The next morning...
Mani-hime woke to the sound of Granny Moon talking in her sleep.
"Ohh, yesss♡ Right there♡ That's the spot♡ I'm feeling it♡♡♡♡" (in a sultry voice)
Granny Moon lay there moaning in an absurdly seductive voice, fast asleep.
Incidentally, her nightclothes were in considerable disarray, but it was so unseemly a sight that I'll spare you the particulars.
In any case, the first thing Mani-hime noticed upon waking was that Yasutaka was gone.
"Taa-chan!"
She scanned the room in a panic, only to find his belongings gone too. He had vanished completely.
"Granny Moon! Wake up, Granny Moon!"
"A man who can't get it up ain't nothing but garbage! Get me another one, quick!"
"What on earth are you dreaming about!? Just wake up already!"
Mani-hime couldn't help snapping back, but this was no time for jokes.
She shook the old woman desperately, while Granny Moon kept right on mumbling in her sleep.
"Fine, fine, just hurry up and... hm! ...Eh?"
Granny Moon blinked blearily around the room, then slumped, her shoulders drooping.
"Ahh, just a dream, was it..."
"This is no time for that! Look at this, Granny Moon!"
Granny Moon looked where she was told and found a pile of cut rope where Yasutaka had once lain, now empty.
One glance at the morning sun outside and she understood the situation at once.
(That ought to be far enough by now...)
Confident he'd fled well beyond their reach, Granny Moon arranged her face into a mask of perfect innocence.
"Seems he was slipped a sleeping draught... Terribly sorry, I am. By the time this old woman noticed, the ropes were already undone..."
"But how... I had him wrapped up tight..."
Mani-hime tilted her head in puzzlement, and Granny Moon told her:
"As he made his escape, that man said, 'A clingy woman like Mani is more than I can handle. The engagement's off. Forget about me.'"
"No..."
Mani-hime staggered, stunned by Granny Moon's words.
(Don't think ill of me for it. This is for your own good, my princess.)
Granny Moon had invented every last word of it, hoping to make her give up entirely.
But Mani-hime thought it over for just a moment... and her eyes lit up!
"That's a lie!"
"Wha—!"
Granny Moon startled at how easily she'd been caught.
"Taa-chan would never say that. He'd say, 'I still haven't become the man you deserve. But I swear, one day I'll be lord of my own domain, and I'll come back for you.'"
"Princess! That cockroach of a man would never say something like that!"
She'd seen through the lie well enough, but everything after that was hopelessly off the mark.
"The old lady's word is the truth! Believe me!"
Having just told a mountain of lies, Granny Moon declared this with perfect composure!
Mani-hime smiled slyly and said:
"Taa-chan told me so himself, in a dream... there's absolutely no mistaking it!"
"Princess! If he only said it in a dream, then he never said it at all!"
It was an entirely reasonable argument, but of course, everything this old woman said was a lie too.
For a good while after that, the two of them carried on a hopelessly circular argument, the kind of thing that would make even the most seasoned online debater tap out in seconds, but no matter how much Granny Moon argued, Mani-hime simply wouldn't listen.
That was what it meant to be one of the Three Great Yanderes of the Realm.
Once she'd made up her mind, no path was too treacherous, no risk too great; she would stake her very life to see it through.
Granny Moon knew this all too well, and yet she couldn't bring herself to give up.
(I won't have it! Not after I raised that girl with my own two hands, only to see her end up with a good-for-nothing like him!)
This old woman, it must be said, was a troublesome sort in her own right.
The two of them, each stubborn in her own way, squabbled back and forth for a good long while, and in the end, neither budged an inch.
"Whew... whew... I suppose there's nothing to be done..."
"Hah... hah... I'm sorry... Granny Moon..."
Seeing Mani-hime apologize so sorrowfully, Granny Moon's expression clouded over.
Granny Moon wanted the princess's happiness too, after all.
It was only that their two notions of happiness would never quite meet.
Faced with a devotion that had nowhere to land, Granny Moon felt a helpless ache settle in her chest.
(Well, it'll go however it's going to go...)
As she thought this, Mani-hime touched the ring finger of her left hand, where a strange red mark encircled the skin as though a ring had once rested there, and out of it crawled a tiny red spider!
"What is it?"
"I thought something like this might happen, so I placed the Red Spider Thread on him beforehand."
"...The Red Spider Thread?"
"My mother taught it to me. It's called the Red Spider Thread rite, a technique that lets you sense each other's location. Watch, if I draw out the red spider like this......"
The thread of spider silk Mani-hime drew out gave a twitch, then pointed straight to the east.
"East... but this direction points down, into the ground? Then he must have gone to some domain underground..."
"Underground, you say?"
At those words, Granny Moon understood at once what it meant too.
"He's gone to the tourist city of Maihama... Miki Domain, the one they call the Land of Dreams."
"I see..."
Told as much, Granny Moon understood exactly what it meant, and gave a wry chuckle.
Miki Domain was, indeed, a fine choice: whether Mani-hime went chasing after him again or gave up the search, either way she could return to Edo once the fuss had died down.
And since no one ever searched the same place twice, once a place had been checked off, the odds of ever finding him there again dropped to almost nothing.
"Let's go too."
"I suppose there's no help for it..."
Granny Moon gave a wry laugh and began packing their things.
"...But first, we'll need to cancel the horse."
"Oh, come on!"
Hearing that, Mani-hime pouted, just a little.