Turning Swallow
Summary:
OR, One morning, four-year-old Sasaki Kojiro remembers a life not yet lived, and decides to do something about it. History changes. SI!Sasaki Kojiro. Expect general lightheartedness, but dark topics when the time comes.
CH. 15 START
Almost numbly, Oda Nobunaga watched as the world seemed to catch on fire. The panicked yelling of her retainers filled her ears, the desperate muttering of the thirty-something people rising louder and louder as they watched the red flags of an enemy army bear down on them. The man at the head of that army was named Akechi Mitsuhide, one of her subordinates. Except, that wasn't really the case. One of the men in the army had caught wind of Mitsuhide's true plans, and out of his loyalty to her, had broken from the traitorous main group to reach her location and give a warning. He'd gotten an arrow in the back for his troubles as he rode but had ridden through the night in order to deliver his warning. Once the message had been received, the man had died, due to having ignored his injuries for far too long. Originally, the encroaching army had been reported to be about two days away, which would have given her enough time to flee, but it seemed that Matsuhide had sped up his march, fearing Nobunaga would get away. They would arrive in a few hours, and take only a few more to overwhelm the few defenses that her men had been able to set up.
For one reason or another, one of her generals, a trusted one too, had turned his back upon her, taking an army twenty thousand strong in doing so. To be fair, she'd seen signs that he was unhappy with her, noticing that he'd been dissatisfied when she'd burned down the Buddhist temples and that he'd been upset when she'd exiled that backstabbing emperor, but to betray her so utterly? The thought that seemed unthinkable mere days ago was in her face. Where had she gone wrong, for such a trusted ally to become such a bitter enemy in so short a time? Truly, such was the reality of war. Former enemies became trusted allies while trusted allies became vengeful opponents. The real irony of it, Nobunaga thought, was that she was going to be murdered in the heart of her very own territory. Mitsuhide had just marched his armies straight into Kyoto and no one had batted an eye because she did it so often herself.
Nobunaga sighed, staring blankly at the sky. With her, there were only a handful of combat-capable soldiers, the rest being servants, court officials, and merchants. She'd been assured that there were plenty of loyalists, doing their best to allow her time to escape, but at most, there would only be a thousand. Of those, how many would dare, or even be able, to turn upon their comrades-in-arms? It wasn't enough. This wasn't like her conflict with Imagawa Yoshimoto, who'd tried to invade Oda territory after her father died. Then, all of her men had been loyal, if low in number. There, they'd fought in ambush and not head-on.
At the end of this day, all of them would be dead, Nobunage included. She rose, feeling the dull ache of all her years, realizing for the first time how old she actually was. Her limbs ached for the fifty years of war she'd experienced. Her entire life had revolved around war, from the very first moment. Her father had prepared her for war, only for her to run from her duty. When she grew, she warred against the Imagawa Clan, exterminating them. When she matured into adulthood, she embroiled herself into a nation-spanning conflict, a race to unify the country. Hell, even her children were products of war. A hard-fought victory had seen her take one too many liberties with one of her close aides, and she'd gotten pregnant. That aide had died in the very next conflict, an arrow to the throat. For a year afterwards, Nobunaga had slowed the conflicts to give birth, but after her child was born, she hadn't felt the vaunted affection that most mothers spoke of. She'd had a child and she sure as hell raised it, but he may as well have been a distant relative. The fires of battle and conquest had raged in her bones for far too long, and now that they were done, she felt empty. For all the accomplishments under her belt, she felt like she'd wasted her life. She was so close to the finish line, but she hadn't crossed it. It wouldn't be Oda Nobunaga who'd unified the country, but someone else.
If she put her military uniform away, she'd just look like any one of the old women of the courts that she hated so much. That was it, then. Her quest to unify the nation was over. For some reason, the thought seemed to lift a weight from her shoulders. Her whole life spent in war, and now, right before her death, she was finally free. Free from the burden of duty, of battles and wars. She took a glance at the gates, before turning away from them. It was only noon, but the defenses were as good as they were going to get with so little preparation. She walked towards the main hall of Honno-ji Temple. She'd taken it over, given that it was on the outskirts of the city and a good place to relax. It was a wide and luxurious place, with a garden decorated with all manner of exotic plants. Of course, it could also double as a fortress in times of trouble, which was why Nobunaga felt content to stay here as often as she did. She glanced at a tea kettle that she'd barely touched, sitting next to a container of fancy tea leaves that she'd never sampled. It was fitting that only now was she going to use them. One last indulgence, before she was to die.
As she made herself a nice kettle of tea, Nobunaga pondered on what would happen after she was gone. Her allies came to mind first. They'd continue on course, even without her, given how far along the path all of them were. At this point, her allies had but two options. They either won, or they died. Toyotomi Hideyoshi, she figured, was the most likely to succeed her. He was the most loyal of her men, even if he wasn't the most skilled or the most intelligent. Hideyoshi was intelligent, charismatic, and loyal enough to keep her armies from collapsing in on themselves. He'd hunt Mitsuhide down like the dog that he was. The image of Mitsuhide begging for mercy gave her no small amount of amusement. A knock on the door of the room woke her from her imagination. She called for the knocker to enter and a young boy walked in. Ah, Mori Ranmaru, the youngest of her retainers. Perhaps it would be kinder to allow him to flee, given his youth. She was getting so sentimental in her old age.
The boy stormed into the room, staring at her with incredulous eyes when he saw her boiling pot of tea, yelling, "Oda-dono! What are you doing?! We have to leave now, the traitors men are closing in! In a few hours, they'll be here. If we run now, the soldiers can hold them off long enough for you to escape."
Nobunaga looked at her retainer, saying with a sign, "There you are, Ranmaru. I cannot run, you understand this, don't you? Mitsuhide will ransack all of Kyoto to find me. I'm of the mindset to let you flee, however. You've a long life ahead of you still."
Ranmaru shook his head swiftly, saying, "No. Oda-dono, if you die, I will die with you."
Nobunaga chuckled at the statement. Honestly, in recent years, Ranmaru felt more like her child than her actual son. The boy's loyalty to her shone through in both his actions and his words.
She laughed, saying to him, "Fine, you stubborn boy. We will die together then. In the meantime, drink with me."
The boy sat down eagerly, and for the next handful of hours, the two of them sat and drank like old friends. If speaking like old friends consisted of one person complaining to the other about their entire life. Ranmaru remained silent throughout, simply acknowledging her words. It felt good to be able to vent. Nobunaga rose from her seat, declaring to her listener that she was going to take a stroll. Ranmaru nodded, before grabbing a loaded musket, just in case. He followed her silently as she reminisced. She fought for so long that she'd forgotten what she'd been fighting for in the first place. At first, she'd been fighting for her father, seeking to do him honor by slaying his long-time foe. Then, she'd sought to prove that her master had been right to commit seppuku to awaken her from her childhood delusions. After that, she fought for her clan, for her honor, for the soil of the very country she lived in. But at this point? What was there left? Nobunaga felt as though she'd well and truly fought herself to exhaustion.
Dark had fallen and Nobunaga walked through the gardens of Honno-ji Temple, taking the time to appreciate what she'd chosen not to before. The gardens of Honno-ji were peaceful, despite the tension of the incoming battle. Nobunaga smiled softly. On second thought, this wasn't such a bad place to die; it was peaceful and quiet. The calm was something she hadn't afforded herself before. It was a shame she'd have to burn it all down, to prevent Mitsuhide from parading her body around the place. She was planning to commit seppuku, to maintain some of her honor, since dying at the traitorous general's hands would only serve his purposes. Nobunaga had turned to return to the main hall before the crunching of feet upon gravel caught her attention. She whipped around, and she saw him, a man dressed in dark colors that'd just landed in the garden after having climbed over a ten-foot wall.
Her thoughts raced. An assassin, perhaps? The man was dressed in dark colors, wore a sword at his side, and wore a covering over his face. An assassin, Nobunaga decided. Did Mitsuehide truly lack that sense of propriety? She figured that if he was going to betray her, he'd have to do it face-to-face, given that the man probably wanted the credit of killing her. That had changed, it seemed. As if an army of twenty thousand against her and a few dozen men wasn't enough, the traitor had the audacity to send an assassin as well. She may have already written herself off as dead, but all that meant was that she was taking the matter into her own hands. She was going to decide when and where to die, not some assassin. Wordlessly, she reached out for the musket in Ranmaru's hands. When she received it, she checked it over, guided by force of habit, despite the darkness that surrounded her. It just so happened that the assassin had placed himself in a place with plenty of moonlight. Nobunaga aimed the musket, bringing the gun to her shoulder to help her aim, before pulling the trigger.
An ear-shattering blast broke the silence of the night as the tip of the musket flared with a flash of light. A bullet blasted from the musket at the speed of sound, with a discharge of smoke and the harsh smell of gunpowder. For a brief moment, Nobunaga caught sight of the bullet, before it flashed away, traveling towards the assassin. The man had seen the flash of brightness and was now desperately reaching for his sword. A certain glee rose up within her. She imagined the man had an expression of fear on his face, faced with the sound of thunder. Enough samurai had broken under the assault of muskets that Nobunaga was certainly familiar with the sight. At this distance, even if he could bring up his sword to protect himself, it would do nothing. Faced with the dense metal within a bullet, average blades shattered like glass. She caught sight of the bullet again, glinting off the moonlight as it neared the man's chest. Then, the world seemed to slow, and she watched in horror as the samurai's sword flashed from its sheath, before cutting the bullet in half. The bullet had parted in slow motion, metal slashed apart by metal, and the two sections of the bullet flew into the garden and punctured wood and stone, judging by the cracks she'd heard.
The man straightened, seeming to let out a slow breath, before looking at her. Despite the dark, she felt like the man's eyes had locked directly with hers. The sensation of cold steel seemed to grace her neck and she grabbed at it, only to feel nothing. The feeling returned again the next time she saw the man's eyes. Nobunaga took a step back involuntarily, throat seizing with instinctual fear. Though she'd never been one for the supernatural, cutting a bullet with a sword was beyond the realm of human ability. What sort of demon was this? She looked at the sword. An odachi, roughly five feet long. It only furthered her new belief. The demon walked forwards, and for each step he took, she took one back, until she stepped directly into moonlight. The demon paused, before he seemed to realize something, and burst out laughing. It wasn't the hideous laugh of a madman, but rather the relieved, if hysterical, laugh of a man who'd realized the obvious answer to a tricky question.
The demon's voice filled the air, as he said, "You're Oba Nobunaga, aren't you?"
Nobunaga nodded cautiously, speaking slowly, "I am."
"I was wondering why you seemed so familiar," the demon continued, "but since you are Oda Nobunaga, why do you look so pathetic?"
Nobunaga's eyes went wide at the question, and dumbly, she asked, "What?"
That was all the prompting the demon seemed to need, for he explained in a mocking tone, "You are Oda Nobunaga, a warlord known also as the Demon King of the Sixth Heaven. That's what they call you, no? But when I look at you now, all I see is an old woman who's already rolled over and accepted her death. If you're so content to die, you might as well get on your knees now. I'll kill you myself, to save that general of yours the trouble."
The sheer amount of insolence in the demon's voice grated at her pride and she growled at him, "How dare-!"
She was cut off, and the demon asked in a voice that was as curious as it was vicious, "How dare I what? Disrespect you? Mock you? I've done nothing to you! You've humiliated yourself, rolling over like that for that Mitsuhide fellow. After all, weren't you about to go off and stick a sword in your own stomach, burn down the place around you?"
At those words, her thoughts raced, and Nobunaga realized that if she really was accepting of her own death, it didn't matter who did it. What did honor matter to the dead? If Mitsuhide killed her, or if she killed herself, what was the difference? Nobunaga ignored the demon's offer. She wouldn't let the demon kill her regardless, since who knew what he'd do to her soul? But now, the thought of accepting her death just like that seemed so out of character for her. Had she gone senile in her age?
Ranmaru stepped forward to defend her, leveling a reload gun at the demon, but she stopped him. Since the demon wasn't going for her throat, he obviously wanted something that she could provide, trapped as she was.
Nobunaga asked challengingly, "What would you have me do instead, then? Run? Fight? I don't have enough men to fight with."
The demon laughed, replying, "Did you lose all of your bravery when your soldiers turned against you, Nobunaga? You have men out there right now, preparing to die for you, and here you are, sulking. Demon King indeed."
A strange ember seemed to flare up within her chest, a mixture of expectation and nerves that she had not felt since her very first battle.
Nobunaga asked, "So fight?"
The demon responded saying, "Of course we'll fight."
Ranmaru interjected, saying, "They'll desecrate Oda-sama's body if she dies."
The demon answered the boy without even turning, looking her dead in the eyes and asking, "So what? She'll be dead, won't matter to her. If Oda Nobunaga died on a battlefield like this, she wouldn't deserve that title of hers."
The demon kept talking.
"Nobunaga," he said, "don't die. And if you do, make sure to earn that title of yours properly before you drop dead, alright? Make them fear your name such that they won't dare touch even your corpse, lest you rise from the dead to gut them."
Against all common sense, Nobunaga found herself agreeing with the demon's logic. She remembered the fire within her when she'd burned down their temples and hunted down those bastard monks to the last. That strange ember turned into a raging fire and Nobunaga smiled.
Curiously, she asked the demon, "Hey, demon. What's your name?"
The demon stopped, before turning towards her, stepping into the light, and removing the covering from his face.
Nobunaga received a response, hearing, "I'm no demon, Oda Nobunaga. Just a mortal man."
The demon turned out to be a boy that looked younger than Ranmaru. For a split second, she thought that she'd been made a fool of, but remembering the eyes of 'demon' made her reconsider. Whatever spirit animated the boy's body was far more experienced than the body would indicate, she could tell.
As he began to walk away, towards the gates, he said, "My name is Sasaki Kojiro."
She would remember that name, she promised herself. Nobunaga followed him to the gates of Honno-ji Temple, where her presence seemed to bring a measure of life into the weary souls of her men. The man-in-a-boy's-body began to speak, and attention was drawn from her onto him.
In a quiet whisper that nonetheless forced silence, Sasaki Kojiro asked, "Are the lot of you content to die like this?"
The answer he received was silence, but that didn't stop the man.
He spoke again, saying, "I will answer this question for you. No, you are not. So I will offer you these words. Ask yourself, are you content to die like hogs, hunted and penned in this inglorious temple? Will you let that traitor and his men laugh like the mad and hungry dogs they are, let them mock your accursed fates?"
Sasaki received angry 'no's' and Nobunaga could see him grin as he continued.
His voice reached a fever pitch and he exclaimed, "Indeed, no! If we must die, let us die nobly, so that our blood will not be spilled in vain. Let us die in such a manner that even the creatures we defy cannot do nothing but honor us! Let us show that we are brave and deal upon our foes a deathblow, for every single scar they try to leave upon our bodies! As we are now, what lies before us but the unmarked, insignificant grave? Will you obediently crawl in and let Mitsuhide and his traitors bury you? No! Instead, let us face the dogs that tear and claw at us, show that though we are pressed to the wall and dying, that we will still fight back."
An awestruck silence filled the air. In this moment, the men that surrounded them didn't care about Sasaki Kojiro's lack of height, only for his brilliant words and the confidence with which he spoke to them. The people around her were cheering, lit aflame by the very same energy that Nobunaga had been infected with. Sasaki Kojiro cleared his throat and the crowd quieted.
He spoke again, saying, "All of you, tell me your names. Should you fall here, be you soldier or servant or artist, your names will be glorified and your families will be taken care of. Why? It is because you have not fled, despite all of the opportunities. So speaks Oda Nobunaga. The Demon King knows your loyalty!"
He pointed at her as he said this, and when she was looked at, she nodded sternly, pretending as though she hadn't been sulking minutes prior. She straightened herself, and when Kojiro mimed a bow, she did so, even if reluctantly.
She bowed enough for the action to be noticeable, and said, "Your loyalty will be rewarded."
Sasaki nodded at her, before grabbing a man by the hand and asking for his name and family. He acknowledged them and thanked them, and at the end of his efforts, all of the people stared at him with an undeniable loyalty. With just a few words, Sasaki had secured the loyalty of a group on the border of cutting and running. The fires grew and grew, and even Ranmaru got caught up in it.
Not that Nobunaga could blame him, for when he stopped in front of her, looked her deeply in the eyes, she felt the same.
"Nice to meet you," he said, introducing himself again, with a glimmer of whimsy in his eyes, "I'm Sasaki Kojiro. You are?"
Nobunaga grinned, feeling that old fervor rising within her and she laughed merrily, answering, "The name's Oda Nobunaga, Demon King of the Sixth Heaven. Nice to meet you too."
He chuckled, before ordering the men to prepare. Once the meager preparations were done, he didn't take command of them, instead entrusting her to command them, despite the fact that they looked to him. The more and more she considered his actions, the more she was amazed by his political acumen. He'd given command to her, since if she was seen to be following someone else's command, that would be disastrous for her. Though he'd made promises in her name, if she followed up on them, she'd have a core of stalwart supporters that she knew would be loyal to only her and no other. Most of all, he'd neatly inserted himself into her 'inner circle,' by saying all of these things and her not objecting to them. A savage grin crossed her face. What a man. Why, if she'd been a few decades younger…That train of thought was shattered when the doors were broken open by the enemy. Sasaki Kojiro darted forward, Nobunaga catching the wide grin on his face as he did so. He moved swiftly, odachi in hand, and in doing so, took his first steps into the pages of legend.
A/N: So fyi, this takes place sometime in 1585-1586, a couple years after Nobunaga's IRL and FATE canon death. The Azai clan's defeat by Seigen and this cutting of ties between Toda and Asakura force the Asakura into a defensive battle, dragging those conflicts out for a couple of years. Also, this Nobunaga looks like Avenger Demon King Nobunaga, ascension 3. Also, my geography is a bit off. Honno-ji was burnt down and rebuilt, so I'm using the new one's location since I couldn't find the old one. Also, Kojiro's speech pulls from the poem. "If we must die" by Claude McKay, really awesome poem.