Elsewhere on the battlefield, Kan'u shouted and spun around her Green Dragon Blade, cutting down a group of Turbans that had attempted to surround her. She flourished the halberd once to clear the blood off of it, then looked at the status of her squad. As instructed, the villagers were taking down men one by one, and in pairs; no one seemed to have incurred any serious injuries yet, and the sight made her smile softly to herself.
"We can do this," she whispered to herself.
A loud war-cry drew her attention to her left side, where a group of villagers were ambushed and cut down by a squad of Turbans coming her way. Kan'u's smile immediately vanished, and she brandished her halberd once more, charging forward this time. A loud shout sounded behind her as she did, though, and she was surrounded by the villagers that Haruto had ordered to assist her. Kan'u gasped in shock, recognizing their faces from when they had split off into the three attacking groups in the first place, but she had no time to ask the question in her mind. Instead, she redoubled her pace and engaged the bulk of the attacking Turbans, allowing the villagers to take on the ones she wasn't keeping occupied. The Green Dragon Blade flashed out again and again, cutting the Turbans open at the chest and the stomach without remorse or pause, while the villagers took on the Turbans in pairs, either taking them down successfully or dying in the process of trying.
It took some doing, but eventually, Kan'u's squad came out victorious, albeit with its share of casualties. Once she was sure that area was clear, she turned her attention to one of the members of Haruto's former squad, trying and failing to keep the heat in her voice and her heart under control, and trying not to look down at the bodies of those that had fallen. "Why are you here? Were you not assisting Lord Haruto!? Were he at full health, it would be one thing, but his wounds have yet to mend. Why would you abandon him!?"
"M'lady Kan'u, he ordered us to go to you and to Lady Chouhi," the villager replied, wiping the sweat from his bald crown and his forehead. "He was killing five Turbans with a swing of his sword. We would have been in the way if we'd stayed."
Kan'u raised an eyebrow in confusion, and looked in the direction that the soldiers had come from. Sure enough, she saw Haruto's wild mop of golden hair shining in the sunlight as he killed a Turban with a heavy vertical slash from Blood-Scythe. He then followed that with a vicious spinning kick that knocked another Turban to the ground with a sickening cracking sound. Another slash from Blood-Scythe, this time horizontal, cleaved through a set of Turbans that were trying to sneak up on him. And, though she wasn't quite sure, Kan'u thought she could see small tongues of black fire whispering up from his right hand and arm as he struck and slashed. It might have been a trick of the light, but at the same time she wasn't quite so sure about that.
"I can't believe it," she whispered. "Lord Haruto is that strong, even when injured? It's impossible." She shook her head, and turned to the villager she'd just spoken to. "My apologies. You're correct, Lord Haruto has this well in hand." She turned her attention to the main camp, and heard Chouhi's voice shout faintly over the din and the noise.
"Chouhi squad! Don't stop! If we can get their tents, we win!"
"She'll need time to finish breaking through," Kan'u said aloud. She took another look around; there were quite a few Turbans down. Those that hadn't been killed were trying to get back to the main camp, but were being cut off by infantry soldiers or being shot down by archers.
Kan'u nodded once. The villagers have already adopted the strategy I was just thinking of using. I suppose I'll just have to help them out! She raised her voice and addressed the villagers around her. "Kan'u squad! Let's assist the others! Keep the enemy from getting back to their main camp! General Chouhi's almost broken through their last line!"
The villagers around her roared, "Yes, Lady Kan'u!" and fell in behind her as she surged forward. As they advanced, she spared one last look toward Haruto, who had cleared one cache of enemies and was quickly rushing to the next. He, too, was making his way toward the camp.
Kan'u offered a quiet prayer to Heaven for his safety. She would have sent some of the men back to him just to be sure that he would remain safe, but he had made his position clear and there was no time to argue it on the battlefield. Time would be their enemy as the fight dragged on. They had to finish things with what power they had left.
In the end, the battle lasted about two and a half hours in total. The village's population of 3000 had been reduced by about 150 people in the initial raid, and of the remainder, 2000 were fighting fit. Amongst those that went to fight, another 500 were lost. However, the Turbans had sustained much worse losses. Chouhi had taken the camp, but it was not until the majority of the Turbans had been killed, roughly 3500 total, that they surrendered or fled as quickly as they could. In the end, it had been Haruto, Kan'u, and Chouhi's respective (and individually ridiculous) performances that had turned the tide in their favor.
When the villagers returned home after that long ordeal, some immediately went back into the arms of those that they'd left behind. Those that had given everything on the battlefield left a quiet void in the hearts of those that had prayed for their safe return.
Haruto stood at the door to the tavern, watching the faces of those disappointed people, and shook his head. He understood their feelings, and privately was grateful that none of them had come to yell at him or curse him for leading them into battle and causing so many to die. In particular, his skill at fighting had been more than enough to let him be left alone on the field, which had turned out to be a good thing as the battle went on. His Grimoire had slowly started to become more and more active as time had gone on, but only enough to cause a few sparks of darkness and to jump-start his self-healing as more soldiers died. Blood-Scythe had been able to pull souls in from the Turbans he killed, but no one else.
"Actually, that's weird. The Grimoire probably should have gotten some of the dead villagers, too. But it only seemed to take the people that Blood-Scythe hit. The field of effect shouldn't be so small." Haruto looked at his right hand, and concentrated on it. After a few moments, a weak, flickering black flame enveloped it, then blew out again. No matter what he did, he couldn't get more energy out of his Grimoire; it seemed to have a fixed limit that it didn't have before, and said limit was set extremely low. The only real reason he could think of for the malfunction was a lack of seithr in the environment, coupled with—or compounded by—a lack of power in the Grimoire itself. It had enough power to function—whether from souls or from seithr—but that was it, and he had no way of reading seithr levels in the air to know for sure if that was or wasn't the cause.
"Well, if everyone fights like those idiots around here then I should be fine," Haruto muttered to himself. "And even if they don't, it's a more even playing field for them anyway." He let out a sigh, and leaned his head against the door frame. "I should probably be healed up by tomorrow… find a map, figure out where the hell the closest Hierarchical City is, and get going."
"Lord Haruto."
Kan'u's voice caused Haruto to open his eyes and look in her direction. She was accompanied by Chouhi, Gan, and a number of other villagers. Haruto stood up straight as they approached him, and folded his arms, looking down on them with his usual scowl. "What's up?"
"I wanted to personally thank you for all that you've done," Gan said. He bowed deeply to Haruto, then raised his head. "In fact, it's precisely because of that that I have a favor to ask you. Would you please take over as our administrator?"
Haruto blinked, then raised an eyebrow. "As your what now?"
"The Imperial Court normally appoints a Grand Administrator to supervise a province and assist them in making sure that proper taxes are levied and that the people are living well," Kan'u said. "Going by what Gan was saying earlier, the administrator appointed to the Zhuo district left when the Turbans came, and took his personal detachment of troops with him."
"Look, man, it's one thing to help you guys with a fight, but I can't be an administrator or whatever," Haruto said. "All I know how to do is hit shit with a sword. I don't know anything about supervising a province or whatever. Besides that, wouldn't the Imperial Court have to approve of me, or appoint me, or something?"
Gan sighed. "Let me spell this out for you. Our old administrator left. He took his soldiers with him. We sent messengers to Luoyang, and the Court didn't send anyone to help us. Zhuo basically got thrown away to the goddamn Turbans, and the Court probably doesn't even give a damn about us any more." He shook his head. "I've been head of this village for a while, even before our administrator ran off, but I don't have it in me to try and manage a whole district. I'm too old for that nonsense." His sunken gray eyes fixed on Haruto steadily. "Either you take the spot, or we get overlooked by the Court again and again until the Turbans wipe out all of Zhuo and use our supplies and our land to keep their 'rebellion' going."
Haruto felt his stomach clench. Of all the things that he didn't want, being tied down to one place was tops on that list. He had to find a way back to Kagutsuchi, had to get back to destroying cauldrons and fighting the NOL. There was absolutely no way he could allow this to happen.
At least, that's what his head was telling him.
His heart was telling him that it would be crueler to abandon people that were begging him for help. The NOL was most certainly an evil organization, there was no denying that. Someone had to stop them, there was no denying that. But everything Haruto knew to be right was telling him that it would be wrong to overlook these people for the sake of his self-assigned revenge quest.
He stood there, conflicted, for a good while. Kan'u, Chouhi, and Gan all looked up at him, expecting an answer that he literally couldn't give. Finally, he took in and let out a slow breath, and rubbed his face with his right hand. "One day...one day, I'm going back. I got business I have to deal with back where I came from. If you can accept that, I'll be your administrator or whatever."
Gan nodded, and though Kan'u and Chouhi seemed kind of discomfited by the idea of him returning to "Heaven" one day, they eventually nodded their agreement as well.
"Then let's get started," Haruto said. "First order of business—we need the doc to look over all our injuries from the fight. After that, we gotta work out how we're gonna do patrols and feed all of these people." He looked at Gan. "You've been doing this kind of thing for a while, haven't ya? You're gonna help out till we know what the hell we're doing."
"Of course, my lord," Gan replied.
Haruto sighed and squeezed his eyes shut, grunting in annoyance. "Could you not do that? My name's Haruto. H-a-r-u-t-o. Calling me lord and shit doesn't sit right with me."
Gan paused, then nodded. "Lord Haruto it is, then."
Haruto's response to this was to smack his head against the door frame of the tavern with a long, drawn-out groan. "I give up."
Chouhi grinned and laughed. "Better get used to it, big bro. You're the boss now and people are gonna treat you that way!"
Haruto muttered something unintelligible, and Kan'u simply looked at him with a small smile on her face. He wasn't anything like what she was expecting, but in the end he was brave enough to fight at the front like the rest of his soldiers, and caring in his own way.
Yes... Kan'u thought. Lord Haruto will change this world. And I'll help him every step of the way.