Kasuga Osamu acquired a rare specimen: a live tsuchinoko that he has named "Pachinko". He soon settled the talking snake in and began attempting to train it.
Ichiro Bando attended the underground fights in the Fisherman Quarter and met the man who runs them, Hida Ogai. He won money betting on an impressive fighter named Goro, but was challenged by some punk while leaving. Thankfully he managed to maintain his composure and left with his honor intact.
Several of Kasuga's students got involved in an altercation with some local youths that had previously attended his shuriken tournament. After refusing to pay for a meal, one of the young men discreetly flashed a shuriken and whispered something to the restaurant's owner that caused him to change his mind. One of the opposing youths was fatally injured during the course of it by Daidoji Emi. After paying off Yogo Osako to overlook the matter, the magistrates investigated further.
The owner of the restaurant where the brawl took place reported that the men were apprentices of the nearby florist Sho. His shop was empty, but after sneaking in a back door and searching a box containing shuriken and nageteppo was found hidden under several other crates.
Returning back to Kasuga's lab, they overheard several suspicious men talking in an alley. Some well-dressed gentlemen were grilling a man, insisting that he reveal what he knew about the acquisition of some "product" that had gone missing recently. The man claimed that he had nothing to do with it and had purchased what he had weeks earlier. As they separated, Akodo Tadashi stopped and questioned both groups. The Firemen of Daikoku's Garden insisted that they were merely on patrol checking for fires while the other man, who claimed to work at a nearby sake brewery, likewise denied that any such conversation had happened.
Reaching Kasuga's lab, he found a shuriken stuck through the door with a note reading "blood demands blood".
Back at the Magistrate Residence they debriefed Eyebrows on what he had been able to learn from their prisoner. He reported that the man had talked quite a bit, claiming that Fade alone knew his hideouts from which he came and went "like the wind". He remained confident that he was going to be rescued shortly, as Fade would never abandon one of his men and referencing a previous escape. He tried to recruit Eyebrows to join him with the belief that he too would be freed at such time. He claimed that they had an extensive network of spies among the peasants and through this knew nearly everything that happened in the surrounding area. Apparently he had previously been a bandit working for Mika until Fade arrived and absorbed the band, bringing them greater purpose and training them to fight as an army.
While pondering what to do about Fade, Ichiro Taiki delivered a letter that had been delivered recently but overlooked. It contained a challenge from Fade for a final duel with their lives on the line. He called on the magistrates to elect a champion to face him in single combat. If they won and he was killed, he asked for clemency for his followers. If, however, Fade was the victor, he insisted that the magistrates join their compatriot in death by committing seppuku.