Samurai Champloo Fan Fiction ❯ Nenju ❯ XXIV. Autumn evening ( Chapter 24 )

[ X - Adult: No readers under 18. Contains Graphic Adult Themes/Extreme violence. ]

Disclaimer: I don’t own Samurai Champloo or any of its affiliated characters, which belong to Manglobe/Shimoigusa Champloos. Neither do I own the haiku of Matsuo Basho (translation by R.H. Blyth, this chapter). Any opinions on religion expressed herein are also not mine, which come part and parcel of the plot, and I think we know how much control I have over that, un?

A/N: Fangirl alert: Obon is the Festival of the Returning Spirits. There’s veneration of family members who have died, red lanterns, dancing — very fun stuff, and takes place in late summer/early autumn.

And much love to FarStrider, who is alpha among beta; all good parts are due to FS, and the suckier sections would be . . . er, me.

Nenju


The ronin’s hands still held hers firmly. Fuu squashed down any thought of leaving it there, no matter how the sensation of his fingers brushing over the inside of her wrists robbed her of her will, and pulled her hand back.

She avoided looking at Jin, as she reached out to Mugen. The way those gray eyes stared straight ahead — “Mugen,” she repeated. “Please. What happened?”

It was a measure of the way the Ryukyuan’s world was tipping on its axis that Mugen did not pull his hands away from hers as he normally did when she tried to tend the wounds he picked up. None of the blood appeared to be his, but there was so much of it; it had begun to dry and flake off of his hands and knees — had he been kneeling in it, she wondered — and his clothes were splashed in crimson going to brown. The worst of it was on his haori, the white cloth stained beyond repair.

She finally registered how very cold his hands felt, and began rubbing them to try and warm him up. He frowned, but allowed it. “Is this his blood?” she asked.

“Yeah,” Mugen told her distantly. “The place is a mess, they must’ve gone through everything after . . . “

Jin spoke at last. ”How long ago?”

Mugen shook his head. “He was still warm. Not long.”

“But why?” Fuu asked. “Bundai was a teacher, he wasn’t a Christian. I don’t think he helped them or anything. Why did he die?”

“Me.” Mugen tugged his hands away finally, knotted them together as he rested his elbows on his knees. “He knew me.”

“Mugen — “ She looked at him, appalled, as the realization that he was right sank in.

“I see. They’re tying up loose ends,” Jin said. “It’s dangerous to know us now.”

The Ryukyuan nodded, dull eyes sparking with anger. “Bastards.” His voice was bitter.

Jin stood, and they turned their heads toward him. “Come on,” the ronin said. “He was your teacher. We shouldn’t leave him to the crows.”

Mugen paused, and gave him an unreadable look before getting to his feet. “Thanks.” Fuu was immediately behind him, her thin shoulders squared in determination. “You’re not coming along,” the Ryukyuan told her. “I don’t want you anywhere near there.”

“He’s right.” Jin came to stand next to her, his hand coming up to the small of her back as he steered her toward the hallway; she wanted to glare at him — what was she supposed to be, eleven? — but the feel of that seductive hand stilled her tongue. “You’ll be safer here.”

“I don’t think the twins — “

”Doubt the ones who did that to Bundai are going to be a problem again tonight,” Mugen rasped. “But you don’t need to see him like that.”

From the way he looked at her, she knew he meant that he needed her not to see it. There was no possible way to argue with that, so she nodded once and let Jin guide her away from the other man, toward her room and her comfortable futon.

“I believe he’s right,” the ronin told her, as they stopped outside her door. “But I’ll tell Tatsunoshin and Kazunosuke before we leave.” He slid the fusuma open and looked inside, seeing nothing but the roll of bedding tucked neatly against the wall.

“Do you really think they could stop the people who did that?”

Jin grunted, sounding unhappy to her ears. “The twins’d slow them down long enough,” he said. “But they’re not foolish. They won’t come here tonight.”

Fuu looked at him, her eyes full of questions.

“After we bury his teacher, Mugen will be the last person they would want to see.” Hesitantly, his hand came up to tuck loose hair behind her ear. “Try to sleep. I’ll come to wake you when we’re back.”
“Take care of him,” she said.

“Ah.” He slid the door shut behind her, his footsteps receding down the hall before she heard the low murmur of his voice as he found the Niwa brothers.


Even the room seemed colder, somehow.

Worry was a foreign expression to the twins’ broad faces, stamped there oddly as they sat in the warm glow cast by the lantern. Their cheerful evening meal seemed as if it had been months ago — had she really rapped that solemn man’s knuckles with her chopsticks as he stole melon from her plate? — in a different room, a different lifetime.

“But wouldn’t it be safer for you to stay here?” Tatsunoshin asked again. “Kazu and I aren’t — but at least you wouldn’t need to worry about being out in the open. You could be attacked from any direction out there.”

“Maybe we don’t fight like either of you, but we could still do something,” Kazunosuke offered, scratching the bridge of his nose. “We’re good at hiding, we learned that when we first started tagging.”

“No.” Jin’s hands rested lightly on his knees, faint dark smudges of weariness under his eyes the only sign Fuu could see that the ronin hadn’t just come from a morning bath after a full night’s sleep. “It will be safer to leave. And you must leave here, as well. Go back to Edo — you should be all right there. Bundai’s death tells us that the shogun’s men consider those who help us to be a danger.”

Mugen grunted. “Need to get some distance between us and them,” he said. “I don’t like it, but it’s the smart thing to do.” She’d only been able to get him to change his haori for an old one, worn and soft, that she’d got from Tatsunoshin; he’d refused to wash his face or his hands after they’d returned, and dried blood still clung to the red gi. His eyes were hard and fierce.

Fuu covered her mouth, as a yawn of sheer tiredness threatened to burst out; the effort left her eyes watering. “Do we need to leave tonight?” she asked.

“Yeah.” Mugen’s eyes slid over to her. “Sooner we’re on the road, the better off we’ll be.”

“But if we leave now, it’d be easy to see us — “ she stopped.

“You have an idea?” Jin looked down at his hands, listening.

“Tomorrow is Obon. If we waited a little, we could probably slip out through the crowd without anyone seeing,” she said. “How likely would it be that they’d attack while we were in the middle of a lot of people?”

The twins exchanged looks with her, as the two older men thought it over. Finally, Jin’s eyes came up to meet Mugen’s. “I’d hoped we would leave before it began, but . . . “

“Yeah,” the Ryukyuan said, nodding. “‘S a good idea.”

“Good.” Fuu allowed the yawn out at last, covering her mouth with her hand.


It was a terrible idea.

Yatsuha sat, her fingers busily picking at the already frayed edge of her sleeve as she waited; on some distant level, she registered that the night sky was tipped in dark pink toward the east and the morning birds were beginning to sing. It was pleasant, and normally would have been a small reward for staying up all night. Though . . . the sun should have risen in the west today, if only to mark the completely unnatural nature of this particular morning.

What was her father doing here?

The han had given them the use of a small barracks for the time being; the building smelled faintly of weapon oil and horses, but showed signs of a recent thorough cleaning. She had the sardonic thought that it would never do to put a member of the shogun’s personal guard in a dirty stable, particularly when the han had been lazy about keeping their Christians and other dissidents under control.

The building was nice enough, however. Its only drawback was that it was difficult to hear what was being said in the next room, where Hankichi was giving her father his report — she’d be able to hear if she sat next to the common wall between the two rooms. Knowing that, she stayed where she was; she’d be finding out soon enough.

The door slid open, and Hankichi came out. “He’s waiting for you,” he said only, his eyes not meeting hers. She nodded and took a breath to calm herself.

Her father was sealing a message as she stopped in front of him. “Please,” he told her, gesturing for her to sit as he affixed the wax seal to the paper.

In appearance, Jinpachi was the unlikeliest ninja ever to serve the shogun; she’d always thought he looked like a scribe, or a monk from some prosperous temple. His face was round and good-natured, the top of his head brown and hairless as a bird’s egg over a squat body. He encouraged the impression of pudginess by favoring extra layers of clothing, but the small potbelly that protruded in front was real.
He was also the best ninja she’d ever encountered in her life.

She sat, arranging herself neatly as he finished and looked up. “Yatsuha,” he said, and smiled.

“Hello, Daddy.”

“Hankichi’s been telling me you’re doing a horrible job.” His eyes twinkled at her.

“He’s right.”

“Hn.” Jinpachi tilted his head. “Can’t be too bad. You still know where they are, and you haven’t been compromised — of course, it’s not possible to compromise yourselves any further, as the foreign man knew who you were from the beginning.”

“What are you doing here?”

Something shifted behind his mild brown eyes. “Things have developed,” he said. “It’s become necessary to become more involved.”

“You’re not telling me something. Aren’t you the one who always told me never to act without finding out everything possible?”

Jinpachi leaned back, folding his hands over his belly. “We’ve known for some time now that the Christians in this area are . . . different from the ones in the rest of the country: more militant, better organized. Not to the extent of the ones in Nagasaki yet, but in a few years they’ll be close. It’s become increasingly difficult to keep track of them without the help of informants.”

“You didn’t tell us any of this,” Yatsuha said. “Why? Informants could have been useful — ”

He shook his head. “At the time, we had no idea that the girl and her — bodyguards? Companions? You know more than I do about that — would come into contact with the Christians. Not just any Christians, either, but ones who survived Shimabara and Ikitsuki. Ones who were important to us as a long-term resource.”

“That’s how you’ve known where to have the fumi-e.”

“Of course. Though it was completely disrupted a couple years ago, by a man pretending to be the grandson of one of the foreign monks; he managed to persuade some of the Christians to make him their leader, and cultivated a nice little business making guns by using them as labor. We were about a day away from his temple when we found that the girl and the two men had managed not only to severely injure him — we were able to capture him easily after that — but to break up the operation as well.” He chuckled. “Really, if there wasn’t the need to take care of the problem they’ve become, I’d be more than willing to have those men working for me. The Hand of God wanted the ronin for a while, did I ever tell you that? Before he killed Kariya’s blind assassin — after that, Kariya was more interested in killing the ronin.”

Yatsuha rose from the floor and went to the window, where the sunrise had become a tide of red and copper across the sky. She rubbed her eyes, succeeding only in driving the tiredness back for a moment before looking at him. “What if they left the country and never came back?” she asked. “Wouldn’t that take care of the problem?”

He was silent a moment, then: “That would only be a temporary solution. The girl isn’t a current problem, remember. She only has the potential to become one. Once she’s dead, she’s not a focus for the Christians any more, no matter what they think to do with her belongings. Or her bones.”

“Of course.” She turned away. “We must do what has to be done. It just seems so — dishonorable, somehow, after Osaka.”

“Ah, honor,” he said, not unkindly. “We’re ninja, Yatsuha: not samurai. Honor is not something we can afford. We are the shogun’s loyal dogs, no more than that.”

She nodded.

“Ironic, I suppose.”

“Mm?”

“The three of them put an end to the false European’s plans to use the Christians to produce guns — if things had gone differently, it might very well have been Kasumi with the weapons and the people, and we’d be defending Edo.” Jinpachi shook his head. “Well, no use thinking of what ifs, especially when the gods have seen fit to make our lives easier with what is. I’d like to hear your report, now that I’ve heard Hankichi’s — and feel free to explain why you have those dark circles under your eyes, because your mother will be asking.”

“Dad!”

“You doubt she will?” His cheerful eyes went to the door, where a footman, younger even than she was, stood awkwardly. “Just a moment, Yatsuha. What is it?” Jinpachi asked.

“The Christian informant, sir — you asked to be told. He’s just come in.”

“Ah, so I did. Bring him here, please.” The footman nodded and left. Jinpachi gave her an apologetic look. “As much as I’d like to hear what you have to say, this must come first.”

“I know. Should I come back after you’ve finished?”

“No, stay. Please.” He gestured to the tatami at his side. “He might be a help to you.”
The footman brought in an unprepossessing, middle-aged man; the man seemed flabby, and she wasn’t fond of the way his wet-looking mouth was bracketed by self-indulgent lines. This . . . was the informant? He looked more like a man prone to bullying, if anything, she thought. Seeing her, the man leered in her direction and she rolled her eyes. The footman stood unobtrusively behind Jinpachi when her father nodded at him.

“You are called Erasmus?” Jinpachi asked.

“Used to be. Daigoro now.”

Yatsuha raised her eyebrows and hid a smile. Her father could be impressed — however, that was not the way to do it.

“I see.” The ninja tucked his hands into his sleeves. “I understand you have a good knowledge of the Christians of this area.”

“Better than anyone else’s,” the man said, leaning toward him. “I came here after Ikitsuki with my mother and brother.”

“How nice,” Jinpachi deadpanned. “I was there myself: not quite the same way, I think. There was a girl passing through here days ago whose father was at Ikitsuki too. Did you meet her?”

“She was in my house. Pretty little thing, but she had some ronin with her and he wasn’t inclined to share.”

“Mm. What was she doing here?”

“On her way somewhere. Ronin wasn’t much for talking. Mostly she asked about a girl named Yuri, who was at Ikitsuki too.”

“She didn’t say where they were going?”

“No.”

“And this Yuri, is she nearby?”

Daigoro laughed. “She failed to step on one of the fumi-e. Stupid girl.” He gave Jinpachi what was meant to be a conspiratorial look.

“One more question about the girl. I suppose she didn’t say whether she was meeting someone when they reached wherever it was that they were going?”

The man shook his head.

“Ah. Well, that was informative.” Jinpachi squinted, thinking. “Tell me, what do you see in the sky?”

Daigoro’s forehead furrowed, but he went to the window. “ . . . nothing?”

The ninja’s hand came up to pinch at the bridge of his nose. “Perhaps this would make it easier — is the moon still out?”

“No, it’s morning. The sun’s up, of course,” Daigoro offered.

“Of course. And yet you came here anyway,” Jinpachi said. “Idiot. No wonder the false European got as far as he did without our knowing about it. You, footman. Do you have a name?”

“Hiro, sir.”

“Very good. Take him outside and kill him, please, and then I’ll need you to take a message to the han when you’ve finished that.”

Yatsuha sighed as the footman led the man, his mouth open, out. “Was that really necessary?”

“The intelligence coming from this province has been unreliable at best, and anyone foolish enough to come here in daylight is worthless to us,” he told her. “Although there was something interesting — but let me think about that. Now, be a good girl and find me some decent ink, please? I swear, they could have squeezed better from manure than this horse piss they’ve given me.”


By the time Fuu woke, the sun was up high enough to cast diffuse golden warmth through the shoji screen. She stretched lazily. The house was slowly waking up around her; she could hear Kazunosuke grumbling as he padded past her door on his way outside, and the clatter of teacups being taken down from their shelf in the kitchen.

It was warm and comfortable in the Fuu-shaped cave she’d made with the bedding, and she closed her eyes again. There wasn’t any greater luxury that she wanted in life at the moment than to be allowed to doze like this, with the distinct possibility that there would be a bath after she decided to get up and miso to follow, she decided. Whenever she got to wherever she was going, this would be the way she’d start her morning if at all possible.

Wherever she was going . . . she pulled the coverlet up over her head. It’d be nice to figure out where that was, exactly, and it would be even nicer if she could figure out the manner in which she wanted the two men to accompany her. Fuu groaned.

Idly, she wondered what it would be like to wake up next to each of them — they’d slept in the same room at least a hundred times, over the past few years, but the act of waking next to another person . . . in a way, waking next to either of them would be more intimate than anything that would go before. Waking next to either of them would mean she’d chosen one over the other. Everything would change; that was the problem.

It wasn’t that she felt afraid, Fuu thought — neither Mugen nor Jin would ever hurt her, she knew that. She was shrewd enough to know it would be nothing like what had happened in the sunflower field; if anything, it probably wouldn’t be any different than the men in the brothel, and even that hadn’t bothered her much after a while. It would be better, too, if it was one of them — it would be over quickly, and it would make him happy, and that was always a good thing, right? Right. If it meant she could keep one of them with her, she could manage that.

She was strong enough for that.

Besides, the kissing . . . she liked the kissing, the kissing was very good. It hadn’t been what she’d expected, either time; Mugen had been surprisingly gentle, and Jin . . . Jin had been almost wild. She would have expected it to have been the reverse, from what she knew of them.

She wondered what else there was about them that she didn’t know.

A sharp rap sounded at the door. “You up?” Mugen called, before she heard she sound of the door sliding open. “I don’t hear — Fuu, what’re you doing?”

“Um. Sleeping?” She pulled the coverlet down from her face, painfully conscious of the birds’ nest her hair had become, and how there was probably that gross crusty stuff in the corners of her eyes —

— and how he was still wearing the same bloodied clothes as yesterday.

She sat up. “Mugen.”

“What?”

“Come here, all right?” Fuu used the you-owe-me-for-saving-you-in-Edo tone. He shrugged and walked into the room, leaving the door open behind him as he came to stand by the side of the futon; she could hear the brothers bickering in the kitchen, now. “Sit.”

“What?”

“Just sit down, willya?” She patted the edge of the coverlet.

Slowly, Mugen sat down, his eyes wary. He looked almost the way he had when he’d come back after Mukuro —

She put her arms around him and he froze.

Then: “Fuu?”

“What?” She rubbed his back.

“What are — what the fuck are you doing?” He sounded startled; well, that was an improvement over zombie Mugen, she thought. “Thought this — “

”Shut up. This is different,” she told him. “I don’t like worrying about you.”

“What’re you worried about? Nothing wrong with me. Unless this turns me into some kind of woman.” He held himself stiffly, the muscles tight under her hands. She began scratching his back gently.

“Shh. You still have blood on your face.”

“Didn’t wash yet.”

“You’re going to?”

Mugen paused a long moment, then said, “Yes.”

“Good.” Fuu patted his back; he was beginning to relax, a little. “You’re coming to Nagasaki with me, all right? You promised.”

“Yeah. Enough already.”

There was a discreet cough at the door, and Mugen stiffened once again. She looked up to see Jin standing just outside the door, raising an eyebrow at her. She gave him a meaningful look and flicked a sidelong glance toward the edge of the futon. The corner of the ronin’s mouth quirked, but he obeyed.

Mugen tugged away from her and scuffed his hands down the front of his haori. “Don’t go thinking I’m gonna be all girly and shit,” he warned. “‘Cause I ain’t.” He carefully looked away from Jin as he stalked out, finger stuck in his ear and rooting furiously.

“Mm.” Fuu pulled the cover up, tucking it under her arms. “He looked so lost.”

“I know. It will be good for him to leave here — it helps to have something to do.” Jin gave her a little smile and reached forward to smooth her hair.

“What — “ Pillow hair, she remembered. Oh, no. “You’re not supposed to see me like this,” she told him.

Jin cocked his head to the side, that silky black hair whispering neatly — and unfairly, she thought to herself. Did the man ever have a tangle in that glorious hair?— over his back. “‘This’?”

“You know. Before I, uh, look better,” she said; somehow, it seemed inappropriate to ask whether or not she’d been drooling in her sleep, and if it had left any visible sign, with him.

“Ah,” he said. “I fail to see how . . . but perhaps you should dress.”

Fuu nodded. “I’ll meet you outside in a little while.”

“Hn.” Jin closed the door behind him as he went out, and she kicked the coverlet off. She needed to rinse her mouth out in the worst way —

“Oh,” she said, and smiled.