Location: The gravel banks of the Kiso River, Owari Province.
Current Date/Time: 1559. Late Summer. Early Morning.
White mist blanketed the Kiso riverbank. The fog trapped the morning air against the damp earth, sealing the gorge.
The churning rapids battered the shoreline, water crashing hard against the dark boulders. Between the two men standing on the wet stones, the pressure rose. The roar of the river faded into a high, thin ringing inside Soma’s ears.
Oda Nobunaga’s right hand clamped onto Soma’s shoulder. The Warlord’s fingers, rough as cured saddle leather, dug through the freezing cotton of Soma’s t-shirt and the soaked wool of his varsity jacket.
Nobunaga anchored the stranger to the dirt, grinding his thumb into the muscle over his collarbone, testing the strength of the joint and the bone beneath the strange clothes.
The Warlord stood perfectly still, his broad shoulders blocking the weak morning light. Heat radiated from his chest, cutting through the freezing mountain mist and washing over Soma’s face.
“You do not tremble like a peasant waiting for the blade,” Nobunaga said.
The low rumble of his voice vibrated through the fog. He leaned closer, his gold-flecked eyes tracking the rapid, frantic pulse beating in the hollow of Soma’s throat.
“Peasants are made of mud and fear. They weep when the shadow of the horse falls over them.” Nobunaga tilted his head, his gaze steady. “You are made of something colder. You have never seen the blistering sun of a rice field, yet you do not press your face into the gravel.”
Soma locked his jaw, his teeth grinding together. His pale hands balled into tight fists at his sides, his fingernails digging hard into his own palms. He planted his soaked sneakers into the wet gravel, holding his ground against the crushing grip.
He stared past the broad shoulders of the Warlord, scanning the dense treeline. He searched the misty banks for the reinforced concrete pillars of a highway bridge. He looked for the rusted steel of a guardrail. He searched the tall trees for the thick black cables of a power line.
He found only ancient cedar trunks, twisted roots, and deep shadows.
“I’m a structural engineer,” Soma said.
Filthy river water coated his mouth, the words scraping over his raw throat. He forced his spine straight and pushed his chest forward, resisting the urge to pull away from the towering man.
“I build things,” Soma said, forcing his voice into a flat, hard cadence. “The rules of how things stand or fall don’t change. Weight is weight. I’m just trying to figure out exactly where I landed.”
Nobunaga tilted his head, the dark topknot of his wild hair swaying.
The Warlord had no concept of modern design, but he understood the rigid rhythm of the explanation. The pale man spoke like a builder who looked at the earth and saw its hidden bones.
“You speak in the tongue of ghosts, stranger,” Nobunaga said.
A slow smile smoothed the harsh lines of his weathered face. Nobunaga shifted his stance.
He pressed his thick leather boots deep into the gravel and took a half-step forward, physically crowding Soma right to the absolute edge of the riverbank. The rushing water hissed and foamed just two inches behind Soma’s heels.
Nobunaga marked the physical state of the stranger. He noted the clenched fists, the hard set of the jaw, and the complete absence of a blade at the man's waist. The pale man stood unarmed, freezing, and stripped of his world, yet he did not sink to his knees.
“It’s about logic,” Soma said, his breathing turning fast and shallow.
The rush from the river was completely gone now, leaving him fully exposed to the cold wind.
The late-summer morning near the mountain river carried a biting chill. The freezing water had saturated his thick denim jeans and his cotton shirt. The wind sweeping off the rapids hit his wet clothing, turning the fabric into a sheet of ice against his skin. The cold went straight through his muscles, settling into the marrow of his bones.
The roar of the river shifted, the crashing water rising to a high whine. The pale morning light broke apart, and the edges of his vision bled into a fuzzy gray blur.
His body was giving out. His teeth chattered violently.
CLACK. CLACK. CLACK.
Nobunaga watched the pale stranger fight the freezing air. The man fought the cold with a rigid pride, refusing to fold his arms across his chest for warmth, keeping his limbs locked straight at his sides.
Soma looked up, his dark eyes darting across the Warlord’s face.
“Where... exactly where is this?” Soma asked.
Nobunaga’s grip tightened on the wet shoulder. His sharp eyes narrowed. The man was not faking his confusion. He was entirely lost.
“You are in my country,” Nobunaga said, his voice a low, heavy vibration. “You are in Owari. You stand on the banks of the Kiso River.”
Owari. Kiso River.
Soma gritted his teeth. The names matched his mental map. He had driven through the prefecture, but the physical reality in front of him completely failed to align with the paved roads of the highway system. There should be asphalt cutting through this brush. There should be a gas station. There should be electric streetlights.
He breathed in. The raw scent of the man looming over him filled his lungs , a thick blend of musk, raw horse sweat, and the bitter bite of cold iron resting in a scabbard.
“What... what year is it?” Soma asked.
The words barely cleared his lips, vanishing into the roar of the rapids.
Nobunaga leaned in, his hot breath hitting Soma’s freezing forehead, a wave of heat cutting through the cold mist.
“It is the second year of the Eiroku era, Kika Taisho.” Nobunaga said.
Eiroku. Kika Taisho.
The historical term hit Soma’s chest like a physical blow. He knew the word. He remembered the bold black ink from the history texts in his school’s library.
Not 2026.
Soma’s breath caught, a sharp curse hissing through his blue lips.
The solid ground beneath his wet sneakers seemed to dissolve. The mist swirling around his ankles turned into a spinning void. He stood in the late summer of the year 1559.
Four hundred and sixty-seven years in the past. No rescue crew was coming. He stood on the gravel bank of the most violent century in Japanese history, trapped in the grip of its legendary figure.
His locked knees gave out.
The last of his physical endurance snapped. Soma’s eyes rolled back, his balance failing as his body pitched forward into the dark.
He never hit the river stones.
Soma struck a wall of heavy heat that burned right through his freezing, wet clothes.
Nobunaga stepped in, his free arm sweeping around Soma’s waist to arrest his fall. The arm acted as a solid bar of muscle, catching the modern man before his knees could smash into the stones.
Soma slammed straight into Nobunaga’s chest, his face burying into the rough indigo cloth of the Warlord’s robe. The remaining air left his lungs in a sharp gasp.
The concentrated scent of the man flooded his nose, the musk of the horse, the bitter scent of old leather, and the sweet agarwood incense completely took over.
The heavily muscled chest pressed against him, forcing the freezing mountain wind away from his pale skin.
Nobunaga held his stance under the dead weight, standing like a deep-driven post anchored into the riverbed. He absorbed the fall that had just unmade the stranger.
“For a ghost, you have a surprising amount of weight,” Nobunaga said, the vibration of his voice traveling through Soma’s cheek.
His large, calloused palm slid upward from Soma’s waist, his rough fingers dragging across the wet wool of the varsity jacket, mapping the curve of the stranger’s spine through the cold cloth.
Nobunaga’s hand stopped at the back of Soma’s neck, his thick fingers tangling into the damp, modern-cut hair. He gripped the roots and forced Soma’s head back, snapping his chin upward to expose his pale face to the morning light.
Soma hung limp, his legs offering no support. He remained upright solely through the thick arm around his waist and the grip on his hair. His eyes hovered weakly open, the vast distance of five centuries collapsing into just four inches of shared breath.
He stared up at the man holding him. No pity existed in the gold-flecked eyes. Nobunaga stared down with the calculating focus of a hawk pinning a struggling bird to the dirt.
“You fall,” Nobunaga whispered, his hot breath washing over Soma’s freezing lips. “And you expect the earth to catch you. But here, stranger... I am the earth.”
Soma stared blankly at the Warlord. The reality of the era crushed his modern defiance. He could not calculate an escape path. He could not build a wall to keep this man out.
“I... I don’t...” Soma croaked.
His eyelids fluttered shut, and the world faded into total black.
His exhaustion took over his resistance. His head fell heavily to the side, his cheek resting limply against the thick, muscular forearm of the Warlord.
Nobunaga shifted his grip and hauled the unconscious man upright, hoisting Soma higher and pinning his limp weight against his side. The Warlord’s golden gaze shifted from the pale face resting against his collarbone to the black suitcase wedged tightly between the river stones a few yards away.
“You claim that black box is your life,” Nobunaga said to the quiet man.
A slow grin curled the Warlord’s lips. He looked at the flawless, manufactured plastic shell, then back to the pale, unscarred face of the man who owned it.
“Then I suppose I must take both.”
Nobunaga looked toward the dense treeline. The dark silhouettes of his armed guards emerged from the morning shadows, moving through the brush with their long, iron-tipped spears lowered toward the riverbank.
“Toichi,” Nobunaga commanded, his voice returning to a loud roar of military authority. “Bring a horse. We have baggage.”
An older, scarred retainer hurried forward through the freezing mist, his iron plates clinking against his chainmail.
CLOP. CLOP.
Toichi led a massive black warhorse by its thick leather bridle. The animal stamped its iron-shod hooves against the gravel, snorting thick clouds of steam into the damp air.
Nobunaga stepped toward the stamping beast. He hoisted Soma effortlessly by the waist, his shoulders flexing under his indigo clothes, and tossed the modern man’s limp, soaking wet body over the high wooden saddle. Soma hung there like a sack of grain, his arms and head dangling down one side, his wet sneakers hanging down the other.
Nobunaga grabbed the high wooden pommel and, with a fluid leap of raw strength, swung his own massive frame up behind the saddle. He settled firmly into the rigid wooden seat, the thick leather of the saddle creaking under the weight of two men.
“Bring me a heavy hauling strap,” Nobunaga commanded, reaching his calloused hand down toward the retainer.
Toichi unhooked a thick, wide band of cured leather from the saddlebags of a nearby packhorse, bowing sharply as he handed it up.
Nobunaga grabbed Soma’s limp shoulders and hauled him forcefully backward, dragging him across the hard wood of the saddle until Soma’s spine pressed flush against the Warlord’s broad, warm chest.
Moving with efficient precision, Nobunaga looped the thick leather strap around Soma’s chest, pinning his arms against his ribs and wrapping the excess length around his own thick torso.
He pulled the leather tight.
CREAK.
The stiff hide groaned as it compressed Soma’s chest, winching their bodies together into a single weight. Nobunaga secured the heavy brass buckle with a sharp click, anchoring the weight of the unconscious engineer to his own center of gravity.
The thick leather bit into Soma’s wet varsity jacket, locking his upper body. Nobunaga shifted his legs against the saddle, adjusting the load until the stranger aligned perfectly, crushing Soma’s back against his own chest so the man could not slip a single inch without the Warlord feeling the friction.
Toichi stepped toward the riverbank. The retainer leaned down and gripped the thick rubber handle of the black suitcase, hoisting the heavy, mud-caked box against his hip.
Nobunaga gathered the leather reins in his left hand and squeezed his heels against the horse's flanks.
The black warhorse turned its heavy head away from the rushing water of the Kiso River. The iron hooves crunched into the gravel, carrying them forward into the dark pines.