Chapter 36 – The Year of Rebellion

After the fall of Gekkō, Yura and Ren came to an undeniable truth… they could no longer move forward without an army. The days of easy prefectures were over. What remained were fortified bastions… and, above all, the Shogun himself, entrenched in the capital with no fewer than fifty thousand men.

The Aseina loyalists were brave, but they lacked the strength to storm such defenses. Their only choice was clear. They would have to forge a revolutionary army.

The Shogun, meanwhile, remained entrenched in Kita. He did not move his troops, knowing that if he spread them thin, he would lose them piece by piece. His strategy was simple—wait for the war to come to him.

In Sekka, Ren trained the new recruits in the way of the sword. Not as a general, but as Yukino once had, taking those with promise aside for harsher drills—even bringing some to Antartica itself.

“The sword is an extension of yourself,” he declared, brandishing a katana.

“To be a samurai of ice is the pride of Yukihana. It’s the reason the rest of the world fears you.”

With a single fluid strike, he cleaved a boulder in two. Frost traced elegantly across the clean cut, cold and precise.

“Wield your blade with honor… and it will carry you to greatness. To freedom.”

“Yes, General!” the recruits shouted in unison, raising their weapons with new determination.

Elsewhere in the camp, Luisina instructed the few Yuki born with an affinity for magic. They were rare, but invaluable. And Luisina, with her melodious voice and natural flair for theatrics, held them spellbound.

“The world is an illusion,” she said, sweeping her hat in a dramatic arc. “Or rather… it is a canvas.”

An ice sculpture rose into the air, shifting shape at her snap: a wolf, then a dragon, then a dazzling stage of lights.

“Magic can open doors to unimaginable paths. But to walk them, you must sharpen your imagination—your vision of the world… and of course, never forget to give a magnificent performance!”

The young mages stared in awe. Even village children had slipped in, eyes wide as they hung on every word.

At the same time, Yura gathered the soldiers closest to her—the ones she saw as potential generals. With the calm of a teacher and the severity of an heir, she passed on the lessons of tactics she had once learned in Cegris, under Master Atilius.

In an improvised classroom, before a chalkboard filled with diagrams, she pointed firmly at the sketches of battle lines.

“The most important factor is always information,” she said clearly, sweeping her gaze across the room. “Charging in without a plan will only reduce your chances of success.”

She drew the outline of a dragon.

“For example, if I were to fight a dragon, what must I know first? Is it resistant to magic? Is it alone or in a pack? Can ice harm it? Will a sword be effective?”

She slashed through the questions with swift strokes.

“These doubts are not weakness. They are our strength.”

Next, she drew a bastion surrounded by walls.

“Infiltration follows the same principle. Is the target alone? Who guards them? Do they have the wealth to hire powerful mercenaries? Are there escape routes?”

She paced the rows with the gravitas of one who spoke not from theory, but lived experience.

“The more we know about our enemies, the better our chances of victory.”

“Knowledge is power,” she concluded. “Never forget it.”

The recruits listened in reverent silence. In their eyes, she was no longer just the exiled princess… but Yukihana’s future commander.

It was, without a doubt, a harsh year. But everyone understood that a free nation could only be born from the effort of all who longed for that freedom.

Before Sekka’s castle, Yura stood tall before a gathering of soldiers and citizens. She no longer spoke as a princess, but as a leader who had earned—through blood and sweat—the right to rule.

A few steps behind her, Ren, Lilith, Luisina, and Latina watched in silence, proud of what they had built in just a single year.

Yura raised her voice—clear, resolute—carrying above the noise of the crowd.

“People of Yukihana… I grieve for the years of pain and oppression you have endured.”

A murmur rippled through the crowd. The soldiers watched her with respect, the farmers with newfound hope.

“I won’t lie to you…” she continued, eyes shining. “Many of us may not return from this war.”

Her words struck like iron, heavy in the air—yet no one looked away.

“But know this… we will fight to our last breath, so that this suffering will never fall upon us again.”

A fist rose from the front row. Then another. And another.

“I promise you—when this campaign ends, Yukihana will be free once more… just as it was before the Shogun stole our liberty thirteen years ago.”

The cheers erupted, swelling into a roar that shook the plaza, echoing against the walls and into the snowy sky.

Yura drew the katana Yukihana and lifted it high, its blade gleaming like a beacon in the dark.

“Let history be our judge!”

The cry of soldiers and citizens alike thundered as one. Yukihana was no longer a people in chains. It was an army, on the march.