The voyage to Osaka proceeds smoothly. Rodrigues regains consciousness in agony; Blackthorne nurses him while a Japanese doctor enforces fresh air and medicines. Rodrigues curses the life-debt yet admits Blackthorne saved him. Blackthorne confesses he copied Rodrigues’s rutter, and Rodrigues, grudging but fair, accepts it.

Their talk turns strategic. Rodrigues doubts Blackthorne’s claim of an approaching English fleet. He sketches Japan’s scale—Osaka, Miyako, and the closed capital Yedo—and recounts Taikō-era edicts: expulsions of priests, the crucifixion of twenty-six, and renewed tolerance afterward. He reveals vast Catholic inroads in Kyushu, Jesuit control of Nagasaki’s trade, and staggering population figures that alarm Blackthorne. Rodrigues also warns that Japanese are “six-faced, three-hearted.”

Rodrigues’s injuries are stabilized; he fears internal harm but shows no bleeding. Before Blackthorne is summoned on deck, Rodrigues offers a final warning and admits ignorance of Toranaga’s intentions.

In Osaka, Blackthorne is bathed and fed, then carried by palanquin to the colossal castle. Hiro-matsu formally escorts him through multiple gates and moats, past disciplined Gray-clad troops. Blackthorne studies the labyrinthine defenses, the enormous stonework, and notably the absence of cannon, weighing how impregnable the fortress would be against siege.

Deeper inside, Browns—Toranaga’s men—guard a secluded inner gate, and their mutual hostility with the Grays becomes evident. Blackthorne removes his thongs and proceeds through carpeted corridors toward a guarded door.

Hiro-matsu, inwardly anxious, reflects that Toranaga has placed himself in enemy hands; spies report buildups to the north and east and that Regents Onoshi and Kiyama may defect to Ishido. He has changed guards and passwords and urged Toranaga to leave. He halts before the officer at the final door, preparing to present Blackthorne.