"Shinpachiro! Little brother, open up! It's your brother! Your brother has come!"
Before the sturdy lime gate built at the entrance to the valley, two figures were shouting.
Their armor was caked in mud, and one had his arm in a sling. No horses, and only a handful of men.
It was my eldest brother, Shigemori, and my second brother, Masayuki.
Crushed in battle and stripped of their castle, they had wandered until, at the end of it, they had found their way to this valley.
From atop the gate, I looked calmly down at the two of them.
"Brother Shigemori. Brother Masayuki. It has been a long time."
"Oh, Shinpachiro! Thank heavens you're safe... No, never mind that, I have a favor to ask!"
Shigemori shouted in a hoarse voice. Of the swagger with which he had once mocked me in the great hall, there was no trace.
"Give us provisions! The men are starving—they haven't had a grain of rice in three days! We're brothers, aren't we? Have a heart and help us—"
"Brothers."
I repeated the word quietly.
"Two years ago, did you think of me as your brother? 'Bookworm weakling.' 'Peasant warlord.' Who was it that called me those names and threw me away to the starving valley?"
Shigemori was at a loss for words.
Masayuki hurriedly stepped forward and ground his forehead into the dirt.
"Th-that was only a joke! We didn't mean it! Neither Brother nor I could see your talent... Forgive us, Shinpachiro! No—Lord Shinpachiro!"
At that groveling voice, so completely turned around, the villagers of the valley began to murmur.
The man who, two years ago in the castle's great hall, had laughed at me and said "How generous of you, Brother," now had his forehead in the mud and was calling me "Lord."
From atop the gate, I turned and looked back over the valley.
Golden ears of rice filled it all the way to the horizon. The storehouses were piled with three years' worth of rice, sturdy embankments guarded the water, and the children laughed with their bellies full.
And inside the gate, at some point, a single Oda banner had been raised.
A token of the protection Nobunaga had granted me.
"You inherited the house by force of arms, Brothers."
I spoke slowly.
"In strength of arms, I cannot beat you. Even now, with a sword in my hand, I would probably lose to a three-year-old."
Shigemori lifted his face, clinging to hope.
"Th-that's right! So—"
"But."
I took a ledger from inside my robe, opened it, and showed it to them.
"My rice harvest is ten times greater."
A wind swept across the valley.
"While you could not feed ten thousand soldiers and let them starve, I, with a single valley, stored up enough rice to fill thirty thousand bellies. Win your wars but starve, and you perish. Fight no wars but never starve, and you prosper. —I wonder which of us is the one who will keep the house alive."
Shigemori's face crumpled with humiliation and understanding.
"The bookworm... weakling...?"
"Yes. The principles of flood control and fertilizer that bookworm studied turned this valley to gold. A sword can cut down one man. But the wisdom to master soil and water saves tens of thousands from hunger."
I tapped the figures in the ledger with my finger.
"The barren valley I was thrown away to is richer now than the castle you shed blood to take. That is your answer."
Shigemori squeezed out the words in a trembling voice.
"P-please... just three days' worth for the men. Spare us even that much..."
Once more, I traced the figures in the ledger with my finger.
"Three days' worth. The amount you beg for your ten thousand soldiers—it falls short of the rice this valley now cooks in a single day."
The blood drained from both their faces. They were the faces of men who had finally understood that the barren valley they once looked down on had already left them behind in every way.
"You said you came to beg for provisions."
I quietly closed the ledger.
"Unfortunately, this valley's rice is already spoken for, down to the portion offered to Lord Oda Nobunaga. Rice that never abandoned a single starving village—I have none to spare for those who abandoned their villages. None at all."
"Shinpachiro! You wretch, you'd leave your own brother to die?!"
"Yes."
I answered without hesitation.
"Just as you left the thirty of this valley to die."
With a heavy sound, the gate began to close.
Beyond it, my brothers' voices, still shouting, were drowned out by the wind of the harvest sweeping across the golden valley.
Inside the gate, Sayo quietly came to stand beside me.
"...Was that all right?"
"Yes."
I looked out over the countless ears of rice, their heads bowed low.
There was no more hunger here. The cursed valley had become a golden paradise.
"I never needed arms, or the headship of the house. This is what I wanted to protect."
Sayo blushed and looked down.
The ears of rice that filled the valley glowed in the light of the setting sun, as if they were on fire.