Hulao Pass (5)
Sky Piercer Halberd.Serpent Spear.Green Dragon Crescent Blade. Twin ancient swords.
It was a battle in which weapons from every tale ever told swirled together in a dizzying melee — a spectacle so absurd that the surrounding soldiers forgot their own fighting to stare blankly, and amid it all, Lü Bu could not hide her bewilderment.
Where the hell did these bitches suddenly crawl out from?!
She had spent ages strutting about, crowing that no one ever gave her a proper fight. And she had assumed that a coalition of so many powers was bound to hold at least one person capable of facing her.
But never once had she imagined those people would all come at her simultaneously — women who coordinated with each other as smoothly as clockwork, no less!
No, seriously — there are three of them, not one!
Two she could manage. It was grueling going, but those two still had the briefest slivers of openings, and she had even succeeded in exploiting one and landing a wound. Defeat was possible, certainly, but she reckoned that if she stood her ground and answered with counterattacks, the odds of winning were the greater.
Then the big-chested woman she had seen at Julu waded into the fight, and everything fell apart.
She was no slouch, but honestly speaking, her skill alone would never have justified entering a battle of this caliber. And yet this big-chested woman knew exactly what role she was meant to play in it. She left the offense and defense entirely to those hard-to-handle women, and devoted herself wholly to plugging every gap that opened in the process.
Whish!
Argh!
The instant gap left when she deflected the crescent blade and the spear flying at her at once — and the big-chested wench plugged it with a devilishly precise thrust, right on schedule. It was enough to make Lü Bu sick with frustration.
Swarming a single opponent was, by nature, a difficult thing to do in battle. Without matched timing, the attackers only tangled into one another and ended up faring worse than fighting solo.
So why did these women work together so seamlessly? She had lost count of how many times their weapons had crossed by now. A hundred exchanges had long since come and gone. Thrust and slash wove together in harmony, assailing her as though the three were a single body.
Lü Bu swung the Sky Piercer Halberd in one great arc to fling the two of them back simultaneously, then scowled at the sword that came sailing in right on cue.
...Maybe I ought to call it here and head back.
She could hold out, but that was the extent of it. For Lü Bu as she stood now to break through those three who moved as one body would take nothing less than overwhelming physical dominance.
Technique? The big-chested woman might lack it, but the two pressing in with such terrifying relentlessness already dwelt in a realm close to her own. Her own artistry ran a step ahead, true — but with two of them hanging onto her, that difference shrank to a hair's breadth.
Unless she wanted to fight until dawn, the right call was to start pulling back. With that thought, Lü Bu diverted a sliver of her battle-focused attention elsewhere and took stock of her surroundings.
The encirclement... it's already complete.
She had already let things drag on far too long. Gongsun Zan had blundered by badly misjudging her strength, but thanks to a few unexpectedly capable fighters on hand, the plan had succeeded anyway. Zhang Liao seemed to have made it back safely with Jeong Reung covering her from the rear — which left only one thing: Lü Bu herself, stranded in the belly of the enemy host, had to escape unscathed.
The rank and file hadn't dared throw themselves into that fight, standing around with raised spears and wary eyes — but an encirclement was an encirclement. Worse, there were madwomen right in front of her giving her not a moment's respite. A trap that no general, however nimble and crafty, could ever hope to slip.
Not that I'm the type to be caught.
But Lü Bu was no ordinary general of the "nimble and crafty" sort.
I can break out of this easily enough.
The big-chested woman was concentrating solely on blocking the strikes aimed at the openings. If she manufactured a gap, slipped past that woman's thrust as she wheeled her horse about, even they would fail to catch her.
Of course they would. Did they have any idea what kind of horse she was riding!
Just as Lü Bu readied herself to turn her mount and bided her moment, a scream burst out without warning somewhere to her side.
GYAAAAAH───!!
SAVE MEEE───!!
At the sheer desperation in those voices, the eyes of all four combatants swung toward the source of the screaming.
"What... what is that?"
A horrific sight: bodies bursting apart and limbs scattering — from nothing more than being trampled by a horse. And whenever the very tip of that sword so much as grazed something mid-swing, everything it touched was severed away with perfect impartiality.
At the figure that looked for all the world like death itself given form, a cold sweat broke out across Lü Bu's skin. She had believed no one alive could follow her in a mounted charge — but it seemed that conviction was due for revision.
...Right. There's nothing strange about someone being stronger than me.
Pride kept her from ever showing it, but inwardly Lü Bu had already conceded that this one stood above her.
Seo Yeo.
That inscrutable girl was, quite simply, something that could carry any battle to victory the moment she set foot upon a battlefield.
At some point the chestnut-bobbed girl had punched clean through the thick encirclement, and now she sat atop her black horse, regarding Lü Bu with perfect composure.
"…"
"...You're not going to say a word, even at a moment like this?"
Lü Bu found the whole thing absurd. For Seo Yeo — a woman who refused to stray so much as a step from Jeong Reung's side — to have come this far could only mean that Jeong Reung had asked her to. And yet the girl who wouldn't open her mouth without Jeong Reung present, having bothered to come to her rescue, wasn't even telling her to follow along. It was laughable.
That the girl could leave Jeong Reung behind and take a battlefield at all must have taken several conditions aligning at once. The fighting had lapsed into a lull, there were other generals on hand to guard him in her stead, and Lü Bu herself had been close enough by — only then, perhaps, had she been persuaded. Had even one of those failed to meet the girl's standards, nothing under heaven could have pried her away.
"…"
At the look that seemed to say, You already know without my saying it, don't you? Lü Bu let out a dry little laugh.
"Right. I'm off, then. Thanks for the hand."
As Lü Bu wheeled her horse about, Zhang Fei, who had been trading blows with her, moved to advance.
"Where do you think you're going—!"
"Stand down."
"Sister Yunchang?"
Mid-shout, Zhang Fei pulled a puzzled face at the sight of Guan Yu holding her back.
Without turning her head, Lü Bu gave a wave of her hand.
"Hey. That was fun, though. If the chance ever comes, let's cross blades again sometime."
With that, Lü Bu fell in behind Seo Yeo and rode off, passing straight through the coalition soldiers, who could only tremble in terror.
"…"
In the wake of their departure, nothing remained over the battlefield but a heavy, settling silence.
The battlefield lay steeped in utter quiet.
Zhang Fei, who had been locked in combat with Lü Bu mere moments before, spoke up to Guan Yu.
"Why did you stop me back there?"
"…"
"If we'd only pushed a little harder, we could have taken Lü Bu captive, and that would have been far—"
"No."
Guan Yu shook her head.
"Had you stepped in then, you would have died."
Guan Yu — the very woman who did not yield an inch even measured against herself — had just pronounced that she would have died. At the sight of her declaring it without so much as a flicker of hesitation, Zhang Fei shut her mouth.
"...Then why didn't she cut us down instead of just leaving?"
"That, I do not know."
The soldiers who had formed the encirclement were still trembling, incapable of any action at all. If she had truly meant to kill, she need only have joined Lü Bu in the melee and taken their heads then and there.
"Lü Bu is one thing, but who in the world was that girl?"
"No idea. Today was my first time seeing her."
Why spare them and simply ride away? Guan Yu could not shake the question loose.
"Peerless Under Heaven, and now Peerless Throughout the Ages."
Guan Yu, who had worn the same blank expression from beginning to end, gave a wry smile.
"There exists in this world a force that defies all reason."
"Huh? Is it really all that?"
Guan Yu looked at Zhang Fei, who had grasped nothing whatsoever of the enemy's caliber, and spoke.
"Zhang Fei, your valor is a fine thing, but your recklessness is the problem. You would do well to cultivate, now and then, the eye that knows how to read a situation."
"Ugh! Another lecture!"
"...What did you say?"
"Ah — sorry! My bad—GYAH—!"
Watching the knuckle-crack land squarely on Zhang Fei's head, Liu Bei burst out laughing.
Tears welling in her eyes as she rubbed the struck spot, Zhang Fei grumbled.
"Big sister Xuande, is it really that fun watching me get hit?"
"Of course. It's the most fun there is."
"You're the worst!"
Zhang Fei let out an indignant shriek at Liu Bei. And of course, that display only stoked Guan Yu's temper again.
"How dare you raise your voice at Lady Xuande. What manner of insolence is this?"
"What's wrong with being at ease with her—YOWCH—!"
Another knuckle-crack landed on Zhang Fei's head. Worse, Guan Yu — devious to the last — had struck the very same spot as before. As Zhang Fei wrapped both arms around her skull and wailed her agony, Liu Bei broke into fresh laughter.
After laughing her fill for a while, Liu Bei turned to Guan Yu and Zhang Fei.
"I'm curious too, much as Yunchang is."
"Lady Xuande?"
"If she truly spared us of her own intent, as Yunchang says, then let us ask her in person someday."
At that, Zhang Fei — two lumps now rising on her head — jerked her chin up.
"And what if something truly terrible happens before we get the chance?!"
"Oh, come now. Would someone who deliberately spared our lives turn around and try to kill us?"
"They're our enemy right now, though!"
"True. Our enemy for now."
Liu Bei nodded.
"Once the coalition dissolves, let's go pay them a visit."
"…"
Liu Bei said it with a gentle smile.
"Yide. You must not act rashly — understood?"
"O-okay."
She was unmistakably smiling as she said it — so why did a chill crawl up her spine?
Zhang Fei nodded along, feeling her whole body shiver without end.