Clamorous noises and voices quickly arose even in the ordinarily peaceful area of the nobles’ mansions that surrounded the Imperial Palace. With all of this uproar and the echoing of the drumming horses' hooves, the sky of Kyoto itself seemed to be ringing.

The confusion of the city people, however, was only momentary, and as soon as the nobility and common people understood the situation, their homes were as quiet as they had been a while before, when they had been sleeping peacefully. No one ventured to go out into the streets.

It was still so dark the soldiers could not determine whose face was in front of them,

and on their way to the Myokaku Temple, the second army mistook some of its own men, who had taken a roundabout way through another narrow street, for the enemy. Even though their commander had strictly warned them not to fire until the order was given, when they came to the corner of the intersection, the excited soldiers suddenly began to fire blindly through the mist.

When they smelled the gunpowder smoke, their spirits became all the more excited in spite of themselves. Even soldiers who had been in battles before might go through a situation like this before they achieved complete self-control.

"Hey! You can hear conch-shell horns and gongs over there. It's started over at the Honno Temple."

"They're fighting!"

"The attack is on!"

They couldn't tell if their feet were hitting the ground or not. Running forward, they still could not determine whose voices they heard, though there was no resistance in front of them. Still, the pores all over their bodies began to swell, and they were even unaware of the cold mist striking their goose-fleshed faces and hands. They shook with such feeling that all they could do was yell.

And so they raised their battle cry even before they saw the roofed walls of the Myokaku Temple. Unexpectedly, a cry rose up in the direction of the front of the unit, and the gongs and drums began to ring out impatiently as well.

Mitsuhide was with the third army. It would be proper to say that headquarters were located wherever he happened to be, and this time he had stopped at Horikawa. He was surrounded by members of his clan, and a camp stool had been set up for him, but he did not sit down even for a moment. His entire being was focused on the voices of the clouds and the shrieks of the mist, and he looked uninterruptedly into the sky in the direction of Nijo. From time to time his eyes overflowed with the red of the morning clouds, but still no flames or smoke reached skyward.

Nobunaga woke up with a start, but not for any particular reason. After a good night's sleep, he naturally woke up in the morning on his own. Since his youth he had always risen at dawn, no matter how late he had gone to bed. He awoke, or rather—while he was not yet fully conscious and his head was still on the pillow—he experienced a particular phenomenon. It was a transition from dreaming to wakefulness that lasted only a fraction of a second, but in that infinitesimal space, a number of thoughts would pass through his head with the speed of a flash of lightning.

They were memories of experiences that had occurred between the time of his youth and the present, or reflections on his present life, or goals for the future. Whatever they were, these thoughts would pass through his brain in that moment between dream and reality.

This experience was, perhaps, less a habit than an innate ability. As a child, he had already been an extraordinary dreamer. The brambles and thorns of reality, however—especially given his birth and breeding—would not permit him to live only in a world of dreams. The real world had added difficulties on top of difficulties and had taught him the pleasure of cutting his way through them.

During this period of growth, when he was tested and returned victorious, and was tested again, he ultimately learned that he was not satisfied with the difficulties given to him. The highest pleasure of life, he found, lay in seeking out difficulties, plunging right into them, and then turning back to see them behind him. His convictions had been strengthened by the self-confidence he had gained from such experiences and had put him into a frame of mind far beyond the common sense one of ordinary men. After Azuchi , the idea of the impossible did not exist within his boundaries or in the world of his conceptions. That was because the works he had accomplished up to that point had not been done by following the path of ordinary men's common sense; rather, he had taken the path of making possible the impossible.

And that morning, on the border between the world of dreams and his mortal body, where the intoxication of the night before was perhaps still running fragrantly through his veins, pictures were being drawn in his brain: convoys of huge ships going to the southern islands, to the coast of Korea, and even to the great country of the Ming. He himself stood in the tower of a ship along with Sotan and Soshitsu. One more person would have to accompany him, he thought—Hideyoshi. He felt that the day he could make this into a reality was not far off.

In his mind, a small accomplishment like the domination of the western provinces and Kyushu was not enough to fill an entire lifetime.

It's dawn, he muttered to himself, and he rose and left his bedroom.

The heavy cedar door that opened to the corridor had been exquisitely fashioned so that when it was pulled open or closed, the sill naturally made a noise almost as if it were calling out. When the pages heard this sound in their faraway room, they jumped up with a start. The flickering light of the paper lantern was reflected by the thick pillars and planks of the veranda, which gleamed as if they had been polished with oil.

Aware that their lord had awakened, the pages quickened their steps toward the bathoom next to the kitchen. On their way, they heard a noise in the direction of the north corridor. It sounded like a window shutter being opened quickly.

Thinking that it might be Nobunaga, they stopped and peered back toward the blind corridor. The only person visible, however, was a woman wearing a cool, large-patterned kimono and a long outer coat patterned with pines and cherry blossoms. Her long black hair trailed behind her.

As the shutters were open, a morning sky the color of bellflowers appeared through the window, looking almost like a paper cutout. The breeze that wafted in rustled the woman's black hair and sent the fragrance of aloeswood all the way to the place where the pages were lingering.

"Ah, over there." The pages heard the sound of running water and ran off in the direction of the kitchen. The priests of the temple had not yet left their living quarters, so the windows and the huge main gate had not yet been opened. In the wide earthen-bored kitchen and on the elevated wooden platform, the humming of mosquitoes and the darkness of the night remained, but the steaminess of the summer morning could already be felt.

Nobunaga felt a unique dislike for that particular time of day. By the time the pages

realized that he had left his sleeping quarters and had come running up, he had already finished rinsing his mouth and washing his hands. Walking over to the huge jar in which water flowed from a bamboo water pipe, he took a small pail and dipped it into a lacquered tub. Splattering water everywhere, just like a wagtail, he hastily washed his face.

"Ah, you're getting your sleeve wet, my lord."

"Let me change the water."

The pages were in dread. One of them fearfully lifted up Nobunaga's white sleeve from behind, while another dipped out fresh water. Still another held up a towel while kneeling at his feet. At the same time, the men in the samurai quarters left the night guardroom and began to open up the paneled doors in the court. Just at that moment, however, they became aware of an extraordinary noise coming from the direction of the outer main temple, and then of the reverberation of furious footsteps running toward the inner court.