There was no time to grieve. At this rate, I'd be crushed from front and back. I had to run.
Before I could even think it. My body was already moving.
"We withdraw."
I said it short.
My voice, at least, I kept low and final. So my retainers wouldn't see me shaking.
But inside, I was filled with a single word.
I want to run.
I want to run, I want to run, I want to run.
I don't want to die. I want to get home alive. To where Kicho is.
That one thought outran every other thought I had.
Taking only a handful of attendants. Leaving the great army behind. I left the front lines.
I kicked my horse's flanks. Never looking aside. Galloping for Kyoto and nothing else.
The commander-in-chief.
Abandoning his army.
Running away before anyone.
It was as pathetic as anything could be. It would be talked about for generations. I knew that. I knew it, and still. My legs wouldn't stop.
As I rode, I looked back again and again. Were pursuers coming? Were Nagamasa's men, the Asakura men, right on my heels?
The shadows of the trees looked like pursuers, and I shuddered. The sound of the wind sounded like hoofbeats, and my heart jumped. My whole body was soaked in cold sweat. So much that my hands slipped on the reins.
Even so, I rode.
With the single thought of surviving.
In a corner of my mind, it flickered past. What would become of the great army I'd left behind? Those soldiers were staking their lives for me.
Guilt stabbed at my chest. But the fear was far, far bigger.
Feeling sick at my own patheticness.
I still kept kicking my horse's flanks.
I want to live.
That one thought trampled pride and appearances alike and pushed on.
As I passed through a place called Kutsuki. A local man offered to guide us.
Honestly, I was afraid even to trust that. This man might be a trap too, leading me to the bottom of a ravine.
Doubting him like that. But with no other road. I followed a stranger's back, trembling.
Having just been betrayed.
I couldn't trust anyone anymore.
I ran. I just ran and ran. With the single thought that I didn't want to die.
There was no stratagem in it, no command. There was only fear.
A commander running away before anyone. It was as pathetic as anything could be.
—And yet.
Later, this desperate, shameless flight. Would be handed down as "a lightning withdrawal of divine strategy and demonic cunning." Under a frighteningly splendid name.