The reflection in the water bucket was wrong.
Sekitanki stared at the face looking back at him and didn't recognize it. Not the scars—those he'd earned and catalogued like academic citations. Not the haunted quality in his eyes—that had been growing since the Carboniferous.
But the hair.
It fell past his shoulders now, wild and unkempt, black as coal seams waiting to form. When had that happened? Three weeks in the Carboniferous, another week here—that wasn't enough time for this growth. Hair grew at a fixed rate, approximately probably one centimeter per month. This was impossible.
"You. Look. Like. Ghost," Takeda said, approaching with his usual directness.
Sekitanki touched his hair, felt it real and solid between his fingers. "Time. Does. Strange things." "Should. Cut it. Warriors. Keep. Hair. Tied. Otherwise. Enemy. Can grab."
But Sekitanki shook his head. The length felt right somehow. Like his body was adapting to this era, becoming something that belonged here even though he didn't. His organs had settled too—the constant nausea from temporal displacement had faded. His breathing had adjusted to this era's atmosphere. Even his broken ribs were healing faster than they should.
I'm becoming native to this time. My body is acclimating to the Kamakura Period like it acclimated to the Carboniferous oxygen levels.
The thought should have been disturbing. Instead, it felt like acceptance. Kanemoto emerged from his workshop, excitement barely contained despite his age. He gestured frantically, speaking rapid classical Japanese.
Takeda translated: "He says. He has. Surprise. For you. Been working. Secret. Needs you. In forge. Now."
The forge was hotter than usual, the furnace burning at temperatures that made the air shimmer like water. Kanemoto had laid out materials across his workbench—steel ingots, yes, but also things Sekitanki hadn't seen: rare minerals, fragments of what looked like meteor iron, cloth dyed deep blue-black that seemed to absorb light.
The old smith spoke at length, gesturing with hands that no longer trembled. Takeda translated haltingly: "He says. You. Gave him. Knowledge. Changed. His craft. Now. He. Wants. Give you. Something. In return."
"New blade?" Sekitanki asked. "Not. Just blade." Takeda paused, searching for words. "He says. You. Are warrior. Without. Armor. Without. Proper. Clothes. Look like. Demon. Because. Dress like. Demon. He wants. Make you. Look like. Hero."
Sekitanki glanced down at himself. His clothes—what remained of his lab coat and pants—were barely recognizable. Torn beyond repair. Stained with blood and ichor from two different eras. They marked him as other, as foreign, as wrong. Even though he was Japanese like them. Even if he was from a different time.
"He wants. Forge. For you. Blade. And. Kimono. Together. As one. Thing."
The concept was strange but somehow perfect. Kanemoto was offering to make him belong to this era, at least visually. To give him an identity that wasn't "demon" or "foreigner."
To make him into something new. "Yes," Sekitanki said. "Thank you. I. Accept." Kanemoto's weathered face split into a grin. He clapped his hands once, sharply, and began speaking rapidly—giving orders, explaining his vision.
The next three days blurred into heat and hammer strikes and the smell of hot metal. Sekitanki worked alongside the old smith, applying his knowledge of materials science to something that wasn't just a weapon but a statement. The blade would be different from the first—longer, curved more dramatically, designed specifically for his fighting style that blended Carboniferous survival with samurai technique.
For the core, they used meteor iron—fallen from the same sky Sekitanki had fallen through. The symbolism wasn't lost on either of them. Around it, they wrapped steel folded in patterns that mimicked both traditional Japanese methods and the fractal structures he'd learned from insect chitin.
Kanemoto insisted on incorporating his own innovations too—techniques he'd developed in the days since the first blade, pushing the boundaries of what his era thought possible.
The result was something that had never existed in any timeline.
While the blade cooled between forgings, Kanemoto worked on the kimono. He'd somehow acquired fabric that felt wrong for this period—too smooth, too durable. Sekitanki suspected it was silk, but treated with something, reinforced somehow. As Sekitanki created fabric from his own time. Just for his Kimono alone.
The old smith cut it in ways that looked chaotic but weren't—strategic tears that mimicked Sekitanki's ruined clothes, but intentional this time. Layered construction that would allow movement while providing minimal protection. The color was deep blue-black, like twilight before true darkness, with hints of something metallic woven through.
"Why. This color?" Sekitanki asked. Kanemoto responded through Takeda: "He says. Because. You. Come from. The Sky. Not. Day. Not. Night. Not. Past. Not. Future. In between. Like. Twilight. Even. Though. Don't know. Story. That's what. Your being. Tells. Him"
Accurate. Painfully accurate. On the third day, they assembled everything.
The blade first—final forging, final quench, final polish. When it caught light, the hamon pattern resembled lightning frozen in steel. The handle was wrapped in traditional style but using cord that Kanemoto had somehow made from the meteor iron, creating subtle metallic threads that grounded the wielder.
The kimono came next. And donned the new garment. It fit perfectly, moving with him like a second skin. The strategic tears didn't compromise mobility or protection. If anything, they enhanced both.
Takeda handed him a mirror—actual polished bronze, expensive and rare. The person looking back was a stranger. Even though it was him. Just a different appearance.
Long black hair falling past shoulders. Sharp blue eyes that had seen things no human should witness. Scars mapping both arms. The blue-black kimono making him look like he'd been cut from twilight itself. And the blade at his side, gleaming with impossible perfection.
He looked like a legend. Like something from myths that hadn't been written yet. "What. Do you. Think?" Takeda asked quietly. Sekitanki touched the blade's handle, felt it respond to his grip like it had been waiting for him specifically.
"I think. I look. Dangerous." "Good," the ronin smiled. "Because. What. Comes next. Is. Very dangerous indeed." The Ashikaga clan came that night. Not the bandits from before—these were proper samurai. Twenty warriors in full armor, led by a warrior whose presence commanded attention the way gravity commanded falling. His name was Ashikaga Tadayoshi, and he was the second son of the clan head.
Important. Dangerous. And very, very angry.
They arrived as the sun set, surrounding the village in a loose cordon that tightened with military precision. No escape routes. No diplomatic solutions. Just inevitable violence.
Tadayoshi rode to the village center, his horse perfectly trained, his armor immaculate. When he spoke, his voice carried across every building: "The demon smith. Who forges. Unnatural blades. Surrender. Yourself. And. Your secret. Or. This village. Burns."
Sekitanki stood in the forge entrance, newly transformed, and felt something cold settle into his heart. Not fear—he'd burned through fear in the Carboniferous. This was calculation. Pure strategic assessment.
Twenty samurai. All trained. All experienced. Against him, Takeda, and farmers with farming tools. The odds are approximately 97% in their favor. The smart play is surrender. But I stopped making smart plays when I decided to survive the impossible.
He stepped into the firelight, and the Ashikaga warriors recoiled visibly. Not from his appearance—though that was striking enough—but from something else. Some primal recognition that what they faced wasn't entirely human anymore.
"No," Sekitanki said in his halting classical Japanese. "You. Leave. Now. Or. Learn. Why. Smart people. Fear. Demons." Tadayoshi's face darkened. "Arrogant. Thing. You. Think. Blade. Makes you. Warrior? I. Have killed. Hundreds. You. Are. Just. Foreign. Trash."
"Foreign. Yes." Sekitanki's hand found the blade's handle. "Trash. We. Will see." The samurai lord raised his hand. "Kill. Him. Bring me. The smith. And. His secrets." Twenty warriors drew their swords. And the massacre began. Sekitanki moved first. The new blade left its sheath in a motion so smooth it seemed like teleportation—one moment sheathed, the next in his hand, already cutting. The nearest samurai's sword met his blade and shattered. Good. The metallurgy holds under combat stress.
He didn't stop moving. Couldn't stop. Because stopping meant dying, and he'd decided long ago that dying was unacceptable.
The second samurai lunged. Sekitanki's blade redirected the strike—not blocking, never blocking—and opened the warrior's throat in the return motion. Blood sprayed across twilight-colored silk. The samurai fell gurgling.
Three more attacked simultaneously.
This was what the Carboniferous had taught him: how to fight multiple opponents with superior numbers. How to move in three dimensions. How to read body language faster than conscious thought. How to become something that killed without hesitation because hesitation meant death.
His blade sang through the air—actual singing, the meteor iron and steel combination creating harmonics that hadn't existed before. Each strike found gaps in armor. Each movement flowed into the next like water finding cracks.
One samurai fell. Two. Three.
Tadayoshi watched with growing horror. This wasn't supposed to happen. His people were trained warriors, veterans of clan wars and border disputes. They shouldn't be falling to one person wielding an impossible blade.
But they were.
Because Sekitanki wasn't just one human. He was three weeks of Carboniferous survival compressed into human form. He was every desperate fight, every impossible kill, every moment of refusing to be prey.
He was evolution happening in real-time.
Takeda joined the battle, the first demon blade in his hands. Together they became something unstoppable—the ronin's traditional technique enhanced by the impossible blades, Sekitanki's prehistoric brutality refined by human precision.
The Ashikaga warriors fell like wheat before a scythe.
But Tadayoshi wasn't watching his warrior's anymore. He was watching Sekitanki. Studying. Learning. Because he wasn't just a clan lord—he was a master samurai who'd earned his position through skill rather than bloodline.
And he saw the pattern. When only five samurai remained, Tadayoshi drew his own blade and entered the fight. The difference was immediate.
Where his warriors had been predictable, Tadayoshi was anything but. His strikes came from angles that exploited every opening. His technique was flawless—centuries of samurai tradition distilled into perfect form.
Their blades met in a clash that sent sparks fountaining into the night. He's good. Actually good. This isn't like fighting the others. This is—Tadayoshi's knee caught Sekitanki in the still-healing ribs. Pain exploded white-hot. He stumbled backward, barely avoiding the follow-up strike that would have taken his head.
The samurai lord pressed the advantage. His blade moved in patterns that seemed impossible—three strikes in the space where one should exist, each one finding the gaps in Sekitanki's defense.
I'm going to lose. He's better trained. More experienced. More—no. The thought arrived with cold fury. He hadn't survived the Carboniferous just to die in a sword fight. Hadn't fought prehistoric monsters just to fall to human arrogance. Sekitanki changed tactics.
Stopped fighting like a samurai. Stopped trying to match technique with technique. Instead, he fought like what he was: something that had learned combat from creatures that didn't care about honor or tradition.
He dropped low—below Tadayoshi's strike zone. Swept his blade at knee level. The samurai lord jumped, exactly as predicted, and Sekitanki's follow-up strike caught him mid-air.
Not a killing blow. Just a cut across the ribs. But enough. Enough to prove that perfect technique could be defeated by something that refused to follow rules. They separated, both breathing hard. Tadayoshi looked at the cut in his armor, at the blood seeping through, and his expression changed from fury to something else.
Respect. "You. Fight. Like. No one. I. Have seen," he said slowly. "Not. Samurai. Not. Anything. Human." "Correct," Sekitanki replied. "I. Fight. Like. Someone. Who. Survived. What. Killed. Everything. Else."
Tadayoshi's remaining warriors helped their wounded. The samurai lord sheathed his blade—a gesture of withdrawal. "This. Is not. Over," he said. "My clan. Will. Return. But. Tonight. You. Earned. Reprieve."
He turned his horse and rode away, leaving bodies behind. Leaving Sekitanki standing in firelight and blood, blade still drawn, kimono soaked in violence. Looking exactly like the demon they'd named him.
Later, Kanemoto found him by the river, washing blood from the blade. The old smith didn't speak. Just sat beside him, watching moonlight dance on water. Finally: "You. Became. What. I. Made. You. Look like." "Hero?" Sekitanki asked bitterly.
"No. Something. Between. Hero. And. Monster. Something. New." They sat in silence as the blade gleamed, clean and perfect and hungry for the next fight.
TO BE CONTINUED... [NEXT EPISODE: "The Shrine of False Gods"]