Chapter 153: Kidnapped
Tears completely flooded Tanjiro’s eyes.
"Ne... Nezuko..."
Hugging the letter against his chest, he dropped to his knees on the ground, shoulders trembling.
"That’s great... sniff... that’s great..."
His voice came out as a mix of crying and laughter.
"Nezuko... I’m so happy..."
Further up, on the mountain path, two figures who’d been training stopped dead in their tracks.
Inosuke pushed his mask up to his forehead, revealing that delicate face with its furrowed brow.
"Is Tanjuro crying?"
Zenitsu narrowed his eyes. "No... it looks like... is he laughing?"
After exchanging a glance, they tossed aside the weights they were carrying and ran down the hill.
"Tanjiro! What’s wrong with you?!"
Zenitsu got there first, but Inosuke was right on his heels, and he shoved him out of the way and planted himself in front of Tanjiro.
"Why are you crying?! Who messed with you?! I’m gonna beat ’em up!"
Tanjiro lifted his head, his face soaked with tears and a grin from ear to ear.
He held the letter up, right in front of them.
"Nezuko... Nezuko, she..."
Zenitsu looked down to read and his mouth fell open.
"She did it?"
Inosuke leaned in too and stared at the letter for a good long while, deeply focused.
Then he straightened up and crossed his arms.
"What’s all that pile of scribbles?! Read it out loud to me!"
Zenitsu explained the situation to him, grumbling under his breath about the illiterate boar.
"Ah, so Nezuko can sunbathe now."
Inosuke scratched his head through the mask, not quite getting the point.
"Didn’t we already know that? Why are you guys crying?"
Zenitsu smacked him on the back of the neck.
"That was an experiment! Do you know what an experiment is?! Before, it had only worked in the experiment! But Nezuko’s body is different. This right here is her everyday life now! Do you know what everyday life is?!"
"No!"
Inosuke answered with absolute sincerity.
"You..."
As he watched them argue like that, Tanjiro’s tears came even harder, but the smile on his face was impossible to wipe off.
"She can talk now... Tamayo-san says... that she’s already started talking..."
"Maybe... maybe she can already say big brother."
Watching him cry like that was too much for Zenitsu, who was soft-hearted. He felt his eyes getting misty.
"C-Congratulations, Tanjiro."
Inosuke made a disgusted face at the sight of them crying over a simple letter.
"Why are you crying?! Isn’t it a good thing that she can talk?! Come on! Let’s go find Nezuko! I want her to call me big brother too!"
Nodding, Zenitsu clapped Tanjiro on the shoulder.
"Yeah! Let’s go to Asakusa! We’ll go with you!"
Tanjiro tucked the letter away against his chest with the utmost care, stood up, and took a deep breath.
"All right! Let’s go to Asakusa!"
Once the decision was made, all three of them were happy!
Tanjiro was happy to be seeing his sister soon. Inosuke was happy that he’d get to enjoy a good meal soon. Zenitsu was thrilled to be seeing beautiful girls again.
And just as the three of them were hugging each other, laughing...
"What are you all so cheerful about?"
A voice rang out behind them, freezing them completely in place.
"Did I just hear that somebody can see the sun now?"
They spun around sharply.
Behind them stood a tall man, arms crossed, watching them with a playful expression.
White hair, flashy accessories on his head, and a face so flamboyant it was downright infuriating.
The Sound Hashira: Tengen Uzui.
The three of them went rigid as if they’d been hit with a Petrificus Totalus.
And the first to break the spell was, obviously, Inosuke, who with his usual bravery pointed a finger at Tengen and started yelling.
"Are you a demon?! Why do you walk without making any noise?!"
Tengen arched an eyebrow. "Didn’t you know I used to be a ninja? When have you ever seen a ninja who makes noise when he walks?"
Inosuke went speechless.
It wasn’t that he had no comeback—it was simply that he’d never seen a ninja in his life.
Zenitsu instantly backed him up with another shout. "Okay, but that doesn’t give you the right to eavesdrop on our conversations!"
"Eavesdrop?"
Tengen looked down and studied Zenitsu from his full height with a pretty dangerous expression.
"If you don’t want me flamboyantly overhearing you, keep your voices down, brats."
That oh-so-cordial look snapped Zenitsu back to his senses all at once.
And it was right then that he realized who he was talking to.
THIS WAS A HASHIRA!
IT WAS THE SOUND HASHIRA!
His legs started shaking, and he immediately bowed ninety degrees.
"Um... Sound Pillar-sama... forgive us for bothering you, we’re so terribly sorry, really! We didn’t mean it, I swear..."
Tengen shrugged, a little smirk on his lips.
"By the way, didn’t you all just say you’re going to Asakusa? What a coincidence. We can make the trip together in the most flamboyant way possible."
The three of them froze up again.
Marcus’s words before leaving the last time, after the sunlight experiment, still echoed in their heads.
"Until the experiment is completely finished, don’t tell anyone about it."
They looked at each other and shook their heads at the same time.
"Asakusa?! No, no way! We’re not going to Asakusa!"
"Yeah! We’re not going anywhere!"
That came out of Zenitsu’s and Inosuke’s mouths.
Tanjiro, on the other hand, froze up, with an expression of profound dismay, as if he’d just swallowed a fly.
"Uh... uh... uh..."
He opened his mouth, but couldn’t get out a single word.
There was nothing to be done—Tanjiro was constitutionally incapable of lying.
Every time he tried, he’d end up with that exact same tortured look on his face.
Tengen narrowed his eyes.
He’d have to be blind not to notice something was off.
"Heh~"
He scoffed, not bothering to negotiate.
He grabbed the most terrified of the three, Zenitsu, by the collar of his shirt and lifted him up into the air like a baby chick.
"Don’t worry, I don’t care whether you come or not. Either way, I’ve got business to take care of in Yoshiwara."
And he started walking, carrying him off dangling. "If you don’t mind me flamboyantly selling him to a brothel to service customers, then just don’t follow me."
"S... service customers?"
Zenitsu froze solid.
A second earlier he’d been thrashing with all his might; now he’d gone completely still.
And the next second his eyes were sparkling, hot air was blowing out of his nose, and his head snapped around.
"Lady customers? Female customers?"
Tengen snorted with contempt.
"When have you ever seen women going to brothels?"
Zenitsu blinked a couple of times, confused.
"Then who am I gonna be servicing?"
Tengen cracked a wicked grin. "Men with rather particular tastes, of course—they’ll be delighted to request your services."
Zenitsu’s smile froze.
"M...?"
"MEN?!"
"That’s right, men."
Tengen pinched his cheek, smiling as radiantly as humanly possible.
"You’re not much to look at, but since there aren’t many people who go into this line of work, you’ve got nothing to worry about—somebody’s bound to pick you."
Zenitsu’s face ran through a whole spectrum of colors at top speed, from white to green, then purple, and finally black.
"TANJIRO!!"
He started kicking and thrashing uncontrollably, screaming his lungs out.
"INOSUKE!!! SAVE ME!!!"
"I DON’T WANT TO SERVICE CUSTOMERS!!!"
"I DON’T WANT TO SERVICE MALE CUSTOMERS...!!!"
Inosuke stood still on the path, looking at Zenitsu and then at Tanjiro.
"What if... we just let him go?"
Zenitsu’s cry for help got even louder.
"YOU DAMN PIG!!"
Tanjiro sighed, resigning himself to his fate as he started following them.
"Uzui-san is headed to Yoshiwara, so we’ll go along with him there first. After that I’ll go to Asakusa to let Senpai know, and he can be the one to decide whether the experiment should be made public or not."
Inosuke thumped his own chest. "Let me go tell him!"
Tanjiro looked at him helplessly. "You just want to go eat..."
"Uh..."
Inosuke froze for an instant and, in silence, turned his head to the side to pretend he was admiring the scenery.
Tanjiro shook his head.
He watched as Zenitsu was kidnapped, then touched his chest to feel the letter he had tucked away.
"Forget it, it’s not that far anyway, we’ll get there by nightfall, so let’s make this trip to Yoshiwara first."
Taking a deep breath, he picked up the pace.
Thinking about Nezuko waiting for him in Asakusa, he felt a warmth wash over him.
...
On the outskirts of Asakusa.
In an abandoned temple.
A young man of sturdy build, dressed in short training clothes, sat in the gloom of a corner, stroking a snowflake hairpin.
The hairpin was quite old, with some wear along the edges, but it was polished to a shine.
The young man gazed at the hairpin with a tender look in his eyes.
"Koyuki... wait for me."
He pressed the hairpin against his chest and closed his eyes.
"Eighteen years at the most..."
He paused for a moment, frowning.
"No, sixteen years..."
He paused again.
"No, fourteen years..."
He paused once more.
"No, twelve years..."
His brow furrowed more and more, and suddenly he clenched the hairpin tight.
"No! Ten years at the most!"
He opened his eyes, his gaze resolute.
"Ten years from now! I’ll definitely come looking for you!"
Gripping the hairpin firmly, he broke into a wide smile in the direction of Asakusa.
"For these ten years, I’ll serve our lord well."
"And I’ll try to repay his kindness as much as I possibly can."
"Wait for me!"
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