded, but said nothing. I didn't know if that meant he had no other questions, or if he wanted to see how I interrogated Francisco without any particular prompting. Then again, Mitsuhide wasn't aware of the time travel (unless he had managed to decode Aki's letter… and I did not think he was capable of doing so, or if he had been capable that he wouldn't have immediately asked me about time travel). I turned back to Francisco, as that thought prompted me to ask, "What is your role here? I mean in this time period? Are you actually a merchant, or is there some crazy time travel mission that you are on?"

"It is both, Katsu. My being a merchant gives me a cover that allows me to stay. Perhaps I should have chosen the role of a missionary." He glanced at Mitsuhide then back to me. "It is a long story and now is not the time to tell it. All I can say is that I try not to get too close to people who would be able to find problems in my backstory. de Sousa is one of those people. As for Shojumaru, he is not always in Sakai, I believe he has business interests elsewhere, for he travels frequently."

Cutting out the first part regarding the time travel, I passed on the remainder of the information to Mitsuhide. "Is there anything else you would like me to ask him while we are here?"

"Insert Shojumaru's other name into the conversation and see if it gets a reaction." He leaned back in the chair, appearing quite at ease in this western style of furniture, and took a sip of the coffee.

"Have you ever met Mouri Motonari?" I dropped the name in quickly, and allowed Mitsuhide to do that body language/ face reading voodoo trick… that he really needs to teach me how to do.

Francisco appeared to give the question some thought. "No. Is he not dead? In history at least he was dead at this time? If he is not, then… it is not a good thing."

Well history has been topsy-turvy for years now, and who knows whether Aki and Francisco's time travel had been a catalyst for what was now possibly a paradox.

"He thinks Motonari is dead," I finally remembered to translate for Mitsuhide.

"I had gathered that… oddly, 'morto' is one of the Nanban words I do know." He stood up. "Come along now. Thank your friend for the information and this … bracing beverage. We must return home so that I can chain you to me."

He was joking.

I think.

Spoiler alert. He wasn't joking.