More than anything, I was afraid of losing my protector.
When I heard my father had fallen ill, the first thing that rose in my chest wasn't sorrow. It was fear. If this man dies, there'll be no one left to protect me.
I hated, unbearably, how cold-hearted I was in the moment I thought that.
My father's name was Oda Nobuhide. A master of war whose name rang throughout Owari. Everyone in the household feared and respected him. And his son was me. The heir called "the Great Fool," a failure. The shame of the house, who ran wild through the fields in outlandish clothes, ate rice cakes standing up, and did nothing but wrestle sumo.
My father never gave up on me, to the very end. He scolded me, but he never disinherited me. Why, I don't know. But one thing is certain.
As long as my father was alive, no one could openly harm me. The sign that read "heir of Oda Nobuhide" was the one and only shield that protected me.
And now that shield was about to disappear.
When I was called to his bedside, my father could barely speak anymore. His wasted hand weakly gripped mine.
I thought I had to say something. Father, for your long years of kindness—or, Leave the rest to me. A proper heir would surely have had the words to say. But my throat closed up, and nothing came out.
What filled my head was something far more shameful.
—If Father dies, who's going to protect me?
A childish fear, like that.
Pathetic. Facing my dying father, and what I was worried about was my own safety.
All I could do was squeeze back. With a trembling hand, I just squeezed my father's cold hand back.
Before long, my father died. At once, the household began to stir. On the surface, everyone was solemnly in mourning. But beneath it, I could feel on my skin that something had begun to writhe and crawl.
Who would succeed to the house?
The fool of an elder brother? Or the younger one, reputed to be so bright?
Every time I turned a corner in the corridor, retainers would be whispering about something, and the moment they saw me, they'd fall silent. Those eyes. Eyes weighing me up. "Can we really entrust the Oda to this Great Fool?" Gaze after gaze stabbed into my back.
Every one of them looked like a blade.
I fled into my room, shut the doors, and hugged my knees.
Kicho came in quietly.
"My lord."
"...Don't come in. No—come in. Sorry, which is it, I don't even know myself."
Kicho sat down beside me without a word.
"Father's dead," I finally managed to say. That was all.
"The one and only shield protecting me is gone. From now on, I have to be the shield for the Oda. ...There's no way I can. When I'm this much of a coward."
Kicho laid her hand gently on my back.
The warmth of that hand was the only thing in that dark room that wasn't a blade.
And then the day of the funeral was set.
People from all over Owari were to gather at Bansho-ji, I was told. Countless mourners, devoted to my father's renown.
When I heard the news, the blood drained from my face.
People were coming. An enormous number of people, gathered in one place. And in the middle of them, as chief mourner, they'd stand me up.
The day I'd be surrounded by more people than ever in my life was coming at, of all times, the moment I felt most helpless.