With Kurokawa out of the way, Kaede’s army moved swiftly through the northern provinces of Yamato. Though they fought a few skirmishes along the way, the risk of assaulting Kurokawa’s heavily defended position paid off as they traveled through mostly friendly or neutral territories. Along the way, Kaede met with a number of lords and ladies to secure support and military aid, with mixed success.

Ienaga’s vassals were mostly willing, with a bit of convincing. It helped that Kaede was advocating for her supposed killer and that Ienaga Yumi was still incredibly popular among the common and noble populations alike. The neutral parties were more complicated.

Yamato was not a monolith, and while Hayakawa and Ienaga were by far the largest factions, the nation was splintered even within those factions. The more one looked, the more they could find deeper and deeper sub-factions, alliances, conflicts, and personal grudges forming a complicated and tangled web of political desires, obligations, and affiliations.

Some of these more neutral elements saw Kaede’s rebellion as their opportunity for greater prominence, happily taking a chance on her success and providing as much aid as they could muster. More often they hedged their bets, refusing to offer anything more than free passage and hoping to simply hunker down and ride out the war of succession to remain in the good graces of whichever side won—or at least avoid making any enemies. Others still chose to fight, rejecting Kaede’s vision in a grim reflection of Kurokawa’s last stand.

Nevertheless, by the time Jiaguo’s forces made it to Ienaga’s province, the army had ballooned in size. The original army of volunteers from the city was a mere fraction of their fighting force, and many of the more capable and accomplished from those groups had been promoted to lead entire units of Yamato soldiers.

Kaede had to give Ienaga credit. He may have been one of the very warlords she wanted to oust from power, but he knew his way around war. His plan had worked brilliantly. Not only had her campaign through the northern provinces given the hastily assembled army the training and experience they needed, but it had allowed her to gather support for the greater war to come.

With Yamato’s regulars making up the bulk of her new army, Jiaguo’s volunteers had become a specialized group of elites.

Ruiling led her unit as a mobile strike force, taking advantage of Melati’s superior battlefield awareness and Sukarto’s superlative speed to squeeze their way into the smallest opening in enemy formations and create weaknesses to exploit.

Jin Hu was a cautious and orthodox leader, but in a surprisingly short time he’d managed to turn the soldiers under his command into an immovable wall, taking full advantage of support from mages and expertly rotating out any injured fighters to be healed by Luo Mingyu and the Cult of Harmonious Stars.

Most surprising of all was Yang Qiu and the demons. In spite of Yoshika’s worries that the demons would be unruly and difficult to control in battle, they had become her foremost unit of shock troops, slamming ruthlessly into any weakness or opening created and capturing enemy leaders. Not killing—capturing.

Indeed, the demons had somehow managed to end up as one of the least lethal units in the entire army, taking on their objectives with a level of discipline and focus that the rest of the army could only dream of matching.

No army was perfect. There were incidents occurring every day, whether it was in battle, on the march, or even during camp. War was stressful—tempers flared, miscommunications happened, and people got into fights. It was inevitable in any army, much less one which involved so many people from different backgrounds.

But again, despite being among the most universally hated, the demons had not once acted out of turn. They did not rise to provocations, they followed their orders perfectly, and even in the heat of battle they maintained almost superhuman discipline.

Yang Qiu laughed when Kaede brought it up to her in a private meeting within their camp one night.

“Honestly, I’m as surprised as you are. I did make sure to pick people who were serious, but they’ve gone way above and beyond.”

“They have, but I’m concerned. It’s not as though I’d hold it against them if they were to indulge in their instincts during battle.”

“What, you want us to cause some more mayhem?”

Kaede shook her head.

“It’s not that. I respect the restraint, but I know just how difficult that can be. Eui struggled against her impulses for years, sometimes without even realizing how they were affecting her behavior. And that was with Jia balancing out the worst of it.”

Yang Qiu picked at a bit of the cracked porcelain-like skin on her cheek, frowning.

“I get what you mean. You’re worried that holding back this much is just going to build up pressure until it gets to be too much and we break. Makes sense—that’s usually how it goes with demons. Hell, more than a few of us have gone through that exact pattern.”

“And? Do you think this is different?”

She shrugged.

“I can’t say. But it’s pretty obvious why they’re doing it.”

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Kaede gestured for her to continue and Yang Qiu rolled her eyes.

“Look at me...”

The tentacles on her back roiled anxiously as she took a step back and stretched her arms out to either side. Black cracks ran down the porcelain skin of her face like tears, and a black ooze crept across her body in thick tendrils, forming her clothes—any real clothing she wore tended to melt. The source of the ooze was a weeping void in the center of her chest, where her glowing green core of Miasma once rested.

“I know what I look like—what people think of me. The big scary demon. The poisonous monster. The other demons don’t respect me, they fear me. Not the way everyone else does, as a threat. To them, I’m the monster that they could become.”

She clenched her fist and held it to her chest, covering the void in her heart.

“You gave them a chance to prove otherwise. To you, to the people of your stupid doomed nation, and to themselves. They’ve been working hard to make the most of it. It’s not enough to be well-behaved monsters—we have to be more. Better.”

Kaede frowned. Yang Qiu was always quite hard on herself, and while some of what she was saying made sense, one thing needed to be set straight.

“No. Soldiers don’t reach that level of discipline under a leader they don’t trust and respect. Fear alone isn’t enough to coordinate so expertly.”

Yang Qiu scoffed and turned away.

“Not for humans, maybe. For us, it’s the only way. Trust and respect aren’t in our vocabulary.”

“If that was true, you wouldn’t have that hole in your chest. We wouldn’t be here having this conversation. You’re here because you chose to trust us, and they’re here because they trust you.”

“Don’t be so ridiculous! I’m Xiao Chong! The little worm. The stupid weakling who let herself be enslaved into keeping her own people prisoner. I only gave you my core so that you’d let me live.”

She began to storm off, but Kaede grabbed her wrist, ignoring the caustic ooze that immediately began eating into her flesh. Yang Qiu whipped around, her tentacles poised to strike like scorpion tails.

“Yang Qiu, have any of the demons under your command consumed a soul since we left Jiaguo?”

The demon narrowed her eyes, her glowing green irises narrowing to pinpoints against the black sclera.

“No. Not human ones, anyway. We do beast hunts on a rotation.”

“And why do you think that is?”

“I already told you—to prove—”

Kaede shook her head.

“Wrong. It’s because you can’t. They follow your lead and try to match your example. Your people don’t fear becoming you, Yang Qiu—they aspire to. You are their inspiration.”

“We’re demons, Yoshika! We don’t work that way! You’re going to get burned if you keep thinking of us like—”

“Like what? People? Isn’t that what you’re trying to prove, Yang Qiu? You are people—all of you. And it’s not me, or the council, or even themselves that your people want to prove it to. It’s you.”

Yang Qiu wrenched her hand out of Kaede’s grip, the acrid smell of burnt flesh filling the tent.

“Then they’re wasting their time. I already know that they’re people. A few of them might even be good people, if they try hard enough.”

Kaede flexed her burnt hand as it slowly regenerated. Yang Qiu’s Miasma resisted healing.

“And you?”

“I don’t matter. I’m beyond saving. Just a tool for you to use as you see fit—it’s better that way.”

As she marched her way out of the tent, Kaede called after her one last time.

“Your people don’t think so, and neither do I. Lady Tennin wouldn’t be wasting her time on you if you couldn’t be saved.”

Yang Qiu paused at the tent’s entrance, glancing back with a look of utter contempt.

“Of course she would. That’s who she is. I don’t know why you can’t understand that.”

She left, and Kaede stared down at her slowly healing hand with a weary sigh.

“It’s almost impressive how you can make so much progress without actually managing to learn anything.”

----------------------------------------

They arrived in Ienaga’s lands to find that a battle was already underway. As promised, Lord Ienaga had created a small disturbance to bait Shogun Hayakawa’s allies into responding. Evidently the plan had worked better than expected, because rather than a minor skirmish, Ienaga’s forces were fighting for their lives against a full-on invasion force.

Jiaguo’s arrival came as a surprise to both sides, and Kaede wasted no time in taking advantage of the confusion. Her army descended on the Hayakawa forces like a hammer against Ienaga’s anvil, swiftly taking control of the battlefield and preventing any effective retreat.

With the main army cut off, the leadership was left out of position and under defended—sitting ducks for Yang Qiu and the other special forces.

Left surrounded and without their leaders, the Hayakawa army soon surrendered, and Kaede made her way to Ienaga’s camp.

Takeda Keiji, Rika’s grandfather, met her there himself.

“You got here quicker than expected, but not a moment too soon! We owe you one, Lady Hayakawa.”

Kaede bowed politely.

“You started this battle for my sake in the first place. I’m only glad that I wasn’t too late to intervene. What happened?”

“Much as I’d love to stand around and chat with a lovely lady, we’ve got a lot of prisoners to deal with. Forgive me for being short, but I’ll have to let Chiyo do the explaining. Your army is welcome to join our camp or set up nearby.”

He turned on his heel and marched off, leaving an armored soldier behind as Kaede’s escort. Kaede smiled thinly at the escort, trying not to hold Takeda’s rudeness against him—he was a busy man.

“I suppose I have to ask you to lead me to Miss Takeda, then.”

The soldier huffed and pulled off her helmet, revealing a pretty young woman with a striking resemblance to Rika.

“Why doesn’t anyone recognize me?!”

Kaede looked up at the young lady and blinked. When last they’d met, she was only fifteen years old and barely taller than Lee Jia. In that time, she’d sprung up to nearly match her older sister in height and build.

She cleared her throat and smiled apologetically.

“It’s probably the helmet.”