I had won. I had slain Imagawa Yoshimoto, the finest bowman of the Tokaido. With a small force, I had broken a vast army.
And yet there I was, in the middle of a mountain of bodies, crying like a child.
The moment I saw the fallen headquarters banner, the "thing" inside me quietly drew back.
Like a tide coming in, the fear returned. The trembling returned. Exhaustion crashed down on my whole body. My knees gave out. I sank down where I stood, as if I'd collapsed.
And I looked at my feet.
People were lying there.
Not one or two. More Imagawa soldiers than I could count lay piled on one another in the mud and blood. People who had been alive just a moment ago.
None of them moved. The bellowing and screaming that had filled everything just moments before had vanished as if they'd never been. In the stillness after the rain, all I could hear was my own ragged breathing.
That I had done this. That it was these hands of mine. My mind refused to understand. I looked at my palms. Other men's blood was caked even between my fingers. I tried to wipe it off with shaking hands, and couldn't.
A little way off lay a warrior in especially fine armor. One of my retainers was holding up his head and shouting.
"Imagawa Yoshimoto is slain!"
Yoshimoto. The great daimyo hailed as the finest bowman of the Tokaido. Now struck down, his head was there in front of me.
Because of me.
I crawled up to Yoshimoto's head. And knelt.
"...I'm sorry."
My voice came out shaking.
"I'm sorry. I didn't mean to kill you. Really. I only wanted to live..."
The tears wouldn't stop. Fresh tears ran in streak after streak down my cheeks, smeared with other men's blood.
This man must have had a home to go back to, too. There must have been people waiting for him. How many years he must have lived to become known as the finest of the Tokaido. And I had taken it. In no time at all. Without a thought.
Not just Yoshimoto. Every one of the people lying here must have had a name, parents, children. Until this morning, they had all been people who were simply living. People who, just like me, might have been afraid to die.
I wept out loud. In the middle of the fallen. Before Yoshimoto's head. Sobbing and hiccuping like a child.
I never wanted to be strong. I never wanted power like this. All I wanted was to live without killing anyone.
The body I had trained to survive had become a tool for taking so many lives. I was terrified of the "thing" that lived inside me. The next time it woke, would I harvest people's lives like this again?
I couldn't bring myself to raise a victory cry, or to rejoice. I had taken so many lives, and it was just sad, and frightening, and I was so sorry.
I kept on crying.
But—to the retainers watching from a distance, it seems that the sight of me, splattered with blood, eyes full of tears, shouting something before Yoshimoto's head, looked like something else entirely. Something I knew nothing about.
I had won. I had slain the finest bowman of the Tokaido.
And yet there I was, in the middle of a mountain of bodies, crying like a child.