After the win at Nagashino, I handed the headship of the house to my heir, Nobutada. The task of holding the house of Oda together. The heavy burden of the realm. Onto the shoulders of that son of mine, still so young.
The world saw it this way.
"The Oda now stand firm as bedrock. The father keeps watch over the realm, the son inherits the house. Across the generations, the might of the Oda shall not waver."
A fine passing of the torch, in other words.
But what I really felt was something far more pathetic.
I wanted to get down.
That was all.
I wanted to take at least a little of the weight off my shoulders, the weight of this far-too-heavy realm.
If I handed the headship to my son, maybe I'd be at least half as burdened. I had that sly idea.
Not that—Nobutada knew anything of his father's true feelings. To him, I was surely as forbidding as ever, a father like a Demon King.
I hoped the day would come when we could really talk. A day when I could show him the real me too. I kept thinking that, and kept putting the day off, and off.
The realm didn't get any lighter.
Even after I handed over the headship, the wars didn't stop. Worse, retainers I'd trusted betrayed me again.
Araki Murashige rose in rebellion. Matsunaga Hisahide turned on me too.
One after another. The more I'd favored someone, the more likely they were to bare their fangs. For me, the man most afraid of betrayal. It was like a poison, wearing my heart down bit by bit.
I want it to be over. There were more and more nights when I thought that.
Doubting people, fearing people, cutting people down and then sobbing. How long was I supposed to go on living like that?
All I wanted was to live quietly.
Even so, I wasn't alone.
In Gifu Castle there was Kicho. Someone who knew everything about me, and still stayed by my side.
In Mikawa there was Ieyasu. My best friend, a scaredy-cat like me, who'd said, "I'll follow you for the rest of my life."
And far off in the Chugoku region, Monkey—that man who'd now changed his name to Hashiba Hideyoshi—was fighting for me.
Just three.
But those three alone didn't think of me as a Demon King, or a genius. They knew me, just the coward that I was.
Held up by the warmth of those three, that wish had been quietly growing at the bottom of my heart. The wish I'd first spoken aloud that night after Mount Hiei.
I want to go back to being an ordinary man.
Somewhere I don't have to be afraid of anyone, I want to just live quietly with Kicho.
I wanted to get down now. From this far-too-heavy realm.
But how was I supposed to get down? I had no idea at all. There was no book anywhere in the world on how a ruler of the realm throws the realm away.
—The place where I'd find that answer was just now rising up on the shore of the lake in Omi.
The keep at Azuchi.