“I dunno, I was thinking that being a monkey would be fun, but I’m not really feeling it…”
While Robin was thinking about his next moves, a pair of tourists walked by, one of them a tall, snowy-furred anthropomorphic macaque and the other a chubby tanuki.
“So, just head over to that bathhouse, right? Isn’t that what those two foxes said when we got here?” the tanuki replied as he snacked on a big tray of freshly fried takoyaki. “’Take a bath to wash away the transformation magic’ or something…”
“Good thinking! Yeah, I’ll just try again with something else once I’m back to normal…”
Once the two had turned the corner, Robin began to think that a bath would help him out with his most pressing problem, namely the changes that had occurred to his hand after touching the magical dagger. After all, there was no telling when or even if he’d actually be able to find Kaze, but he certainly could undo the transformation that had already occurred.
As if on cue, he felt an itch on his arm and quietly withdrew his paw from his pocket, spotting more fur beginning to grow up his forearm, soon passing his elbow in its slow climb toward his shoulder.
Not a minute to spare, he decided as he spun on his heel and ran down the nearest alley to take the shortest route to the onsen bathhouse at the edge of the village, keep his eye on the building’s characteristic tall chimney spewing steam into the slowly darkening evening sky.
====================================
When Robin arrived at the bathhouse, there were only a few guests stopping by for a relaxing soak, leaving the luxurious onsen very quiet since it was still fairly early in the evening. The public bath was just as beautifully designed as the rest of the resort, drawing on traditional Japanese architecture combined with modern amenities including a small cafe to enjoy a light meal after a bath, not to mention plenty of other luxurious services including massage, saunas, manicures, and fur styling. While all of the rooms at the inn’s guesthouse had attached baths, it was the sincere hope of the resort managers that their guests would prefer to come down to the public bath whenever possible and enjoy the mineral-enriched hot spring water that trickled out from the mountain’s numerous thermal vents.
Robin quickly headed toward the men's baths as soon as he entered the bathhouse, barely even acknowledging the kitsune working the front counter as he dashed toward the changing rooms. However, on his way past the reception desk he spotted a poster on the wall depicting a drawing of a familiar-looking weasel’s face and asking for any information that might lead to his capture. Finding a locker to stuff his clothes, he wrapped his left hand in a towel before stepping out into the magnificent outdoor bathing area, a series of tiered pools arranged up the side of the mountain, each bath trickling downhill to the next lowest pool. The hottest water was at the top and the coolest at the bottom, letting each bather enjoy the full range of relaxing temperatures comfortably.
But Robin wasn’t particularly interested in relaxing, at least not until he had dealt with the matter of his hand suddenly deciding it didn’t want to be human anymore. As instructed by the onsen’s helpful signposts, he thoroughly rinsed off his body under a cool shower, scrubbing down his body and hair with soap to keep the soaking baths clean, then he began to climb up the wooden steps to one of the higher-up pools for a bit of privacy. Dipping a toe into the perfectly-warmed water, Robin soon slid his entire body underwater and let the slowly moving spring water wash past him.
“Come on, this better have worked…” he mumbled with his face still half-submerged, bubbles streaming from his lips as he gave the ‘magic’ a moment or two to wash away as promised. “...Okay, here’s hoping…”
When Robin lifted his body up out of the water again and looked at his arm, he let out an enormous sigh of relief; the golden fur covering his forearm and hands had already begun to retreat back beneath his skin, and the claws tipping each finger flattened down to look more like human fingernails, though they still retained a sharpened edge and a deep black color.
“Well, at least it seems to be working…” Robin sighed contentedly, grinning as he lay back and let the water stream over him. With his most pressing issue seemingly dealt with, he decided that it wouldn’t hurt to just enjoy himself for a little bit longer. Hell, by the time he was done with his soak, Beau might even have found his way back into town looking for something to eat. “Speaking of which, that tofu smelled amazing…” Robin said aloud, but in the back of his mind he thought it was an odd thing to focus on, since he had never had any strong feelings one way or the other about tofu before.
“Tofu, huh? Never could stand the stuff myself. Gimme a big plate of grilled meat and all the sake I can drink.”
Robin glanced up at the sound of the familiar piping voice and narrowed his eyes suspiciously. Standing over him and crouching down at the edge of the pool to smirk at him was a young man with vaguely Japanese features, smooth auburn hair that lightened to sandy blond near the tips, an extremely slim yet well-built body, and unusually long limbs and extremely narrow shoulders that made him seem much skinnier than he really was. And deep, bright, inky-black eyes that Robin would recognize anywhere.
Oh, and not wearing a stitch of clothing, leaving his crotch hovering just a few inches above Robin’s face and waving back and forth playfully.
“...Kaze, I presume?” Robin replied, averting his gaze from the young man’s privates while also crossing his legs underwater to cover himself up and hide the fact that he had gotten slightly erect having another man’s cock shoved in his face so brazenly.
“Presume all you like, handsome,” Kaze cooed playfully, idly running one of his hands through Robin’s damp hair, only to have his hand slapped away almost immediately. “Oh, you little tease. Playing hard to get after kissing me earlier?”
“You kissed me. I liked you more when you had clothes on, by the way.”
“Oh, so you do know how to talk! I was worried when all you did was stare with your mouth open earlier today,” the weasel-turned-human replied cheerfully, looking up and down his furless arms and body curiously. “I had to take a different form to track you down, as you can see. Not one of my usual tricks, but for some reason I’m a popular guy around town lately. Not a bad look, if I do say so myself…”
Kaze sat himself down at the edge of the bath, conspicuously avoiding entering the water and fussing with a ring on his finger.
“Okay, enough flirting, buddy. Where’s my knife?” he said quietly, his eyes narrowing. “I already searched your clothes in the changing room, and I highly doubt you're hiding it on your body right now.” His eyes flickered up and down Robin’s naked form under the water, a bit frustrated that the rippling water was obscuring so much of the other man’s body from his keen eyes.
“...I hid it. I knew you’d come looking for it, and I’ve got a few questions I wanted answered before I even consider giving you anything,” Robin replied casually. He knew he’d have to remain vigilant when dealing with this thief, who he was starting to suspect was far more dangerous than he let on. “...Why don’t you join me in the bath, Kaze?”
Kaze’s eye twitched slightly and he bit his lip nervously at the offer. “...Maybe in a bit. What kinds of questions do you have?” he said, curious as to what Robin wanted. “Never caught your name, by the way.”
“You usually kiss men without even asking their names, Kaze?” Robin teased, making the disguised weasel’s smooth skin brighten a few shades. “...Robin. Like the bird, you know?”
“Like the famous thief, if you ask me! Robin Hood, right? You and me would make a great team,” Kaze laughed, absentmindedly reaching out to run his hand over Robin’s shoulder. However, as soon as even a single one of Kaze’s fingers dipped into the bathwater, it began to sprout a thick layer of fur and its nail thickened into a razor-sharp claw. Kaze quickly withdrew his hand like he had been burned, forgetting that the waters of the hot spring were known to wash away any transformation magic, including the magic currently disguising the weasel as a human being.
“Funny. But I’m not interested in criminals,” Robin shot back coolly. Kaze quickly responded with a sly wink and a wiggle of his eyebrow that just screamed ‘That’s not what your cock’s saying under the water’, and Robin blushed and once again had to rearrange himself under the bathwater. “...What is that knife? Why were you stealing it?”
“Oh, that’s easy. It’s just a simple family heirloom, passed down in my clan for hundreds of years,” Kaze said quickly. Perhaps too quickly, as though he had rehearsed it dozens of times already. “It was stolen from my dad, and I tracked it down to the antique shop here in town. But the greedy old tanuki runnin’ the place was askin’ a fortune for it, so I just had to steal it, ‘ya know?”
Robin rolled his eyes, annoyed at having to put up with such an obviously fake and transparent attempt to manipulate him. Again. Whatever that dagger really was, it was unlikely it was ‘just a simple heirloom’. It had real power in it, and Kaze was clearly banking on the belief that Robin hadn’t already figured that much out.
“Fine, if that’s how you wanna play, let’s play,” Robin smirked, quickly grabbing Kaze by the hand and pulling him into the bathwater with a heavy splash, and with another quick tug he pulled the suspicious ring off of the magically disguised man's finger. The other man struggled underwater for a few seconds before bursting back out, revealing his true form as an anthropomorphic weasel, with red-brown fur on most of his body and a thick band of cream down his front, his marble-like black eyes glinting angrily.
“Oh, come on!! You totally ruined my disguise, dude!” Kaze sputtered, his fur soaked to the skin. With his long fur sticking to his narrow body, he looked less like a sleek weasel and more like a drowned rat. He struggled to get out of the water, but his slick paws kept slipping on the stone pathways around the pools, and his fur was so heavy and saturated with water that it was a struggle to even lift himself.
“I told you, Kaze. I’m not interested in criminals, and I’m less interested in liars,” Robin replied playfully as he pulled himself out of the water and flashed the ring in front of Kaze's face. “I think I'll hang on to this, if you don't mind? With everyone in Shinden looking for you, I wonder if you’ll even be able to get out of that bath without causing a panic. Goodnight, ‘handsome’. Enjoy a nice long soak!”
As Robin hurried back indoors, however, Kaze’s eyes went wide when he saw the young man’s left arm. The moment it had left the water, it instantly transformed back into a gold-furred, canine paw, with fur covering the entire arm from the tip of his fingers to his shoulder. Not only that, a thin trail of fur began to stretch down Robin’s back toward the base of his spine, hinting at the changes that were sure to come. Kaze shouted out in alarm to get Robin’s attention, but the changing young man was already gone back inside the bathhouse building, and when Kaze tried to summon up his powers over the wind to escape he found that he was too soaked with water to take flight.
“...Well. Can’t say I was expectin’ that,” he murmured to himself as he tried to come up with a backup escape plan. “Hope that my master wasn’t too set on getting that dagger back tonight.”