The stillness of Kyoto was shrouded in the drifting scent of exquisite incense wafting from Honno-ji, Mingling with the aesthetic banter of court nobles sipping priceless tea.

  Surrounded by the "vessels" he had obsessively collected, Nobunaga Oda did not doubt for a moment that the logic of the realm lay entirely within the palm of his hand.

  At the tea ceremony, the heavyweights of the Imperial Court sat in a row, led by the former Kanpaku, Sakihisa Konoe, alongside Nobufusa Takatsukasa and Haretoyo Kajuji. Also present were Nikkai Hon'inbo, the master of Go, and Soshitsu Shimai, the tycoon of Hakata. For this day, Shimai had brought the legendary tea caddy Narashiba—a masterpiece Nobunaga had coveted for years.

  This banquet was the O-dogu Soroe, a grand unveiling of thirty-eight treasures collected by Nobunaga. Amidst legendary tea jars like Matsushima and Mikazuki, the Oda father and son indulged in this decadent space until the dead of night.

  The light from the candelabras illuminated the hall, staining the sake in their cups a brilliant gold.

  "Nobutada, look upon the black of this Narashiba. This is the weight of the realm I have sought..."

  In Nobunaga’s voice, there was a rare resonance of affection. Nobutada nodded respectfully, savoring his father's words. Between them lay a shared vision of an endless Oda domain—stretching from the destroyed Takeda lands toward Shikoku, Chugoku, and Kyushu. For the father and son, this night was a fleeting but brilliant moment of familial harmony found at the end of blood-soaked days.

  However, just outside that golden glow, amidst the pitch-black rafters, the shadows of the assassination unit Senryu stirred.

  Their sharp gazes, resembling those of cats, met in the dark. Even the laughter of the father and son was recorded as nothing more than a "gap" in their guard to be exploited for the kill.

  When the Western "mechanical clock" pointed to midnight, Nobunaga spoke heavily.

  "Past the hour of nine (midnight), is it..."

  His yawn carried the arrogance of a ruler who believed his dominion was complete.

  As the banquet ended and the nobles departed, Nobutada took his leave of Honno-ji, reluctant to part from his father.

  "Father, until tomorrow morning..."

  "Mm. Rest well."

  Those were to be the final words exchanged in this life between the father and son who were meant to divide the world between them.

  Nobutada headed for his lodging, Myokaku-ji, a mere kilometer away. There, another shadow of the Senryu watched his movements with cold, calculating eyes.

  In the silent inner chamber of Honno-ji, only the dry metallic tick... tick... of the Western clock echoed like an ominous countdown. Nobunaga sat alone, staring intensely at the deep, abyss-like black luster of the Narashiba left by Shimai. To him, the court nobles were merely "mirrors" reflecting his own authority; this inorganic tea vessel was the only existence to which he could truly entrust his soul.

  At that same moment, in the camp at Bitchu, Kanbe'e gazed silently at the dripping of a water clock.

  (Nobunaga is at Honno-ji. Nobutada is at Myokaku-ji. That Mitsuhide’s thirteen thousand troops should fill that gap is now an inevitability...)

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  Kanbe'e traced the map. It was all part of his calculation that the defenses of Myokaku-ji, where Nobutada stayed, were as thin as a single sheet of paper.

  As the date turned to June 2nd, the Mitsuhide Akechi forces donned the shroud of deathly silence and marched toward the heart of Kyoto.

  Despite thirteen thousand men on the move, the usual clamor of an army was absent. All that could be heard was the muffled sound of tens of thousands of feet biting into damp earth, the snorting of horses, and the faint metallic shhh... shhh... of armor plates rubbing together.

  Awakened by this eerie presence, the townspeople of Kyoto held their breath and peered through the gaps in their doors. The light of torches licked the walls of houses as the procession passed. The faces of the soldiers were uniformly pale, like a line of the dead crawling out of the underworld. In the eyes of the leading officers dwelt a misplaced bloodlust and a despair from which there was no turning back.

  Some units were told they were moving to strike Ieyasu Tokugawa; others were told they were heading to Honno-ji for a formal inspection by the Great Lord himself. These were all pretexts prepared by Mitsuhide’s vassals to prevent any betrayal along the way.

  For Mitsuhide, the reasons to strike Nobunaga were countless.

  The beatings and verbal abuse from his lord. The loss of face in the Shikoku affair. The public humiliation during the victory celebration of the Koshu conquest...

  Having shouldered every imaginable "unreasonableness," his mental state was deteriorating; he was in no condition to carry out a rebellion alone.

  That was why Fujiitaka Hosokawa’s invitation felt like divine salvation. At first, he couldn't believe the talk of a conspiracy from Hideyoshi. But these were the words of his most trusted comrade—a man who had served the Ashikaga Shogun alongside him and was now a relative by marriage. Because the invitation came from Fujitaka, he chose to believe it. He felt the possibility of realizing his long-held dream: the restoration of the Ashikaga Shogunate.

  Furthermore, Mitsuhide harbored a secret admiration for Hideyoshi’s genius and his uncanny ability to charm people.

  It would not be surprising if Mitsuhide had been uncharacteristically elated by Hideyoshi’s sweet temptation.

  "If (Hideyoshi joins us, the story changes... If we involve Akechi, Hashiba, Hosokawa, and other generals, the allied forces will number sixty thousand. We will be an unrivaled army that even the Oda veterans cannot hope to match. With this, we shall end the chaotic era and return the Kubo (Yoshiaki Ashikaga) to Kyoto..."

  Mitsuhide decided to remain in the rear, intending to act as the supreme commander of the allied forces. Consequently, it was Toshimitsu Saito who held the actual baton of command for the assault on Honno-ji. To Toshimitsu, Nobunaga was no longer a lord, but a "calamity" to be eliminated—the man who sought to destroy his sworn brother, Motochika Chosokabe.

  Advancing through the night mist, a fire-like murderous intent swirled in Toshimitsu’s chest.

  (Great Lord, your treatment is too much. To demand that Motochika-dono surrender all lands except Tosa... My honor as the intermediary is dragged through the mud, and my sister's in-laws stand on the brink of ruin. Not only my Lord Mitsuhide, but the patience of us warriors has long since snapped...)

  Once they crossed the Katsura River, there was no turning back.

  (A strike to avenge my friends in Shikoku and all those who have lost their place... At the hour of the Rabbit, I shall sink the Demon King into the crimson flames and sever his head from history. Even if I am branded a traitor, hell is more fitting than living with abandoned pride. Now... the enemy is at Honno-ji!)

  The army split into two. A detached force led by Samanosuke and Tsugiemon Akechi headed for Myokaku-ji one hour later. It was a sharp tactical move by Mitsuhide to cut off Nobutada’s path to join his father and ensure both were taken down.

  Before dawn, the streets of Kyoto were enveloped in thick fog.

  The soldiers surrounding Honno-ji on all four sides still did not realize that the man they were besieging was Nobunaga Oda. They only sensed that the massive temple before them was the wall separating their life from their death, and they tightened their grip on their spears.

  The Senryu units had already infiltrated the deep recesses of the temple using secret routes scouted in advance. Four at Honno-ji, four at Myokaku-ji. They melted into the darkness, killing their breath, waiting for the moment the Akechi army would set the fires.

  The order for the kill had been issued by Kanbe'e in Bitchu. However, under no circumstances were the remains of the Oda father and son to fall into Akechi’s hands. Their strict mission was to erase those "heads" from the stage of history forever.

  A rebellion without a body loses its justification.

  Mitsuhide, unable to present the heads, would be discarded by the world as nothing more than a common murderer.

  The "margins of history" calculated by Kanbe'e’s abacus. What filled those gaps was neither Mitsuhide’s ambition nor Toshimitsu’s righteous indignation. It was a cruel "truth," rewritten for the convenience of the victor, leaving no heads behind.

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