“No danger at all. By the way, the only person who came back alive is now half shrubbery, have fun!”
So, the condemned criminals are gathered together and once again told the plot. They’re also informed that they will each have an executioner escort who will kill them if they act out, and who they won’t be allowed back without. Due to a lack of executioners, though, we’re going to need fewer criminals, so the Shogun has the crowd fight to the death for his amusement.
As the onslaught goes on, with several notable “major character” sorts of criminals showing their stuff butchering other, less interesting criminals. Gabimaru… doesn’t really take part, and eventually calls the authorities on there having to be a cleaner way than this to decide who goes. HE gives a pretty good speech about how killing for the sake of killing is not a good thing and only doing it when he has to, to which the authorities offer a set ticket for whoever brings him down. Gabimaru, predictably, makes mincemeat of them when he doesn’t have another choice, and soon enough the crowd is down to the ten who will be going.
Gabimaru’s way of living and killing makes quite an impact on Sagiri, who is really the focal character of the episode. We get a good deal of her backstory, how she was practically enchanted with her father’s perfect swordsmanship and wished to replicate his lethal cut of absolute dispassion. However, fear and regret, the burden of the lives she takes, drag her down, and though she’s excellent at cleanly removing heads, the philosophical emptiness eludes her. We also get that many in her clan don’t support her pursuit, seeing her as unfit both as an executioner and for this mission, and that her early life was incredibly hard despite technically being from a well-placed family, driving her to take up arms to answer to her own existence.
In the end, to Gabinaru’s speech, Sagiri considers that it might not be dispassion but acceptance of the burden of lives that she needs to acquire, steeling her desire to see this mission through.
To an extent, it feels as though Sagiri is likely to be the more dynamic character. Gabimaru doesn’t really need to learn or grow from his experiences on the island. He could be changed somewhat, but frankly his story comes on either side, and he came to terms with the past in Episode 1. Sagiri, on the other hand, is still trying to find herself and her place in the world, so there’s a lot of room to move with her.
Of course, everything really is a stab in the dark until we actually see the island and get to understand more of what it’s about. The only intel we have seems to be the flower infestation, with the lone living returnee sprouting tumors that then bloomed, leaving him a drooling half-plant. How did that happen? How do we avoid it? What became of the rest of the former expedition, most of which is MIA? Nobody knows!