Kadomatsu learns that the operations on Guadalcanal are to resume — under an imperial decree — and blames Kusaka for this development. He goes ashore with Lt. Tsuda to talk to Kusaka — and is shocked to see him in a car heading towards the airfield with Lt. Colonel Tsuji. Kadomatsu tries to stop Kusaka but fails. As Mirai prepares to sail to Yokosouka, Lt. Commander Taki, a naval staff officer, plots with Admiral Matome Ugaki, the Combined Fleet Chief of Staff and a hardliner in the navy, to destroy the Mirai by arranging to have radio messages about her movements transmitted in a code that they know has been cracked by the Americans — so that it would be destroyed by an American, rather than Japanese, attack. Taki remarks that he is working under orders from someone high in the Japanese naval command, whose identity he cannot reveal.
