"Oi! Oi! OIIIIII!!"
"Oh, my FUCKING GOD, what is it, boar boy?!"
Inosuke flinched slightly at the man's outburst, but let out a huff in reply and darted his head in the other direction, crossing his arms over his chest.
"Pff....nothing."
Sakusa visibly shook with irritation.
Ugh, you're such a nuisance.....
The Rage Hashira spent the next few moments walking alongside Inosuke, silence hanging thick overtop the two demon slayers as the bamboo-lined trail kept continuing on for what looked like hours.
Inosuke didn't want to admit it to the man who was his 'Master' at this point, but he was getting hungry.
Under normal circumstances, he would have complained all he wanted about his rumbling stomach, but to the man who beat him to a pulp without so much as breaking a sweat, he couldn't afford to show weakness.
So, he made a well-thought, excellently-devised, utter genius plan as the two walked down the path;
Annoy Sakusa until he needed a break so he could eat.
So far, not much luck.
The first few times, Sakusa (quite literally) flicked Inosuke away, sending him toppling over and into the dirt, told him to screw off, or threw his blade handle-first into his head.
Soon enough, though, the man's wafer-thin patience faded out and he began to bark and react to his endless nagging.
Inosuke was going to get his well-warranted mealtime soon enough, and it brought a grin to his face beneath his mask.
Or so he thought.
Inosuke jogged back up to where Sakusa was, and this time, decided to start pulling on his haori to get his attention.
hehhehehehehe this is really gonna wind him up this time...
"Oi, oi, oi, chain man, oi, oi, oi, chain man, oi, oi, oi, chain ma-
The boar boy felt a sharp whack on the back of his neck, and almost instantly, he collapsed to the ground.
Inosuke's eyes fluttered open, and sitting only a couple metres away from him, Sakusa was eating tempura and cold soba on a rock off the side of the pathway.
His mouth watered at the sight of food, and Inosuke instinctively made a break for it, only to get nowhere at all.
Huh? What the fuck- OI!
"OI, CHAIN MAN, WHY AM I TIED UP TO A ROCK?!" Inosuke screeched, steam pudding out of his nose as he tried to shake himself off the side of the boulder.
"Because you got way too annoying for your own good, you little fuckhead." Sakusa bluntly replied through the food in his mouth.
Inosuke, having seen the pile of food specifically for him right beside the crimson-haired man on the rock, quickly grew desperate. "OI, RELEASE ME NOW, BASTARD, YOU PIECE OF SHIT, YOU STUPID OLD MAN, YOU LITTLE DEMON, I'LL KILL YOU! GAHH- o h-
"Shut up."
Sakusa ended up smacking Inosuke across the neck again and rendered him unsconcious, letting him eat his food in peace.
When Inosuke awoke, he wasn't chained to a rock this time, but was being carried over Sakusa's shoulder with a rope tying his limbs together.
As expected, Inosuke immediately began to struggle, kicking and screaming like a toddler, yelling about how he's hungry and as the God of the Mountains, he should not be swung over someone's shoulder, and that Sakusa should fight him for the rights to the rest of the rations the Rage Hashira provided.
Sakusa, though, put an end to all of this with a few simple words.
"OI, OI, CHAIN MAN, GIVE ME FOOD! FIGHT ME! FIGHT ME FOR FOOD! I'LL KILL YOU!"
"Oh, please," he scoffed,
"You're too weak to even be worth the time it'd take to knock you out again."
Inosuke flinched in shock, but after a few seconds, he went limp in Sakusa's grip.
He didn't have anything to say after that, he couldn't argue with him over the fact that the Rage Hashira was many times stronger than him.
Inosuke couldn't accept it, though, even if it was true.
"Tch, you're a fucking beast, that's why you're so strong..." The boar boy mumbled with a huff.
"I'm not strong, Inosuke. I'm incredibly weak."
"Huh?"
Inosuke darted his head to face the Rage Hashira and exclaimed, "What do you mean, you're weak?!"
"Did I stutter, boar boy?" Sakusa replied, his stone cold gaze fixed to the road ahead of them, "I'm the weakest of the Hashira. Hell, there's even at least seven Kari family members stronger than me."
"HUHHHHHH?! THEN WHY THE FUCK AM I LEARNING FROM YOU?! YOU'RE SO WEAK IF THAT'S TRUE!" Inosuke retorted, with steam blowing out of his boar mask.
"Pfft, because I'm still strong, just not strong in the way you think."
"......whAT THE HELL IS THAT EVEN SUPPOSED TO MEAN?!"
".....Tch, you'll see, boar boy," Sakusa broke out into a soft chuckle, impressed with the boar boy's energy.
"You'll see soon enough..."
The day came and went, and as the sun began to set, Inosuke was left in utter awe.
H-Holy shit......where are we....?
"Inosuke," Sakusa dropped the boar boy off his back, cut off the ropes, and let a smile slip onto his face at the sight before them.
"Welcome to the Kari Mansion, home of the main branch of the Kari family, my branch."
Inosuke's jaw almost hit the ground.
"W-Woah...."
Even if they had only reached the massive black gates of the mansion itself, Inosuke could already tell the place was gigantic.
At least three times the size of the Butterfly Mansion, the entire area was built with the bamboo forest surrounding the giant black building. The mansion was built like an utter fortress, with stone pillars as high as the trees built on every corner of the wall, a person coated in black clothing standing atop every pillar with a blade on their hips.
Inosuke was completely taken by surprise by the size of the mansion, but his shock would only grow as Sakusa signaled for the doors to open.
As the duo walked down the rocky path towards the main section of the mansion, the boar boy was darting his head in every direction, taking in the various buildings with what he assumed were workers dressed in all-black clothing, tending to the horses in the stables, the garden on the left, and other facilities all within the walls.
Amazing, amazing! Inosuke exclaimed excitedly in his thoughts, This place is like a whole village! It's got everything you'd ever need to support everyone I know, and then some! This place is so cool!
Soon enough, the two began walking up the steps towards the mansion itself, with two massive black doors with an insignia stamped in the middle of them in a deep crimson red.
The insignia was of a phoenix as black as can be, with their wings folded at the joint as if it's about to flap its fiery wings. Flickers of crimson dotted the bird's body, with a mixture of red, gold, and white all dotting the bird's wings. The insignia was magnificent, and was a symbol of power and strength, the two things the Kari desire the most in their history.
Inosuke didn't care, though, pushing his way past the taller Kari boy and shoving the doors open with an excited huff, grinning from ear to ear in expectation.
"HAHAHA, SO THIS IS YOUR HOME, HUH, SHOKUTO AIKUZU?!" Inosuke cackled like a maniac, "I'M IMPRESSED, IT'S ALMOST AS HUGE AS MY OWN MOUNTAIN KINGDOM! FUFUFUFU- g e h-
His moment was halted by a swift smack to the back of the head.
"Tch, shut up, you little brat." Sakusa bluntly muttered, taking his Tsuguko by the nape and dragging him (Kicking and screaming, as always) down the left hall, where rows upon rows of doors lined the hallway, along with some other things that piqued Inosuke's interest.
The boar boy looked on at all the suspicious drawings on the wall with a confused look beneath his mask.
He was confused, because the drawings were all of different people, who all had black-red hair with crimson-stained tips, and they all held the exact same blades that hung on Sakusa's waist.
One by one, he took note of them all.
Oi, what the hell are all these drawings for?
If Monjiro's stupid reading lessons did me any good, then that one should say....Yukaku Kari....and that one says Ai Kari.....and that one's Mokuzo Kari.....
"Oi, chain man," Inosuke finally spoke up, "What's with all the drawings on the walls?"
"They're my ancestors, brat." The Rage Hashira explained, "Paintings of past Kari members who served as the Rage Hashira before me."
"Each and every one of them is one of my great-grandfathers, great-grandmothers, great-aunts or uncles. Every person you see on these walls is of pure Kari blood."
"Huh? 'Pure Kari blood'? The hell does that mean?" Inosuke snorted underneath his mask.
Sakusa rolled his eyes, voicing his annoyance under his breath, before finally caving in.
"It means they're part of the Kari branch that's diversified the most through the centuries of selective breeding. The name 'Pure Blood' is really misleading, because in reality, the main Kari branch have the least amount of blood from the Kari of all those years ago, because they just kept dividing themselves out and breaking off into other clans."
"Huh?" Inosuke was completely lost, too many big words for him.
Sakusa let out a dramatic groan, before turning around and grabbing the clueless boar boy by the shoulders and crouching down to face him directly.
"Alright, brat. Look at it this way. Say you have one bowl of udon in front of you, got it?"
"HUH?! I DO?! WHERE?!" Inosuke darted his head around in every direction, only earning a smack atop the head for his stupidity.
"Oi, focus!"
"Look," Sakusa tried to explain himself again, "So you have your bowl of udon, and there's nothing but the noodles and the broth in the bowl, you got it?"
Inosuke nodded.
"Alright. So now, once you add some tempura on top of that, and it's still the udon as before, but it's a little better, right?"
"YEAH, YEAH, TEMPURA MAKES EVERYTHING BETTER!"
"Yeah, whatever. Next, you add the ginger, green onion, egg and all your other flavours and shit, and suddenly it's a fully loaded bowl of udon, you know? That's basically what I mean when I'm talking about the main branch of the Kari. The Kari are still technically members of the Kari family, but we've broken off to fuck and make kids with so many different clans, and subsequently brought back all those different techniques and blood into our families, to the point where we're practically unrecognizable from when we lived back in China. We add all these ingredients to our bowl, and even if it's still by definition a bowl of udon, it's nothing like how the bowl started off."
"The philosophy of the Kari clan revolves around constantly evolving, breeding, and honing our skills to fight with every new generation, so because we've changed ourselves up the most over the years, we're considered the 'Pure Kari', because we've embodied this philosophy the most out of any other branch across the world."
"So, basically, we're the main family because we're the least full Kari in the entire clan."
"........" Inosuke remained silent, only staring at Sakusa with a blank expression through his mask.
Sakusa returned the look with an equally-flat look on his face.
"......"
"....."
"......you just want udon after that, don't you."
"Y E S."
After the duo had their food (Sakusa admittedly wanted food just as much as Inosuke after his explanation) in the manor kitchen, Inosuke was directed towards the spare rooms, which were down the opposite hall, and told to drop off whatever he had into the extra bedroom he was assigned.
Inosuke asked why he wasn't going down the hallway with all the paintings like before, but Sakusa simply told him with a snicker and a smirk that he would 'Make something happen'.
The room was incredibly minimalistic, with nothing but a large bed, closet, extra mats, drawers and lantern by the bedside table, exactly how Inosuke liked it.
The less things for his empty head to worry about, the better.
Almost immediately after he had settled in, bounced on the bed, kicked up the sheets and stared at himself in the conjoining bathroom mirror, however, he heard a knock on his door.
Huh? Who the hell is knocking on Lord Inosuke's door?
The boar boy hopped off his bed and rushed towards the door, and slammed it open and screeched, "THIS IS MY ROOM, BACK OFF!"
"Oi, oi, oi! Hahaha, seems like my son's little student's got some balls, screaming at my face like that, huh~?"
A sharp and piercing pressure stabbed Inosuke right through the heart, as a giant of a man Sakusa's size stared down at him with cold, ruby red eyes, his massive frame taking up the entirety of the doorway as he stepped into his room.
"W-W-W-W-W-W-Who are you....?" Inosuke managed to sputter.
As the man stepped into the room, however, something caught his eye.
T-This guy.....
WHERE THE FUCK IS HIS LEFT ARM?!
Holy fucking shit, this guy's pressure is intense, that spider demon that beat me into a pulp was dog shit compared to this....
Just who the fuck are these guys anyways?
"Ahhh~, time for my favourite time of the day!"
Tanjiro let out a yawn as he stretched himself out, wincing when he felt a sharp stabbing in his ribs.
O-Ow, darn it.....guess I'm not totally healthy right now.....
After a long day of training on his own again, the redhead boy was now onto his tenth day of solo training while Zenitsu recuperated on his own, and needless to say, it was lonely without Inosuke and the golden-haired boy with him.
Aoi, Kiyo, Sumi and Naho all pushed him as hard as they could, making him repeat the reaction game with the tea cups, his basic rehabilitation training, along with the tag game he had never gotten the hang of as of yet.
Not only that, but his training with Kanao was making him suffer.
Combined with his attempts at total concentration breathing throughout the entire day, and he was constantly exhausted.
Sometimes he wished he could have been born with the ability to breathe like this, just like Sakusa.
Tanjiro let out a sigh as he passed through the doorway, and saw Zenitsu still up with a cup in one hand and some pages in the other.
Hmph....Zenitsu just gets to sit inside in a nice, comfy bed, while I have to do training.....
"Hey, Zenitsu, how was your day?" Tanjiro asked as he passed the blonde-haired boy, slipping right into his bed without really waiting for an answer.
"Can't talk right now, Master Kari and Lady Shinobu are in the middle of a fight!!"
Tanjiro immediately jolted out of his bed and darted his head around the room, "W-What?! Where?! We need to go help them!"
A second later, the redhead's attention turned towards the blonde crybaby, and instantly his shock withered away, when he saw Zenitsu hunched over in his bed, with his nose suddenly jammed into the papers and his eyes completely wide.
....Of course. Zenitsu's just overreacting again.
"T-T-Tanjiro, you have to start reading these mission logs more often!" Zenitsu urged with an intense look on his face, not once removing his eyes from the pages.
"Lady Shinobu and Master Kari are amazing, you can learn so much from these thingies!" He continued, finally taking his eyes off the pages to shake them wildly at the redhead.
"Here, here!"
"Zenitsu, have you even been sleepi-
"SHUT IT!!!"
Zenitsu reached into the piles of mission documents and journal entries and yanked out the one that belonged to Sakusa, and shoved it into Tanjiro's hands with a hyper look in his face.
"Read it, Tanjiro! If these demons they were fighting really were as strong as Upper Moons, then maybe you can learn something about their strengths to prepare for your next fights!"
"Huh? Upper Moons?" Tanjiro's attention was on the records once Zenitsu mentioned the Twelve Kizuki, since his first task given to him by Kagaya was to kill one of Muzan's twelve strongest demons. Any advice, knowledge or information gained within Sakusa's recounts would be vital to Tanjiro's growth and future as a demon slayer.
So, the redhead plopped himself back into his bed, turned on his lantern, and turned the pages until he reached where Zenitsu had read, to the fight between Sakusa, Shinobu, Irire and Razel.