"The soldiers of Oda Nobutada have already broken into Kai from Suwa, and our men are being killed without mercy, whether they fight or surrender. Their severed heads are exposed on the roadside, and the enemy is flowing in this direction like a tide."

Another urgent message arrived. "Shingen's kinsman, the blind priest Ryuho, was captured and butchered by the enemy."

This time Katsuyori raised his eyes and spoke abusively of the enemy.

"The Oda forces have no compassion. What fault could they find in a blind priest? How could he even have had the power to resist?" But now he was able to think more deeply about his own death. He bit steadily on his lip and repressed the waves roiling at the bottom of his heart. If I give vent to my anger like this, he thought, they may think I've become distracted, and even the retainers around me will feel disgraced. There were many people who saw nothing more than Katsuyori's manly exterior and who considered him bold and even coarse. But the truth was that he was very deliberate in his actions toward his retainers. In addition, he was extremely strict in adhering to his own principles—to his honor as a lord and to self-reflection. He had continued in his father's tradition and had been taught the principles of Zen by Kaisen. But although he had had the same teacher and had studied Zen, he was unable to bring it to life as Shingen had done.

How could Takato Castle have fallen? I was sure it could hold out for another two weeks to a month, Katsuyori thought, which showed that the situation had resulted less from a miscalculation of defensive strategy than from a lack of human maturity. Now, however, regardless of what his natural temperament might be, he had to meet this new tide of fortune.

The sliding partitions had been taken from the wide conference room and even from the outlying rooms of the main citadel; and now the entire clan lived together as though they were refugees from a great cataclysm that continued day and night. Naturally, curtains were set up even in the garden, shields were set up side by side, and soldiers went without sleep, holding large paper lanterns and policing the area at night. Messengers with reports of the situation were taken hourly directly from the entrance through the central gate to the garden, so that Katsuyori listened to the dispatches in person. Everything that had just been part of the construction the year before—the scent of new wood, the gold and silver inlay, the beauty of the furniture and utensils—now seemed only to be in the way.

Accompanied by a maid and binding up the train of her kimono, a lady-in-waiting with a message from Katsuyori's wife stepped out of the confusion of the garden and into the dark hall, and bravely looked through the crowd of men. At that time, the room was full of generals, both young and old, all noisily expressing their opinions about what to do next.

The woman finally came before Katsuyori and appealed to him with the message from his wife. "The women are all standing around crying in confusion, and won't stop no matter how we console them. Your wife has said that our last moment comes only once, and she thinks that perhaps the women would be a little more easily resolved if they could be here with the samurai. If she has your permission, she will move here immediately. What are my lord's wishes?"

"That's fine," Katsuyori answered quickly. "Bring my wife here and the young ones too."

At that moment his fifteen-year-old heir, Taro Nobukatsu, came forward and tried to dissuade him. "Father, that wouldn't be very good, would it?"

Katsuyori turned to his son, less with displeasure than with a nervous preoccupation. “Why?"

"Well, if the women come here, they'll just get in the way. And if the men see them crying, even the bravest samurai may become disheartened." Taro was still a boy, but he inisted on giving his opinion. He continued to argue that Kai had been their ancestral land since the time of Shinra Saburo, and it should be their land to the very end, even if they have to fight and die. To abandon Nirasaki and flee, as one general had just recommnded, would bring the greatest shame to the Takeda clan.

A general argued the opposite position: "Nevertheless, the enemy is on all four sides, and Kofu is situated in a basin. Once the enemy invades, it will be like water rushing into a lake. Wouldn't it be better to escape to Agatsuma in Joshu? If you got to the Mikuni mountain range, there would be any number of provinces where you might find asylum.

Once you called together your allies, you could certainly reestablish yourself."

Nagasaka Chokan agreed, and Katsuyori's mind was inclined in that direction. He set his eyes on Taro and was silent for a moment. He then turned toward the lady-in-waiting and said, "We will go."

Taro's advice was thus refused by his father. Taro turned away silently and hung his head. The remaining question was whether to flee to Agatsuma or to entrench themselves in the area of Mount Iwadono. But whichever route they chose, abandoning their new capital and fleeing was the unavoidable fate to which both Katsuyori and his generals were resigned.

It was the third day of the Third Month. If it had been any other year, Katsuyori and his retinue would have been enjoying the Doll Festival in the inner citadel. But on this bright day, the entire clan was driven from behind by black smoke as they abandoned Nirasaki. Katsuyori, of course, also left the castle, as did every samurai that served him. But as he turned and looked at his entire force, his expression was one of amazement.

"Is this all?" he asked. At some point, senior retainers and even kinsmen had disappeared. He was told that they had taken advantage of the confusion during the darknes of dawn, and had fled each to his own castle with his retainers.

"Taro?"

"I'm here, Father." Taro drew his horse up to the solitary figure of his father. With all the retainers, the common samurai, and the foot soldiers combined—there were less than a thousand men. There were large numbers, however, of lacquered palanquins and litters for his wife and her court ladies, and the pathetic figures of veiled women, both walkin and on horseback, filled the road.

"Oh! It's burning!"

"The flames are so high!"

The crowd of women could hardly stand to leave, and when they had traveled only about a league from Nirasaki, they turned to look even as they walked. Flames and black smoke rose high in the morning sky as the castle at the new capital burned. They had set the fires at dawn.

"I don't want to live a long life," said one of the women. "What kind of future would I see? Is this the end of Lord Shingen's clan?" The nun who was Katsuyori's aunt, the charming young girl who was Shingen's granddaughter, the wives of the clan members and their servant ladies—all of them were drowning in their tears, holding each other as they cried, or calling out the names of children. Golden hairpins and other ornaments were left on the road, and no one even bothered to pick them up. Cosmetics and jewelry were smeared with mud, but no one gazed at them with regret.

"Hurry up! Why are you crying? This is what it is to be born a human being. You're going to shame yourselves in front of the farmers!" Katsuyori rode in among the slow-moving palanquins and litters, urging them on, to escape farther and farther to the east.

Hoping to reach Oyamada Nobushige's castle, they looked at the old castle in Kofu as they passed by but could only walk on toward the mountains. As they walked on, the carriers who shouldered the palanquins gradually disappeared, the menials who carried the baggage and litters ran off one after another, and their number was reduced by half and then by half again. By the time they had entered the mountains near Katsunuma, their entire force numbered only two hundred men, and less than twenty of those were mounted, counting Katsuyori and his son. When Katsuyori and his followers had struggled along as far as the mountain village of Komagai, they found that the one man they had been relying upon had suddenly had a change of heart.