Although his troops were in a position to begin the assault on the built-up area, Toshiro hadn’t actually intended to attack today, planning to give his men an extra night’s rest before commencing the battle for the suburb. With the arrival of Uesugi and his extra troops, he decided not to wait and signal his men to begin their assault immediately.

They made some rapid progress for the first hour or so, and then the attack started to grind to a halt, but by that stage, Uesugi had gotten most of his men into position, and using his three tanks as spearheads, they struck into the built-up area from what was the flank to the front line to Toshiro’s men had created. His troops had taken roughly half the area by nightfall and kept up the pressure throughout the night. About an hour before dawn, the enemy broke contact and retired rapidly, leaving the now empty and largely destroyed built-up area for the Japanese to occupy.

In the morning, reconnaissance showed that they had fallen back to a new defense line that stretched from the lake almost to the coast along a road that was lined with trees along much of its length. They were apparently digging trenches and generally making it clear that the Japanese would find it expensive trying to thrust through their new line as the Japanese would have to attack over open ground, by and large. Toshiro studied the enemy positions and determined the best lines of attack. He concentrated his own force to the north of what used to be a railway line while Uesugi’s forces were massed to the south of that point.

After the confusion of the night fighting, they spent the following day reorganizing and transferring some troops from one command to the other to balance up the two forces. He didn’t want to give the natives time to dig in more effectively, but he had no choice as the whole force was disorganized and worn out. Late in the day, a runner turned up informing him that he had been promoted to brigade commander with Uesugi’s men being designated the Second Battalion while his own men, which were to be placed under a mentalist named Kato Rokuro and his troops would now be designated the First Battalion of Sixth Brigade. After the messenger had left, Toshiro turned to Uesugi.

“Do you know this Kato Rokuro?”

“No, but he’s clearly from the well-known Rokuro family. I know old Lord Shigaru Rokuro, who I think is the head of the local family now, or at least he was before all the troubles started. He’s Rokuro 3, the last I heard. Sorry, I don’t know exactly what this Kato Rokuro’s relationship with the family’s main branch is. Like all families, they must have lost people in the disaster in Europe.”

The Rokuro’s formed a large family, and the main branch had once been very important. The only ones that Torshiro knew were not members of the main family, but even so, they were all typical upper-class lords who did little but acted like they were important anyway because of the family they were born into. Arrogant to a fault. Mind you, that was a fault that ran across all three branches of the Alliance and was probably the main reason they were in the mess they were in here.