As if to say that all they wanted was to visit the residence of Lord Nobunaga, they ran straight toward the main temple and the guest house. They were met, however by a hum of arrows like a roaring wind from the wide veranda of the main temple and from the balustrade of the guest house. The distance was advantageous for bowshot, but many of the arrows did not hit the advancing warriors, and instead dug harmlessly into the earth. Many others skipped along the ground or rebounded from the faraway walls.

Among the defenders, a number of brave men dressed only in sleeping attire, half-naked or even unarmed, grappled with the armored enemy. The guards who had received time off from duty had slept comfortably through the heat of the summer night. Now, perhaps ashamed to enter the fight late, they ran out to restrain the Akechi warriors—if ony a little—with nothing more than the fierceness of their bodies and their own desperate efforts.

But the billowing waves of armor were not to be stopped and were already surging under the eaves of the temple. Darting back inside his room, Nobunaga had put on breeches over a garment of white silk and was fastening the cords as he gnashed his teeth.

"A bow! Bring me a bow!" he shouted.

After he'd yelled this order two or three times, someone finally knelt down and held a bow in front of him. Snatching it away, he bounded outside through the paneled doors, shouting back, "Let the women escape. Nothing is wrong with their getting away. Just don't let them become an encumbrance."

The noise of doors and screens being kicked in could be heard everywhere, and the screams of the women intensified the unnerving atmosphere under the shaking roof tiles. The women fled in confusion from room to room, running down the corridors and jumping over the handrails. Their ruffled trains and sleeves cut through the gloom like flying flames of white, red, and purple. But the bullets and arrows flew everywhere—into the shutters, the pillars, and the handrails. Nobunaga had already stepped out onto a corner of the veranda and was firing his arrows at the enemy. Around him were stuck the arrows that had been concentrated on his own figure.

Watching the fearful way he fought, even the women, who had lost all control of themselves, were unable to leave his side. All they could do was scream.

"Fifty years a human being under heaven." That line was from the play Nobunaga had loved so much, and it had characterized his view of life during his youth. He did not think of what was happening as a world-shaking event. He was certainly not dispirited by the thought that it might be the end.

Rather, he fought with a fierce, burning spirit that would not simply give up and die. The ideal that he held in his breast as the great work of his life had not yet been even half-finished. It would be too mortifying to be defeated in the middle of the journey. There was just too much to be regretted if he died this morning. So he took another arrow and notched it to the string. He listened to the string hum again and again, seeming to loose his anger with each arrow. Finally the string became frayed and the bow was ready to break.

"Arrows! I don't have any arrows! Bring me more!"

Continuing to call out behind him, he even picked up and shot the enemy's arrows that had missed him and fallen to the corridor. Just then, a woman wearing a red silk headband and gallantly trussing up one sleeve of her kimono carried in an armful of arrows and raised one to his hand. Nobunaga looked down at the woman.

"Ano? What you've done here is enough. Now try to escape."

He motioned her off emphatically with his chin, but the court lady, Ano, kept passing arrow after arrow to Nobunaga's right hand and would not leave, no matter how he upbraided her.

He shot with nobility and grace more than with skill, more with spirit than with great strength. The magnificent hum of his arrows seemed to say that the arrows themselv were too good for these menials, that the arrowheads were gifts from the man who would rule the nation. The arrows that Ano brought, however, were quickly spent..

Here and there in the temple garden the enemy lay, felled by his arrows. But, braving his fire, a number of the armored soldiers yelled out and pressed desperately in under the balustrade, and finally began to climb onto the bridged corridor.

"We can see you, Lord Nobunaga! You can't escape now! Give up your head like a man!

The enemy were as thick as the crows on the honey locust tree in the morning and evening. Personal attendants and pages positioned themselves around Nobunaga in the rear and side corridors in a protective stance, their swords shining with a fire born of desperation. They were not going to let the enemy get close. The Mori brothers were among them. A number of these men who had refused to leave their lord at the very end and had fought to protect him now lay on top of their enemies exactly as they had grappled with them, both seeming to have died by the other's hands.

The guard corps at the outer temple had made the main temple their battleground and now fought a fierce and bloody fight to keep the enemy from approaching the court. But because the enemy forces seemed about to take the entrance to the bridged corridor that led to the court, the entire corps, which consisted of less than twenty men, formed a single unit and dashed together toward the interior.

Thus the Akechi warriors who had scrambled up to the bridged corridor were caught on both sides. Stabbed and cut, their corpses fell on top of one another. When the men from the outer temple saw that Nobunaga was still safe, they cried out in elation, "Now there's time! Now! Retreat as quickly as possible!"

"Idiots!" Nobunaga spat, tossing his bow away. It had broken and he was out of arrows. "This is no time to retreat! Lend me your spear!"

Upbraiding them, he grabbed a retainer's weapon and ran down the corridor like a lion. Finding an enemy warrior with his hand on the balustrade and about to climb over he drove his spear straight down into the man.

Just then, an Akechi warrior drew back his small bow from the shade of a Chinese black pine. The arrow struck Nobunaga's elbow. Staggering back, Nobunaga leaned heavily against the shutter behind him.

At that very moment, some minor action was occurring outside the western wall.  A force of retainers and foot soldiers under the command of Murai Nagato and his son had sallied out from the governor's mansion, which was located in the neighborhood of the Honno Temple. Striking at the encircling Akechi forces from behind, they attempted to enter the compound from the main gate.

The night before, Nagato and his son had stayed up late into the night talking with Nobunaga and Nobutada, returning to their mansion to sleep at about the time of the third watch. That, one could say, was the reason Nagato had been sleeping so soundly and had been caught off guard. As part of his duties, he should have known—at the very least—about the situation the moment the Akechi forces stepped inside the capital precincts. And then he should have immediately sent a warning to the nearby Honno Temple, even if it had been just moments before the arrival of the hostile troops.

His negligence had been total and absolute. But the fault lay not with Nagato alone. Certainly, negligence could be attributed to all of those who were staying in the capital or had had mansions there.

"It seems there's some trouble outside," Nagato was told when he was first awakened.  He had no idea of the magnitude of the trouble.

"Maybe it's a brawl or something. Go take a look," he told a retainer. Then, while he leisurely got out of bed, he heard one of his attendants calling out from the roof of the mud-walled gate.

"Smoke's coming up from Nishikikoji!"

Nagato clicked his tongue and muttered, "Probably some fire on Sewer Street again."