Freedom. An interesting thought to the Demon General. She felt she was free enough, she was able to lead her soldiers the way she wanted and pick her own battles, but was she free in the same way as her daughter? If for some reason she didn't want to do battle today, could she say no? If she just wanted to lay on the grass and stare at the clouds all day, would she be able to?
Akaihana knew the answers to these questions. An iron tight no with no room for argument. And what of her soldiers? If she felt this way some times even with all the freedom she already had, how did they feel? They were herded about and given orders, always expected to carry them out without question. Some lived and died by those orders, knowing only violence their entire lives. What was the point of it all? She wondered. She let these thoughts go, they were starting to distract her from the coming battle. She had to be mentally present at all times, though no human had bested them yet.
Finally she lifted her sword from the grind stone and looked it over. It was nearly perfect, but there was a chip in one little spot. This must have been when she became lost in thought. This was a clear example to her of why she always had to remain focused. Too much was at stake and the battle approached.
She left her tent to go rally her soldiers, it was time for them to march on the humans.
Hours later the Demon General burst back through the flaps of her personal tent. She panted as she had run all the way from the battlefield back here in full retreat the whole time. How could this have happened? Best by a mere human on the field of battle with such a simple maneuver! A feigned retreat over a hill only to launch a counter attack once her demon army gave chace. The human general must have known the demons would always try to chance down their fleeing foes. They played right into his trap and it worked!
The Demon General knew that a full retreat was the only way to save what was left of her army, but she also knew it would not be tolerated by the Demon King. He would rather see one of his own army fully defeated and having done their best to take as many as the enemy with them than to suffer the humiliation of a retreat.
Akaihana knew she couldn't return north to her home. No matter how competent a general she was, how many battles she had won before, how many warriors she had birthed, a single defeat by retreat would have her stripped of her rank and sent to labor away in the mines until her dying day. Once there, there would be no chance at redemption, only shame until the end.
She knew there was only one way to recover from this defeat and that was to take what was left of her forces and try to claim victory another day. If she regrouped and then hunted down the army and general that had bested them, then there would be no one to tell of their retreat that day.
She did just that. Her men had followed her back to the camp and gathered everything they could in just a moment's notice before retreating further. She knew the humans would come for them until they found their camp, so it had to be relocated before her army could regroup and heal.
Once they had gathered what they needed the Demon General led her men further into the forest, leaving their tents behind as a distraction for the humans as they made their escape.
Akaihana laid next to her master in the huge comfy bed in one of the many guest bedrooms in the manor. Though this bed was oddly larger than what she had seen in human dwellings before and she had the suspension that they had been given a far larger bed to accommodate the pair of their larger bodies. A kind thought from the Master of the house if it were true.
She laid there thinking about all that had happened that had led her here. How much things had changed and how fast. She watched her Master sleep. Barric Ironstorm the same man who was once the young General who had defeated and humiliated her, was now her true Master. It was a bit embarrassing when she thought about it, but in the end he was the one who had saved her from the Demon King's lies by showing her the truth about the great pleasure of life their King had been hiding from them.
She felt something welling up in her chest. A feeling she had not had in a long time, or perhaps even never in her life. She wanted something, something for herself. Not another meaningless victory for the demon king, or to crush his enemies for him, but finally something just for her. In fact it was two things.
She wanted to win this competition, as ridiculous as the whole thing was. She wanted to show her Master she could be a proper maid. They had come so far and victory was so close.
There was something else she had not thought of in a long time, or rather someone else. She wanted to see her daughter again. She decided she would figure out how to achieve both of these things and drifted off back to sleep as she planned just how to do it.