On the shore of the lake in Omi, I built the castle closest to heaven.
Azuchi Castle.
Its keep rose seven stories, so tall that looking up at it made your neck hurt.
The stone walls were piled tier upon tier, the roof tiles gleamed silver in the sun, and the topmost story was lacquered in gold and vermilion. The people of Omi, they said, would look up at it from across the lake with their mouths hanging open, wondering if that was really a castle built by human hands.
The world saw it this way.
"The Demon King at last glares even at heaven."
"That castle is Nobunaga's might itself. Is there anyone else who could build such a castle? The realm is already in that man's hands."
A castle that gave shape to the peak of a ruler of the realm. That's how everyone praised it.
But what I really felt was, as usual, completely different.
That's not a castle.
It's my highest hiding place.
Think about it. Why make it so tall? Because I want to spot any assassin climbing up from below, even one, even one step sooner. If you climb up high, you can see from far away when someone's drawn a sword and is coming toward you. That alone makes my heart jump just a little less.
Why dig the moats so deep? So no one could get close easily. Why make the stone stairs so steep, and so narrow two people couldn't stand side by side? So anyone charging up them with a drawn sword would be so out of breath by the time he reached the top that he couldn't lift a single arm.
Why build secret passages all through the keep? So that when the time came, I alone could slip away.
If you lined up all the reasons for every single thing I built, what you'd find there wasn't some grand dream of a ruler of the realm, but nothing except the far-too-detailed precautions of one man, shaking with fear that he might be killed at any time.
In other words, the keep at Azuchi was no symbol of a ruler's might.
It was something like the world's most magnificent bomb shelter, built by the greatest coward of the warring age with every coin he had. It was also a tower with no escape, the weight of how did I end up this far piled up exactly as it was into stone walls.
I stand at the very top of it.
Below me the castle town spreads out, and far off the lake gleams dully. The people and horses coming and going are as small as fingertips. The whole realm could be seen from where I stood. No one behind me. With my back to the wall, I don't have to worry about being stabbed from behind. No approaching footsteps, no bared blades, can reach up here.
Only after climbing this far could I finally loosen my shoulders a little, just a little, and breathe. A fleeting peace I could never have tasted as long as my feet were on the ground.
And yet.
It's a funny thing.
The higher I climbed, the more safety I piled up, the fewer people there were who could come all the way up to the top of this keep, to my side.
I was becoming alone.