The night before a battle was what I hated most.
Tomorrow I might die. Tomorrow I might kill someone. On those nights my stomach always hurt. I'd get up for the latrine again and again, and lie awake glaring at the dark ceiling.
And this battle I hated more than any before it. The enemy, after all, was my brother.
The second year of Koji. The eighth month.
My brother Nobukatsu's side had finally raised its army. The brothers Hayashi Hidesada and Hayashi Michitomo. And Shibata Katsuie. Combining the troops of Suemori and Nagoya, they were said to be marching on us.
Their numbers: some seventeen hundred. Against them, my own force came to—at most—seven hundred.
When I heard the report, everything went dark before my eyes. More than double. More than double our numbers, and led by Shibata Katsuie, the fiercest warrior in the house, coming straight at us.
There was no way we could win.
"My lord, what shall we do?"
My retainers were watching my face.
What I really wanted was to scream:
—What do you mean, what shall we do? I want to run. I want to shut myself up in the castle. Can't someone go to Mother and ask her to stop this? For that matter, my brother can have the headship of the house.
But.
If I ran, it was over. Show weakness here, and the retainers would come pouring over to my brother's side like an avalanche. Then neither Kicho nor I would be allowed to live. There was nowhere to run.
With every ounce of strength I had, I forced my shaking voice back down my throat. Then I spoke as briefly and as low as I could.
"We march."
That was all I said. If I talked any longer, they'd hear my voice tremble.
And yet.
My retainers took those two words like this:
"...My lord. Facing a foe twice our number, you mean to sally out against them?"
"A splendid decision. Truly worthy of Lord Kazusa-no-suke."
"Such nerve, to meet Lord Shibata head-on with so small a force. We shall follow you, my lord."
No.
That's not it.
I don't have nerve. I just kept it short because my voice shakes when I talk too long. I had neither the courage to hole up in the castle nor any plan for escape, so by process of elimination, "We march" was all that was left. And yet everyone's eyes were sparkling. They were thrilled by the nerve of a commander who did not fear death.
Inwardly, I clutched my head.
Please, I begged them, don't look into my gut with those shining eyes. It's churning and boiling in there right now.
Before setting out, I stopped by to see Kicho alone. The face I could show no one else, I could show this woman.
"Kicho."
"My lord."
"Tomorrow I fight my brother."
Putting it into words, the reality came crashing down on me again.
"Win or lose, it's hell. If I lose, I die. If I win—I might kill my brother. Either way, somebody dies. How did it ever come to this?"
Kicho took my hand. At the funeral, on the night Masahide died—this hand alone had never been a blade.
"My lord. You do not cut men down because you wish to."
"...No."
"So long as you do not forget that, you will remain yourself. No matter what anyone calls you."
I held that hand for a while.
The warmth of another's skin was the only medicine I had for tomorrow.
Dawn came.
I put on my armor and mounted my horse. Seven hundred men followed behind me.
We were headed for the plain of Ino. There, for the first time in my life, I would face banners that should have been on my side.
Two Oda armies. A brother and a brother, both flying the quince crest, killing each other on an Owari plain. Could there be a more ridiculous war than that?
I ground my back teeth and choked down the nausea rising in my throat.