Well, I’ll say this for Angolmois – it didn’t waste any time dispensing with the resolution to last week’s cliffhanger.  The issue there was obvious enough – there was no real cliffhanger at all.  Kuchii clearly wasn’t going to die which meant Shiraishi clearly was, so it was just a matter of how it was going to play out.  Shiraishi was a strong character and losing him was a real blow for the defenders, but I’m glad the episode didn’t dally for too long when the endgame was all but certain, and there’s so much more story to tell.

Shiraishi, given his stature as a character, does at least get to die with some dignity.  And Teruhi gets to add to her grisly collection of heads.  It’s easy to dismiss this whole episode as pretty straightforward, but I’m not so sure it’s easy to morally distinguish between Junzaburou and Shirashi, for reasons the episode will delve into more deeply later.  Morale on the whole is rather high for the defenders, given the outcome of the Mongols’ first attempt to conquer the castle.  But the arrival of a massive posse of deer and boars tips off Kuchii and Nagamine that the worst is very much still to come.

Teruhi finally does manage to land a kiss on Jinzaburou as he sleeps  – to her horror the traitor’s son Sasamaru sees it, but she terrifies him into silence.  Teruhi is probably right that Jinzburou has nowhere to go once all this is over, in the unlikely event he survives (that was ultimately why Shiraishi took the bet he took).  But I think there’s definitely something to the idea (as elucidated by Onitakemaru later in the episode) that Kuchii is in love with war itself, addicted to it – it’s not the cause that motivates him, but the thrill of battle.  Maybe he was an idealist once, but that effectively ended his life as a samurai – that kind of thing will cauterize the idealism out of almost anyone.  If he doesn’t lose his life in this hopeless war, he’ll probably go off searching for the next one.

Meanwhile, unaware that a massive Mongol army is advancing on Kanatanoki, the old thief Chouminpuku is trying to convince the other exiles to flee with him on a small boat he’s found and stocked with stolen food and water.  Hitari, Douen and Amushi all refuse (the later hopelessly entangled with Sana now), but somewhat surprisingly, Onitakemaru agrees to go.  The idea of an eventual showdown with Kuchii seems to have lost its appeal for him now that he’s decided the man is hollow at the core, and the two of them set off to sea as the others return to face their fate.

The choices facing the defenders are not good ones, to say the least.  The advancing Mongol army is large enough to disdain strategy and swamp the castle with sheer volume, but Nagamine is loathe to abandon what his ancestors built to the plundering hordes.  And then there’s the matter of trying to survive the approaching winter in the wilds, with little food and no shelter.  Kuchii offers a third option – abandon the castle but only long enough for Shouni Kagesuke and his fleet of reinforcements to arrive.  It’s hardly a winning hand, but it’s the only one Jinzaburou really has left to play.

Sadly, his luck doesn’t seem to be getting any better.  Kagesuke’s father nixes his son’s plans just as he’s about to load his men and set sail, not wanting to deplete his family’s forces when the next war (another in and endless stream of domestic power struggles) arrives.  He’s perfectly content to sacrifice his vassals on Tsushima on this altar, much to his son’s horror.  I can point on some serious flaws in the man’s reasoning – most obviously that if the Mongol’s win, who knows if there’d even be a country to fight over – but he show no signs of changing his mind.  And in the absence of those reinforcements, things look truly bleak for the defenders – and that’s before a huge Mongol fleet shows up on this horizon (much to the surprise on Onitakemaru and Chouminpuku).  Things are looking pretty grim – if you’re tying to avoid spoilers, this would be a good time to hold off on reading about Japanese history…