There was a flash. A headache and a nauseating flux as the world turned into a vision of the past, or perhaps something different. Memory seemed to be a fading thing, and the only understanding to be had was the here and now.
The flame of Honnou-Ji temple burned bright, a beacon of ill placed trust and merciless betrayal against the otherwise gentle paper sky of Kyoto. Unrelenting footfalls pounded the stone and wooden flooring of the temple, inside and out as the forces of Akechi surrounded and burned the temple grounds amid a devastating torrent of gunfire and steel clattering against flesh and what little armor could stand to offer defense in the unusually lightly protected Daimyo's presence.
As servants, civilians, and the few armed men who were present frantically attempted to flee or put up a meager defense, Nobunaga looked aside to the obedient Mori Ranmaru.
"Whose scheme is this?"
"It appears to be Akechi's." Ranmaru replied simply.
"There is no need to discuss the pros and cons. There is no choice."
Nobunaga turned her head and looked to Gregory who was standing beside the two – and before a scattering of terrified servants – and narrowed her eyebrows in deep consideration. Seeing the aura of confusion on his face, she stepped forward and planted a hand upon his shoulder roughly. The lot of them had arms, to be sure, but her skin touched only kimono fabric as they had not come bearing armor for what was to be their last stand.
"Gregory. Focus. I need you with me." Nobunaga spoke curtly and with authority. "It seems that the traitor Akechi could not help himself. Damned monkeys never know when to stop taunting the wolves."
Gregory shook his head out and pulled himself into the moment, focusing on Lady Nobunaga and the approaching scent of smoke. The stench of burning pitch and bamboo began to flood the halls with greater intensity as the rattling of sandals arrived at the doors to the room in which the great daimyo and her retinue had gathered. Nobunaga walked with purpose to the wall, and procured a bow which had been brought along. She knew that this was a fruitless endeavor, but the Oda would never surrender to the likes of such a cowardly betrayal.
In turn, Gregory gripped a naginata polearm in his hands, and simply watched the great unifier for instructions.
Sliding doors wrenched out of their slots as the attacking Akechi troops kicked the threshold open, and poured into the room to surround and capture the great Oda warlord. Spearmen and archers crept in like a handful of ants upon a fallen peach, and aimed their respective weapons directly towards the great Nobunaga as she stood defiant. Even without armor, clad only in the elegant kimono robes befitting one of her position, she still struck a remarkably potent image. Flames licking the walls from the damaged structure dragged a sense of Yomi's wrath unto the scene, and offered no gentle touch to the increasingly hopeless scenario unfolding before their eyes.
Archers prepared their bows, to little avail, as Nobunaga herself let loose a whistling arrow through the room, which lodged itself firmly into the throat of one of the bowmen standing far from the Oda. His voice rattled as the bubbling air forced its way out and alongside the invading shaft which had dug itself deep into the artery and spinal ligaments of the fool who chose to so obediently follow the commands of a murderous traitor. Hot, red ichor dripped from the wound like a pulsing hot spring giving away its rejuvenating waters. His hands grasped desperately for this throat as the life faded from his eyes, and with little time waste, the man collapsed at the feet of his fellows. A rank pool of blood formed upon his drenched clothing, seeping down into the cracks of the wooden planks of the floor.
"Women, servants. To the back! Prepare to flee!" Nobunaga ordered with an unyielding authority. "The innocent will not pay for the avarice of the guilty."
Her eyes were positioned immobile, locked firmly upon the opposing bowmen without exception.
"Ranmaru. Gregory. Do you still believe in the dream of a unified people?"
The two loyal servants nodded, acknowledging with a short sound and potent glare towards their enemy.
"Then let us put down these fools, and see the dream through."
The enemy rushed. Few though they were, their numbers presented a tremendous threat, even to one such as Oda Nobunaga. Ranmaru and Gregory fell light lightning upon those wielding blades. Stepping between Nobunaga and the assailants, the enemy bowmen were unable to use their ranged weapons to the same effect. Lady Nobunaga, however, was more clever and tactically adept. She watched carefully, and took shots periodically during expertly timed gaps to begin picking off the enemy archers. Before long, there were only the melee combatants remaining, though their danger was still very real.
More attackers came to the aid of the struggling Akechi soldiers, and Nobunaga's bowstring grew tired. Arrows were scarce, and she could feel the string begging for respite under her fingers with every nock and loosening. That lone damaged weapon had been the last of the bows available, as well. All functional archery tools were either in the hands of the enemy, or far beyond acquisition range. The tide was turning, and the dream seemed to be coming closer and closer to an end with every heartbeat pounding in their chests.
Nobunaga's eyes darted to and fro, quickly analyzing the slowly ruining room with the mind of a tactician. The entryway was blocked by spearmen and the occasional swordsman, Gregory and Ranmaru managing to hold their own, while Nobunaga continued to work through a plan and fight from afar. But that time was growing thin, and soon she would have to risk everything.
'Monkey had sure done his homework.' She thought to herself. 'Truly a gutless maneuver. Effective, if nothing else.'
Nobunaga tilted her head curtly, and exhaled. Pressing her sandal against the flooring, she sprinted forward, and grabbed a fallen spear to wield in defense of her brethren. Shoulder to shoulder with Ranmaru and Gregory, the three fought back against the invaders with furious strikes and deflecting parries which sent man and weapon alike into a frenzy of blood and grime and broken wood.
The forces were unrelenting.
An enemy hung impaled at the curved end of the naginata gripped tightly in Gregory's hands. The squelching of muscle and sinew provided an audible backing to the sensation of flesh being pierced and cleft under the swift motions of the weapon. The man's eyes stared back at the Oda clan defenders with both fear and awe, as he was cast aside with a flick of the wrists, wrenching the man free from the blade with little regard. Akechi had chosen to betray Nobunaga and he deserved to suffer in the Hells for his sin. The men who chose to follow such a cretin too deserved no mercy for their choice.
Yet, their chests heaved. The fighting continued for hours, periodically a break in the onslaught would offer a momentary respite from the conflict, but the attack would always resume before long. What's more, the reinforcements sent to claim Nobunaga's head were never so late as to grant them a proper rest from the physical exertion that was creeping through their bodies.
With the night crawling onward into the late hours, the flames drew nearer, and surrounded the main room and the exits which weren't guarded by the Akechi forces. Nobunaga herself stood tall once more, establishing herself above the fellow clan members and servants cowering in the smoking room. Another detachment of Monkey's forces were rushing down the hall towards the small mound of corpses that served to work as an impromptu, if not gruesome barricade.
Nobunaga gripped the spear.
Her hand slipped a little.
Blood.
The enemy had been torn apart and bled so much under their defense that their weapons were oiled in the life of the fallen, making the grips slick with a gut-churning metallic stench. The mound of mauled flesh baking near the threshold and burning under the flames of Akechi's assault released an odor so foul that several servants and attendants had already grown sick to their stomachs and expelled the contents upon the floor.
War was a terrible, and nauseating thing. Nobunaga never wanted war, but she knew that it was a necessary action against the other rulers of the states in order to bring about peace. Unlike the men like Akechi, Nobunaga was not fond of war for war's sake. Lady Nobunaga was good at war, yes. But war was never the goal, nor was it power. War was a means to an end, in order to establish a proper, true peace in which the people could finally walk free without fear of their neighboring clans tearing down their lives for naught but territory.
"Here they come." She spoke quietly. "With me."
"To the Heavens, the Hells, and everywhere between." Gregory answered with an assurance as though it were the most obvious thing to have ever been stated.
"Yes, my lord!" Ranmaru's response was equally short, sweet, and loyal.
The forces burst through, stepping upon burning flesh of their companions in order to gain entry and assault the final Oda defenders. Nobunaga thrust forward with the spear, penetrating past the simple armor of the ashigaru attackers and rending his arm useless at the shoulder. Enemy spears darted back, attempting to wound the great Daimyo with dire hope. Gregory and Ranmaru hacked into necks and arms, severing arteries and spilling gore across the war-polluted holy place.
The floors were slick with the insides of the fallen to the point that the Oda defenders were slipping periodically, and the rushed attackers had even slipped over the blood-oil of their brothers. A swinging twist of Gregory's naginata brought down upon one such combatant, and cleft his head almost entirely free from the shoulders. The long, curve polearm blade was nearly coated in the thick, oozing lifeforce accumulated from these traitors.
And yet, hope was dwindling away like the the shriveling embers slowly eating away at the wood and paper that served as the very foundation of the place. Honno-Ji temple was a holy place for the devotees of the Shinto ways. The sacred ground was not designed nor intended for sustaining any manner of proper attack, let alone something so ruthless and calculated as this great betrayal.
As another spearmen fell, one more managed to strike clean and true, the spear reaching past the shoulders of Gregory and Ranmaru, delving into the elbow of Lady Nobunaga, forcing her to drop the blood-slick spear she was fighting back with. The wound was not fatal, but it had caused grievous damage to the ligaments, bone, and even the artery seemed to be pulsing blood more quickly than Nobunaga would have liked.
Ranmaru and Gregory fell back, and defensively held their ground. They struggled to keep the enemy away, prompted on and encouraged by the wound dealt from their strikes.
Nobunaga looked to the cowering servants and shouted across the burning room watching the assault in horror;
"This? Don't think of it." Her eyes were watering from the pain, but her face fought valiantly to remain noble and commanding. "I don't care! You all just get out of here! Get to safety! Go!"
Nobunaga looked to Ranmaru and Gregory with a face that attempted to hold its glory, but was most certainly fighting to keep the pain subdued and the figurative damage to her heart under wraps.
"To the back... I have one last plan."
The back room was almost completely sealed tight. It was dark, save for a few lit candles, and the glowing of the flames outside the windows and cracks in the increasingly broken structure. Ranmaru and Gregory heaved, their chests working with fervor to scour untainted oxygen from the haze of the temple's interior.
"Gregory. Ranmaru." Nobunaga spoke, finally showing signs of her struggle. The blood from her elbow wound had now heavily soaked the sleeve, and Gregory rushed to her side to help hold her.
"Nobunaga... you..." He began, unable to find words.
"Don't. It's nothing." She replied to her most devoted and beloved. "Just... I need you to listen..."
She placed a hand on Gregory's cheek, the blood from her own wound hot as it coated the skin on his face. Her touch was gentle, despite the rage of combat and death surrounding them all. Yet, the touch was not only gentle from her love, but from a steadily declining ability to hold herself up.
"Ranmaru. Take my head." Nobunaga spoke plainly. "I will be passing onto the next world momentarily. Once I do, take my head and hide it away so that nobody can find it. Even if Akechi burns the whole of Kyoto to ash, he will still fail. We must not let the dream of true peace and unity die with me."
Gregory slowly helped Nobunaga to the floor to sit, holding her with a firm and yet careful grip.
"Nobunaga... you can't... I will die a thousand deaths before I ever let you fall."
Nobunaga smiled sweetly, breaking her authoritative air for the first time since the attack had been launched.
"Gregory... it's alright. I will see you again. But... not too soon. Okay?"
The smile she offered while speaking those words cut deeper than any arrow, spear, or sword that was wielded that day. The hot tears from his eyes intermingled with the blood of his beloved upon his cheek, trailing down upon his clothing in a tragic dye upon the cloth. Looking into Lady Nobunaga's bright red eyes, still shining amid the pain and strife of the brutal betrayal, Gregory spoke.
"If you think about it, this world is not our to inhabit forever."
Nobunaga smiled back, blood displaced by her own tears, and the movement of her skin beneath the beautiful and earnest smile she fired back at him with.
"It is more transient than dewdrops on a blade of grass, or the moon reflected in the water." Nobunaga answered, the smile on her face slipping a little as she grew just a little weaker.
Ranmaru immediately recognized the reference, and closed her eyes, understanding what it meant. Gregory and Nobunaga pressed their foreheads together, and closed their eyes. Small wounds of his own allowed for their blood to meet and mesh together as they shared a final moment of peace together. One final soft press of the lips. One last expression of their honest bond, without distraction nor delay.
Nobunaga let Gregory stand back up beside Ranmaru, as she shifted into the seiza sitting position, and pulled her blade from her side.
"Ranmaru, take my head as I ask. We will see true peace achieved." Nobunaga said with a rigid strictness, forced from her diaphragm as she pushed the words out. Her bloodied gaze turned slowly to Gregory. "And you. Help Ranmaru. Don't let it be the end."
Her face moved forward, dropped to a firm and uncompromising expression befitting a great daimyo. There was a moment of silence and tranquility within the room, despite the clattering of steel and wood outside which tried to barge in. With a series of quick and masterfully disciplined motions, her blade etched itself into her abdomen, and rapidly drained the life from her pale skinned body before any more words could be spoken.
Ranmaru and Gregory stood in silence. The sorrow and pain threatening to overwhelm them both for distinctly different, but equally personal reasons.
"... do it."
Ranmaru looked to Gregory as he advised her to act, responding with a simple gesture, before taking Nobunaga's blade to finish the last task assigned to her. With Nobunaga's head wrapped in cloth and tucked beneath her arms, she looked around the back storage room.
"Where... where do I go?" she asked of Gregory.
"Anywhere. Find somewhere that doesn't make sense. Somewhere nobody will think to look."
"What about you? Aren't you coming?" Ranmaru asked again, "Lady Nobunaga wanted you to-"
"She wanted me to help you." Gregory answered abruptly, his eyes lingering on the headless body of his lover at their feet. "That's what I'm going to do. Climb out of that window there in the back, and go as fast and as far as you can. Try not to be seen. I'm going to keep their eyes off of you."
The attacking forces finally breached the impromptu barricade that the final three Oda had set up to delay their attack, but it was too late. The soldiers entering the room looked around, confused as to where the third Oda defender had gone to.
"Where are the others?" A soldier snapped to Gregory, as the naginata blade lowered between the threshold and held the two apart.
"I don't know what you're talking about. There is only myself, and a corpse."
"WHERE IS ODA NOBUNAGA?!" the assailant demanded.
"Ha! You Akechi minions must be really stupid. As if you hadn't already proved to be scum enough already by being traitors to your lord, but you're also foolish enough to attack a couple of nobodies while thinking that they're the target?"
The assailants gathered their weapons together and prepared to strike.
"Right." Gregory added, simply, bringing his naginata to bear, and swiping the blade with a twisting strike, clipping the man who had spoken across the cheek. The gash had torn his face asunder, revealing a terribly white streak of bone and teeth, with a sickening paint of red liquid and soft, pink flesh exposed while blood and salive alike flooded down from his broken jaw. Falling back, the others supporting the man's intrusion moved ahead to provide assistance, only to be met by more strikes of the blade.
Gregory, of course, was no hero nor a figure from legend. He was just a man, and devoted as he was, there was little that one man could do for long against many. His strikes flew like a frantic wind, spinning and twisting within the same limited space, and miraculously finding purchase on parts of the enemy here and there.
But so too did theirs. The spearheads from the Akechi forces crowding in the doorway were finding themselves connecting with as much legitimacy as any of the strikes that Gregory, Nobunaga, and Ranmaru had dealt to their brethren. The difference in their exhaustion was as clear as stepping into the sunlight after a night in a cave. They knew he could not hold for long, and it was showing.
Gregory's grip was loosening, even as the men fell in this final stand. Their numbers dropped slowly, until the last man was dead at his feet. Hauling his broken body, using the bloodied naginata as a walking staff, he made his way to Nobunaga's headless body. Dropping the weapon, he fell to his knees beside her corpse, and lay against a box holding some manner of temple supply. Slowly, he took hold of Nobunaga's shoulders, and pulled her gently atop his lap.
Looking down at his body, he could see numerous gashes and wounds inflicted by potent stabs from the spears. It was no wonder his energy in the fight had faded so radically in this last stand. The prolonged fight of the siege was enough, but he hadn't realized just how badly he had been bleeding out. It was a miracle he had lasted so long as it was.
His hold on Nobunaga's decapitated body tightened with what little strength he had left.
"I'm sorry, Nobu." Gregory whispered, his words floating among an orchestra of crackling wood and popping embers. "I know you said not to let it be the end... but I helped Ranmaru..."
The sound of footsteps thundered from the exterior hall once again. He could tell from the battle of attrition that it would only be so long before it was over. He didn't have the energy to keep this up for long.
"Life is but a fleeting dream, right?" He spoke weakly, continuing to explain himself to his now long-dead beloved as though she were still there waiting to offer a loving scolding. "Without you, there is no dream... I think, my love... I think I would rather wake up..."
Gregory reached for the very blade that Nobunaga used to commit seppuku only an hour prior, and held it to his own gut. The sound of footsteps came closer, and he could hear them entering from only one room over. Hearing how close they were, a sudden surge of spite arose within him. Nobunaga may have been known for her quirkiness, but she was still a shining example of a samurai lord. Gregory, however, was far from that.
His end needed to ritual sacrifice.
Slowly, he set her body aside, and gripped his naginata one last time. He was exhausted, but he was able to at least defy the traitors one last time. Lifting the point upward, he kept it pointed towards the entryway as the soldiers ran into the room one last time. This time, the soldiers acted without speaking, and attacked instantly. His polearm slashed at them, and caught one on the arm with a grazing strike. The wound was there, but hardly anything worthy of note.
In contrast, the fresh soldiers easily found purchase.
Spears came down like a shower of agony, puncturing the cloth and the flesh beneath it. Gregory could feel the myriad pointed blades as they drove themselves into the muscles of his chest, and burrowed deeply to reach his heart and lungs and other organs. The final assault was utterly brutal and without hesitation. He felt his lungs break and deflate as breathing became difficult. His heart had been nicked just enough to make the flow of blood through his veins significantly more tedious. Every breath was torment.
Yet he smiled.
He smiled, because in defiance of the traitor, Gregory was able to at least help make their last stand difficult for the coward and his men. Once the Akechi soldiers had riddled him with wounds to their satisfaction, they left the room and continue their fruitless search for the elusive unifier.
The length of time it took for his vision to fade had surprised him. The human body could last for a shockingly long time with such horrifically mutilating damage, and it almost made Gregory wish that he had followed Nobunaga's suit in seppuku. The room was collapsing. He could not see it, but he could feel it. The smoke tortured his lungs, half filled with blood and other organ fluids that had co-mingled in his chest from the countless punctures he had received. He could not move his legs, no matter how hard he tried. Every piece of his body's energy had gone into contesting every action the Akechi forces had struck with.
The sound of crackling embers surged around him, and a punishing cloak of unbearable heat enveloped his broken body with all the fury and hatred of the Oda desire to see the Akechi betrayal annihilated.
His life was nearly spent.
His sight was gone.
His body could not move.
He could barely breathe.
The only thing he knew in the final moments of consciousness, was the feeling of Nobunaga's lifeless fingers interlaced with his own. Even with so much of his life drained from him, and his thoughts impossible to focus into anything beyond the immediate sensations, he knew that they had gone together. His dedication to her was as unassailable as Lady Nobunaga's ambitions for a perfected nation. A smile, crackled apart and bleeding from the hellish flames, formed upon his dying lips. The scorching heat of the collapsing roof above him boiled his blood and blistered the skin from his body as he let his last thoughts linger on his beloved.
"Not... too soon..." Gregory managed, with barely a scratchy whisper. "I'm sorry..."