The trouble was, every bit of my cowardice kept backfiring. No, "backfiring" isn't quite right. It'd be truer to say the world kindly read my cowardice completely upside down.
When I trembled in fear, they said I had nerves of steel. When I ran away in fear, they said it was deep and far-reaching strategy. However I cowered, whatever I was afraid of, it flipped over on its own and came back to me as some grand tale.
That, in its own way, was terrifying. Even if I did nothing at all, the image of me alone kept growing bigger and bigger, somewhere I couldn't see.
Let me count them.
I was afraid of assassins, so I trained my body like a madman.
—"Valor beyond mortal men. Like a god of war."
I was afraid of losing muscle, so I gnawed taro as I walked.
—"A ravening wolf. Ever hungry, ever thirsting."
I was afraid of people, so I barely spoke.
—"Taciturn and fathomless. None can read what he is thinking."
I was afraid of women, so I ran from every marriage meeting.
—"Unmoved by beauty. Fortitude beyond the ordinary."
Not one of them was right.
I'm not strong, I'm not hungry, I'm shallow, and my nerve is tiny. I'm just scared. Scared out of my wits, shaking, piling up one trick after another to stay alive. That's all. And yet each of those tricks swelled up on its own in the rumors, grew fins and tails, and before I knew it—
"The young lord of the Oda is like a heavenly demon."
I'd started being talked about like that.
A heavenly demon.
Something not human.
The first time I heard it, a chill went through me and for a while I couldn't make a sound. Cold sweat ran down my back. If they raised me up into something that grand, what if people started targeting me as an even more dangerous enemy? The target would only get bigger, wouldn't it?
But one night, swinging my spear on the earthen floor, between ragged breaths, it suddenly dawned on me.
As long as they thought I was a heavenly demon—no one would come near.
Faced with someone frightening, people's legs freeze before they ever turn a blade on him. They don't close the distance. They don't try to stand behind him. No one goes out of their way to approach a monster.
Which means, being feared—
Might that be the best protection there is, for me?
I stopped the spear and crouched down on the dark earthen floor. Breathing hard, shoulders heaving, I slowly turned the idea over.
Being laughed at as a fool isn't bad. But being feared as a heavenly demon—that's better. With a fool, there are people who'll take him lightly and come close. But with a heavenly demon, no one comes close.
I don't mind being feared. If anything, I'm grateful for it. Because that way, no one comes near. If no one comes near.
If no one stands behind me.
I can sleep, just a little more easily.
If they fear me, I can live. Then why not go all the way and be feared to the hilt? Over the fool's skin, I'll put on one more mask, a heavenly demon's. Then this trembling, cowardly gut of mine will be buried behind two masks, where surely no one will ever find it.
When I thought that, for some reason, laughter welled up in me. The greatest coward in the realm, playing the greatest monster in the realm. Could there be a more ridiculous story?
—Looking back now.
That this paltry little notion, had by a man hugging his knees on a dark earthen floor that night—
Would one day become the very first brick of the world's most ridiculous plan.
Back then, I had no way of knowing.