I assembled the strongest swordsman group.

"Ho...! Ho...! Ho...! Ho...! Ho...!"

Kanna, leaning against the dirty alley wall beside him, gasped for breath.

Despite the excruciating pain that nearly made him faint with every breath he took from his slashed left lung, Jinno endured the pain and continued to breathe deeply.

If he didn't breathe, the feeling of oxygen deprivation would only make him feel worse.

However... no matter how hard Jinno tried to inhale, he felt he couldn't fill his lungs with air.

Rather, it seems that the more he inhaled, the less air he could take in.

To make himself feel better, Jinno stopped holding his head up and lowered it to his chest.

This action forced Kanno to see the huge wound on his chest.

—Damn it…they actually…discovered my secret technique by observing my shadow…

Although he only saw it for a moment, Jinno was certain that he had not seen it wrong—when Aoto rushed towards him, intending to end the duel with a "secret technique," Aoto was not observing his body movements, but rather his shadow under the moon.

He adopted a stance that allowed him to conceal his sword and arms behind his back when using his "secret technique" in order to prevent his opponent from discovering what technique he used to extend his attack range.

As a result, Qing Deng managed to predict the timing of his attack by observing the shadow of his hand under the moon and judging the changes in the shadow of his hand. In the end, he successfully dodged his secret technique and delivered a fatal blow.

—Damn it…! Damn it all…!

Kamino felt indignant and unwilling, and wanted to let out a deafening roar.

He made so many preparations for tonight, for the complete destruction of the Edo settlement.

They purchased large quantities of kerosene from smugglers. After the fox and cat monks' mischief caused all the kerosene they bought to vanish, they turned to buying kerosene from Rakshasa...

In order to successfully transport kerosene into the settlement, they kidnapped Natsume Tsuki, Natsume Sohachiro's daughter...

To ascertain the layout of the settlement's buildings, the guest list for the Bright Ball, and the locations of the settlement's guards' encampments, they made a deal with Hanada Shichiro, a physician residing in the settlement, at great expense. They provided the money, and Hanada Shichiro used his position to obtain this valuable information for them…

All these preparations were made in order to fulfill the long-cherished wish of "destroying the Edo settlement" tonight.

As a result, because of Tachibana Aoto... and because of this traitor, they suffered another crushing defeat.

This time, not only did the entire team suffer heavy losses, but my own life was also in danger...

"Cough cough...!"

My throat was hoarse from coughing, and I was almost numb from it.

His hands and feet had been as cold as if they had been soaked in ice water since earlier. This coldness began to spread from his limbs throughout his entire body, and Jinno began to shiver uncontrollably from the cold.

My head is spinning... and it's getting dizzier and dizzier, to the point where I can hardly tell where the sky is and where the ground is.

Jinno has been dragging his injured body and running away until now entirely because of his willpower to "not want to die, I want to live".

But no matter how strong one's willpower is, there is always a limit.

Jinno's right foot suddenly tripped over a protruding object on the ground, causing him to fall face-first forward.

This protrusion that tripped up Kanno was, for Kanno, the last straw that broke the camel's back.

Jinno fell heavily to the ground, bracing himself with his hands and trying to get up, but no matter how hard he tried, he couldn't stand up.

"Is this... the end...?"

Staring at the ground in front of his nose, Jinno took a deep breath, mustered his last bit of strength, sat up on the ground with his knees bent, drew the only weapon he had left—the wakizashi at his waist—and pulled open the collar of his kimono to reveal his belly.

—Since death is inevitable... then commit seppuku gracefully, like a true samurai...

Jinno straightened his back as much as possible, gripped the wakizashi in his right hand, pointed the tip of the wakizashi at his left abdomen, and showed a tragic expression on his face.

—If I die by seppuku... then I will have lived up to the name of a samurai!

—In that case, I can be considered to have lost with honor.

—Let's just do what I've always wanted to do and go straight for a three-stroke cut!

Besides the most common "Ichimonji cut", there are many other types of seppuku, such as "Jumonji cut" and "Sanmonji cut".

Three-character cut: As the name suggests, this is a cesarean section method that involves making three horizontal cuts on the abdomen to create the shape of the character "三" (three).

Because it is so extremely painful, since the emergence of this heinous method of self-destruction, no one has ever successfully completed the "three-character cut".

Jinno, who always considered himself a "true samurai" and strictly regulated himself with the samurai code, always longed for the "three-character cut".

Long ago, Kamino believed that if someone could complete the "three-character cut", that person would be a samurai among samurai, a model for all samurai!

Therefore, Jinno secretly made a decision: if he ever needed to commit seppuku in the future, he would definitely challenge the "three-character cut" that no one had ever succeeded at!

Having made up his mind to "commit seppuku to prove his resolve," Kanno decided to make three straight cuts on his stomach in one go.

However... just as Jinno brought the sharp tip of the wakizashi close to his left abdomen and felt the coldness of the blade, his movements suddenly stopped.

—To plunge a knife into your stomach and cut it open... that must have hurt terribly...

Jinno gritted his teeth, cursed under his breath, and then tried to clear his mind, trying to get rid of the chaotic thoughts in his head, while straining with his right hand, wanting to plunge the knife into his stomach in one go.

No matter how hard he tried, no matter how much he concentrated, he just couldn't stab himself in the stomach.

The excruciating pain of having his stomach cut open; his internal organs spilling out onto the ground; the inability to cry out in pain during seppuku, the need to endure the pain without flinching or uttering a sound as he neatly cuts open his stomach; the absence of a second, the necessity to endure the excruciating pain of having his stomach cut open to complete the final leg of his life... These thoughts, these imaginings of what it would be like to have seppuku, flooded into Kamino's mind.

The tragic expression on Jinno's face was gone.

The sense of tragedy turned into fear and cowering, and cold sweat soaked his entire face.

My right hand began to tremble... The wakizashi in my hand trembled along with my right palm.

Finally, after hesitating and struggling for less than 10 seconds, Kanno forcefully flung his right hand, which was holding the knife to his right abdomen, away, keeping the sharp tip of the knife far away from his stomach.

Snap, snap, snap, snap...

Suddenly, Jinno heard light footsteps coming from ahead.

Thinking that pursuers were coming, Kamino quickly turned his head to look ahead.

The visitors were neither Aoto, Kinoshita Mai, nor fully armed officials.

Instead, they were two ronin with knives at their waists, disheveled hair, and clothes worn askew, looking like scoundrels.

The two ronin's faces were flushed red, and you could smell the stench of alcohol on them from a distance.

As Jinno looked at them, the two drunken ronin also noticed him.

Upon seeing Jinno covered in blood, the two ronin were so shocked that they shuddered and sobered up considerably.

"Help, help me..."

As if he had seen a lifeline, a savior, Jinno immediately showed a hopeful expression after discovering that the visitor was not an official.

"Save me...take me to...the clinic...afterwards...I will definitely...generously offer a reward..."

With all the strength he had intended to use for seppuku, Jinno concentrated it into his vocal cords and made a humble plea to the two ronin.

He begged the two ronin to save his life.

However, the two ronin were not listening to what he was saying at all.

The two ronin were now staring intently at the wakizashi in Jinno's right hand.

His eyes gleamed with undisguised greed.

Jinno's two swords were not ordinary items; they were rare treasures that could not be bought for less than several dozen taels of gold on the market.

The two samurai, realizing that the wakizashi in Jinno's hands was no cheap item, exchanged a knowing glance.

Then, grinning maliciously, he approached Kamino.

“Hey, you.” One of them spoke to Jinno in a rude and arrogant tone. “We are patriots who are dedicated to expelling the barbarians! We have come all the way to Edo, which is now being invaded by a large number of barbarians, in order to realize the great cause of ‘expelling all the barbarians in the world’.”

The other man picked up the conversation and patted the sword at his left hip:

“If we want to repel the barbarians, we can’t do it without a good weapon.”

"Therefore, sir, please provide us with some financial assistance and contribute your efforts to our great cause of repelling the barbarians!"

Before Kamino could respond, the two men pounced on him like hungry tigers, snatched the wakizashi from his hand, and hurriedly drove away.

"Hiss... What a fine knife."

"It should sell for about 20 taels of gold."

"Let's take this knife to the pawn shop tomorrow and sell it. Hehehe, we'll have enough money for drinks for the next few months."

"Why drink? Let's sell this knife and go have some fun in Yoshiwara."

"Yeah."

……

The two figures drifted further and further away along with their triumphant words, eventually disappearing completely from Shinno's sight.

Jinno stared blankly in the direction where the two ronin had disappeared. After a few seconds of dazedness, intense humiliation and resentment welled up in his eyes.

He instinctively tried to stand up, wanting to chase after the two people. As he tried to get up, he opened his mouth, wanting to shout.

As soon as he straightened his back, a violent wave of dizziness struck his head like a heavy hammer.

His sudden, violent movements finally pushed his already battered body to its breaking point.

First, a black spot appeared at the corner of his eye. By the time he noticed it, the black spot had already rapidly expanded into his entire field of vision, making everything in front of him black and unable to see anything.

Immediately afterwards, the senses of hearing, smell, touch, and so on disappeared one by one.

Having lost sight of everything, Kanno felt as if his body was falling into the darkness below.

It kept falling... it kept falling...

After falling to the deepest, darkest level, one can no longer perceive anything.

The samurai's sword is hailed as "the soul of the samurai".

This samurai, who always prided himself on being a "true samurai" and liked to demand the same of himself and others from the samurai code, had his sword stolen from him in the last moments of his life.

A moment later, another series of footsteps approached Jinno.

They were four arquebusiers who had been turned into government officials.

"A body has been found!"

"Is that the corpse of Shinno Tatsugoro?"

"do not know."