This was a narrow track that ran along the ridgeline on the western side of Musashi Province.
This road lay outside the primary watch of every faction—Hōjō scouts had their eyes fixed on that three-thousand-man camp to the north, Takeda's spies were tracking the border between Kai and Suruga, and the Imagawa's attention was consumed with settling the twenty-three lesser yōkai they had just taken in.
To travel this way was safe. It would stir not the faintest ripple.
But for that very reason, the road was ill-suited to a march in force.
Five hundred men were, in the end, only five hundred men.
Fine for a field skirmish, but far from enough if you truly meant to lay siege.
No matter.
Uesugi Kenshin had never intended to rely on five hundred alone.
The road she took was scattered, all along its length, with villages.
And the Echigo army did not do what was most common in an age of war—they did not plunder them.
Kenshin did not even enter the villages.
She simply stood beside the Jizo Statue at each village mouth and had a scout carry a single line inside.
"Bishamonten marches through the Kantō, purging yōkai and sweeping away demons. Any people afflicted by the calamity of war may travel with the army, and be fed along the way."
That one line.
No threat. No coercion.
But the effect was immediate.
In these warring, chaotic times, Musashi Province had suffered too much this past year—the border friction between the Imagawa and the Hōjō had burned the fields, the Echigo sweep during their southern incursion had annihilated the yōkai settlements but scorched the surrounding villages as well, and the yōkai vanguard out of Kyoto had left a vast weight of grudge-rancor and corpses upon this land.
The common folk suffered beyond words.
And now, out of nowhere, came an army that neither burned nor killed, marching under Bishamonten's banner, promising food along the way—
And so.
From the first village came a dozen or so young able-bodied men, all of them unwilling to simply wait for death, shouldering their hoes and falling in at the tail of the column.
From the second village came more than thirty.
From the third, more still.
By the fifth village, the column had swelled from five hundred to eight hundred.
Seeing this, one of the maiden warriors riding with the army could not keep the sneer from her voice. "To think the Hōjō clan calls its rule benevolent governance—and yet how poorly they hold the people's hearts."
"The Hōjō say they govern Musashi Province, but who doesn't know they've never truly ruled this side of it at all?"
Another maiden warrior answered, her tone every bit as scornful.
Through all of it, Uesugi Kenshin stayed silent—and that silence swiftly drew the whole column back into stern order.
By the time they had rounded the southern foot of Mount Hakone and reached the edge of Hōjō heartland, nearly two thousand followed at their backs.
True, the only ones who could truly fight were still those five hundred household guards.
But the remaining fifteen hundred—though merely refugees shouldering farm tools—were people all the same. They were a presence. A show of strength.
They were something that, from a distance, looked like an army.
Seen from afar, dust rolled and heads surged in their multitude.
Like twenty men, like thirty—many times over.
Enough.
Gathering such a crowd naturally demanded a great deal of grain… yet as for where that grain would come from, Uesugi Kenshin had already made up her mind.
If not from the villages, then—from the castles.
If not taken from commoners, then—collected from the noble lords.
On they pressed.
Kenshin did not look back at her own column.
She only lifted her chin a fraction, her gaze sweeping past the ridgeline of the hills ahead.
At the far end of the horizon, a great fortress nestled between mountain and sea took shape.
Tiered stone ramparts. Watchtowers packed close.
Odawara Castle.
The foremost stronghold in all the Kantō.
The Uesugi army's northern main camp.
Before the command tent.
The sky had brightened completely.
The embers of the watchfires still gave off thin wisps of smoke, and the cold morning wind poured in from between the valleys, setting the great "Kon" banner snapping and cracking.
The three-thousand-man camp had recovered its order after the wraith raid of the night before.
The tents were pitched again, the wounded settled to the rear, and the divine-artifact maiden warriors of the four quarters had each returned to her post.
But every gaze had fallen upon the eerie scene before the command tent.
That one pale hand still gripped the pauldron of Naoe Kanetsugu, purple arcs of lightning leaping silently along the gaps between its fingers.
The gray-robed, white-haired oni warrior leaned against the wooden post of the command tent, his crimson oni mask all the more piercing in the morning light.
Naoe Kanetsugu, held by the shoulder, stood at his side with perfect composure.
She had been captive the whole night through.
But her expression—it was nothing like what a captured general's should be.
No alarm. No fury.
There was even a trace of unshakable confidence to it.
As if her very capture had been part of the plan all along.
Kōbe Hikaru had noticed as much.
From last night until now, he and this woman had been locked in a standoff the entire night.
The four divine-artifact maiden warriors ringed them but dared not move; three thousand soldiers stood in formation but dared not loose an arrow.
He had been waiting for Uesugi Kenshin to return.
And now, Naoe Kanetsugu was telling him—Kenshin would not be coming back.
The three thousand were bait.
The true blade was to the south, its target Odawara Castle.
She said it in a calm voice.
Calm enough that even Kōbe Hikaru felt a flicker of admiration.
Island-hopping tactics.
That was the definition Kōbe Hikaru gave, in his mind, to this move of Uesugi Kenshin's—one drawn from the memories of a past life.
Not to seize each stronghold one by one, but to skip the intermediate nodes and strike straight for the strategic linchpin.
Kaede Village, even all of Musashi Province, was one of the middle islands.
The northern main camp was the last island already taken.
Odawara Castle was the next island she meant to leap to.
She did not even need to take Odawara Castle—she needed only to make Hōjō Ujiyasu, inside it, misjudge the situation and hesitate to strike out. That alone would create a pincer from north and south, carving the Musashi Province in between into an isolated island.
Then she would devour it slowly.
Very clever.
In the history he had known before crossing over, Uesugi Kenshin was indeed acknowledged by later ages as the finest tactician of all.
But—
Kōbe Hikaru's gaze settled on Naoe Kanetsugu's face.
She tilted her head slightly, the line of her profile clear-cut in the morning light, those steady eyes fixed on him.
As if watching to see how he would react.
To see whether anxiety had already begun to take hold of him.
But there was none of the urgency that anxiety ought to breed in her eyes—only waiting.
As if she were waiting… for him to make the "correct" choice.
Waiting for him to see it clearly—
That beneath the field of faith cast by three thousand men, within the encirclement of four divine-artifact warriors reborn, inside a Musashi Province about to be severed by the Uesugi clan's armies before and behind, he too, it seemed, had only one road to walk.
Surrender.
Or rather—accept Uesugi Kenshin's invitation, and become her divine artifact.
Kōbe Hikaru's crimson oni-pupils narrowed a fraction.
And then—
He laughed.
The smile beneath the oni mask was faint, but the mirth in it ran deep.
Because all at once he had understood.
Understood all of it.
Why had Uesugi Kenshin come alone to Kaede Village?
Not to test him. Not to invite him. Not as courtesy before force.
It was a lure.
That so-called bestowal of a name had, from start to finish, been staged deliberately for him to see.
A calculated provocation.
Because Uesugi Kenshin understood the hearts of men on the battlefield all too well—she knew that an existence like Kōbe Hikaru, once named to his face in that lofty, condescending manner, could never simply swallow the insult in silence.
He was bound to strike back, bound to press the pursuit once he and Kikyō had beaten her off together—or to launch an assault of his own.
That was why she had gone so far as to reveal, herself, where these three thousand men were.
And he had done exactly that.
He had led two hundred wraiths straight into this three-thousand-man camp.
All of it, just as she had foreseen.
He had come.
And having come, he found Naoe Kanetsugu here, the three thousand here, the four divine artifacts here.
"Island-hopping" was not only those five hundred elites to the south.
The other face of the "island-hopping" was this: to draw him, the single greatest variable, out of Kaede Village and lock him inside this camp.
And then, with the momentum of faith of three thousand men, to utterly and completely—trap him.
Trap him to death, or bring him to heel.
And Naoe Kanetsugu was the one charged with bringing him to heel.
Yes.
Through this night's standoff, the change in the camp had been slow, yet unmistakably felt.
The lingering echo of fear had receded from the soldiers' bodies inch by inch, like an ebbing tide.
Their heartbeats steadied, their breathing evened, the hands gripping their spears no longer trembled.
Those convictions that had wavered under the wraith raid drew together again, like a shattered sheet of ice freezing slowly back into one in the cold.
Kōbe Hikaru could feel it.
That formless momentum, bit by bit, was reverting to its original clarity.
Until now.
It had been restored to what it was.
Restored to the point where mere proximity could scatter lesser yōkai.
Restored to the point where even high-ranking yōkai would give it a wide berth.
Restored to the state where—even Kōbe Hikaru might well be constrained by it!
"So you were waiting here for me not because you'd been left behind."
Kōbe Hikaru spoke.
Naoe Kanetsugu's expression did not change.
But her eyes betrayed her.
"That lord of yours placed you here, and had you—be the one to bring me over."
Kōbe Hikaru released the hand gripping her shoulder.
The lightning dispersed.
A purple scorch mark still lingered on Naoe Kanetsugu's pauldron, but she did not rub it, nor did she step back.
Kōbe Hikaru retreated a step, his crimson oni mask sweeping across the three-thousand-strong formation around them, across the divine-artifact warriors blazing with golden light in the four quarters.
"You're too composed. Composed to the point of absurdity—a general held hostage by the enemy a whole night should be furious, should struggle, should be looking for a way to flee."
"And yet you've done nothing at all."
Naoe Kanetsugu was silent for a moment, and then she smiled.
An open smile, without the slightest concealment.
"My lord was right."
Her voice grew a shade brighter. "She said you were clever—clever enough not to do anything foolish when cornered."
"The momentum of faith of three thousand men, four divine artifacts holding station—this camp is a cage."
"You can break your way in, but you can't break it apart."
"You have only one choice."
She looked at him.
Her gaze sincere, carrying a seeming goodwill as she made her overture. "Become one of us."
The air froze.
Three thousand pairs of eyes watched the two figures standing before the command tent. Four shafts of golden light burned in silence across the four quarters.
The now fully restored military might surged and churned.
Everyone was waiting for that yōkai's answer.
Waiting for him to bow his head.
Waiting for him to yield.
And every word Naoe Kanetsugu had spoken was the truth.
The power wrought by three thousand men clustered together in high devotion was not to be taken lightly; an ordinary yōkai—even a high-ranking yōkai chieftain who had already crossed the threshold into a new nature—would likely be pressed down until it could not stir.
Even if Kōbe Hikaru's existence was special, even if he could break his way in and break his way out again.
But—what then?
What he faced would still be a situation of encirclement.
The whole of Musashi Province, encircled and carved out into isolation!
Unless he could rout all three thousand of them in a single stroke, could shatter them in an instant while bearing the weight of that military might.
But in theory, that was impossible… Even if Kōbe Hikaru's combat strength were enough, his yōkai aura—suppressed by that military might—would not support him in doing so.
In theory, so it went…
And yet even so, even here and now, Kōbe Hikaru truly could feel the yōkai aura within him held down—a state in which it could scarcely be released outward, and its consumption ran all the higher.
A single motion demanded several times the usual force to achieve the same effect.
Just as he had seen before.
All power that was not of the mundane world would be suppressed.
No outward release, no ranged effect, and even hit-and-run fighting was hard to sustain.
Facing Naoe Kanetsugu's seemingly goodwilled overture, he laughed all the same.
And he said only a single line.
Very soft—soft enough that only Naoe Kanetsugu could hear it clearly.
"How can you be so sure—"
He murmured it, and all at once, he crouched down.
Five fingers spread.
Pressed against the earth beneath his feet.
"—that I really can't do it? Rout every last one of you?"
So-called theory was, in the end, only theory!
The words rose and the words fell.
Naoe Kanetsugu's smile froze.
Not because the words were so arrogant, but because—the earth was trembling.
Beginning at Kōbe Hikaru's palm, ring upon ring of tremors spread outward.
Not an earthquake. Not the release of yōkai aura.
Something deeper.
It was… a response.
[Kantō Land favourability: 2]
This land of the Kantō still remembered him.
Remembered the night in Kaede Village when he had cut down the demonic fiends of all four quarters and purified the turbid air.
Remembered how he had beaten back Kibōmaru, who had come from Kyoto.
Remembered, even more, that morning atop the ruins of the Tahōtō when he had destroyed centuries-old vengeful Demons and washed away their grudges.
As said before, the land had no consciousness, no soul.
But it had memory.
And in this moment, that memory—woke once more, and deeper than before.
Yōkai power welled up from beneath the earth.
Not the yōkai power stored within Kōbe Hikaru himself—that had long since been drained considerably through the night's standoff.
It was what the land gave back to him in turn.
An endless, inexhaustible flow.
Like a spring, like the tide.
More like a river that spread from the soles of his feet to every part of him, one that would never run dry.
Kōbe Hikaru rose to his feet.
His yōkai aura burst forth—and now not even the momentum of three thousand troops could hold it down.
But this time the yōkai aura was wholly unlike before.
It was no longer his yōkai aura alone.
It was what he and the land beneath his feet released together—mingled with the heaviness of soil, the hardness of stone, and the lingering thoughts of all the dead beneath this Kantō earth.
Blood mist seeped up from the ground.
Bone spikes grew up from below.
Unbroken, without end.
Not to attack a man—but to attack a mountain.
It was a reminder.
A reminder to these people standing upon the Kantō earth—
This land is not yours.
It is his.
The faith and military might congealed from three thousand men could suppress yōkai aura, could restrain the extraordinary.
But it could not suppress the soil.
Could not suppress the stone.
Could not suppress a single white bone risen up from beneath the earth.
Yes.
This, in fact, was the true reason Kōbe Hikaru had dared to storm the formation alone.
This world was perhaps not one where individual martial might reigned absolute; a clustered, organized existence held the vast power of the many, and could to some degree suppress the individual.
But Kōbe Hikaru had never been merely an individual.
The earth beneath his feet could give back to him as well… a power far beyond that of any ordinary formation—true, immense might!
Naoe Kanetsugu's face changed at last.
Truly changed.
She looked at the gray-robed, white-haired oni warrior before her—his oni mask fading in and out of the blood mist, crimson oni-pupils shining through the gaps, brimming with mirth.
He had not swung a blade, had not loosed a bolt of lightning.
He had not so much as pointed a single finger at anyone.
He merely stood there, standing upon this land.
And then this land did everything for him.
And so.
And here.
Mindful of the grudge-rancor that slaughter would bring…
"Those who give up resistance."
"I—will only wound. Not kill!"
As the blood mist spread, the ferocious might of the Demon King manifested once more beneath the bright blue sky of day.
With a single force, to rout three armies!
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