On the plain of Ino, the "something" inside me had started to wake, then shrank back at the sound of my men's voices. Back then, there had been a voice to pull me back to reality.
But at Okehazama,
that voice came from nowhere.
The downpour stopped without warning.
The rain that had been pouring down drained away as if it had never been. My view opened up. And beyond it—Imagawa banners, crowded together beyond counting.
"Charge!"
Someone on our side shouted it.
I didn't want to go. My legs were shaking. I wanted to run from this place right now. But the order had been given. My men went racing down the rain-soaked slope.
There was no going back now. I had no choice but to go, too.
Caught off guard, the Imagawa troops wavered. But theirs was a vast army, after all. They soon began to pull themselves back into order.
The battle quickly turned into a melee. Friend and foe tangled together, grappling. On the muddy slope, men slipped, fell, got up again, and crossed blades.
Bellowing, screaming, the clash of iron filled the whole rain-soaked slope. I could no longer even tell who was friend and who was foe. Right in front of me, people fell. Blood melted into the mud.
I was knocked from my horse. Before I knew it, I was on foot in the mud. My legs tangled, and I couldn't stand properly.
When I noticed, the men around me were thinning out. Jostled by the melee, pulled apart, scattering.
And in front of me, Imagawa soldiers appeared. One, two—no, more.
I was surrounded.
Ahead, behind, on either side—blades. Blades. Blades. And every one of those countless points was aimed at me alone.
Just like at Ino. No—worse. Here, there was none of that luck, no band of my men breaking through the ring and charging in. They had all been swallowed by the melee; no one even knew where I was.
No help was coming. Even if I called out names, in all this bellowing, no one would hear. If I fell here, no one would notice for a good while. Just another corpse in the mud.
I stood all alone in the middle of the enemy.
And then that wrongness came back into my body.
Cold sweat burst out all over me. Under my armor, I was soaked through. My back, my chest, my thighs, as if I'd been doused with water. My teeth wouldn't stay together. They chattered and clacked. My heart ran wild. As if it would smash my chest open from inside. I couldn't breathe. I breathed in and breathed in, and it wasn't enough.
And then—everything went white.
The faces of the soldiers around me, the glint of their blades, all of it faded into white haze.
Ah. This time, I really am going to die here.
Kicho. Kicho. I promised you. That we'd till a field in the country and live quietly, just the two of us. Is that dream going to sink into the mud, here?
I couldn't stay standing any longer. My knees were giving way.
I was on the verge of passing out. My consciousness was sinking, slowly, toward the bottom. Without knowing what lay beyond that dark bottom.
Somewhere in my heart, I was waiting. For that voice. "My lord, are you safe?" A voice from my men, calling me back.
But.
I waited and waited, and that voice
never came.
This time, the voice that would pull me back to reality came from nowhere.
And so—that thing inside me woke up completely.