Chiba Yo's new name

At Aoi Kanzaki's call, Kanao and Tanjiro both stopped.

"You really are fast, Kanao," Tanjiro said with a smile, panting from exhaustion.

Kanao still said nothing.

"That makes ten wins and nine losses now," Aoi Kanzaki said.

"This is still nowhere near enough..."

Tanjiro rubbed his shoulder and turned around, about to go for another run, only to spot Chiba Yo and Shinobu Kocho standing at the door.

"Yo!" Tanjiro cried in delight.

Zenitsu and Inosuke turned at Tanjiro's cry and finally noticed the two newcomers. They had been so absorbed in watching Tanjiro and Kanao compete that they hadn't noticed anything around them.

"Your injuries are all doing better, right?" Chiba Yo asked with a smile as he walked over.

"I'm pretty much fine now," Tanjiro answered with a smile.

"Yo!!" Zenitsu threw himself straight at Chiba Yo.

"I feel completely better! But they're still making me drink that awful medicine for another seven days! It tastes really, really terrible-the kind that leaves you unable to eat afterward!"

The moment Zenitsu saw Chiba Yo, he began pouring out his woes.

"Yo, I heard you're a Hashira now too. Could you tell them to stop making me drink that medicine?"

Zenitsu looked at Chiba Yo with pleading eyes.

"Absolutely not! Your condition was very serious, Mr. Zenitsu. You may not have any symptoms now, but if you don't finish your medicine properly, you could suffer lasting complications!" Aoi Kanzaki said angrily, planting her hands on her hips.

"So scary!"

After Aoi Kanzaki's scolding, Zenitsu hid behind Chiba Yo in fright.

Throughout his hospital stay and rehabilitation training, Aoi Kanzaki had scolded him plenty of times. He had grown afraid of her, losing all the composure he had shown during their tea-splashing exercise when he first began rehabilitation training.

"Miss Kanzaki is right. Since you're ill, you need to listen to your doctor. Medicine is bound to taste bad, but it's meant to help you recover sooner," Chiba Yo told Zenitsu earnestly, turning toward him.

"You're saying the same thing as Tanjiro. But I really don't want to drink that medicine..."

Seeing that Chiba Yo wouldn't take his side either, Zenitsu could only accept that he had to keep drinking the medicine.

Standing beside Zenitsu, Inosuke pointed at Chiba Yo after hearing their conversation. "Hey! You're a Hashira too? Then you're as strong as that half-and-half haori guy? That means beating you would prove I'm stronger than him. Hahahaha, I'm a genius! Come duel me!"

The instant Inosuke heard Zenitsu say that Chiba Yo was a Hashira, he wanted to challenge him to a duel. The "half-and-half haori guy" he mentioned was Giyu.

Giyu's strength had left a deep impression on Inosuke back at Mount Natagumo, putting him in a slump for a while. After all his recent training, however, Inosuke felt he had grown much stronger and wanted to prove it.

"Your name is Inosuke, right? Fighting between members is forbidden by Corps rules," Chiba Yo said, turning toward him.

Chiba Yo had learned about Inosuke from Zenitsu at Mount Natagumo and guessed that he was a companion Zenitsu and Tanjiro had met on a mission.

Seeing him again now, he thought Inosuke seemed like quite an interesting person.

"Hahahaha, of course I know that! Surely no idiot would be ignorant of that rule," Inosuke said with a loud laugh, his hands on his hips.

Tanjiro and Zenitsu both looked at Inosuke when they heard that. Zenitsu's gaze was full of exasperation.

There really is something wrong with this guy's head. Weren't you the first one to break that rule?!

That was what Zenitsu thought.

Inosuke, however, completely failed to notice his companions' looks and continued addressing Chiba Yo. "By duel, I mean you chase me, and if you touch me, you win. How about it?"

Inosuke was referring to the speed exercises in their rehabilitation training. He had made considerable progress in that area lately.

"We'll have to leave that for another time. I have something else to do right now."

Chiba Yo didn't agree to the challenge. He didn't know when his next mission would begin, so naturally, he wanted to take care of the important matters while he had time.

Then he turned to Tanjiro. "I heard you asked about 'Hinokami Kagura' and 'Flame Breathing' before. I haven't heard of either, but two names alone don't give me much to go on.

"If you can demonstrate them, I should be able to give you some clues or advice."

Chiba Yo suspected that the Hinokami Kagura and Flame Breathing Tanjiro had mentioned might simply be Flame Breathing under different names, so he wanted to see Tanjiro perform them and compare.

"All right, let's go outside," Tanjiro said with a nod.

He had intended to ask Chiba Yo about it as soon as he saw him return, but he hadn't expected Chiba Yo to bring it up first.

"If we're leaving it for next time, you have to tell me your name first."

After hearing Chiba Yo's answer, Inosuke waited until he finished speaking with Tanjiro before addressing him again.

"My name is Chiba Yo," Chiba Yo answered.

"So it's Chiba Sho! I'm Inosuke, king of the mountains. Nice to meet you!"

Inosuke spoke proudly, his hands on his hips.

Hearing what Inosuke called him, Chiba Yo turned to correct him. "It's Chiba Yo, not Chiba Sho."

"Chia Ro!"

This time, Inosuke got it even more wrong.

"It's Chiba Yo."

"Sticky Yo!"

"Chi! Ba! Yo!"

"Fried Yellow!"

"..."

Chiba Yo corrected him several times, all to no avail. Instead, Inosuke's mistakes grew increasingly outrageous. Standing nearby, Tanjiro watched Chiba Yo sympathetically, understanding exactly how he felt.

Even now, Inosuke kept getting his name wrong. Fish Cake Gonpachiro, Forehead Taro, Monjiro, and Tontaro were all names Inosuke called him.

He also kept calling Zenitsu "Monitsu."

Watching the scene from the side, Shinobu Kocho couldn't help laughing aloud.

"Forget it. Call me whatever you want."

In the end, Chiba Yo conceded defeat. Holding his forehead, he waved a hand at Inosuke and stopped correcting him. He felt that if he kept this up any longer, Inosuke would turn his name into something even longer.

Inosuke still didn't understand why everyone was reacting that way.

Afterward, Chiba Yo and Tanjiro left the Butterfly Mansion and headed to the training grounds at the Demon Slayer Corps Headquarters.

"Just demonstrate the forms. I'll observe things like your lung movements and blood flow to determine whether the Hinokami Kagura and Flame Breathing you mentioned are related to the Breathing Style Master Rengoku and I use," Chiba Yo told Tanjiro.

"All right... huh?!" Tanjiro agreed instinctively, then immediately realized something was strange about what Chiba Yo had said.

"Observe my lung movements and blood flow?" Tanjiro looked at Chiba Yo in bewilderment and shock.