But in truth, Imagawa Yoshimoto hadn't originally planned to come looking for Shinji so urgently.
Though she did want him.
Not in a romantic way, though that demon god's face was undeniably handsome, she was a clan lord, not some lovestruck girl even if she was, in fact, a girl, young and untouched, she looked down on such things.
At least for now.
What she wanted was the power that his very existence represented.
In the chaotic Warring States era, warlords competed for supremacy.
The three clans of the Tōkaidō, Suruga's Imagawa, Kai's Takeda, Echigo's Uesugi, with the Hōjō-controlled Musashi and Sagami as a buffer zone, maintained a delicate balance while each eyeing the chessboard of the realm.
Imagawa Yoshimoto never lacked ambition.
What she lacked was a trump card that could overturn the board.
Takeda Shingen claimed to be the incarnation of Fudō Myōō, and Kai's military strength had consequently grown immensely.
That big-breasted woman didn't just talk, reportedly, she had some mysterious beings by her side. Not ordinary samurai, not ordinary monks, but something stranger, called divine artifacts, a group of female generals.
The Imagawa's spies had returned only sparse reports. Occasionally, in the Takeda army, a few people in strange armor would appear, capable of breaking formations alone, fighting a hundred to one.
That these beings had auras not like humans, yet not like demons.
And eerily, Takeda Shingen seemed to have no qualms about exposing these beings' existence; she even deliberately put them forward.
In the recent border skirmish with the Takeda, Imagawa Yoshimoto had suffered a quiet defeat.
Not a loss in direct confrontation, Imagawa's military strength was not inferior to Takeda's. Even if the enemy had individuals who could fight a hundred to one, Imagawa controlled Suruga, Tōtōmi, and Mikawa, even if not fully controlling all of it, they were still the strongest in Kantō, the number one archer of the Tōkaidō, with thousands of soldiers. She could crush them with sheer numbers.
It was because of several recent mysterious night attacks.
Outposts were eliminated, scouts went missing, frontline commanders were knocked down in their own tents in the middle of the night, the attackers came and went without a trace, not at all like normal military operations.
Imagawa Yoshimoto didn't know what those things were.
She only knew that the Takeda had some kind of 'monster' that exceeded conventional combat power.
And Uesugi Kenshin went without saying.
Claiming to be the incarnation of Bishamonten, she waged wars everywhere in the name of exorcising demons.
Wherever that 'Bi' banner went, even demons retreated in fear.
Imagawa Yoshimoto didn't believe in divine incarnations or Buddhist reincarnations. But she believed in power.
It was a fact that Uesugi Kenshin's army could cut down mountains, destroy shrines, and slay demons.
It was also a fact that there were monsters in Takeda Shingen's army.
So what did she, Imagawa Yoshimoto, have?
She had had Taigen Sessai, but recently, his condition had been worsening.
Besides that, she only had a shrine enshrining the demon god Shinji, and a blade renamed Raikiri half a month ago because of that demon god.
And the legend she had deliberately spread,of the thunder-slaying demon descending, passed from mouth to mouth among the people of her city.
But she didn't have the man himself.
That demon who had slain the thunder beast in a single night, who had split the Suruga sky with lightning, he had come and gone.
Leaving only a headless beast corpse and a blade embedded in the ruins.
Like a dream.
What remained was only the fact of powerlessness afterward.
Imagawa Yoshimoto didn't like dreams. She liked turning dreams into reality.
So she raised an army.
She gathered two thousand elite troops, marched east from Suruga, and entered Hōjō territory.
Not to fight.
Fighting was just the means.
The only goal was to draw out that demon god.
Yes.
Even though she was personally at the front, in a way, she was fighting on two fronts.
Even as she was on the verge of war with the Hōjō, she had also been clashing with the Takeda.
If not for the string of losses against the Takeda, she wouldn't have turned her attention here.
…
Yajirōgen.
This was the fourth day of the standoff.
The autumn wind swept over the withered grass, blowing across the empty space between the two armies.
On the northern hills, the Hōjō line was as solid as iron. Fifteen hundred men stood in formation on the high ground, spears like a forest, iron armor gleaming.
Unlike the Imagawa fighting on two fronts, this was the bulk of the Hōjō's elite.
Hōjō Ujiyasu stood on a platform in the main encampment. Her long black hair blew back in the wind. She wore a light armor over a deep purple kosode. Her delicate face was so dark it seemed ready to drip water.
She hated fighting.
More precisely, she hated the kind of fighting she couldn't avoid.
If it were a siege defense, she could smile and watch the enemy shiver in the cold outside her walls.
If it were an ambush, she could patiently wait half a month for a single decisive blow.
But a face-off like this in the open field?
Disgusting.
Too disgusting.
"My lord, the Imagawa formation is shifting." A retainer beside her pointed south.
Hōjō Ujiyasu followed his gaze. Three miles to the south, the Imagawa line was slowly advancing.
No longer the probing of before.
This looked like a formal advance.
Infantry squares formed in three ranks, cavalry deployed on both flanks, banners waving like waves.
Behind the banner bearing the Imagawa crest, an ornate palanquin was carried forward by four strong men.
Imagawa Yoshimoto.
That woman was personally coming to the front line.
Hōjō Ujiyasu's lip twitched.
"Is she insane?"
Whatever Imagawa Yoshimoto was planning, she, Hōjō Ujiyasu, would not show weakness on her own territory.
"All troops—" Her voice cut through the autumn wind. "Engage."
War drums rumbled.
The dull sound, seeming to rise from deep within the earth, made chests tighten.
The Hōjō line began advancing down the slope.
Spearmen in front, archers behind, cavalry circling the flanks. The two armies slowly approached each other on the autumn plain.
Three miles.
Two miles.
One mile.
Until they were within archery range.
"Loose—"
Nearly simultaneously, both sides gave the order.
Arrows rose into the air, crossing paths in midair like two flocks of birds flying opposite directions.
Screams rose from the front lines of both armies.
The front-rank ashigaru fell. The ranks behind stepped over the bodies and advanced.
The spear walls clashed. The sound of impact was as dense as a rainstorm.
Blood sprayed, staining the withered grass red.
This was a head-on collision between two nations. No fancy tactics, no roundabout strategies. Just the grinding of iron and blood.
Hōjō Ujiyasu stood on the platform, watching the battlefield expressionlessly.
Her lips were pressed tight.
This battle should not have been fought.
For some inexplicable 'demon god,' she had been dragged into a meaningless war of attrition.
Imagawa Yoshimoto was the same.
Two women, two clan lords, shedding each other's blood on this plain for a demon.
Ridiculous.
But just as the front-line fighting reached its fiercest
Fog rose.
Hōjō Ujiyasu was the first to notice.
The fog didn't drift in from the mountains, nor did it rise from ground moisture.
It materialized from the very center of the battlefield, the line where the two armies clashed.
Red mist. Pale, almost colorless, but Hōjō Ujiyasu could smell it.
Rust.
The smell of blood.
"What is this…" The retainer beside her didn't finish his sentence.
Boom!
Thunder struck from the clear sky.
Directly… between the two armies.
Purple lightning exploded in the center of the plain, turning an area a hundred yards wide into scorched earth.
Soldiers fighting at the front were thrown back by the shockwave. The front lines of both the Imagawa and Hōjō scattered.
A second bolt.
A third.
Purple lightning formed a wall, forcibly splitting the two armies apart.
"What—what is that!?" Hōjō Ujiyasu took a step back.
She saw it.
In the scorched earth where the lightning had struck, white bone spurs burst from the ground.
One, two, ten, a hundred.
Bone spurs erupted from the earth, dense and thick, forming a forest between the two armies.
A white bone forest.
Those bone spurs were of varying heights, the shortest waist-high, the tallest overhead, cutting the entire battle line into an insurmountable barrier.
Any soldier trying to cross would be blocked by the spurs, driven back by the lightning.
The battle was forcibly halted.
Not because either side had given the order to retreat, but because an external force had pressed pause on the war itself.
Blood mist spread among the bone forest.
Silence.
The sounds of battle vanished.
The soldiers fell back, step by step, their faces filled with terror as they realized the heavy fog around them, the blood-red sky.
And at the center of the divided battlefield,
Where bones and blood had cleared a path,
A figure emerged from the mist.
Grey robes, white hair.
A crimson demon mask covered his face, revealing only his eyes, glowing with an eerie red light.
His left hand rested on the sword at his waist, his right hand hung at his side, purple electric arcs dancing around his fingertips.
He stood between the two armies.
He stood at the center of the bone forest and the lightning.
One person.
Blocking a battlefield of three thousand soldiers.
With his mere presence, stopping a war.
…
Hōjō Ujiyasu's breath stopped for an instant.
That figure, that white hair, those crimson eyes.
Without a doubt, this was the one she had seen in her dream.
The figure that had appeared in the depths of her nightmare on the night Odawara Castle was shrouded in darkness, the figure she had thought was an illusion.
"It's him…" she murmured. "It's that demon."
Her hand unconsciously tightened on the armrest.
…
To the south.
In the Imagawa main encampment, the palanquin's curtain was pushed aside.
Imagawa Yoshimoto stood up.
Her twelve-layered kimono layered, her long brown hair blowing in the wind, the golden butterfly hairpin glittering in the sunlight.
On her delicate, charming face, a brilliant smile bloomed, almost out of control.
Her hands clasped before her chest, her slender fingers trembling slightly with excitement.
"He's here," she said. Her voice was soft but carried unmistakable delight. "Finally here!"
Her attendant was startled by her reaction. "My lord? That creature in front… it's a demon, isn't it?"
"That's not a demon." Imagawa Yoshimoto shook her head. Her bright eyes were fixed on the grey figure at the center of the battlefield. "That's a demon god."
"My Imagawa demon god."
She lifted her skirt and stepped down from the palanquin.
"Prepare my horse."
"My lord! You're going personally—"
"Prepare my horse!" Imagawa Yoshimoto's voice rose sharply. On her delicate face was utter determination.
"I've been waiting for that man for nearly a month."
"Now that he's there, do you think I'm going to let him get away again?"
The attendant opened her mouth, then closed it. She turned to fetch the horse.
Imagawa Yoshimoto stood at the front of her army. The wind lifted her luxurious robes.
She watched that lone figure standing between lightning and bone forest. The smile on her lips softened.
It became serious, too.
"Demon God," she murmured.
"This time, I won't let you slip away."
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