The Four Fangs, hired by Heiji Shindo to kill Mizu, interrogate Ringo's father at the noodle shop. On the road, Mizu again refuses to take on Ringo as an apprentice, until he covers for her at the checkpoint to Mihonoseki, a port town. There, she tries to hire a boat to the island where the white man is. However, nobody will take her today because it's a festival, so Ringo enjoys town life while Mizu trains at the cliffs.
Back in Kyoto, Taigen has lost his status and betrothal to Akemi due to his topknot being sliced off, so he tracks Mizu to Mihonoseki, intending to challenge her to a duel to regain his honor. Meanwhile, Akemi is now engaged to the shogun's younger son. Unhappy about having to blacken her teeth and marry a man she's never met, she runs away, with her retainer Seki inviting himself along.
In flashbacks, Mizu and the Swordfather make a sword for a bookbinder who wants to avenge the death of his father. However, the sword shatters during its forging, due to "an unexpected element". Angered, the bookbinder strikes Mizu. Swordfather catches his hand, revealing that he is a mercenary who just made up a sad story to get a sword. Laughing, the man announces himself as Bloodsoaked Chiaki, gloats about the fortunes he will make, and leaves.
As part of the festivities, Ringo and the townspeople run into the water after a wooden baton, as whoever grabs it will have their wish granted. Ringo emerges victorious with it clenched between his teeth. His wish is to be great at something—whether that comes true remains to be seen.
The Four Fangs track Mizu to the cliff. She jumps down, forcing them to fight her on the cliff one-on-one and lose their numerical advantage. She cuts down them all down easily except for the last one, who turns out to be Blood-soaked Chiaki from her childhood. She defeats him too, just as Taigen arrives to challenge her to a duel. She accepts but faints from blood loss before they can begin, completely at Taigen's mercy.
Tropes in this episode include:
- Ambiguous Situation: While meditating, Mizu has a vision of herself charging into a room and slaying a white man reclining on a couch. She then opens her eyes and touches the Kill Tally on her arm, making it clear this is a memory. Her victim had an androgynous look and a Strong Family Resemblance to Mizu. Has Mizu killed her father already, or is she just projecting her own self-loathing on the memory?
- Arson, Murder, and Jaywalking:
- Ringo promises never to reveal Mizu's gender—not under torture, even if they made him eat (shudder) eggplant! We later get an Orphaned Punchline Noodle Incident as to why he hates it.
- He also wants to know if white people have skin that burns in the sun, can see in the dark, and even drink milk from animals!
- Badass Unintentional: Ringo effortlessly knocks down a pair of sumo wrestlers while barging between them on his way to a noodle shop, to the crowd's amusement. This is foreshadowing for how he's able to push everyone else aside to grab the baton for himself.
- Battle Against the Sunset: Mizu and Chiaki's final battle is during a gorgeously colored sunset.
- Blatant Lies: Akemi is loading up her carriage because she's visiting the silk merchant. In the middle of the night. It's obvious to Seki she's planning to run away even if he wasn't already familiar with her stubbornness.
- Chekhov's Skill: Mizu meditating upside down while standing on one hand turns out to be useful when she falls headfirst off a cliff while being attacked by the Four Fangs.
- Cliffhanger: The episode ends with Taigen with sword raised, standing over a helpless Mizu.
- Cover Identity Anomaly: The "bookbinder" begs Swordfather for a blade, saying that it's his only hope to have a chance of avenging his father's murder. Yet he's strangely good at and arrogant about his sword fighting ability when he sees Mizu trying to train herself. Swordfather discovers another when the blade breaks and the "bookbinder" goes to hit Mizu, as the smith grabs ahold of the man's hand and can tell from the calluses and such that he is an experienced swordsman.
- Did Not See That Coming: Akemi's attempt to get Taigen to look at his lost duel From a Certain Point of View only spurs him to chase after Mizu to get his honor back.
- Drums of War: An accidental version when Mizu hears the drums start for the ceremony and figures she might as well go and look. As she stands up, a thrown sword impales the tree where her head had been a moment before. The drumming continues throughout the battle on the cliff.
- Famed In-Story: But the Four Fangs are determined to make sure that fame only goes so far.Chiaki: All Kyoto is talking about the unnamed samurai who cut through Shindo Dojo.Mizu: I have a name.Chiaki: (advancing with sword drawn) No-one will ever know it.
- Fate Worse than Death: Taigen regards his loss to Mizu as this; he's been humiliated and knows that Akemi's father will never sanction their marriage now. Akemi tries to argue that since he was never formally challenged it was actually an 'attack by a demon' and not a duel. This causes Taigen to rush off to formally challenge and duel Mizu to get his honor back. Unknown to both Taigen and Akemi, their marriage is doomed anyway as Akemi's father has received a far more tempting marriage proposal.
- Finger Muzzle: Taigen has the decency to ask if Akemi really wants to lose her virginity with him, but is hushed with this.
- Foreshadowing: The leader of the Four Fangs has the same laugh as Bloodsoaked Chiaki from Mizu's flashbacks, giving a hint to his identity before he takes off the mask.
- Four Is Death: The Four Fangs prove to have an extremely ruthless and cruel way of operating, being perfectly willing to kill helpless unarmed civilians, and together they almost manage to defeat Mizu.
- Gilded Cage: The mysterious white man that Mizu wants to kill is revealed to be an Irishman who is forced to live in an offshore island fortress so the shogun can deny he's violated his own edit of isolation from foreign influences, and can only leave once a year for his trip to Edo to see that shogun. He chafes at his confinement and is making sinister plans with Heiji Shindo to resolve the situation.
- The Glasses Come Off: Invoked; before fighting Mizu, the Four Fangs say she can take off her tinted glasses as they already know what they hide.
- I Just Want to Be Special: Ringo, proud of his excellent cooking, is dismayed to find that there is Always Someone Better. When he wins the contest he wishes to be great at something, without caring what it is.
- Interplay of Sex and Violence: Akemi describes to Taigen how his next duel with 'the demon' should go while having sex with him.
- Jerkass Has a Point: Mizu is right that someone on a Roaring Rampage of Revenge is not a suitable mentor for a Heroic Wannabe like Ringo. She gives up only because Ringo keeps proving himself useful and is impossible to get rid of.
- Kick the Dog:
- The Four Fangs slaughter the people waiting at the checkpoint, even though they were neither in the way nor a threat.
- The Wicked Cultured nature of Heiji's mysterious backer is established when a Reveal Shot shows he's been using a corpse as a model for his painting of a man being disemboweled by a bull.
- "Leave Your Quest" Test; Mizu tells Ringo to enjoy the festival, and tells him frankly that he's welcome to stay the rest of his life there. Ringo is dismayed to find there's a noodle maker in the village who far surpasses his own skills, and the man even offers to teach Ringo his craft if he helps out in the store.
- Meditation Powerup: Mizu is practicing on trees, imaging them as enemies, but her Imagine Spot comes to an abrupt end when her sword is stopped by a two-feet-thick tree trunk. After immersing herself in the ocean and meditating while standing on one hand, she then cuts through the trunk with a single stroke. After she leaves Taigen tries to match this ability on another thick tree, but can't.
- No Escape but Down: The Four Fangs ambush Mizu at the cliff. She turns this to her advantage; at the top of the cliff the four have enough room to attack her at once and maneuver, but by hopping onto a narrow outcropping she forces them to have to attack her one at a time, giving her a chance to defeat them individually.
- Nobody Here but Us Birds: A literal version when Mizu senses someone watching her, but it just turns out to be a bird. We then see Taigen watching from a nearby tree.
- Not so Dire: When Mizu and Ringo enter Mihonoseki, the guardpost is deserted and there's no-one on the streets, making it look like something sinister has happened to the inhabitants. Turns out they're all gathered for a town festival.
- Oblivious Guilt Slinging:
- Swordfather tells Mizu that the swordmaker must be 'pure' when making a sword. This only trips her insecurities about being a half-breed and when the sword she constructs breaks, she blames herself rather than her inexperience or an impurity in the metal.
- When Akemi's father boasts that his daughter's chastity has been well guarded Akemi and Seki exchange a look, the latter clearly aware that Akemi lost her virginity to Taigen not so long ago.
- Playing the Victim Card: A mercenary and assassin pretends to be an innocent man to get Swordfather to make a blade for him. It's implied that the old swordsmith saw through the routine from the start and purposefully made a defective blade.
- Post-Victory Collapse: Mizu collapses from blood loss and exhaustion shortly after fight against the Fangs and especially "Blood-Soaked" Chiaki, having been wounded several times and fallen down a cliff during the course of the fighting. Subverted in that it was after her fight with the Fangs, but she was just about to begin fighting Taigen, only to fall unconscious before the two can exchange blows.
- Revealing Skill:
- Taigen is able to follow Mizu by noting a tree she sliced just as cleanly as his topknot.
- The supposed bookbinder is shown practising his swordplay and even gives Mizu some tips on the subject.
- Rhetorical Question Blunder: Akemi resents being married off to a notorious tyrant. Seki asks what man isn't a tyrant, only for her to reply, "You."
- Rule of Three: How different people pass the checkpoint.
- Mizu is planning to bribe her way through it again, and when noticing how the guard reacted to a bribe attempt by another person, she simply backs off to find another route, not wanting to cause extra trouble or get into a pointless fight. The only reason she passes through is because Ringo helped her with his own permit.
- Taigen rides through the crowd and doesn't even slow down when reaching the gate, but he flashes them a legit travel permit and moves on, solely focused on his goal of facing Mizu again.
- When the Four Fangs reach that same gate, they don't even slow the horses and cut through both the civilians and the guards manning the gate in brutal fashion, callously following after their bounty.
- Runaway Bride: Despite the huge status that marriage to the son of the shogun will give her, Akemi chooses to chase after Taigen instead.
- Sarashi: As a child Mizu is shown adopting binding her breasts to hide her gender, as well as strengthening her body against blows after Chiaki mocks the 'boy' for his weakness.
- Stealth Hi/Bye: Mizu dodges off the path to avoid Ringo, only to find him standing in front of her. He explains that he had to be quiet as his father would beat him if he made any noise. Mizu gets so annoyed at bumping into him, she buys a bell and ties it around Ringo's leg, threatening to end his apprenticeship if he ever takes it off.
- Sure, Let's Go with That: Chiaki is angry at first when the sword made for him breaks due to Mizu's inexperience in forging it, but quickly realises that wielding "The Broken Blade of Eiji" will only enhance his reputation.
- Sword over Head: The episode ends with Taigen in a position to get payback on a helpless and unconscious Mizu by killing her. He's obviously sorely tempted to do so, but also has doubts about following through with it, probably because it wouldn't satisfy his desire to surpass her as a swordsman.
- Throwing Your Sword Always Works:
- When having Mizu cornered, the Four Fangs pelt her with their swords, having enough of them to spare, to throw her off-balance and maybe even simply throw her off the cliff. One of those swords gives her a nasty cut that further hinders her ability to face the group head-on.
- Wounded and exhausted, Mizu defeats Chiaki, the last of the Four Fangs, by throwing her sword at him. While he's behind her, so she's also doing it blind. Naturally she scores a perfect hit.
- Too Dumb to Live: When one of the noodle shop patrons insults the Four Fangs to their faces, he and his companion get hacked to pieces. The poor noodle shop owner has to mop up the blood just after he was finished cleaning up after Hachiman.
- Water Wake-up: After she falls off the cliff, the seawater fortunately revives Mizu before Chiaki can arrive to finish her off.
- Wicked Cultured: Subverted; the Irishman loathes the Japanese arts that he's mastered, as it only reminds him that he has the time to master them thanks to his enforced confinement.
- Worthy Opponent: Averted; after she kills the other Fangs, Chiaki decides Mizu might be worthy enough to use The Broken Blade on, but he doesn't take well to being sent to his end by a mere half-breed.
- You Talk Too Much!: Mizu puts it poetically. "A breeze can throw a crane off course. You... are a typhoon." Though Ringo gets off easier than some. When the noodle shop patrons complain about the Four Fangs interrupting their meal, they get hacked to pieces.
