Omi urges Yabu to defy orders and find a way to eliminate Jozen

Omi urges Yabu to defy Ishido’s demands and find a way to remove Nebara Jozen, turning a crisis over an official summons into a test of law, military secrecy, and loyalty. His counsel is striking because he is willing to risk his life for Yabu’s safety even though he has already decided to remove him as clan leader. The scene ends not with Jozen’s fate settled, but with Omi proposing that Naga be used to draw the envoy into a trap.

The summons and the crisis

After Jozen departs with his heavily armed escort, Yabu’s anger gives way to alarm. He asks who betrayed him, and Igurashi identifies Yedo as the likely source, reasoning that security in the province is otherwise complete. Yabu sees the summons as proof that Izu and Kwanto are isolated and that Ishido has won. The immediate danger is political as well as military: the Regents have agreed to Ito Teruzumi’s appointment, restoring the Council’s legal standing, and it is due to meet in twenty days.

Kasigi Omi challenges Yabu’s conclusion that Ishido already controls the situation. He points out that Iwari, Mikawa, Totomi, and Sugura are hostile to Ishido and may not yet have warned him. But his central proposal is far more dangerous: Toranaga should have Ito, or another Regent, assassinated before the Council can meet. Omi admits that neither he nor Igurashi could carry this out in time; only Toranaga could. He asks Yabu to inform Toranaga about Jozen at once, arguing that doing so could save both Izu and the Kasigi house.

Omi’s case for Toranaga

Yabu resists. He says the clan needs at least two months to train its musket regiment, and that even a trained force could not defeat all the other lords. If Yabu is absent when the Council convenes, he believes he and his entire clan will be killed. Those pressures, he says, leave him no choice but to support Ishido. Omi counters that Yabu still has ten days before he must leave for Osaka, or fourteen if he travels by forced march, and that he can use this interval to warn Toranaga.

Omi makes his appeal concrete by comparing the two lords’ interests. He reminds Yabu that Toranaga avoided the disastrous campaign in Korea, favors ships and trade, and would want the foreign navy; Ishido, by contrast, would close the Empire and could give Izu to Ikawa Jikkyu. Omi argues that Toranaga might instead grant Yabu Jikkyu’s province. He also invokes Yabu’s existing ties to Toranaga: Toranaga gave him his sword and entrusted him with control of the guns, which Omi presents as both proof of confidence and a possible military advantage through surprise. Jozen’s arrival, Omi argues, is not a neutral administrative visit but a deliberate insult: Ishido has sent a rude ronin-samurai to shame Yabu in his own province. Omi concludes that Toranaga is Yabu’s only viable choice.

Law, secrecy, and the messenger

The argument turns on whether Yabu must obey Jozen’s document before the Council meets. Omi initially proposes telling Jozen the details of Yabu’s plans. When Igurashi warns that Jozen would send the information to Ishido, Omi suggests following the messenger and killing him when convenient. Yabu objects that the document bears the highest authority in the land and that attacking men under the Regents’ protection would make him an outlaw.

Omi reframes the issue as a question of legal authority. He argues that there is no functioning Council of Regents at that moment, and therefore no current Council protection for Jozen and his men unless Yabu chooses to honor an illegal document. Omi distinguishes the present interval from what will follow: once the Council is convened, its orders will have force and Yabu will have to obey. Until then, he argues, only Ishido’s allies may heed the summons. He does not deny the danger; he calls the document a declaration of war, but insists that Yabu should meet that threat on his own terms rather than Ishido’s.

Yabu orders Igurashi to watch Jozen and find out whether he releases one of his pigeons. Omi adds that the falcons and falconers should be sent east, a move that could help prevent a bird from carrying news. Igurashi then raises the contradiction in Omi’s approach: if the messengers might be made to disappear, why tell Jozen anything at all instead of killing the party outright? Omi concedes that Igurashi’s simpler proposal is better. When Yabu asks how to keep the guns secret, Omi answers that Jozen and his men must be killed. Both Omi and Igurashi reject the possibility of a risk-free alternative to that course.

The proposed trap and Omi’s divided position

Yabu still searches for a way to eliminate Jozen without making himself openly responsible or forcing an immediate choice of sides. He asks whether the men can be removed without danger to him while he remains uncommitted for ten days. Omi proposes using Naga to bait a trap. The suggestion offers Yabu a possible way to delay his decision while protecting the regiment’s secrecy, but the scene supplies the plan, not its execution or outcome.

Omi’s counsel is complicated by his private political calculation. He has already resolved to remove Yabu and change the Kasigi leadership, yet he continues to advise Yabu carefully because he believes the clan and family will be destroyed if Yabu chooses wrongly. He is prepared to die for speaking plainly, even offering to commit seppuku before insisting that he finish his argument. The contrast makes his intervention more than a bid for influence: for this crisis, Omi’s judgment about the clan’s survival takes precedence over his intended succession maneuver. Yabu’s decision remains unsettled as the scene closes, with Naga’s proposed role as the possible means of keeping both the guns and Yabu’s political options intact.