Yatsuha Imano

Profession: Courtesan Appearances: Episode 15, Bogus Booty

~! Profession (Revealed): Detective, Police Cover: Courtesan Fighting Style: Ninja
Weapon: Hidden dagger Affiliations: Daughter of Shogunate Secret Police member, Jinpachi of Iga.

Episode 15, Bogus Booty: Ostensibly a young courtesan employed in a red light district brothel, Yatsuha is actually Otawa's partner working to stop the brothel's counterfeiting operation. After spying on one of Ginsa’s meetings, she learns that her partner has been captured. Mugen, having paid for her services, attempts to advance on her but Yatsuha attempts to knock him unconscious in return. She forgoes her one-year cover as a courtesan in order to rescue Otawa and readies herself as a ninja, but a surprisingly conscious and oblivious Mugen insists on getting the services he paid for. Despite several attempts at stopping Mugen’s advances, she fails to rid herself of him. Unable to escape Mugen and after witnessing his strength and skill in their bouts, she resorts to manipulating him into fighting her enemies with the promise of sex at a later time.

After fighting off a group of thugs, they invade the counterfeiting foundry hidden beneath the brothel. Heavily outnumber by “20-odd descendants of the Tsuda Clan of Negoro”, Yatsuha and Mugen fight alongside each other to stop the criminal operation and thwart the revival of Tsuda clan, a clan that was- ironically or poetically- first taken down by a clan of ninja mercenaries with a blood-relation to Yatsuha. Yatsuha and Mugen attack Ginsa together and the conflict ends with Yatsuha plunging her blade down towards Ginsa, seemingly killing him. However, a depiction of a blurry background character that is being arrested and led matches Ginsa’s appearance; it can be assumed that Yatsuha opted for his imprisonment of over his death.

Yatsuha thanks Mugen for his help. Mugen denies her thanks so long as she fulfills her previously-made promise. Using the same trick on him a second time, stating that there is “a naked woman” behind him, she provides herself an opportunity to knock him unconscious and saves herself from having to follow through with her promise. As she and Otawa take their leave toward Edo, she confesses to her partner that she is in love with Mugen and intends find and marry the wild vagrant once both of their journeys are over. Otawa seems to have reservations about her taste in men. !~