Hito grinned as he surveyed the nearby ships with a keen eye. There on the barely lit decks, his men were already in full swing as they extinguished the deck lights as a signal of readiness. With each minute of excited anticipation the lights went out at an increasing rate, soon, when most of the ships were in darkness Hito gave the signal.
The signal flare flew upwards, breathing yellow smoke, and a small branch of the meatpacking factory opened up on the ships. Umi's men quietly entered to the sleeping sailors, holding sharp daggers in their hands.
"GHHH." A sailor sniffled, seeing a pleasant dream with a sea of wine and naked beauties floating in it, a quick stab to the throat interrupted the pressure of his fantasy, extended moans filled the room and the saboteurs continued to gather their bloody harvest.
"Alert, we're under attack!" There was a shout from somewhere on the neighbouring ship, though the voice was barely audible, but the sailors jumped out of their seats like trained dogs, and then they met the eyes of Umi's saboteurs.
In the further confusion, it was hard to make out anything, so the intruders hid their daggers and rushed at the sailors with long blades. The sailors, shouting and shouting, grabbing whatever they could get their hands on, rushed into the fight. Screams, groans, and the clang of metal filled the second level of the ship.
Hito, taking advantage of the confusion on the first floor, slipped past the fighting and with a couple of people, headed for the third level, where the boarding party of the ship was already in full swing, remaining unnoticed in the confusion and hiding behind a massive cannon, Hito took out of his bag a wax-sealed cow stomach.
Cutting it open with a knife, the lad extracted a dozen bombs and a dry cross. After distributing the bombs to their fellow party members, the trio synchronously set them on fire and threw them into the crowd.
"Take cover!" shouted one of the sailors, but it was too late, the steel balls exploded into hundreds of shards, slashing people as if they were made of paper.
Blood flowed across the floor like a full-flowing river, and its former owners lay dead and wounded on the floor. Many survivors were writhing on the floor in hellish pain, flooding the room with a cacophony of suffering.
Only eight survivors from the entire second deck jumped out from behind the cannons - which were the only safe haven here. Their faces contorted in a grimace of rage, each clutching weapons: axes, swords and sabres, pistols.
"Let's go!" Hito said quietly, and drawing his sword, he somersaulted out from behind his hiding place. The first victim didn't even realise what had happened, but suddenly his head separated from his body with a slurping sound.
It all happened so quickly that his comrades did not even have time to open their mouths, and Hito was rushing like a shadow to the next victim, who had time to come to his senses at the last moment, the sailor struck the axe at full swing, marking in the head.
Hito read this blow and ducked, missing the blade of the axe over his head, and it, obeying the laws of physics, flew further, crashing into the wooden wall. Hito took advantage of the acceleration to pierce the sailor's throat, the blade came out from the back of his head for a good half a metre, showering everything around with fountains of fresh blood.
"You bitch!" Synchronously shouted a couple of sailors aiming at the killer with a pair of pistols and a musket. The sailors fired almost synchronously, as they thought an open target had no chance of dodging in a confined space, and there was some truth to that.
Hito was aware of this, so he didn't dodge, and grabbed the hilt of his blade and raised it with the corpse strung on it, using it as a shield.
The bullets entered the already dead flesh, tearing the meat and internal organs, the pistol bullets stuck in the body, but the musket bullet easily passed through the body and painfully crashed into the killer's chain mail.
"Ouch." Hito said, pulling his blade out of the corpse, but his men were not idle, and taking advantage of their leader's work, snuck closer and caught the shooters on reloading, slaughtering them without much trouble.
Hito watched as his men descended from the upper deck and picked off the survivors, the assault on the third level had begun at once, with casualties, the first to break in were instantly riddled with musket-wielding sailors.
'Glee why do I have to lead morons?'. Hito asked himself, leaving the mopping up of the lower deck to his subordinates. The boy stepped up onto the bridge, and looked around. The bay was bursting with hundreds of screams and gunshots.
Most of the ships that were much smaller than the battleship on the deck of which stood the leader of the Umi clan were already occupied by his men, not forgetting to signal them with signal lights.
One of the clan's assassins ran up to the bored leader, and with a quick bow he reported.
"We've taken eighteen ships out of thirty, four are still fighting."
Hito nodded silently, and then accompanied by the reporter went to the bridge, where his men were already at work with axes breaking through the door to the captain's cabin.
Meanwhile on shore...
Thousands of sleepy and disgruntled men stood on the wharf, waiting for orders. At first few believed they were under attack, at most a drunken brawl that slowly turned into a riot.
The men in full armour assembled by their commanders waited for the unknown, joking and retelling jokes to each other, but their mood quickly changed after the first red rocket appeared in the air, then the second, then the third. Everyone down to the last drummer realised that this was no joke and they were under attack.
The infantry commanders scurried back and forth between the crowds of soldiers, trying to find a senior officer and figure out the order of operations, only he was nowhere to be found.
Few people knew it, but tonight there was to be a secret council of war aboard the group's flagship, and all the top officers of the landing party were there.
Very quickly a spirited group of junior officers stood out, and in short order identified the threat and began trying to work out the right solution.
After consulting for five minutes and nearly smashing each other's faces in, it was decided to send a thousand men on boats to the ships. The rest were kept as a reserve just in case.
The meeting dispersed and in ten minutes people were loading into the boats, the sedentary were formed into columns and accompanied by cavalry dispersed to the predetermined positions.
...
Hito leaned against the wall and was talking to an assassin, looking at the city lights and the barbarians swarming there.
"Why aren't we attacking?" He asked the question in a cold voice, which made him shake and shiver slightly.
"I don't know," he said, staring at the wharf with the head, as the barbarians moved away from the city, some of them coming to meet them in boats, the first batch already working the oars.
"Bad answer, but there was nothing to do but work with what we had." The plan was for the ground forces to hit the bewildered landing force now and take advantage of the general confusion, numerical superiority and crowding of the barbarians to bring him victory on a platter.
"Have the lower decks been cleared?" Hito asked the same assassin, and he reported without a shadow of a doubt.
"Yes. Only the captain's quarters are not clear." The assassin summarised, and then stared at the door, which had been unsuccessfully breached for ten minutes by two big burly men. In this sparring the door was winning by a considerable margin, and there was not a living place left on it, but it stood there with an imperturbable look and obvious mockery, and did not even think of breaking through.
"Disperse these idiots on the cannons, signal the occupied ships and destroy the barbarian reinforcements, then start shelling the city, the remaining unoccupied ships to sink." Hito said in a monotone, his interlocutor nodded silently and bowed, calling out to everyone standing nearby.
The crowd quickly dispersed and Hito was left alone with the door, 'How hard it is to lead idiots.' - Hin characterised both the attempt to breach the door and their non-existent ground attack. The guy silently pulled out the last bomb he had saved for an extreme case.
The crosshead knocked out a spark and the fuse emitted a light smoke and ran forward, Hito stone-faced left the bomb under the door and stepped aside, hiding behind some crates.
Bang.
The whole crew synchronously turned their heads in search of the source of the new threat. But when they saw their leader slowly entering the captain's cabin, they immediately lost interest and concentrated on their work.
There were no random people in this outing, and everyone realised that their leader just wanted to 'play', and it would be fatal to interfere with him.
"Greetings, everyone!" Hito addressed the officers who were cautiously squinting at him.
"Do you know our language?" One of the officers asked, and Hito took a quick look at him: a rich gold embroidered uniform, the same sabre and hat. At a glance, it was clear to the Umi leader that this was their leader.
The remaining officers were ready to attack with the fury of rabid dogs, but the Admiral was wiser with his hand stopping their suicidal impulses and spoke.
"What do you want?" Asked the Admiral, maintaining his peaceful attitude with a good-natured smile.
"Your death, of course." A murmur of discontent ran through the group of officers, but the Admiral raised his hand and they all fell silent.
"I think we can agree, what do you want?" The Admiral understood roughly what had happened, but how the savages had managed to pull it off he had no idea.
'Except that it doesn't make any sense, now our lives are in the hands of these savages, I hope they are familiar with the concept of captivity.' - The admiral thought to himself, moving closer to the young man standing opposite.
"So what do you think about my proposal?" The admiral asked specifically, crossing his arms behind his back.
"Hito smirked and replied." Who knows, who knows.