Let's do it with style!

Daud spits the apple on the ground as the birds untie him, his hair dripping water into his eyes. One of the birds passes him a towel and he puts his face in it. His shirt is drenched. All that and he still lost.

“Are you from London?” he asks the stranger, speaking loudly over the commotion of the dance and the jaunty fiddle tune playing in the barn (it reminds him a little of the street music back in Karnaca). “I’m Daud. Heard someone with an eye patch was bothering a friend of mine who lives here.”

The man does look dangerous enough to have killed the Mayor, dark-clothed and serious even surrounded by colorful birds and looking like he just fell in the river.

“London? Oh, not at all; I’ve never even been there. I’m from Japan.”

A bird hands Shokudaikiri a towel as well, and he dried his face and hair. His suit is still wet and he prefers not to imagine how his hair looks (he must find a mirror immediately), but he decides there’s no point in acting petulant about it. Instead he smiles at Daud.

“I am Shokudaikiri Mitsutada, formerly wielded by Lord Date Masamune. I’m afraid I don’t know who’s been harassing your friend, but I can’t imagine there are many people with eye patches here. If you like, I can let you know if I see anyone matching the description.”

Shokudaikiri rubs his eye to get the last bit of water out, then gives Daud another look. Despite his gruff demeanour, he may turn out to be good company — and Shokudaikiri has hardly met anyone so far, so he’s getting a little desperate to get to know more people.

Well, Shokudaikiri had folded rather fast; his face had gone from vacantly good-natured to something almost unhappy. Lily was finding it increasingly difficult to get a read on this man. She put her book aside so she could get a better look at him, instead of just skimming over his features. He was actually looking back at her, which was satisfying, but she had expected something else. Something like—she stopped that thought.

In any case, there was no point picking fights with someone who clearly didn’t want them just because she was feeling combative. She felt, briefly and sharply, ashamed of herself (you are behaving, said her father’s voice, her brother’s voice, her own voice, cool and crisp inside her heart, like you are desperate), then swallowed the feeling. It tasted like buttercups. That is to say, poisonous. 

“Not at all,” she began to say, but Shokudaikiri was already sitting down; he had gone from almost unhappy to acutely distressed in a matter of seconds. Lily frowned. “You’re going to get sand all over your shoes,” she observed, without thinking. The hems of his trousers, too. That was going to be a nuisance to clean off.

“How needed in your world are you, Shokudaikiri?” she asked him. Her voice was mostly neutral; not quite pleasant, but not unkind either. “I’m afraid I really can’t tell you anything about getting out, but people are known to disappear from here as suddenly as they came. Some theorize that they’re sent back to wherever they originally came from, but we’re not told very much.”

He doesn’t answer Lily’s question, instead choosing to take a few moments to compose himself. It’s all right. It’s all right. He’s just learnt too much at once, and if he gets himself back together, he can work out what to do in this situation.

Back at the citadel, his life was straightforward. When he was needed on the frontline, he fought. He fought, and he won, and he underwent repairs. When the Time Retrograde Army was keeping quiet, he dealt with everyday problems: a sudden shortage of firewood, a mix-up of the Toushirous’ uniforms, another fight between Kasen and Kara-chan. Now, he’s suddenly found himself in an unknown place and with no guidance to follow. It was unfamiliar and confusing: but it was no reason in panic, so stop moping, Mitsutada, and start doing something.

Which, of course, is easier said than done, so he still sounds a little weak when he looks back towards Lily and says, “I suppose they’ll manage without me for now.” He knows it’s true: there are many other Sword Warriors around, and Master is a skilled tactician and leader and they won’t let the citadel collapse because Shokudaikiri isn’t there. “Nonetheless... I’ll have to look into ways to get back.”

He looks down. Lily was right: the sand is getting into his shoes and ruining his trousers. Oh well, he can worry about that later. He’s too busy putting off his panic attack to concern himself with the state of his wardrobe, for once in his life.

Shokudaikiri was almost gratingly pleasant. Thank you for your detailed explanation? She had hardly told him anything. There was being polite, then there was being—servile. It was as if he hadn’t actually heard what she said at all. As if he hadn’t actually looked at her. 

Then again, he was little more than a stranger. There was no reason for her to care about whether or not he was paying attention. 

“My name is Lily,” she said. She did not feel the inclination to include any of the usual pleasantries. “Your phone can tell you more than I can. I would have looked at it first.” This time she really did take a sip of her drink, then, upon putting it back down, she smiled. It was not a friendly smile. “No one has managed to leave and no one has any idea how to. It seems, as a matter of fact, that the entities who run the place have a vested interest in making us stay.” 

Lily’s answer stuns him for just a moment, not even because of what she said, but because of the pleasure she seemed to get from delivering the bad news. Sure, Shokudaikiri had interrupted her, but was that really such a great crime? Or was she just the kind of person who enjoyed watching others suffer? He takes a better look at her: she’s still smiling that cold smile, and she seems to be studying his reaction. He hopes he doesn’t look too shocked, just to give her less satisfaction.

The next moment, her words actually reach Shokudaikiri. He can’t go back. No one knows how to do it. For however long, he’s stuck here.

As unsettling as Mare Crisium and its rat residents may be, the fair that Shokudaikiri seems to have found himself in the middle of is fun. After stopping at a horse display and chatting to a surprisingly nice rat about horse care, he moves on to check out the games.

He hasn’t heard of bobbing for apples, but it looks like fun, so he decides to try it. After paying the rat-woman running the attraction, he takes a look at his competition: it seems that he will be facing off against a bird who’s likely a resident of Nectar and a dour-looking human man whom Shokudaikiri would never have pictured in this kind of situation. But what’s a festival for if not trying out new ways to enjoy yourself? He certainly had fun at the festival that Aizen had convinced the Master to organise back at the citadel. It was the height of summer and the middle of a heat wave, but the festival let everyone forget about the oppressive heat and—

No, this is not the time for reminiscing. As far as he knows, none of the other Sword Warriors are here, and he should focus on his current situation. Even if the current situation is bobbing for apples.

Although back at the citadel they haven’t celebrated Halloween, Shokudaikiri was vaguely familiar with the idea of it. He likes to think of himself as a worldly, modern sword, so even if he lived quite traditionally, he liked to read about the world outside of the citadel’s walls. Halloween, he knows, is a day when children dress up as monsters and go around their neighbourhoods to collect a tribute of sweets. He cannot, however, work out how a show of folk crafts fit into it.

The pieces are impressive, true: he is currently admiring the detail work on a set of filigree jewellery that seems to be made of carefully twisted twigs and vines rather than metal. According to the plaque, it was made by one of the local bear people, which makes it even more impressive, as the bears appear to have paws and claws and no opposable thumbs. Shokudaikiri’s own thumbs are a rather recent acquisition, but he’s come to appreciate their usefulness.

There’s a woman next to him, also leaning close to look at the collection of earrings and necklaces.

Lily didn’t like Nectar in the daytime any more than she thought she would. Still, she had traded her blouse and trousers for a long, loose black sundress and her boots for rubber sandals. She had brought a modest stack of cheap thriller-mystery novels borrowed from the Crises library—the contents of these, at least, did not transmute into gibberish upon being read. She had bought, at a shop near the train station, a tall plastic cup of chilled wintermelon tea with tapioca pearls (it was very, very good). And, upon arriving at the shoreline, she tucked herself into a lounge chair under a large blue umbrella and set to a quiet afternoon reading at the beach. It was not so terrible, she supposed. 

The fifth murdered corpse had just been discovered when a shadow crossed her vision and remained there. Oh, someone was talking to her. How disappointing. Lily flicked her eyes upward and took stock of the man: tall, well-dressed, hair a bit overlong. To his credit, he was very polite. 

“You’re new,” she observed dryly. She drew herself up into a more respectable sitting position; it would not do to speak to a stranger half-reclined. “We are on a manmade world in some far-flung corner of space, part of what is known as the Aldebaran Ark. It’s a curious place. Most of it defies common sense. Any calendar you once kept probably doesn’t apply here.” She paused, tucked some of her hair back behind her ear, and raised both brows. She considered taking a sip of her drink for effect, but decided against it. “Did you not check the holophone? A small, sleek device, on your bedside table.” 

Shokudaikiri lets her finish her explanation without interrupting, then hums pensively. “It does sound like a curious place, yes. I can't think of a reason why I should be summoned here. As for my phone...” He rubs the back if his neck in embarrassment. “I’ll admit I haven’t considered checking it for information. I’ll make sure to do that soon.”

So, this isn’t the past. He supposed the usual rules and secrecy don’t apply, then — and anyway, he would have already broken them by approaching a civilian. Might as well introduce himself. What she said about this Ark is confusing, but he’ll take the time to process it all later.

Stepping out of the building, Shokudaikiri has to cover his one eye in face of blinding sunlight. He takes a few moments for his eyesight to adjust, then looks around. He seems to be just above the surface a tropical ocean, looking like it was ripped straight from a cheesy postcard. Wish You Were Here. There's a rainbow in the sky, miraculously bright despite the lack of any rain clouds. The building he's awoken in is entirely underwater, connected to the land by a long pier.

He makes his way to the beach. There are a few people around, most of them talking to each other or busy with something. There are also — to his surprise — colourful birds, walking on land like people, and apparently chatting with humans. He's going to need to investigate that at some point, but first he needs to work out where exactly he is and how he got there.

He’s pretty sure none of the historical periods he has visited had underwater quarters with transparent walls, for one thing. A small group of guppies scatter then reform a few metres away when he walks over and places his hand on the wall, just to make sure that there is a wall there and he isn’t facing an inexplicable barrier of water.

“Hello?” he says into space. No answer. Not that he expected one, as there clearly isn’t anyone else in the room.

He opens the door and walks out. “Hello?” he calls out again, still to no response. Still, nothing seems to be blocking his way out. He spots what seems to be a lift — the citadel is mostly very traditionally run, aside from the time travel device and certain gadgets that some of the other swords asked for, but he knows enough of modern technology to recognise and use a lot of it.

Investigating his room once more, he finds a wardrobe filled with what he would wear around the citadel and on battlefield. He isn’t here by mistake, then. There is also a bathroom, but his sword is missing. He does find the Master’s omamori charm in his pocket, though, along with a smartphone. (He gives the charm a grateful squeeze. Hopefully the Master’s favour will help him in this strange place.) On the other side of the door he spots a plaque with his name, further proving that he was summoned here purposefully, even if he doesn’t know for what reason. There’s also a well-stocked kitchen, as well as three other rooms, of which two have similar plaques. Nobody answers when he knocks.