森長可

Mori Nagayoshi (1558–1584), known as 'Demon Musashi,' was Oda Nobunaga's most ferocious field commander — and the elder brother of the beautiful page Mori Ranmaru. Where Ranmaru combined martial skill with grace and intelligence, Nagayoshi was pure overwhelming force. His nickname came from his habit during the Kōshū campaign of burning every village in his path and cutting down anyone who resisted, to the point where people said 'no grass grows where Demon Musashi has passed.' His great spear, named Ningen Mukotsu ('Bonecutter'), is preserved in the Owari Tokugawa collection and designated an Important Cultural Property. He died at twenty-six at the Battle of Nagakute in 1584, shot through the head while attempting to break through an ambush — exactly the kind of death one might have predicted for him, complete, final, and spectacular. His sword philosophy was as uncomplicated as his fighting style: blades were weapons, period, and they were to be judged by how effectively they cut. This purity of purpose, paradoxical as it seems, made him one of the truest embodiments of what a warrior's sword is for.