Also 11th canon episode of the second season. At the request of Tanyuu Karibusa, Ginko sets off to investigate a phenomenon that might be related to a dangerous mushi, much to the chagrin of Kumado Minai, the current head of a long line of mushishi, who’s in charge of the area. As Ginko and Kumado get to the bottom of the Path of Thorns, the secret of the Minai line of mushishi is revealed.

After his encounter with Nui and before becoming a mushishi, young Ginko moved from place to place, due to his condition of attracting mushi. At one point he found himself instructed and cared for by a mushishi named Suguro, in the lands of a dying Mountain Lord. Ginko wonders about his place in the world and the natural order, as Suguro worries that the new Mountain Lord hasn't yet appeared.

At dusk, about to go home after playing with her friends, a young girl named Akane found a shadow without a caster. On that same day, she disappeared. Several years later, Ginko is told the story of Mikage, a girl who appeared with no memories at Akane's village shortly after the vanishing of the latter.

Ginko encounters Yuuta, a boy who is excellent at swimming and fishing but has webbed hands and cold skin. After discovering the boy's unnatural affinity for water, he sets out to treat the rain mushi causing his strange behavior.

A restless man, Kanta, on his way home to his wife and young daughter (Futaba), sits down to rest in a forest. He is tired and thirsty so he eats a red fruit that was lying on the ground near him, and gives thanks to the plum. Some time after this, he starts having vivid memories both in his dreams and while awake of times going back before his birth. He goes looking for a huge tree but finding it does not make him happy.