The man who killed the Demon King of Sixth Heaven had three children. Only one, his daughter, inherited the great karma borne by their father.
Akechi Tama lived a life typical of a young noblewoman in her time. Born near the end of the Warring States era, she was wed to a man called Hosokawa Tadaoki, and would later be known as Hosokawa Gracia, a famous Christian convert and martyr. Her lifelong confinement, strained relationship with her husband, and ultimate demise as a political hostage in Ishida Mitsunari's war against Tokugawa Ieyasu is well known, and many consider her tale a tragic one.
This could not be further from the truth.
Tama was a warrior, just as her father was, and bore the same mission he did, a mission given by the collective unconsciousness of all of Japan: to bring the Warring States to an end, no matter the cost.
She was lax, a single time. She trusted her husband. And so he glimpsed something he should not have.
The man she had been married off to locked her away for protection, both hers and his. For he knew she still lived, the last of her line, only to ensure future peace through the bloodiest of means. Who would she stab in the back? The Shogun? The Taiko? The Emperor himself? He was sure that, no matter how calm and collected and gentle the woman before him was, she would not hesitate when the time came.
And so the sleeper agent was confined in a peaceful library for all of her life, deprived of her birthright of weapons and violence. She took to reading, to writing poetry, to more ladylike past-times. She took to God. She took to wondering, perhaps, whether there might be something else to her life. Perhaps it wasn't needed. Perhaps the war was really over. Perhaps she could move on, and live, and it would not disappoint her paternal line.
Perhaps. What-if. A bud that may have one day bloomed, and let her truly become Hosokawa Gracia, loving and beloved.
Yet war came, in the end. One man would become Shogun. A peacemaker who would drag Japan into a period without war. Only, he could not do so himself. His foe had taken hostages. Families of great generals who would otherwise have fought on another side.
The scent of battle reawakened the will within Tama. She stood, and fetched the tinder. Commanded a man to be her second. Drew the blade once more. Plunged it into her stomach, and in doing so, passed on her curse to the last of the warmongers, dragging them kicking and screaming into their graves alongside her. This was fine. Peace was here, even if she would never see it herself.
Tama only hesitated once. Only wondered once: What if her husband had arrived, and begged her to rely on him instead?