Hiro and Kensei
Hiro is being held captive in Whitebeard's camp, together with Yaeko and her father. Hiro is chained over a pot of opium, forcing him to breathe in the fumes, which results in him being unable to concentrate enough to use his powers. It also means that if he does get ever get back to the twenty-first century then he'll probably have to go into rehab.
Yaeko asks Kensei why he is doing this, and he replies that Whitebeard offered him anything he wanted if he captured Hiro. Kensei says that he asked for half the country and Yaeko as his princess. Yaeko tells him that she loves Hiro. Kensei leaves, but stations a guard outside the tent.
Some time later, when the guard's attention is distracted, Yaeko takes out a piece of wood from a pocket and uses it to pick her lock, which must be pretty shoddy if it can be picked that easily. She moves the opium away from Hiro and urges him to concentrate and get them out of there. By the time the guard returns, Hiro, Yaeko and her father are gone.
Hiro and Yaeko stand looking down on Whitebeard's army. Yaeko tells him that Whitebeard has won, but Hiro says he can still stop Whitebeard by destroying the guns.
He also says that he still believes in Kensei. He tells her to wait for him under the cherry blossoms and then teleports away.
Hiro appears in the tent with the guns and prepares to set it on fire with a lantern. Kensei appears and they get into a sword fight, as depicted in one of the paintings.
During the fight, the lantern gets gets knocked over and the tent catches on fire. Hiro manages to disarm Kensei and offers to teleport him to safety.
Kensei refuses the offer, saying that he will make Hiro suffer. Hiro teleports away on his own as the tent explodes.
Later on, Hiro discovers Kensei's helmet in the wreckage left by the explosion. He tell Yaeko that he killed Takezo Kensei, and she tells him that everything that Kensei did was actually done by Hiro, and he is in fact Takezo Kensei.
Hiro tells her that there's one more Kensei story. The dragon who taught Kensei how to fight demanded his love in return, and in order to save her, Kensei cut out his heart.
He tells Yaeko that he must go, and she says that as long as she has a voice, the story of Takezo Kensei will be known. They kiss and then Hiro teleports back into the future.
In present-day Japan, Ando is working in his office. He turns away from his desk to check some papers and when he turns back he finds Kensei's mask on his desk.
Hiro appears behind him and says that he brought Ando a souvenir. He says that there is so much to catch up on, and he wants to tell both his father and Ando all about it. Ando has to break the news to Hiro that Kaito was murdered.
HRG, Claire and West
HRG takes photographs of the paintings. The fifth picture is revealed as being one of Peter near a biohazard sign, but the second one remains a mystery.
HRG phones Mohinder and asks him if the company has given him a gun yet, saying that he's looking a painting of Mohinder with one. Mohinder tells him that he doesn't have one, and HRG says that he's going to forward the paintings to Mohinder.
Mohinder protests at this, saying that he's got a new partner who is watching him closely. He tells HRG that they were supposed to bring down the Company together, but he's now unsure of HRG's agenda. Niki arrives and Mohinder hangs up, while in the Ukraine HRG starts to burn the paintings.
In California, Claire is woken up by an SMS from West. She goes downstairs to find that he has made waffles for her.
Claire is horrified, but Sandra seems to be OK with it. I can only assume that's as a result of having her brain wiped too many times by the Haitian, as no normal mother would think it's fine for someone she's never met before who claims to be her daughter's boyfriend just show up in the morning and start making breakfast.
In fact, no normal boyfriend would show up for the first time at his girlfriend's house and start making breakfast. If West's spying on Claire wasn't enough of a sign that he's a genuine stalker, then this definitely is.
Sandra leaves the two of them alone, and West shows her an article in the local paper about the incident with Debbie. Claire is upset about this, but she notices something more important, namely a family photograph. She kisses West at the same time that she turns the photo face down.
Later on, Claire and West make out on the couch, sharing a pair of earphones which they're using to listen to music on Claire's cellphone. Mr Muggles is watching them the whole time, presumably having added voyeurism to his hobbies.
Claire notices the marks on West's neck again and says that she wants to tell him something. He thinks it's that they're moving too fast, but she says that she wants Popsicles.
While Claire is getting the Popsicles, HRG returns home. West sees him and drags Claire outside. Claire tries to explain that HRG is her father, but West thinks it's some sort of trap and flies away.
HRG comes outside and notices that Claire has two Popsicles. She gives one to him and welcomes him home. He doesn't seem to suspect anything, even though it makes no sense for Claire to have gone outside if she was bringing him a Popsicle.
Sandra tells HRG about West, but claims that she checked him out and he's fine. HRG confronts Claire about West and the incident with Debbie, and tells her that she's putting their family in danger with her actions. Claire counters that she doesn't believe that he was really on a training course and he was actually up to something else.
HRG tells his family that things are no longer safe and they must move. Claire replies that if they're leaving then they're going without her.
Mohinder, Niki, Bob, Matt and Nathan
After hanging up on HRG, Mohinder goes with Niki to see Bob. A siren is sounding in the background and everyone appears to be heading somewhere.
When Mohinder asks what is going on, Bob tells him that he's evacuating the facility, and he's going to let Matt and Nathan explain. The two, who have returned from Philadelphia explain that Matt's father killed Kaito, tried to kill Angela, and is now coming after Bob.
Matt wants to take Bob away for his protection, but Bob says that the only way to stop Maury is for him to act as the bait. Bob tells Mohinder that Maury will have to be injected with the virus, and he tells Matt that it will be up to him to stop his father.
Matt goes to wait at Molly's bedside. He tells her he loves her, and the machines monitoring her beep, and show a spike in her brain activity. He uses his ability to project the words “I love you into her mind,” and more activity is registered.
Meanwhile, Mohinder and Niki go to fetch a sample of the virus. As Mohinder walks around a corner, Niki see D.L., who calls her a killer and says that she'll never have a life.
Mohinder returns, and D.L. Has disappeared. The two of them walk away, and Maury steps out of a nearby room.
In Bob's office, Nathan sees the name Adam Monroe on a number of files and asks about him. Bob explains that Adam is the one who is trying to kill them, using Maury as a weapon.
He goes on to say that Adam was the one who brought them all together and convinced them to use their abilities to help people. However, Adam got out of hand and started talking about killing large numbers of people in order to benefit humanity as a whole. When Nathan remarks that this sounds like Linderman, Bob replies that Linderman was Adam's disciple.
Eventually they locked Adam up, but he managed to escape two weeks earlier. Nathan asks why he should care, and Bob says that he should because of Peter, who is still alive.
Elsewhere, Mohinder prepares the virus as Niki watches. This is presumably what the painting of the vial was referring to.
Maury is watching them as this happens and he says that he needs to see Niki's nightmare. This nightmare clearly involves D.L., as he reappears.
D.L. and Niki argue, with D.L. claiming that the Company isn't going to make Niki better and that she's going to take Micah down with her. Bob then enters and shoots D.L. The dying D.L. tells her that she needs to kill Bob.
Mohinder tries to get Niki to snap out of it, but she punches him, sending him flying across the room. She picks up a syringe and leaves.
Bob shows Nathan videos of Peter and tells him that the last they know about Peter is that he's in Ireland. Niki begins to punch Bob's office door, which is another of the incidents depicted in the paintings.
Matt hears Niki and goes to investigate, but finds himself in his childhood home where Molly is sitting at the table. She explains that they're in Maury's nightmare, and Matt is able to bring Maury in there as well.
Niki breaks through Bob's door, and Nathan and Bob try to bring her to her senses. Believing it to be her only way out, she injects herself with the virus. Or at least, she sticks the syringe into her arm, but we don't actually see her push in the plunger.
Matt and Maury argue, and Matt tells Maury that he's not afraid of him anymore, and that he's a good father, a better father than Maury ever was. Matt and Molly leave the room, and they wake up to see Maury lying on the floor.
Mohinder tries to use his blood to cure Niki, but discovers that the antibodies don't work. Mohinder now has a plaster over his nose just like in the painting of him with a gun.
Mohinder tells Bob that there isn't a cure for Niki, and Bob tells him about a report of a girl who fell fifty feet and survived. That girl is Claire, and Bob believes that her blood would be able to cure Niki.
Aware that HRG is not going to be happy about them taking Claire, Bob gives Mohinder a gun, thus fulfilling the other requirement of the painting. Mohinder tells Bob that he was working with HRG to bring down the Company, explaining that he's no longer sure who's right and who's wrong, and he just wants to do the right thing.
Peter
Peter and Caitlin wander the deserted New York streets. They encounter a group of men dressed in biological protective suits who subdue them and take them away.
Peter and Caitlin are taken to a building where they are hosed down, and this scene is clearly the obligatory shirtless Peter scene. The two of them are separated, and Peter is taken to a room where he meets a man who says that Peter is dead, and shows him his death certificate. He tells Peter that as Caitlin is Irish, she's being deported.
Peter asks what's going on, and the man explains that the first case of the virus was reported in March 2007, and it has gone to kill 93% of the population. He shows Peter a pile of bodies, explaining that it's been a tough week. Peter looks at the bodies through a window with biohazard stickers on it, which is the image seen in Isaac's painting.
After that, Peter is taken to see Angela. He doesn't recognise her, but she reveals that she knows who he is by describing some of his powers. Rather conveniently, she only lists the ones that the amnesiac Peter is aware he has.
She tells Peter than he has a brother who died in the first outbreak, but Peter can change that. She tells Peter that he needs to remember. Images start flashing by, and Peter acknowledges Angela as his mother.
Angela tries to take Peter home, and they walk past the area where Caitlin is being kept. Peter tries to teleport both of them out of there, but he only succeeds to taking himself back to Montreal.
This means that Caitlin is stuck in the future, which raises the question as to what happens to her if something is changed and that future never comes to pass. I'm not sure if it's possible to come up with a logical scenario, which means that once again Heroes falls prey to not thinking out the ramifications of time travel.
Peter tries to return to the future when he hears a noise. He fires a bolt of electricity at the noise, and the bolt hits an burns an outstretched hand which then heals.
The owner of the hand is Takezo Kensei who asks Peter what that was. He says that it's him, Adam, and the two of them are going to change history.