We are in the thick of it. My whole body is caked with blood, making it difficult to breathe without smelling the sweet metallic scent of it. I try not to kill the samurai of the Neji clan without aim, choosing only to incapacitate them if possible.

Ryuu is at my back, and I'm sure that he's already ripped open a few of the wounds on his face though he would never admit it. Further beyond me, Taro is back to back with Nobuyuki, the two of them working in sync like they have trained together before.

However, something seems strange about the various groups scattered throughout the field, and between slashing at the opposing side with my katana, I search for my ally. The last I had saw of him, he had been standing atop a hillside with his bow, actually being useful for once.

"Ryuu," I call as I reach for a knife and cut through one of the men's wrists with it, "where is Shigeru? Do you see him?"

My general only grunts, and I see his own katana slash before him. "No, Jun, there's no sign of him. Do you believe the coward to have abandoned us once more?"

I growl under my breath, sweeping my leg underneath those approaching me to knock them to the ground. Threats eliminated for the moment, I scan the area again, noticing this time that our forces seem smaller than they had at the beginning.

"It's over, Junichi!" Raiden yells from amongst the chaos, though I cannot see him. "The ever-cowardly Shigeru has shown his true colors once again. You are outnumbered!"

"Lies," I whisper to Ryuu. "He waits until the battle is in full force. Never has he abandoned his allies upon the first day, and he would be a fool to leave while one of those in Shogun Fujioka's service is here."

I see a flash of sun against metal out of the corner of my eye, but my wearied body reacts too late. The samurai's face is twisted into a grimace as his katana scrapes along my side, leaving behind a line of fire to remind me of its path.

Biting back the scream of frustration that boils in my chest, I throw my knife, watching in a haze as it sinks deep into his chest. Blood gurgles out of his mouth before he pitches face-first upon the already blood-saturated dirt.

As I found prone to happen, the wound merely makes me more energized despite the fact that my mind is telling me that I should be on the ground wailing. My own blood is mingling with the blood of those I have injured and killed thus far, and I leave the security of my general behind to storm into the midst of the other fighters.

Anger boiling in my veins at the thought that the coward has left us to fight his battle for him, I slash out at anyone wearing the Neji crest that dares to cross my path. Gone is the thought that I would spare these men, that I would leave them to return to their family waiting for them. All that remains for me is a mass of pain and rage, some of which has been suppressed within my body for years.

I don't know how long it is until I find that there is no one left around me, and that those remaining have all skirted about me. My clothing is heavy with blood, and with a sigh, I fall to the ground, katana slipping from my grasp.

My side protests, but I ignore it, weariness allowing me to not care. When a shadow shades me from the sun, I reach out for my weapon, only to realize that it's Ryuu. My general silently crouches next to me, blood streaming down his face from where a cut across his forehead has reopened.

"You are bleeding," I mutter, dipping my fingers into the line of blood, my entire body numb. "Why don't you try to not cause yourself more pain? We may be in the middle of a battle, but I still need you at the best you possibly can be."

"Speak for yourself, Jun," he scolds lightly, and I remember for a moment that he likely saw that I took a wound in my side. I scramble to remember why I wouldn't want him to look at the damage, but the haze in my mind has become worse with my exhaustion. "Most would halt when their blood is leaking out of them, instead of charging headlong into the worst of the battle."

"I think he's earned the title the Bloody Terror for a reason. The sight of your fighting was like that of a vengeful spirit," Nobuyuki comments, joining us. He, too, is coated in blood, but I can't tell how much of it is his.

I struggle to sit up until Ryuu props me up gently. Squinting into the sun, I assess the carnage that surrounds us. For a moment, I wonder how many of those bodies I fell before the thought drifts away like a cloud blown away on a windy day. It's harder and harder to focus, and I try to remember whether I took any more wounds in my blind rage.

"Shigeru?" I ask weakly, seeing Taro picking his way towards us. Not surprising that he looks just as awful as the rest of us.

Nobuyuki looks towards Ryuu before saying, "He's gone. However, he left at least fifty of his men behind in his haste to get away. My guess is that he is safely secluded back within his fortress by now."

I slump back against my general, not even making the effort to hide my disgust at the development. "That's that then. Are the men ready to head out as soon as possible?"

"You're not leaving yet, are you?" The shinobi questions, surprise clear on his face. "Surely you will not concede defeat to the Neji clan despite the fact that Lord Aikawa has disappeared to safety."

"Jun never said that we are abandoning this battle. With Shigeru gone and Raiden likely planning his journey back, it's up to us to initiate the next move. However, I don't think you're in any shape to travel, Jun, much less follow through with what your plan will involve," my general defends us, voice rumbling through my body as he speaks.

I plant my hands on the ground and push myself up, shaking off his hand of assistance. "I am determined to see this through. That man barely scraped me up, and I can most definitely continue to lead my men."

Ryuu's gaze drifts down to my injured side, and I follow his eyes to find that there is still fresh blood coating my garments in that area. I run my fingers across it, refusing to show how much it pains me before telling him, "It's not my blood. I am sure that I pick it up when my katana took down another person."

That thought churns my stomach more than usual, and I start to realize that I have once again slaughtered someone's child, someone's husband, someone's father. I feel my face blanch, but when the three men all reach for me at the same time, I brush aside their hands angrily.

"If you want someone to fuss over, find our men who are lying there on the ground. I'm not dead yet, I'm definitely not dying, and I don't want you hovering over me like I am about to die," I hiss, reaching for my katana.

Swiftly, I wipe the blade along my already ruined clothes before sheathing it. "I will be back at my tent. Once you assess the damage done to us this day, you can come report to me. I want to know when you believe we will be able to move out because I will not risk Raiden beating us to where I want to be. And if one of you finds my dagger, I want it back. No use burying a good weapon with the man it killed."

I can feel their eyes boring into my back as I stagger off, exhaustion and blood loss weighing down my feet. However, I straighten my spine, despite the fire it sends racing across my body, and refuse to let them see how I truly feel. In my head, I can still hear my father telling me that to show any weakness was to show them who I truly was.

When Nobuyuki enters my tent, I am seated on the ground, staring at the wound slicing down my side. He kneels to look at it closer, gently touching the dried blood with his finger.

"You're lucky," he says as he reaches into the bowl of water I have next to me. "The bleeding was mostly halted by your kimono sticking to it. Though I imagine that it stung when you peeled off your clothing."

"I can't feel anything," I whisper, feeling disconnected from my body as he starts to carefully wash away the rest of the blood. He leaves the already-clotted portion alone. "It's like a part of me left when I started cutting people down, and it has yet to return to me. I have killed before, but there was something different about it this time. I have become someone that even I do not recognize with the person my father created me to be warring with the person that has been suppressed within me."

The shinobi focuses on the wound, not looking at me, but I can almost hear his mind churning through what I had just. Finally, after he has bandaged my side, he sits back. "It is surprising that you haven't had a problem like what you are describing before. Part of that might be the fact that your father had managed to bury who you should have been so deep inside yourself that it took about a year for it to finally start to force its way out. You are a woman who has been grown up within a man's world, and maybe your father was trying to make sure that you had a better opportunity to thrive despite the fact that you are female."

I start to protest, but Nobuyuki holds up a hand to silence me. "I'm not saying what he did was right. When we are making difficult decision, our minds often try to rationalize them with partially fabricated lies. I believe that's what happened with your father. His choice to present you as a boy was born out of his desire to see his clan live on under his family, but the further into the lie he got, the more he thought that he was doing it for you, rather than for his own desires."

"I don't think he ever realized how much he was taking away from me," I answer, pulling my kimono back up about my shoulders and securing it. "I didn't realize how much it really was until I got older and the differences between the males and me became more prominent. He stole my chance for a family, my choice as to who I wanted to become, and my very identity as the person I could have been. I keep trying to forgive him and remember the good things he did for me, but it becomes harder and harder the more I find that I am losing."

"This is about Ryuu, isn't it?" He asks, but he doesn't wait for my answer before continuing. "The others may miss it or paint it as something other than what it is, but there's a deep longing in your eyes whenever you are around him."

"He is my eldest friend. Our fathers encouraged the friendship, knowing that one day we would likely lead the clan together. What we all seemed to miss was the fact that it was going to grow into something deeper on my part, and there was nothing that I could do about it.

"I know that Ryuu isn't interested in me as long as he thinks me to be a man because despite the rumors, he has no longing for those of his own gender. He won't be one of those who casually enters a relationship either because his father only ever loved one woman, and Ryuu takes more after his father than either of them seemed to realize."

Nobuyuki studies me. "What is the story with his parents?"

I close my eyes, knowing that even after all these years the pain likely still lingered within my general. "The woman that Igarashi Nobuo took as his wife was not one he loved. It was an arranged marriage, and while there grew to be respect on both sides, it never flourished into love. When the former Lady Igarashi died in childbirth, Nobuo felt as if he was free to pursue the one who held his heart within her hands.

"She refused to marry him, but he was pleased to find that she agreed to become his concubine. He had hope that after time within each other's presence her heart would grow as fond of him as his was of her. It was not to be. After four years together, she was heavy with his child, and Nobuo's heart was overjoyed with the development. With a child to bind them together, he wanted to make the arrangement more permanent than she had allowed him to in the past."

With a sigh, I scrub a hand across my face. "However, a few days after she gave birth to Ryuu, she abandoned the two of them, running as far as she possibly could. Lord Igarashi searched for her with a heavy heart for two and a half years before finding that she had sought shelter with the Aikawa clan. Even after all these years, Ryuu has not truly forgiven his mother for leaving his father heartbroken and has not forgiven the former Lord Aikawa for hiding her away."

"What happened to her?" He asks softly, both of us aware that Ryuu could walk in on the conversation at any moment. "Is she still with the Aikawa clan?"

"Rumor has it that she is still with them and that Shigeru has taken her as one of his concubines. I am only grateful that she has borne no more children, for she has already shattered the heart of the one she possesses."

Ryuu and Taro enter the tent a few minutes later to find the two of us staring at each other silently. I see something new in Nobuyuki's eyes when he looks at my general, but it's not pity. If I didn't have so many other things to think about, I might have interpreted it as respect. I'm just glad to see that knowing where Ryuu came from hasn't caused the shinobi to look down upon him.

"Lord Neji will likely not break camp for a couple of days," Taro says, lowering his body to the ground as well. "He seems confident in his victory and more worried about tending to the more gravely wounded than getting home."

I nod ever so slightly, pushing away the memories and pain in order to focus on the plan that I had concocted. "Send those wounded and those unable to handle what we are about to do back with everything we can spare. If we travel light and quickly, we shall beat Raiden and his forces to the interception point. His underestimation of us may very well spell his undoing."

"Are you sure that we should be speaking of this before the shinobi? I am still not convinced that he has truly come from the Shogun's service," Ryuu tells me with a scowl at Nobuyuki, who merely smiles calmly.

"Don't you worry, general. My lips are sealed tighter than the treasure trove of the greediest person to walk the earth. Whatever secrets you reveal here will not leave this tent until the proper time."