When I led my army to the foot of the mountain.
I already wanted desperately to turn back. When I looked up, a black mountain loomed beyond the mist. Up there were armed warrior monks. Up there, people would be killing people.
I didn't want to kill. I didn't want to be killed. Both were equally unbearable to me.
My stomach twisted with pain. I want to go home. I want to go back to Gifu and be quiet with Kicho. Till a field or something, kill no one, fear no one, and live with just that. The same old wish went round and round in my head.
My retainers, reading my face, were apparently whispering this.
"Look at our lord's calm countenance."
"Not a shred of hesitation at attacking the Buddha's mountain. What nerve."
"Such resolve, fearing not even gods and buddhas."
No. There was nothing but hesitation. My face was stiff not from resolve but from fear. I couldn't speak not because I was steady at heart but because I was too scared to get a voice out.
There was nothing to do but go forward. Having come this far, if I withdrew, I'd be struck from behind for sure. If I withdrew here, my own men would be killed along with me. I couldn't let everyone die because of one man's fear. That's what I told myself.
Even so, my legs went weak. I scolded my trembling legs and began climbing the mountain path.
The trees pressed in from both sides. The path was narrow and dark. The kind of place I hate most. Darkness with no way out.
With every step, my heart jumped. The shadows of the trees looked like men. The sound of the wind stirring the branches sounded like the ring of blades. My throat was parched, and when I tried to swallow, I couldn't. Only the hand gripping the reins was clammy with sweat. Again and again I nearly stopped.
The retainers behind me apparently didn't doubt me in the slightest.
"Our lord speaks not a single word."
"He bears in silence the great sin of turning his soldiers against a holy mountain."
No. I couldn't speak, but not from resolve. My throat was just squeezed shut with fear, and no voice would come.
I want to go home. I want to go home. I want to go home. Only those words kept ringing in my head.
It was sudden.
From the shadows of the trees. With a battle cry. Warrior monks with glaives at the ready fell on us all at once.
"Strike down the Demon King—!"
"Bury the enemy of the Buddha, here and now—!"
Blades closed in, right there. Glaive after glaive glinted dully overhead. Even if I tried to run, the path was narrow. On both sides, trees and cliffs. Even if I tried to go back, more warrior monks were circling around from behind.
Surrounded.
Again. Again, nowhere to run.
My body froze. My heart thrashed as if it would break through my ribs. I couldn't breathe. However much I breathed in, it didn't reach my lungs. Cold sweat burst out, soaking my back, my chest, my whole body. My teeth wouldn't meet; they chattered. My vision blurred white from the edges in.
I'll be killed. Nowhere to run. I'll die. I'll die here.
Please stop. I don't want to kill anyone. I don't want to die either.
The fear went past the limit.
Of what I could bear.
In that instant. In my head, snap. Something broke.