Purple lightning met the stone hammer head-on.
Boom—!
The shockwave exploded from where the two met. The grass beneath their feet was torn from the earth. Dirt and broken stone flew in all directions. The air within five yards was twisted into visible ripples.
Shinji's heels carved two deep trenches in the soil. His entire body was pushed back three steps by the impact.
Muramasa's blade trembled.
Not because of a disparity in strength.
But because something came through the stone hammer that he had felt before.
Weight.
Beyond physical weight.
It wasn't that a hammer had come down, but that an entire mountain had been pressed onto his blade's spine.
Still, that wasn't the worst part.
The moment of impact, the Sanskrit-carved crevices on the stone hammer's surface suddenly lit up. Golden light poured from the patterns, transforming into dense characters that crawled along the blade toward his wrist like living things.
The instant those golden characters touched his bone armor,
Shinji felt his arm sink.
Pinned.
As if invisible chains had emerged from the earth, locking his wrist, elbow, and shoulder one by one, trying to fix his entire body in place, never allowing it to move again.
Fudō, Immovable.
Those two words leapt into Shinji's mind.
Immovable, Fudō Myōō. Historically, the deity worshipped by Takeda Shingen, the Tiger of Kai. The daimyō herself was regarded as an incarnation of Fudō Myōō.
The foremost of the Five Wisdom Kings of Buddhism, the principal protector in the Shingon tradition.
Right hand holds a sword to sever worldly delusions, left hand holds a rope to bind evil demons. Seated upon a boulder, with the flames of Garuda at his back.
The so-called 'immovable' never meant that one did not move oneself.
It meant making all enemies unable to move.
That was the power of this stone hammer.
Binding, fixing.
A hammer that pinned its target in place.
At the same time, where those golden characters passed, a burning sensation seeped from the bone armor's surface inward.
Not ordinary flame.
A burning specifically targeted at the supernatural. The same source as the power on Kakizaki Kageie's blade that weakened demonic aura and suppressed the extraordinary, but thicker, more intense, more aggressive.
As if trying to burn the demonic aura out of his very flesh, strand by strand.
But
Lightning-Muscle Sharp Body was not just for show.
A red flash passed through Shinji's pupils. The lightning within him, without needing conscious direction, instinctively went berserk the moment the binding descended.
Crack—!
Purple arcs exploded from beneath his skin, spreading outward along his arm like countless enraged serpents.
Lightning struck the golden characters.
The characters shattered. The layer of immovable binding was torn open by the electric arcs.
Shinji's body regained its freedom in an instant.
He pushed off the ground, launching himself forward like a cannonball.
Muramasa slashed upward from below in a reverse kesa, its blade wrapped in purple lightning, aimed straight at the red-haired female general's midsection on horseback.
At the same time, bone spurs erupted from his elbow. Three white bone spears stabbed simultaneously toward the woman's left side, the opening exposed by the hammer's backswing.
Yamagata Masakage's reaction was equally quick.
She didn't raise the hammer to block. The stone hammer was too heavy; once swung, it would be hard to change its trajectory.
She chose a more direct method.
She released her right hand.
Her freed right palm, clad in armored gauntlet, slapped directly onto Muramasa's blade spine.
The moment palm met blade, golden light blossomed again. That immobilizing binding force traveled along the blade, trying to freeze Shinji's attack.
But the lightning on Muramasa struck back simultaneously.
Gold and purple clashed on the blade's surface. The two forces vibrated the air into a hum. The result was obvious, Yamagata Masakage was shaken by the lightning, her grip nearly lost, her form on the horse thrown into disarray.
In that gap, the three bone spears struck.
In the nick of time, she only managed to arch her back, narrowly avoiding two.
But the tip of the third bone spear pierced the edge of her shoulder armor.
Armor plates cracked.
A wound deep enough to see bone appeared on the exposed skin beneath the dark silver armor.
"Oh?" Yamagata Masakage, having narrowly escaped, panted and looked down at the wound.
Her expression changed.
Not anger, not fear. But alertness, the sharpness of someone pulled from instinct.
Her mount staggered back three steps under the residual force of the bone spear, hooves crushing the scorched earth, retreating repeatedly until she was almost out of range of Shinji's blade.
This gave Shinji pause. The rising killing intent halted.
The red-haired female general regripped her stone hammer but did not charge again. Because she couldn't, and didn't dare. The brief exchange had made her realize the enemy's strength and tenacity… if she continued, she would lose or even die.
So she decisively withdrew. She didn't dare continue.
She'd backed down.
She also watched.
Watched the bone forest behind Shinji, the spreading blood mist, the two forcibly separated armies.
The Hōjō formation, the formation was intact, but the commander…
Her gaze locked onto a figure with dark, long hair.
Hōjō Ujiyasu.
Standing at the forefront of the northern army, having dismounted and rushed forward away from the main platform. Now she had only a few guards with her.
Yamagata Masakage's eyes darted.
She was thinking. What was her task?
Hmm.
If she remembered correctly, the lord had said… reinforce the Hōjō, repel the Imagawa? If that wasn't possible, at least rescue Hōjō Ujiyasu?
In any case, not to fight to the death with a bizarre, absurdly strong demon here.
"I am no match for you, my lord… but this is enough!" she murmured, as if speaking to Shinji, as if speaking to herself.
Then she moved.
Impossibly fast.
That horse, built like a rhinoceros, shouldn't have been able to move like that, but it did, as if the ground itself were pushing it forward.
The other side of Fudō Myōō's power.
Not just binding enemies.
But also making one's own footing steadier, making each stride more solid.
On solid rock, not retreating a single step.
And when the rock itself moves, who can stop a walking mountain?
Shinji reacted instantly, pushing off the ground with Lightning-Muscle Sharp Body. He took two steps in pursuit, then stopped. He didn't chase.
Because he saw Yamagata Masakage's target and movement.
"Wait—what are you—" Hōjō Ujiyasu didn't finish.
A crimson-armored arm reached down and scooped her off the ground like a bundle of straw, tucking her under its armpit.
Hōjō Ujiyasu's long hair came loose, her armor scraping noisily against the iron arm.
Her feet left the ground.
She was lifted.
The ruler of Musashi and Sagami, the woman in Kantō who hated risk most, now dangled like a kitten scruffed by its mother, limbs hanging.
"All troops, retreat—!" Yamagata Masakage's voice shook the battlefield.
She didn't even look back.
The black warhorse neighed and charged at full speed toward the western hills.
Behind her, three or four hundred Takeda Red Guard cavalry wheeled in unison, following their general in perfect formation.
The thunder of hooves faded rapidly, leaving only churned earth and dissipating dust.
From the dust came Hōjō Ujiyasu's shouts.
"Put me down! I am the head of the Hōjō! You damn woman, I am allies with your lord!"
"Don't move. It's bumpy."
"You damned woman. Who sent you?!"
"Takeda Red Guard, Yamagata Masakage, acting on my lord's orders to reinforce. Stop struggling. If you fall, you'll land face-first."
"I didn't ask you to come—"
"Your northern outposts were broken by Echigo. Do you think you're in a position to be picky?"
The voices faded, finally disappearing beyond the western hills.
…
The battlefield fell quiet. Too quiet.
Soldiers from both armies stared at each other.
The Hōjō commander had been taken away by allied reinforcements. The Imagawa rear was smashed.
And the crimson-masked demon standing between the two armies… was staring blankly at the dissipating dust in the west.
Honestly, Shinji was a bit stunned too.
He had prepared lightning, a bone forest, the grand display of a hundred demons in formation.
Then the Takeda had come, thrown one punch, decided they couldn't win, turned around, and carried off Hōjō Ujiyasu.
The whole affair took less than fifteen minutes.
"Well…" The comb in his robe, Yura, was the first to comment. "Their way of showing up was even more brutal than yours."
Shinji ignored her. His gaze shifted elsewhere.
South.
Within the Imagawa formation.
A voice was coming from there.
Very soft.
But in the quiet battlefield, especially clear.
Laughter.
Uncontrollable, nearly manic laughter.
Imagawa Yoshimoto sat on her horse, one hand covering her mouth, the other pressing her stomach. Her shoulders shook.
Her twelve-layered kimono swayed with her trembling. The gold butterfly hairpin clinked.
"Hahahahaha—" She finally couldn't hold it in and burst out laughing.
"That stupid woman Hōjō Ujiyasu being carried off under someone's arm—hahahaha—" "Her face… it was… hahahahaha—"
The attendant beside her turned white, wanting to steady her but not daring to touch.
Imagawa Yoshimoto laughed so hard she nearly fell off her horse.
But she didn't care.
She laughed for a full quarter hour.
…
Shinji withdrew his gaze. He had no mood to share the Suruga lord's amusement.
His attention was entirely on something else.
The panel.
In the instant of that clash, the translucent panel had already appeared.
[Detected claim target]
[???]
[Quality: ???]
[Current Affection: 0]
[Evaluation: There is a power within her that is neither human nor demon. Dense, tangible. That power possesses the attributes of 'sealing' and 'suppressing,' specially targeting all supernatural things. But she has recognized the gap between you and her. She does not want to fight you. She only wants to run.]
Shinji: "…"
Another one.
Another female general bearing a 'divine artifact.'
Uesugi had them. Takeda had them.
So,
In this world, in this era, were all female generals truly incarnations of divine beings, carrying their divine artifacts, embodied as humans?