In the weeks that followed the end of the Britannian siege, Sekigahara finally began moving again.
The alliance with the Republic of Gorteau had given the Confederate exactly what it needed. Breathing room. Fresh supplies flowed through routes that had spent weeks under pressure, damaged fortifications were repaired, and Martial Apprentices who had barely been able to stand during the siege were gradually returned to active duty. More importantly, the western front was no longer consuming every available fighter Sekigahara possessed.
So the expansion resumed.
This time, with renewed aggression, aiming to take back the lost time due to the attacks of the other super-nations.
Unclaimed territory around the Serevian Dungeon core became the new battlefield, and Sekigaharan forces pushed outward almost daily. Reconnaissance units marked routes through dense jungle and broken stone, convoy teams followed behind them, and fresh defensive positions appeared wherever valuable land could be secured.
Mikan and Yoshimoto quickly became two of the names most frequently attached to those victories.
Yoshimoto had returned from his injuries with the same enthusiasm he'd possessed before Britannia nearly broke the fortress. If anything, the forced rest seemed to have made him worse. He threw himself into every mission with renewed energy, blasting apart defensive lines and clearing terrain with compressed air while loudly insisting that the Britannians had stolen an entire week of fighting from him.
During that week, however, Yoshimoto had found another way to keep himself entertained.
He visited Sir Kay Pendragon almost every day.
The captured Britannian commander had been placed under heavy guard in one of the deeper holding rooms, and Yoshimoto had taken to stopping by whenever he had the time. What began as a single visit quickly turned into a routine of insults, arguments, and increasingly petty bickering between two men who had already beaten each other bloody on the battlefield.
Sometimes they argued about whose country had embarrassed the other more. Sometimes Yoshimoto reminded Kay that he'd been captured by Mikan, which usually earned him several minutes of creative Britannian profanity. Kay, in return, never missed an opportunity to point out that Yoshimoto had spent most of the siege half-dead in an infirmary while a woman finished the job for him.
Neither ever seemed to win.
Mikan's role in the expansion efforts was becoming irreplaceable.
Her ability to fly changed the way Sekigaharan squads moved through contested territory. Cliffs, natural barriers and the jungle itself that would normally slow a convoy barely mattered when she could scout from above, and enemy formations that relied on controlling narrow approaches quickly discovered how irritating it was to fight someone who could attack from any direction she pleased.
She was just a martial apprentice! How could she maintain such a level of flight and control?!
The other Martial Apprentices noticed and started to truly respect her strength.
That was what made the next part uncomfortable on their part.
Orders continued arriving from their clans.
Nothing explicit enough to be called sabotage. Nothing anyone could easily point toward and accuse the higher ranks of treachery. Just small things.
A mission originally assigned to Mikan would suddenly be divided among three different clan representatives. Another Martial Apprentice would reluctantly insist that his squad should lead an assault because his clan had contributed more personnel to the operation. A captured position would somehow have its merits distributed among several officers even when Mikan had done most of the fighting.
The instructions were clear enough; Do not allow the Kinzoku Clan to accumulate too much prestige.
Most of the Martial Apprentices hated it... but that didn't mean they could refuse.
Their clans had raised them, trained them, funded their Martial Paths, and held influence over their families back home. A command from above was still a command.
One of them approached Mikan after another successful operation.
He looked as though he'd rather fight another Britannian siege.
"Lady Mikan."
She glanced toward him while cleaning one of her daggers. "Hm?"
Several Martial Apprentices stood behind him, all looking equally uncomfortable.
Mikan had grown more casual around them over the past weeks. After fighting through enough life-and-death battles and missions together, it was hard not to start seeing them as comrades.
Her opinion of Martial Artists had softened because of it.
Not all of them were arrogant bastards hiding behind clans.
Some were annoying, cowardly and greedy for merit.
But plenty of them were decent people who had simply been born into the same system she hated.
That realization still felt strange.
The man rubbed the back of his neck. "About the next territorial operation..."
Mikan waited.
"We've... been ordered to request the assignment."
Her eyes moved across the group but they all avoided her eyes.
The man exhaled. "We've already received several merits from operations you led. Our clans believe... other people should be given more opportunities."
There was a long silence as the younger fighters looked genuinely ashamed.
Mikan tilted her head as she wondered why they had to ask her.
Was she their boss?
She understood their clans expected more of them, plus she did feel like she'd already received plenty of merit herself.
"Mmm, Okay."
The man blinked as several heads rose at her casual tone, "Excuse me?"
"You want the mission, right?"
"...Yes?"
"Then take it."
They stared at her.
Mikan returned her dagger to its sheath with a smile.
"It's fine... you guys be careful."
The relief on their faces somehow made them feel even worse.
One of them quickly stepped forward. "Lady Mikan, when this campaign ends, I swear I'll repay the favor."
Another nodded immediately. "I will do the same!"
"When we get back, I will definitely follow you!"
Mikan waved them off.
"Don't worry about it."
The others still bowed before leaving, and once they were gone, Mikan looked toward the empty training grounds behind her with a small smile. She had no reason to complain. If the clans wanted to steal a few missions from her, they were more than welcome to. The reduced workload gave her exactly what she needed.
Time.
She had wanted more pointers from Merun first, but he refused to keep holding her hand through every step. According to him, Ki was far more flexible than she realized, and if she wanted to make it truly hers, she needed to figure out how it fit her Martial Art on her own.
Then he disappeared.
Mikan hadn't seen him properly in weeks. More strangely, she hadn't even felt his Ki anywhere nearby.
"What the hell is my little brother doing now?"
She stared toward the doorway for a moment, then clicked her tongue and turned back to her training.
For nearly two weeks, Mikan became increasingly difficult to find outside of briefings and meals. She spent most of that time inside an unused stone chamber deep within the western compound, where Portia strings stretched from wall to wall in a dense silver web. Three daggers were embedded into different sections of the stone, each connected to several strands, while Mikan herself sat suspended in the middle of it all as though the strings beneath her were a woven platform.
Her training was not about controlling more weapons with Ki.
Three daggers was already her limit.
At full efficiency, Mikan could reinforce those three daggers and the surrounding Portia strings at the same time without losing precision. The strings still behaved exactly as they always had beneath her fingers, only now their toughness added on the strength of the Ki flowing through them. What had once been something she used mainly for movement, restraint, redirection, and traps could now endure forces that would have snapped ordinary Portia apart.
She was confident she could restrain a weak Martial Squire now!
That much she could manage perfectly.
Adding a fourth dagger did not simply require more Ki. It demanded another stream of attention, another moving object to track, another path of reinforcement to regulate while dozens of strings were already responding to subtle shifts in her fingers. Her mind began to lag before her energy did.
She sighed.
The problem was her brain, as her mind was her limit, and there was no quick way to improve it unless she got the Squire operation!
The first few times she tried adding a fourth dagger, one of the other three lost reinforcement for a fraction of a second. On another attempt, several strings tightened too late and sliced into the stone wall instead of changing direction when she wanted them to. The mistakes were small, but in a real battle, small mistakes got people killed. Thus, she decided her limit was 3 daggers and threads.
Day after day, Mikan practiced moving all three daggers through separate trajectories while reinforcing the Portia strings linking them. One blade would circle high, another would dart low, and the third would hang seemingly useless until a single finger movement turned it into an attack from behind. Meanwhile, the strings themselves remained under constant tension, shifting between rigid and flexible without losing Ki.
That was where the real improvement came from.
Efficiency.
Less wasted Ki.
Faster redirection.
Stronger reinforcement.
The daggers struck harder than before, and the strings no longer felt like fragile tools that needed to avoid direct force. With enough Ki behind them, they became frighteningly difficult to cut or tear apart.
For a peak Martial Apprentice, Mikan could feel herself improving at a rate that should not have been possible without advancing to another Realm.
She opened her eyes one afternoon as three daggers stopped in the air around her, each one held in a different position by Portia. The threads beneath her barely moved, even while supporting her weight and several reinforced weapons at once.
Mikan smiled.
This was enough for now.
Then someone knocked on the door.
"Lady Mikan? Sergeant Mindow is requesting you immediately."
Mikan lowered herself from the web and landed lightly on the stone floor. The three daggers returned to their sheaths one after another while the strings loosened around the chamber.
"What happened?"
The messenger hesitated.
"The Bolexeuen Hills operation."
Mikan's expression changed.
The Bolexeuen Hills had been one of Sekigahara's more ambitious expansion targets since the end of the Britannian siege. The region was rich in resources and positioned close enough to the core that holding it would give Sekigahara both strategic depth and valuable territory. A full convoy had been sent to secure it, supported by fresh defensive squads and Martial Apprentices eager to earn merit.
This time, the higher-ups believed they had learned from Kandria's earlier attacks.
They had prepared specifically for the Abyss and Ghost.
Kane Arrancar, the Ghost had been assigned a dedicated pursuer, a high-speed sensory Martial Apprentice chosen to counter Void Step. His job was simple in theory. Detect Kane, stay close, and deny him the freedom to disappear into the battlefield and strike wherever he pleased.
Rui Quarrier, the Abyss received even more attention.
Three powerful Martial Apprentices were assigned to the Abyss as a coordinated strike team. One specialized in close-quarters combat, while the other two were long-range wind specialists positioned to punish every attempt Rui made to disengage. Their techniques had been selected specifically to complement one another, with the frontline fighter locking Rui in place while the two ranged Martial Artists controlled the surrounding space.
Nobody expected them to defeat the Abyss quickly.
They only needed to contain him.
The rest of the Sekigaharan force would secure the hills while Rui and Kane remained occupied.
Yoshimoto had even been offered another chance to face the Abyss personally.
He refused.
That answer surprised nearly everyone. Yoshimoto Seishin had never been known to shy away from a fight, especially against someone who had already defeated him once. Yet the moment Rui's name was mentioned, something in his expression changed.
He wanted no part of the Abyss again.
Still, Sekigahara believed the three-man team would be enough.
Rui quickly noticed that the two wind specialists stopped firing whenever their close-quarters teammate engaged him. Exploiting that weakness, he forced the fight into grappling range, used the frontline fighter as cover, choked him unconscious, then rushed down the two ranged Martial Artists before they could properly reposition.
The entire counter collapsed.
Rui immediately moved to Kane's battlefield and eliminated the sensory Martial Apprentice who had been keeping him in check.
Finally, Kane was free.
From there, the battle unraveled quickly. Kane disappeared back into the chaos and began ambushing distracted fighters, while Rui tore through the strongest remaining Sekigaharans and broke apart whatever formations tried to stop him.
Their defensive line collapsed.
The surviving Martial Apprentices were forced to retreat with what remained of the settlement convoy, abandoning the Bolexeuen Hills entirely.
Kandria moved in almost immediately.
By the time the report reached the fortress, fresh Kandrian forces were already fortifying the territory.
Just like that, the Bolexeuen Hills were gone.
Sergeant Mindow stared at the report in silence.
His office had been repaired since the siege, but the large map table in front of him was once again covered in markers representing contested territory. One marker had already been removed.
Bolexeuen Hills. Lost.
An officer standing nearby cleared his throat. "The clans are already discussing who should lead the recovery operation."
Mindow's eye twitched.
Another officer glanced down at a stack of documents. "The Oni representatives are requesting greater involvement. The Mitsunori Clan also claims their fighters received fewer merits during the last expansion period."
Mindow slowly raised his head.
"Merits."
Nobody answered.
"We just lost an entire resource zone."
The room remained silent.
"A convoy was destroyed. Martial Apprentices are dead. Kandria is fortifying the hills as we speak."
"And they're arguing about merits?"
One officer shifted his weight. "The clan heads believe proper distribution is necessary to maintain cooperation."
Mindow gave a short laugh.
"Proper distribution."
He looked back down at the map.
For weeks, he had tolerated it.
Requests from clan representatives, arguments over mission assignments.
Demands that certain fighters be given favorable operations because some distant clan head wanted another achievement attached to his name.
Enough.
"Send for Mikan Furutsu."
Several officers looked up immediately.
One frowned. "Sergeant, the Shimazu representatives specifically requested that she remain outside the next territorial operation."
"I don't care."
Mindow looked directly at him.
"If they want to complain, they can come here and fight themselves."
Nobody argued after that.
From that point onward, Mikan's workload changed dramatically.
Reconnaissance missions were given to her directly. Assault teams began forming around her. Convoy escorts requested her presence before entering contested territory, and whenever Sekigahara needed a position seized quickly, Mindow stopped caring which clan wanted the merit and sent whoever was most likely to succeed.
That usually meant Mikan and Yoshimoto.
Often both.
The complaints from higher ups never stopped but Mindow simply stopped listening.
Sekigahara had already wasted too much time.
Kandria and Britannia were expanding quicker.
Gorteau was an ally for now, but alliances formed from necessity could change as quickly as the situation that created them.
The unclaimed territories around the core were disappearing one by one.
Eventually, the order came.
Every available Martial Apprentice was recalled.
Support personnel returned from distant posts. Scouts, convoy commanders, potion users, engineers, officers, and combat units gathered inside the largest courtyard the fortress possessed.
Hundreds of people filled the open ground beneath Sekigaharan banners.
Mikan stood near the front with Yoshimoto nearby. Around them were familiar faces from the Britannian siege, fighters from newly arrived clans, and wounded Martial Apprentices who had recovered just enough to return to duty.
Since the forward army had already cleared the way in the deadly dungeon, weaker units could breeze through and reinforce the main camp.
One of the forces that found the opportunity to join were non-clan affiliated mercenary Martial Apprentices.
Some of these mercenary Apprentices looked toward Mikan with open skepticism. They knew the Furutsu name only vaguely, if at all, and from what they heard from rumors, she was just a peasant girl who had somehow been taken in by powerful people on a whim.
But others, those who had watched her during the Steel Convergence, or fought beside her during the expansion operations of the past few weeks, looked at her very differently. There was expectation in their eyes now, and in some cases something close to reverence.
They had seen what she could do.
And if this really was the beginning of the push toward the core, more than a few of them were already wondering what Mikan Furutsu would do next.
Then Sergeant Mindow stepped onto the raised platform overlooking them.
The murmuring stopped.
The man looked exhausted.
But so did everyone else.
Mindow allowed his gaze to pass across the gathered force before speaking.
"We've spent long enough fighting over scraps."
"I'm sure you've all heard, Kandria has taken the Bolexeuen Hills. Britannia will return the moment it believes we're weak enough to exploit again. Every day we waste arguing over which clan receives which assignment is another day the other nations move closer to winning this dungeon."
Several Martial Apprentices shifted uncomfortably as they knew exactly who he was speaking about.
Mindow continued.
"We have lost territory."
"We have lost people."
"But... we are not losing the dungeon."
Something changed in the air.
Mikan glanced toward Yoshimoto and found the massive Martial Apprentice already grinning.
Mindow placed one hand on the edge of the podium.
"From this moment onward, expansion toward the core takes priority over everything else."
A low murmur spread through the assembled force.
"No more wasting our strongest fighters because of merits. No more spreading ourselves across territory we cannot defend because a clan wants to claim it first."
"We consolidate our forces and push forward where it matters."
The murmuring stopped.
Mindow looked across the hundreds gathered beneath him.
For weeks, they had fought as individual martial artists, mercenaries, retainers, and representatives of a dozen different clans.
Not now.
Now they were Sekigahara.
"We take the Serevian Dungeon core for Sekigahara."
His palm struck the podium.
BAM!
For a heartbeat, the courtyard went silent.
Then the Martial Artists erupted.
Cheers thundered across the fortress as fists rose into the air and weapons slammed against the ground. Clan rivalries, grudges, and arguments over merit were forgotten beneath a single roar.
"SEKIGAHARA! STOMP KANDRIA AND BRITANNIA UNDER OUR FEET!"
"TAKE THE CORE!"
"FOR SEKIGAHARA!"
The banners above them snapped violently in the wind as Mindow stared over the crowd, his expression hardening.
"We take the core!"
The cheering swelled again.
"By any means necessary!"
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Sorry for the long hiatus, just got off a two week vacation from Shanghai. ChIna is so beautiful, tf.