The Sengoku Festival (An Oda Nobuna No Yabou fanfic)

Chapter 29

The line of volunteers the Oda had managed to recruit from the villages we still controlled slowly made their way through the line before me as I was sitting on a stool with Joey and Noble flanking me while the Blue Handed and Yellow Handed handed them koku for their service as well as writing their names down, more to total up numbers than to completely remember them. And the remaining 16 of my troops were handing out equipment and weapons and assigning them to units for training.

Since the Oda had been so kind enough to help me rebuild my battle company with their own resources, I was hoping we would soon receive decent orders to do something that wasn't either patrol but wasn't taking on a small army. Nonetheless, till I could pay off my debt I was certain I was not going to have a choice in the matter either way.

As I watched the village men slowly accept their new gear and weapons, I then watched as a small group of the ashigaru with the fukoro and a few jumonji yari's were split off by 5 of my remaining yari ashigaru when then another group was taken to the side to get use to using the daikyu bows as they would become the archers by my last three ashigaru of that sort.

Then, a messenger appeared next to me as he held out a scroll and as I took it, he then told me, "Message from Nagahide."

I nodded and as the messenger went away swiftly, I soon slowly unfolded the scroll as I began to read what it had scrawled across it: "Bloody Handed, I have a small mission for you. A Bandit group is currently terrorizing the road between the city of Minakonai and Honkami village. I want you to lead your troops there and get them use to fighting people. Train as long as you like but I want this done as soon as possible."

"Manchiyo." I muttered to myself with a small smile. "Your wish is my command..."

"Alright, lets get everyone ready for combat. We have some bandits to eradicate..."

Within at least three days, my new force of green, new ashigaru soldiers were marching with me and the others as our numbers went from 20 to 90 once again. 20 of them were Cavalry with the Yellow Handed, there were 30 of them that were daikyu ashigaru, and the last 40 were the jumonji-yari ashigaru. Everyone was wearing the universal black armor, although it appeared that it was mostly the card and mail from the looks as I gave a glance as I marched with them, but the sashimono of the red hand on a black background was still the same at least.

As I watched them all marching along, spears kept on shoulders with the sound of feet pounding the ground to dust continued, I then suddenly felt someone bump my shoulder and I glanced over to see Noble look at me and then I asked him, "What you need?"

"Making sure you're alive still... don't need you keeling over on us now.." said Noble with a small chuckle.

"Oh, I see... you think that after some time on my own, poor little me can't defend myself... what an absolute smuck..." I told him.

"You got lucky is all I'm saying." said Noble with a shrug.

"When you think about it, we all got lucky..." I told him.

He nodded quietly.

"What happened after you all left the Tokugawa territory? After being routed?" I asked him.

"We regrouped as best as we could and mostly debated what to do on our own. Part of us were thinking of disbanding, other wanted to join another group, and the four leaders of us said we should continue this group as your legacy."

I nodded my head slowly.

"But then you showed up and everyone shut up essentially because we knew that with you back, everything was going to either get like it was or get better." said Noble as he glanced at me.