“Huh? Why would they wear clothes in the hot spring? Ninja, whoever, you go in the buff. Naked.”
“Ngh!!” In that moment, Zenitsu’s firm resolve crumbled. He got close enough to Uzui to practically take him in his arms. “Uzui! No, Master Uzuiii!! Lord Tengen!”
“Get off of me!” Uzui pushed him back. “So? You gonna do it or not?”
“Of course, I’d be delighted to take on this challenge!” Zenitsu shouted, eyes bloodshot and breathing ragged. If Uzui had ordered him to call him God, he would have called him God.
Mixed bathing with Hinatsuru, Makio, and Suma … Wee hee hee! Zenitsu clutched the handle of the shovel and grinned beatifically as he pictured a heretofore undiscovered paradise on earth. The look on his face was lewd, leering, absolutely the kind of thing that would make him unpopular with the ladies.
“Okay! Tanjiro! I’ll listen, so you put that nose to work and sniff out a hot spring. Oh, wait. Tanjiro’s not here!”
Zenitsu waited until Uzui was out of sight before calling Tanjiro energetically to his side. Unfortunately, Tanjiro was not there. He finally remembered the absence of his friend.
That friend had broken bones throughout his body in the fight with the Upper Rank Four demon and was still on bed rest. With the spirit of an eldest son and a kind disposition, he had saved Zenitsu countless times before. As a result, Zenitsu had come to rely on Tanjiro as naturally as he took a breath. The fact that he wasn’t there meant …
“This is bad. I need someone else,” Zenitsu muttered under his breath.
Even if he could hunt down a hot spring beneath the earth, he’d need help to actually dig it out.
Gotta be someone strong. After all, I don’t know if I’ll get lucky on the first hit.
Someone with a special sense like Tanjiro or himself would be even better. As he considered the problem, the bushes nearby rustled, and something large jumped out.
“Ngaaaaah!!” Zenitsu shrieked. “Aaah?!”
“Headlong rush! Headlong rush!”
What he had assumed was an animal was in fact Inosuke. Perhaps simply running up and down the mountain wasn’t enough for him; he had an enormous rock on an apparently handmade carrying rack on his back.
“Oh, it’s you, Inosuke.” Zenitsu let out a sigh of relief. “Don’t scare me like that. You doing the up-and-down-the-mountain thing too? Carrying that stupid huge rock? And like, hey. Didn’t he tell you you could go to the next Hashira?”
“Yeah.” Inosuke nodded. “This morning.”
“So go already. What are you doing here?”
“I gotta strike fear into the heart of the God of Festivals first. I just gotta.” Inosuke clenched his hand into a fist. “I wanna get at least one hit in.”
This guy still thinks Uzui’s the god of festivals …
Zenitsu wilted. He was entirely fed up with how Inosuke was so raring to go that he was doing even more training all on his own, despite the fact that he’d gotten the seal of approval to move on.
Tanjiro had this optimistic streak too, but Inosuke was almost relentlessly positive. It wasn’t that Zenitsu himself was particularly backward-looking. These two were just so shockingly forward-looking.
“You really are weird. Off your rocker.”
“So?” Inosuke looked at him. “What’re you doing? Skipping out?”
“I am not skipping out.” Zenitsu let out a sigh. “It’s special training! Uzui told me to go and dig up a hot spring, okay?”
“Haht spring?” Inosuke asked curiously. The way he pronounced it was weird.
“Not ‘haht’ spring. Hot spring,” Zenitsu corrected.
“What’s a haht spring?” Inosuke ignored him. “And dig up, you mean like bamboo shoots? Is this haht spring delicious?”
“What?” Zenitsu stared at him in disbelief. “You don’t know what a hot spring is? It’s a hot spring, though.”
Inosuke shrugged. “Never had it before.”
“You say things like ‘strike fear into the heart’ and know all these old songs with lyrics in weird old words, but you don’t know what a hot spring is. You really are a weird guy, huh? Such a mystery. Everything about you is a mystery. I don’t get it at all.”
“Quit whining and let me eat it already!” Inosuke snarled. “Stupid Donitsu.”
“It’s not a food, and I’m not Donitsu. A hot spring is this hot bath that springs up from the ground. It’s hot and feels great, and mixed—the true joy of mixed bathing, the dream of mixed bathing—in a large bathtub kind of thing.”
“Mixed batter?” Inosuke frowned. “Why would batter be in the bath? Are you okay in the head?”
“You of all people do not get to ask me that! It’s not mixed batter, it’s mixed ba—” Zenitsu started and then stopped with a gasp.
“Ba?” Inosuke parroted.
Zenitsu stared wordlessly at the boy wearing the boar head. He was right here. A person—or rather a boar—with Tanjiro’s strength, the same sharp senses. It was very much not what he’d been thinking, but there was no one more suited to the job.
There was only one catch. Friendly as he was, Tanjiro would have gladly helped out if Zenitsu asked. But asking wouldn’t work with Inosuke. This guy basically did not listen to other people. He was almost shockingly unobservant. Just asking nicely was not going to cut it.
“Ba … what?” Inosuke asked, puzzled.
“Hey, Inosuke.” Zenitsu racked his brain desperately for a moment and then put his thoughts into words. “Don’t you want to get stronger?”
“Uh, yeah?” Inosuke looked at him like he had two heads. “Why’re you even saying something so obvious? Everybody wants to get stronger. Don’t lump me in with a wimp like you.”
“Mm-hmm, mm-hmm.” Normally, this would have set Zenitsu off, but he only hummed his agreement with a straight face. “You should get in a hot spring right away.”
“Huh?” Inosuke cocked his boar head to one side. “Why would I get stronger in the bath? Seriously, have you completely lost it finally?”
“Don’t you know, Inosuke?” Zenitsu continued. “Hot springs all have different effects. The one hiding on this mountain has a lot of ingredients that make you stronger if you bathe in it.”
“Ingredients that … make you stronger?” Inosuke gulped hard. Zenitsu could practically see his interest in hot springs spiking. “Something like that exists?”
“Yeah, it does.”
“If I get in this haht spring, will I get stronger than that God of Festivals?”
“Yup! The old guy won’t even stand a chance.”
“And that Half-Half Sleeves too?” Inosuke demanded.
“Half-Half Sleeves? I don’t know who that is, but I’m sure you’ll be able to take out Half-Half Sleeves too. Which is why we gotta dig together right now. Dig out our mixed-bathing—I mean, dream hot spring!” Zenitsu urged Inosuke loudly, his eyes shining.
Inosuke was silent. For a second, Zenitsu was worried his pitch sounded too forced.
“We’re gonna dig and dig and dig some more! Chuitsu! Follow Lord Inosuke!!” Inosuke’s enthusiastic cry echoed through the evening mountain.
Even with Inosuke’s “instinct” and Zenitsu’s “hearing,” finding a hot spring was no easy task.
The mountain where Uzui’s training took place was surprisingly large and precipitous. On top of that, even when they did find a potential spot, they had to dig down pretty deep to hit the source. And then, when they got down that deep and had it end in failure, they were soon very discouraged.
“What the heck!? There’s nothing here!”
“I know, I know. But I mean, it’s my first time digging a hot spring too, okay?”
“Graaaaaar!”
“Don’t have a tantrum. I mean, I get how you feel, but …”
How many times had they dug into the ground in vain? The mountain was fading to red in the evening sun, night upon them before they even knew it, and Zenitsu was at last honestly dejected.