From the eyes of Kanbe’e, who had now received baptism, all human hesitation had vanished. In its place dwelt a cold, clinical serenity. He redefined his own stratagems as the "Will of Deus" and finalized the mechanisms intended to bury Ieyasu once and for all.

  There was no more room for doubt. It was only a matter of time before an army of one hundred thousand would swallow Mikawa and Ieyasu’s head would fall.

  However, destiny raised a thunderous roar far beyond the reach of Kanbe’e’s calculations.

  November 29, the 13th year of Tensho (1585). Midnight.

  From deep beneath the earth came a low, bestial growl unlike anything heard before. Immediately after, the ground bucked violently. The massive stone walls of Osaka Castle groaned and collapsed in a rain of thunderous debris.

  —The Great Tensho Earthquake.

  Though historical accounts vary, it was a cataclysmic event centered in Hida, estimated at a magnitude of 8.0—a tremor so fierce it seemed intent on shattering the very foundations of the Japanese archipelago.

  The nearly completed main keep swayed dangerously, and construction scaffolding collapsed like matchsticks. The bustling noise of the castle’s creation vanished, replaced instantly by screams as the earth split open in the pitch-black night and fires erupted everywhere. Kanbe’e cast aside his staff amidst the violent tremors. Crawling on his crippled legs, he glared at the falling rubble.

  "The Heavens... the Heavens protect Ieyasu!?"

  Even when the shaking subsided, the nightmare did not end. Dawn revealed a city of Osaka transformed into a sea of mud. The corpses of those crushed to death protruded from the wreckage, and the fortifications that had boasted the majesty of a hegemon only yesterday were now cruelly torn asunder.

  Kanbe’e stood before a collapsed storehouse, his mud-stained hands trembling. There, tens of thousands of koku of grain, meticulously gathered to crush Ieyasu, had been swallowed by the mire.

  The damage was beyond imagination. Omi, Mino, and Ise—provinces near Hideyoshi’s base—were devastated, with countless soldiers and civilians buried alive. Most fatal of all, the vital highways and bridges necessary for the march were severed. For forty days thereafter, the earth refused to grow still, trembling with incessant aftershocks.

  The "Equation for Victory" that Kanbe’e had painstakingly constructed had vanished into nothingness with a single shudder of the earth.

  (Does God truly refuse to permit 'violence'? Is this a sentence passed upon me for attempting to destroy Ieyasu through mere wit?)

  For a fleeting moment, a weakness so profound it threatened to break his spirit took hold of Kanbe’e. Should he simply accept this divine punishment?

  But then, his fingertips brushed against a set of Kontatsu (rosary beads) gleaming dully in the mud.

  (No... I will turn even this despair into a new piece on the board. That is the 'Cross' I bear as Simeon...)

  Staring at his mud-covered maps, Kanbe’e gripped his staff and stood once more. In his eyes dwelt a "demonic" light, sharper than ever before—a light possessed only by those who have crawled back from the brink of absolute despair.

  Kanbe’e stared at a nameless flower blooming in a gap between the shattered stone walls. Amidst this hellscape where the earth had split and thousands wailed, only that flower swayed gently, as if nothing had happened.

  Support the author by searching for the original publication of this novel.

  Once, in the earthen dungeon of Arioka, Fuji had taught him: "Love even your enemies."

  Now that the earth had split and all was broken, Fuji’s serene smile returned vividly to his mind.

  (Fuji... perhaps you were right. To end the war not by crushing with force, but by forgiving and letting live... Is that the duty of one who survived this hell?)

  Kanbe’e gripped the mud-stained beads.

  He would not win by killing Ieyasu. He would win by keeping Ieyasu alive and integrating him as a part of the realm. This was the moment he cast away his former self as a cold-blooded strategist and, for the first time, made Fuji’s teachings his own flesh and blood.

  Dragging his trembling legs, Kanbe’e approached Hideyoshi, who sat in a daze.

  Hideyoshi was stunned, his will to fight drained by the sheer scale of the disaster.

  "Kanbe’e... it’s no use. Forget Ieyasu. With this much damage, if we move the army, we’ll only destroy ourselves... The Heavens are telling me 'do not fight'..."

  In response to Hideyoshi’s weak words, Kanbe’e brushed the dust from his robes and slowly looked up.

  "Your Highness, it is as you say. If we continue this war now, both the Hashiba and the Tokugawa will fall together, and the land will revert to an age of chaos. Now is the time to make peace with Ieyasu. In doing so, you shall stand above him—an act truly worthy of the man who would rule the world."

  Kanbe’e’s voice was no longer that of a mere mortal; it struck Hideyoshi’s ears like a revelation echoing from the abyss. Amidst the stench of death left by the earthquake, only Kanbe’e sought to breathe life back into the monster called "Victory" that should have died.

  Spring, the 14th year of Tensho (1586).

  Months after the earthquake, while the scars were still fresh, Kanbe’e urged Hideyoshi to adopt a "desperate policy of conciliation."

  Following Kanbe’e’s plan, Hideyoshi forced his own younger sister, Princess Asahi, to marry Ieyasu as his formal wife. The Tokugawa retainers reacted with fierce hostility, branding it a trap.

  Then, in autumn, Kanbe’e struck the final blow.

  He proposed sending Hideyoshi’s own mother, Omandokoro, to Mikawa as a "hostage" to encourage Ieyasu’s visit to the capital.

  "They are mad... Hideyoshi, and the man behind him, Kanbe’e..."

  In Hamamatsu Castle, Ieyasu gripped the letter with trembling hands. Now that Hideyoshi had offered even his own mother to plead for peace, to reject it would leave Ieyasu isolated as a "heartless rebel" in the eyes of the entire nation. His military secrets had been seized by Kazumasa's betrayal, his will to fight had been blunted by the earthquake, and now his very sense of humanity was being held hostage.

  Kanbe’e had stripped away every ounce of Ieyasu’s "pride as a warrior" and perfectly sealed off every path of retreat.

  "If I welcome Princess Asahi, I become the Hideyoshi's brother-in-law. If I take his mother into my care, I am forever in his debt... But at the same time, it means I become a part of the Kogi—the legal order of the Kanpaku..."

  Ieyasu looked up at the ceiling of his bedchamber alone in the dead of night.

  He had once held a blade to the throat of Hideyoshi at Nagakute, but now, he was the one with a transparent noose—fashioned by Kanbe’e—around his neck. To fight would be to destroy the Tokugawa house and return the land to hell. To accept would be to surrender to Hideyoshi.

  The morning light began to stain the tatami of Hamamatsu Castle white.

  Ieyasu stared quietly at his helmet resting beside him. Its surface was etched with the scars of countless battles.

  "Kazumasa... I think I finally understand your betrayal now. Did you, too, bet everything on the 'silence beyond the war' shown by that eerie strategist?"

  Ieyasu rose slowly and headed toward the Great Hall where his retainers waited.

  His steps were heavy, yet filled with an unshakable resolve. Tadakatsu Honda, Yasumasa Sakakibara, and the other brave generals who knew only the path of war looked up at their lord with bloodshot eyes.

  "My Lord! We must adamantly refuse this peace! Let us cut down the Hideyoshi matriarch and take to the field!"

  Ieyasu quietly silenced Tadakatsu’s roar with a raised hand. He looked toward the distant western sky.

  "Listen, all of you. I shall go to Osaka... I shall have an audience with the Hideyoshi."

  Those words echoed like a funeral bell signaling the end of the Sengoku period.

  Ieyasu chose the path of living and swallowing the tide of the era rather than winning on the battlefield. It was a harrowing decision to drain the "poisoned chalice" prepared by Kanbe’e by his own will.

  Deep within Osaka Castle, Kanbe’e quietly closed his eyes.

  He was already certain of the answer that would arrive from Hamamatsu.

  The "abacus" he had brought back from the darkness of Arioka and the "earthquake" sent by the Heavens as a sentence had overlapped, and the map of Japan was about to be repainted in entirely new colors.

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