Chapter 134
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Translator: penny
Chapter: 134
Chapter Title: Okehazama (5)
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“Gah!”
“Urgh!”
Under the rainy sky, the armies of the two forces clashed fiercely.
At first, the Oda Clan’s forces held the high ground in momentum, but the retainers who had weathered Imagawa’s golden age were no ordinary foes.
“We outnumber the enemy! Don’t fall back!”
“Those pigs were raised on the fat lands of Owari! Kill them all!”
They didn’t just bark empty words.
They drew their swords and beheaded the charging Oda samurai while shouting.
“Hup!”
“Urgh!”
Those in Imagawa’s main force were, at base, private soldiers raised by their clans, and their discipline was accordingly high.
“Follow our lord!”
“Fleeing cowards will be severely punished!”
Their samurai led by example first and foremost, which did much to rally the ashigaru rattled by the sudden predawn raid in the pouring rain.
“Waaah!”
“We’ll die running anyway! Kill!”
The ashigaru, pale-faced and fleeing, snatched up swords from fallen samurai and charged forward again. Soon, beneath the intensifying downpour, they swung swords and spears like madmen, hacking and stabbing at each other in a frenzy.
—Crunch!
“A-aaagh!”
The spear’s sharp blade twisted between armor plates, piercing fragile human flesh.
“M-Mom—.”
A barely adult ashigaru, dragged into service, stared at the gruesome entrails spilling from his torn gut—his first sight of such horror—and half-lost his mind.
“Tch!”
—Clang!
“Die!”
The ground, churned by countless footsteps and soaked with rain, quickly turned to mud. Upon it, Oda and Imagawa forces tangled in chaotic melee, greedily claiming each other’s lives.
Watching the scene, Oda Nobuyuki narrowed her eyes.
Even a victory here would leave us at a disadvantage.
The Imagawa army had left roughly 5,000 behind when they set up main camp at Okehazama. In contrast, Oda’s handpicked elites numbered a full 2,000 fewer, around 3,000.
Of course, plenty have fled…
The problem was how quickly the Imagawa forces had regained their composure—far faster than expected. Naturally, their hatamoto vassals and samurai had rallied and counterattacked fiercely, but no one could perfectly control every soldier’s discipline.
—Hiiik! R-Run!
—Uwaaaah!
The ashigaru farther from the front lines, not yet engaged, panicked worst of all.
The torrential downpour, as if the heavens had split open.
The campfires flickering out one by one amid the battle.
And, not far off, the agonized screams of dying samurai and ashigaru, mingled with enemy shouts.
—I d-don’t wanna die!
—Get out of the way! Move!
All this shook the minds of lowly peasant levies and ashigaru alike, who until recently had been tending fields. Naturally, their response was to drop weapons and flee.
Yet Oda Nobuyuki’s expression, watching them, didn’t brighten.
It was only natural.
We need to minimize casualties as much as possible…
With the advantage of surprise and their foes fleeing in droves, the battle favored Oda if they just dragged it out.
But that wouldn’t do.
Simply whittling down numbers and chasing Imagawa from Owari wasn’t bad, but it only bought time.
Relative to the risks of this battle, the gains were too meager.
With that thought, Oda Nobuyuki’s eyes flashed as she scanned the battlefield.
There’s only one answer: Imagawa Yoshimoto’s head.
It wasn’t just her—everyone knew it. And right then.
“Over there! He’s in that tent—!”
Itsuki’s voice, now familiar, rang across the field. Oda retainers and Imagawa vassals alike whipped their heads around.
And in the direction they looked—sure enough—a tent bearing Imagawa Yoshimoto’s mon fluttered.
“Hup! Clear a path!”
“Block them! Block, I said!”
It wasn’t just about cutting down foes in front anymore.
A clear target had emerged. At that moment, Oda samurai gritted their teeth and surged forward with renewed ferocity.
And that—
“Shibata!”
“Yes, milady!”
—applied to Oda Nobuyuki and Shibata Katsuie as well.
“Hup!”
Shibata Katsuie slashed, tore, and stabbed without hesitation. Oda Nobuyuki matched her guard samurai’s pace, racing along the path she carved.
“Hah, hah! Is everyone all right?”
“Yes, milady! Stay back!”
No matter how cool she tried to stay, standing in the heart of battle inevitably stirred her blood.
It was only natural.
For them, who had held back in internal clan skirmishes, this was a true fight to the death.
And in that moment, she saw it.
“Young master! Raaagh!”
“Gyaaah!”
Itsuki—sword nowhere in sight, wielding an axe two-handed like a madman to hack a path—finally split the head of the samurai guarding Imagawa’s tent clean in two. Behind him followed Il-yeong and the guard samurai.
He can do it!
Only then did Oda Nobuyuki’s face ease a fraction.
Imagawa Yoshimoto.
She wasn’t unconcerned about the man called Tōkai’s Greatest Bowman, but at least she believed.
Il-yeong wouldn’t fall easily.
So she shouted.
“Press harder!”
“Lady Nobuyuki’s orders! Press them!”
All she could do now was distract the enemy, minimizing reinforcements to the tent.
*
“How dare you dogs of Oda—! Urgh!”
“Block them! We have to block!”
“Kiyot! Huryat!”
Il-yeong cut down the charging foes ahead while gazing at Itsuki’s back—half worried, half amused—as the man barreled ahead of him.
No, not just him.
“A-Are you insane?”
Akechi Mitsuhide, who had bonded with Il-yeong somewhat as one of his guards, asked gingerly with a paling face.
“...Did he hit his head?”
Mori Yoshinari fretted with pity.
“Hahaha! A proper madman! I like him!”
Oda Nobunaga burst into near-maniacal laughter.
“Iiiot! Die! Dieee!”
“Wh-What kind of samurai acts like a wild boar...! Gyaaah!”
Of course, Itsuki swung his axe without a shred of concern for their stares. The samurai blocking him died unjustly at those heedless blows, pride and honor be damned.
They had every reason to feel cheated.
In a world where honor and pride were sacred duties, no samurai wanted to die to some half-crazed axe-wielding maniac who’d ditched his sword.
But that’s none of my business.
Il-yeong thought as he slew another samurai. His eyes flashed.
Tent’s right ahead!
Whether driven by ambition to claim glory at the vanguard or simply broken by harsh reality, Itsuki’s reckless charge had let them steamroll to Imagawa’s tent.
But in the end, they’d only cut down samurai.
—Thud!
“How dare Oda vermin stand before this place!”
They were halted not far from the tent by a man slamming a massive spear into the ground. Il-yeong sized him up and murmured.
“Not a woman, good. Time for introductions.”
“...What?”
“Never mind. Who are you?”
Mistaking Il-yeong’s words for an insult, the man—somewhere between youth and middle age—twitched his thick brows.
But only briefly.
He clearly recognized them by description already. Yanking his spear free, he leveled it at Nobunaga and bellowed.
“I am Matsui Munenobu! Here I’ll behead you wenches and gift Owari to my lord!”
But then.
—Crunch!
Itsuki, having just bored a deep hole through a blocking samurai’s throat, yanked his axe free and turned.
“...I’ll kill! More heads! More glory!”
His gleaming axe swung toward the gorgeously adorned Matsui Munenobu.
“Wh-What is this?!”
Faced with a berserker from the Sengoku era, Matsui Munenobu could only panic.
“Help Itsuki!”
“Got it!”
With Akechi Mitsuhide joining in, Il-yeong slipped past the gap straight into Imagawa’s tent.
And the moment he brushed aside the entry flap—
“Kuh, kuheheh.”
—before Il-yeong’s eyes was Imagawa Yoshimoto. He’d evidently just cut down a wave of attackers; blood overflowed even the blood groove of his massive ōdachi as he poured sake into a cup.