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20 October 1600, Okayama Hill, Eastern Army Encampment
The camp had doubled in size since sunrise; Tokugawa's arrival had made sure of that.
By nightfall on the slopes of Okayama, the wind dragged through too many tents, too many swords, and too many men who believed they mattered more than they did. The banners of the Eastern Army snapped in the chill air as they were now encamped along the northern face of the hill: a great sea of canvas and armor stretched out below the ridgeline like a second city. The Mitsuba Aoi's banners snapped high at the center, flanked by those of Date, Hattori, and Zenin.
Seventy thousand strong. A crowd of men who all thought they were indispensable. Too many generals in one place. "Too many men wearing the same banner thinking it makes them important," Kaoru had muttered earlier in disdain. "Men like that should never gather."
Now Yoshinobu knew what she meant.
He made his way down one of the sloped paths, clutching a wooden bowl to his chest, his feet swift and light despite exhaustion. His boots were tied tight to keep out the mud, and his hakama, once clean and black, were dulled with clay and torn at the hem. The kosode beneath was similarly worse for wear, sleeves rolled high and tied off for movement, chest protected by a worn cuirass of boiled leather. On his hip, his father's katana.
He walked like someone who knew he didn't quite belong here, but had come anyway.
Almost ten. Old enough that no one important called him a child anymore. Well, almost no one.
Kaoru had kept him at the back for most of the march along the Tōkaidō. "Rear lines only," she'd ordered. And he'd listened; he wasn't stupid, he'd understood, if she knew he was in danger on the frontlines, she wouldn't be able to focus the way she had to. So he made himself useful. Letters sorted. Camp prepared. Her spare kosode was cleaned and folded, even if he had to wash it himself. He made sure Hajime had bread because he hated soup, and Kaoru had soup because she never remembered to eat until someone placed it in her hands. Every night, he made sure they had what they needed. That they didn't have to think about anything except surviving the frontline.
And now? Now he needed that damn dinner for them.
The firelight glowed ahead: blurry shapes crouched around the heat, the air thick with the smell of barley porridge, ash, and wet leather. If there was food left, it would be there. Yoshinobu's stomach turned, and he held his bowl tighter. He picked up the pace, rounded a corner—
—and walked straight into a wall. Well, a man. Same difference. Leather-plated, arms crossed, eyes narrowed beneath the arc of a black jingasa. A heavy longbow was slung across his back, and his armor bore the mon of the Hattori.
Yoshinobu blinked up at him with all the patience of a boy who'd run out of it ten minutes ago. Great. Hattori, he thought, unimpressed. The clan that could pick a fight with its own shadow.
The man didn't move. Yoshinobu didn't either.
"Lost, little page?" the man rumbled, bending down, his voice loud enough for the whole camp to hear. "Did they start feeding orphans with soldier rations?"
Yoshinobu offered a bow, respectful and cold. "The little page," he said evenly, "has been entrusted with provisions for the lieutenants of the Tōkaidō Corps, including the head of the Zenin clan and his second-in-command. Kindly move."
It was too practiced, too smooth, the kind of sentence Kaoru would've been proud of; the kind that made men blink. It had its effect.
The Hattori soldier scowled, rising to full height again, slower this time. He didn't move. "Lippy, aren't you? For someone who barely reaches my belt."
"And tall," Yoshinobu replied calmly, "for someone whose only courage comes from wearing armor."
"You—" A low sound—almost a growl—rumbled from the man's throat.
He looked ready to kick the kid down the slope, then stopped. Yoshinobu didn't turn, but he felt it right behind him: the static crawl of cursed energy behind him, the faint burn of ozone. The hair on his arms rose as he felt the lightning crackle. The man's eyes flicked upward, just slightly. Not quite fear, but something closer to wariness.
Yoshinobu didn't even smirk. Hajime, he thought, relieved.
He could already picture the look on Hajime's face: blank, vaguely murderous, the one that had made grown men on both sides piss themselves for weeks now. Sure enough, he stepped up behind him, arms crossed, his once uwagi soaked with mud and rain: His sleeves rolled tight on his forearms, both wrapped in fresh bandages flecked with blood and soot, and his hair, more storm than order, a mess of cyan strands half-glued to his face.
He said nothing for a moment, just stared as a spark jumped lazily across his shoulders. Not a threat. Just a suggestion.
"Tch." The man clicked his tongue, but his arms stayed crossed.
"Scaring children now?" Hajime said, voice bored.
"You little attack dog," the man muttered, voice edged with caution. "Your aim's been off. Should keep your tantrums in check; you nearly fried our scouts this morning."
"They should learn to duck," Hajime said flatly. He took a step closer. "Or," he added, casually cruel, grinning, "we can always wait for your arrows to actually kill someone. Might win the war by the time we grow old."
Yoshinobu did smirk this time, and that got under the Hattori soldier's skin. The man stepped forward, fists clenched. "You little—"
"Don't like it? Win faster," Hajime said, stepping just slightly closer. "Not my fault, your men are bad."
The man's knuckles whitened, trembling in restrain.
"Go ahead," Hajime drawled, one brow raised. "Swing."
He didn't. Because then, with all the weight of a tide turning, the man's eyes flicked past them both and froze. Yoshinobu and Hajime felt it too. The sudden silence. A pressure in the dark like the moment before a dam breaks. There she was. Kaoru Zenin stood behind them. Silent, still, and cold. She said nothing at first, only looked at the Hattori as if she were watching something unpleasant beneath her boots, and that somehow was worse.
"...I believe my men are attempting to reach the fire," Kaoru said softly, dangerously. "But it seems an insect has obstructed their path."
The Hattori paled and stiffened, then wisely—very wisely—stepped aside. He did not argue, he did not engage, just gave a begrudging incline of the head. "Zenin-dono," he muttered, and left like the fire had gone out, fast, too fast to be casual.
Yoshinobu and Hajime stared after him, then up at her. "Had it under control," Hajime grumbled at last, stepping toward the fire.
The younger boy rolled his eyes. "Like you had things under control when you punched the general under Li Naomasa-dono's command, last week?"
"He insulted my height."
"You are short."
Kaoru, behind them, made a sound that could have been a sigh or a death omen, her footfalls slow as they reached the fire and sat without ceremony on the raw ground. She joined them a moment later, silent, letting the heat catch her. Now that the fire illuminated her, neither Hajime nor Yoshinobu could ignore it anymore.
Kaoru looked like war.
Armor, plated and fitted, encased her chest and forearms, bearing the Zenin mon. Her kosode, dark red and fraying at the seams, was stained with blood and smoke; the sleeves were strapped back with cloth ties, her hakama tucked tight into boots caked in clay, was braided with cord, and a long cloak hung from her shoulders to shield her from the night breeze. Her hair pulled back into a practical warrior's tail, high and tight, strands sticking up from the crown like a fox's ears.
And she was tired. Kami, she was tired. For weeks, she had given more than anyone: stood at the front, cut through enemies, and never once asked for rest. Never once asked for more food. If anything, she gave it away. Always a little more for Hajime. Always a little more to Yoshinobu.
It showed. The shadows under her eyes seemed etched in charcoal, her face was thinner than when they'd left Edo, and something in her stillness made them uneasy.
Kaoru didn't speak, only stared into the flames, unfocused, not quite hunched, but drawn inward. It was exhaustion; bone-deep, rotting exhaustion.
Not dead, not yet, but she was starting to rot.
Behind her, Hajime squinted at her back, his brows twitching into a frown that could almost be mistaken for concern, if he didn't immediately catch himself and scowl harder as he regretted it. Which would've been sweet, if Kaoru hadn't done the exact same thing a second later, turning to check if Hajime was eating, behind his back; her frown almost identical.
Yoshinobu knelt in the middle, cleared his throat, and held out the wooden bowl. "Kaoru-dono," he murmured. She blinked like he'd pulled her out of deep water. "You haven't cleaned up," he added, "since this morning's fighting."
Kaoru glanced down at herself, as if only just realizing she was still dusted in dried blood and ash. Her expression twitched into something that might've been a smile in a kinder world—a wry, tired thing, crooked at the corners. "Tokugawa-dono asked for me," she murmured, letting her body sink into a kneel beside the fire, less like a general and more like someone trying not to fall apart by accident. "Didn't have time to make myself presentable."
Her hands shook a little as she accepted the bowl, but she masked it by shoving the first bite into her mouth too fast. Then another. The soup was bland, barely warm, and her stomach protested immediately, but she ate like it was a battlefield ration: not nourishment, just fuel.
Thirty days.
Skirmishes. Gifu. The Akasaka retreat. A full month now. A month of corpses, of mud, of waking up to rain and sleeping in ash. Not one of her men had died; she had made damn sure of it being on every battlefield. Calling her shikigami day after day until her cursed energy throbbed at the base of her skull. Sleeping half-sitting with one ear open and Hajime's presence nearby, Yoshinobu's silhouette always within reach.
Her body wasn't built to hold that kind of pace forever. No one was.
And he, Tokugawa Ieyasu, had summoned her that evening to welcome the neutral clan that had finally joined the war. That, more than the exhaustion, made her want to throw up.
Kaoru forced another mouthful down, breathing through her nose to stop the nausea, and caught, out of the corner of her eye, Yoshinobu and the small, embarrassing growl of his stomach. He flushed, casting his eyes downward. Kaoru sighed, wiped her mouth, and held the bowl out to him with all the finality of a command. "Here," she said simply. His mouth opened to protest, but she was faster. "They fed me at Tokugawa-dono's meeting," she lied with the perfect ease of someone who had grown up lying to survive.
Yoshinobu stared. Suspicious, unsure, then, with all the dignity a nine-year-old could summon, bowed his head. "Thank you, Kaoru-dono," he whispered, before returning to slurping in fast, grateful bites.
She nodded once and leaned back, letting her eyes slip half-shut. Beside her, Hajime gnawed on his rationed bread as if it had offended him. Sullen, scowling, still making his scary face, still somehow radiating static even when eating.
It might've stayed quiet, but of course, the world wasn't that kind.
Footsteps approached, stomping, annoyed. Then a grunt, maybe two. It was hard to tell if the displeasure was aimed at them or the entire world.
"Oh, joy," Hajime mumbled through a mouthful.
Yoshinobu looked up with that soft kind of dread he reserved for particularly unbearable adults.
"Wonderful," Kaoru muttered, casting a sidelong glance through her loose fringe. Her posture straightened, resting her forearms on her knees in the manner of every male general she'd watched growing up. The way a clan head should sit.
A shadow loomed. Masanari Hattori, in all his prematurely gray, appeared with the delicate grace of a landslide. With his bow slung over one scarred shoulder and mud crusted up to his knees, and his armor that looked like it had survived a brawl with a bear, and possibly won. He was already muttering under his breath about the indignity of sharing a meal with Zenin filth and Kaoru Zenin in particular.
Trailing slightly behind him was the infamous One-Eyed Dragon of Ōshū, Masamune Date, radiating biggest general in the camp aura and none of the patience. His crescent moon kabuto reflected firelit, and his black armor still bore flecks of ash from that morning. Sparks leapt from his skin, a literal spark, before dying out as he inclined his head a single degree.
Three generals, one fire, and more grudges and curse energy than kindling.
"Zenin-dono," Masanari greeted, in the tone one might reserve for a mud stain. "Still alive, I see. My stomach's already turning."
"Then starve," Kaoru replied, unfazed.
Masamune raised an eyebrow, but said nothing as he dropped down to a squat beside the fire, flinging off his cloak with a hiss of steam. "Kami, someone salt this stew," he muttered.
"The grumpy archer could," Hajime chuckled, "if he glared at it long enough."
Masanari shot him a look. "You little street dog, you gave my flank a heart attack this morning," he said, flopping down gracelessly across them. "Didn't even wait for the signal."
"I got through the enemy line just fine," Hajime shrugged, licking his fingers. "Like we agreed."
"We agreed to coordinate—"
"And we did, old man," Hajime interrupted, utterly unapologetic. "Teach them to dodge next time."
Masamune gave a lazy laugh. "Worked, didn't it? If he hadn't jumped in, we'd still be digging corpses out of the ditches," he said, voice deceptively light. "You might consider gratitude, Hattori-dono."
Kaoru inclined her head, interjecting smoothly. "And if Date-dono hadn't broken the Gifu front, we wouldn't have taken the hills. And Hattori-dono's archers gave excellent coverage during the Akasaka retreat. We're all earning our keep."
"Tch." Masanari glanced over. "Almost everyone."
His eyes fell to Yoshinobu, still hunched over the soup. A flash of shame, and the boy froze mid-spoon. Kaoru didn't react, not visibly.
"Since when do the Zenin bring children to the front?" Masanari sneered. "Did no one else survive Nagoya-go?
The insult landed. Yoshinobu's head jerked up as he lowered his spoon, and Hajime's hand twitched near his thigh. He half-rose, face dark, just as Kaoru's eyes went cold and stopped them both, pressing her fingers into Hajime's arm. "Sit," she warned. He sat back down like someone had stabbed him in the thigh.
Masamune growled, actual cursed energy curling off him like smoke. The campfire surged in response, fed by a crackle of his cursed energy that landed through the air like a dragon's breath, enough to make a few nearby soldiers shift nervously."Tread carefully, Hattori-dono, I'd rather not cook anyone tonight," he said, deadly calm, smoke curling at his lips. "Zenin-dono keeps our front intact while you hide in trees. If you have complaints, perhaps put your bow where your mouth is."
Masanari snorted. "How could I forget the Date-Zenin alliance. Your clans are practically in a futon together, of course, you'd say that."
The One-Eyed Dragon of Ōshū turned, visibly irritated, his hand twitched toward one of the four sword strapped on his back, only for Kaoru to beat him to it, with a dangerous, radiant, perfectly sweet smile.. Oh, Hattori-dono," she said. "Still bitter that no one wants to marry you?"
The silence was glorious, glacial, and sudden, and even the fire popped in discomfort. Masamune turned his face away and coughed violently into his fist, suspiciously close to a laugh, while Hajime looked like he was about to fall off his rock laughing.
Masanari stood slowly and stiffly, trying to loom like his height might intimidate her into silence. "And you, Zenin-dono?" he said coldly. "Saving yourself for that white-haired idiot? I promise to leave enough of him to bury if you beg nicely."
Kaoru stood too, unhurried. She didn't bother matching his height. "Be careful, Hattori-dono," she replied, deadly calm. "Gojo Seijiro is mine to face. Not that you'd survive the attempt."
The air went still, save for Hajime, who let out a quiet snort. "Facts," he muttered as he kept chewing, not trying to hide how much he wanted a fight to break out. Then—
"I'll be the one to kill Gojo Seijiro," Masamune said darkly, pressing his hand over his eyepatch. "Bastard dared imply he had intentions toward my daughter."
Hajime raised a hand, still mid-bite. "Can I help?"
Kaoru very nearly dropped her bowl, resisting the urge to smack her own head into the nearest pine. She stared at the fire as if asking it for guidance. Kami help her, everyone wanted to kill Seijiro, and for what? Existing? And the worst part? She couldn't even argue with them.
Masanari exhaled hard through his nose and dropped back onto his seat with a thud, apparently soothed by the shared hatred. "Fine," he grunted. "We all hate him. But unless one of you jujutsu geniuses has a plan to get through that damn barrier of his, we're just screaming into a well."
That made Kaoru flinch. She didn't mean to, but the truth cut more than expected; she knew the answer. Seijiro knew too, and they'd done everything—everything—to make sure no one else ever would. She'd gambled on the desperate hope that the Kamo hadn't figured it out yet, but that hope had died the moment she walked into Tokugawa's tent earlier that evening and saw him there: the smiling old corpse in ceremonial armor. The one who smiled too easily and bowed too low.
And with him... The true problem, the very thing they had tried to erase before it reached the battlefield.
Before she could speak, a voice floated from behind her. "I do," it said, faintly amused. "Gojo Seijiro won't be a problem. Not if you use the right weapon."
Every head turned. At the edge of the firelight stood the very man least wanted to see: the elder Kamo clan patriarch, hands behind his back, smiling like a man who'd outlived too many and who no longer had anything to fear from anyone. His ceremonial armor looked untouched by dirt, blood, or war; of course, it was. He didn't fight battles; he built them. And behind him, too poised, too perfect, stood a young woman who didn't walk so much as glide into view.
Mumei.
She lifted one hand in a dainty wave, right at Hajime, who stiffened completely. Like prey spotting a predator from ten paces away.
"Oh, hell no," he muttered, recoiling as if he'd rather set himself on fire. "Absolutely not."
The Kamo patriarch's granddaughter was dressed for battle, but not like the others. No grime, no sweat, no haste: her silver-edged armor fit her like a wedding kimono tailored to perfection, her lips were still perfectly painted, and her brown hair was pulled high into a proud warrior's tail that swayed as she moved. Even her boots were clean. She looked less like a soldier and more like the embodiment of a shrine deity mid-procession, and in her hands...
She held the Mitsuboshi no Yari.
Kaoru exhaled slowly, low and bitter. The spear gleamed in the firelight, simple and unassuming, but Kaoru knew better. So that was the plan. Of course it was. Dress up the weapon, hand it to the clan's prized granddaughter, too beautiful to look dangerous, and let the world crown her their savior. The Kamo patriarch wasn't hiding it; he was staging it. Decades of plotting spent grooming her to be the face of their new order. One where the Kamo reigned.
Masanari made a noise of disgust. "Great. So now we're not just sending children to the front, we're sending painted women too."
Mumei tilted her head slightly, smile never faltering. "And tomorrow," she said sweetly, "I'll show you what a woman can do on the battlefield." There wasn't a speck of humility in her tone.
Kaoru's eyebrow rose, and for a moment, the corners of her mouth twitched at the irony. "Welcome to the front, Mumei-dono," she said, dry as kindling, voice low in fake masculinity.
Masamune, frowning, gestured toward the spear. "What did you mean, exactly? That Gojo Seijiro won't be a problem?"
Kaoru's gaze locked on the spear, and she felt the breath catch in her chest the same way it had when Tokugawa said it to her face. She should've never dragged the Kamo into this. Her worst fear, their worst fear, was now real: they'd found out the true abilities of that cursed weapon.
Her gaze flicked briefly to Tokugawa's camp high on the hill, where she knew that smug old man was likely watching. He knew. He'd always known, probably, he'd just been waiting to show his hand at the right moment.
This was it.
They intended to use it to dismantle the Gojo's defense, and just like that, the battlefield had a new kingmaker.
"An artifact of the old world. The Mitsuboshi no Yari." The old Kamo lord stepped forward, smile widening. Kaoru knew what he was going to say before the words left his mouth. "It nullifies cursed techniques."
.·:·.✧ ✦ ✧.·:·.
21 October 1600 - Sekigahara Pass
The fog had only just lifted when the war began for all the wrong reasons.
It hadn't started with a trumpet. Not a command. Not even a scream. No, the Battle of Sekigahara had begun because someone misheard an order, followed by a confused, startled "Was that one of ours?", and an accidental volley of arrows. The first to fall was a Li lieutenant. The second was reason. By the time the mist cleared at the eighth bell, the first lines of the Eastern and Western armies had already slammed into one another; twenty thousand infantrymen forgot who had been waiting for what and were now dying for it.
No cursed techniques, not yet, just metal, the sound of men shouting, and blood pooling into the muddy earth.
Perched high on a crag of stone, Kaoru crouched with her gaze locked on the chaos unfolding below. Her lightweight armor was plating worn over crimson kosode, sleeves bound at the elbow, and black hakama tied tight for speed, with no embellishment save the Zenin mon tucked at her shoulder. No grandeur, only function. Her only vanity: the thin red ribbon braided into her ponytail, tied by Yoshinobu's careful fingers at dawn.
Beside her, Hajime was crouched low, one arm wrapped loosely around Nyoi and the other elbow braced against his knee. "So let me get this straight," he hummed, chin tucked low like a cat waiting for prey to come within reach. "This whole war started because some idiot tripped and launched a spear by accident?"
"Arrow," Masamune corrected behind them, arms folded under the weight of four swords strapped to his back. and his kabuto firmly in place. "I'm pretty sure it was an arrow."
In the middle of them, Mumei stood perfectly still, untouched by blood or dust, dressed for death and holding the most dangerous weapon on the field, the Mitsuboshi no Yari, in her hands. She spun it once with bored elegance, then smiled like a woman at the start of a tea ceremony, not a battlefield. "This," she said, sweetly, "is why men shouldn't be trusted with anything important."
Kaoru glanced sideways: the old Kamo patriarch was nowhere to be seen, having strategically retreated to the rear with the supply wagons and rear guards. Safe. But of course, he had sent his darling granddaughter forward like a symbol, to wield the weapon that could dismantle the entire balance of the jujutsu world. A pawn dressed up as an empress.
Kaoru hated every part of that narrative. Her lip curled slightly as she rolled one shoulder, her mind already cataloguing exits, cursed signatures, wind direction. She didn't trust anything about this moment. Not the old man. Not the gleam in Mumei's eyes.
Certainly not the spear.
Hajime cracked his neck. Mumei adjusted the straps of her armor. Masamune sighed and tapped his swords in sequence. A shared silence fell. The four of them, elite sorcerers from opposing factions, scattered across a field already simmering with death, and they were just standing there. Waiting. Waiting for someone else to make the first move.
"Ah," Hajime said softly, still watching the field from his crouch, "there he is."
A single arrow zipped through the air, whistling, and struck a samurai of the Ukita clan directly between the eyes. A moment passed. Another arrow followed, on the same trajectory, with the same deadly precision. Then, a third.
"Always the eyes," Mumei commented, twirling her spear.
The Hattori had stationed themselves at the tree line, hidden among the rocks and underbrush, firing cursed arrows laced with paralyzing and corrosive cursed energy. The best of them—a grumbling bastard crouched between cedar roots—loosened each arrow guided by his innate cursed technique and a bow longer than Kaoru was tall. Another arrow and another samurai was struck dead-center in the eye socket with such precision that even the chaos paused to blink
"Oh for—" Kaoru sighed, eyes rolling. "Hattori-dono's putting on a show again."
Masamune squinted with his single eye, tapping his foot. "Can't hear him, but I'd bet my topknot he's muttering 'I never miss' under his breath."
Kaoru smirked as her gaze lifted, climbing the hill that rose in the center of the Eastern formation. There, under the great white canopy, Tokugawa Ieyasu and his most trusted generals stood on their horses, watching the battlefield unfold with the Mitsuba Aoi banners looming over them. For a moment, Kaoru could've sworn Tokugawa looked straight at her, seated tall in his saddle. Impossible: too far, too foggy. But the weight of that man's attention felt like a tanto pressed to her sternum. No cursed energy, just pure pressure.
She squinted. No way he could see her from that distance. And still...
She stood a little straighter, and so did the others, almost unconsciously.
Masamune cracked his neck. "If we go in before the signal, think he'll be mad?"
"He's always mad," Kaoru replied. "That's how he wins."
Mumei leaned on the shaft of the spear like it was a parasol, licking her lips. "Mm. We could just start fighting like real sorcerers," she sang lightly, turning her gaze to Hajime. "I'd like my future husband to see what kind of wife I'll make."
He twitched like he'd swallowed something rancid, "Please die," he said without looking at her as Kaoru coughed pointedly to cover a laugh.
"Once one of us enters the field, escalation becomes inevitable," she glanced sideways. "Tell me, Mumei-dono," she said, deceptively casual. "Do you even know how to use that thing?"
The girl's smile curled smugly. Without breaking eye contact, she raised the Mitsuboshi no Yari and—slowly, precisely—poured cursed energy into the shaft.
The weapon responded.
It shimmered—once, twice—with a flicker of darkness and light that split the surrounding air. Not violently, just effortlessly. For one brief, terrible instant, they couldn't feel any cursed energy around them. As a hole had opened in the world and swallowed it all. Then, the energy vanished almost as soon as it bloomed. Smug didn't even begin to describe Mumei's expression.
Kaoru didn't flinch, didn't scowl; she just breathed out slowly through her nose. The Mitsuboshi no Yari only answered to the strongest cursed signatures, only responded to those with iron-forged control and ruthless will, and of all the people capable of activating the damn thing—besides herself, Seijiro, and occasionally Hajime—it had to be her. She felt Hajime glance sideways just as Masamune arched a brow, muttering low under his breath, "Well, that was disgusting."
No one said it, but they were all thinking the same thing: we're screwed.
And then it came: another arrow, another Ukita soldier down. And then, as if something had snapped, the world shifted and—
A river surged forward. An actual river.
Not a stream of water—no, this was cursed energy liquified, massive and roaring, crashing through the Ukita line like a flood; from the treeline behind the Ukita flank, it tore through the valley, swallowing Date's samurai and Li scouts alike, and surged straight toward the woods where the Hattori had taken position. Dozens were swept away. Mud lifted. Trees snapped.
At its center: a single figure, balanced atop the crest of the wave. Long wept braid flying, mouth grinning like he was surfing into death: Musashi.
"He's here," Kaoru cursed, clicking her tongue in annoyance. Which means, she thought. Her eyes shot back across the field. Seijiro isn't far behind.
"Shit," Masamune exhaled. "Which idiot summons a river into battlefield? Someone deal with it, that's a bad matchup for me."
"I'll take it," Mumei chirped.
"No," Hajime said, eyes brightening and lips twitching. "I know that cursed energy. Koi boy. Seiryūka." He flexed his fingers around Nyoi's grip, and sparks danced across his shoulder. He turned to Kaoru, not really asking for permission. "You know I'll go even if you tell me not to," he beamed in anticipation.
Kaoru sighed. "I know," she said flatly, giving him a sidelong glance; their silent language. Behind them, movement; Tokugawa turning slightly, a near-imperceptible nod in their direction. That was all. No shouted command, no banners raised, just a signal. Kaoru exhaled.
Time to move.
She raised one hand, a single, silent signal aimed toward the Zenin troops hidden just beyond the western ridge. "Hajime. You'll go cover the Hattori," she said. "Don't engage if you don't have to."
He smiled, slow, already crouching again, repositioning his stance. "But if I do?"
She let the smirk return. "Then have your fun."
Beside her, Hajime grinned like a child set loose. "I won't die. Promise!" he shouted, and then he was gone, lightning sparking at his heels, Nyoi spinning in a blur of silver and blue behind him as he shot northeast across the incline, reckless as always. Kaoru followed close behind, boots skidding over wet rock as her hands flew through seals. They broke apart at the slope's curve: Hajime veering right to flank the treeline, Kaoru cutting west, straight into the growing chaos. Wind whipped against her face as she slid low, and the battlefield opened below. At the hill's base, her hands snapped together mid-motion.
Rabbit Escape. Round Deer.
Orbit of the Fleeing Moon.
The shadows at her feet bloomed outward with a soft, warping pulse, and white shapes exploded: a hundred shikigami, rabbit-bodied and glowing with reversed cursed technique, scattered like sparks in every direction, their paws light against the mud. Everywhere they ran, they touched down on the broken: torn muscle, split skin, crushed ribs. And healed, not perfectly, but enough. Kaoru pressed forward, ducking low as her rabbits raced past wounded soldiers of the Eastern Army, lighting up the battlefield in soft, ghostly trails. Wherever they moved, pain dulled, limbs steadied: men stood straighter again, lines reformed, and morale snapped upward.
Cursed energy drained from her in waves, but the line was holding, and she kept moving.
She hit the bottom of the hill hard, landing on one knee, drawing her katana, breath visible in the chill air in huffs. The clang of steel echoed to her left. To her right, lightning exploded, white-blue, searing the treeline, and water roared in behind.
"The idiots found each other," she muttered, watching a shikigami hybrid rabbit dart past, brushing a wounded samurai with its soft flank, leaving a faint trail of healing light. The man gasped, blinked, then surged back into battle. She smirked. "That's going to be everyone's problem."
The battlefield had officially entered its cursed phase; steel and screams were now just foreplay. But at least she didn't need to worry about Hajime.
The ground was slippery with blood as she followed the glowing wake of her rabbits' shikigami deeper into the fray, skimming alongside the broken front lines, cutting down those who tried to exploit the brief moments of vulnerability in her formation. Cries of pain rose and broke around her; a man fell beside her, an arrow through his thigh, but he was standing again seconds later.
Kaoru's eyes narrowed as the Western Army surged ahead. She pressed two fingers to the ground and slipped under: the shadows swallowed her, and she re-emerged from the shadow behind a mounted Ukita samurai. She ducked, spun, and buried her katana between the armor plates at his side. He gurgled, slumped, and she vanished again.
Another shadow; another kill. A flicker behind a broken siege cart. A slash through a man's clavicle, pulled free in a spray of blood before she slipped again into shadow.
Blood soaked her sleeves. Her body ached. But she was close; one more leap, one more gap, and she'd be within striking distance of the enemy rear. If she could deploy Ittō Ryōran before one of their top-grade sorcerers intervened, she could break the momentum and collapse the flank entirely—
She struck again, slicing the throat of a Maeda footsoldier, blood painting her forearm as he fell on the ground—
Wait.
Maeda?
Her eyes lowered to the mon on his chestplate: a white plum over red lacquer. They weren't on the field a moment ago. And if that flamboyant sorcerer's with them... Dread clawed up her spine, but she had no time to think or curse.
A red flash split the air above her.
She moved on instinct and veered hard right just as the crimson bolt slammed into the ground ten paces to her right, the shockwave lifting her half off the ground. The ground split, cracking through the valley. Then another bolt—closer. And another, behind her. And one more—far too close.
Red. Always red.
She threw an arm up to shield her face just as stone shattered around her. The blast hurled her into a crouch, ears ringing and breaths sharp. The earth itself split in places.
It wasn't targeting her; it was targeting the shikigami. On purpose.
Kaoru hissed in irritation, watching one of her rabbits screech as it vanished mid-heal, disintegrated by the blast. Another twitched and flickered out, and others limped, barely holding form. Her hand trembled on her hilt. The damage wasn't permanent, but still, it hurt. Those shikigami were not designed for direct confrontation; the hybrid summonings had their limits, and now they were being tested by a familiar, chaotic bastard. The only person who would rain blasts on friend and foe alike and call it strategy.
Her grip on her katana faltered only for a second before she nearly laughed from the absurdity. "You absolute son of a—" she looked up, already knowing.
Seijiro Gojo.
There he was, suspended mid-air, hovering above the battlefield like a bored kami forced to babysit mortals; one hand lifted lazily toward the clouds, fingers glowing red. His hair was a messy shock of white, half-tied and dancing in the updraft, his lips slightly parted in concentration. No armor, no protection. Just his usual black robes under his snow-white haori, fluttering like a banner.
Kaoru squinted up at him, and the nerve of him: he had the audacity to look not triumphant but faintly offended. As if she had personally wronged him by daring to rebuild an entire defense line with cursed hopping miracles and tactical brilliance. His gaze swept the chaos below, then snapped to hers. His mouth curled in a pout that said, Really? He gestured down at the valley. Healing rabbits? A hundred of them? What did I ever do to you?
Then—flick. Another bolt. Another rabbit disintegrated mid-heal; he pouted harder. Petty. So petty.
Her fingers twitched at her side, not for a weapon, just the strong desire to chuck a rock, a nice heavy one, at his smug face. She scowled right back at him. Really? she mouthed. You showed up dressed like that? At the end of the world?
A lazy shrug. A tilt of the head. You love it, he mouthed back.
From the trees behind her, arrows whistled upward: Masanari, of course, never one to miss a grand opportunity to try to murder a Gojo. Cursed arrows, glowing with rot, shot toward Seijiro's floating silhouette… and froze. Caught midair, blocked by Infinity, and suspended an inch from his skin before drifting gently to the ground.
Seijiro didn't blink. He didn't even need to try.
Below, time seemed to hold its breath; the arrival of a Gojo always did that.
Kaoru's fingers twitched near her hilt as his eyes searched hers, the red light in his palm fizzling; he hesitated for a heartbeat. She did too. Then it hit him. She saw the second his attention slipped past her, and his brow creased. He'd seen something, or someone.
He'd seen it. The spear.
Of course he had: with the Six Eyes, he probably saw the nullification writ into the blade's very atoms. His face changed, not dramatically, not like a man afraid. Just... realization. A calculation reshuffling itself behind his eyes, and the understanding that everything was about to get worse. This battle is lost. And still, he didn't leave.
Kaoru shifted, opened her mouth, but her throat closed.
What could she say? Run? Don't engage? Don't make me watch you die? What right did she have?
Her lips trembled. None of it was useful, and none of it made sense anymore. They'd agreed to this; to standing on opposite sides, to raising their banners knowing what it meant. They had made peace with dying on opposite sides, or tried to, but peace wasn't the same as readiness, and she wasn't ready. Not like this. Seijiro looked down at her and smiled, that quiet, stupid, little smile of his, before his hand slipped inside his sleeve, reaching for something—
—and never finished the motion.
The battlefield exploded, and a pillar of fire screamed up from the Eastern core, crashing into him like a wrathful dragon. Smoke, ash, and light swallowed him whole, and Kaoru flinched, one arm thrown over her face as the heat cracked across her armor. She staggered back, heart in her throat. When the smoke cleared—
She let out a shaky breath: he was fine, still standing mid-air within the cocoon of his Infinity. The fire curved around him, harmless, his sleeves scorched at the hem, but Seijiro just blinked once, then lifted a hand to shield his eyes with an expression of tired disappointment.
Kaoru turned just as Masamune landed beside her, trailing smoke and fury, his coat still smoking from his own flames. In his hand, not a katana. Just a hilt. A broken, steaming hilt. His fingers clutched it like it didn't matter.
"Seriously?" Seijiro called lazily, peering down through the haze. "That's awkward. Need a new sword?"
"Need you to die screaming," Masamune growled, slamming cursed energy into the half-melted hilt. Flames exploded outward, reshaping and solidifying into a full katana of incandescent heat that warped the air around it. He grabbed it bare-handed and his palm was steamed in a way that was almost painful to look at. His skin hissed and blistered, but he didn't flinch.
Seijiro's smirk widened. "You're all so touchy today. Shame you still can't reach me."
Mumei appeared next, spear spinning behind her back—one-handed—and drove it into the earth, sending a ripple of cursed energy across the valley. "We'll just start with killing your kin on the ground, one by one," she laughed calmly and lovingly. "I'm sure you'll come down, eventually."
That did it. That wiped the grin from Seijiro's face, and Kaoru swore under her breath. Shit. It was spiraling fast. If Mumei and Masamune combined their strength, if they targeted Gojo's forces to bait him down... Seijiro might be in actual danger. He knew it, too. Kaoru knew that look on his face, that flicker—that tiny, awful flicker—arrogance tangled with guilt. He'd drop, he would: too arrogant to retreat, too soft to let others die in his name.
That shouldn't matter. It really shouldn't, he'd known the risks, they had agreed—
"Don't," she muttered, half to him, half to herself.
She wasn't here to protect him. But her fingers were already forming a hand sign.
It was something incredibly stupid, something she would not be able to explain if anyone saw. Helping him under the sun would look like betrayal. Maybe it was. Maybe she didn't care anymore—
"Little blossom!"
The voice cut across her thoughts, and Kaoru's head snapped forward, eyes wide: she barely had time to raise her katana just in time to not get killed, before the impact hit her full-force. Something slammed into her midsection, a mountain of weight and speed. She flew back, breath gone; she crashed down hard, skidding through mud and blood and pain, rolling until she could slam her foot down and stop the momentum. Blood trickled from her lip, and the weight of the hit lingered in her ribs.
Too slow. A second blow came.
She twisted just in time, barely avoiding the follow-up slash. Two furrows marked the earth behind her heels. Her katana cracked, split.
Kaoru spat blood, coughing and discarding her broken sword. Lucky blade, she thought bitterly, tossing it aside. Gets to rest.
She didn't.
Before her, a hulking silhouette stomped forward. Sakura-blossom patterned armor, crimson-gold, loud as his personality, scuffed from probably earlier fights or just his chaotic life. No helmet, hair, wild and feathered, tied in a high tail, whipping in the wind.
Keiji Maeda.
Feet spread in a ridiculous guard stance, beaming and holding his ridiculous ōdachi overhead. And etched onto the flat of his blade—still glowing faintly in blood—a sigil Kaoru knew all too well:
The Golden Eye. Ashuradō, if she recalled correctly.
He'd drawn his strongest buff first, the lucky divine bastard. This wasn't going to be easy.
"Aha! Look at you!" he laughed, delighted, grinning like a child at a festival. "So you did survive Gojo-dono's attack that day! I was worried!"
"Kami above, not this again," Kaoru muttered, dragging herself upright, steadying on her heels. "Why are you here?"
He stepped back, full stance, practically vibrating with anticipation. "Karma," he grinned, twirling the blade, "I loved that pink kimono. Though I must say, armor suits you too. You're wonderful."
Kaoru wiped blood from her lip and spat to her side. "And you were quieter after I stabbed you."
Stretching like a man just waking from a nap, Keiji rocked on his heels, grinning. "And you were cuter before the stabbing."
Snatching a naginata from a dead foot soldier's grip and leveling it into guard, her eyes flicked skyward for a moment. Seijiro… Seijiro was gone. She'd lost sight of Mumei and Masamune, too. Damn it. No time. She couldn't let that fool of a Maeda slow her down, not now, not with them still circling Seijiro with the Mitsuboshi no Yari. He didn't deserve to be taken down by those two, if anything.
She lowered her stance, deadly focused. "You're in my way."
"Oh," Keiji cooed, dropping into a mirrored stance. His voice dropped low. "Now that's my girl—are you?" A smirk. "C'mon, Little Blossom, we've got karma to settle."
Kaoru slammed the naginata down once, blade-first into the dirt. "It's Zenin-dono, to you."