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Volume 4 Chapter 4 Part 6

「Dearu ka, though it’s regrettable that we fell into the enemy’s trap… now isn’t the time to regret. What we should do now is lure the Azai and Asakura allied forces out from Mount Hiei and battle it out with them, but these irritating fellows are being difficult and won’t budge for even an inch. 」

「Uwahhh, don’t tell me I will never be able to return to Mikawa at this rate!? 」

「Don’t worry, Takechiyo, I will break out of this situation no matter what. 」

「Though we may say that, we are going to be out of options if this goes on. 20 points. 」

Just when all of them were thinking about a way to get out of this precarious situation…

「Mount Hiei’s missionary requests an audience with you, Nobuna-sama! 」

「By the request of Tendaizasu to protect Mount Hiei, I, Shogakuin Gosei am here to seek a surrender from these female warriors who dared to plot to burn the sacred Mount Hiei! 」

A man in a heavy set of armor appeared before them, a noxious stench of alcohol emanating from his whole body.

「That fellow tried to ambush us in the night but was defeated by Katsuie, and then escaped back to Mount Hiei with his tail between his legs like a coward. 」

「Using the rule of ‘Prohibiting unclean women from entering Mount Hiei’ as a shield and not knowing any shame, what a rough and cowardly man. 0 points. 」

「Just what does he think girls are!? Unforgivable! 」

Though Nobuna and the rest put on a bunch of disgruntled expressions, Gosei started talking seemingly without a care in the world.
「What a chaotic era this is, what anarchy for unclean girls to be holding weapons and fighting with men as if they thought we are equal… How regrettable and pathetic this is! 」

Gosei said such things and rejected the tea brought forth by Inuchiyo, bluntly saying once more, 「Unclean, I am not going to touch it」.

「…If that’s so, please eat some Uiroumochi. 」

Inuchiyo endured his attitude as she held up the plate with Uiromochi on it

「No, it might be poisoned. 」

Gosei kicked the plate away, not even wanting to touch it with his hands, and continued bellowing like he didn’t care about the situation at all.

「Azai Hisamasa-dono and Asakura Yoshikage-dono could not tolerate your actions of burning the holy Mount Hiei. Oda Nobuna, I’m now giving you the chance to surrender to us. State your conditions. 」

「He’s just a missionary, yet he knows no shame. 」

Katsuie whispered to Yoshiharu at her side.

Nobuna replied with a composed face:

「Rather than surrendering, how about we negotiate on equal terms!? We have a few conditions on our side: First, hand over Sugitani Zenjuubo who tried to assassinate me. It could hardly be pleasant if the rumors were to spread of an assassin hiding in a holy mountain used by monks for the purpose of spiritual training. 」

「Hmph, that is impossible. That useless Sugitani Zenjuubo has been exiled from Mount Hiei. We do not know where he has gone now. 」

「Dearu ka. Well, I don’t really care about that fellow, but there is not going to be any leeway in the next three conditions I am going to present. 」

「What!? That is preposterous,but I will listen to you nevertheless, uwahahahahaha! 」

「First, give us that Onmyouji who acted like a thief, sneaking into the 「Retreat of Kanegasak」uninvited and almost killing Monkey and Juubei, that bastard Tsuchimikado Hisanaga! 」

「….Hmph… I see… if you just want us to hand him over, then it should be okay. 」

(Oh? He agreed to hand him over rather easily… Maybe they’re planning to use him to lure us into a trap somewhere?)

Nobuna started to have doubts, but now wasn’t the time to hesitate.

「Second, Mount Hiei must sign an agreement to never help the Azai and Asakura clans ever again, and will disarm all monks from this day forth and return the disciples back to the original tasks of a monk. 」

「What is this disarming you’re talking about!? Are you an idiot? How is that sort of thing possible!? 」

「Refusing is not an option here! Originally, monks should not take up arms. Isn’t your job supposed to be to worship Buddha and save the common folk to get closer to the essence of Buddhism? If you love fights, how about you go become a soldier or a mercenary instead!? As a soldier, I will not object to you going to war for the conquest of unifying the world. Those men who are not willing to stop being a monk, yet still want to wave their weapons around, you guys are just too shameful, and that shamefulness of your is not going to be tolerated! 」

The female warriors of the Oda clan stared at Gosei silently.

“Uwahh, what is with this pressure?! Just a few of them were able to produce such an immense pressure I have never felt before! 」

Gosei replied with difficulty, his face breaking out into a cold sweat.

「Do you agree to this condition or not? If you don’t disarm completely and stop supporting both the Azai and Asakura clans, you monks will be burned to ashes along with your mountain! This is not a threat, it is a promise, and a final warning at the same time! 」

「You truly mean that the Monks will not spared if we refuse to accept your conditions?! 」

「You are monks in appearance only! Aren’t you guys just soldiers grouped together and pretending to be monks out of convenience!? Waging war means that people are going to die, no matter what side they’re on! To us warriors, we are betting our own lives on this battle! Just attacking us one-sidedly, daring us to retaliate so you can use your bullshit reasoning as an excuse for committing more bloodshed, saying we were disrespectful towards Buddha; we don’t take kindly to that kind of bullshit here! 」

「But… but monks without any weapons who have not broken any rules, monks that are high in moral values should be plentiful on Mount Hiei, shouldn’t they?

(In actual fact, we chased away all those monks when they started lecturing us, but she doesn’t need to know that…)

Gosei thought in his heart, as his tone couldn’t help it but to shake a bit. But the next words from Nobuna gave Gosei an even bigger shock.

「Those monks who ignored all your wrongs for all these years, they are all guilty as well! 」

「Yo…You really don’t have any respect towards Buddhism, do you!? You deserve heavenly punishment, you brat! 」

「Wrong! What I don’t respect are those hypocrites and despicable bastards who hide behind the symbol of Buddhism as they do all kinds of bad things! If there really is a God or Buddha, they will never punish me for punishing these villains in their place! 」

「That’s why I say… It’s because you have ideas like that that we decided to reason with you at all… 」

Gosei mumbled.

「Then, this is the last condition! This is the most important one and I’ll never compromise on it, so you make sure to listen well now! 」

「There is more!? What is it this time, what’s the third condition? 」

「The place to sign the peace agreement must be at the main hall of Mount Hiei! I will personally go into Mount Hiei and sign it! 」

「That is the one thing I could never allow!! 」

Gosei shouted with fury as he stood up violently.

「Stop joking around, you damn brat! You are a western barbarian lover and punishment deserving fool! The main hall of Mount Hiei’s temple is a holy place that has housed and worshipped the ‘Holy Flame’ for several centuries! To Mount Hiei, it’s like the heart, the most holy place of all! IT IS IMPOSSIBLE TO ALLOW UNCLEAN WOMEN LIKE YOU TO ENTER IT LIKE IT WAS NOTHING! 」

* * *

As such, any further negotiations were on the tip of breaking.

「What the hell are you doing? Just a little more and we would have had it! Wouldn’t it be fine if I signed the agreement on your behalf? 」

「Shut up, Monkey. A guy like you won’t understand, but doing things like prohibiting women in this new era that has accepted the western culture is inexcusable!… We will be too outdated if we continue treating women as unclean! That fallen monk’s expression seemed to say, ‘Ahh, because of all the female warriors, the air here had become dirty…’, and it pisses me off! I can’t help it if I just subconsciously added another condition to screw him over! 」