March

They continued their march in the heat as the Uesugi men raced further and further away. It would have been demoralizing had their anger not replaced the energy lost to tiredness. They would fight with a viciousness now, one that combined with their confidence to forge a clenched steel fist.

When night came and that beating sun went down, they did not slow. Jikouji had trained them in the most aggressive manner he could conceive. After a full day of rest, they were more than capable of enduring a prolonged march, fuelled by the hope of battle at the end of it.

The absence of sun did not cool the air as quickly as one would hope, but from the tops of the mountains there now rolled a soothing breeze that slipped through the cracks in their armour and reinvigorated them.