Kiyoko and Usagi. This is the team-up I didn't even know I wanted. The series has often juxtaposed the morally upright and honorable Usagi with those with more flexible ethics, namely Gen and Kitsune and sometimes Chizu. Here, after almost 25 years, there's a new one in Kiyoko. Rich merchant won't believe her when she claims he's a target for assassination? She immediately turns her thoughts to lunch. Usagi tells her they can't stand by and let a murder happen? She wonders, wide eyed, why not. Her sunny disposition and childlike (because she is a child) mannerisms are more endearing than her cold-bloodedness is unsettling.

The story itself is not bad but a little lacking. We're told the merchant is incompetent, but we aren't shown that, which is a classic storytelling stumble, and it really doesn't matter anyway. He doesn't have to be incompetent for someone to want to kill him, just rich or in the way of someone's ambition.

And we get to see a grousing Kitsune on the last page, which is refreshing. Flirty Kitsune is the act, grumpy Kitsune is closer to the real person.