Be taken for dead, and vanish.
It's easy to say. But Kicho was right. This was something I absolutely could not do alone.
After I vanished, the world had to be convinced that "Nobunaga is dead." Someone would have to cleverly cover up the fact that there was no body. I'd need a secret passage to slip out of the castle. After that, so the house of Oda wouldn't split and go to war again, someone would have to take over the realm and hold it together. And no one could be allowed to see that my "death" was a lie.
The more I thought about it, the more outrageous a plan it was. The world's most ridiculous plan, I thought, even myself.
But strangely, when I pictured that ridiculous plan, my chest grew warm.
I'd already confessed it to Kicho. She hadn't hesitated for a moment. Far from it, she'd started counting off what was missing before I had. There was someone who would vanish with me. The person who found my most ridiculous true feelings the most amusing of all.
But—Kicho alone couldn't make it work.
To each of those roles Kicho had counted off, I began fitting a face.
Hideyoshi, I could trust with the cleanup. That sharp Bald Rat would surely understand everything without a word and play innocent: "Well, well, it seems my lord's body was never found." That's the kind of man he is.
And Ieyasu. He'd even put on a show of running for his life to fool the world. That scaredy-cat best friend of mine who said, "I'll follow you for the rest of my life."
Three who understood me.
Just picturing those three, a plan that had seemed impossible began, little by little, to take shape.
But.
There was one more. A man I couldn't get out of my head.
Akechi Mitsuhide.
Earnest, dutiful, a capable retainer who saw through properly whatever you gave him. Which was why I'd ended up pushing heavy roles on him and him alone. Troublesome scheming, nerve-racking entertaining, thankless cleanups.
"Mitsuhide can do it."
Saying that, I loaded one thing after another onto him, knowing he couldn't refuse.
One day, I happened to see it. Mitsuhide's profile in the corridor, arms full of a pile of letters.
He looked terribly tired.
Dark rings under his eyes, his back somehow rounded, and his topknot, once so meticulous, coming loose. He was worn down. It was the face of a man stuck in the middle, squeezed between those above and those below, being shaved away bit by bit without anyone to whom he could admit weakness.
When I saw that face, something pierced my chest, I didn't know why.
Ah, he's—.
The same as me. Wanting to get down and unable to. Nearly crushed under his burden, and still standing, teeth gritted.
And I thought. Maybe, to this earnest man, I could confess the truth about me.
That worn-down face of Akechi's, somehow, I couldn't get it out of my head.