705.Defeated by someone like this.
Up close, his face was truly young.
Fatigue had gathered there, but no deep lines yet marked it.
It felt strange that this face had steered the fates of so many.
A thought flickered—
Defeated by someone like this.
But the moment he heard Hosokawa's voice, the thought scattered.
There was force in it, something that reached into the depths of the spirit.
Hosokawa answered quickly and with courtesy.
"Yes. That is correct."
His posture was already lowered.
His head bowed half a beat before the words.
"You know why I'm here."
He drew a careful breath.
"…Have you come to kill me?"
"If words fail, perhaps.
Before that, I want this war to end."
A short silence passed.
Then his head dipped deeper.
"I understand."
The words carried no protest.
No argument.
It was acceptance of the situation itself.
Not a weighing of right and wrong—
a decision to endure the moment given.
He had held power, yet before his own life he was no different from any other man.
However brief a life may be, the proposition my lifestrips away all boldness.
He spoke again.
"…Whatever it is, I will do it."
Park clicked his tongue.
When pursuing him, he had seemed monstrous.
Face to face, he was only a young man.
Often it is such men who commit the gravest harm.
An ordinary man elevated to the summit by structure—
that is what shakes a nation.
A truly great man would not covet such a seat to begin with.
He would choose quiet places, reflection, refinement of the inner self.
Park's thoughts were many.
His task was simple.
"Bring a chair."
Hosokawa sprang up and hurried off.
He dragged a chair back in clumsy haste.
Park sat.
He did not adjust his posture.
He simply sat.
Before him, Hosokawa seemed to shrink further.
"Listen carefully."
Park's voice was low.
No emotion rode it.
That made it heavier.
"Before you say what you will do,
I will tell you first what I will not accept."
Hosokawa did not lift his head.
Within that silence,
the direction of war began to turn.
"I am listening."
Park leaned back and remained silent for a time.
Hosokawa held his bowed posture like a condemned man.
Only breathing moved in the room.
The silence itself was the test.
"I do not desire war."
Park spoke first.
His tone was low and clean.
Hosokawa's shoulders trembled faintly.
Relief or tension—it was hard to tell.
A man who wages war claiming he does not want it—
such words are not easily believed.
"You find that difficult to accept."
Park continued.
"I do not fully trust my own words either."
Hosokawa's head lifted slightly.
His eyes shook.
"Men change. Words change.
When the situation shifts, everything shifts.
I have seen it countless times."
Park tapped the armrest with his fingers.
The rhythm was uneven.
"Still, words must be spoken.
I wish to avoid slaughter—
the killing of many."
Hosokawa cautiously began,
"…I as well—"
"No."
Park cut him off.
"I have not yet asked for your thoughts."
Silence fell again.
Park let his gaze sweep the room.
Folding screens.
Low lamps.
Closed doors.
Everything arranged to leave no avenue of escape.
"I want to change the structure that creates pirates."
This was no proposal.
It was a demand.
"Not the individual—the structure.
A starving man grips a blade and sails out—he becomes a pirate.
There is a lord who turns a blind eye.
An official who takes a share.
And at the end, a shogunate that pretends not to see."
Park's eyes fixed on Hosokawa.
"Can you sever that chain?"
Hosokawa could not answer at once.
His lips parted and closed.
Calculation showed plainly.
"…It would not be easy."
"Then you lack the ability."
The tone was calm.
The content was not.
"If you lack the ability, step down.
To sit in that seat without the ability and enjoy its privileges—
that is a crime."
Hosokawa's breathing roughened.
"If you refuse because you do not wish to do it,
that is different."
Park tilted his head and looked at him more closely.
Their eyes met.
Hosokawa froze.
A predator stood within reach.
A short stillness.
"Then you must die."
The air in the room shifted.
This was not a threat.
It was a statement of fact.
Hosokawa's hands clenched on his knees.
The skin whitened.
"…Do you believe I cannot do it because I lack ability?"
His voice trembled.
"By the result—yes.
You know the lords would resist if pirates were suppressed.
You knew the lords of Kyushu and Shikoku would rise in protest.
You feared that."
Park gave a short laugh.
"I do not trust men.
They do not move by understanding or persuasion.
They move by power, by conditions, by gain and loss.
That is why I strike enemies with force."
He leaned forward.
The distance between them collapsed.
"You say you understand now because I stand here and you stand there.
Reverse our positions, and your words would reverse."
His finger pointed to the floor.
Hosokawa's lips trembled.
"Then… why speak with me at all?"
Park paused.
In that brief silence, corpses and betrayals flickered through his mind.
"Because I am human.
Because I have not yet abandoned the wish to stop war.
So once—only once—I try words."
His gaze cooled.
"If words fail,
you know the method that follows."
Park leaned back again.
"Now it is your turn.
Separate what you can do from what you cannot.
I will not listen to excuses."
In that moment, Hosokawa understood.
This was not persuasion.
It was the final explanation of a choice granted once.
The face before him did not sit out of anger.
It sat out of obligation.