Ninja Love: Saizo Kirigakure

Chapter 48

I wish with all of my heart that I could say the battle went well.

All of the ninja clans had gathered under Hanzo's command, and we were situated at a relatively narrow pass that Nobunaga would be forced to travel through if he wanted to reach Kyoto with an entire army.

Things had started off relatively well. Hanzo had given the army a stunning pep talk and put Goemon and Sasuke in charge of the bulk of our troops. He instructed Kotaro and his riflemen, myself included since he would still not allow me into the thick of battle, to keep to the trees and pick off Nobunaga's men, as well as keep their attention divided between long and short range attacks. Hanzo and Saizo planned to rush Nobunaga after Goemon and Sasuke as soon as the ambush was in full swing, which was a plan that I silently objected to. As the sun rose in the eastern sky, the pass hummed with final preparations. Everything was going according to plan.

The trouble started when Goemon appeared, rushing to Hanzo with an uncharacteristically panicked look on his face.

"Hanzo! They're nearly here-"

"Let them come then, we're ready," Hanzo placed a steady hand on Goemon's shoulder, not understanding why the esteemed ninja was so unnerved.

"No, sir- Nobunaga has joined forces with Mitsuhide Akechi! Their army is at least double what we anticipated..."

The news came like a punch to the gut, and I clung a little tighter to Saizo as he stood beside me.

Hanzo's face darkened, but he spoke firmly. "We cannot fall back. This is our only chance to strike Nobunaga when he is vulnerable. Inform the troops," he commanded as he whirled around to face the road below us, "Tell them that they are in for the fight of their lives."

The fight of their lives, I thought, or at least the fight for their lives.

Goemon turned to us, a grim look on his face.

"Promise me... if something happens to me, promise that Koga will take Iga under its wing and protect my home."

The grim realization of a losing battle quickly set in on everyone, but the ninja army saw no deserters. We waited silently at our positions, watching the road in the ravine below us like hawks searching for prey. I turned the cool metal of my gun over and over in my hands, trying my best not to weigh the odds of victory as I waited.

Finally, the call went out. An unsuspecting bird whistle signaled Nobunaga's entry into the pass, and he moved into our visual range soon after. My face paled, and I turned to Kotaro, who was seated on the tree branch beside me.

"What are those?" I asked, my voice barely above a whisper despite the fact that there was no way the thundering army in the pass could hear me.

"Those are the firearms that Nobunaga imported from overseas." Kotaro's face betrayed no sign of worry, and I admired his skill at masking his emotions.

Giant cannons had been loaded onto wagons and were being pulled by horses. Each one was twice the size of the guards that surrounded it as the army compressed itself and flooded together to make it through the narrow ravine. I knew for a fact that we could do very little, if anything, to damage those cannons, aside from taking out the men that manned them.

"In such a relatively small space, our only chance against those cannons is to get in behind them and work from there. It looks like the cannons have only a little swiveling capability, and it would be incredibly difficult for Nobunaga's men to maneuver the wagons and turn them around when everyone is pressed together like that," Kotaro observed. "Now we can only hope that Goemon and Sasuke have come to the same conclusion."