Description

Screening and Choosing Sagiri recalls her early training as an executioner and the difficulty she has had overcoming her fear and hesitation. The over 30 blindfolded condemned criminals who have volunteered for the mission are given their instructions by the 11th Sei-i Taishogun, Nariyoshi Tokugawa. They are shown an officer who returned from an earlier expedition but is no longer human, with flowers blooming from his body. They will be each be accompanied by a Yamada Asaemon; however they are told to reduce their numbers which causes a killing spree. While the shogun delights in the carnage before him Gabimaru addresses him, saying there must be a better way to make the selection. The shogun’s head guard offers a place on the mission to anyone who kills Gabimaru who is then reluctantly forced to fight for his life, brutally killing his attackers with his tied-up hands. As the names of the ten prisoners selected to go on the mission are read out, including Gabimaru, Sagiri realizes that her problem is not overcoming her fear of killing, but accepting the burden of responsibility for the lives she takes.