Chapter summary thanks to Jeeswag and the TKC
Kanki:
The chapter starts a few hours before Shin took Gian. Someone complains that it sucks that even after climbing all the way to the position of 6 great they still have to pull stunts like escaping through the river. Someone else chuckles and says it's been awhile since they've done that. They see the shore ahead of them and Kanki tells Ringyoku to take 10 people and make footprints on the shore with them. Kanki then says the rest of them will continue downstream and the others complain.
Zhao:
At Riboku's HQ they receive a report saying they lost Kanki. They found footprints and followed after it but lost track of him as they were following the track. Riboku says they probably went further downstream and tells them to keep looking for tracks that'll eventually be there. They then receive an urgent message saying that Gian was taken by the Qin forces. Riboku's forces are shocked and asks if it's some misinformation because of how crazy it sounds but the messenger says they're pretty confident it's true. Riboku tries to figure out how they were able to take Gian with the little forces they had even if Gian isn't the largest castle. The Gian general who's with them is enraged that Gian was taken while he was away.
Riboku thinks for a bit and orders for those who are chasing Kanki to come back and search the shore on their side for tracks. When others ask what he means someone suggests that Kanki didn't actually cross the river but came back. A lot of them don't believe it but Riboku says Kanki could have been planning to join up with the other members of the army from the beginning. Bananji says if they combined with the HSU then that explains how they took over Gian. They then assume that Kanki is probably entering Gian right about now.
Gian:
Kanki enters with his crew and addresses Shin saying he didn't know he'd be there too. Shin says they took over the castle with just the one siege tower and the Saki clan from them. Kanki's side is surprised to see the Saki clan moving separately. Kanki tells Hanzen that his siege tower seems to have been a big help and Hanzen says he wanted to show Koushun's usefulness to him. Kokuou asks where it is since she actually liked that thing and and Hanzen says they dismantled her to fit in the castle to avoid letting her be used by the enemy by leaving it outside. Then he says if she wants to cry he'll lend her his chest to which she says she's not going to cry and calls him an octopus head.
Naki asks Marron how many they have and he says they only have a few hundred. Marron asks Naki the same and says they need to get ready to defend the castle. Ten says they should organize everything right away and that they need certain measures put in place before the Zhao come to attack Gian. The Kanki army are being fed. One member of the Zenou clan survived but is deeply wounded so the Saki clan is treating him. Bihei says it's just like Ogiko to survive until now and Ogiko asks for another plate of food.
Ten says there's no telling whether they can really hold up at the castle against the incoming enemy with the people they have right now. Kokuou says altogether they're a little less than 10,000 and thinks they'll be alright. Ten says that depends entirely on the scale of enemies who are sent by the Zhao. Since it's Riboku they could have guessed that Kanki has entered Gian already but there's no way of confirming. It's hard to think that they'd send the entire enemy army over without confirming this information and Kokuou says they'll be able to hold out against any random army then.
Kanki asks how many civilians are in the castle right now. As Shin is about to say something to Kanki Ten stops him and says in a situation like this using hostages as bargaining chips is a strategy they might have to use. Marron says if the Saki clan were to show them an example of what may happen to the rest then it'll be easy to which Ten says she never said they'd go that far. A Saki clan member says sorry but there's not enough hostages to really do that. Kanki asks what they mean and the Saki member says from the start this castle had a small number inside it. Other than those who would defend the castle, the ones who'd assist the returning soldiers and those who couldn't move the rest were evacuated. Shin is surprised to hear it and Kyoukai says she did feel that the presence of people were small after they took it over.
Kanki asks where they were evacuated to and the Saki says it's somewhere called Biha somewhere east of where they are. Shin and Ten are shocked to find out that Riboku prepared the evacuation of Gian this far in advance. The Saki member says the 10,000 of them who are in the castle only have less than 1,000 hostages to utilize which isn't that promising. Ten says the hostage situation the last resort and says there's another more important place, Sekirei. Ringyoku says that's the castle where they only used one army to take. Ten says if Sekirei is still under Qin command the enemy has no choice but to split up their forces to deal with them too and can't focus entirely on just Gian. Marron says there's a good chance it's still under their control since when they escaped a good amount of their soldiers headed in that direction. Ringyoku wonders who could have ended up at Sekirei. Ten says if the Qin are in Sekirei then the odds of them holding out at Gian rises significantly.
Sekirei:
Sekirei has the Qin flag in the air. The night before Heki and his army got to Sekirei and met up with whoever was there to recover. The elders welcome them and the Heki revives with water a cup of water and tells them to give the rest to everyone else, especially the mountain tribe who protected him. Heki then says there are more alive than he thought and is met with a 300man captain from the northern Qin army. The northern army arrived a bit earlier and says their general is currently recovering and probably won't be up for awhile. Heki says he probably can't rely on that general right now then and the captain says their overall morale is really low, especially the Kanki army. The Kanki soldiers are saying it's over for them, that the boss isn't there, the boss might be dead, they'll die whether it's in there or outside. Heki says that's some childish nonsense to be spouting after getting this far.
Heki gets to a higher spot and announces that he's general Heki. He tells them that they got away from Riboku and made it back to the castle and that the sheer amount of them that survived let's them laugh in the face of the enemy's expectations. They already had 2000 healthy soldiers to defend this place to begin with so they're more than ready to defend this castle. In addition, the HSU and the Gakuka also made it out and more than anything general Kanki is still alive. The Kanki soldiers are surprised to hear this. Heki says that it's because the enemy chased after Kanki who escaped that they were able to escape as well. The reason why the enemy aren't at their throats yet is because Kanki is still alive and being chased by them. He is for sure to be alive. As the Kanki soldiers get encouraged Heki says if they continue to defend this castle the HSU, Gakuka, and Kanki are sure to appear. He says "UNTIL THEN WE BE SEKIREI'S DEFENDERS!!"
The morale was to the point where even Heki himself was brought to tears. In this situation however, nobody could have predicted that the next morning the forces of Sekirei were about to be wiped out.
No break next week!