The arrow came out on the third day.
Sekitanki had found shelter in a abandoned shrine—roof half-collapsed, walls covered in moss, forgotten by whatever gods it once honored. His hands shook as he gripped the arrow shaft, left hand slick with blood and sweat, and pulled.
The scream that tore from his throat belonged to something animal. Something that had forgotten human language in favor of pure agony. The arrowhead came free with a wet sound that would haunt him, bringing chunks of muscle tissue that shouldn't be outside his body.
He packed the wound with moss—not sterile, probably infectious, but better than nothing. The techniques learned in the Carboniferous applied here too: pressure to stop bleeding, elevation when possible, acceptance that infection was inevitable and survival meant outlasting it.
Three days in feudal Japan. Still alive. Barely.
His body was a symphony of competing pains. The arrow wound in his shoulder. Broken ribs that ground with each breath. His right arm still half-useless. Dehydration from three days of barely finding water. Hunger that made his stomach feel like it was consuming itself.
But the stolen sword lay beside him. Still sharp. Still capable. One advantage over the Carboniferous: the predators here speak languages I can eventually learn. The thought arrived with grim humor. He'd survived giant insects by becoming more savage than they were. Could he survive humans the same way? Or would he need to become something else entirely?
Footsteps outside the shrine.
Sekitanki's hand found the sword instantly—muscle memory from three weeks of constant vigilance. He pressed himself against the wall, breathing shallow, ignoring the pain signals his body was screaming.
The footsteps stopped. A voice spoke in that archaic Japanese he could barely comprehend: "I know you're in there. If you were going to attack, you would have by now. If you were going to flee, you'd have done so already. Which means you're injured."
Silence. "I have food. Clean water. Medicine. And I'm alone." A trap. Obviously a trap. Lure the demon out with false promises, then—"Also," the voice continued, "you're bleeding through the wall. The moss you used is dripping. You have maybe a day before fever sets in. Maybe two before you're too weak to fight."
Sekitanki looked down. Sure enough, blood had soaked through the moss bandage, running down his arm, dripping onto the shrine's wooden floor. Damn it. He had two choices: stay hidden and die slowly from infection, or reveal himself and possibly die quickly from betrayal. Same calculation as the Carboniferous. Same answer. "If you're going to kill me," Sekitanki called out in modern Japanese, knowing the person probably couldn't understand, "make it fast."
The door slid open.
The person who entered was somewhere in his thirties—though age was hard to gauge in an era before modern nutrition and medicine. His hair was tied in a topknot. He wore travel-stained robes, practical rather than ceremonial. No armor. A single sword at his hip, handle wrapped in worn leather. But it was his eyes that Sekitanki noticed. Tired eyes. Eyes that had seen violence and found it wanting.
Ronin, some fragment of historical knowledge supplied. Masterless samurai. Outcasts. The warior studied Sekitanki with an expression that mixed curiosity and caution. When he spoke again, he used simpler words, more gesture: "You. Hurt. I. Help." The sentence structure was so basic a child could follow it. Sekitanki felt something like gratitude. "Yes," he said, pointing to his shoulder. "Arrow. Three days. Infection coming." The ronin nodded. Set down a bundle he'd been carrying. Began unpacking: strips of clean cloth, a ceramic bottle, something that looked like dried herbs.
"Name?" the ronin asked, pointing to himself. "Takeda Isamu." "Sekitanki." The modern name felt wrong in his mouth, surrounded by all this historical authenticity. "Sekitanki Hankō suru hito." Takeda's eyebrows rose. He repeated the name slowly, mangling the pronunciation. Then shook his head and pointed: "You. Strange name. Strange speech. Strange..." he gestured at Sekitanki's entire existence. "You have no idea," Sekitanki muttered in modern Japanese.
Takeda's medicine burned like liquid fire. Sekitanki bit through his sleeve to muffle screams as the ronin poured whatever herbal concoction he'd brought into the arrow wound. The world dissolved into white agony. When it reformed, he was lying on his back, Takeda binding the wound with clean cloth. "Strong," Takeda said, the simple word carrying approval. "Most people. Would faint." I've cauterized my own infected arm with heated stone. This is nothing. But Sekitanki just nodded weakly. Takeda produced rice balls from his bundle. Simple fare—rice and pickled plum wrapped in seaweed. Sekitanki devoured two before his stomach remembered what solid food felt like and threatened rebellion.
They sat in silence as evening fell, the abandoned shrine filling with shadows. Finally, Takeda spoke: "Why. Do Hōjō. Hunt you?"
How to explain time travel to someone who thought the world was flat? How to describe quantum physics to an era that hadn't invented calculus yet? Sekitanki gestured broadly, trying to find common ground. "I come. From far. Very far." He pointed upward, at the sky. Not entirely inaccurate—time and space were related, after all. "Accident. I appear. They think. Demon."
Takeda absorbed this. "You. Not demon?" "No. Just. Lost." The ronin laughed—a short, bitter sound. "Lost. Yes. I understand. Lost." Something in his tone suggested a story. Sekitanki waited.
"I. Was samurai," Takeda said slowly, each word chosen with care. "Served. Lord Minamoto. Good lord. Fair. When he died. Ordered. All samurai. Die with him. Seppuku. Honor death."
He paused, staring at nothing. "I. Refused. Because. Stupid tradition. Waste good lives. For what? Pride?" Sekitanki understood perfectly. The concept of ritual suicide to preserve honor had always struck him as the ultimate waste—throwing away the one resource that couldn't be replaced or reproduced. "Smart," he said. "Living. Better than. Dead honor."
Takeda looked at him sharply. Then smiled—genuinely smiled, like he'd found something unexpected and valuable. "Yes. But. Now. Ronin. Masterless. Shameful. Hunted." He touched his sword. "This blade. Cut many people. For honor. For duty. For nothing that mattered." They sat in companionable silence as stars emerged through the shrine's broken roof. Two outcasts—one from the future, one from this timelines society—finding brief sanctuary in mutual understanding.
"Why. Help me?" Sekitanki finally asked. Takeda shrugged. "You. Are hunted. Like me. Maybe. We. Hunt together. Better than. Hunt alone." An alliance. Unexpected. Possibly temporary. But better than solitude.
"Yes," Sekitanki said. "Together. Better." The bandits attacked on the fifth day. Sekitanki and Takeda had been traveling the back roads—avoiding major settlements, seeking information about strange metal objects falling from the sky. The time machine had to have landed somewhere. Someone had to have seen it.
But the information came with a price.
Six people emerged from the tree line, weapons drawn. Not samurai—their armor was mismatched, their movements undisciplined. Bandits, preying on travelers who couldn't fight back or call for help.
They'd chosen the wrong targets. The leader spoke in that classical Japanese Sekitanki was slowly beginning to parse: something about payment, about foreign demons being valuable to certain collectors, about how they'd split the reward. Takeda's hand moved to his sword. "Run. Or die," he said simply.
The bandits laughed. Mistake. What followed wasn't a duel. Wasn't honorable combat between warriors following ancient codes. It was slaughter.
Takeda moved first—his blade leaving its sheath in a motion so fast Sekitanki almost missed it. The lead bandit's head separated from his shoulders before his laugh finished echoing. Blood fountained. The body stood for a moment, suspended by momentum, then collapsed.
The other bandits charged. And Sekitanki remembered: he'd killed a giant dragonfly with improvised weapons. He'd fought prehistoric scorpions barehanded. He'd survived three weeks in an era where everything was trying to eat him. Humans are so much softer than chitin.
His stolen sword came up. The bandit's overhead strike met his blade at an angle—Sekitanki used the attacker's momentum against him, redirecting rather than blocking. The physics were simple. The execution was brutal.
The bandit stumbled past. Sekitanki's return strike caught him across the back of the knee. Bones severed. The bandit went down screaming.
Another bandit lunged. This one was smarter—struck high, struck low. But Sekitanki had fought creatures that moved in three dimensions simultaneously. Reading human telegraphs was trivially easy by comparison.
He dropped beneath the strike, rolled, came up inside the bandit's guard. The sword point found the gap between armor plates and punched through. Warm blood cascaded over his hands.
Just like the Carboniferous. Just like always. Kill or be killed. The remaining three bandits broke and ran. Takeda let them go. He lowered his blade, which was clean—a single perfect strike that hadn't needed a second motion. He looked at Sekitanki, at the two bodies bleeding out on the forest path, and his expression was unreadable.
"You. Fight. Like demon," he said finally. Sekitanki looked at his hands—covered in blood that wasn't his own—and felt the familiar emptiness settle back into his heart. "No. Not demon." He met Takeda's eyes. "Just. Survivor." That night, they made camp far from the road.
Takeda built a fire with practiced efficiency. Sekitanki cleaned his blade using techniques that felt like second nature now—caring for weapons had become as automatic as breathing.
"Your. Fighting," Takeda said, breaking the silence. "Not samurai. Not any style. I know. Where. Learn?" How to explain? Sekitanki tried: "Place. Where. Everything. Tries. Kill you. Every day. Learn. Fast. Or die."
"This place. Where?" "Gone. Far away. Can't. Go back." Not yet. "Only. Forward now." Takeda nodded as if this made perfect sense. "Forward. Yes. Past. Is dead. Like. Those people. Like. My lord. Only. Forward."
They sat watching flames dance, two people displaced from their natural contexts, bound by mutual survival. "Tomorrow," Takeda said, "village. Three days east. Heard story. Metal. Fall from sky. Two weeks ago. Make. Big crater. Monks. Guard it now. Call it. Gift. From gods." Sekitanki's pulse quickened. The time machine. It has to be.
"We. Go there?" "Dangerous. Monks. Are warrior monks. Sacred. Ground. They. Will fight." "Don't care," Sekitanki said, and meant it. "Need. That metal. Need it. Go home." Takeda studied him for a long moment. "Home. Must be. Very important."
Sekitanki thought of his mother's kitchen. His father's newspaper. The life he'd thrown away in pursuit of genius that had never filled anything. "Yes. Important. Because. I never. Said sorry. Before. I left." The ronin's expression softened. "Sorry. Heavy word. Good word. But. Heavy." "Heavy," Sekitanki agreed. "Very. Heavy." They sat in silence until the fire burned to embers, each carrying their own weight into whatever came next.
TO BE CONTINUED... [NEXT EPISODE: "Forge of Impossible Steel"]