Author's Games: Samurai

Sponsorship Battle Task: Miyoshi verses Ashikaga

Clan 1: Sachi Miyoshi

  Sachi suppressed a shiver, marching her minute army - if it could even be called that - given how few troops she had, towards the field on the border with Clan Ashikaga. Despite the few troops she had, she would fight nevertheless, she would let the fire come out of her and it would burn bright.

For her clan; her honour. It was her duty to all of her Clan.
Sachi closed her eyes, blinking slowly, as she unsheathed her katana from her back, gripping the hilt in her hands. Something deep and primal stirred within her, an urge more animalistic than human. An instinct suppressed by most people, the instinct to fight, to claw and bite and never stop fighting. It was a deep and guttural feeling, but one that carried deep meaning, a burden on her shoulders. Sachi raised her blade, and plunged into battle, making the first move.

However, the enemy was a snake; bitter and volatile, angry at being disturbed. It roared from it's embers, hissing as it shook off the destruction beneath. Huge, massive and angry, the Ashikaga Clan was two units of troops- a united front that dwarfed her own army, leering over intimidatingly. They were giants, mounted swordsmen and spearmen. They were defending the nest, guarding what was theirs. She had provoked a beast, spurred them up into a storm.

Suddenly, Sachi felt tiny in comparison, nothing more than a dot. Her meagre group, for lack of a better word, paled in comparison to the monster looming before them, enraged and on guard. She swallowed her distaste, knowing what she had to do, even if this battle seemed impossible to win, if she might as well of been walking to her own death, the Bushido demanded it of her. If it came to in, in this battle she would give her life for Miyoshi, but not before she took a few with her and went down fighting.

The mounted swordsmen came first, waving their blades proudly as they drove their stress onwards, their voices rising in an ancient battle cry, a great banshee like shriek, the scream of the warrior. They were a great wave of black and brown stallions and mares, a sea of silver-plated sword-wielders riding on their backs. Sachi rushed up to meet them, cutting down a stallion the colour of the twilight sky, jabbing her Katana at it's legs, sending the horse tumbling into the mud, light brown streaking the black beast. The man sprawled across his back, struggling to get up. She stabbed down, inbreeding her blade into his chest. Red blood seeped from the wound, the horse's fur becoming stained with the crimson liquid, the mammal's pelt now a pure black canvas, painted with tender brushes of mud and dirt, streaked with lines of crimson and scarlet.

It started then, the dance. Swirling Valdez as she lived to fight, the battle becoming her energy. Metal clashed on metal and screams filled the air and high-pitched wails, horses slamming into the ground, taking their riders with them, or some riding on without the swordsmen, who lay sparkled on the grass, slowly dying. The grass and mud underfoot was wet from passing rain and stained by blood, soiled by the battle and trampled underfoot. Sachi had never felt so alive, with everything else dead and dying beside her, she felt the rush of adrenaline, her blood pumping in her veins, spurring her on. It was an endless bitter cycle of life and death that would never stop spinning, and she didn't care. She didn't care that it was a David and Goliath battle, that she was a mere ant compared to these units.

All that mattered was the fight, and the fire that burned beneath her skin, the wild animal that prowled beneath, begging to be freed and to leave utter oblivion in it's wake.

For her brothers, her mother, even for Daiki. For a moment, the clanging of blades and the copper taste of blood in her mouth stilled, and Sachi was alone, watching the battle rage before her. It was strange, but their seemed to be a beauty to it. It was like a painting, frozen and lost in time, of an ancient battle no one is left to remember.
Sachi shook herself, scolding herself internally. She couldn't let herself be distracted by such trivial matters. The spearmen were readying their spears now for the charge, adding another great wave to the battle.

Silver tipped spears, iron metal welded into a tool of death, designed for slaughter. Amid the whirring storm of the battle, the typhoon that thundered above and struck all around them, merciless and uncaring. A stout individual charged for her, spear at his side.

For a brief moment, Sachi wondered about him. If he had a family who loved him, a wife, children. If he would be missed. If he was only following the Bushido and being loyal to his clan, too.

But the moment was brief, a shimmer of a different person, faded in the breeze. This Sachi had no time to worry about him; he was simply just another enemy. She raised her katana, and with a sickening crunch and a deafening thud, she sliced off his head, and looked into those eyes, now void, empty, black, bottomless pits.

Whenever Sachi killed someone, it was always the eyes that stilled first.

Clan 5: Ashikaga

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