PrologueThe attacking army had already pushed into the land around Samegao Castle.
Had they set fire to the eastern side of the Third Wing? Flames and smoke soared brilliantly into the sky as if the entire mountain were ablaze.
The battle had already begun. Horie Munechika, master of Samegao Castle, had gone over to Kagekatsu’s side. Perhaps Horie had succ.u.mbed to fear of the ma.s.sive army Kagekatsu had sent after him after he escaped from the Otate at Naoe Port in the Echigo capital. In the end Horie had betrayed him and surrendered the castle, and was even now attacking with the advancing army.
Even so, the soldiers he had led here from the Otate seemed determined to make a stand. Seven days since the surrender of the Otate. In this, their last resistance, they could not hope to match the numbers of the enormous army which had descended on them from Kasugayama, the Uesugi primary fortress.
The sound of soldiers’ angry voices was audible in the distance.
Fire engulfed the surrounding land, burning brightly.
(Is the end already upon me...?)
The hopeless murmur slipped from his lips as he stood looking down at the spots of rising smoke from the main citadel. Despair and an unshakeable determination roiled within his chest.
In this past year since his adopted father, the great Uesugi Kenshin, had pa.s.sed away, the battle for succession of the Uesugi Clan between himself and Kagekatsu, likewise Kenshin’s adopted son, had divided the various commanders and served only to plunge Echigo into the chaos of war. This land of Echigo, which their enemies had never even been able to set foot on while Kenshin was alive, was now stained by the blood of their brethren.
Though Kitajou and Honjou had secured the might of the various generals of central Echigo, in the end they had been unable to overcome Kagekatsu. Houjou reinforcements from his family home at Odawara Castle could only retreat before Kagekatsu’s fierce offense. Takeda Katsuyori, who had also sent reinforcements, had double-crossed them and gone over to Kagekatsu. The Otate, which he had made his stronghold, had fallen to Kagekatsu’s general offensive on March 17th in the raging flames that engulfed the capital.
Kagekatsu’s soldiers had taken his son, Doumanmaru, and the former Kanrei, Uesugi Norimasa, on their way to Kasugayama to negotiate for peace, and put them to the sword.
No place of refuge remained to him in this land of Echigo...
Now the only path left to him was to escape from Echigo and return to his birth-home, to Ujimasa and his other brothers—to Odawara.
(But I can no longer outrun them...)
Samegao Castle was strategically placed on the Shinetsu border. Horie, the master of this castle, had been a trusted ally. He had fled Echigo only to be betrayed at the very last. The Echigoborder was just beyond the castle. He would probably be able to throw off his pursuers if he could cross over the mountains. But Kagekatsu’s ma.s.sive army had already completely surrounded the castle and reduced the land around it to ashes.
“Lord Kagetora!”
He turned to the man shouting his name so desperately: his close aide, Ishizaka Sakon.
“Please run! This castle hath fallen! Please escape from here, even if it be thee alone!”
“...”
“Lord Kagetora!”
He could run no longer.
Kagekatsu would not allow him to escape from Echigo with his life. Surely, until Kagekatsu had his head...
(Kagekatsu...)
Perhaps everything, even hatred, had withered within him; even the sound of his name touched only emptiness within him.
He cast his gaze across the Echigo plains. He could see a small light in the distant north—the light of the lands around Kasugayama?
He closed his eyes tightly.
Quietly pulled out the dagger at his waist.
(Father...)
He embraced the beautiful, sublime vision, seeing the figure of that righteous warrior thundering across the battlefield.
Kenshin, his beloved adopted father, whom he had revered above any other.
This past year, he had silently asked, again and again, repeatedly, endlessly—
Was this right?
Had it been the right thing to do?
Within his heart, his awe-inspiring father had only watched over him, saying nothing. How many times had he pondered, questioned the meaning of his existence? He, who had arrived in this land after such a long struggle—what was the meaning of his life in this ever-changing Sengoku? He felt as if his existence had served only to plunge Echigo into the chaos of war. His father was surely grieving. What had he come here to do? What had he been to Kenshin?
(What is it thou wouldst have me do...?!)
Wraaaaugh!
Harsh shouts suddenly erupted nearby.
He turned. The enemy soldiers would soon reach the top.
(I will not die at a stranger’s hand!)
As he raised the naked dagger to his carotid artery, he suddenly looked at the hand-mirror beside him.
He saw himself in the mirror.
“...!”
He started.
The person in the mirror was not him.
It was a woman.
A long-haired woman holding a dagger against her neck!
(That’s not...!)
He met the eyes of his mirror-self.
(That is not me...!)
It was not him.
A beautiful woman with long black hair...his beloved...
He covered his mouth with one hand.
Terror rekindled within him. That terrible moment he had never wanted to recall. He and the woman in the mirror began to shake as she stared back at him, eyes wide. Unmistakable.
The person here, the one reflected in the mirror, was—
(Minako...!)
Someone was calling to him, the voice a scream.
As he tried to turn, someone’s chest suddenly pressed against his back, embracing him from behind. He could not shake it off.
A strength as indomitable as a prayer.
Praying—don’t go anywhere...!
—Kagetora-sama...!