The battle over, everyone returns to the urashichiken where Hana is excited to eat some uumen (noodles). While everyone is enjoying the meal, Tachibana is angry because Hana came back with burned hands but Chikahito came back uninjured. Hana defends Chikahito, citing the coat Tachibana made her wear and agreeing that Masamune was a help as well. Hidetsugu and Mikoto gently tease Tachibana for how he babies Hana, which annoys Tachibana. Hidetsugu states that Chikahito is special for Hana to have called him from Tokyo, which angers Masamune enough to want to kill Chikahito. However, he quickly backs down when Hana says she’ll get angry if Chikahito is hurt.

Masamune decides to change topics to speak of the Tokugawa. Mikoto and Kojyuro speak of the limitations of the oni network but that network enabled Hidetsugu to find the way to gain Nobunaga-daimyo‘s corpse and his oni, Mara. The conversation makes Chikahito aware that there’s some connection between Tachibana and the Tokugawa. When the conversation shifts to TOKUGAWA Ieyasu, Sakura sends Chikahito out to get some food. After he leaves, Sakura tells the others that these are things that Chikahito, as a new person to their group, should not be allowed to hear regarding TOKUGAWA Iemitsu. Upon hearing the name, Hana reaches out to Tachibana and hugs him.

Chikahito does the shopping, believing he was sent on the errand because they wanted to speak of things out of his hearing. His thoughts are interrupted when he sees a young teen boy apparently not feeling well and goes to assist. Helping him to a shaded area, the boy apologizes to Chikahito for delaying his errand, but Chikahito says it is not a problem and confirms that he’s living nearby. After giving his name to the boy, the boy’s cell phone alerts with an apparent text saying that folks are coming to retrieve him. Chikahito asks if he should wait but the boy assures him he is OK now.  Chikahito leaves, noting how beautiful the boy is and how much like Hana he is.

The boy, Iemitsu, is joined by an apparently male adult and female adult in black. He’s not amused at being addressed as “Iemitsu-sama.” His purposeful encounter with Chikahito confirms that Chikahito is living at the urashichiken and that Hana summoned Chikahito. However, with the power of his oni, Iemitsu is confident that he won’t be detected. With that, Iemitsu announces that both of him are hungry but he has to let the other feed first. With that, his companions raise a barrier and freeze-trap several humans, including a child, for apparent consumption by his other, called Mitsuha.

Boy, this is some difficult manga to slug through. Its difficult to believe that this is a shounen manga title as it has some very dark elements, to say nothing of the massive historical connections. Granted, in Japan, I’m guessing names like Ieyasu, Iemitsu, Nobunaga, etc. are fairly well known to Japanese folks, especially if they’ve had proper history lessons.  For us Westerners with little to no Japanese history knowledge, its going to be a tough slog and hopefully, we get some excellent translator notes from Dark Horse.  Otherwise, I’m afraid this manga series won’t do as well here.

That said, this chapter really has me stretching for things to comment on since there was a lot of saying nothing.  Since I’m not really versed in Japanese history, I don’t know all of the possible avenues that CLAMP may go with these apparently reincarnated characters. I know Ieyasu was the first shogun and that his grandson Iemitsu was the third shogun. Beyond that, I know nothing (though Ieyasu’s life prior to becoming shogun was fictionalized in the novel and min-series Shogun).

Anyway, I guess we’ll find out soon enough what Tachibana’s connection to the Tokugawa (and specifically Iemitsu) is.   I guess we’ll soon learn exactly what Mitsuha is (likely an evil oni, unlike Mikoto).

When the official release of this manga is done, I’m going to bet that the text will be a might bit clearer when it comes to understanding and by then, enough of the foundation for the story may have been laid to start making some sense of where CLAMP is going.  That being said, this is CLAMP we are talking about, so anything could go. ^_^;