The Samurai of Bird Island
- Setting: June 27, 1841 (12th Year of Tempo, Year of the Ox)
- The guys have been on the island for a while, and the only thing around is nature: wind, sea, birds.
- Actually, not birds—not anymore.
- Water is scarce, too, since they've run out of their drinking water and there hasn't been that much rain.
- Manjiro thinks back to when they first got on the island; they were eating birds raw day in and day out.
- One day, Manjiro has this bright idea to cook the bird meat by pounding it into a paste and spreading it out on a rock under the sun.
- While he and Goemon wait for the paste to cook, he tells Goemon about wanting to become a samurai.
- Goemon thinks Manjiro's dreaming a ridiculous dream because they come from poor fishermen; everyone knows that fishermen can't go up the social ladder and become samurai.
- But Manjiro wants to do it because his father taught him all about being a samurai before he died.
- They end up play fighting with pieces of wood that they pretend are the long knives of samurai warriors.
- They stop immediately, though, once Denzo, the oldest guy of the group and de facto leader, comes by and sees them playing (they're supposed to be working).
- But after Denzo sees what Manjiro is making (they call it "stone roast"), he's cool with them.
- So after that day, the guys eat stone roast a lot… until the birds are all gone, that is.
- The guys have been here for months now, and all the baby birds have grown up and flown off.
- Another day, the boys go looking for water.
- Things are pretty bad, and one of their guys—Jusuke—is sick.
- Then they see graves on a hill.
- You'd think that'd be a bad omen, but Manjiro thinks of something the other guys don't: Graves don't dig themselves, and that means someone survived this place. Hey there, hope, nice to see you.
- Then one day, while Manjiro is hanging out on a ledge, he sees boats.
- Three cheers for rescue, right?
- Hold your horses, though, because when Manjiro swims out to the boats so that they won't miss him, he looks up and sees a pair of blue eyes looking at him.
- Uh-oh… barbarians.