The second day of the sixth month, the tenth year of Tensho.
Oda Nobunaga was struck down by Akechi Mitsuhide at Honno-ji in Kyoto, and died.
—Or so the story goes.
That's how the books of later ages will record it.
The Demon King of the Sixth Heaven, felled by a retainer's rebellion. Meeting a fierce end amid the flames, they'll say.
But.
Here I am, still alive and kicking.
What's about to happen is neither a rebellion nor a tragedy. It's the world's most ridiculous plan to skip out, put together over years and years by just me and a handful of others.
On the road up from Azuchi to Kyoto.
Surrounded by my attendants, swaying on horseback, my knees were shaking as usual. Even at forty-eight, what's scary is scary. It's been that way as long as I can remember, and this body, no matter how I trained it, was the one thing I could never tame.
I was about to hold my own funeral, myself. And in real flames, too.
One misstep, and a death that was supposed to be an act would become a real one. If even one part of the plan went wrong, I'd really turn to ash in those flames. Just thinking about it gave me a dull ache in my stomach. Sweat oozed from my palms. My throat was bone dry.
My usual body, the one I get when I'm afraid.
But deep beneath those shaking knees.
Another fire, one that had been smoldering all along.
Was quietly, surely, beginning to give off heat.
I can get down.
At last I can put down this far-too-heavy sign.
The Demon King of the Sixth Heaven. Ruler of the realm. Those grand titles that everyone fears and everyone bows down to—burn them all away in the flames.
Somewhere with Kicho, just the two of us, where I don't have to be afraid of anyone.
Somewhere like that, where I can sleep without worrying what's behind me, where I don't have to shake at the dark. Where we can live quietly, maybe tilling a field.
I never wanted the realm in the first place. That was all I'd ever really wanted.
That modest dream had come within reach.
All I needed now was for the whole cast to be in place.
Kicho had already made up her mind.
She'd seen right through me as I shook on our wedding night, and ever since then she'd been my one and only accomplice. To this final grand performance too, she had quietly nodded.
For Hideyoshi and Ieyasu too, there were arrangements to let each of them know.
Monkey—Hideyoshi—hadn't been told anything yet, but he's a sharp one. Once it happened, he'd see through everything in an instant and handle the cleanup nicely.
Ieyasu is my partner in the Scaredy-Cat Alliance. I've asked him to play the most wretched and most important role of all.
I'd lay my heart bare to my son Nobutada soon, too.
But the most crucial one still remained.
The man I'd have play the hardest role in this world's most ridiculous performance: the traitor. That dirty role, to be cursed down the ages as "the traitor who killed his lord"—I was about to lay it on one man's shoulders.
When I pictured that man's face, my chest gave a small, sharp pang.
Before entering Kyoto, I decided to tell that worn-down man the truth.
That's where it all starts.