Upon Sara's recovery, Mugen—having deduced her true nature and motives—returns her shamisen and concealed kama-yari staff with a thinly veiled remark about the "tools of trade". Realizing she's been discovered, she offers to fight Mugen by the river. During their fight, Sara again grossly outmatches her opponent due to the superior range of her kama-yari vs. Mugen's katana and her ability to perceive his attacks almost even before he makes them. Mugen is badly wounded and incapacitated, but she relents from killing him when Fuu throws herself on top of him and begs Sara for mercy. That night, however, a Shogunate contact disguised as a pinwheel merchant coerces Sara into finishing her job by reminding her that her son's life hangs in the balance: if she fails to kill the trio, the Shogun's agents will kill her son instead. When one of his pinwheels stops spinning, she begins to doubt that her child is still alive. Nonetheless, Sara returns to the riverbank to engage Mugen in a final fight. Despite Jin's coaching on how to counter her sensory abilities, she proves superior once again and is presented with a window of opportunity to kill Mugen. However, she pulls back the swing of her kama-yari at the last moment, allowing Mugen's katana to strike her. In her last moments, she states that she realizes her son is long dead, and asks Mugen to continue living instead as he mourns her.