The flames of vengeance were incinerating Kanbe'e’s heart. Within this man, neither God nor Buddha existed any longer. All that remained was a dark, bottomless hatred for those who had turned this world into a living hell.

  (Murashige... Masamoto Kodera... Nobunaga... As long as I, Kanbe'e, draw breath, I will grant you no peace. With these very hands, I will turn everything you have built into ash...)

  To Kanbe'e, the earthen dungeon without Fuji’s presence was no longer a place of "life," but a darkness of total "death."

  Official records do not mention it. However, in that severe winter before the wisteria bloomed, it was a nameless young girl who continued to warm Kanbe's freezing heart with her slender body, keeping his flickering flame of life alight at the cost of her own.

  A slight mention in the Kato family records notes a young girl who perished during this period. The truth behind her death, along with the terrifying transformation of the man known as Kanbe'e, was submerged deep into the shadows of history, never to be passed down.

  (Fuji... forgive me... I promised to protect you...)

  After Fuji’s passing, Kanbe'e was cared for by Tamamatsu, Kato’s second son. Murashige tolerated this, believing that a child even younger than Fuji could do nothing of consequence. But Matazaemon Kato, who held the keys to the dungeon, felt a profound terror and pity at the change in Kanbe'e since losing his daughter.

  Kanbe'e’s hair had fallen out, his joints were warped by the dampness, and his skin had turned the color of earth from the lack of sunlight. A stench of rot drifted from his unmoving legs, where maggots sometimes bred.

  Yet, his eyes shone with a brilliant, feral intensity—like a starving beast in the darkness of the pit.

  Matazaemon hated Murashige, but he lacked the courage to open the locks and risk his son’s life. Instead, as a meager form of atonement, he continued to tell Kanbe of the disasters unfolding outside the castle.

  "Lord Kanbe'e, Arioka Castle has begun to rot from within. The wells are drying up, and the soldiers have begun to drink the blood of their horses. It will not last another year... I cannot release you yet, but please, endure... Outside, Zensuke and the others are working desperately..."

  Weakened to the point where he could no longer find his voice, Kanbe merely stared at Kato with bloodshot eyes that seemed to pierce through him. Those eyes no longer held the cool rationality of the genius strategist; they held only the obsession of a revenger, fueled by the oil of pure malice.

  From this time on, Matazaemon began to make secret, life-threatening contact with Zensuke Kuriyama and others who were exhausting their strength to save Kanbe'e.

  Ironically, the tragedy of Fuji’s death was giving birth to the "Kuroda Clan"—a bond of iron that would eventually shake the realm.

  However, in order to clear the stigma of "traitor" that Nobunaga had cast upon Kanbe’e, Zenuske and the others were compelled to join Hideyoshi's siege of Miki Castle. It was crucial for the Kuroda retainers to take the lead in achieving military glory, if only to prove Kanbe’e’s unwavering loyalty to the world.

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  Entrusting the care of his master to Mataemon Kato, Zenuske departed for the encampment at Miki as the representative of the Kuroda forces.

  Meanwhile, the lord of the castle, Murashige Araki, was trapped in a cage of extreme loneliness and madness.

  Ten months had passed since the siege began. The noose of Nobunaga’s army tightened daily, turning Arioka Castle into a gargantuan coffin.

  No matter how much he scanned the horizon for the promised Mori reinforcements, not even a shadow appeared.

  The interior of the castle was a literal hell on earth. Food supplies were exhausted due to the starvation tactics; even rats and the dirt from the walls had been consumed. Starving soldiers stared with hollow eyes at each other’s throats, and some even agonized over the choice of eating the flesh of their own kin.

  Night after night, those driven mad would shriek and claw at the walls until their fingernails tore off, dying where they lay. The stench of death and paranoia eroded Arioka Castle as surely as the damp air.

  Murashige’s mind was also crumbling like a sandcastle.

  Terror of Nobunaga, guilt over his betrayal, and the approaching footsteps of death.

  Occasionally, he would sit alone in a dark room, hugging his knees and breaking into eerie, high-pitched laughter. At other times, he would obsessively stroke the surface of his prized tea caskets, muttering to no one.

  "Nobunaga won't forgive me... He intends to decorate my head with gold. But I won't give him these tea caskets. This... this is my soul..."

  His disturbing whispers echoed through the night castle like a curse.

  In September of the 7th year of Tensho (1579), Murashige finally made a "decision." It was a moment when a human’s "Karma"—utterly irresponsible yet inescapable—was laid bare, unlike anything else in the history of the Warring States.

  "Listen well! Tonight, I leave this castle for Amagasaki!

  I am not abandoning you! I go to Amagasaki, and then to the Mori, to bring back powerful reinforcements and supplies! Hold Arioka until my return! Risk your lives and endure the Oda’s onslaught!"

  On the surface, it was a "military sortie to rebuild the front lines." In reality, it was nothing more than a pathetic "flight"—abandoning his chief vassals, his wife and children who had shared his hardships, and the villagers who believed in him while enduring starvation. He had cast aside his pride as a lord.

  On a moonless night heavy with the scent of a coming storm, Murashige slipped out of the castle under the cover of darkness. He took only five or six close aides and his precious tea treasures, wrapped in silk.

  Clambering down the cliffs of the Ina River, smeared in cold mud and hiding in summer grass taller than a man, he crawled his way to Amagasaki Castle. There was not a shred of dignity left of the man who was once the Governor of Settsu.

  The Oda army’s shock at Murashige’s flight was followed by immense ridicule. Nobunaga immediately offered a condition: "If you surrender the castles of Amagasaki and Hanakuma, the lives of your wife, children, and clan left at Arioka will be spared."

  Perhaps this was Nobunaga’s last bit of mercy, or a final test for his former favorite.

  But Murashige rejected this condition coldly and instantly.

  He no longer had the strength to trust Nobunaga, nor the emotional room to care for his family left at the brink of death. He could only think of his own survival as an individual—and of making tea once again.

  The negotiations collapsed, stained with despair. Moving his base to Hanakuma Castle, Murashige continued a meaningless resistance despite knowing the war was lost. Eventually, he fled by sea to Mori territory. Until Nobunaga vanished in the flames of the Honno-ji Incident, Murashige would cast aside his pride as a samurai, change his name, and live in hiding—surviving only as a "man who failed to die."

  This escape of Murashige remains a mystery discussed by historians to this day—was it an abnormal obsession with life, or a final, desperate military struggle?

  Produced and written by a Japanese author, rooted in authentic Japanese history. Translated with the assistance of Gemini (AI).