Maybe Mr. Kiryu is really busy with something important... After slightly calming down her worries about Kiryu's delayed return, Mukiwa gently brushed Dodo's fur in her arms.
Unconsciously—Mukiwa's mind drifted further away, drifting to Asakusa, which she couldn't visit today, and to the Swordsmanship Competition she couldn't see today.
"I wonder how Mr. Tachibana's competition went today..."
...
...
At this moment—
In a very remote and small bathhouse in the West Suburb of Edo—
In this small bathhouse's bathhouse room, steam swirled and thick mist lingered.
In this wide bathhouse that could accommodate more than fifty people soaking at the same time, there were only two elderly men sitting shoulder-to-shoulder soaking in it at the moment.
One of the elderly men was the very Kiryu that Mukiwa was just thinking about.
