Oda Nobuhide did not die on a battlefield.
That alone unsettled those who had followed him.
He died quietly, within the walls of Nagoya Castle, in a season when the fields were green and the roads passable. No banners were torn down. No drums sounded. No enemy pressed the gates.
The lord of Owari simply failed to rise one morning.
At first, no one believed it.
Physicians were summoned in haste, their faces tight with concentration as they pressed fingers to his wrist, listened to his breath, and searched for signs that might yet be coaxed back into motion. Incense was burned. Prayers were whispered. Orders were delayed.
But death did not negotiate.
By noon, the castle knew.
By dusk, the province felt it.
The corridors were filled with restrained motion.
Servants moved softly, heads lowered. Guards doubled their watch without being told. Messengers were dispatched to allied households, their horses pushed hard along familiar roads. Within hours, the inner compound had transformed—not into chaos, but into a tense, expectant stillness.
Nobuhide's body lay prepared in the inner hall.
He looked smaller in death.
The armor he had worn so often was set aside, replaced by simple robes. His face, once hard and sharp with intent, seemed oddly unfinished without breath behind it. Those who entered the room knelt low, careful not to linger.
This was not merely grief.
It was a calculation.
A lord dead without a clear succession was an invitation.
Nobunaga was summoned at dusk.
He arrived without haste.
The servants who led him bowed deeply, their movements stiff with unease. They watched him closely, as though expecting something—anything—to erupt.
It did not.
Nobunaga entered the hall where his father lay and stopped three steps from the body.
He did not kneel.
He did not speak.
He looked.
For a long moment, the room held its breath.
Nobuhide's face was familiar, yet distant. The man who had sent him into fire, who had watched him without intervening, who had chosen risk over restraint—now lay silent, beyond judgment.
Nobunaga felt no rush of grief.
That realization struck him harder than sorrow would have.
He waited for something—anger, loss, collapse.
Nothing came.
Finally, a senior retainer cleared his throat.
"My lord," the man said carefully, addressing Nobunaga for the first time with the title he had inherited, "it is customary—"
"I know what is customary," Nobunaga replied.
His voice was calm. Too calm.
"Then," the retainer continued, "you should—"
Nobunaga stepped forward.
He reached out, adjusted the cloth covering his father's chest, smoothing a fold that had slipped. The gesture was precise, almost clinical.
"He is dead," Nobunaga said. "Crying will not change that."
The words landed like a blade drawn too early.
Several men stiffened.
"That is not what mourning is," someone said, unable to restrain himself.
Nobunaga turned his head.
"Mourning," he said evenly, "is for the living. He no longer needs it."
Silence followed.
Uncomfortable.Dangerous.
By nightfall, the news had spread beyond the castle.
Some whispered of the heir's coldness.Others of arrogance.A few—quietly—of inhumanity.
"The Fool of Owari," they said again, with renewed confidence. "He cannot even mourn his own father."
The name returned like a disease thought cured.
Within the household, the fracture widened.
Some urged patience, reminding others of Nobuhide's faith in his son, of the boy's resilience, and of the times they had underestimated him before.
And others saw opportunity.
"A man who cannot mourn," one retainer said behind closed doors, "cannot command loyalty."
"A man who will not perform grief," another added, "invites rebellion."
They did not say it openly.
Not yet.
The funeral was set for the following day.
Monks arrived at dawn, their chants filling the air with a low, relentless rhythm. The hall was dressed in white. Incense burned thick enough to sting the eyes. Nobuhide's body was placed for viewing, and offerings were arranged with meticulous care.
Nobunaga attended.
He stood where he was told.He bowed when required.
He did not weep.
When others cried, he did not look away—but neither did he join them. His gaze remained fixed, observant, as though recording rather than participating.
The murmurs grew louder.
"He feels nothing.""He is already thinking of power.""He dishonors the dead."
Nobunaga heard them.
He did not respond.
As the ceremony drew to a close, an elderly retainer—one who had served Nobuhide since before Nobunaga's birth—approached him.
"My lord," the man said quietly, "people are watching."
"Let them," Nobunaga replied.
"They expect sorrow."
Nobunaga looked at him.
"They will have to learn what I offer instead."
The retainer hesitated."And what is that?"
Nobunaga turned back toward his father's body.
"Continuance," he said. "Without illusion."
The retainer stepped back, shaken.
That night, as the fires burned low and the castle finally slept, Nobunaga walked alone through the corridors.
He stopped before the small shrine his father had favored.
For the first time since Nobuhide's death, he knelt.
Not in prayer.
In acknowledgment.
"You chose this," Nobunaga said softly to the silence. "You chose me as I am."
He rose without waiting for an answer.
Outside, beyond the walls of Nagoya Castle, men were already choosing sides.
The mourning had barely begun.
The war for Owari had already started.