Turning Swallow

Summary:

OR, One morning, four-year-old Sasaki Kojiro remembers a life not yet lived, and decides to do something about it. History changes. SI!Sasaki Kojiro. Expect general lightheartedness, but dark topics when the time comes.

CH. 17 START

From her place by the line of samurai with muskets, Oda Nobunaga called out to him.

"Sheath your blade, Kojiro." she said, "The battle is done."

The words cut through the haze of adrenaline and bloodlust that had fallen over him. He was still breathing heavily, and his hands were trembling. They were still shaking as he came down from the adrenaline high, the chemical slowly being filtered from his system. With slow and deliberate actions, he flicked his blade to the side, both to throw loose blood off of it and to check that the mekugi pin holding the sword together was still intact. It was, and crouching down to properly wipe his blade clean on the clothes of the most recent intruders, he sheathed in with one swift motion. His hands were still shaking, and any moment now, he'd crash from losing the adrenaline, but he'd done it. The course of history had been shifted, thanks to his influence and no small amount of fortune. He'd mostly been banking on the fact that traditionally, large armies couldn't move too quickly, and had been hoping to pick off enough of the enemy that a gap would open in the siege, so he and the people at Honno-ji could make a break for it. As it turned out, worry about Oda Nobunaga getting away had forced Akechi Mitsuhide into an unwise decision, convincing him to send his army ahead, while he caught up. The men had been forced to march for far too long, and a snap judgment had Mitsuhide stumble into his own demise.

He'd been lucky, Kojiro reminded himself. The shock of realizing what universe he'd been in had been enough to block out his common sense. He glanced at Nobunaga. If he'd been taken to be on Nobunaga's side by Mitsuhide and had no other options, could he have stabbed the warlord? The answer came relatively quickly, and was a yes. Kojiro even had a ready-made excuse, in what had happened to Seigen's son and grandson. Would he have felt bad? Yes, absolutely. But that wasn't the scenario he was facing now, so he tore his thoughts away from the train of thought. He'd gotten very lucky.

Kojiro pulled his hand away from where it'd been resting on his odachi. He'd been an ally in a time of crisis, but he still had to be ready to defend himself, if Nobunaga decided to back-stab him. He didn't untense even as he responded.

Kojiro spoke shortly, "Indeed it is."

Nobunaga approached him without any sign of caution or worry, even smiling as she approached him. The warlord clapped him on the back, before pulling him into a sideways-hug. Her grip was tight, and she stared him right in the eyes.

Lowly, Nobunaga said, "You're a dangerous man, Sasaki Kojiro. Not just with that blade of yours. I can see the wariness in your eyes."

Kojiro felt a pulse of alarm rush through him, before he disciplined himself. Of course, Nobunaga would be aware enough to notice that. He laughed, actually letting himself relax. The fact that Nobunaga hadn't just had him shot was a good enough sign. He could slice one bullet, but not ten. At least, not yet.

Lightly, he responded, "Some might call you a dangerous woman, too, Oda Nobunaga. I'm rather partial to the idea that actions speak louder than thoughts, though. I've thrown in my lot with you, haven't I?"

Kojiro directed the last question at her with a raised eyebrow. The woman grinned, and her grip loosed the hug they were in into an actual gesture of affection. His words had persuaded the woman of his good intentions, at least for now. Regardless of circumstance, this woman was still the most dangerous warlord in the country. Now that she had been reassured of Kojiro's intentions, she turned to the carnage around them, seeming to get lost in thought.

His first encounter with Oda Nobunaga had brought him to a mental standstill, as he realized where exactly he was. The Oda Nobunaga in front of him wasn't historical, but rather fictional, from a rather popular franchise. Yet, the woman next to him wasn't fictional. He'd seen her sword bite into flesh and severed it. She'd certainly saved his life a few times, during that heated conflict. Though, there was one thing that confused him. This Oda Nobunaga didn't look anything like how the series had depicted her. He shrugged it away. The Nobunaga in front of him had black hair, with the barest signs of gray among them, and was rather tall. She towered above him, somewhere between a foot and two feet taller than him. There were a few age lines on her face too, signs of the decades that she'd lived. Her eyes, though, were the color of freshly spilled blood, and in the torchlight, they glimmered with the thrill of a hard-fought victory when she glanced at him.

Nobunaga broke the silence that had settled between them, when she said, "I feel that I need to offer you my formal thanks, for saving my life."

In her eyes wasn't just thanks for the physical assistance, but also gratitude for pulling her out of her depression.

The warlord continued softly, a conflicted expression on her face, "I was so ready to give up, roll over, before you appeared."

That expression didn't really suit her, Kojiro thought idly, before he realized that he'd spoken the words aloud. Nobunaga's face was a strange mixture of embarrassment and confusion. He'd gained a measure of affection for the warlord, which tended to happen when you took part in life-and-death battles against army squads larger than your own military force. Go figure. Kojiro's other self had seen relationships built on much less, and those had worked out just fine.

Kojiro spoke idly, though he knew Nobunaga was listening, "You're Oda Nobunaga, warlord and Demon King. That's a burden you took on yourself. The one thing you cannot claim to be yet is Shogun of Japan. It doesn't matter if you're tired, you took this burden and you will carry it to the end. You are not to die, until you can claim that title. If not for yourself, then for the men who've followed you, like the people behind us."

"Telling me to conquer the nation isn't much in the way of comfort, Kojiro." the woman remarked wryly.

Kojiro snarked back, replying, "The way I see it, you either conquer the nation, or retire right here and now. Has your old age already caught up to you?"

"Bastard," she bit back, though the words lacked any real heat.

Nobunaga raised her hands, looking at the slight wrinkles on them, before closing her palm into a fist and bringing her hand back down.

"Right." she muttered, "You're right, Kojiro. I've already come this far, what's a little more?"

He'd gotten through to her, but he could still see that subtle sign of a tired soul in her body language and voice. Accepting death, only to be persuaded from it had to have left of physiological whiplash.

Kojiro spoke again, in a teasing tone, "Really, if the battles go particularly well, you'll have the country squared away within the next five years. From there, I'd say you've got a good decade of luxury and governance left in you, no? Perhaps you could get married to whatever poor fool catches your eyes."

Nobunaga snorted derisively, "Your tongue is a poisonous thing, Kojiro. I like that about you."

With that remark, she straightened herself, stretching away the stiffness of having been hunched over in a huddle for so long. She took a deep breath, and Kojiro turned with her, face stern, as if he hadn't just been making fun of the most powerful person in Japan, regardless of gender.

"Gather around." Nobunaga ordered.

The people crowded forwards, and Kojiro, seeing the disorder, barked loudly, "Maintain battle formations!"

Right now, it was his duty to play loyal retainer, until they were in private again.

The people straightened into orderly files, and Oda Nobunaga watched with neutral expression. Once they were all settled, Nobunaga began to speak, thanking the men for their services. Fortunately, there hadn't been any fatalities, though there had been plenty of injuries. All of those people had been placed in the main hall of Honno-ji.

"Though this battle may be over," Nobunaga spoke, "we are far from done. We have yet to subdue the army at our doorstep. With your aid, however, it will be a simple matter."

A small group of scouts were sent out towards the enemy camps, and soon enough, they reported the formation of the enemy. They'd been surrounded on all sides by twenty groups of a thousand. Even accounting for the number of people they'd killed, there were still too many to face directly. Fortunately, all that needed to be done in order to get the camps to surrender was to parade the head of their former leader to the commanders of each squad. Without him, the commanders would be too wary to move. It was one thing for their General to be a traitor and for them to follow him, but to see Oda Nobunaga carrying about their General's head and then still being willing to fight her was a different matter. The commanders had surrounded the Temple, in order to prevent escape, but had done nothing else, in order to allow their General the credit of slaying Oda Nobunaga. Seeing that the place had been surrounded, Akechi Mitsuhide had been confident in strolling right into the Temple. What'd he'd found there though, weren't his men, nor Nobunaga dead or captured. He'd seen a perfectly healthy Nobunaga surrounded by corpses, and a squad of musket-bearing samurai. Presumably, whatever commander had sent the five hundred men had been responsible for 'corralling' Nobunaga was too embarrassed to say that he'd lost so many men, and in order to preserve his dignity had come to investigate personally. That commander's body was probably somewhere around here. None of the camps were particularly active, aside from the one with the dead commander, aside from the handful of guards watching for escape.

Kojiro was dragged aside by Nobunaga, who needed him to commence preparation for the first part of 'battle' that was going to happen tomorrow. Apparently, the woman had decided that presenting Mitsuhide's head wasn't enough to get a complete surrender, and had asked Kojiro to do as he originally planned to do and use the bodies as backdrop to Nobunaga's demands. With the group of samurai assigned to him, he managed to set a scene with a gruesome enough background which would help to convince the commanderless group of soldiers to surrender quietly.

Morning came quickly enough, and a quick change of clothes and a wash saw Kojiro dressed as dignified as he could appear, given the lack of resources. Nobunaga was dressed the same, having thrown on a formal military uniform. The goal here was to show that despite the attacks last night, Nobunaga was completely unscathed. Kojiro and Nobunaga's entourage of samurai were all in place before the first soldier of the diminished camp woke up, helped along by the fact that Nobunaga had her samurai set the camps on fire. The tents being in close proximity to one another didn't help. The men of this army unit stumbled out of their tents and barracks, only to see a field made bloody by the corpses that had been dragged over it. The sight was made worse by the fact that the bodies had been spread out, and cut apart, making the deaths look much more numerous than they actually were.

Nobunaga began to speak, holding up Mitsuhide's head, "Your General is dead! Submit or die like the rest!"

Caught in what must;ve felt like an ambush, and faced with their dead General and commander, the squad was ready to surrender, and filed into place behind Nobunaga without issue. Roughly a hundred men left the ranks initially, before more and more streamed after them. The camp was emptied out, and Nobunaga moved onto the next. The army of five hundred and Mitsuhide's head was enough to convince the next squad. With one thousand five hundred men at her command, the third was swiftly recruited. By now, the soldiers being recruited realized what was going on, but had unanimously decided that since they were on the winning side, they didn't want to change that. So it went, until there was an army of thirteen thousand behind the Oda warlord. The last seven proved more difficult, having realized what Nobunaga was up to, and trying to counteract her. When the two sides met, the seven nervous commanders versus the stoic Nobunaga painted a striking picture.

She tossed the head at the feet of the commanders and spoke in a chilling tone, "Surrender."

The head rolled towards the men, and they stepped back with winces. The 'or die' part was crystal clear to anyone who was listening to the woman. The army of seven thousand merged with the army of thirteen thousand, minus the five hundred or so who'd been killed. The armies were neatly stacked together, and all snapped to attention.

Nobunaga spoke loudly, declaring, "I am in charge now. There will be no questioning of my order, nor will there be any dissent. If you want to complain, you can join the last group who tried."

With the field of limbs, blood, and bodies as a backdrop, the threat was convincing.

She continued, "We will rest here for a week, then we crush the Mori. That is all. Dismissed."

The assassination attempt at Honno-ji ended just like that, with Oda Nobunaga gaining an army and a new 'retainer.'