Please take me to the right Kyoto! To the right time. I hung on to Aki so tightly that I could imagine him groaning, though the sensory deprivation of the wormhole meant that any noise I heard was an auditory hallucination.

Then, slowly, I did hear sounds… sounds I hadn't heard for seven years…

Cars…

Busses…

Honks…

The hum of electricity...

And the screaming of tourists who were shocked to see two people manifest in front of their eyes.

Modern Japan… it was familiar, but not really home. Not anymore.

Had I been alone I would have taken time to breathe it in, to readjust to the noise and the crowd and the people. But Aki needed immediate medical treatment, so I stepped forward and announced to the circle of freaked out tourists in my best 'I went to art school and this is the only job I am qualified for' voice. "Historical Reenactments. Daily at the Azuchi Castle Ruins."

The tourists all nodded sagely, as if they saw such stunts often. Once the initial crowd moved off, I took out the paper with Sasuke's phone number, and approached a girl about my age. "Excuse me. My phone battery just died." I waved Iekane's device at her as an explanation. "Can I borrow yours? I need to call my boss before I get marked late for my day job."

She bowed politely and handed over a phone about ten generations newer than the last one I had owned. It had a custom case with some K-Pop band on it. If I had never left this time, perhaps I would be a fan. But I had, and the band on the case, though all adorable, also looked impossibly young.

I almost felt like more of a fish out of water than I ever had in the Sengoku.

With any luck I was both in the right timeline and that my timeline's Sasuke had the same phone number of the Sasuke I had just left. Mentally crossing my fingers, I entered the number and waited. While the phone continued to ring, I kept half my attention on Aki, who was slumped over on the bench. If Sasuke didn't answer, I would need to try-

"Mikumo Sasuke." Sasuke's neutral tones directed towards what would be an unknown number.

"Sasuke. It's Katsuko." Not yet five minutes in modern Japan and I'd already reverted to the name of my childhood. "Katsu. I'm at Honno-ji."

I turned away from the girl and lowered my voice. "I've got Aki with me, and I need to get him to a hospital."

The quick-witted Sasuke didn't ask questions. "We'll be right there."

"Thanks." He'd already hung up. I gave the phone back to the girl and repeated my thank you to her.

"No worries. Great costume. Looks really authentic." With a bow, she headed into the shrine.

Crouching next to Aki, I propped him up under my shoulder. "Don't you dare die on me now old man."

"I'll do my best." The words were faint, and I could feel his fever radiating off him.

"I'm sure the hospital can fix you right up." I wasn't sure, but now that there was nothing to do but wait, I was babbling uselessly. Every once in a while, a concerned Samaritan would ask if Aki was ok, and I kept repeating that help was coming.

And eventually, a long shadow fell over both of us, and a familiar warm spiced voice said, "Sasuke didn't tell me his friend was a forest Goddess."

Right. This Shingen hasn't met me.

I looked up at the modern version of the main I had just said goodbye to less than an hour (plus or minus 450 years) ago. The cargo pants, grey henley shirt and leather bomber jacket didn't look out of place on him at all, although the barely healed surgical scar on his chest and flirtatious look he directed at me certainly did.

With my father half draped over me, it was not the time to go into that, so I introduced myself briefly, while Shingen helped Aki to his feet and propped himself under the uninjured shoulder. "Where is Sasuke?"

"Out front in his motorized palanquin." Shingen gave a little grunt as Aki dumped his entire weight on the taller man. Realizing that this Shingen was probably fresh out of the hospital himself, I hurried to Aki's other side and carefully maneuvered myself around his wound.

Together we half carried Aki to the street, where an SUV was hovering near the bus stop. Leaving the motor idling, Sasuke leaped out. "Greetings and salutations, Katsu," he said as he helped settle Aki across the back seat.

I don't remember much about the trek across town. Sasuke drove like a Yokai on acid, zipping through stoplights that turned red as we sped past. The streets blurred out the window, and now that the responsibility for Aki was divided up, the-time travel (and Sasuke's driving) caught up to me.

Feeling vaguely sick to my stomach, I shut my eyes. No Mitsuhide to hold your hair if you barf here. Or put mint oil on – Weird… I could almost smell the mint.

Opening my eyes, I saw that Shingen was holding a tin of Mintia in front of me. "Try this. I keep them around just for these travels."

Ah. So Sasuke always drove like this. Good. To. Know. "Thanks." I popped a couple of the strong mints into my mouth, and indeed, it did help with the nausea, even when Sasuke whipped a turn so sharply that both Shingen and I grabbed onto the armrests for stability.

Thanks to Sasuke's University I. D., we managed to get Aki admitted through emergency services and by some miracle Aki's biometrics were already in the hospital system. The only real difficulty occurred when the admitting staff asked how he had managed to receive a gunshot wound, and why had it been allowed to go untreated for so long.

"I'm rather curious to know the answer to that myself." I heard Shingen tell Sasuke.

Yes, he would definitely want to know about the movement of battles in 1582 – he probably was even now wondering if Kasugayama had been under attack when I left that era.

To the doctors and nurses, I kept answering, "I don't know." Without any inside knowledge about present day Kyoto's crime scene, it would be hard to make up a good story. Any detail I created would be investigated by the police, "he only said he was attacked and robbed." I then drew on my now honed by Mitsuhide acting skills and put a sob into my voice. "Please, is my dad going to be ok?"

To my horror, I felt a real tear escape. Not completely acting. Unnerved by my tears, the hospital staff ended their interrogation and directed us to a family waiting area, while Aki was wheeled off to parts unknown in the bowels of the hospital.

Shingen liberated a box of tissues from the nurses' station (by which I mean he flirted with the staff until they gave it to him) and set it on the table next to a seriously uncomfortable plastic chair.

Ok breathe. This is a University Hospital. It's a top-rated trauma center. It will be fine. Breathe.

Once I had again composed myself, Sasuke, who had been typing on a tablet at warp speed, turned to me. "Are you interested in reading a library of protocols for treating gunshot wounds and blood poisoning?"

Timing, Sasuke. Timing.

I must have looked as appalled as I felt, for he hurried to add. "This is not from Dr Google, but actual medical journals... not that I've personally vetted them of course. I'm not a doctor I'm a physicist."

"That was funnier the first time you told it to me." Were we private enough to go into this here? There were other people in this room. Granted, they were likely dealing with their own issues, but...

"I do not recall making this joke in the past." Sasuke darted a quick look at the other people in the waiting room, then typed something into his tablet. My hypothesis seems too fantastical to mention.

I reached for the tablet. "May I?"

He nodded, so I began two finger typing a response. Ugh. I guess some skills you lose in seven years. Both Shingen and Sasuke leaned over me to watch my response form one letter at a time.

Aki shot in 1578. Took him through a wormhole to 1586 different timeline. You and that timeline's Shingen helped me get him here.

"Holy crap on a cracker!" His exclamation, and the fact that he nearly shot out of his seat, earned us all dark looks from the others in the room. He lowered his voice to a whisper. "Multiverses."

I nodded. Hopefully that would satisfy him for now. At the moment, I didn't have the mental capacity to explain more, either verbally, or on the tablet. Luckily, that set Sasuke off on another mad typing excursion, and Shingen, at least satisfied that he hadn't missed an important battle, took another look at me, and offered to get some food. "What do you like to eat, Angel? The bistro in the lobby has very good pastry. I have tried it all."

"Oh. Maybe just tea and soup." I had no urge to test a seven-years-in the- Sengoku digestive system on anything heavy (the shock to my intestines when I first arrived in 1575 had been a painful enough experience that I was in no hurry to repeat). Shingen nodded and made himself scarce.

With Sasuke still in mad scientist mode, I finally took a moment to glance through the paperwork I'd been given in intake and realized that Sasuke had pulled both academic and financial strings here.

"Thank you," I said to Sasuke when he had paused in his typing. "I don't know how I'll repay you-."

"It's not an issue." Sasuke gestured to his tablet. "You are making infinite contributions to my scientific knowledge." Wait until you get a look at this device. It was not the best location to show him that… not with all the witnesses about, let alone any closed circuit cameras that might be in the area.

Given my circumstances, I was going to have to rely on his charity for a day or so. While I did at least have the numbers and passcodes to Aki's accounts in that letter, without an I. D. I wouldn't be able to access them. Granted, I could probably get a replacement for all my papers with a vague 'travelling, got robbed' excuse, but it wouldn't be immediate.

With those practicalities, and the trying-not-to-think-about-it concern over Aki circling in my mind, I gratefully accepted a comforting bowl of ramen when Shingen returned (also with a bag of pastry and a carrier containing three to-go cups). From the smell, it seemed like Sasuke was drinking a seriously dark roast coffee, which I guess also explained his typing speed. The smell reminded me of Francisco's office and for a moment I pictured myself back then all those weeks ago - when Francisco had offered Mitsuhide a cup of coff— and then an earlier memory superimposed over that one.

"You ought to be able to perform both at the same time." Mitsuhide motioned me over to the writing desk, opened the drawer for like… three seconds… and then slammed it shut again. "What is in the drawer, brat?"—

My mental picture slid to when I searched Francisco's office to retrieve my letter. There... had been a gun in the drawer. I'd been so focused on Aki that it hadn't registered at the time. But it had not been in there when I was there last week (two weeks ago? Time flies when you've got wormholes). Sure, owning a gun would not be unusual for a Portuguese merchant. But I had never seen Francisco use a gun. Well… something just felt off.

Damn it. Not for the first time I wished Mitsuhide were around so that I could talk about this with him! (And wouldn't he tease me about it too!).

"Ms. Yamaoka?" A doctor entered the room with an electronic tablet in her hand. "I wanted to update you on your father's condition."

I jumped to my feet, aware that behind me, Shingen and Sasuke had done so as well, just to support me.

"We removed the bullet without any major complications." She hesitated and I realized that this was going to be one of those good news, bad news situation. "However, the infection at the site of the wound and the fever has put him at high risk for a cascading multi organ failure."

I felt a reassuring pat on my shoulder. Shingen. It was the pat of an authority figure to a subordinate, an 'I'm here to help if you want' kind of thing, and I appreciated that he had dropped the flirtatious exterior. The slight clicking behind me suggested that Sasuke was already looking up all the potential treatments in the medical library. "We'll do everything we can to support his system, but to give the antibiotics a chance to work, we've put him into a medically induced coma." She paused, waiting for me to ask additional questions, but I had gotten the gist of it.

She handed me a few informative packets on their treatment and on patient family support options. The paperwork was a bit overwhelming, when all I wanted right now was, "Can I see him?"

The doctor frowned. "Visiting hours technically ended-"

Shingen edged closer to her. "Doctor. You are truly a Goddess of Healing. We're grateful for everything you do. All my young friend needs is a few minutes with her father, just to ease her mind."

Ha. Apparently that charisma could be deployed at will and with military precision. I was granted five minutes but warned that he wouldn't know I was there.

I was used to Aki seeming bigger than life, but now, hooked up to several machines, he looked drained and very old. As warned, he didn't register my presence, so I simply sat and held his hand, as if that could be a conduit to transfer my energy to him.

When my time was up, I leaned over him and whispered, "Aki, if you don't recover, I am turning your spy network over to Takauji."

It was the smell of coffee that awoke me the following morning. I sat up on the futon and looked around the room, taking in details that I had been too tired to notice the night before. Sasuke's two-bedroom high rise condo was sleek and ultra-modern. Given how much of a history buff he was, I was surprised at how no-frills it was in terms of decor. It kind of seemed... not him.

In spite of the stark decor, it was comfortable, full of every imaginable convenience. I'd half slept through my first shower in seven years, then, with my hair still wet, I had fallen asleep almost instantly on the futon in the living room (both Sasuke and Shingen had offered to give up their bedrooms for me, but I had insisted that I would be fine on the futon for a few days).

Something clicked and beeped, and I finally located the smell of coffee as emanating from a complicated looking automatic espresso machine. It was the only visible appliance in the open kitchen. The thing beeped again, and, as if on cue Sasuke shuffled out of his room, hair flopping everywhere, glasses slightly askew, and made a beeline for the machine.

Recognizing a caffeine addict when I saw one, I waited for him to get a few sips into his system before engaging in conversation. "How in the world did you manage to survive in the Sengoku without coffee?"

"Indeed, it was one of the only thing I neglected to factor into my decision making when I initially went back in time. However the benefits of immersive historical and scientific research outweighed the inconvenience of the pre-Dutch explorer era." He finished his first coffee, poured another cup, then pulled an electric kettle out of some neat hidden cupboard, filled it with water, and plugged it in.

"Aki's friend Francisco had coffee - when we get back, I should connect the two of you.'' And also question Francisco about the gun. But that was something to worry about later. I had more pressing issues to deal with. "Did the hospital call with updates to Aki's condition?" Sasuke had left his details with the hospital, since I was still without a phone.

Sasuke held up one finger, slipped back into his room at a much faster pace than he had left it, and returned with his phone. "No messages," He handed it to me. "I presume you want to call?"

He was correct in that, and once I had made it through the frustratingly complicated hospital voice system (yeesh, it was easier to get a message to someone in the Sengoku era than it was to get a live person on the phone) only to be told that Aki's condition was unchanged, Sasuke had set out a bowl and whisk, and a packet of tea.

By the time I had prepared the tea, taking comfort in the fact that this at least had not changed from the Sengoku era, Shingen joined us. He had either slept in, or put on a kimono, and he looked a bit more like the Shingen I had met in 1586, although he was unhealthily thin; a condition that I imagined would change soon enough if he kept eating sweet pastry for breakfast.

Once we had all gathered our respective food and drink items to the table and taken a few bites to sate our hunger, Shingen asked again the question that I imagine had been nagging at him all night. "How did your father get shot?"

And so once again, I found myself explaining how and when I found Aki, but, not wanting him to question too much about 1586 (I was in no mind space to handle the awkwardness of explaining that his alternate was in love with an alternate version of me), I skipped right to the device, knowing that Sasuke would take over as soon as he saw it.

After explaining what Sasuke Mach 1586 had discovered about the thing so far, I turned it, and the letter he had written to himself over to him, and had the rare experience of seeing his face light up with scientific glee. "Holy crap on a cracker - it's a... I don't know what to call it."

"We were joking that it's a mini-flux capacitor." Although who knows maybe that is what it was.

"Though I wouldn't dare question your scientific knowledge Sasuke," Shingen looked at the device warily. "I do not want you to accidentally transport us to yet another place in time."

"At the moment, it's coded to me, so we should be ok." Just to be extra safe, I folded my hands in my lap.

Sasuke scanned the letter to himself, making happy murmurs about science and multiverses. Then he set the letter down and sighed happily. "My day is complete. My alternate Sasuke has evidence of yet another alternate Sasuke." He turned the device over and over in his hand.

"Yeah, according to Katsuko, there are at least four of us, so there are likely four of you too and-"

SQUEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE

The device vibrated violently, let out an electronic beep, and a tiny green light began blinking.

"Sasuke... what did you do?" Shingen's voice had gotten ominously quiet. I glanced around the room, looking for that odd ripple I had seen each time the device activated, but at least on that end things were normal.

"I have not begun any actions that would cause it to activate," Sasuke set the thing down. "Whatever just initiated was automatic."

"Like a self-destruct program?" Yeesh. And I'd been carrying that thing in my kimono.

"Perhaps. Or a homing beacon."

The blinking light intensified in speed, let out another SQUEE.

Then the light went out and it silenced.