How long had he been walking?
His own footsteps and harsh panting filled his ears.
He could not seem to reach the end of this deep dense mountain forest. Favoring his injuries, he desperately continued his trek. He thought of nothing but getting as far away from this place as possible.
The bird-people had not come after him. They seemed to have lost his trail. But Takaya didn’t have the slightest idea where he was.
(Where am I...?)
He was completely lost. It was pitch black. He tripped over countless roots. The ground was slippery with snow. Had there been something like an ancient mudslide here? Boulders big and small obstructed his path. To negotiate both them and the sharp incline was not at all easy for his battered body.
Takaya dragged himself forward.
The mountain forest looked the same everywhere, and with the snow piling up, it felt as if he were walking in place. He didn’t have the slightest idea where he was, or how far he had traveled—probably not that far, given his pace.
“!”
His foot suddenly slipped. Takaya slid about five meters down the slope.
“Guh...!”
Clinging to a tree root, he somehow managed to raise himself. He panted wildly for breath. He had already gone beyond the limits of his stamina. He had no strength left to stand, and simply sat there looking upward.
He stared up at the sky, gasping.
He could see a sliver of black sky through the dense treetops.
(I can’t...walk any further...) he thought dazedly, his consciousness dimming. His wounds were troubling him; his lungs screamed every time he shifted. His limbs were so heavy they didn’t feel like they belonged to him, and lay inanimate on the ground.
The tree trunk was slippery with frost.
It was a cold night. The snow had stopped a while ago. Instead, the crisp mountain air pierced into his lungs. His drying sweat was robbing him of even more body heat, and the night was turning much colder. His fingertips were completely chilled; he wasn’t going to survive out here in his thin school uniform. He didn’t know if he could even reach the foot of the mountain in his state.
...He had reached his limit.
Takaya closed his eyes in resignation.
He’d been reckless.
He knew his own condition better than anyone else. Even someone in the best of health should not underestimate these mountains at night. He’d known that trying to escape through the mountain in his condition was life-threatening even if everything had gone his way. Certainly under normal circumstances he would not have made such a decision.
He’d had no time to think of the consequences.
(Am I going to die of exposure out here...?) he wondered hazily. An unfelt smile creased his tired cheeks. He gurgled with laughter. What a situation he’d landed himself in. It was too ridiculous, too stupid—he had to laugh.
Looking up at the night sky, he felt oddly nostalgic. He’d laughed at his own stupidity like this before in just the same way. When had that been?
(Second year of junior high...)
He’d been wandering around town, unable to go home because his father had been in the middle of a drunken frenzy.
That night had been just as cold as this one. The can of coffee he’d bought at a vending machine had been the only thing warming his cold hand. There’d been no place for him at home or on the bustling streets, so he’d spent all night crouched in the cold wind in a dark corner of a raw materials storehouse.
The cigarettes he’d smoked had been awful.
It had been a freezing night, and he’d been hungry. He’d been cold in both mind and body. ...How wretched he’d been.
He hadn’t thought that running away from home would be so miserable. He’d surely die of exposure by morning. And he’d laughed.
Reflecting on his pathetic and wretched state, his unsightliness and helplessness, he’d buried his face in his sleeves and quivered with laughter.
(Nothing’s changed...)
He was feeling the exact same feelings now.
Only five short years had passed since that night, but he had the feeling, when he looked over his shoulder, that he’d come a long way. Yet, dying of exposure here in the Aso mountains, he also felt as if he had not changed at all.
Even if he no longer had a hot canned coffee or a cheap knife in his pocket...
“Ugh...!”
His movements shot pain right to his head. Panting, Takaya leaned back against the tree. His field of vision blurred. His consciousness dimmed. His entire body felt sluggish and heavy. ...Was he really going to die here, then? He had no defiance left in him.
His exhausted eyes slid shut.
He lifted his head to the sky.
He couldn’t even cry...
He’d driven himself to escape. The situation he now found himself in was not wholly unexpected. It was obvious that nobody in his physical condition could escape this midwinter mountain forest. He’d been reckless. He knew that.
(I knew it, but...) His lips parted a little. (It’s time... to stop.)
Let me stop. ...All of this.
It had been meaningless after all.
What could he call it but meaningless? It was nobody’s fault but his own. He was the one who had invited this hopeless conclusion by allowing himself to depend on other people.
“You’re finished.”
Words he had not wanted to accept...
“Living things have always tried to escape the loneliness they must carry.”
(I know that very well—...) Takaya muttered like an starveling bird. (I know very well that I can’t regain what I’ve lost...)
It was no one’s fault.
He was always the origin and the cause. No one was to blame.
I know that very well. That’s why...
How much anguish and grief he had caused Naoe. How meaningless were his childish demonstrations, how criminal his meanness.
He’d lived in vigilance and fear, ever guarded against the possibility that someone would see through his powerlessness. All his ugly intimation was the underside of his fear of the world.
Never had anyone made so little progress over such a long period of time...
(Even though I’ve lived four hundred years.)
It was so disgusting it was comical.
His true self was the absurd king of a fairy-tale who, intoxicated with a few words of praise, never noticed that everyone was laughing at him behind his back.
But in reality the king always knew. Would there one day appear someone who would expose his blunders? Humiliate him for all to see? He lived in constant fear.
He feared people discovering that he couldn’t live up to his reputation, that his supposed power was a pretense. He‘d grown so self-complacent on others’ charismatic view of him that he no longer knew his own place if he was not worshiped. That was the kind of person he was.
That was how he knew what kind of person had ‘true charisma’. It was someone without artifice. Disappointment could not flatten such a person. Perhaps such a selfless person could obtain the sympathy and pure adoration of others.
Though he didn’t know much about the world, he knew that his own charisma was fake. That was why he forever anticipated exposure followed by disillusionment. He worried about being exposed by those who knew true charisma—so much so that he couldn’t sleep soundly at night.
Because he was a coward, even the least criticism bothered him, terrorized him. He was excessively self-consciousness of his inferiority complex, and he regarded anyone who so much as touched on his sense of shame with wariness and rancor.
Because he couldn’t form a relationship with anyone but those who were interested in him, he couldn’t broaden his own circle. His passiveness caused everyone to leave him in exasperation after a while.
He was unable to form proper human relationships, as Naoe had pointed out.
(It’s true. I’m a nutcase...)
Look at how far he’d gone to continue winning in order to tie one person to him.
And to want such a relationship to be ‘omnipresent’—it was unnatural and absurd. A normal, decent human being wouldn’t even think of it.
(I am not normal...)
Takaya lifted his dark brown eyes to gaze up at the night-cloaked top of the tree as he reflected on the roots of his inferiority complex. The darkness was so complete that he saw no stars.
He’d worked so hard to get here.
How could he live the normal life of a decent person? He was forever searching for a way, trying his hardest, but it never went well, and the impatience and anxiety and self-hatred would intensify.
(...I wanted to be someone like you.)
To be able to stand on equal footing with many people, like him. That kind of person.
All he’d wanted was to be such a person.
All he wanted with his four hundred years was to be a normal person.
Alas, all his circumstances had pushed him towards emotional dependence, and he’d lost himself to pleasure. He hadn’t had the courage to take the plunge to improve himself and step out from the shadow of this servile pride.
Then, upon obtaining this body, he had squandered his chance at a fresh start, though it had been presented to him on a silver platter.
Rather, he’d steadily pushed them both towards the worst possible outcome.
Look now.
This was the result.
(I know that...very well.)
That someone like him couldn’t be saved...
I’m not worthy of your love. I never was.
(I was the one trying to hold you back...)
Takaya leaned his cold tired body against the tree.
He found Naoe’s honesty beautiful. It was proudly genuine. There must be many who desired him. How arrogant it had made him to have someone like that look only at him.
...He’d lost it all.
He could now only curse his own folly.
He had no more energy...
Snow began to fall.
White snow swirled down from the high gaps in the tops of the surrounding trees. Takaya stretched out his trembling fingers to catch the flakes.
They dissolved into ice water.
The cold began to leech away his body warmth. Even the tips of his toes grew numb with cold. He shook. When he went limp, his teeth began to clatter. Hugging himself, Takaya crouched.
As snow fell, the Aso mountains grew much colder.
The bird-people didn’t seem to be coming after him. Had Kiyomasa defeated them all? What had happened to him? Would he go to Nobunaga?
What about Motoharu? Kousaka?
Would they send someone after him? He couldn’t possibly reach the foot of the mountain, but he also probably wouldn’t be found until morning. Even if they did find him, (I can’t...move...)
The snow falling thick and fast covered the surrounding area in a blanket of white.
He heard not a single sound. ...The silence was so profound it hurt the ears.
He felt as if he were listening to the mountain’s slumbering breaths.
The mountain was a living thing. In fact, its red-hot blood was pooled beneath him.
This was a spot naturally close to the wild essence of the earth. The spurting gases and the hot magma were the earth’s blood... They had formed these savage hills over hundreds of millions of years...
White snow fell.
Takaya gazed almost fondly at the scene.
(That’s right...)
His past self had died here in Aso.
Takaya closed his eyes.
He forbade himself from remembering.
That last battle had unfolded in Aso. His power had clashed with Nobunaga’s «hakonha» head-on. The massive explosion had triggered the Middle Peak’s eruption, and his body had been sent flying by a force strong enough to level a mountain.
Naoe’s child had...
In its womb...
As if to feel again what he’d felt then, Takaya tilted his head upward and placed a hand on his belly. Beneath his closed eyelids, he saw her.
(Minako...)
The Maria who had eased his thirst with the water of tranquility.
The woman who had forgiven his entire existence with her motherly love. Who had simply and silently forgiven his hopeless dishonesty and cowardice.
Her smile had been a gentle light full of the Virgin Mary’s affection.
Beloved Minako...
She’d forgiven his sins.
It was not Naoe who was cruelest to you, nor anyone else.
It was me.
“You alone I will never forgive!”
He’d heard that those words had never stopped tormenting Naoe.
Yet they were false.
The one he couldn’t forgive wasn’t Naoe.
Nor her. She’d been a victim of himself and Naoe...no, of his own hopelessly villainous heart. She’d been his victim.
Haruie had been the first to learn of the abject reality of those events. Several months after their parting, she had gone to meet them. That was when she detected the change in Minako’s body. She questioned Minako closely, but even so Minako intended to keep it a secret from Kagetora. A grimly determined Haruie told Kagetora.
“Stay calm and listen, Kagetora.”
He’d been filled with a violent fury towards Naoe, demoniacally combined with a dark desire in the innermost depths of his heart. He now held Naoe completely in his hand. He finally owned all of him. He had subconsciously calculated and plotted and fulfilled his forbidden desire; the intoxication of that reality staggered him. Naoe had committed the crime for him. The ultimate crime of raping the Virgin Mary.
He’d known that he was the greater evil.
Everything that followed had been his punishment.
It didn’t matter that it was Naoe’s power that had killed her. Naoe had done it so he could survive.
Using the abominable act of kanshou...
“Please forgive me...”
He was completely unable to say the words.
Snow fell and piled up high.
At this rate even his soul was going to freeze. He knew he was weakening, that his vitality was draining away.
Even the force of his self-blame was weakening.
He was such a fool, he didn’t know which way to turn.
How could he be forgiven?
At last he seemed to succumb to a hallucination.
In the darkness he saw his parents, though he didn’t know why. It was his family’s garden in the good old days. His mother Sawako was there. The moss roses were blooming. And there was his father, though he was supposed to hate him so much. He was wearing that warm smile that Takaya had so loved.
Miya was laughing nearby, her hands full of moss rose seeds.
Onii-chan, let’s plant these.
(Those flowers will never bloom, Miya...) Takaya told his sister in his vision.
The sister he had always protected. He‘d become her shield, determined to bear all the suffering himself. Because you needed me so much, I grew stronger, and I decided to stay. Miya couldn’t do without him. That had become one of his raisons d’être.
(I never saw you as a burden...)
You were so precious to me.
Her carefree smile had saved him so many times.
Even now...
(It’s time to stop...)
He was somehow performing another stupid escape; he really was fucked up.
"Naoe is not coming to save you.
He’d plotted this reckless escape because if he had remained and no one came to save him, he would have had to admit that truth—and that he couldn’t bear. That had been the only reason.
(Did I run...)
From that very last instant when despair became the only conclusion...?
Even though he’d sworn to himself, though he’d resolved to ascertain the truth for himself and never avert his eyes?
“You’re in a nightmare right now.”
He could hear Kaizaki’s voice.
He’d never forgotten his warmth. He’d dreamed in Kaizaki’s arms, so eerily similar to Naoe’s. Someone other than Naoe had wanted him as ardently, and he’d allowed himself to sink into those arms as if in a dream and wholly without conscious thought.
(Kaizaki...)
How had someone that was not Naoe gotten so near to his heart?
Or was it that someone sufficiently similar could be a substitute? Was that what it was, in the final analysis? Something as simple as that?
...That was all it was.
“You are in a maze...”
(Is there really a maze?)
Was he in yet another maze right now?
And was he going to die inside it without extricating himself...?
For a very long time Takaya’s fuzzy mind conjured various hallucinations.
Yuzuru was angry.
You’ve gotta come home, he said.
Right... Takaya answered silently, tilting his head a little.
(But you’re okay, right?)
You’ll be okay without me, won’t you?
Yuzuru was strong. Much more so than he himself. He would conquer his destiny...
That strength had been a wonder to him the first time he had met Yuzuru. Direct and forceful... Even when he had recoiled from it, he had been jealous. Maybe if he could be near it he could acquire some of that strength for himself, he’d thought.
Yuzuru was strong, with the same strength that Kagekatsu had possessed. Uesugi would have foundered without him. History had been right. Uesugi would not have survived those turbulent times without him.
Others would protect Yuzuru—people he trusted. Chiaki. Ayako. Irobe.
And maybe...Naoe...
(Naoe—...) he murmured the name once more.
His heart ached so much that perhaps it had gone numb; he no longer felt anger or hate or sorrow. Nothing.
(I feel nothing, Naoe...)
He’d gone mad.
That existence was too big...
The fluttering snow covered the earth in a white veil.
Leaning against the tree trunk, Takaya tilted his bowed head and closed his eyes.
I want you one more time.
Is that so impossible?
Am I supposed to resign myself to the loss of all hope?
Why didn’t I say something earlier?
Before it became like this...?
(Like the night of that fire.)
He had to go on his own two feet
(to see the truth...)
He had to grasp it with his own hands.
He had lost too much blood; he was frozen stiff and could no longer move.
(Father—...)
Snow fell thickly around him...
Cold snow fell on his outstretched legs and shoulders. He was losing body heat. His consciousness had gone almost completely dim. His eyelids felt so heavy. He no longer felt either pain or cold. He lacked the strength to move even the tips of his fingers.
The forest was entirely silent.
(For some reason—...)
For some reason he felt...
He felt so tired.
The sound of footsteps reached his ears.
Creak, creak.
The sound of armor.
The dead were coming.
Creaking with heavy armor.
Takaya opened his eyes slightly.
Through the forest they came: skeletal ghosts in ragged armor. One followed by another.
Dragging along the armor they had not been able to remove even in death. Like so many he had seen before, they too harbored a deep-seated grudge.
(Am I hallucinating...?)
Apparently he wasn’t.
Takaya tilted his head to the sky and closed his eyes. So he wasn’t going to die a dog’s death after all. They were probably going to tear him limb from limb.
He smiled.
(...Hurry up and give me peace.)
His armor-clad angels of death had come to assemble his funeral procession.
TO BE CONTINUED