The steel song of clashing death roared below, but inside the high pavilion of Mitshurumo Castle, a different kind of battle had reached its conclusion. Blood dripped from Ashikaga Yoshiaki's armor, none of it his own. The path to his father's chamber had been costly—for his men, and for those who had once served loyally under the Elder's command.
The Elder knelt on a tatami mat, his weathered hands resting calmly on his thighs, back straight as a bamboo shaft despite the weight of his years. His eyes held no fear, only a quiet resignation.
"We've both been born enough to know this can only end one way," the Elder said, his voice steady.
Ashikaga tightened his grip on his katana, the blade still wet with the blood of his father's guards. "It didn't have to come to this."
"But it did. As it was always meant to." The Elder closed his eyes briefly. "The Oda teach that honor isn't gray. That failure demands blood. Is that what you believe now, my son?"
Outside, the sounds of battle intensified—teeth grinding to nubs under helmets, the distant ring of blades carrying through the thin walls, the thundering of feet on soil vibrating the floorboards beneath them. The whiff of the closest katanas cutting through the air came from just beyond the door where Ashikaga had posted his own guards.
"The Oda way is efficient," Ashikaga said, moving to position himself behind his father. "When you've never known mercy, you never think twice."
The Elder nodded slightly. "Death is always waiting, either patiently or in ambush. In a way, we are all just another story of death."
Hundreds of arrows pocked the sky beyond the window. The thick haze of combat hung over the valley, waiting for the next rain of cowardly execution. For the soldiers below, death would come in many forms—sometimes slow, with a splintery crack of armor, as if in the jaws of a giant animal; other times quick, accompanied only by the high scream of an ineffective iron defense.
"What will you teach Hiryu?" the Elder asked.
Ashikaga paused, his blade hovering. "That true honor lies in responsibility. That a leader bears the weight of his clan's failures."
"Yet here you stand, ready to take my head rather than letting me bear that weight."
"This is different," Ashikaga whispered. "This is mercy."
The Elder straightened his spine further. "Then do your duty, my son."
Most would die in agony on the field below—limbs severed, organs punctured, blood washing into the mud. The lucky ones would be dropped, crippled and forgotten, left to finish themselves with their own wakizashi, honor intact according to the code of the Oda.
But for the Elder of Mitshurumo, death would come from his son's hand—clean, quick, honorable in its way.
Ashikaga raised his katana.
The first time your soul leaves your body to ride the edge of your katana—that's when you understand. That's when you know the true meaning of the steel song.
The blade fell. Clean. Precise. Final.
The Elder's head tumbled forward, his body slumping to the floor with terrible grace.
Ashikaga sheathed his blade, the click of metal against scabbard unnaturally loud in the sudden silence.
"Hiryu will never know this burden," he vowed to his father's unhearing ears. Or did they hear? For the eyes offered a final blink...
They say a samurai must be ready to die at any moment. What they don't tell you is that sometimes, death isn't the end.
Sometimes, it's just the beginning.