The Kagura hall is lit up and the ceremony has started. Lured by the smell of cucumber, Chibi goes inside the screen. After hearing his scream, Aoi pulls up the screen to find the umi-bonzu.
It turned out that one of the Hourai's gem branches had been kept inside the enclosed space in an ink brush painting belonging to Nuinoin and his wife. With Byakuya's help, Aoi enters the world of the ink brush painting with Ginji, Ranmaru, and Chibi.
The kagura hall is lit up and the ceremony has started. Lured by the smell of cucumber, Chibi goes inside the screen. After hearing his scream, Aoi pulls up the screen only to find out that the umi-bouzu has the same feelings that she had in the past.
Aoi needs to find the mermaid scale, so she goes to the ruins of the dragon palace, a place with a strong curse, with the master. Aoi and the master aren't affected by the miasma, but they get separated when she hears a voice calling her name.
After they come back to Tenjin-ya, the snow woman O-Ryo collapses from fever and Aoi ends up looking after her with her cooking. Then, a fight breaks out between Suzuran, who wants to go to the apparent realm, and Akatsuki, who is against her going.
In the dark place where Aoi is locked up, the noise of rain and thunder reminds her of the day her mother left her. As she loses consciousness, she's rescued by the master; however, when she wakes up, it's already the royal couple's anniversary day.
After Aoi helped the tengu father and son reconcile, Raiju, a noble from the capital, becomes interested in Aoi. Meanwhile, Aoi follows Nobunaga to the back of the pine grove only to find a large silver beast collapsed in front of a crumbling shrine.
After having a big fight with his younger sister, Akatsuki stays in the form of a spider and does not even eat the food Aoi cooked. Thinking that it'd be too sad if they went their separate ways without reconciling, Aoi decides to do something about it.
After receiving a request from the Imperial Court to cook anniversary dishes for Nuinoin and his wife, Aoi visits the eastern land where a foreign delicacy market is being held in order to obtain the ingredients.
Akatsuki and Ginji have been acting a little strange since Hatori arrived. Meanwhile, the children from one of the families staying at Tenjin-ya go missing. In order to look for them with Akatsuki, Aoi goes down to Tenjin-ya's basement for the first time.