Neither Koumei Shoukatsuryou nor her friend Shigen Houtou had expected the fine mess that they had gotten into today.
According to rumor, the Messenger of Heaven had settled in Xizang and taken over as administrator for the district, and was leading a tough extermination campaign against the Yellow Turbans. For that reason, both Houtou and Shoukatsuryou had come down from the mountain retreat of their master Shibaki to put their training to tactics, medicine, and general municipal work to good use in his service; they both felt that their young appearances would not prove to be an obstacle once they proved their skills to the Messenger of Heaven.
On their way down from the mountains, they'd met a girl named Gentoku Ryuubi. Her mother had died recently, and with no ability to take care of the family estate, she'd gone traveling for a new home. The three girls bonded instantly, and decided to travel to Xizang together. Their trip had gone relatively smooth until they'd arrived in Zhuo. Not more than a few minutes ago, the village they were staying in had been attacked by the Yellow Turbans, forcing a small part of the populace to flee from the attack. Shoukatsuryou, Houtou, and Ryuubi had managed to stay together in the chaos, but had stopped to help an old woman named Lien to escape from the village as well. Ultimately, they had fallen behind the group of farmers that Kan'u had rescued earlier, and at the moment, all four of them were still attempting to outrun the Turbans.
Shoukatsuryou huffed and panted as her brown military beret and the green ribbon on its right side bounced on her head, and the tails of the green bow at her back trailed behind her in the wind. She wore a brown top with puffy sleeves; underneath her white skirt was another blue dress and white stockings, complimented by sturdy brown shoes. Her breathing was heavy and labored, but she kept on going regardless. On her left side, Houtou managed to keep pace despite the fact that both girls were carrying rather bulky backpacks. Though they wore similar outfits, Houtou's clothes were navy-colored, the bow around her waist was tied at the front, not the back, and she wore no stockings; moreover, her hat was more like a stereotypical witch's hat, with the same green ribbon that Shoukatsuryou wore tied around it. Her silver hair was up in two pigtails, a sharp contrast to Shoukatsuryou's short-cut bob of blonde hair.
Lien was on Shoukatsuryou's right side, between her and Ryuubi, dressed in a simple brown cloak with a matching dress underneath it. Her eyes were almost completely shut, and her face was bleak and weathered; a few strands of gray hair escaped the simple bun she'd pulled it into. Though she was moving as quickly as she could, she was noticeably a few steps behind the younger girls accompanying her, and said, "You all should go on without me. I'm only slowing you down."
Shoukatsuryou was the first one to reply to the old woman, shaking her head vigorously as she did. "Absolutely out of the question! We won't leave you behind."
Houtou couldn't spare breath to speak, but nodded with equal fervor to accentuate Shoukatsuryou's point. Lien frowned at them, but before she could speak again, Ryuubi put a hand on her shoulder, causing her to look in Ryuubi's direction.
Ryuubi's green tunic and the white shirt beneath it were dripping with sweat, and the maroon dress she wore as well as the skirt under it were stained with the dirt that she'd been kicking up as she ran. The straw mats rolled up on the harness on her back bounced in time with her steps, and though her long pink tresses were flowing freely in the wind, the expression on her face was grim and determined. A sword in an ornate, white-and-gold sheath dangled on her left hip.
"We escaped together, and will keep escaping together," Ryuubi said. "That's all there is to it. If I have to, I'll carry you myself."
The old woman was left speechless at this, but eventually put a smile on and faced forward again. "Then I'll do my best."
Emboldened by that remark, Ryuubi faced forward, then blinked. In the distance, she saw two figures—Ragna and Chouhi—charging right at them. And behind them was what appeared to be a full army, keeping ranks and lines even as they matched the speed of the two figures leading the way.
"Oh, no, who are these people!?" Ryuubi asked, her brow creasing with worry. "There's no way we'll be able to outrun two armies..."
Shoukatsuryou looked harder at the two figures leading the other army toward them, then smiled as she made out more details on Ragna's figure. The bells on the collar of her jacket jingled merrily as she began to run faster. "A strange sword in his right hand, and hair as white as the driven snow… Touka, that tall one is the Messenger of Heaven! That's the Xizang army behind him! They're here to save us!"
Lien gasped, and nearly stumbled over her own feet. "The Messenger of Heaven? I'd heard that he was wiping out the Turbans, but never in my wildest dreams did I think he would lead the charge himself...!"
In what seemed like moments, Ragna and Chouhi came to a halt right in front of Shoukatsuryou and the others. Chouhi looked over the assorted group, and blinked in astonishment. "Two kids, a girl, and an old lady? Wow, you all are lucky we got to you! How did you outrun those Turbans for so long?"
Despite the stress of the situation, Shoukatsuryou couldn't help but to thrust her chest out a bit and put her hands on her hips. "I'm not a 'kid', you know! I'm mature and responsible!"
"We don't have time for this, squirt," Ragna said, immediately cutting off the conversation before it could continue. "All of you get behind me right now so we can kick the shit out of these Turbans in the next ten minutes."
Lien immediately did so, as did Ryuubi, but both of them paused when neither Shoukatsuryou or Houtou did the same. Instead, both of the young strategists were staring up boldly at Ragna, albeit with frightened, watering eyes. The slightest tinge of pink was on Shoukatsuryou's face, as well, but Ragna completely missed it due to how intense her expression was.
Ragna groaned. "You two deaf or something?" He gestured to where Lien and Ryuubi were standing. "Get over there already!"
"L-Lord Messenger, wait," Shoukatsuryou said. "Please, allow me and Hinari to assist you. We-we're trained strategists. Right now, your forces lack a decisive numerical advantage, and we know of several strategies that can offset that. I know it seems strange, but...please, allow us to help!"
Ragna was about to wave her off again when Kan'u came rushing up, panting slightly but otherwise fine. "Lord Ragna, we got the villagers to safety..." She paused for a few moments and stared blankly at Lien, Ryuubi, Shoukatsuryou, and Houtou, then back at Ragna and Chouhi. "Who are these girls and why are they here when the Turbans are coming to attack us?"
Ragna gestured to Shoukatsuryou and Houtou with a tight frown. "The girls say that they're strategists." He shook his head. "Take them, the old chick, and the other girl, and send them off with my personal guard while we take care of the Turbans. We ain't got time for this shit."
Kan'u nodded, but as she reached out to Shoukatsuryou, the girl shook her head and stepped back. "Please, hear me out! Hinari and I truly want to help. We wanted to find the Messenger of Heaven and serve him, help his forces to fight. We couldn't sit by and let the Turbans have their way. Master Suikyou was hesitant to let us go, but she understood when we told her why. Please… you have to let us help you."
For the first time, Houtou managed to speak aloud, and her voice was so soft that it could barely be heard as she turned to Ragna. "Please, Lord Ragna. Let us aid you."
Ragna stared blankly at both Shoukatsuryou and Houtou. They were clearly nervous as hell, but they showed no signs of moving, even as Kan'u's expression grew as stormy as his. Eventually, he flung his left hand upward and rolled his eyes. "Fine, then. If you're that damn serious, let's hear it." He focused on the two small strategists. "It's 5,000 to 10,000 in their favor, and this isn't even their main force. What can we do to minimize our casualties and maximize theirs, then break through to Kousonsan?"
Shoukatsuryou and Houtou looked at each other, then each put a hand to their mouths, and each tapped one of their feet against the ground. After a few seconds of this, Houtou snapped her fingers and nodded. Shoukatsuryou looked at Houtou again, then nodded as well, and smiled. "Go ahead, Hinari."
Emboldened by Shoukatsuryou's encouragement, Houtou looked up at Ragna without a trace of her earlier nervousness. "The Yellow Turban forces do not use formations," she said. "There are a number of flaws that could be exploited as a result of that habit, but the most effective in this particular situation, considering the lay of the land, would be to use a twin column formation to trap them between your soldiers and press in on them."
Kan'u frowned, and opened her mouth to speak, but Shoukatsuryou picked up the thread shortly after that. "However, you lack the manpower to make that work. In that case, we can get results similar to Hinari's suggestion if we use two elite forces to strike them in a pincer attack after their forces have been weakened. The vanguard would need only to hold the line for a while, or find a way to cause the enemy to panic, at which point the two elite units would be able to counterattack."
They caught the flaw in the plan and came up with a decent alternative before I could point it out, Kan'u thought, resting her free hand under her chin. And the strategy is simple, but sound.
"Sounds good to me, big bro," Chouhi said suddenly, nodding. "I think they know what they're talking about, kids or not."
"It is a simple idea, but it is effective," Kan'u added. Both Shoukatsuryou and Houtou jumped slightly at the endorsement from Kan'u, but there was clear approval in Kan'u's firm smile and nod as she turned to Ragna. "Lord Ragna, we can use their plan. It will work."
Ragna shrugged. "Fine then. I'll run the vanguard." He looked at Kan'u and Chouhi. "Aisha, midget, your units are the pincers. When you hear the war horns, grab your guys and kick some ass." He then pointed to Shoukatsuryou and Houtou, and his frown grew harder. "You two, go with the girl and the old woman, now. Once we beat these idiots, we'll talk about taking you on full-time."
Both Shoukatsuryou and Houtou's faces began to glow red from the compliment (Shoukatsuryou's more so), but they soon recovered their wits enough to bow shortly, and go over to where Ryuubi and Lien were standing. Ragna nodded at a nearby soldier, and he led the four civilians away, leaving Ragna and his two generals to look at the approaching Turbans.
"Why the hell didn't we come up with a strategy like that earlier?" Ragna said to Kan'u, raising one eyebrow. "I never would've expected two squirts to think of something like that before my main general did."
"My tactics are about straightforward, practical application, not theoretical situations," Kan'u replied, pursing her lips and looking away from Ragna. A hot blush came to her face. "Well, that, and it simply never occurred to me to try a pincer formation. We never quite needed it like before to deal with the Turbans, so I never thought of using it."
Ragna took notice of her peeved tone, and smirked as he turned on his heel and faced their army. "Now, now. No need to get all jealous about it. I'm pretty sure they'd be willing to teach you a thing or two if you ask nicely."
Kan'u stiffened considerably, then let out a puff of angry air from her nostrils. "I am not jealous, Lord Ragna!"
"Don't deny it, Aisha, it only makes you look more jealouuusss," Chouhi called over her shoulder. She was already jogging over to her squad with her Viper Spear slung over one shoulder.
"Rinrin!" Kan'u's face could have cooked an egg with the heat coming off of it now. "Don't make me more upset with you than I already am! I-if I have to, I'll spank you!"
"Scold the kid later, Kan'u," Ragna shouted. "Go talk to your god damn troops and make sure they're ready to roll! Need I remind you that Kousonsan is still waiting for us to bail her ass out?"
Ragna's harsh rebuke immediately jolted Kan'u back to attention. "I-I-I'm sorry, Lord Ragna!" Kan'u said, nearly dropping her Green Dragon Blade in the process of jogging over to her troops at double time. "You can count on me!"
Ragna's soldiers snickered as he turned back to them, and he let out a low growl that shut them all up and put all eyes back on him. Knowing that only the ones in front had heard the plan, he pitched his voice to carry farther back. "All right, fellas, listen up. We got a new trick to try out on these idiots." He pointed a thumb behind him, where the mob of Turbans only grew larger and larger as they approached. "Kan'u and Chouhi's units are going to pincer these guys as soon as we break them down a bit; when we've gotten through, I want every herald in each squad to blow a horn so that the other two units know when to close in. Till then, our job is to push these guys to the breaking point with minimal casualties on our end. Get it?"
Every soldier looked at Ragna with pure business faces, all the jokes forgotten. They'd long since been used to fighting superior numbers when dealing with the Turbans, but the difference hadn't been quite this disparate before, and some of the troops were honestly a bit spooked by the idea of having to hold off all of those Turbans until the time was right for a pincer counterattack. Nevertheless, there was one rule that the Zhuo army followed, ever since Ragna, Kan'u, and Chouhi had taken it over: "If you can breathe, you can fight, and if you can fight, you can win."
The soldiers roared their affirmation, and Ragna brought Blood-Scythe to his side, waiting for the final moment. When at last the Turbans came over the crest of the hill and began to charge, Ragna didn't move, and stared at them with his green-and-red glare. When at last the first Turban leaped at him, spear rushing toward Ragna's heart, Ragna lifted Blood-Scythe up, spun it out of its reverse grip, swung it down to the ground—and cut through that Turban like cheap paper.
"Gentlemen, let's show these fellas some Zhuo hospitality," Ragna said with a smirk.
And with that order, the battle burst into a frenetic melee.
All of Ragna's troops surged forward, and their feet made a sound like resounding thunder in the air. The Turbans immediately rushed in to match them, but were soon gutted on the spears of the Zhuo army; the few that avoided that grisly fate were cut down by either Ragna or one of his troops, with cold, impersonal precision. The Turban front line immediately retreated as the Zhuo forces made their initial impression, allowing Ragna to move forward and continue the assault while they were getting ready to run.
"Don't run, you bastards!" a Turban commander shouted. He slashed at one of Ragna's men, cutting the man from collarbone to stomach, then raised his curved blade with a nasty grin. "We outnumber them almost two-to-one! There's no way these Zhuo bastards are gonna keep beating us!" He slashed out at a few more of Ragna's soldiers, spilling their blood onto the soil as he hacked at limbs and torsos. "We won't—I won't—ever lose to the likes of some bastard calling himself the Messenger of Heaven, either!"
Ragna did not hear this man's boastful cry personally, but it was somewhat poetic that when he did attack the next group of Turbans that he saw, he did so with a jumping sword slash that blew away half of the men around the commander. The poor man had enough time to whisper a fevered prayer before Ragna followed that attack up with a spinning kick that clipped the commander's head and broke his neck.