All Eyes On You: A InoTanZen Story

𝙰𝚌𝚝 𝟷- 𝚃𝚑𝚎 𝙿𝚛𝚎𝚟𝚒𝚎𝚠

The first time Zenitsu saw a circus, he was 5.
His grandfather had taken him to see the Great Magic Smokeshow in London. He still remembers it to this day. The delicate way that the tightrope walkers man the rope. The way the acrobats flipped and twirled, disappearing into flames of gold created by the fire eaters. He loved every moment of it and asked his grandfather if he could join. His grandfather merely smiled and said, "When you find something that you are willing to die for is when you can join the circus." And he tried. He really did. He tried to learn how to do a handstand while falling on his face. He tried to trick himself into "eating fire" but ended up getting scared he was going to get burned. But now he had a chance to actually be a part of a circus. The Slayers of Demons Circus to be exact. He had imagined himself learning how to do walkovers, how to spiral between silks, and finally know how tightrope walkers do all those flips on that small string of a rope. Instead he was cleaning up elephant poop in the backroom.

I can't believe this! Zenitsu thought furiously. I should be learning how to do backflips, not cleaning up elephant shit! Zenitsu had joined the Slayers of Demons Circus about two weeks ago. Every single one of the members of the circus hadn't even known that he had joined the fucking circus for fucks sake, becuase the owner of the circus, Kagaya Ubuyashiki, said, "We don't want them finding about you just yet. We have a very close group. Everybody knows everyone here. A lot of them are very against new people. Just... let's wait until the last performance of the week is over. Then we can tell them. Something about our tightrope walker's performance puts people in a good mood. I don't have an inkling of why that is, but..."

After he had told Zenitsu this he had trailed off for a second. Then he shook his head and told him to avoid most people. He didn't even let him watch them practice! The only thing he had told Zenitsu to do was follow some clean up boy named Murata. Honestly, Murata seemed kind of boring. When Zenitsu had asked what his talent was, he turned his head away and told Zenitsu to clean the portable toilets. Zenitsu had enough of cleaning!

Now he was in the elephant's cage, doing even more cleaning! Ugh! He groaned in frustration while dusting off his black uniform. It was a very comfortable button up jumpsuit. He sighed while he turned to scoop up another pile of elephant shit. This is ridiculous! Why is he doing this? He turned to his companion/boss and was going to ask when he could stop shoveling poop, when he saw Murata shoveling as hard as he could.

"Why the hell are you shoveling so hard!" Zenitsu cried, slightly in shock at how fast he was going. He had never in all his two miserable weeks seen Murata shovel elephant shit that hard. Murata turned to him, his eyes slightly wide. "Do you not know who's performing tonight? Oh wait, sorry, you're new." Zenitsu resisted the urge to strangle his boss. He just had to rub it in Zenitsu's face that he didn't even know the performing schedule.

Zenitsu gritted his teeth and bit out, "The only thing I know is that today's the day that the rest of the circus gets to learn that they've got a new member. And that a tightrope walker is performing." Murata shook his head. "You'll see soon. Also, Master Ubuyashiki said that you get to watch the performance tonight." Zenitsu was seriously about to punch his boss. Instead he went for taking the front of his shirt and shaking him instead. "What's wrong with you!" He yelled. "You have to tell me these things, you moron!" Murata tried to push himself away.

"Stop shaking me! I'm technically your boss, you know! So stop trying to kill me! Let go! Or else we're going to miss his performance!" This made Zenitsu let go of him. Suddenly a sense of urgency came over him. "Well, let's go then!" And he pushed himself away from Murata and nearly ran toward the main performing area. "Hey!" he heard Murata call after him "You don't even know where the wings are!"

Now, looking back, maybe Zenitsu should have listened to him. As Zenitsu ran, he managed to make it to the main entrance of the performance arena. The whole tent was laid out in a maze-like fashion. There were separate rings and cages for different acts and animals. When Zenitsu first came, he had to follow Murata everywhere. He had asked for a map, but Murata simply shrugged and told him he'd get used to it. To which Zenitsu promptly chased him around with a broom. He had spent the past week trying to learn the layout, without getting seen by any of the performers. And that was hard. It was like they were everywhere. He had almost gotten mauled by a white snake and their owner. And then, just yesterday, he had stepped into a random dressing room, trying to clean, when he had seen a boar headed, shirtless, contortionist, who had been "stretching" his back. It looked like he had been folding himself into a pretzel, is what he had been doing! So he had slowly backed out, cautiously trying not to get some of the dust on the carpet.