The next morning...
"Uhhh... gaaah..."
"Is this guy gonna be okay?"
Mōha, having arrived at the Shogunate's Official Inn, stood over Yasutaka with a troubled look, watching him writhe on the floor, groaning strange noises.
Yasutaka's bonds had been undone, but he seemed to have lost consciousness entirely, and something was clearly wrong with him.
"My lady. It is about time."
"Very well."
At Granny Moon's urging, Mani-hime strode over and wrapped Yasutaka in a tight embrace...
"Squeeze♪"
"Gah!... *pant*... *pant*..."
Gasping for breath, Yasutaka snapped back to his senses.
(What in the world is going on here?)
Mōha looked baffled, but noticing Yasutaka's eyes on him, he grumbled in exasperation.
"What in the world are you doing?"
"My bad..."
Looking utterly pathetic, Yasutaka swayed on his feet as he pulled on his armor inside the Shogunate's Official Inn.
As it turned out, Yasutaka had been hauled off to the Shogunate's Official Inn after all, where he'd spent the whole night getting thoroughly grilled by Mani-hime.
When morning came and Yasutaka still hadn't returned, Mōha guessed roughly what had happened and came to the inn where Mani-hime was staying, armor in hand.
Mōha wore a sour face, clearly a little annoyed.
"This makes one you owe me."
"Sorry..."
As Yasutaka shrugged on his armor with his shoulders slumped, Mani-hime asked him quietly.
"So, what are we doing today?"
"Uh... there's a Kuzuyo infestation in Ueno, so I'm going to go clear it out..."
Mani-hime tilted her head, puzzled.
"Isn't Ueno a rather lively district? Do Kuzuyo really swarm in a place like that?"
Kuzuyo were jellyfish-like yokai, about as threatening as dirty leftover bathwater, capable of little more than a feeble body slam.
Any adult with a weapon could dispatch one without trouble, and even an animal could kill one easily enough with tooth or claw.
For that reason, they tended to swarm in places far from human habitation.
Mōha was the one to explain that part.
"When they say Ueno, they mean the Ueno Garden, what's left of the old Kan'ei-ji Temple grounds. Some monstrous yokai showed up there once and wrecked the place, so Kan'ei-ji Temple relocated. The place has been falling apart ever since, and that's apparently why the Kuzuyo swarmed in."
Mani-hime asked, curious.
"What kind of monstrous yokai?"
"Uh..."
"It was Kōen, if I remember right. One of the monks at Kan'ei-ji Temple, a hōshi they called a genius."
Since Yasutaka couldn't remember, Mōha stepped in to explain.
"He'd been hailed as a genius hōjutsu practitioner in his day, master of every technique while still young, and everyone said he'd be the next head priest. That's exactly what drew everyone's envy, though, and they framed him for a crime he didn't commit... While he was on the run, he turned into a yokai."
"Oh. I see."
Mani-hime's response sounded utterly uninterested.
Reading her flat reaction as a lack of interest, Mōha started to drop the subject, but Yasutaka cut in hastily.
"Sorry, Mōha. She's actually into it, believe it or not. Keep going a little more."
"...Is that right?"
"Yeah. She's waiting for you to keep talking."
Sure enough, Mani-hime stood there blankly, head tilted in curiosity.
She had an oddly otherworldly air about her, but somehow, Yasutaka could always tell what she meant.
"I would like to hear the rest, please."
"Well, fine, I guess... Once he turned into a yokai, he gathered other yokai under him and attacked Kan'ei-ji Temple. As luck would have it, the Shogun happened to be there visiting at the time, and he got hurt in the attack. The Shogun flew into a rage and led the effort to hunt him down, but since Kōen had been a genius hōjutsu monk to begin with, he'd become a great yokai who could wield the arts freely, and it cost them dearly, but they finally managed to take him down."
"That must have been hard."
Mani-hime nodded quietly.
Yasutaka picked up the rest of the story.
"So Kan'ei-ji Temple relocated, and the graves of the past shoguns got moved along with it, and all that was left behind was the ruined temple and garden."
"I understand. So all I need to do is help you clear out the Kuzuyo, is that right?"
"Uh... yeah, I guess so."
Mani-hime tilted her head at his slightly evasive tone.
"Is something wrong?"
"I mean, they're just Kuzuyo... Aside from there being a ton of them, it's really nothing much."
Kuzuyo weren't especially strong. A single sword strike was enough to finish one off.
Frankly, they weren't the kind of opponent that gave anyone trouble in the first place.
"Then why are you the one doing it?"
"Well, that's... Kabukimono are proud, so most of them don't want to bother with it. It doesn't earn you any glory, and it's not worth much of anything. Even the Shogunate figures it's not worth handing out as a job since there's 'no real merit in it,' and the Kabukimono steer clear of it for the same reason. I guess I just took it on because the townsfolk were struggling."
"Just like you, Tacchan. Working hard for the weak and helpless."
"Yeah, well..."
Yasutaka forced out a dry, slightly awkward laugh.
(Truth is, I only took the job because Kana-chan promised she'd let me if I cleared it out...)
It was really just a request he'd taken because the serving girl Kana had talked him into it yesterday, but that part he kept to himself.
"Anyway, that's the deal, so just watch from behind me. This'll be over quick."
"All right."
She smiled gently as she said it.
While Yasutaka finished getting dressed, Mōha gazed out the window at the castle in the distance.
"Edo Castle, huh... The Shogun himself must be in there somewhere..."
He took in the imposing sight of Edo Castle framed by the window.
The Shogunate's Official Inn was an establishment sanctioned by the Shogunate itself, a rather high-grade lodging where merchants holding official contracts tended to stay.
It also frequently housed guests like Mani-hime, children who'd slipped away from their daimyo family homes for a while.
Granny Moon put a small question to Mōha.
"Now then, from what land do you hail, if this old woman may ask?"
"Dobai Domain, on the Yamato Continent. I trained there as a ninja, but I was sent out on orders from the village."
"Is that so... And yet, surely that land would have offered you far better connections. From what this old woman hears, the economy there has been especially strong of late. Would that not have served you better?"
Granny Moon's point was a fair one. Dobai Domain had grown remarkably prosperous in recent years and was well known for its booming economy.
If wealth alone were the measure, it was likely the richest domain around, but Mōha only gave a wry smile.
"Guess the economy was too good, if anything. There just wasn't any work for ninjas."
"Ah, so it is, then."
It stood to reason: demand for work like a ninja's arose precisely when times were hard.
It wasn't unique to Dobai Domain, either. Whenever an age of peace settled in, work for ninjas dried up dramatically.
In the old days, they'd been called upon constantly for assassinations, intelligence gathering, and the like, but in an age of peace there simply wasn't much need for them.
With good relations firmly established between the two great powers, the Musashi Shogunate and the Yamato Shogunate, there was no call for shadowy work of that sort.
And with the economy doing so well, wages were good, which drew plenty of Kabukimono to handle yokai extermination regularly, leaving little of that kind of work either.
So a good many ninjas ended up becoming Kabukimono instead.
"My village used to be full of skilled ninjas, but with things the way they are, skills go soft fast. So we send a handful out regularly, just to keep everyone sharp."
"Then, once you've finished your training out here, will you...?"
"I'm planning to go home."
"I see, I see..."
Granny Moon nodded along, satisfied.
By then, Yasutaka had finished putting on his armor and stood up.
"Well, let's get going."
"Yeah, let's."
With that, the group left the room together.