Story:

Nobunaga's prepared rebuttal died silently in his throat.

"The realm has bled for decades from a rotten capital—councils of old men, usurpers, and the Shogunate's government in rebellion against its own purpose," Kenshin went on, with the same matter-of-fact conviction she had applied to rice.

"In one month you marched in, restored order, seated the proper Shogun, and fed your army without robbing a single citizen of Kyoto—my scouts checked. Thoroughly. Discipline like that is rarer than courage." She nodded once, decisively. "I approve of you. This does not happen often, so treasure it."

And Nobunaga, watching her eyes as she said it, understood the shift had come again: the glutton had transmitted—transmuted—back into the Dragon of Echigo. The rice enthusiast was gone.

The aura of righteousness from the battlefield filled the tent around her like heat.

Nobunaga smirked—slowly, warmly, genuinely—and inclined his head with real respect. A rival worth the name.

"The Uesugi's timing reinforcement of the Yamato Shrine was exquisitely executed," he returned. "To march at speed over that distance, arrive with a full cavalry arm at the exact hour of the enemy's arrival, and annihilate a force double your number in under an hour with textbook fraction assaults."

"My lady of Echigo, I have commanded battles since I was fifteen, and this morning's conduct sits in the finest rank of anything I have ever witnessed. I praise you."

Their eyes met. Two supreme warlords, each having just handed the other a completely sincere, completely unmotivated compliment—neither one's pride pricked, both of them enjoying the rarest luxury of their profession: being understood.

"Although," Nobunaga added, unable to resist, the smirk curling wider,

"I do find myself wondering—idly, purely idly—if the day ever comes when the Uesugi cavalry meets my Oda red armor on some open field... who would gain the upper hand, I wonder. Your machine of silver fractions... or my ashigaru walls and Tanegashima volleys."