The old priest found Sekitanki three days after the battle, sitting beneath a cherry tree that wouldn't bloom for another four months.
He was a small gramps, bent with age, wearing robes that had seen better decades. But his eyes were sharp—the kind of sharpness that came from seeing through appearances to what lay beneath.
"Demon-san," he said in halting modern Japanese, and Sekitanki's head snapped up so fast his neck cracked. "You—how do you speak—"
"Badly," the priest admitted, switching back to classical Japanese with visible relief. "Your language is like trying to hold water in cupped hands. But I am a fast learner. Buddhist monks must master many tongues. Chinese. Sanskrit. The various dialects of our islands. And apparently, the Japanese that will exist seven hundred years from now."
Sekitanki stared. "How did you—"
"Learn?" The priest settled beside him with a grunt. "I listened. I am Enjō, which means 'flame-bearer,' and my gift has always been languages. They speak to me like music. Yours is fascinating—simplified grammar, borrowed words from languages that don't exist yet, pronunciation that has drifted like sand dunes over centuries. I can tell."
"You learned modern Japanese in three days by listening to me speak broken classical Japanese?" "I learned enough to hold conversation. Fluency will take longer." Enjō pulled out a small pipe. "But I understand you now. Which means you can finally speak without that painful halting cadence you've been using."
For the first time since arriving in the Kamakura Period, Sekitanki felt something unclench in his heart. To speak naturally. To not translate every thought through linguistic barriers.
"Why help me?" he asked in his native modern Japanese.
Enjō responded in kind, accent thick but comprehensible: "Because you are debris floating the wrong direction in time's river. And debris causes interesting ripples. Also, I am very old and very bored. Teaching you proper classical Japanese in exchange for learning your future tongue? This is entertainment for my final years. Though I'm still trying to mostly bare your language. But I'm close."
The lessons began that afternoon in earnest.
They sat in the shrine's courtyard—abandoned except for them—and Enjō systematically deconstructed seven hundred years of linguistic evolution.
"Your language has lost much," he said, speaking classical Japanese slowly so Sekitanki could absorb each word. "But gained efficiency. What we say in ten words, you say in five. But those five carry less... texture."
"Texture?" "Nuance. Layers of meaning. Your era values directness. Ours values implication. When I say 'the cherry blossom falls,' I might mean anything from literal observation to commenting on the impermanence of beauty to suggesting that war approaches. Context determines meaning."
Sekitanki's scientific mind engaged with the linguistic puzzle. "So I need to learn not just words but the entire contextual framework?"
"Exactly. You already know the words. Your broken classical Japanese proves that. But you're using them like someone who learned from books without understanding the culture that shaped them."
Over the following weeks, Enjō became a constant presence. He would appear at dawn, correct Sekitanki's pronunciation over breakfast, then spend hours drilling grammar patterns that felt more like poetry than structure.
But crucially, he learned modern Japanese alongside teaching classical. They would have conversations where Enjō spoke in old forms and Sekitanki responded in new, each learning from the other's mistakes.
"Your future," Enjō said one evening in surprisingly fluent modern Japanese, "has removed much beauty from speech. But added much clarity. I see why this happened. Efficiency serves a faster world."
"And your past," Sekitanki replied in increasingly confident classical Japanese, "has embedded so much meaning in every phrase that simple statements become philosophical meanings."
"Yes. This is why poets exist. To carry the weight of all that meaning."
By the second week, something clicked. Sekitanki found himself thinking in classical Japanese, dreaming in it, the language's rhythms becoming natural rather than forced. By the third week, Enjō pronounced him competent enough for complex conversation.
"You will never pass for native," the old priest said. "Your accent carries too much future. But you can now speak without causing listeners to think you are demon-possessed or brain-damaged."
"High praise." "Honest assessment. Now tell me: why do you truly seek the metal that fell from the sky?" Sekitanki had been expecting this question. "Because it's my only way home. I built that machine to explore time. It malfunctioned and stranded me here. If I can repair it, I can return to my own era."
"And if you cannot repair it?" The question hung heavy. Sekitanki looked at his hands—scarred from the Carboniferous, calloused from weapon work, transformed by weeks of impossible survival.
"Then I live here. Become whatever this era needs me to become. Until I die naturally or violently, whichever comes first."
Enjō nodded slowly. "This is an honest answer. Good. Dishonesty with self is worse than dishonesty with others. You should know: the Jikai Shrine's warrior-monks are formidable. They study both spiritual and martial arts with equal dedication. Simply demanding your machine back will fail."
"Then I'll negotiate." "With what? You are a foreign demon in their eyes. You carry a blade that should not exist. You speak of these sciences they call sorcery. What common ground can you offer?"
Sekitanki thought of the refugees they'd helped on the road. Of Kanemoto's joy in learning new techniques. Of how teaching could be its own form of connection.
"Understanding," he said finally. "I can offer them understanding of what they've found. Not as divine artifact but as achievement of human ingenuity. Maybe that bridge is enough."
"Maybe," Enjō agreed. "Or maybe it gets you killed for blasphemy. Time will tell." They departed for the Jikai Shrine at dawn—Sekitanki, Takeda, Kanemoto, and surprisingly, Enjō himself. "I wish to see this temporal machine," the old priest said. "And ensure my student doesn't immediately offend everyone through linguistic error."
The journey took four days through mountains that seemed to exist outside normal time. Mist made everything dreamlike. Rivers sang in frequencies that resonated in Sekitanki's bones. Occasionally they'd encounter other travelers who would stare at their group—the foreign demon, the masterless ronin, the innovative smith, and the elderly priest—and wonder what story connected them.
On the third day, they found the refugees.
A family fleeing Ashikaga raids—father wounded, mother exhausted, children hollow-eyed with hunger and fear. Takeda wanted to hurry past. Time was precious. But Sekitanki stopped.
"We help them," he said in fluid classical Japanese that still surprised him when it emerged naturally. "We have a mission," Takeda protested. "The mission doesn't matter if we lose ourselves achieving it."
They tended to the family. Kanemoto treated the father's infected wound using techniques Sekitanki had taught him. Enjō shared food and spoke quiet prayers that seemed to ease more than physical hunger. And when the father asked where they were headed, Sekitanki told him. "The Jikai Shrine offers sanctuary. We're headed there as well. Travel with us."
Relief flooded the fathers weathered face. "They say warrior-monks there protect refugees. That the gods smile on that place." Or the gods left their time machine there, Sekitanki thought but didn't say.
They traveled together, pace slowing but purpose strengthening. Protecting the family felt right. Like survival with meaning attached. On the fourth evening, they crested the final pass.
The Jikai Shrine spread below them like a fortress disguised as sanctuary. Wooden buildings arranged in geometric patterns. Training grounds where warrior-monks moved through kata with lethal grace. Gardens speaking of careful cultivation. And at the center—visible through the main hall's open doors—something that caught light wrong.
Something metallic and impossible. There. My way home. But surrounding it: warrior-monks by the dozens. All trained. All dedicated. All believing the machine was divine gift rather than human achievement.
"Complicated doesn't begin to describe this," Takeda muttered. "When has anything been simple?" Sekitanki replied.
They descended as sunset painted everything in twilight colors. The refugee family was welcomed immediately—monks emerging to provide food, shelter, medical care. But when Sekitanki tried to enter, a staff blocked his path.
The monk was young but moved like violence contained. He spoke in perfect classical Japanese: "Identify yourself, stranger. Your blade and bearing suggest warrior, but your appearance marks you as foreign. What business have you at this sacred place?"
Sekitanki responded in equally perfect classical Japanese, and watched surprise flicker across the monk's face: "I am Sekitanki, a traveler from distant lands. I seek audience with your abbot regarding the divine artifact you protect."
"Many seek the Toki no Kagami. All are refused. It is not for mortal eyes." "Even mortals who created it?" The statement rippled through gathered monks like a stone thrown in still water. Hands moved toward weapons. The air crystallized toward violence.
An older monk stepped forward—authority evident in his bearing. "I am Abbot Kenshin. You claim to have created our sacred artifact?"
"Not claim. Fact. That object is a temporal displacement device. I built it in my laboratory seven hundred years in the future. It malfunctioned during operation and deposited me in your era."
Kenshin's expression didn't change. "You speak our language perfectly yet claim to be from the future. You carry blade forged with techniques unknown to our smiths. You appear from nowhere speaking impossible truths. Tell me: should I believe your a time-traveler? Or simply an exceptional liar?"
"Does it matter? Either way, I need to examine that machine."
"It matters greatly. If you are a liar, you are simply an ambitious thief. If you are truth-teller, you are something far more dangerous: proof that our understanding of reality is incomplete."
Sekitanki met the abbot's eyes. "And which would you prefer?"
Kenshin smiled—genuinely smiled. "Honestly? The dangerous truth. Comfortable lies bore me. Very well, you so called time-traveler. I will offer you a trial: ritual combat with our champion. Victory without killing grants you audience with the artifact. Defeat and death earns you expulsion."
"Who is your champion?" "Himura Yuki." A warrior emerged from the training hall, and Sekitanki's breath caught.
She was maybe twenty-five, wearing practical warrior's clothing. Her face held the kind of sharpness that came from absolute self-possession. But the sword at her side—that was what captured his attention the most. The blade was masterwork-quality. And the way she moved suggested someone who'd never known defeat.
She studied Sekitanki with professional interest. "You are the demon smith who creates impossible blades?" "I am the scientist who applies physics to metallurgy."
"Same thing in this era." Her hand rested casually on her sword's handle. "Tomorrow at dawn. First blood or surrender. I look forward to seeing if your reputation matches reality."
Sekitanki touched his own blade—the weapon Kanemoto had forged, the sword that had already changed this period's warfare. "Tomorrow then." Because he'd fought prehistoric scorpions and time-lost scorpions. Surely one legendary warior couldn't be any worse. Right?
Thus he would be preparing for a duel that would determine whether his journey home continued or ended.
TO BE CONTINUED... [NEXT EPISODE: "Steel Meets Lightning"]