Location: Guest Quarters to the Southern Gate, Kiyosu Castle.
Current Date/Time: Late Summer, 1559. Early Morning.
Waking up was a jarring slam back into a cold reality.
One moment, Soma sat inside the fading memory of his car. The rhythmic, sweeping click-clack of his windshield wipers cleared rain from the glass. The steady draft of the heater blew warm air against his shins.
The next moment, a harsh scrape of wood on wood severed the dream.
The sliding paper screen of the guest room slammed against the end of its tracks. A flood of pale morning light poured into the dim chamber. The wind off the Kiso River followed it, a damp, biting draft that swept over the floorboards and stung Soma’s eyes.
“Up,” a guard barked from the threshold.
The man stood tall in the doorway. His hand rested firmly on the wrapped hilt of his sword. His face gave away nothing.
“The Lord waits. He does not permit the sun to outpace his assets.”
Soma dragged himself off the floorboards. The movement tore at his core. His muscles locked and groaned, stiff and bruised from a night spent grinding against the unforgiving cedar planks. The chill of the river water had settled deep into his marrow, turning his joints to lead. He ran a thumb along his jawline and flinched. The skin was tight and tender. A deep, dark bruise spread across the muscle where the Warlord’s fingers had clamped his face the night before.
He stood. The rough fibers of his kosode scraped against his shoulders. The rust-brown of the laborer’s robe hung awkwardly over his frame. The sleeves stopped short of his wrists, exposing his pale skin to the morning draft. The sash at his waist cut tightly into his ribs, restricting his breath.
His hands shook as he fumbled with the knot at his waist. He pulled the hemp tight and locked his jaw. He forced his spine straight, suppressing the urge to shiver.
“I am ready,” Soma said. He kept his voice flat. “Lead the way.”
The guard turned on his heel. His straw sandals scuffed against the wood.
Soma followed him into the open-air corridor. His bare feet slapped the planks. Beneath them, hidden iron clamps ground against iron nails under their weight. The nightingale floors chirped, a rhythmic, high-pitched warning designed to expose assassins. The sound echoed down the length of the quarters, a constant, sharp reminder of the paranoia woven deep into the castle's timber bones.
The morning air hung thick and stagnant over the castle grounds. The fog carried a suffocating blend of scents: the acrid smoke of green-wood cooking fires, the wet, heavy musk of the massive horse stables, and the sharp metallic tang of iron weapons grinding against whetstones.
Servants hurried through the open courtyard. They carried bundles of firewood, sloshing buckets of well water, and woven baskets of root vegetables. As Soma passed, they bowed their heads so low their foreheads nearly brushed the wet wood of the railings. Yet, they stared. From beneath lowered brows, their eyes tracked his pale, uncalloused hands and strange features. To the people of Kiyosu, he was the Ghost of the Kiso River, the strange, soft-handed man who traveled with a heavy black monolith. The weight of their superstition settled heavily over his shoulders.
The path sloped downward, opening toward the Southern Gate.
The massive scale of the flatland defenses rose out of the morning fog. Sprawling outer walls of wood and packed earth stood directly on the riverbanks, surrounded by a wide, water-filled moat. The gate itself towered over the courtyard. Constructed from thick trunks of dark wood, heavily bound in horizontal bands of black iron, it was built to shatter a cavalry charge.
Right now, the great war machine was paralyzed.
Six heavily muscled foot soldiers strained against the right-side door. Straw sandals slipped and kicked up clumps of clay.
“Heave!” a sergeant yelled. His voice bounced off the earthen ramparts.
The men threw their shoulders against the timber. Metal ground against wet wood. The massive gate let out a deep, agonizing scream, but it barely moved a fraction of an inch. The lower edge of the door was buried deep into the mud of the courtyard. The earth anchored it completely. The men pushed blindly, their boots carving deeper ruts into the slush, fighting the ground itself.
Oda Nobunaga stood ten paces back.
He wore a dark gray silk robe draped over his shoulders, his arms crossed tight over his broad chest. His massive frame blocked out the weak sun. His thick fingers tapped a steady, impatient rhythm against his own bicep.
He turned his head. His eyes locked onto Soma.
The tapping stopped.
“You told me you were a builder, Ghost,” Nobunaga said. His voice rumbled low, cutting effortlessly through the grunts of the struggling soldiers.
The Warlord turned fully. His gold-flecked eyes swept over Soma’s dirt-colored clothes. The gaze lingered on Soma’s exposed wrists before snapping up to his face. The heat radiating from Nobunaga’s body carried the heavy scent of morning steam, agarwood incense, and the cold oil coating the sword at his hip.
“You claim to be a maker of plans. A man who understands the invisible bones of the wood and earth.” Nobunaga flicked his chin toward the stuck gate. “This gate protects my southern approach. It has dragged in the mud since the last great rains. My master carpenter says the heavy timber has warped with the dampness. He says we must plane the wood down or forge entirely new iron hinges. That will take days of labor.”
Nobunaga stepped closer. He invaded Soma’s space. His pupils dilated, dark and predatory.
“I do not have days, Ghost. I have enemies who do not wait for the wood to dry.” Nobunaga’s voice dropped to an intimate challenge. “Fix it. Prove to me that your soft hands are good for something other than holding a rice bowl or shivering in my presence. If you cannot move a single piece of wood using your mind, what use are you to my clan?”
Soma looked at the massive gate. The soldiers stopped pushing. They leaned against the timber, panting in the summer air, and stared at the pale stranger. Over by the stables, several low-ranking retainers gathered in a tight cluster. They watched the confrontation in total silence.
The weight of their stares pressed down on Soma, as thick and heavy as the iron bands on the door.
He took a slow breath. He pushed the cold, the abrasive clothing, and the intimidation out of his mind. He focused entirely on the raw elements: the wet wood, the rusted iron, the sucking earth. The sheer, physical weight of the world. The rules of gravity and tension did not change, no matter the century.
“The wood is not warped, Lord Nobunaga,” Soma said. His voice found a flat, steady authority.
He walked directly toward the gate. His straw sandals slipped in the soft mud. The slush seeped through the woven straw, coating his toes in grit. He ignored it. He stepped right up to the heavy timber and knelt in the dirt, letting the wet clay soak instantly through the knees of his drab hemp trousers.
He pressed his fingers against the cold iron banding at the bottom corner of the door. The metal sucked the warmth from his skin. The entire right side of the gate had sagged. The massive weight no longer rested on the straight spine of the iron hinges. The bottom corner had dug a deep trench into the ground, creating a solid anchor.
“The upper hinge pin slipped out of alignment,” Soma said, tracing the gap where the wood met the stone threshold. “The footing washed out in the heavy rain. You have the full weight of the timber dragging the top down, while the mud swallows the bottom.”
He stood up. He wiped the gray clay from his fingers onto his robe. He turned and looked directly into Nobunaga’s gold-flecked eyes.
“I don’t need days to fix this,” Soma said. “I need a heavy cedar log. At least ten feet long. And a flat, solid rock from the riverbed. We place the rock at the base to act as an anchor. We wedge the wood under the door. We use the length of the log to multiply the strength of your men. It will lift the gate out of the mud.”
Nobunaga’s eyes narrowed. He studied Soma’s steady posture and the complete lack of hesitation in his voice.
“You speak in strange riddles again, Ghost,” Nobunaga murmured. “But I am a man who enjoys seeing a puzzle unmade. Show me your mechanics. Show me how a man with no callouses moves the earth.”
Soma turned toward the soldiers. “Tell them to stop pushing. They are just wedging it deeper into the ground.”
Nobunaga gave a single, sharp nod. “Give the Ghost exactly what he asks for.”
Two soldiers broke away from the gate. They jogged toward the lumber piles stacked near the eastern wall. Another ran toward the outer moat. The courtyard fell quiet, save for the wind whistling through the timber palisades. Nobunaga did not move. He kept his arms crossed, his silk robes rustling, tracking Soma’s every breath.
The soldiers returned. Two of them dragged a thick, ten-foot cedar log through the mud. They dropped it near the gate with a heavy thud. The third man carried a massive, flat river stone against his chest. He dropped it at Soma’s feet.
Soma stepped up to the bottom right corner of the door.
“Place the flat stone here,” Soma pointed to a patch of mud exactly two feet out from the jammed corner.
The soldier kicked the mud flat and dropped the rock into place.
“Lift the log,” Soma instructed the other two. “Slide the tapered end under the iron band on the corner of the door. Rest the middle of the log directly over the top of the flat stone.”
The soldiers grunted, hauling the heavy cedar log up. They jammed the narrow end deep under the rusted iron bracket at the base of the gate. They rested the trunk over the river stone, leaving the long end angled up into the air.
Onlookers and the retainers edged closer, their eyes wide with suspicion.
Nobunaga stepped up to the arrangement. He looked at the log, the stone, and the massive iron-bound door.
“What is this?” Nobunaga asked. He stood close enough that Soma could feel the intense heat radiating from his chest. “You seek to move my massive gate with a stick and a pebble?”
“I am using a lever, My Lord,” Soma said, keeping his voice steady. “We use a small amount of downward force over a long distance. It throws all that gathered force upward at the short end. We only need to lift the door half an inch to clear the mud. Once it lifts, the weight transfers back to the iron hinges.”
Nobunaga stared intently at the long wooden log. His eyes traced the sharp angles of the timber and stone.
“You do not use your own strength,” Nobunaga said softly. “You use the long distance of the wood to cheat the crushing weight of the iron.”
“It is not cheating,” Soma said. “It is leverage. You three. Get to the end of this log.”
The three muscular soldiers grabbed the rough bark at the elevated end of the cedar. They darted nervous glances between Soma and the Warlord.
Soma walked back to the gate. He pressed his shoulder against the cold iron studs of the door. He braced his boots in the mud.
“When I give the signal, do not push the gate,” Soma yelled over the wind. “Pull down on this log with everything you have.”
The soldiers tightened their grip.
“Now!” Soma shouted.
The three men threw their entire body weight over the end of the cedar log. They dragged it downward.
The thick wood bowed. The fibers groaned under the extreme tension. The log pressed hard into the flat river stone. The short end wedged beneath the door drove violently upward.
A sharp, massive crack echoed across the courtyard.
The heavy iron bracket wrenched upward. The mud gripping the bottom of the door surrendered with a loud, sucking pop. The sheer weight of the door transferred completely back onto the vertical iron hinges.
“Push!” Soma commanded, driving his shoulder forward.
Freed from the earth, the heavy timber gate swung smoothly on its hinges. It glided through the air and slammed into the wooden stop-block on the wall. A heavy, metallic boom rang out.
The three soldiers stumbled forward over the log as the resistance vanished. They caught themselves in the mud, staring at the wide-open gateway. The sergeant’s jaw hung open. Jiro and the retainers stood frozen by the stables. They stared at Soma, the soft-handed stranger, with a new, heavy layer of superstition.
Nobunaga walked slowly toward the gate. His bare feet made absolutely no sound in the wet slush. He stopped at the flat river stone. He nudged it with the toe of his boot. He looked at the deep groove left in the mud, tracing the exact line where the door had been trapped just moments before.
He turned around. He walked directly toward Soma.
The Warlord stepped into Soma’s space, completely blocking out the pale morning sun. The heavy heat of his body washed over Soma, a suffocating blanket in the freezing air.
Nobunaga reached out. His large, leather-rough hand clamped down on Soma’s left shoulder. His thick fingers dug directly into the bruised muscle, anchoring Soma to the spot.
Soma’s breath hitched. His heart beat hard against his ribs.
He clenched his jaw. He stared straight at the center of Nobunaga’s chest. A deep, feverish flush crawled up the back of his neck and spread across his jawline, burning in the cold air.
Nobunaga’s gold-flecked eyes tracked the flush instantly. The Warlord leaned in. The heavy scent of sweat and agarwood filled Soma’s lungs. His hot breath hit the shell of Soma’s ear.
“That is a dangerous way to view the world,” Nobunaga murmured, his voice a low vibration. “It makes crushing burdens light. It makes witchcraft look like common sense.”
Nobunaga’s fingers dug deeper into the bruise for one long second, testing the tension in Soma’s neck, then he lets go. His hand dragged heavily across the hemp robe, leaving a cold void where the heat had been.
The Warlord turned toward the dark keep. His indigo robes caught the morning wind, swirling around his massive frame.
“Come with me, Ghost. The gate is open. I wish to see what other impossible weights your mind can lift before the day is done.”
Soma stood alone in the freezing mud. His chest heaved as he watched the Warlord walk away. He adjusted the coarse sash of his robe, his knuckles brushing against his own tight, rigid muscles trapped beneath the fabric. The wind hit his wet shoulders. He took a slow breath, forced his legs to bend, and started walking.