In their formation they stood, armed and ready, standing guard by the gaping hole in their fortress walls.
The Hojo cavalry thundered across the battlefield, weapons raised high and lips twisted in bloodthirsty snarls. They were angry and humiliated. The only thing that could bandage the wounds to their honour was the blood of Miura men.
Their infantry hurried behind them, heavy in their armour, the blue Hojo banners flying proudly. There were Imagawa birds amongst them, but their numbers were few.
In response to such a fearsome charge, in response to that unexpected explosion, to that ground shaking terror… the men were grinning.
The new Uesugi soldiers were unused to such expressions. They look around unsettled, even if the men were on their side. Still, they thought they might have understood the reason for their confidence.
"Armed and ready, are we?" Gengyo asked his generals quietly.
"I am," Rin and Akiko confirmed.
"More than ready," Morohira put in.
"Suited and booted," Rokkaku said.
"I've been ready all day," Jikouji declared.
"Sasaki and I have been stood here a while," Togashi said gruffly.
"And I too am ready," Matsudaira said.
"Good," Gengyo nodded. "Then there's some fun to be had, I would think. Draw your swords, and let us enjoy this battle, as we stand united once more."
They did not respond to his statement with words of their own, but growls, such was the extremity of their bloodthirst.
Gengyo rose his voice to speak to his men, calm and confident, despite the enemy that was racing across the battlefield to meet them. "Raise those rifles men. We have been granted with a rare opportunity – a privilege. The enemy is serving themselves to us on a silver platter!"
They cheered his words, some of them. Their battle spirits still needed rousing.
"Do they think their numbers count for anything? Have we, the Miura army, not shown time and time again that the only thing that matters is our might?"
A cheer resounded once more, louder this time. They stamped their feet against the floor and beat their weapons together.
"They still mistake us for humans! We are not! We are demons of the battlefield! Even death will not free them from our wrath!"
Even the Uesugi soldiers joined in this time, their eyes bulging with a necessary madness.
"Every battle is a privilege! Every war is a blessing! We are the fish of the battlefield – only through the spilling of our enemy's blood do we truly draw breath! Fill your lungs, men, crush the mortals in front of you! For victory!" He rose his sword high in the air, and the men joined in, screaming their cheers manically.
The Hojo men were forced to charge towards that. No doubt their aggression lost some of its edge. They could not understand why their enemy was cheering, why their morale was so high, when in but a single moment, they would sure to be slaughtered. Madness is what they saw it for and madness is what they began to fear.
"RIFLES OUT! STAGGERED FORMATION!" Gengyo barked. The men's focus was electric. His words immediately became their actions. Those men with rifles took to the front. The first row knelt down on their knees, allowing the second row to crouch down just above them and for the third to shoot from the very top.
The Uesugi men knew their part as well. They stood just behind the riflemen and they nocked their arrows.
"FIRE!" Gengyo ordered, swinging his sword down to accent his words.
Arrows sprung high into the air, out over the top of the castle walls. A cloud fell upon the charging Hojo men, killing hundreds of men at once.
Bullets raced after them, diving through the hole in the castle wall with vengeance, tearing holes in any men that were foolish enough to think that they could make it inside.
The charging Hojo cavalry wheeled off to the side, pulling away from the mainline of missile fire, and thus missing their opportunity to enter the castle. They did so with a bitterness, trotting back to safety, waiting for a better opportunity.
The Hojo ranged troops began to walk up, slow and steady, bows and bomb-throwers.
The bomb-throwers were made to look especially useless, as they could get nowhere near close enough to make use of their weaponry.
The Miura soldiers fired at will. They reloaded when they needed and then there were six more shots and six more deaths to inflict. It was a new kind of spear wall, one that extended for hundreds of yards forwards, and stopped anything from coming close.
When they realized that their surprise attack had been all but useless, the Hojo generals could be found clenching their fists in annoyance. They rearranged their soldiers, and began to march bowmen down the side of the castle, hoping to get close enough to send their arrows over the wall without being harassed by gunfire.
"Send men to operate the cannons!" Gengyo said to Matsudaira. The Grand General had already been thinking the same. He gave the signal, and a few hundred men disappeared from the formation and made their way to the still-standing walls.
It was not long until the coughing of cannon fire could be heard, drowning out the crackle of gunfire.
The Hojo bowmen bravely attempted to loose their arrows, sending a few light showers over the walls, killing several men instantly. But when the fuse was lit on the cannons, and those balls came racing towards them, their effectiveness was immediately dulled. Even the men that were not outright killed were rendered disorientated.
The Hojo forces were made to look foolish. They had invested everything that had into that surprise attack, and focused on speed rather than orderliness, but in the end it was they that seemed to be ill-prepared. With cannons and guns firing upon them, the hole in the wall mattered for nothing, for they could not get close enough to take advantage of it.
Gengyo stood with his hand on his sword, waiting for their next move.