When I stood at the very top of the keep, the world was at my feet.
The roofs of the castle town lined up small, and the lake caught the setting sun and glowed as if on fire. The people and horses coming and going were like grains of rice. The whole realm could be seen from here. And I was standing at the very highest point of all of it.
But.
No one came up to this highest point.
My retainers all prostrated themselves at the foot of the stairs. When I passed with my robes rustling, they all bowed their heads at once, and not a single one looked up. There was no longer anyone anywhere who would look me straight in the eye.
Even when we spoke, they all talked looking not at my face but at one spot on the floor. Even when I said, "Come closer," their knees trembled as they shuffled forward. There couldn't possibly be anyone in this world who could look the Demon King of the Sixth Heaven straight back in the eye.
Looking down at that sea of prostrate heads, I always think the same thing.
Not one of them knows the real me.
That the one standing here is just a coward who can't sleep alone at night, whose heart leaps into his throat at the mere sense of someone behind him, who sobs like a child when he cuts someone down—no one knows that.
It used to be better. Back when they called me a fool, I'd wrestle sumo stripped bare with the young men, bodies slick with sweat crashing together, and only then could I feel another person's warmth, directly. In the ring there were no blades. No betrayal. Being able to touch someone's skin—that was the one outlet I had for how much I longed for people.
But once I became ruler of the realm, I couldn't do even that anymore.
What I wanted wasn't this, a sea of prostrate heads. Just someone's warmth, someone beside me who'd laugh without being afraid of me.
But the higher I climbed, the farther that warmth only drifted away.
Only three people knew the real me.
Kicho in Gifu, who would silently take my shaking hand.
Hideyoshi in the Chugoku region, still fighting for me, covered in mud.
Ieyasu in Mikawa, who'd shaken right beside me and said, "I'll follow you for the rest of my life."
Only those three, in this far-too-high solitude, saw me not as a Demon King but as just a human being.
Just then there was a rustle of silk, and Kicho came to my side. Without a word, she took my hand. It was the hand that knew best in all the world the cold, sweaty trembling of mine.
"Are you looking down again?"
Kicho said it quietly, gazing out toward the lake.
"You really are fond of high places, aren't you."
Fond of them? Hardly, I think. High places are just the safest, that's all. And the loneliest, that's all. She alone understands that without my having to say it.
Squeezing her hand back, I thought.
The highest place was the loneliest one.