Tsuki no Shippo Ch.55 Summary

Usagi, fleeing from a man who believes her to be an intruder, has just run into Ranmaru, and he seems to recognize her. Her pursuer tells Ranmaru to grab her, but Ranmaru tells the man that she is actually his lover and pays him to keep it a secret from Nobunaga. Then he takes Usagi to his room. There she is immediately greeted by Mosuke the orangutan and Ranmaru’s suspicions that she is Usagi are confirmed. He asks her why she’s in the capital when she had supposedly returned to Okazaki. Crying, she tells him that she and “Hanbee” have divorced and that she is now working at a local dango shop. He seems to buy it.

Rikyuu (Nobunaga’s tea instructor) walks in to remind Ranmaru about the next day’s tea ceremony with Nobunaga. Seeing Usagi, he delightedly asks if she will show everyone how to prepare her delicious tea. Trying to reign in her panic, she tells him that she doesn’t use normal tea leaves. This attempt to get out of it is thwarted, though, as Ranmaru hands her writing implements and tells her to write down the materials she needs. Then he asks her to wait for him as he and Rikyuu go into the next room to talk.

Thin as traditional Japanese walls and doors are, Usagi is able to overhear the conversation. And, as luck would have it, the subject is the Igan invasion! She tries to write down the details, but her hands are shaking too badly. Knowing that Hanzou and everyone will be killed if she doesn’t do something she tries to force herself to write.

Before she can finish, Rikyuu comes back in. Usagi tells him she needs more time to finish her list. He invites her to dinner. Meanwhile, Ranmaru, with a scary look on his face, dumps out the dango Usagi brought. It seems Usagi hasn’t fooled him after all…

At dinner, Usagi runs through the details of the attack in her mind, determined not to forget anything. Noticing that she’s not paying attention to the dinner conversation, Ranmaru asks if she doesn’t like the food. She assures him that it’s delicious (I think Ranmaru mentions that the tempura is European food @_@?). Mitsuhide asks if she’d like to finish his. He is feeling a bit poorly and would like to rest. As he leaves, Rikyuu asks if Nobunaga really gave him the scar he has across his forehead. Mitsuhide confirms this, saying that he had made Nobunaga mad by not cleaning up a grain of fallen rice. That he would do something so drastic in response to something so small freaks Usagi out. After that, Ranmaru drags her off to bed, as the two men remaining at dinner admire the privileges of the young. ^_^; (Meanwhile, Yuuri storms over the fact that Usagi isn’t home yet. )

Once in Ranmaru’s room, Usagi notices two futons together. Ranmaru tells her the second one belongs to Mosuke and that she can share his. He teases her a bit before revealing that he was joking and that she can have the second one all to herself.

Later that night, Usagi is still wide awake with both head and stomach full. She gets up to take some stomach medicine and notices the lights in the kitchen are on. There, she finds Mitsuhide. He tries to pour her some water, but does so with some difficulty. Usagi realizes that he is having trouble seeing and he shouts at her not to tell anyone. He quickly apologizes as she shrinks back. She offers him some medicine, telling him that she is a medicine maker for Ieyasu…before realizing her mistake. But, that doesn’t seem to upset him and he takes it gratefully before staggering off with his arm stretched out in front of him. She offers to help him back to his room, but he declines and tells her she should get back to Ranmaru before he starts worrying about her.

As she heads back to her room she resolves to work on medicine for eyesight once she gets back to Iga. (Of course, she has to make it safely back to Iga first.) Climbing into her futon, she realizes that Ranmaru is not in his….just as he grabs her from behind. She asks him if he finds making fun of her amusing and he quite seriously tells her no. He then claps his hand over her mouth and shows her the note on which she had written details of the Iga invasion. She had dropped it! “If someone else had picked this up, you’d already be dead…shinobi girl of Iga.”

End of Chapter 55

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