For a while, Mitsuhide hung his head, his shoulders shaking. I waited without a word. It felt like I mustn't rush him.
I'd never seen this man shed a tear before. The earnest Mitsuhide, who always kept his back straight and carried out his duties without a single gap in his guard. I could tell that hard shell of his was quietly cracking open.
At last, Mitsuhide forced himself to speak.
"...My lord. Forgive me. Just now, I felt relieved."
"Relieved?"
"Yes."
Mitsuhide went on, without even trying to wipe away his tears.
"I have been afraid, all this time."
"What duty would be pushed on me tomorrow. Where would I fail, and be rebuked. Asleep or awake, my stomach ached and ached. I would wake many times in the night."
Without thinking, I pressed a hand to my chest. A stomach that aches. Waking up in the night. Not a hair's breadth different from what I'd carried for all my forty-eight years.
"From above, the might of the house of Oda bore down on me, and from below, my own retainers pushed up. Caught in between, I was only being worn away."
"I could tell no one. If I admitted weakness, I would be thought useless. So I gritted my teeth and pretended to see everything through properly."
Bit by bit, a little at a time.
This dutiful man let out his true feelings for the first time.
Ah, I thought.
So he was the same.
I'd been sure it was only me. That under this heavy sign, I alone was shaking.
But no.
Wanting to get down and unable to, nearly crushed under his burden, and still standing all this time, teeth gritted.
Mitsuhide had the same face as me.
The Demon King and the traitor. The two the world would call by those names were, on the inside, exactly the same: just two men worn out to the bone.
"Hearing what you said, my lord."
Mitsuhide gave a small laugh.
That face, laughing while crying, looked as though something that had possessed him had fallen away.
"I thought: ah, so it was not only me. That even the one who seemed stronger than anyone. Was shaking, just as I was."
"I will speak honestly, my lord. I too was already..."
Mitsuhide looked straight at me.
"At my limit."
"Let us do it, my lord."
"Mitsuhide..."
"I will become the traitor. Gladly. If it means that you, my lord—that you can be at ease."
I took Mitsuhide's hand.
A dry, cold hand. The same as mine, the hand of a man who'd been enduring something for a long, long time.
Two men who'd been lord and retainer for years.
For the first time, held each other's hands tight, as equal accomplices.
"I'm sorry, Mitsuhide. I'm pushing the dirty role on you."
"Not at all. I take it on because I wish to."
Mitsuhide wasn't crying anymore.
On his face was a strangely peaceful smile, the smile of someone freed of whatever had possessed him.
It was the night when two who wanted to get down finally found each other.
And so, to the world's most ridiculous plan, one more man who wanted to get down was added.