Cold Steel - Inazuma Gaiden

XII: Victors of Nothing

"I'm... I'm so sorry, Ayaka-san, I know this must be a... pitiful sight."

The ronin, who had his straw hat pulled down managed to speak out that one sentence with great difficulty before he went back to spit out more of his insides. To his credit, he didn't seem to digest anything before or during their trip to Kannazuka, so he only retched out what seemed to be a few drops of water and his own gastric acid, so it left the premises relatively odorless - at least compared to the other stench of blood and death.

Nobutada's body collapsed and was essentially crawling on all fours as he kept heaving out his empty stomach at the makeshift outhouse of the Kujou Clan's encampment. Every few seconds, his apology would repeat itself like a broken record, begging for pardon at the lady in white for witnessing an especially unsightly image of him emptying out his already void stomach. To which the young woman just silently, but exasperatedly continued to soothe his sickness as best she could, at least by occasionally rubbing his back.

She wanted to tell him that he was far from being a pitiful sight, she just essentially forced a largely docile thief to finally draw blood, after all. What was actually pitiful, however was the scene all around them.

The battle for Kujou Encampment was won - but at what cost?

To even call it a pyrrhic victory would probably be an over exaggeration. Sure, she wasn't expecting cheers of victory or tears of joy from the surviving warriors and Samurai still standing after the chaos subsided, but she wasn't expecting the fallout to be this bad either. Screams of pain and anguish, endless cries from even the strongest of fighters filled her ears and pounded her mind. They didn't celebrate their own victories, but were instead left to bide their time and lick their wounds.

Foot soldiers stood in silence, to tribute their fallen comrades being cremated at the open clearing, with the snow shoveled out of the way, while others grieved at the lost of their families being ultimately powerless to save them while they were still besieged by the outlanders.

And the worst part, just like the days of the Civil War, they couldn't risk bringing back the bodies for transport and burial by their loved ones or next of kin. With how concentrated the negative emotions and atmosphere that shrouded the camp, the Tatarigami would be sure to flourish under these conditions, where death and chaos were rampant. The corruption there was so strong that it managed to take influence of the lady in white - even it was only for a few seconds, after all.

The Kujou couldn't risk infecting whoever was left with the plague, so they had to burn the dead bodies - until nothing but cinders remain, leaving nothing for the fallen Serpent God's curse to spread and infect. Warriors and families alike just lumped into the same pile, some of their identities left unknown - all burned to combat the spread of the plague, not even giving their loved ones the chance to grieve for them one last time, or buried with their own kin at Narukami.

And then there's also the fact that most of the buildings in the encampment were reduced to nothing but ash by the time the siege was broken, leaving many of the surviving warriors without proper boards to rest their bodies. Their valuables or other trinkets stored within the structures - gone. Considering the young lady had to abandon her own home alongside her family's heirloom, she knew well that these warriors would also have lost something of incredible sentimental value to them.

The situation, their circumstances, the atmosphere- Ayaka felt sick, so incredibly sick to her stomach that she might just pull the still-vomiting thief inside the outhouse to take his place and vacate her own stomach at how nauseous she felt. She was willing to bet that it was the reason her companion started heaving to begin with. In fact, she almost did just that, the young woman crouching down and placed an open palm over her mouth - feeling her breath shortened while she hiccupped over the gas that'd built up within her throat.