It was as the sky began to pale that the ill tidings reached Myokaku-ji, about one kilometer north of Honno-ji. Nobutada, the eldest son and heir of the Oda clan, learned that his father, Nobunaga, had come under attack. His initial instinct was to lead his men and rush to Honno-ji to save his father.

  However, Sadakatsu Murai, the Kyoto Magistrate, desperately restrained him.

  "Honno-ji is already in ashes, and Mitsuhide Akechi's forces are headed this way!"

  Nobutada looked toward the southern sky. There, a sinister crimson inferno swirled, thick enough to blot out the dawn light. Facing that overwhelming wall of flame, Nobutada came to a quiet realization.

  "Am I... too late?"

  At this moment, Mitsuhide Akechi’s encirclement was not yet complete. Nobutada decided to abandon Myokaku-ji, which was poorly suited for defense, and move to the adjacent Nijo Castle (the New Nijo Palace)—the residence of Prince Sanehito and a much sturdier fortification.

  Yet, even this race against time was fully transparent to Mitsuhide Akechi’s detached units. And watching this movement—from beneath the floorboards of the castle or through the gaps in the roof tiles—were the Senryu, cold and vigilant.

  Upon entering Nijo Castle, Nobutada negotiated with Akechi's army to allow the Prince to escape so as not to involve him. Then, with only a few hundred vassals, he stood to face several thousand of Akechi's troops.

  "Show them the spirit of the Oda!"

  Nobutada himself swung his blade, fighting like a demon and repelling the enemy three times. However, the Mitsuhide Akechi army occupied the adjacent residence of Sakihisa Konoe, from which they began to rain down arrows and matchlock fire. The defensive line collapsed in an instant.

  Falling fire-arrows ignited the lavish decorations of Nijo Castle, the heat singeing Nobutada’s cheeks. The order his father had built was turning to ash before his eyes.

  In that desperate beauty, a faint smile played on Nobutada’s lips. Perhaps the heir, who knew he could never surpass his father, finally shared the "Demon King’s" solitude in the moment of death.

  Amidst the bloody haze, Nobutada accepted his fate.

  "This is the end. I shall disembowel myself here. But under no circumstances is my head to be handed over to those Mitsuhide Akechi traitors! Hide my body and defend this place until it burns to nothing. Show the enemy the pride of the Oda until the very last!"

  He ordered the floorboards of the veranda to be ripped up and his body hidden beneath them. Then, he quietly plunged his blade into his abdomen.

  Nobutada straightened his white kosode robe, stained with the blood of his enemies, and sat calmly on the veranda. It was the same style of robe his father had worn at Honno-ji. Its whiteness stood out with a cruel purity amidst the crimson flames consuming Nijo Castle.

  Immediately after Nobutada drew his last breath and his body was placed beneath the floorboards—amidst the chaos where smoke and fire blinded all eyes—one of the Senryu slipped past the grieving vassals. In a heartbeat, he claimed Nobutada’s head.

  By the hour of the Snake (around 10:00 AM), the streets of Kyoto were brightly lit. But for a Senryu trained by Kanbe'e, smuggling a single small head out through the smoke of the chaotic Nijo Castle was child’s play.

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  By then, Honno-ji was completely burnt out. The surrounding air was thick with the stench of charred flesh and drifting soot.

  "Not yet? Have you still not found the head!"

  Toshimitsu Saito’s roar echoed through the ruins. Soldiers continued to sift through the heated rubble, searching for Nobunaga’s remains.

  To Mitsuhide, Nobunaga’s head was the seal of authority over the realm. Yet, no matter how they searched, they found not a single finger or a fragment of bone. Only a favorite tea bowl lay shattered and rolling in the ash.

  Waiting for news at the main camp in Toba, Mitsuhide felt his fingertips growing ice-cold.

  (Could he have escaped? If so, I will face his retaliation immediately, and it will be my head that flies... No, there is no way he could have escaped that inferno. But without the head, no one will believe it. No one will recognize me as the victor...)

  History would later call Mitsuhide’s reign the "Three-Day Tenka," but for Mitsuhide himself, there was not a single moment of joy in seizing the realm. Without the head, neither the Fujitaka nor the Junkei, nor any of the Oda’s senior vassals, would side with him. Mitsuhide began to be gripped by a bottomless terror—the feeling that he was being ensnared by someone else within the very trap he had set.

  Meanwhile, at that same hour.

  Ieyasu Tokugawa was sightseeing in Sakai with a small escort of only thirty men, having been invited by Nobunaga. The news of the disaster was delivered by Shirojiro Chaya, a wealthy merchant who had also attended the tea ceremony.

  "Chaya... you tellin’ me the truth, for real?"

  Usually calm and collected, Ieyasu’s eyes bulged in shock. He was momentarily speechless. The folding fan in his hand snapped with a sharp crack, unable to withstand the unconscious pressure of his grip.

  What flashed through Ieyasu’s mind was not fear of Nobunaga, but a pitch-black premonition—a feeling that the earth, having lost its massive weight, was transforming into a bottomless quagmire. The weight of the world was now suspended in mid-air.

  "Tadakatsu! Tadatsugu! We ain't got no time to be cryin’. If we sit around dawdlin’ here, we’re gonna be surrounded by Mitsuhide’s boys and wiped clean out!"

  A wild light of survival sparked in Ieyasu’s eyes.

  "We gotta stay alive. Only the ones who survive get to see the next world. Hanzo! Get them Iga shinobi on our side with whatever gold it takes! If there’s bandits out huntin’ for fallen warriors, give ‘em as much treasure as they want. Just make ‘em clear a path! I don’t care how steep the mountain trails are. Find us a way back to Mikawa, even if we gotta crawl through hell!"

  Thus began Ieyasu’s life-or-death escape, later known as the "Crossing of Iga."

  "My lord, hurry! The bandits are sniffin’ us out!"

  Hanzo Hattori sensed the killing intent closing in from behind and drew his sword. As Ieyasu sprinted through the rugged mountain paths, covered in mud, his tanuki-like instinct sniffed out something "wrong" about this incident.

  "This rebellion... it’s the work of Mitsuhide’s men, sure... but there’s a mastermind lurkin’ in the shadows...

  Who is it... who’s tryin’ to snatch the world next? Is it Hideyoshi? No, that loudmouth couldn't do this alone. It’s gotta be someone darker, sharper, someone with no bottom to ‘em..."

  The name of a man he had once heard of surfaced in Ieyasu’s mind.

  "I heard Hideyoshi’s got a terrifyingly clever one under him... That’s right, that’s the one. Kanbe'e...Kuroda , was it? No doubt about it. He’s the one pullin’ the strings... A real scary one, he is..."

  This Ieyasu, too, was another monster that Kanbe'e would eventually have to face.

  At the same hour, in Bitchu.

  Kanbe' had gone to his bed once, but sleep did not come. He was looking up at the Kyoto sky.

  As if checking the scent of a favorite roast, he inhaled the air where Nobunaga’s soul would have ascended and whispered:

  "It’s charred. The realm is being roasted to perfection..."

  Kanbe'e did not need to wait for the report; he was already certain of the "result."

  (My Lord Nobunaga. How is your journey through hell? The tea bowl you desired is likely glowing red in the fires of Kyoto by now. You built the foundation of the world, and my lord Hideyoshi shall sit upon it. I have merely hastened the flow of time a little...)

  Nobunaga, and now Nobutada. The Oda bloodline had been buried in the shadows of history in a single night by Kanbe'e’s intellect.

  "Worry not. I shall send Mitsuhide to follow you shortly..."

  In the darkness of the night, the fast horses dispatched from Bitchu toward Kyoto would return by tomorrow night at the earliest, or the morning after at the latest. The moment that news arrived, the suppressive peace with the Mori would be finalized, and the frantic symphony known as the "Great Chugoku Return" would begin.

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