Chapter 209

Lily and Uesugi Rei ascended the stone steps side-by-side at the same time two Fūma ninjas were descending from the upper floor to perform a routine patrol.

As such, Lily and Rei encountered them on the stairs abruptly.

“Who is it?” The two ninjas cried out in alarm and unsheathed their straight swords from their backs.

Lily stepped hard on the stone step and propelled forwards, turning into a red flash as she swung her sword at the two ninjas charging towards her.

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“Swish! Swish!” As Lily’s blade was longer and quicker, her blade struck the two ninjas amidst their sprint and resulted in one of them tumbling down the stairs while the other dropped over the stairs’ railing.

Lily then charged into the upper floor, which had a wooden lattice fence with a robust gate that was left unlocked since the ninjas patrolled down the stairs. The two golden cudgel-wielding ninjas that guarded the other side of the gate looked inside after hearing the noise and saw a girl donned in a revealing red-black armor charge towards them with a sword in hand.

They immediately realized that she was an enemy, so they rushed inside and slammed the cudgels towards Lily.

“Spurt!” Lily responded with a crimson sword light from her sword and bisected the two ninjas into two, cudgel and all!

And then, Lily swung her sword once more!

“Boom!” The robust gate of the wooden lattice fence was cut apart, and the circular wooden pillars supporting it also crashed to the ground soon after.

“Who is it?!” The two ninjas attacked Lily with their throwing stars.

Lily deftly blocked them with her long sword and charged towards the two ninjas who kept attacking her with throwing stars. She focused her gaze and assaulted them with a beam of sword light.

“Splotch——!” The two ninjas were bisected into two, and their blood splashed across the stone walls.

After getting rid of the enemies on the path, Lily and Rei continued climbing up the stairs of the cellar and reached the wood-paved corridor of the ninja chief’s residence. They could see the gloomy woods hidden within the mist through the window of the passage where they had surfaced.

The passage had no guards, so the two of them were able to smoothly reach the central hall of the residence after traversing through the passages and spotted a lot of Fūma ninjas who had gathered in the hall behind the sliding door.

The two of them peeked inside through the door’s gap and saw the tall and majestic-looking silver-armored ninja chief sitting at the innermost part of the hall with over a dozen or so formidable retainer ninjas waiting on standby on both sides.

The severely injured Ashikaga Naoto had his hands bound and was seated cross-legged in the center of the hall. Although the sunlight from outside shone into the room, a series of fire pits were lit up within the dusky hall.

“Lord Ashikaga, write a letter advising your mother to withdraw the soldiers and guarantee that she won’t invade my Fūma clan’s land ever again!” The chief, Fūma Sanrokurō, commanded.

“Humph! Although I’m the second son, I am a proud member of the Ashikaga family, so asking me to demand a forfeit is naught but a dream! If you plan to kill me, you might as well do it right away!” The tall Ashikaga Naoto replied with a stubborn resolution, then stretched out his neck and waited for the enemy to behead to him.

Through the gap of the door, Uesugi Rei had noticed that Fūma Sanrokurō was only an early-stage sword saint. Hence, she said the following words to Lily, “The chief is yours to handle while I go save the Ashikaga brat.”

Lily acknowledged it with a silent nod.

“Let’s kill him! Chief!” One of the chief’s retainers yelled.

Although Fūma Sanrokurō felt a little enraged, he suppressed his anger and said, “Humph! Although we won the previous battle by chance, Ashikaga Makoto will surely lead the next one personally. Even though our branch doesn’t stand a chance against her in a frontal battle, we might be able to make that woman surrender if we use her son as a hostage! If we can capture that woman, it would be the biggest feat performed by a faction of the Hundred Demons within the Land of East! Lady Haihime might also see my Fūma clan in a new light then…”

“Now!” Uesugi Rei shouted and blew the sliding door away with her spirit power.

Lily transformed into a red shadow and charged towards Fūma Sanrokurō before any of the Fūma ninjas could discern the circumstances behind the sliding door.

As for Rei, she turned into a silver shadow and rushed towards Ashikaga Naoto.

Naoto had no ninjas nearby to restrain him as they weren’t worried that he would be able to escape from a room full of ninjas. Hence, it only took Rei a moment to reach him with her quick movements.

“L-Lady Uesugi!” Even Naoto was amazed by the developments.

“Who is it?!”

“She’s trying to save that Naoto! Kill her!”

A few retainer ninjas unsheathed their straight swords and rushed towards Rei from both sides.

Lily had already reached the slightly elevated wooden platform by now and swung her sword down without saying a single word. As an early-stage sword saint, the stunned Fūma clan chief was able to react in time and rolled backward to dodge her attack. As a result, Lily ended up cutting the Fūma clan’s banner into two pieces.

The chief used the time it took for Lily to retake a stance to recover from the back roll he had performed with much difficulty and seized the chance to reveal the pair of hideous two-meter long iron claws on his hands after getting up.

“W-Who are you?! How did you come in?!” The chief was still in a state of disbelief.

“Die!” Lily had no intention to speak much, so she went on the offensive and slashed towards the chief with all the force she could muster.

As the strongest person in the Fūma clan, the chief was able to dodge her attack with his nimble dexterity. He then turned into a shadow as he charged towards Lily and mauled at Lily with his bizarre iron claws, attacking her with six beams of bright green light.

Lily also raised her katana and charged towards the chief. With their speeds, the two of them were just a moment away from knocking into each other, and at the same time, those two iron claws whizzed towards Lily from both sides.

Lily stopped in her steps and waved her long sword horizontally with all her force.

The iron claws, on the other hand, missed Lily’s beautiful face by a foot.

The chief also twitched where he stood.1

“Splotch––!” A crescent blotch of deep, crimson blood stained the mats.

“Urgh… W-Who are you…” The malicious looking chief had a pale face now, and once his dread-filled expression had turned stiff, he dropped down to the ground with a thud.

“Hmm? This aura…” Lily suddenly felt something attract her, so she stepped forward and turned over the chief’s body with her foot and fished out a pouch from his robe.

The pouch contained a few gold coins… and a few magatama fragments!

There’s really magatama fragments!

As they were the most precious treasure of the Fūma clan, the chief carried them on him at all times. Lily immediately received the pouch of magatama fragments into her dress.

Uesugi Rei, who was facing the onslaught of ninja on all fronts right now, yelled, “Lie down!” and kicked Ashikaga Naoto to the floor mat. She then raised her nodachi while awakening up her bluish-purple ice spirit power, and spun sideways, sending out a crescent beam of sword light from her weapon.

“Boom——!!!” A majority of the ninjas charging towards her from the left were blown away in all directions along with their miserable screams.

A wall of the hall was also cut apart, prompting a cloud of dust and a few wooden splinters to fly across the room.

This loud noise alerted the other ninjas that were stationed nearby to the residence.

“An enemy attack?!”

“Where are they?”

“It’s from the chief’s residence! That’s impossible!”

The cavalrywomen unit under Shiina Airi’s lead that was lying in wait outside the patrol range of the Fūma clan ninjas had also taken note of these movements.

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The Fūma clan had stationed almost half of their ninjas in the two sides of the valley to ambush the enemies. Lily and Rei were only able to bypass them because Shiu was leading them. Although the Fūma clan had managed to ambush the Ashikaga troops and come out victorious, they had also suffered considerable losses from the battle as they had faced the brave and battle-born soldiers of Mikawa. As such, the stronghold of the Fūma clan didn’t possess much strength right now and only had a few hundred men. Hence, Airi commanded the cavalrywomen to charge forward and led a frontal assault against the Fūma ninja at the moment she noticed the uproar inside the Fūma clan.

Although there were a lot of traps and ambushes set in the surroundings of the Fūma village, the actual village had a fixed location and had a feeble defense. It only had a few meters tall wooden gate and a similarly tall wooden fence wall. As some areas didn’t even have a fence wall, the cavalrywomen were able to break through into the village effortlessly.

“Who are these people?! Where did they come from all of a sudden?!”

The members of the Fūma clan who had fallen into chaos right now were caught off guard by the sudden attack of the elite cavalrywomen who seemed to have emerged from the valley noiselessly.

“It’s the banner of the Uesugi family!”

“The army of the Land of Snow’s God of War is attacking us!”

The Fūma ninjas weren’t afraid of the Ashikaga troops as the only thing they had were numbers. However, the Uesugi troops were different, as these troops were a really dreadful and powerful foe.

Even the weakest member of the cavalrywomen was a sword master. In contrast, only the high-ranked members of the Fūma clan possessed such strength. The low-ranking ninjas were simply no match to the azure armored Uesugi cavalrywomen as their strength was leagues apart.

“Spurt——!” The Uesugi cavalrywomen wielded a standard longsword, the jintachi, which had a two-foot-long handle and a three-foot six-inch-long blade. Their blades sliced through the Fūma ninjas, blade and all.

On the other hand, the Fūma ninjas’ blades couldn’t even pierce through the armor of the cavalrywomen. Their only option was to attack the weak spots, that is, the seams of the armor, or the areas like the thighs which were unprotected by the armor, with all their might, but that was easier said than done.

Shiina Airi wielded a pretty unique double-ended long sword that had a two-foot-long handle with two-foot six-inches-long blades on both ends and danced across the battlefield like a phantasmal tempest.

With the strength of a middle-stage sword saint, she slaughtered the Fūma ninjas with ease.

The hundred cavalrywomen charged into the Fūma village in a calm and disciplined manner. Their sole focus was on killing their enemies and coordinating with each other to use the defense of their armors to block the throwing weapons and blades of the Fūma ninjas. Under these circumstances where the Fūma ninja didn’t have any special pre-prepared tricks or traps to aid them, the cavalrywomen were able to take down a vast majority of the ninjas with no losses on their side.

The Fūma ninja fled in all directions and climbed onto the roofs and trees to attack with their throwing stars. Although this allowed them to control the enemy, their throwing stars didn’t possess the ability to take down a sword master.

Almost all the Uesugi cavalrywomen carried bows on them, and a sword master’s arrow could even shoot through the trunk of an entire tree. As such, the Fūma clan’s long-range assault turned out to be a futile endeavor, and they were shot down one by one.

After killing the chief of the ninjas, Lily immediately charged towards the other ninjas to join the battle.

However, when Uesugi Rei released a few azure crescent beams of sword light, a good number of the enemy ninjas ended up dying before they could even approach her.

The hall had already turned into a land of corpses by now.

“I-It’s…” A Fūma ninja who had his leg cut off crawled backward with his injured body as his finger pointed at the silver-haired Valkyrie before him, “I-It’s the Land of Snow’s Goddess of War, Uesugi Rei… It’s Uesugi Rei! We are finished! We can’t win this battle… We—”

A crimson sword light flashed across his neck as Lily had seized the opportunity to behead him from behind amidst her sprint.

The remaining few ninjas jumped through the windows to flee. At this time, a group of ninjas who were unaware of the situation rushed into the hall and saw their fallen comrades and chief lying within a pool of blood. Uesugi Rei stood in the center of the room with her beautiful, shapely and slender legs spread wide apart, and raised her nodachi up high while giving the group of ninjas a crazed smile.

“Boom!” A crescent beam of sword light sliced the entrance wall of the hall apart and blew away the group of the ninjas that had gathered at the entrance.

The Fūma ninjas who were resisting the attacks of the Uesugi cavalrywomen looked behind after hearing the booming noise and witnessed a dozen or so of their companions rocketing out of the residence along with a strong gust of wind… all the ninjas on the ground felt a chill invade their hearts at this moment.

It was unknown who yelled it out, but they proclaimed the following words, “The chief is already dead. Uesugi Rei killed him——”

After hearing Uesugi Rei’s name, the Fūma ninjas, who already lacked battle intent, fell into deep despair. With the chief dead, they had no one left among their members who could put up a fight with the famous Land of Snow’s Goddess of War.

They lost the will to continue fighting and threw down their weapons one after the other before jumping down the houses and trees and kneeling down to surrender.

Although samurai and ninjas typically had strong and tenacious willpower, they would choose to surrender when facing an overpowered opponent or an undefeatable power. And if they decide to surrender, they absolutely wouldn’t revolt again as it was a rather genuine and willing surrender.

As such, the battle ended within just over ten minutes after it had begun.

“Lady Uesugi, we found this note inside the Fūma chief’s room,” A cavalrywoman opened a box which had a tiny paper scroll inside it and handed it over to Uesugi Rei.

Uesugi Rei picked it up and read what was written on it, “The ancient mirror appeared in Kamakura during the Night Parade of One Hundred Demons.”

Uesugi Rei craned her neck, “What does this mean?”

She handed the slip of paper to Lily and said, “Lil’ Lily, take a look at this. These words seem to contain a potent mystic aura within them and don’t seem like they were written by a human. However, I don’t understand what they mean. What is your opinion on it? I am aware of the Night Parade of One Hundred Demons, and I even tailed the parade back on that day in the middle of the seventh month to kill a demon that had veered off from the parade. But what does this ancient mirror refer to? Since the words are infused with such potent power, it doesn’t seem like this information is some nonsensical raving and actually has some special sense, right?”

Lily received the note, and after giving it a look, she placed it back inside the box, “You are right, Sister Uesugi. This information may indeed be quite important. Allow me to hand it over to Lady Makoto personally!2”

“Mhm. That’s fine,” Uesugi Rei nodded. She obviously felt assured since her little sister was going to hand it over personally.

Rei, Lily, and Shiu arrived at an empty space outside the chief’s residence and observed the captured Fūma ninja kneeling down together at the center of the village on the other side of the wooden bridge.

Uesugi Rei approached the location and gave orders to the dozens of cavalrywomen that were stationed there, “You are now in charge of defending this Fūma village. Do not allow the Fūma ninjas hiding in ambush within the valley to return here and send the news that the chief is already dead. We will then coordinate with Lady Makoto to lead a pincer attack from the front and back to exterminate the main force of the Fūma clan.”

“Understood!” Airi and the other cavalrywomen who were late-stage sword masters accepted the orders.

Shiu, on the other hand, watched the lifeless body of the Fūma clan’s chief in silence with her chest heaving up and down continuously. She then unsheathed her blade suddenly and swung her sword down with all her strength and beheaded the chief.

“Lady Mimori wouldn’t have died if it weren’t for you! The Matriarch, Aunt Keiko, Mio, and the others wouldn’t have gone missing too! Where did you take them to? Tell me!”

Shiu raised her sword to swing it towards the chief’s body again.

“Wham,” Lily, however, grabbed Shiu’s wrist at this moment.

“Enough, Shiu. It’s all over now.”

Lily hugged Shiu, who was weeping while biting her lips tightly, under her arm, and left the utterly damaged hall that was full of bloodstains and dead bodies.

Once Ashikaga Makoto arrived with the army in the afternoon, the cavalrywomen assisted the frontal attack by covering the flank and eliminated the main forces of the Fūma that had gathered inside the valley. They also managed to capture a few of them.

And then, the battle to eliminate the Fūma clan finally came to an end.

The Uesugi cavalrywomen unit suffered no losses at all, and only had two members who received light injuries.

Although the unit only had a hundred women, even their weakest member was an early-stage sword master. As the elite of the elite, this unit of female samurai possessed a dreadful battle strength in terms of power, so much that even Ashikaga Makoto exclaimed in admiration as over half of the two thousand elite Ashikaga troops she had sent previously had either got injured or died because of the ambush they had faced. However, Uesugi Rei’s forces had managed to eliminate the Fūma clan without a single death among them, so it was really a wonder who was actually the strongest samurai family in the Land of East.

Ashikaga Makoto wasn’t that fond of this second son of hers, and now that he had implicated the troops and caused over a thousand losses of the elite Ashikaga men, she was utterly disappointed in him3. Hence, she coldly shook her head and said, “Take him back to Kamakura so he can convalesce, and bar him from attending the evaluation meeting for the time being.”

On the other hand, the Mikawa samurai, who had the tendons of their feet cut, obtained a massive reward from Ashikaga Makoto. Although it wouldn’t be possible for their feet to recover, they could spend the rest of their lives lavishly with the compensation they obtained.

Lily, however, felt pity for them, as a monetary compensation probably wasn’t the thing these samurai desired the most. However, as they had already done their best to protect their young lord, perhaps they had no complaints about this arrangement. Lily really respected these kinds of real men who showcased manly qualities no matter whether they were weak or strong, just like Uncle Matsuda.

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Ashikaga Makoko escorted the captive Fūma ninjas and the severed head of the chief back to Kamakura along with her son and the army. At the same time, Uesugi Rei’s cavalrywomen remained behind in the stronghold temporarily to repair the damaged buildings.

After burying the Matriarch, Uesugi Rei, Lily, and Shiu arrived at the depths of the woods behind the Fūma village. This place was home to the Midō clan’s members and had several small wooden houses established on top of the mountain walls.

Lily, Rei, and Shiu had chosen this place to rest for the moment.

Shiu didn’t speak much, and perhaps because coming here had caused her to reminisce about the past, she arrived before the waterfall and sat down there alone in silence.

Lily arrived beside Shiu and also gazed upon the distant murmuring waterfall and pondered about how everything had changed instantaneously. The Fūma clan, which Shiu hated and feared no longer existed, while this scene of nature was still the same as ever. Although the person had experienced a monumental change, the surroundings had remained the same.

“Shiu, do you wish to return to the Yagyū family to take a look?” Lily obviously knew that Shiu wouldn’t leave her side, but she believed that, right now, Shiu needed some time alone to calm down.

“Ehhh? Master, but you will be…”

“Haha. I’m safe here, Shiu. However, you have to make this trip alone, so you have to travel cautiously.”

“But…” Tears welled up in Shiu’s eyes. Although she wanted to go, she really didn’t want to part from Lily.

“You must not ignore the plight of the people who raised you up in this chaotic world. Do you really not want to see how your parents are doing? Even if you were brought here in your childhood for whatsoever reason, they are still your father and mother. Moreover, the Yagyū family must have paid a considerable price to ensure that you didn’t get harassed by the Fūma clan while you were at the Midō clan. So, why not take this opportunity to return and take a look at them to bring peace to your heart?” Lily suggested.

Shiu got up and looked at Lily with gratitude. It wasn’t because Lily had given her a vacation, but rather because Lily was concerned about her mental well-being.4

“However, since I can’t accompany you, you must travel with caution,” Lily cautioned her and placed a few gold coins in Shiu’s hand, “Use these as travel expenses.”

“Master——” Shiu hugged Lily and cried her heart out…

The moon was as dark as the mountains during the night on this day, and this was the perfect time for a ninja to travel.

Shiu had already embarked on a journey to return to the Yagyū family. At the same time, Lily rested alone in a wooden house nearby to the waterfall in a red yukata. Since Shiu wasn’t there to accompany her, she only had the murmurs of the water to accompany her into the night, and hence felt a bit lonely.

The door of her house was pushed open at this time. Uesugi Rei, who seemed to have just finished bathing and had donned a dark blue colored, lily-patterned yukata, leaned back on the door frame while oozing out a wet sexiness.

Lily got up and asked, “Sister Uesugi?”

“Lily, follow me.”

“Ehhh?”

Lily and Rei, donned in yukatas and red wooden sandals, went through the woods in the middle of the night and arrived at the chief’s residence, which didn’t have a soul in sight. They passed through the broken side door and descended down the stairs to the underground prison.

“Sister Uesugi, where are you taking me?”

Uesugi Rei offered no explanation to her and pulled her along all the way to the lowest floor of the prison and took her into the circular ‘Torture Room’ that they had visited before.

The torches affixed to the cold stone walls illuminated the vast array of fear-inducing ‘implements’ in the room.

“Sister Uesugi, why have you brought me here in the middle of the night?” Lily asked a bit worriedly.

Rei glanced back at her with the same casual smile she always had on her face and said, “Do you remember what I told you in the morning? We have nothing to do tonight anyway, so you might as well teach me how to escape from the fetters and bindings of these implements.”5