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Volume 5 Chapter 1 Part 1

Chapter 1 : Oda Nobuna’s Imperial Wrath

The time is the Sengoku Era. The season is the winter of the month of December.

Mountain castle, Kyoto.

At Myoukaku-dera, where he temporarily resided, Sagara Yoshiharu, the ordinary high school student who had fallen through time to the Sengoku era, had been consoling a cross-dressing gentleman since morning.

「Monkey-kun, I can’t take it anymore. I think I should just become a monk. 」

The one who said that was Tsuda Nobusumi, formerly Oda Nobukatsu, also known as Kanjuuro. With his feminine and delicate, doll-like looks, anyone could tell that Nobusumi was the brother of Oda Nobuna.

Nobuna, for the sake of a prank she wanted to pull on Azai Nagamasa, had tasked him with the misfortune of becoming 「Princess Oichi」, after which he was married off Nagamasa, who was the Daimyo of the Southern Omi province and the head of the Azai clan at that time.

Even Yoshiharu felt it was a tragedy having to cross-dress as a girl and be married off to a guy for the rest of your life… no, to be perfectly honest, for him, it was beyond tragedy.

「Listen to me, Monkey-kun. though I can’t say the reason, I am now sinking into the bottom of the sea of sadness. 」

「Nobusumi, it’s not like I can’t understand what you’re feeling right now, but no matter how much you are going to regret it, what has happened has already happened. There is no point crying over spilt milk and waste your time on what-ifs.」

「No, you will never understand! Ahh… My happiness has flown away. The lost past and times of happiness will never return to me again…. 」

「Umm, with this situation, it would be a little hard to return to your innocent self, always traveling with a squad full of pretty girls and fooling around all day, but it would be better if you forgot about your days spent in Omi. 」

「HOW COULD I FORGET THEM!?「

「I understand your feelings now, I really do. But political marriages are something that can’t be helped in this Sengoku era. Though you must be feeling angry for being married off as a princess to a guy, please don’t bear a grudge against Nobuna for it. 」

「You are totally off-topic, Monkey-kun. Ahh, as expected, you could never understand the reason for my sadness… 」

(But, I can’t reveal Nagamasa’s secret to anyone else… Ahh, what should I do!?)

「Anyway, you don’t need to cross-dress anymore, so hurry and put on some guy clothes! I can understand the feeling of wanting to cross-dress as a little jab at Nobuna, but let bygones be bygones already! 」

「No, I can’t tell anyone the reason I’m sad, but I hope someone can discover the pain in my heart. Ahhh, how hard it is. 」

「That’s why, Nobusumi, I can understand your pain. I’ll bet Nagamasa said something along the lines of: ‘Even if you are a hunk and not a cute girl, I do not care at all!’ And then, he did many humiliating and embarrassing things that you definitely do not want to tell anyone else about to you, right? ‘Trap’ have many loyal fans in my era, but in this era, ‘lolis’ seem to be more popular… Regardless, I believe that if you just give it some time, you will eventually forget about all of the suffering that has happened to you. 」

「I said it’s not like that~ !!! 」

(Ahh, how can I let other people know my true feelings without revealing Nagamasa’s secret? Language is just such a difficult thing.)

With an elegant princess-like pose, Nobusumi stuffed his mouth full of Yatsuhashi, a Kyoto delicacy, and refused to delve any deeper into the subject.

Omi’s Daimyo, Asai Nagamasa, was actually a gorgeous maiden who had cross-dressed as a man out of obligation she felt towards her clan. There was an extraordinary female beauty under her manly appearance.

Maybe it was due to their similar cross-dressing situation, Nobusumi because of his sister’s prank and Nagamasa because of her father’s wishes, but the two of them seemed to fit each other perfectly and quickly became a loving husband and wife.

But Nagamasa, known best perhaps for her filial piety, failed to stop her father Hisamasa. After reclaiming his title as the head of the Azai clan, Hisamasa voided the alliance with the Oda clan and joined Echizen’s Asakura Yoshikage to attack the Oda clan’s territory in Owari, Mino, Southern Omi and Kyoto.

After many harrowing situations, Nobusumi was separated from Nagamasa by force and came back to Nobuna alone.

Right now, Nobusumi faced the tragedy of having to face his beloved wife as an enemy. But, even if she had become an enemy, she was still his beloved wife. With these feelings intact, Nobusumi had never thought to reveal Nagamasa’s closely guarded secret to anyone, even his older sister. However, this meant he would be unable to convey his emotional pain to anyone. Faced with this dilemma, he had been depressed since morning, staring out into the courtyard of Myoukaku-dera and sighing all the while.

Before even thinking of marriage, Sagara Yoshiharu had never even had a girlfriend, leaving him oblivious to Nobusumi’s complicated feelings.

「How pitiful. That ‘training’ you must have gone through must have been unimaginable… If that bastard forcefully pushed me down and did lots of humiliating things t me, I think I would be traumatized for the rest of my life… Ahh, I understand . Nobusumi, though your heart is still resisting, your body is lusting for Nagamasa… So you can’t give up those female clothes… How sad. How truly, truly sad! 」

Yoshiharu lamented, his understanding branching off in a strange direction.

「It’s not like that~!!! 」

(But I can’t say it out loud.)

Nobusumi moaned with a sigh.

In Nobuna’s camp, the only few who knew Nagamasa’s secret of actually being a girl were the ninja, Hachisuka Goemon and her subordinates, but Nobusumi had begged her not to reveal it after considering Nagamasa’s situation. As a result, Yoshiharu right now was just one of many unable to understand the real reason for Nobusumi’s agony.

「Listen to me, Nobusumi. Think of all those memories of what happened in Omi as a nightmare and forget them, and then you can go back to being your old, pure self! 」

His eyes sparkling with brightness, Yoshiharu cheered Nobusumi up.

This totally out of perspective life consultation in the Myoukaku-dera’s courtyard had been continuing on for quite a while.

「Uhh, Monkey-kun, this conversation doesn’t seem to be helping much. I’m going over to Honno-ji to find Nobuna-onee-sama. 」

「Find Nobuna? I think you better forget it. She has not been in a good mood recently. She hasn’t said a thing to me since that night where she witnessed me rubbing Katsuie’s breasts and immediately threatened to cut my head off… 」

Yoshiharu mumbled.

「No matter how you look at it, didn’t you go too far that night? After Nagamasa’s betrayal, Kai’s Takeda Shingen has earnestly begun preparations to come to Kyoto. To Nobuna-onee-sama, Kyoto isn’t the only concern. Both Owari and Mino’s defenses are a pressing issue already, so it shouldn’t be strange at all that her mood right now is ten times worse than normal. 」

「How troubling. 」

Nobusumi mumbled, a frown showing itself on his brow.

When Nobuna and the Oda clan attacked Echizen’s Asakura clan, her ally, the Azai Clan defected to the side of the enemy and blocked off their retreat path. After finally getting through their greatest crisis, the 「Retreat at Kanegasaki」, challenge after challenge assaulted the Oda clan. Though this served to unite the Oda clan more than ever, they found themselves in yet another rough situation. Without letting the Oda clan catch its breath after the battle with the Azai-Asakura allied forces, now the Daimyo of the Sengoku era: Takeda Shingen started to surround them along the north and east.

Should they abandon Kyoto after struggling so much to obtain it so as to protect Owari and Mino, or do they spread their army thin to defend against a two-pronged attack from the enemy? That was the dilemma they were facing now.

Did Nobuna have what it takes to be the conqueror of the world? This crisis would test her resolve like none other before.

If she abandoned Kyoto now, the path to conquer the world would stretch even further into the distance. But the enemy had spread out a tight web around her. If the Oda clan’s army remained scattered, they would most likely be eliminated one by one. Saito Dosan, who was in charge of protecting Owari and Mino, did not have enough manpower to fight Takeda off, but if Nobuna abandoned Kyoto to support Dosan, the Azai-Asakura allied forces would definitely snatch Kyoto away from Nobuna.

「It hasn’t even been a month yet since the forced peace agreement with the Azai-Asakura forces, but if Takeda Shingen really marches out, the Azai and Asakura clans will definitely start the war again. Plus, their armies will be different from the last time. Now, the one leading the Azai clan’s troops is the seasoned warrior Azai Nagamasa, so the situation will definitely become even more difficult… 」