Yabu's head, Tetsu-ko freed

Two dawns later Toranaga tightens his girth and uses a hunt as cover. Ishido and the Heir have left Osaka; Jikkyu is dead of a five-hundred-koku poisoning. Before his generals he lets Omi's witnesses expose Yabu's part in the ninja attack. "Please slit your belly today. Before noon." Yabu names Omi heir, gives his Yoshitomo blade to the Anjin-san and dies without a sound; his head goes on a spear facing the wreck. At a roadside inn Toranaga reinstates Sudara, orders Crimson Sky down the Tokaidō as a feint, and receives Fujiko, Kiku and Gyoko: Fujiko will not be released from her bargain with death; Kiku is to be the Anjin-san's wife; Gyoko's son will oversee the ship. Blackthorne hauls on the hulk and makes a truce with Alvito, who tells him Mariko was absolved. Toranaga frees Tetsu-ko for Mariko's spirit and thinks: Sekigahara. Shōgun. Forty thousand heads.

Clavell ends by dealing out every fate in one day: Yabu's seppuku, Sudara's reinstatement, Fujiko's bargain kept, Kiku given to the Anjin-san, Omi made daimyo, Tetsu-ko released. The final movement is entirely inside Toranaga, who plans Sekigahara and the closing of Japan in a page. The battle takes one paragraph.