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Volume 3 Chapter 1 Part 5

「The greatest advantage of pretending to be a man was that an alliance with Oda Nobuna, who also wishes to unite Japan, was possible. But as father said, he won’t accept it if the Oda clan doesn’t send their princess over for a political marriage. But he has heard that there are no other princesses in the Oda clan, so imagine his surprise when you were sent here. However, in the end it seems that I couldn’t fool Nobuna-dono, and was fooled by her instead. 」

「Anyway, although our genders are all mixed up, our relationship is still between a man and a woman, and we’re two beauties that can represent Owari and Omi. If you asked me, it looks like we certainly were made for each other. 」

「D-Don’t wrap your arm around my shoulder! I-I-I ’ll kill you! 」

Nobusumi moved his hand away after bringing it closer to her carelessly.

(Why is this guy so mature when dealing with women, but immature otherwise?)

As she was thinking about this, Nagamasa got angry without really knowing why.

「Ara, sorry to be rude. But you know, Saruyasamaru-kun… 」

「D-don’t call me that! My mother came up with this name to make people think I’m a boy! It’s not cute at all, so I don’t want to use it if I don’t have to! 」

Nobusumi smiled in a carefree manner.

「But as a beautiful princess that descended upon this world, if you always face people as a man, it’s going to be a total waste. I don’t know about you, but at least I’m not willing to let that happen. 」

「This is something I can do nothing about. Everything I ever did in my life was for the sake of fulfilling my dream. 」
「Your dream? 」

Nagamasa lowered her head, and spoke quietly, albeit with great difficulty.

「I don’t want to let myself, become a hostage again. Those restless nights caused by Rokkaku Shotei… they’re not something I want to experience ever again. But if I hand over the Azai clan to my father, then the Azai clan will surely become slaves to the Rokkaku clan again. That’s why the position of clan leader is so important to me. 」

That’s why she wanted to become stronger. To allow the flag with the Azai clan’s emblem—the Mitsu Mori Kikkou ni Hanabishi , to fly over the entire Sengoku world, to make sure those sleepless nights never come again…

「That’s why, for the sake of my dream, I can only… 」

「It’s okay if you don’t want to give it up. 」

「What? 」

「That was Monkey-kun’s catchphrase, hahaha. 」

「Monkey-kun? You mean Sagara Yoshiharu? 」

Nobusumi nodded while smiling. Not an ounce of frustration could be seen on the face of this somewhat frivolous man.

「All right, I’ve decided. When’s it’s only the two of us together, you can go back to being a woman. When that time comes, I’ll call you Nagamasa-sama. As for me, you can call me Tsuda, or Nobusumi, or Prince of Owari or even The Minister of Uiromochi, whatever you like is going to be fine with me. 」

The demons that haunted Nagamasa’s dreams at night disappeared without a trace in an instant.
(How is this possible? How can something so ridiculous make all my frustrations disappear just like that? I had already given up the dream of living as a woman, so how I can possibly get it back just like that? All because of the appearance of a single man! This is so ridiculous. This is just too ridiculous!)

「Women can never resist handsome men 」… her own words now echoed in Nagamasa’s mind.

(In the end I’m no better than the girls whom I treated as my playthings…)

Nagamasa bit down on her red lips as she realized this, but there was no feeling of defeat in her heart.

Nagamasa is a clever person, and when it comes to her own feelings, she’s much more direct than Nobuna.

Not long after that event, she understood what the feeling that she experienced back then was: this unknown feeling was actually the feeling of first love blossoming in her heart.

However, although the Nagamasa who joined the Owari’s army marching towards Kyoto was a completely different person, and she did not tell Nobuna the real reason why she decided to make such a decision. I mean, how could she possibly tell her something so embarrassing?

However, there was no doubt in anyone’s mind that Azai Nagamasa has become an ally as reliable as Matsudaira Motoyasu, and thus, the total strength of the army marching to Kyoto has exceeded fifty thousand soldiers.

The only obstacle in the way of their march was Rokkaku Shotei of Southern Omi.

The following are the little bits of information about the Rokkaku clan, which originated from the Sazaki clan, gathered by Nobuna’s intelligence network.

Rokkaku Shotei and the Miyoshi clan created a military alliance, and their attitude and actions thus far suggested that they wanted to resist Nobuna and stop her from reaching the capital. Moreover, there is a hatred that has lasted for three generations between the Rokkaku clan and the Azai clan, which has recently come to power after cutting all ties with the former.

Due to the actions of Azai Nagamasa, their strength has diminished over the years, but as long as they had Kannonji Castle, the fortress that stood upon the jagged hills of the southern Omi with its thick, easily defendable walls, it would be near impossible to eradicate the Rokkaku clan completely.

Nagamasa was the most familiar with the difficulties of attacking Kannonji Castle, and thus she presented her strategy of how they should go about conquering it.

「Nee-sama. Although the Rokkaku clan’s army isn’t that strong, Kannonji Castle is a fortress that is comparable to Inabayama Castle. I believe we should take this step by instead of trying to conquer it all at once. We should establish our base in the wilderness, and then we take down the fortress segment by segment. I believe that would be the best course of action. 」

However, even though Nobuna had an army of fifty thousand soldiers at her disposal, she still liked to act swiftly. And besides, speed was always Nobuna’s best weapon.

「Nagamasa! The castle in Mino called Inabayama Castle no longer exists. It’s Gifu Castle now! All troops, attack! 」

As Nagamasa stood there speechless, Nobuna’s army has already begun their attack. The Rokkaku clan army’s generals that guarded the place never expected Nobuna’s army to simply charge and attack the fortress blindly like that, so they were initially shocked, but they quickly regained their composure, and in a truly shocking turn of events, the fifty-thousand-strong army was divided into squads of several thousand, and attacked several sections at the same time.

It was basic knowledge during the Sengoku era that armies led by Daimyos or actual generals have much better performance in battle in comparison to those that don’t have a clearly defined chain of command, which means that armies that lack good leadership will always be weaker. In other words, having a general lead the entire army for a focused attack is common sense in warfare, and sub-squads that lack a leading general could only be effective as smaller units for carrying out specific tasks.

However, to Nobuna, such common sense meant nothing. She split the army into small squads, having several different battles from all sides be carried out at the same time.

「Nagamasa. In the Oda clan, the people who can go to battle in my place as a general are few in number, but there are at least five. Riku (Shibata Katsuie). Manchiyo ( Niwa Nagahide). And Sakonshogen who is relying on our momentum (Takigawa Kazumasu). There’s also the newly-joined Juubei ( Akechi Mitsuhide). And lastly, even though he won’t be nearly as useful than the other four in actual battle, Monkey can count as one as well. 」

Nobuna said as such.

As long as you have five generals, the speed of attacking the castle would be five times faster than usual. Before the Rokkaku clan’s forces will have the chance to tighten their defenses, if they can take out all of the sections of the castle protected by them, victory will be as good as theirs.

(… Truly astonishing way of thinking. As I thought, she really is someone whom I could never hope to match.)

Nagamasa unwittingly felt a deep chill running down all over her spine.

Everything was as Nobuna said; after one day, all 18 sections of Kannonji Castle fell without exception. In all of this, the most eye-catching general was none other than the newbie Akechi Mitsuhide.

Mitsuhide comes from the clan that is descended from the Setsu-Genji line of the Minamoto clan, so whenever she got serious in battle, one look at her could make the onlookersgasp in shock.