I decided to build a temple for Masahide. A temple to pray for that old man's soul.
When the household heard, they started buzzing again.
"They say our lord is to build a temple for Lord Masahide."
"A whole temple, for a single old retainer. ...What depth of feeling."
"I had scorned him as a fool... but to think he cares so for his retainers. Perhaps we misjudged him."
"Cold at his father's death, and a temple for a retainer's. ...Truly, he is unfathomable. Our lord's heart is beyond our reach."
Again.
Again, everyone blowing the story up however they like.
A head of house with deep feeling, an unfathomable heart, and so on.
No.
All I—
All I wanted was to apologize.
To the man my cowardice, my self-preservation, had killed. For my own weakness, for never finding the courage to tell the truth, right to the end.
The one I needed to apologize to is no longer in this world. So the most I could do was build a temple. That's all it is.
I named the temple Seishu-ji. I left that old man's name on it, just as it was.
On the day it was completed, I stood alone before the main hall. The smoke of the incense sticks rose straight up. The incense smoke that had frightened me so badly on the day of the funeral.
But today, strangely, it didn't scare me.
"...Old man," I murmured toward the empty hall.
"I probably can't become the kind of head of house you talked about, like other men. I think I'll go on living scared, shaking, making a fool of myself. And it doesn't look like I'll be taking off the fool's mask for a while, either."
The smoke swayed.
"But there's one thing. One thing I learned, thanks to you. When someone dies, it hurts this much. So from now on, as much as I can, I'll live letting people live. Your share too. ...I won't ask you to forgive me for it. It's just, that's what I've decided."
Before I knew it, Kicho was standing beside me.
"My lord."
"...Kicho?"
"It is a good temple."
I nodded.
"Hey, Kicho. Does guilt ever go away?"
Kicho thought a little, then shook her head.
"I do not think it goes away. But—"
"But?"
"You can carry it, and walk. From here on, you will carry a great many things, I expect. They will be heavy. But I will walk beside you."
I looked up at the sky beyond the smoke.
To carry a weight that doesn't go away, and walk.
That was the one and only way to live that Masahide left me.
And so I came to know my first real loss. The pain of hurting someone was carved into my very bones.
It was a heart so ill-suited, fatally so, to a man living in the warring age.
That this kindness, this guilt, would make me cry so many times in the days to come—
Back then, I didn't know that yet.
And.
My trials weren't over with this.
Some time after Masahide's death.
What was waiting for me next, just as I'd finally begun to face forward a little—
Wasn't an enemy from outside, or a crowd.
It was my own brother, of my own blood.
Of all people, I would have to cross blades with the one I least wanted to kill.