1st Day of Spring, 1306
Eight Years and Eight Months
The next morning, everyone awoke and Kirito was feeling a little better. Good enough in fact, to cast Teleport after his morning meditations.
For some reason though, when Kirito tried to cast the spell the first time, it didn’t take anyone anywhere – leaving them all standing there holding hands.
With a frustrated look, Kirito tried again, and everyone was instantly transported to the west side of Sendai, about five miles into the foothills, on the trail to Yunikawa’s Mountain Citadel in fact (about one third of the way to Yunikawa’s from Sendai).
Unlike the high mountain pass, there was no snow here – but the landscape was wet and muddy from all the spring rains.
To everyone’s relief, Sendai was still there in the valley below and looked the same as they had left it – what should have been only a week or two ago.
Looking with their spyglasses meanwhile, Udo and Lee could see that the flags of Chief Magistrate Noburu Saito were flying – indicating that he was currently in charge of Sendai.
That could either mean that the Daimyo was now dead, or had simply gone away to Edo for the next year, as was the custom.