Iron Fist takes the ship

Toda Hiro-matsu, "Iron Fist", Toranaga's commander-in-chief, walks down the gangplank with his killing sword loose in his hand. Yabu, betrayed by a spy he cannot name, concedes: the ship was always a "gift" to Toranaga. Hiro-matsu has the muskets, powder and silver loaded onto the galley within three sticks of incense, orders Yabu to Osaka, and claims the pilot as part of the "contents". Blackthorne, bathed and dressed, makes Omi say "Anjin-san" and refuses to have his hands bound. On the jetty the Portuguese pilot Vasco Rodrigues roars off the samurai, tests him with the latitude of the Lizard, and sculls him out to the Erasmus, kicking through Yabu's seals, only to find the cabins looted and both rutters gone. Ashore, Igurashi silently marks Omi for death; Omi releases the crew, drops a dagger to Masijiro and orders the pit filled in; Kiku carves an orange into a flower for him, then climbs the hill to warn his wife, Midori.

Power arrives in the person of Hiro-matsu and the chapter re-scales everything: Yabu, who has been the villain, is suddenly small. Rodrigues enters as the second pilot, the mirror. The looted cabins tell us the rutters, the book's McGuffin, are already in Jesuit hands.