They rode upon the palace, finally in the heart of Takeda territory.
It was painfully empty and quiet as their horses trotted down the stone path, observing the grandeur of the massive building. Its red tiled rooves curved like the wings of a dragon and its white washed walls were pure without a single smudge. The regular wooden support beams looked fresh enough to have been installed yesterday.
It was not a sight unfamiliar to them. When they breached the city walls – just as when they had breached Imagawa’s castle – it was only the servants that dared remain. Without the castle, they would lose their lively hood, and by their reasoning it did not matter who occupied the throne. Whoever they were, they would need servants to attend to them.
There was an empty row of a hundred stables, still filled with straw. Just a day prior they had housed the finest steeds that Japan had to offer, but now every one of the horses – and the men that rode them – were reduced to ash.
In front of the palace, there was a sakura tree in full blossom. It was thickly trunkened and surrounded by a deep pound full of golden koi. Only, the waters of that pond were a demonic red. As they walked around it, they found the source of that redness. The corpse of a man slumped over in front of it, a pool of dried blood running from a slash to his stomach. He still held the dagger in his hands.
He was not the only one they found that had chosen seppuku rather than surrender. The wooden floors of the palace were littered with numerous instances of bloody deaths.
"And so here we are," Gengyo said, stepping over the most recent of corpses, finally reaching the throne room at the heart of the palace. He stepped up ten steps and plonked himself in the grand wooden chair. "Conquerers."
It was difficult to be in high spirits when it seemed that all they had gained was hollow and lifeless.
"Order will have to be reinstated. We need men here to build back up what once was, whilst we keep the enemies away from our door. Yamagata, Yamamoto, that will be your duty. No one knows these Takeda lands better than you," Gengyo said, resting his chin in his hands lazily.
The two men drew their swords kneeled in front of the throne, bowing to their Lord. "It will be our honour. We will see that prosperity returns. You will have the wealth that you need to become a conqueror," Yamagata said respectfully, his voice echoing in the wide open space.
"We need men. Do what you can to recruit them. Keep what you need to uphold order and send the rest my way," Gengyo said.
"As you say, it will be done. Do you still desire the cavalry that we spoke of?" Yamagata asked.
"I do, but the men take priority. Do what you can. I will leave you with two thousand of the Uesugi lot. They should be enough to uphold your authority," Gengyo said, getting up to leave, glancing briefly around the throne room, deciding that he would not miss it.
"Are you going already, my Lord?" Yamagata asked in surprise. The other’s seemed surprised too. Jikouji had stood with the rest of them, with Akiko and Rin at his side, and Rokkau with Morohira just behind them, struggling to remain silent. All of them looked tired.
"That I am. Matsudaira requires our assistance," Gengyo said, sweeping past with his robes billowing. He was out of the palace and mounted on his horse before a single one of them could stop him. They had spent far too much time already paying their respects to the dead – it was time to keep their man amongst the living.
Akiko mounted up beside him. "Is everything alright, Tadakata?" She asked tentatively, sensing that his mood was off.
"The sooner we leave this morbid place, the better," Gengyo announced. "This is the pride of the Takeda clan. I am not welcome here. Its conquering was necessary, but it is no more than a stepping stone. I dare not linger."
He kicked his horse into a gallop and ran headfirst into the cool autumn wind, leading his men by the front. He quickly left the foot soldiers far behind, but still he did not slow. He pushed the horse hard, until both he and it were gasping for breath.
There was a stream where he stopped, an opening in a sparse forest. He stopped there and dismounted, leading his animal to the water to drink. There was a large rock nearby, it had probably been there for thousands of years. No man could manage to move it.
A carving on it caught his eye. A primitive depiction of a bird etched deeply in with a chisel. He ran his fingers across it. Time and weather had made it smooth. He wondered upon the man that had spent the time to carve it, and curiousity took him. He wandered around the rock, wondering if the sculptor had left anything else.
His suspicions were confirmed when his eyes fell upon a paragraph of faded characters. His horse nuzzled him, its nose wet from where it had been drinking. He petted it, soothing the beast and then he read aloud the words that the ancient had left behind for him.
"To ye traveller that walks this road; to ye who for which the sky has turned cold; fear not nor fear it; command the wind with power of spirit; ye who has mastered time, I beseech thee; harden your heart, your destiny is your own; o’ time traveller, you are not alone..."
Gengyo stared at that last sentence for a long time, his fingers tracing over the faded characters, wondering whether he had misread it, if it was simply what he had wanted to hear.
Either way, his army had caught up to him and there was not long to ponder.
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