This chapter opens with a flashback to the events of the previous chapter, in which the cat chewed up Hiroshi's ear. The cat's father chewed up his sword, and Hiroshi remembers that his sword got stuck in a tree and that the cat came to eat him. Hiroshi realizes that his father has come to kill him, and he asks the cat to play with him. He tells the cat that he is from the pound, an island where the worst cats are sent to die. The pound is filled with "toxic smoke" and "volcanoes" , and it takes a special breed of cat to survive there. The cats ask if they can play with the guest, but Hiroshi tells them not to. He says that they were only playing a game, and that he used his sword to wipe the blood off the floor. He warns the cat never to defy his father.