Snap out of it!
Kid...!
Kanbe-dono...
Being able to understand each other,
and to share with each other,
are both as short-lived as a bubble on the water.
Obscured by the sands of time,
unable to hold on,
I gave up, until I saw you again, asking
"How much pain
have you been carrying, all alone?
And how much loneliness
is hidden behind your eyes when you smile?"
Embrace this miracle of an encounter now,
By gazing upon each other, we can become stronger.
And if this isn't what you call love,
then what is it you call love now?
Kanbe-sama...
Sensei...!
Kikuchiyo, dispose of that scout.
Me? Katsu-noji is the one who cut him down!
For crying out loud, that guy is a slave driver.
Come on!
Samurai-sama, please wait!
Young lady...
I can't keep myself from wanting to cut this man down.
Stop!
Please, forgive my pa, Samurai-sama! I'm beggin' you!
The girl is asking you nicely. Let the guy off.
You should mind what Kanbe-dono ordered you to do.
Don't worry, I'm not going to do anything nasty to him.
Please forgive me!
Pa!
Shoot!
Next.
Ready!
Please forgive me!
Pa!
Hey, you'll need to plane that down farther, or it won't work.
Samurai-sama! Please forgive me!
Samurai-sama!
It's Manzo and Shino.
Samurai-sama!
I'm so sorry!
Samurai-sama!
Please forgive me!
Samurai-sama!
Please spare me!
Pa, are you okay?
Grandfather!
What's goin' on here?
This man sold us out to the bandits!
Sensei...
Do not neglect your sword's care.
I've sharpened it for you.
Killing a man truly makes you a samurai.
What did you come here to do?
To save... the village...
Then, see your task through to the end.
If you wish to be a samurai,
you must strengthen your resolve to bear the sin of killing others.
Otherwise, this wound will be for naught.
The farmers are not prepared to cut down the bandits.
As such, they're just having us do it for them.
We are just scarecrows,
here to drive off the bandits that throng to the ears of rice.
What's goin' on? What'd you do that for?
Manzo!
We all decided on hirin' the samurai-sama, didn't we?
I never agreed to it.
What're you talkin' 'bout?!
What did you just say?
Whether they're samurai or whether they're bandits,
they're both equally dreadful!
Anybody who's got a sword is gonna be nothin' but unreasonable to us!
What're you talkin' 'bout?!
The samurai-sama're gonna save the village!
I can't remember how many times they saved us in the city!
But, they said they're gonna get rid of the bridge,
and do away with the houses on the other side!
The other side of the bridge?
Is that true, Samurai-sama?
What for?
It's so we can fight the bandits. There's nothing else we can do.
I know how you're all feelin', but the samurai-sama have somethin' in mind!
Those guys don't understand!
Havin' us leave behind the fields handed down to us by our ancestors
is the same as tellin' us to die!
How's that make them any different than the bandits, Grandfather?!
I hate to admit it, but I gotta agree with what Manzo's sayin'.
Yep, yep.
Why, you...!
Are you sure we ain't done somethin' here we shouldn't have?
When they find out there're samurai here,
they're gonna come kill everyone in the village!
Yep, yep.
Rikichi, you understand, don'tcha?
You know how we feel, losin' somethin' precious to you to the bandits.
And so, you betrayed us to the bandits,
thinking that you could get them to at least spare you, is that it?
Heihachi-dono!
There's no way we're going to be able to fight if you do this.
Let's seek Kanbe-dono's view on the matter.
That man will forgive anything. But that makes him too lenient!
There's no telling when someone who betrayed us once will do it again.
Yeah, but...
This is war, isn't it?
If it's war, then it's only reasonable to dispose of the traitors.
It is certainly reasonable.
Take up your sword, Katsushiro...
...and eat your rice. You will have to kill again.
I'm so sorry, Katsushiro-sama.
You have nothing to apologize for.
Asking you to help was a terrible thing for me to do to you...
to plunge you into the depths of sin...
This sin is what the smell of the battlefield is.
I have been so ignorant... so foolish...
Suppressing whatever hesitation I had truly made me a samurai.
I was also ignorant, as to what it meant to commit to cutting a man down.
But I cannot save the village by hesitating.
I will descend with you.
In protecting us...
In protecting us, how devious we've been to make you kill another man...
Please allow me to at least cleanse you of the blood that falls on you.
Kanbe-dono!
As it turns out--
Hey!
Move it! Move it!
Move it! Move it! Move it! Move it! Move it! Move it!
That lout! He's been warned about waving his sword around in the village!
This is something that only Kikuchiyo can bring under control.
I knew something like this would happen.
Are you all here to hold kangaroo court on Manzo?
Or are you here to pass judgment on him?
You want to sentence him to death?!
Listen, you guys! You don't know the first thing about farmers!
If you kill Manzo, I won't take it lying down!
What?
You bet I won't! Ask any farmer!
Not a single one of them will blame Manzo for what he did!
Farmers are sneaky!
They don't think about anything but their land!
They'll use any little trick they can without thinking twice!
Hiring samurai to defend the village
is just the kind of thing I'm talking about. This is your village!
Risk your own lives, why don't you?
But you're not willing to get your hands dirty!
You'll spill your sweat when working in the rice paddies,
but you can't bear to spill your blood against the bandits?!
Pretty shifty of you, farmers!
You think of no one but yourselves!
If you want proof, tear up any of the floors around here!
You eat your "firefly fare" every day, but under your floors, and your eaves,
and in your sheds, you're sure to find something to eat hidden away!
Rice! Sake! Salt! Meat!
And yet you dare say "Samurai-sama, please save us!"
I mean, you've got to be kidding me!
Now, listen to me! You farmers are stingy, sneaky, crybaby, spiteful, stupid murderers!
Then again, who is it that's responsible for turning you into such stingy beasts?
It's you guys! It's you samurai!
Every time there's a war, you burn the villages!
You lay waste to the fields! You confiscate all the food!
It's no wonder they have to be so devious!
That's why I can't bring myself to be angry with Manzo!
He just weighed the differences between the samurai and the bandits,
and chose the bandits.
The fact that I'm risking my life for people like this
is laughable enough to make me cry.
But us samurai are going to carry through!
We're going to cut down every last one of those bandits!
Kikuchiyo, you come from a family of farmers, huh?
Nunky, is that true?
Disappointed?
Not one bit! In that case, help me harvest the rice!
So then, it's true?
You knew?
From the first time we met.
Excuse me for being a farmer.
I thought that if I became a samurai, I'd have a little better time of it.
Have you had a better time of it, being a samurai?
Nyuh-huh!
That was pretty cool, groupie.
Kiku-noji is my groupie.
That makes all seven of us.
I don't mind having a samurai with the heart of a farmer.
If you don't know who you are,
you'll never be able to see the samurai within you.
Manzo...
Please forgive me!
Samurai-sama, please don't cut him down! Please! Please!
Manzo, do you treasure your land?
Yes!
Then, think about whether or not this land is yours right now.
If you treasure your land, then fight for your land.
If you treasure your daughter, then fight for your daughter.
Perhaps thinking about how one is going to survive
is proper for you to do as a person...
But on the other hand, know that those who think only about themselves
are the first ones to ruin themselves.
Do not forget that what we are attempting to carry on here is a war.
I do not think of you as a farmer.
You are a soldier of Kanna Castle.
And as a soldier,
you can understand why we are abandoning the other side of the bridge, right?
Once the bandits are wiped out, you can always rebuild your house again.
But if you betray us a second time, I will cut you down myself.
Right!
So, we're soldiers, huh?
Any objections to that, old man?
Nope. That's all right with me.
Is that all right with you?
What are you doing?! We've already lost an hour! Get back to work!
We've lost regular contact with Scout Chief Genzo.
Something must have happened. Have the samurai arrived?
I've sent a replacement,
so our communications network should be restored soon.
There can only be one fate for the people of Kanna Village!
Then we're going to Kanna Village, without waiting to be contacted?
That goes without saying.
You haven't slept, have you?
I can't go to sleep.
It's my fault that the work was interrupted, after all.
I wouldn't say that.
No. Kanbe-dono is full of surprises.
There was that time with Honoka-san, and now this.
There's no way I could duplicate him.
It's true, the most formidable thing on the battlefield,
even worse than the enemy, is an ally who keeps secrets, and spies on you.
Let me give you a hand.
How is it that Kanbe-dono can have so much faith in others?
Because he has racked up so many losing battles. That's what I think.
All right, set it down there!
Pull!
Onto the next one!
Slowly! Slowly!
Okay, stop!
Shoot!
All right, next.
Ready.
Shoot!
Twelve papier mache arrows in all, placed as you indicated.
The rock wall is also nearly complete.
It seems the expressions on the faces of the folks from the village have changed,
ever since they were told that they are soldiers.
In a good way, I mean.
Now, we samurai are the villagers' darlings.
If all you ever do is scold someone, you're not disciplining them, after all.
It's probably because their backs and legs are so well developed from working in the fields.
They are truly capable when it comes to manual labor.
It looks like we're going to finish ahead of schedule.
You see? You see? Farmers can be quite useful!
What's the prognosis for Heihachi finishing up?
He is 90 percent done. The end is within sight.
I see.
Heihachi has been working around the clock.
I sure hope he doesn't push himself too hard and collapse.
I'll have a talk with him when we have time.
Excuse us!
Pardon us.
Oh, this is most welcome!
Where should we set them down?
Elderly madam, we'll only need one rice ball.
You can divide the remainders among the others in the village.
I'll give this back.
Now that they are soldiers, we are all equals.
You girls eat up, too.
Thank you!
Komachi...
Oh, I forgot!
Kiku-noji, come here.
Hmm? What?
Look at this!
Oh, a flag?
Kanbe-sama said that this is war.
If this is a war, we'll need an ensign, right?
So, what is it?
The "Ta" is the ta from tanbo ["rice paddy"]! That's us!
Then, what are these white circles?
Those are the samurai-sama.
But there's only six of them, right?
That's because, look...
that triangle is you, Kiku-noji.
Not a samurai, and not a farmer. Neither one, and at the same time, both.
What?
We appreciate your consideration.
The old man merely gazed off into the distance
from the hideaway in which he lived.
The baby cries, seeking only
for the warmth of his mother.
We are born paying the price
for someone's punishment, for someone's sins,
but there is no such thing as a future without salvation,
and the present slips quietly into the past.
We string together nothing but hollow ideas,
and tell nothing but hollow lies.
And as the rain falls down upon us,
something appears and then fades away.
It's Okara. There're all sorts of samurai, huh? It surprised me.
Komachi's favorite, Kiku-noji, said he used to be a farmer,
if you can believe that.
He said that long ago, he used to be a farmer like us,
but once he had his body converted over to machinery, he went off to war.
He couldn't have been anythin' more than a regular foot soldier, though.
They say that samurai're given ranks
according to their family's social standin', and all.
Besides, Kiku-noji couldn't hope to get promoted!
Even though they're all samurai, you've got guys like him,
and then you've got guys like Kanbe and the others, who stick their own necks out.
Huh?
So then, if Kanbe and the others haven't converted their bodies into machinery,
does that explain why they're poor samurai?
I guess that's why we could hire them just by fillin' their stomachs.
Still, Kiku-noji is a good guy. Better than Komachi deserves.