A short while later.
Hōjō Ujiyasu sat on the wooden floor of the main hall of Kaede Village Shrine, her neatly combed long hair swaying and hanging low together with the sleeves of her deep-purple kimono.
A tachi had originally hung at her waist, but she had unbuckled it herself upon entering the hall and set it down at her side, to show she meant no hostility.
Her gaze swept once around the interior of the hall.
The wooden pillars were old, the paper doors patched, and on the roof beams one could even make out the traces of cobwebs—cleared away now, yet leaving obvious marks that no amount of wiping could erase.
"This Shrine…"
Hōjō Ujiyasu paused, weighing her words. "It certainly has a sense of history."
Translated, that meant: run-down.
Very run-down. Extremely run-down.
Kikyō's face stayed blank, but the hand holding her bow tightened for an instant.
Kōbe Hikaru sat beside the shrine maiden and said nothing. Under the table he reached out and laced his fingers through Kikyō's, a small gesture of comfort—and took the chance to give her hand a little squeeze, which earned him a sidelong glare from Kikyō, though not the slightest sign of resistance.
Hōjō Ujiyasu's gaze drifted again to Naoe Kanetsugu, still bound to the pillar in the corner.
He had long since shut his eyes again, keeping them closed to rest with an expression that said don't look at me, I know nothing at all—then she withdrew her gaze.
The head of the Hōjō clan, come from Sagami, felt a sudden lift of delight.
There was a distinct flavor of vengeance fulfilled to it—even if she was not the one taking that vengeance, seeing one of Uesugi Kenshin's retainers reduced to such a state still felt deeply satisfying.
Then—
"To business."
Her tone shifted, brisk and clean, the shrewdness proper to the daimyō of a province rising to the surface.
"First, an old matter—on the road here, I heard something."
"A certain lord of a small castle, one named Suda Shigenobu."
Kōbe Hikaru's crimson demon eyes stirred faintly.
Kikyō turned her gaze too.
The name had left no deep impression on them, but not much time had passed, so of course they could not have forgotten it.
That noble who had oppressed six small villages, that castle lord who had bullied the people under his rule until the villagers had no choice but to pray for a yōkai's protection.
That man Kōbe Hikaru had cut down in passing.
"You killed him. You struck down a minor lord under my rule."
Yet Hōjō Ujiyasu stated it plainly, as if she hadn't noticed the reaction of the oni warrior and shrine maiden before her. "By rights, this is something I'd have to settle."
"But then again—that man Suda Shigenobu, after investigating along the way, I've learned exactly what kind of creature he was. Oppressing the common folk, extorting them without mercy. It was only that the war was pressing at the time, and I hadn't a free hand to deal with him."
She paused.
"Were it now, that man—I would kill him too."
"In this regard I even owe you thanks—for giving me a reason to intervene directly in the governance of Musashi Province."
Though the Hōjō clan ruled both Sagami and Musashi, and Hōjō Ujiyasu herself, while serving as protector of Sagami, oversaw Musashi Province directly through her court office as Junior Fifth Rank, Sakyō-no-Daibu, before this the Hōjō clan had in truth failed to fully control many parts of Musashi Province.
Now, because of the presence of Kōbe Hikaru and this southern march by the Uesugi, she could at last step in formally without provoking the opposition of the various great and small leaders across the land.
"My Hōjō clan practices a benevolent rule of three parts to the state, seven to the people. Men like Suda Shigenobu from now on—and things like this business of the people willingly following the Uesugi clan—will never appear again."
"So this matter, we'll set aside."
The tone was crisp, like a page turned in a ledger, but Kōbe Hikaru could hear the gritted-teeth resentment held down beneath it.
It seemed the business of Uesugi Kenshin carrying off the people under her rule still left her exceedingly displeased.
Fortunately, those people had stayed in the end.
Hōjō Ujiyasu had also seen them properly resettled.
There was still room to turn things around.
Steady, and trending toward good!
"I came today to thank you."
Thanks.
Spoken from the mouth of the Lion of Sagami, the word carried no light weight.
And it was, moreover, the truth.
For Hōjō Ujiyasu—Uesugi Kenshin marching south to encircle Musashi Province, swinging around to strike Odawara Castle from behind—the lifting of that strategic crisis came chiefly because Kōbe Hikaru had arranged in advance for the Imagawa fleet to land in the rear of Echigo, and had shattered three thousand men.
Though Kōbe Hikaru had done it more for his own preservation.
In objective terms, it had indeed safeguarded the Hōjō clan's most vital interests.
The Uesugi army retreated, and Musashi Province returned to Hōjō rule.
At the very least, the territory remained.
Hōjō Ujiyasu still sat here; the seat of the lord of Musashi Province had not been lost.
That was enough.
But both Kōbe Hikaru and Kikyō understood that thanks like this were likely no more than a pretext, a pretext—otherwise she'd have had no need to deliberately bring up that name Suda Shigenobu, and her coming here surely had another purpose.
As expected.
"I don't like being in anyone's debt."
The black-haired ruler of two provinces spoke without reserve. "And at the same time, I've come to win you over."
Kōbe Hikaru wasn't surprised.
Imagawa Yoshimoto had won him over with command authority and offerings; for Hōjō Ujiyasu to come do the same was entirely reasonable.
The reasons were the same, too.
Behind the previous generation of Uesugi Kenshin's yōkai-purging banner lay the power of a divine artifact; embedded within Takeda Shingen's Red-Armor corps was likewise a fragment of the deity Fudō Myō-ō.
Both opponents held trump cards beyond conventional force of arms.
But neither Imagawa nor Hōjō possessed any comparable power capable of standing against them.
The Hōjō's situation was even worse than the Imagawa's.
The Imagawa held the lands of three provinces; though they had no maiden warrior who was the incarnation of a divine artifact, they had land and people, and by human qi and military might—even if their elites fell short of the Uesugi and Takeda—they could rely on sheer numbers to hold the advantage on a frontal battlefield. Their only weakness was the inability to guard against a decapitation strike that might come at any moment.
Whereas Hōjō Ujiyasu held not only no divine artifact, but no incarnation of god or Buddha, no supernatural source of power at all.
Her domain was smaller still, her population and troop numbers fewer.
And so before this she had been able only to attach herself to Takeda Shingen—cooperation in name, dependence in fact.
She needed a blade capable of cutting through such things even more than Imagawa Yoshimoto did.
And that blade sat right across from her.
"You're strong. You can deal with those so-called divine artifacts, and your strategic vision is no lesser than Uesugi Kenshin's—shrewder and craftier than her, even."
"Do you know what the world's been calling you, after they learned of what happened?"
"The killing-free Demon who made Bishamonten bow her head and kneel, the Demon God of matchless benevolence and honor—some even believe you're the incarnation of Taishakuten who wields the thunder, the reincarnation of Gozu Tennō, that only such a one could make an incarnation of Bishamonten kneel."
The latter, of course, was a garbled rumor few believed, spread only within the narrowest circles.
But the former…
Kōbe Hikaru thought, what kind of bizarre epithet is that—he certainly held no sword of benevolence, no sword of honor.
Still, he knew Hōjō Ujiyasu spoke the truth, because spreading alongside these epithets was also his dread.
An unending stream of it, surging far higher than before—dread!
Hōjō Ujiyasu did not mince words in the least. "So I need you."
As blunt as Imagawa Yoshimoto.
Blunt to the point of astonishment.
Kōbe Hikaru fell silent a moment, then spoke—truly having foreseen this all along:
"Imagawa Yoshimoto beat you to it."
"My agreement with the Imagawa was signed a full month ago—command authority, offerings, the resettlement of my twenty-three demons in Suruga—all of it settled."
"That Imagawa fleet was able to land in Echigo precisely because of this agreement."
He paused, and the words that followed took on a sudden air of enjoying the show.
"But to be honest, you were actually the one I wanted to work with from the start."
Hōjō Ujiyasu froze.
That Kōbe Hikaru's cooperation agreement with the Imagawa had already been signed, she of course knew, and she had steeled herself for it.
But this next line was something she had never expected.
What did he mean, I was the one he wanted to work with from the start?
"Musashi Province is the closest to Kaede Village; your domain covers the areas all around me, the lowest cost for cooperation. But at the time, you'd been carried off by Takeda Shingen's underlings."
"Staying put, Imagawa Yoshimoto was rather eager instead—and forthright with her terms."
"So since it was cooperation either way, I chose her."
Hōjō Ujiyasu sat there, deep-purple hair falling at her shoulders, the sleeves of her deep-purple kimono draped over her knees.
Her expression went through a complicated process of change.
First, astonishment.
Then, vexation, and anger.
And finally—
…
She covered her face.
Palm pressed to her forehead, yet through the gaps of her fingers one could still see the tightly knit brows and the twitching corner of her eye.
That posture—rather than a gloomy, shrewd ruler, she looked more like a student who'd gotten the easiest question on the exam wrong.
In agony beyond bearing. Literally in agony beyond bearing.
She stopped just short of collapsing flat on the floor before this yōkai across from her.
If only she had, at the time—even if she'd been able to spare half a day—if only Takeda Shingen's Red-Armor corps hadn't come then—
That damned busty woman!
Hōjō Ujiyasu cursed her viciously.
But she knew those two words held no meaning whatsoever.
Hōjō Ujiyasu lowered her hand, drew a deep breath, and recovered that gloomy, shrewd face.
Though the corner of her eye still carried a faint, irrepressible twitch.
"That's no matter."
She said, her voice turning steady once more. "You have an agreement with the Imagawa—that I know. But the agreement didn't say you can't cooperate with others."
"I don't need to have you all to myself. I only want one promise from you."
She raised her head, the gaze beneath her long hair exceedingly sharp.
"For this… I can even enfeoff the whole of Musashi Province to you, hand it over to your management, your charge!"
The hall fell silent.
Kikyō rose and walked to the doorway, her bow leaning against the frame, her jet-black eyes turned toward Kōbe Hikaru.
Momiji and Botan poked two more heads out again from behind the paper door of the side hall.
Naoe Kanetsugu, bound to the pillar, opened his eyes at once—and then snapped them wide!
Enfeoffing a province.
Handing an entire province of the imperial system over to a yōkai.
Such a proposal, set against the whole of the Warring States era, could well be called unheard of.
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