Story:

The banquet was at its warmest hour—Nobunaga and Mitsuhide trading escalating tales of the Osaka campaign, each round of sake loosening the embroidery a little further—when the floor moved.

Not a tremble. Not a shiver. The earth itself lurched, and the palace groaned like a living thing in pain.

Sixty full seconds it lasted. An eternity at a shaking table.

Sake cups leapt and shattered; miniature landscapes of food slid and collapsed; Servants screamed. The great lanterns swung in widening arcs, throwing the whole hall's shadows into epileptic dance.

Yoshiaki abandoned all pretense instantly—covered his head with both arms and dove beneath the table, wedging himself among the fallen dishes like a man burrowing into the earth itself.

Mitsuhide tried to rise, to reach the Tenno's side—one hand already on his sword hilt, duty moving faster than thought—but the floor pitched and rolled beneath him and the finest tactician in the Oda ranks could not take two steps on a surface that refused to hold still.

Nobunaga moved without ceremony. He swept both arms wide and gathered Kicho and Euphy against his chest, one in each arm, his body a wall around theirs, chin tucked over their heads as plaster dust sifted from the ceiling beams.

Michiru-sama sat still.

Perfectly, deliberately still—spine straight, hands folded, her face a mask of serene sovereignty while the world shook itself apart around her. Wen Xia moved at her side in high alert, blocking any falling debris towards her Tenno.

And Euphy and Kicho—pressed together in the cage of their husband's arms—were alert at the highest level.

Because they alone in the room could sense what this truly was.

The two finest magic experts in the hall felt it ripple up through the tatami and the foundation stones and the bones of the mountain beneath: the earthquake carried an intent. An evil intent.