Fūrinkazan.
The four characters rippled on the blood-red banner, as if about to burn through the fabric.
The position of that rising banner was behind the Imagawa army's formation, on the crest of the western hills.
What that meant was clear to everyone present.
The Imagawa's line of retreat had been cut.
"Takeda—!" Imagawa Yoshimoto's smile froze. On her lovely face, the excitement faded, replaced by an extremely rare heaviness.
She spun around, the hem of her twelve-layered kimono sweeping an arc across the ground.
Her gaze crossed the tail of her own army, looking west.
On the crest of the hills, cavalry were pouring out.
Not many.
Maybe three or four hundred riders.
But those horses were noticeably larger than the warhorses of both the Imagawa and the Hōjō. They wore iron breastplates and face coverings. The riders' armor was equally heavy, glowing with a dull iron sheen in the setting sun.
Heavy cavalry.
The trademark of the Takeda of Kai.
The most terrifying assault force of this era, Takeda's Red Guard.
Heavy cavalry in the age of cold weapons, even considering the entire realm, only Kai possessed such a force.
Small in number,
But an absolute weapon for a decisive strike!
"How is this possible…" Imagawa Yoshimoto gritted her teeth.
The Takeda main force should have been deployed on the other border between Kai and Suruga. She had checked the intelligence before departing, there had been no sign of troop movement from Takeda Shingen.
Where had three or four hundred riders come from?
"My lord! We're under attack from the rear!" The messenger scrambled to her, practically rolling.
"Enemy cavalry have broken through our rear guard lines, our rearguard is routing!"
Imagawa Yoshimoto's face sank completely.
She did not fear a head-on confrontation.
Even now, the Imagawa still had two thousand soldiers. The Takeda had brought only three or four hundred.
But the problem was, she was not on her own territory.
She had come alone into Hōjō land, with no castle to retreat to, no reinforcements to call upon.
And ahead of her, Hōjō Ujiyasu's fifteen hundred men were still watchful.
Caught between two forces.
This was the situation she had most wanted to avoid.
"All troops, turn! Hold the rear first!" Imagawa Yoshimoto's voice rose. The usual languid laziness vanished completely.
"Cavalry, intercept! Infantry, form up—"
Before she could finish
Boom—!
A tremendous crash came from the rear lines.
Not the dull impact of hooves, but something more violent.
Like something had been slammed into the ground.
Imagawa Yoshimoto turned to look.
She saw, at the center of the Takeda cavalry formation, a single rider break free.
A woman.
A female general.
She rode a massive black horse, completely without armor, because the horse itself seemed like a mobile fortress, its muscles bulging unnaturally.
The woman riding it was equally astonishing.
She wore deep red armor, not the usual ō-yoroi or dō-maru of the era, but something more fitted, more streamlined.
The breastplate's curve tightly enclosed a full chest. The waist armor narrowed, then flared again at the hips. The thigh armor parted with her riding posture, revealing the mail-clad inner thighs.
Her figure was...
Exaggerated.
There was no other word for it.
Simply, overwhelmingly, eye-magnetically exaggerated.
Her hair was deep red, tied in a thick ponytail, whipping wildly with the charge.
Her face was young, perhaps seventeen or eighteen. Her features held a wild quality, and the corners of her mouth naturally turned up, as if she was always smiling.
But that smile was not gentle.
It was the smile of a predator seeing its prey.
In her right hand, she wielded a short-handled hammer.
The hammerhead was not forged from metal, it was stone.
To be precise, it was a rock polished into a sphere, carved with Sanskrit characters. A dark, faint light seeped from its crevices.
An overwhelming pressure also emanated from her.
This pressure was familiar to Shinji.
It was the same as the power in that female general named Kakizaki Kageie.
But stronger.
Stronger by more than one level.
"Get out of the way—!" The red-haired woman roared.
The voice didn't sound like it could come from a human throat, it carried a resonance that shook eardrums.
Then, she swung the hammer.
Boom!
The hammerhead struck the ground.
The shockwave, using the earth as a medium, spread outward, flinging Imagawa ashigaru and their armor into the air for several yards.
Earth churned; the ground cracked and shattered.
The aftershock of that blow even reached the bone forest ahead, making the ground beneath Shinji's feet tremble slightly.
"What is that…" Imagawa Yoshimoto's face went pale.
This woman was not Takeda Shingen.
She knew Takeda Shingen.
Takeda Shingen had not come herself. This was her subordinate.
But this subordinate was not ordinary.
"My lord! That's one of the Four Heavenly Kings of the Takeda…" The retainer beside her stammered. "Yamagata Masakage!"
Yamagata Masakage.
The commander of the Takeda's Red Guard cavalry.
A female general known as the 'Takeda Bull,' said in Kai to possess immense strength, reputedly able to bend the iron bolts of castle gates with her bare hands.
But rumors were rumors.
Without seeing it in person, no one took them seriously.
Now that they saw, it was different.
Imagawa Yoshimoto understood, this Yamagata Masakage before her was undoubtedly one of those 'unnatural' existences under Takeda Shingen's command!
The red-haired female general spurred her horse into the Imagawa formation, raising and lowering her hammer. Each strike turned the surrounding ground into a spiderweb of cracks.
Imagawa's ashigaru were tossed aside like paper.
The cavalry tried to intercept, but that massive black horse didn't slow down. It simply crashed through two warhorses, sending flesh and blood flying.
Yamagata Masakage's charge was clear.
She wasn't killing indiscriminately.
She was targeting Imagawa Yoshimoto.
Crushing everything in her path, she rode straight toward the banner bearing the Imagawa crest.
"Stop her!" Imagawa Yoshimoto stepped back. The armored samurai around her immediately closed in.
These samurai, fully armored, belonged to the high-ranking warrior class. They were the close guards of the Suruga lord, undeniably elite. But facing Yamagata Masakage, they couldn't even last a single exchange.
One hammer swing.
Two samurai flew.
Another swing.
Three spears shattered into wood splinters, even the iron tips breaking in two.
The red-haired woman on her horse looked down at Imagawa Yoshimoto, her eyes full of battle lust, the smile on her lips growing wider.
"Found you, the Imagawa commander!" She raised her hammer.
Imagawa Yoshimoto's pupils contracted.
Shinji just found himself speechless, thinking this was his bad luck.
Because at that moment, he happened to be standing between the two.
In the eyes of this bloodthirsty Takeda general, this demon-masked, demonic-aura-wreathed figure was clearly a bodyguard summoned by Imagawa Yoshimoto.
So he was also her target.
This strike included him as well.
But he didn't retreat.
Not to save Imagawa Yoshimoto.
Not just because the attack was already aimed at him.
But also because....
[Detected claim target]
Another.
Following the Uesugi's Bishamonten, the Takeda also had such a person, 'divine artifact'-bearing?
Interesting.
Shinji's hand went to his sword hilt.
Since they were coming to him,
Let him see if this so-called Fudō Myōō could even move.
[Lightning-Muscle Sharp Body] fully activated.
Purple electric arcs exploded instantly, colliding with the red flames.