A short while later.
Hōjō Ujiyasu was seated on the wooden floor of Kaede's Village shrine's main hall. Her neatly arranged long hair and the sleeves of her deep purple kimono swayed gently as they settled low around her.
She had worn a tachi at her hip, but upon entering the hall, she had unfastened it herself and set it aside, a clear gesture of non-hostility.
Her gaze swept across the interior.
The wooden pillars were old. The paper doors bore patches. On the roof beams, faint traces of cobwebs could still be seen, cleaned, yes, but the marks remained, impossible to wipe entirely away.
"This shrine..." Hōjō Ujiyasu paused, weighing her choice of words. "...has a strong sense of history."
Which, translated, meant: shabby.
Very shabby.
Utterly shabby.
Kikyō's face remained expressionless, but for just a moment, her grip on her bow tightened.
Shinji, seated beside the miko, said nothing. Beneath the table, though, he reached over and took hold of Kikyō's fingers, offering a small, soothing gesture and taking the chance to gently knead them while he was at it. Kikyō shot him a quick glare but showed no sign of pulling away.
Hōjō Ujiyasu's eyes then drifted toward the corner, where Naoe Kanetsugu was still bound to the pillar.
The latter had long since closed her eyes again, now resting with an expression that clearly said don't look at me, I know nothing.
Her gaze lingered there a moment before she pulled it back.
The head of the Hōjō clan from Sagami couldn't help but grin, clearly delighted. She had the distinct air of someone savoring long-awaited revenge, even if the one who'd dealt it wasn't her. Seeing one of Uesugi Kenshin's subordinates in such a state was satisfaction enough.
Then
"To business."
Her tone shifted. Crisp and efficient. The shrewdness befitting the ruler of a province surfaced.
"First, an old matter. On my way here, I heard about something."
"A man named Suda Shigenobu. Lord of a small castle town."
Shinji's crimson demon pupils flickered slightly.
Kikyō, too, turned her gaze.
The name wasn't one they remembered vividly, but it hadn't been that long ago. There was no way they'd forgotten.
That noble who had oppressed six small villages. The castellan who had abused the people under his rule, driving them to beg for the protection of a yōkai.
The man Shinji had cut down in passing.
"You killed him. You cut down a minor lord under my jurisdiction."
Hōjō Ujiyasu laid it out plainly, as though she hadn't noticed the subtle shift between the demon warrior and the miko before her. "By rights, that would be something I'd have to settle with you."
"But then again, this man Suda Shigenobu... having investigated along the way here, I now know exactly what kind of filth he was. Oppressing the common people. Extorting them with ruinous taxes. It's just that, with the war pressing at the time, I never had the chance to deal with him."
She paused.
"If it were now, I'd kill that man myself."
"In fact, on that front, I should even thank you. You've given me the justification to directly intervene in the governance of Musashi Province."
While the Hōjō clan ruled both Sagami and Musashi, and Hōjō Ujiyasu, in addition to her post as Sagami's protector, held the court rank of Sakyō no Daibu, granting her direct oversight of Musashi, the truth was that before this, the Hōjō had never truly controlled many parts of Musashi.
It was only now, with Shinji's presence and Uesugi's southern incursion, that she could formally intervene without sparking opposition from every local lord great and small.
"The Hōjō clan governs by the principle of benevolent rule, thirty percent tax to the state, seventy percent left to the people. In the future, men like Suda Shigenobu and incidents like this, where the common folk willingly followed the Uesugi army, will absolutely never happen again."
"So that matter? Consider it closed."
Her tone was brisk, like flipping past a page in a ledger. But Shinji could hear the suppressed fury beneath it, the grinding of teeth.
It seemed she was still deeply irked that Uesugi Kenshin had swept up her own subjects and marched them along.
At least those people had chosen to stay in the end. And Hōjō Ujiyasu had already arranged proper care and settlement for them.
Things could still be mended.
Steady improvement.
"That's not why I came today, though. I'm here to thank you."
Thank you.
Those words, coming from the mouth of the Lion of Sagami, carried no small weight.
And it was also the truth, at least from Hōjō Ujiyasu's perspective.
Uesugi Kenshin's southern encirclement of Musashi and her flanking strike against Odawara Castle, the resolution of that strategic crisis had come largely because Shinji had arranged in advance for the Imagawa fleet to land behind Echigo's rear, and because he had routed the three thousand.
Shinji had been acting mostly in self-preservation.
But objectively, he had safeguarded the Hōjō clan's most fundamental interests.
The Uesugi forces had withdrawn. Musashi was once more under Hōjō dominion.
At the very least, the territory remained.
Hōjō Ujiyasu still sat here. The seat of Musashi's ruler had not been lost.
That was enough.
And yet, both Shinji and Kikyō understood that this "gratitude" was likely nothing more than a pretext, an opening. Otherwise, there would've been no need for her to deliberately bring up the name Suda Shigenobu. Her visit surely had another purpose.
As expected.
"I don't like being in anyone's debt."
The black-haired ruler of two provinces spoke without pretense. "At the same time, I've also come to recruit you."
Shinji wasn't surprised.
Imagawa Yoshimoto had won his allegiance with command authority and offerings. For Hōjō Ujiyasu to come seeking the same was entirely reasonable.
The reason, too, was identical.
The previous Uesugi Kenshin's banner of "yōkai extermination" had been backed by the power of shinki.
Takeda Shingen's Crimson Guard was similarly embedded with fragments of the god Fudō Myōō. Both of her rivals held trump cards that surpassed conventional military might.
But neither the Imagawa nor the Hōjō possessed anything comparable, any force capable of matching such power.
And the Hōjō's situation was, if anything, worse than the Imagawa's.
The Imagawa held three provinces. Though they had no hime-bushō blessed with divine vessels, they had land, they had people.
By sheer force of numbers and human momentum, even if their elite troops couldn't match Uesugi's or Takeda's, they could still hold the advantage on a conventional battlefield. Their only vulnerability was the ever-present threat of decapitation strikes.
But Hōjō Ujiyasu? She had no shinki. No divine incarnation. No source of supernatural power whatsoever.
Her territory, moreover, wasn't large enough. Her population and troop count weren't numerous enough.
That was why, until now, she had always been forced to lean on Takeda Shingen, nominally an alliance, in truth, dependency.
Far more than Imagawa Yoshimoto, she needed a blade that could cut through those forces.
And that blade was seated right across from her.
"You are powerful. You can contend with those so-called divine vessels. Your strategic vision is no less than Uesugi Kenshin's, in fact, you're even sharper and more cunning."
"Do you know what they're calling you out there, after everything that's happened?"
"'The Demon Who Does Not Kill, Who Made Bishamonten Kneel.' 'The Demon God of Unmatched Righteousness.' Some even believe you are an incarnation of Taishakuten, the Thunder-Wielding Indra, or a second coming of Gozu Tennō, for only such a one could force an incarnation of Bishamonten to her knees."
The latter, of course, was wild exaggeration that few believed, circulating only in the narrowest circles.
But the former...
Shinji inwardly groaned. What kind of ridiculous titles are these? He certainly didn't possess a Sword of Benevolence and a Sword of Righteousness.
Still, he knew Hōjō Ujiyasu was speaking the truth, because spreading alongside those epithets was his fear.
A steady, surging torrent of it, far greater than before.
Hōjō Ujiyasu didn't waste a single breath on roundabout words. "So I need you."
Just as direct as Imagawa Yoshimoto had been.
So direct it was almost startling.
Shinji was silent for a beat. Then, just as he had long anticipated, he spoke.
"Imagawa Yoshimoto beat you to it."
"My agreement with the Imagawa was signed over a month ago. Command rights. Offerings. The resettlement of my twenty-three demons in Suruga, all of it's already been settled."
"The fact that the Imagawa fleet was able to land in Echigo was a direct result of that agreement."
He paused. And then the words that followed carried a sudden, unmistakable trace of amusement.
"But to be honest, you were actually the one I wanted to work with first."
Hōjō Ujiyasu froze.
That Shinji and the Imagawa had already signed a pact, she'd known that, of course. She had come mentally prepared. But that last sentence was something she had never expected.
What do you mean, I was the one you wanted to work with first?
"Musashi is closest to Kaede's Village. Your territory surrounds my immediate area. The cost of cooperation would've been the lowest. But at the time, you had been captured by Takeda Shingen's people."
"Imagawa Yoshimoto, who was right here, was very proactive and her terms were straightforward."
"So since cooperation was going to happen either way, I chose her."
Hōjō Ujiyasu sat there, her deep black hair falling past her shoulders, the sleeves of her deep purple kimono resting upon her knees.
Her expression underwent a complex and layered transformation.
First, bewilderment.
Then, chagrin. No— fury.
And finally
"..."
She covered her face.
Her palm pressed against her forehead, but between her fingers, one could still glimpse the tightly knit brows and the twitching corner of her eye.
That posture... she looked less like a dark, calculating provincial lord and more like a student who had just realized she'd gotten the easiest question on the exam wrong.
Utter, consuming agony.
Agony. In the most literal sense.
She was a hair's breadth from collapsing onto the floor right in front of this yōkai.
If only she had, if she could have just spared half a day back then, if Takeda Shingen's Crimson Guard hadn't shown up
That damned big-breasted woman!
Hōjō Ujiyasu cursed her viciously in her heart!
But she understood. The word if carried no meaning at all.
She lowered her hand and drew a deep breath, restoring that shrewd, shadowed mask of composure.
Though the corner of her eye still twitched, barely suppressed.
"That doesn't matter," she said, her voice steady once more. "You have an agreement with the Imagawa, I know that. But the agreement never said you couldn't cooperate with anyone else."
"I'm not asking for exclusivity. All I want is a single promise from you."
She lifted her head, and beneath her flowing hair, her gaze was razor-sharp.
"For that... I am even willing to enfeoff the entire province of Musashi to you. To place it under your rule. Your responsibility."
Silence fell over the hall.
Kikyō rose and walked to the doorway, her bow resting against the frame. Her dark eyes turned toward Shinji.
Behind the paper doors of the side hall, Momiji and Botan poked their heads out once more.
And tied to her pillar, Naoe Kanetsugu's eyes flew wide open, then went wider still.
Enfeoffing an entire province.
Giving a whole ryōsei-koku to a yōkai.
Such an offer, in the entirety of the Warring States era, could only be called unheard of.