Because it's 1:37 in morning and I hate you all. Here.
Ranma sighed as he noticed the approaching storm clouds on the horizon, their dark grey underbellies portending rain. He could only hope that he reached wherever it was the blonde girl was leading him to before the storm arrived. If he had to reveal his curse, he wanted to do it with as much control of the situation as possible. It was miracle that he hadn't changed already, having been marching alongside the army of mostly Ashigaru soldiers for nearly a day after the failure to rescue Oda Genba from Imagawa Yoshimoto's advancing army.
Just as in his history books, just the day after arriving in Owari, Yoshimoto had already brought down two of the five forts that protected the province: the fort at Mt. Marune, commanded bu Sakuma Daigaku Morishige, and the fort at Mt. Washizu, commanded by Oda Genba. Both forts fell to the numerically superior forces of the three provinces under Yoshimoto's control, a twnty-five-thousand strong army composed of men from Suruga, Totomi, and Mikawa, the latter the location of the the Imagawa clan's original holdings.
By the morning of the nineteenth day of the fifth month of 1560, the two forts had fallen to the Imagawa, both commanders slain in their defense, but not before they got out a message. It was on the eighteenth that the head of the Oda clan, pondering the state of affairs in the province from the main fort of Kiyosu Castle, received the first news of the arrival of Yoshimoto's forces. There had been no sign that Yoshimoto would do anything other than pass through on his way to Kyoto, but first appearances could be deceiving. Daybreak signalled the arrival of messengers from both forts, alerting their master to
It had made no difference in the end, hardly surprising considering the sheer weight of numbers on the Imagawa side, but nevertheless the battle hadn't been a total loss. If the Oda hadn't been there when they were, then Ranma would have most likely wound up appearing in the midst of a hostile force in enemy territory, in a land where ninjas where relatively common and often found sabotaging food supplies or assassinating officers. No, he was glad for the differences between the past history from his time, compared to the present he currently found himself trapped in.
As far as he could tell, there had been no talk of alliance between the Oda and Dosan clan of Mino, which meant that Yoshitatsu Dosan had not yet begun to give sign that he was eventually going to betray his father and
The long march was certainly mind-numbingly dull, for a martial artist whose every waking hour was filled with some form of chaos, and Ranma was just about to call it and head off on his own when he saw one of officers from the battle approaching on horseback. As the brown-haired young woman drew closer, Ranma couldn't help but stare as he noticed that even beneath what had to be a solid steel breastplate, as to bear anything else into battle was asking to be killed, he could clearly see how the motion of the horse sent certain parts of her anatomy to movement, implausible and impossible as that should have been.
He tore his eyes away just in time for her to notice him, as his luck with the sometimes opposite gender for once seemed to work his way, as she seemed not to have seen his staring. With nothing else better to do, he couldn't train properly while on the move, he stepped towards her and raised his hand in greeting, oblivious to the flinches and disbelieving looks he received from some of the nearby soldiers.
"Hey, would you mind telling me how long it is until we're wherever we're going?" If merely gesturing towards one of the officers had been enough to draw flinches, then it was no surprise that his shouted words caused the eyes of those around him to widen as they quickly stepped back from the obviously suicidal man. The officer herself looked stunned for a moment, and Ranma idly wondered just which officer she would have been in his world, before she regained control of herself, though it was only for the most part, as a vein above her had begun to pulse quite visibly.
"H-how dare you address your superior with such an uncouth tongue you, you commoner! I should strike you down for such impertinence!" Ranma's eyes grew wide as he flipped backwards to avoid having his head hit by the haft of the spear that had suddenly materialized in the officer's hands. The brown haired woman glared at him and he was forced to scramble in order to dodge her follow up strike as she dismounted her horse in a leaping strike that sent up a cloud of dust.
"Hey watch it ya dang tomboy!" The ashigaru soldiers watched with undisguised shock and awe as the strange man their leader had picked up during the last battle wove himself around a near endless flurry of blows from one of the greatest warriors in the Oda ranks. Blows that would split a man in twain where dogded by the closest of margins, strikes that would shatter armor avoided with an impossible agility.
"What is going on here?"
Just as in his history books, just the day after arriving in Owari, Yoshimoto had already brought down two of the five forts that protected the province: the fort at Mt. Marune, commanded bu Sakuma Daigaku Morishige, and the fort at Mt. Washizu, commanded by Oda Genba. Both forts fell to the numerically superior forces of the three provinces under Yoshimoto's control, a twnty-five-thousand strong army composed of men from Suruga, Totomi, and Mikawa, the latter the location of the the Imagawa clan's original holdings.
By the morning of the nineteenth day of the fifth month of 1560, the two forts had fallen to the Imagawa, both commanders slain in their defense, but not before they got out a message. It was on the eighteenth that the head of the Oda clan, pondering the state of affairs in the province from the main fort of Kiyosu Castle, received the first news of the arrival of Yoshimoto's forces. There had been no sign that Yoshimoto would do anything other than pass through on his way to Kyoto, but first appearances could be deceiving. Daybreak signalled the arrival of messengers from both forts, alerting their master to
It had made no difference in the end, hardly surprising considering the sheer weight of numbers on the Imagawa side, but nevertheless the battle hadn't been a total loss. If the Oda hadn't been there when they were, then Ranma would have most likely wound up appearing in the midst of a hostile force in enemy territory, in a land where ninjas where relatively common and often found sabotaging food supplies or assassinating officers. No, he was glad for the differences between the past history from his time, compared to the present he currently found himself trapped in.
As far as he could tell, there had been no talk of alliance between the Oda and Dosan clan of Mino, which meant that Yoshitatsu Dosan had not yet begun to give sign that he was eventually going to betray his father and
The long march was certainly mind-numbingly dull, for a martial artist whose every waking hour was filled with some form of chaos, and Ranma was just about to call it and head off on his own when he saw one of officers from the battle approaching on horseback. As the brown-haired young woman drew closer, Ranma couldn't help but stare as he noticed that even beneath what had to be a solid steel breastplate, as to bear anything else into battle was asking to be killed, he could clearly see how the motion of the horse sent certain parts of her anatomy to movement, implausible and impossible as that should have been.
He tore his eyes away just in time for her to notice him, as his luck with the sometimes opposite gender for once seemed to work his way, as she seemed not to have seen his staring. With nothing else better to do, he couldn't train properly while on the move, he stepped towards her and raised his hand in greeting, oblivious to the flinches and disbelieving looks he received from some of the nearby soldiers.
"Hey, would you mind telling me how long it is until we're wherever we're going?" If merely gesturing towards one of the officers had been enough to draw flinches, then it was no surprise that his shouted words caused the eyes of those around him to widen as they quickly stepped back from the obviously suicidal man. The officer herself looked stunned for a moment, and Ranma idly wondered just which officer she would have been in his world, before she regained control of herself, though it was only for the most part, as a vein above her had begun to pulse quite visibly.
"H-how dare you address your superior with such an uncouth tongue you, you commoner! I should strike you down for such impertinence!" Ranma's eyes grew wide as he flipped backwards to avoid having his head hit by the haft of the spear that had suddenly materialized in the officer's hands. The brown haired woman glared at him and he was forced to scramble in order to dodge her follow up strike as she dismounted her horse in a leaping strike that sent up a cloud of dust.
"Hey watch it ya dang tomboy!" The ashigaru soldiers watched with undisguised shock and awe as the strange man their leader had picked up during the last battle wove himself around a near endless flurry of blows from one of the greatest warriors in the Oda ranks. Blows that would split a man in twain where dogded by the closest of margins, strikes that would shatter armor avoided with an impossible agility.
"What is going on here?"
