I never wanted the realm. I just wanted to live without being afraid. That was all, and yet before I knew it, I'd been made to stand at the very center of the realm.
1568. I marched on Kyoto, bearing up a man named Ashikaga Yoshiaki. Carrying on my shoulders that man of the faded shogun's bloodline. Leading a great army into the capital. What the world calls the march on Kyoto.
All along the road, people crowded the wayside.
"So that's the Oda army."
"The banners of Tenka Fubu. At last, Lord Oda comes to Kyoto."
People, people, people, surging forward to catch one glimpse of me. Looking at that vast sea of people—my blood ran cold.
So many people. Far too many. There was no telling how many of them, mixed into the crowd, were after me. There might be someone drawing a bow. Someone leveling a gun. Someone ready to throw a blade from the shadows.
Kyoto is the center of the realm. And the center of the realm means—the place where everyone in the realm who wants me dead gathers.
The more eyes on me. The more people looked up to me. The more people there were who wanted to kill me. On horseback, checking the hardness of my nanban cuirass, I just trembled.
And yet everyone looked up to me.
"Lord Oda has at last set foot on the road to becoming ruler of the realm."
"Under the banners of Tenka Fubu, this troubled age will surely grow calm."
The young conqueror who carried a shogun on his shoulders and took Kyoto. That was how the world saw me.
That's not it. All I want is to live quietly in the country. Just me and Kicho, afraid of no one, tilling a field. So why have I come all the way to this place, the most crowded, the most dangerous place there is?
That night. In my lodgings in Kyoto, I sat alone, hugging my knees.
Kicho came in quietly. She sat down beside me, stayed silent for a while, and then spoke softly.
"You've come a very long way."
"...Yeah."
"You've come so far there's nowhere left to run. Isn't that so?"
I couldn't answer. Kicho understood everything I really felt.
"But," Kicho went on quietly.
"I'm here, you know. However high they make you climb. I'll be beside you."
A voice came from the other side of the sliding door.
"My lord. I've brought your herbal remedy."
It was Tokichiro.
"You'll be having a stomachache, I'd wager. Drink this, my lord. Kyoto water won't agree with your belly."
He'd seen that my stomach hurt before I said a word. I took the herbal remedy. The warmth seeped in through my palms.
In the inner quarters, Kicho. Outside, Tokichiro. Even on these heights I never wanted, those two alone knew what I really was and stayed by my side. That was my only salvation.
In another corner of the lodgings. Mitsuhide was still writing letters under the lamp.
Once you'd marched on Kyoto, the matters to coordinate only multiplied without end. That man was in the middle of it again, wearing down.
We were all pushing ourselves too hard on heights we never wanted. Me. Mitsuhide. Only, I had Kicho and Tokichiro.
That man—didn't have anyone yet.
I never wanted the realm. I just wanted to live without being afraid. And yet before I knew it, I'd been made to stand at the dead center of the realm. On the most conspicuous step of a staircase I couldn't get down from.
And on these heights I never wanted. Before long, I would be—betrayed by my brother-in-law, the one I trusted most, and loved most, in all my life.