He'd come to his senses once again.
Once again, he woke up to a new place, a new time, and a new face.
He looked around. He was on the second floor of a wooden house, in a tatami room surrounded on three sides by sliding doors. The outside wall had an opening that served as a window. Covered by thin paper, it overlooked the wide plains that kissed the ocean near the edge of the horizon.
He searched through his memories and pieced everything together. Unlike somebody else he knew, he wasn't so forgetful. All it took was a couple of minutes for him to settle down and meditate, and when it was all over, he had all of the answers he was looking for. All except for one.
"AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!"
The man grabbed his own head, nails digging deep into his skull.
"WHY? WHY? WHY? WHY?" he shouted as he banged his head on the edge of the window, breaking through the fine paper meant only for the highest-ranking officials of the country.
The house this man lived in was actually a palace, for he himself was now living the life of a daimyo. Still, that was of no help to him.
"Why here?" he shouted, for he knew that place all too well. It was the same place much blood had been spilled upon a couple of years prior.
"Why him?" he screamed, for he knew the person in whose body he had woken up, and the coincidence that fate had in store for him now felt like a cruel joke.
"WHY NOW?" he roared, for it was too late to fix anything. It was too late for a change to happen, but much too early for the world to have forgotten.
He took a moment to look at his palms and the blood they were stained with. Memories kept coming back to him—memories of who this man was and what he had done to be here.
No, to call him a man was unfitting, for this once proud samurai had betrayed his own daimyo and was now living his dream life on the lands he had once sworn to protect. He was nothing more than a weasel, a lame excuse for a leader. He, the samurai who once cared so much about his pride and honor, decided to grovel at the feet of the enemy for his life to be spared. Not only that, it was him who took the head of his own ruler.
He fought in a losing war, yet decided to take the winning side. For that, the weasel was generously rewarded and given the land which served as a battlefield a couple of years ago.
There was no excuse to be made. He was the lowest of the low. And now, after having awakened to all of those memories, he came to hate himself for what he had become.
No, that wasn't the reason for his outburst. The true reason was something that ran much deeper. It was sorrow that no man on this earth could understand better than him.
"Lord Uesugi, did anything happen?"
His sorrow came from wearing the face of a man he once knew. His sorrow came from seeing the aftermath of a war he knew too much about.
What the man whose life he had taken over had done mattered little. What actually hurt him was having to live in this land called Tsukide, wearing the face of a man he hated.
"Were it not for you… things wouldn't have turned out this way…" Uesugi whispered to himself.
"Were it not for you… I wouldn't have —"
"Lord Uesugi! I'm coming in—"
"STAY AWAY!" he shouted at the feminine voice who had called him by his new name. Luckily, this wasn't the first time Uesugi had such an outburst, having been plagued by guilt for the past years.
The woman outside stopped in her tracks, having only slightly cracked the door before blood froze in her veins. Through that small crack, she saw her lord—a dignified man standing on his knees, meditating peacefully.
"Makoto, was it?"
"Ah… Yes…"
"Ready my finest hilt. I have business to attend to."
Makoto glanced at her lord one more time. He looked as if nothing had happened to him, yet the screams and bangs she'd heard not long ago couldn't be denied. Still, she knew better than to ask.
"Yes! At once!"
Once the young lady's footsteps faded down the stairs, Uesugi took a deep breath.
"Now… why am I back here? Where is he?"
From crazed to dead calm, it only took Uesugi a couple of seconds to change his attitude.
"Of course you'd drop me here with no answer… Whatever," he added, scolding somebody who was nowhere near him.
Whatever may have happened. It now mattered little. That outburst before was going to be the only one he would indulge in, for he had a mission to accomplish.
Instead, the noble felt tingles on the inside.
"hah…"
He laughed as more of his memories came back, for he remembered something funny.
"Haha…"
What he had remembered could be called ridiculous, but he owed his life to that ridiculous. That's why the man couldn't help but laugh.
"AHAHAHAHAHA——————"
And then the laugh suddenly stopped, and silence filled the room.
After getting up on his feet, Uesugi went and grabbed his katana. In the land where he'd once dared hold on to a dream, he was now off to wreck somebody else's, for more than he hated Uesugi, he hated two other people.
He had been given this chance, and he was not going to waste it.