The Sengoku Festival (An Oda Nobuna No Yabou fanfic)

Chapter 14

Even with the rain coming down upon the ground, the tracks were obvious for me and many of the others as the deep impressions meant that the Asato ashigaru and leader had been in a huge hurry this way.

"Alright! Yellow-Handed! Take your men and go scout ahead and if you find the enemy, stall them for as long as you can muster! Everyone else! Spread out and keep marching forward!" I said.

Everyone nodded and as the Yellow handed took off, I thought back to just moments before.

Noble and Joey had presented their companies sashimono's to me and then bowed to me.

"Please make us your own!" they had both said as they had bowed to me.

I was surprised by them and as I watched them place their flags before me, I asked them, "But why?"

"Two companies together would only make things super complicated. We wish everything to work smoothly instead of jarringly." said Joey as he looked at me.

I looked at them and shook my head as I then said, " If you wanted to join me, you didn't need to go through all of this trouble.. still, until we get to a village, we'll have to postpone updating the ashigaru and everyone else... we have a clan to kill out."

We all had nodded and quickly continued from there to go after the Asato clan, who still had an hour or two lead on us.

Suddenly my head snapped back into the present as I hit something with my foot and as I looked down, I saw the body of a Oda ashigaru slain and as I stopped the company and looked around, I saw even more of them spread out through the forest.

Then, I heard the shouts and sounds of combat form ahead and I took up my yari as I ran and everyone behind me followed me, the branches of bushes and the leaves from low-hanging batting off our armor as we ran.

As I ran, I heard a horse neigh out and as I ran even faster, I saw a road ahead.

And currently fighting on it were the Asato clan and the Yellow-Handed and his men and all along the road and around it in the surrounding forest were the remains of the Oda men that had been here.

"Bloody-Handed One!! They are here!!" shouted the Yellow Handed as he and his men tried to fend off the scant remains of the enemy. Out of the 250, about 100 were confirmed dead, 70 had fled, and 80 were still around when we had left.

Although I knew that the Asato had to have taken some casualties taking on the Oda, there was several of them still here and as I began to roar at the top of my lungs, the Asato ashigaru not attacking my cavalry charged back at me and as my men began to shout, our two forces clashed.

If I was to put it down to the numbers, I think about 50 Asato ashigaru of the yari and yumi types were against us, all armed with the fukoro-style yari's and with katana blades. We, on the others hand, had 50 yari ashigaru, with jumonji and fukoro-style ashigaru and then we had 20 yumi ashigaru with those same types of yari spears along with katana blades. And then our light cavalry with their fukoro-yari's.

As I slashed the neck of one Asato ashigaru, I then saw a nearby field and what looked like some bodies out there and both joey and Noble appeared by my side as I began to run towards it as the Blue-Handed and the Yellow-Handed had things under control with the fight for the moment and as I ran towards the edges of the field, I saw what had happened here.

Katsuie was in the middle of a slaughter house. Several ashigaru lay slain on the ground, a few of them being Oda but the bulk being Asato. Her halberd was buried in the nearby mud, slick with the blood of those she killed. Katsuie herself was on the ground, her armor broken, as she was currently beneath the boot of the Asato clan leader. He was covered in blood and looked a little worn down but he still had 10 ashigaru with him and as myself, Joey, and Noble ran out onto the field, I was mad at the man.