Nobunaga turned around, his hair still dripping wet, and said impatiently, "Go see what it is, Bomaru." After giving the order, he continued vigorously rubbing his face with a cloth.

One of the pages said, "Maybe the guards at the outer temple have gotten into a fight or something."

Nobunaga did not acknowledge the remark. For a moment his eyes resembled the waters of an abyss, and sparkled as though he were searching for something, not in the outer world but within himself.

But only for a moment. It was not just outside the main temple. Here at the guest mansion, and from ridgepole to ridgepole of the ten or so monastery buildings, something as strong as an earthquake shaking the entire crust of the earth was being conveyed by an indefinable noise and a terrifying current of energy.

Any man, no matter how strong, is likely to feel confusion at such a moment. The blood retreated even from Nobunaga's face, and the pages attending him all turned pale. But they probably stood still for no more than a couple of breaths. Almost immediately,someone came running down the nearby corridor at great speed.

A man yelled, "My lord! My lord!"

The pages chorused, "Master Ranmaru! Master Ranmaru! Over here!" Nobunaga himself came out and called the man.

"Ranmaru! Where are you going?"

"Ah, you're here, my lord," Ranmaru said, almost falling down as he knelt. At a glance, Nobunaga could feel on the very surface of his flesh that what was happening was not just a simple matter of some samurai getting into a fight, or a row between the men at the stables.

"What's happened, Ranmaru? What's all the commotion?" he asked quickly, and Ranmaru was just as quick with his answer.

"The Akechi have committed an outrage. There are warriors outside, rioting and waving banners that are unmistakably emblazoned with the Akechi crest."

"What! The Akechi?" The words left his mouth in astonishment. His surprise demonstrated thoroughly that he had never expected—never even dreamed—that this would happen. But the singular physical shock and the emotional excitement he felt were halted at his lips. Speaking with nearly the same calm he always possessed, his next words sounded almost like a growl.

"The Akechi… it was inevitable."

Turning quickly aside, Nobunaga dashed back into his room. Ranmaru started to follow him, but after five or six steps he turned back and scolded the trembling pages. "Each one of you get to work quickly. I've just ordered Bomaru to tell everyone to shut all of the gates and doors. Block all of the doorways, and don't let the enemy even get close to His Lordship." Before he was able to finish his words, bullets and arrows began to strike the kitchen door and the nearby windows like a downpour of rain. Countless arrows pierced deeply through the wooden doors, and the bright steel of their sharp points clearly proclaimed the battle to the people inside.

From south of Rokkaku, noth of Nishikikoji, west of Toin, and east of Aburakoji, the four sides of the Honno Temple were engulfed in the armor of the Akechi forces and their battle cries. The tile-roofed walls could be easily seen, but, protected by the deep moat, they could not be so easily scaled.

The forest of spears, banners, guns, and halberds did nothing more than sway back and forth.

Some of the men leaped rashly to the base of the roofed wall; others could not jump so far. Many of those who tried fell to the bottom of the moat. And because of their heavy armor, those who fell in were buried up to their waists in the foul-smelling, muddy swamp water, the color of black ink. Even if they had been able to get up and call, their companions above never looked down.

The Akechi troops at Nishikikoji demolished the tenements of the neighborhood, while women with infants, old people, and children fled from underneath the wreckage, like hermit crabs scuttling away from empty shells. In this way the soldiers filled the moat ith doors and roof planking.

Immediately, everyone scrambled to swarm over the wall. The gunners lined up their firearms and, aiming from the top of the wall down into the compound, fired off the first volley.

By then the buildings inside the temple compound were uncannily still. All of the doors in the front main temple were closed, and it was difficult to tell whether or not there was an enemy inside to shoot at. Flames and smoke began to rise from Sewer Street.  The heat of the fire beneath the ruined houses immediately began to smolder and easily ignited one structure after the next. Soon all the poor people on the block stampeded out as though they would trample each other to death. Crying and screaming, they spilled into the dry riverbed of the Kamo River and into the center of town, carrying nothing with them at all.

Viewed from the area of the main gate on the opposite side of the temple, it must have seemed as though the men who had already broken through the rear gate had begun to set fire to the kitchen. The main force that thronged at the front gate was in no mood be bested by their comrades. In a rage, the rank and file yelled out to a wavering group officers who seemed to be doing nothing more than wasting time in the area of the drawbridge.

"Smash on in!"

"Push on through! What are you doing?"

One of the officers faced the guard inside the gate.

"We are the Akechi forces on our way to the western provinces. We have come here in full array in order to respectfully salute Lord Oda Nobunaga."

It was a poor attempt to trick the defenders into opening the main gate, and it only delayed matters even more. The guard was naturally suspicious, and he had no reason to open the gate on his own, without asking for Nobunaga's orders.

He told them to wait. The ensuing silence inside the gate meant that the emergency was being reported to the main temple and that there would be an instantaneous rush to man defenses.

The warriors jostling behind were becoming impatient at having to use a stratagem to cross this little bit of moat and they began to push the lines in front of them.

"Attack! Attack! What are we waiting for?"

"Take the walls!"

Recklessly competing to take the entrance first, they pushed those who were wavering to the side and even knocked them down.

A number of men in the front were pushed into the moat, and battle cries were raised both by those on top and by those who had fallen in. Then, apparently on purpose, groups even farther behind began to push. More men fell into the moat. In an instant one section of the moat was filled with mud-covered warriors.

One young warrior stepped over the mass of human beings and leaped for the base of the roofed wall. Another man followed his example.

"We're going over!"

Screaming and thrusting with their spears, the men crossed over and quickly clung to the top of the roofed wall. The jumble of warriors in the moat jostled and shoved like mudfish trying to jump out of a pond. The warriors above them trampled the backs, shoulders, and heads of their own comrades. One man after another was sacrificed wretchedly to the horrific, muddy rush. Because of their unseen distinguished service, however, voices soon yelled with pride from the top of the walls of the Honno Temple.

"I'm the first!"

So quickly did the others reach the wall that it was difficult to distinguish who was first and who second.

Inside the walls, the Oda samurai who were already running from the guard station inside the gate and the area around the stables seized any weapon they could and tried to stem the flood of this rushing river. It was, however, the same as trying to support a broken dam with nothing more than one's hands. Ignoring the swords and spears of the defenders, the Akechi vanguard quickly bounded through, stepping over the corpses of men who had engaged in the battle and were dyed in the flowing blood of their enemies.