Xiahou Dun and Xiahou Yuan personally led a force of 4,000 men on horseback and made their way to Juan castle as fast as they can as soon as the messenger arrived for them at Xu Chang. They plan to rendevouz with Chen Gong at Juan castle and come up with a strategy to

'Can you believe that Lu Bu of all people want to really challenge our lord? I knew people think he's a beast but I didn't think he had the intelligence of one.' Xiahou Yuan laughs heartedly before almost falling off his horse and regained his composure soon after as he and his brother were right at the front of the forces.

'He maybe a beast of chaos but a beast like him must be put down as soon as possible unless we want him to have a rampage through the land.' Dun replies with a look of determination on his face.

'yeah I suppose you're right. It is odd how he attacked us of all people while we're away.'

'Maybe, but we have Chen Gong defending the castles for the moment he should help keep them at bay. However he'll still need our help if we want to repel Lu Bu and his forces.' A few hours later of constant riding they finally reached the other side of the Juan Castle where there was no corpses. Dun and Yuan hailed the gatekeepers and ordered them to open the gate. The gates open slowly as they reveal Cao Xing the 4th officer dressed in prefect robes alone.

'Ahh thank you very much for coming my lords, you came just in time we're expecting the enemy to arrive very soon.' He replies with worry present in his voice as he invites them in the castle. It took a few minutes before all the men were in the castle and dismounted from their horses. A few of the soldiers disguised in the uniforms of Cao Cao's forces took them to the newly acquired stables. Zang Ba leads the reinforcements through a specific street in the middle of the castle.

'So what's the situation here?' Xiahou Dun questions getting straight to business as he and Xiahou Yuan briskly made their way to Cao Xing's side.

'Yan Castle is under full assault by the enemy while a small strikeforce have been sent to attack us here. I've sent most of my men to hold them off while the reinforcements arrive. Chen Gong recommended we stay put and attempt to perform a pincer attack rather than attack the enemy head on with the numbers we have. '

'Speaking of which where is that guy?' Yuan asked.

'He's overseeing the defences over at Yan Castle. However now that you're here once the horses have rested we can execute the pincer attack.' He replies as the troops are all funnelled in this street surrounded by various small buildings.

'No, we can't wait any longer Yan castle might fall in the time for rest. The horses rest can wait.' Dun replies as he goes back to his forces while Yuan shakes his head in response and follows suit. Cao Xing seeing no other choice smirks and proclaims 'NOW!' All of a sudden Lu Bu's forces emerged from the buildings to the sides even from on top of the ceilings with archers there looking to pick off a couple in the middle. The reinforcements panicked as a lot of them died in the initial charge of the surprise ambushers. Among them the other officers began slaughtering the enemy in front of them.

'Its an ambush hold firm!' Dun shouts as he blocks an incoming attack from a soldier and slashes his chest. The street started to be filled with the corpses from both sides however the reinforcements from Cao Cao's force were in the majority. Every soldier was fighting for their life as they fought, each swing of their weapon had as much strength as they can muster. Each slash from Xiahou Dun's blade he slashed a soldier. There were too many for them to handle.

'Yuan! Try to make an exit and open the gatehouse!' he orders right before he blocks a fierce attack from Zhang Liao and they stared at each other with determination to win over the other one while in a deadlock.

'You got it brother!' Yuan replied as he used his sword to carve a way through the enemy ambush to the gates they just entered from. He slices his way through enemy soldiers as a single strike from his sword is enough to kill them. Both Xiahou Dun and Zhang Liao push with all their might and jump back from one another and are surrounded by their respective soldiers fighting. Zhang Liao was the first to lunge forward to Dun striking hard with his right hand axe. Dun blocks it and keeps to his feet. Zhang Liao tries striking one at a time on each side, still Dun deflects all the attacks. Zhang Liao uses both of axes to strike at once horizontally. Dun ducks and thrusts his sword at his stomach. Zhang Liao side steps and overhead slashes his right handed axe. Dun Rolls out of the way and slashes an enemy soldier immediately after standing up. This time Dun took the initiation at Zhang Liao.

While the duel took place between those two Mitsuko was in the middle of the fight unable to use her scythe because of the cramped conditions and she didn't want to get scolded for 'friendly fire' so she leaves the scythe in the building where she was hiding and is only equipped with her odd marking sword. Wielding only her sword with her right hand was weird for her, however she did have to admit it has its benefits as she quickly diagonally slashes an enemy soldier in her path with ease. She sees Xiahou Yuan amidst the crowd of combatants and thought he was moving a little too fast to be simply defending himself. She then saw the direction where he was going, the gatehouse.

'Oh so that's how you want to play is it? I might not know what's going to happen once you two are dead but I can't just let you get away scot free.'Mitsuko sadistically smirked and licked her top lip as she attempted to make her way towards Xiahou Yuan. There were just too many enemy combatants still despite the heavy losses they took in the initial attack. One attempted to lung at Mitsuko as soon as he stabs his enemy and turns to see her. She deflected the attack but the momentum was too much for him to recover as he runs forward to the side of her. She horizontally slashes him in the chest making him drop backwards onto the ground. She continued her approach to Yuan as she killed a few of the soldiers from behind with a simple slash as she passes them fighting another soldier. One soldier attempted to strike at Mitsuko aiming for her head as the blade comes towards her from the side. She blocks it milliseconds before it made contact with her. She pushes the blade away and stabs the soldier in the stomach making him bend over the wound. She quickly removed the blade, raised it high up and crashed it down on his neck cleaving the head off cleanly. The body slumps to the floor as Mitsuko steps over the headless corpse to continue her rather slow advance.

All of a sudden she hears louder than normal yelling behind her, she turns around to see a soldier wearing a lighter shade of blue uniform with a bandana and looking noticeably younger wearing a serious look on his face charging towards her. She blocks the attack and two were in a deadlock. His eyes contains hatred for her and she has no idea why.

'YOU!' He yells at her as he pushes her back with all of his might and striking from above. She blocks the attack in time before pushing him back while she stays in place.

'Have we met before?' She looks at him with confusion.

'No we haven't, but if you aren't stopped we will soon enough and I don't want that to happen again.' He lunges forward and thrusts his sword at Mitsuko who is just confused.

'What the fuck does that mean!?' She yells back as she deflects the attack to her right and attempts to cut his neck because of the momentum. The enemy went on his knees and slides down below the sword and rolled forward to get back to his feet quickly. She turned around with the intention of striking at the same time, he had the same idea and the two blades clashed once again. He opened his eyes with shock as he saw the strange markings on Mitsuko's sword.

'WHAT HAVE YOU DONE!?' He shouts as he headbutts her making her stagger backwards as she barely had enough time to block the overhead strike as she recovered.

'How dare you stain this sacred blade with your filthy corruption! Its just one more thing you have to pay for!' He yells in her face before she lands a hook punch with her left fist, he staggered backwards and rubs his face and sees that she's staring at the ground with her short onyx hair covering her eyes.

'Look...I don't know what the fuck you are talking about or why you have such a vendetta against me when I don't even know who you are...however...' She used her lefthand to move her hair up and reveals her eye colours brighter than they were at the beginning of the battle, piercing through his gaze.

'I find it strangely amusing and I have no idea why. I just want to laugh in all honesty, it feels oddly nostalgic...well no matter I think its time I turn you into a corpse!' The unknown enemy charges angrily at Mitsuko striking from above, she blocks it with ease. He attempted to continue his assault and strikes in all directions and angles. Even though they were such strength behind each swing they were sloppy as Mitsuko could deflect them easily. He put almost too much strength in his swings as each one got progressively sloppier and sloppier. They moved around the street eventually finding themselves fighting next to the walls of one of the buildings. He put too much momentum in his thrust as Mitsuko side steps to her left and thrusts her blood stained sword into his arm before he could retract it. She pierced the elbow and the tip barely pierces into the wall. He screamed in agony as he clutches the sword with his free arm as he drops his sword with his pinned arm, he tried to remove it from his arm. Mitsuko pulls it away, removes the sword and kicks him in the stomach knocking him down as he clutches his wound. Mitsuko plants her foot on his abdomen and smirks as she hovered the sword over his heart. Panic and fear was present in his eyes. All of a sudden she looks up as she hears metallic creaking to see the gate being opened.

'Ahh shit!' she speaks out loud as the unknown enemy soldier kicks her in the stomach with his right foot. He gets up clutching his arm wincing in pain trying to bear with it, however his facial expressions betray him. She gets up as quick as she could and sees he's in a wounded state.

'I'll be back, you'll get yours you murderer!' he exclaims as he retreats through the gate followed swiftly by many of the remaining soldiers who fled as fast as they could. Xiahou Yuan was seen on top of the gate picking targets off one by one with his bow to try and cover their escape. Xiahou Dun hears the metallic creaking and smirks as he pushes Zhang Liao back from yet another deadlock. Cao Xing in the meantime made his way to the other gatehouse and sees that Xiahou Dun was going to strike Zhang Liao from above as he staggered back. He readies his bow and shoots him right in his right eye before he landed a blow. He yells as he clutches the arrow and staggered backwards. Hearing this several soldiers acted like his body guards trying to ensure his survival as they retreated, most of them giving their lives up in the process. Xiahou Yuan whistles loudly and a chestnut horse began to gallop through the streets and eventually make it to the gatehouse where Yuan jumped off from the wall and onto the horse and covered his brother's retreat as he began to shoot enemy soldiers with his bow with two arrows at once. When Dun was near enough he gets him on his horse and they exit the castle. As they left Zhang Liao led a cry of victory to his forces as everyone else joined in, raising their weapons as high as they can and letting their voices be heard. Mitsuko meanwhile feels suddenly fatigued and had to lean on the wall with her hand. Her eyes changed to their normal colours. She had no idea why she suddenly felt exhausted she was doing fine up until this point. She began to think about the feelings she experienced they were so alien to her...and yet they were strangely familiar. She wondered why this was, what did she do to make him angry at her...and why did she find it amusing? When she imagined his face for some reason she got angry but she didn't know why however it felt...almost right for her to do so like it was as natural as breathing to her.

'Hey you ok?' Zang Ba questions as he puts his shoulder on Mitsuko.

'Yeah I'm fine...just exhausted you know?' She responds as Zang ba laughs heartily.

'Haha I can understand that, just don't push yourself too hard all right?' He pats her on the back and moves on. Mitsuko took a deep breath and regained herself and followed Zang Ba since she had nothing else to do. She hears Zhang Liao orders to various soldiers to raise the banner of Lu Bu on the flagpoles scattered in pockets of the castle walls to show that the castle belongs to them. Unbeknownst to her as she sheaths her blade the snake marking continue to the tip of the blade coated with black, the engraving of the outline of the snake could be seen on closer inspection as if it was wrapping itself around the blade.

Dodomeki and Gyuki meanwhile watched the whole battle from a mountain nearby and was impressed by Mitsuko's performance.

'Ooh that was real good, I like it when she got that mystic haha got him real good!' Gyuki yells excitedly.

'Heh indeed.'

'Should we finish him off?'

'No. He seems to have blended in with the humans we'll be exposing ourselves too much if we finish him off now. Besides with that injury even a mystic will be out of commission for a while.' He answers as he scoffs at the fleeing mystic and turns his gaze back at Mitsuko intently like he's studying her.

'Hey what's up?'

'Nothing...its just that by now Orochi would emerge a bit by force now however that isn't the case. I knew she was taking it in her stride before though I thought that was just because lord Orochi was resting for longer or it was just her lack of knowledge. Now though...there's definitely more to her than meets the eye.' Dodomeki explains as he wonders just why that is.

'Either way it doesn't matter at the end of the day, she's developing nicely and another mystic scum is temporarily taken care of. Heh I'm impressed' Dodomeki chuckles as he and Gyuki continue to keep an eye on her.