The Sengoku Festival (An Oda Nobuna No Yabou fanfic)

Chapter 23

The 5 days that the training took were well spent but it felt like a blink of an eye to me as it turned out that Dosan's request soon came true like a prophecy. And what made his statement even more true was that a scouting party had found nearly 600 Tokugawa men assembling up at the Tokugawa of Shiramamoto.

And those who were sent was my company of 120 men, a army of 200 under the command of Nagahide, and then another 200-man army under Dosan's command himself. And then there was a rumor that Nobunaga had managed to hire a force of 80 mercenaries under the command of a "Winged Ronin" to also help in the battle who would meet us at the city of Watamoto just before we reached the border of the Tokugawa.

And so, as one collective force, we set out to begin our march to Shiramamoto and the army that was there.

Of course there was possibly only one thing I had not counted on happening: the girl Inuchiyo was joining us as well.

The effect of this cause: and endless prodding by her about how she beat me in combat or how she supposedly did.

"Come on... you seem to be slowly tiring from this march."

I gave a sigh, the first one for this day as it had only been two days since we had left the Oda capital. Now, I had no idea if she was doing this to be purposefully annoying or if she was doing this simply to tell him that he actually was tiring from this and that he didn't yet realize it.

But either way, it was slowly wearing down on my sanity and I really didn't like it.

But I kept marching on anyway as I tried my best to keep moving forward before I snapped on her. Because I knew that eventually she was going to grow tired of poking fun at me and simply stop doing it at some point of time.

But as I kept watching forward, I then heard her sigh and say, "Are you seriously going to just ignore me?"

"Yeah?" I asked her.

She rolled her eyes as she began to walk now truly besides me as she then said, "And next time you don't really need a convoy system when you're traveling."

Currently on my right on the road were 30 of my yari Ashigaru in a long block formation of 3 men abreast and ten deep. Behind them was a few carts of our provisions and what not for camp, then there was Noble's group of yari ashigaru of 30 behind it before Joey had his group of 40 yumi ashigaru behind Nobles group, the last few carts and then the Blue Handed with the last 30 remaining yari ashigaru brought up the rear as the Yellow Handed and his 20 yari horsemen were flanking the whole column.

"Well it just helps me be at ease a smidge when I know everyone is in a position to fight and defend.." I said to her.

"Worse that when Yoshiharu was first commander...." muttered Inuchiyo.

"Well I certainly can see no reason to blame him, either." I told her.

We kept marching along as ahead of us was Nagahide's army of 200 and behind her was Dosan's army of 200 and as I looked all the way down towards where I expected Nagahide to be, I saw her slightly staring at me for a moment before turning back around.

"Say.. Bloody Handed... I don't think you ever truly got a chance to tell me about how you began." suddenly said Inuchiyo.

I looked down at her before I then said to her, " That is because I don't think that subject was ever brought up..."

"Will you tell me right now while we march?" asked Inuchiyo.

"Its not exactly the most exciting story ever known..." I told her.