Samurai Champloo Fan Fiction ❯ Nenju ❯ IV. The sea darkens; ( Chapter 4 )

[ 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, but if they ever have an anime garage sale, I am so totally there. Special thanks to ADSV, whose reviews are like crack for writers; many thanks are also due to MT Pocket, Tiger, Vylest and everyone who’s been kind enough to R&R. You’ve turned me into a review ho, kids! Seriously, I’m delighted and humbled that people actually are reading my stuff; you’re all much too good to me.


Nenju

Mugen was giving her a headache, what with the shouting.

“Oh, hell no! This has to be the stupidest idea, ever — you want to go back there? Do you remember what happened the last time we were there?”

She bit off the retort she had been thinking of making — yeah, you almost got killed, and you were rude, so of course! Oh, wait, you did that everywhere. “We stayed there for free and he fed us. You’re right, what am I thinking?”

“That’s not what I meant!”

“What is your problem? It’s not that far. It was twice as far when we went to Nagasaki.”

“He made me meditate!”

“That’s it? You don’t want to go because you think he’s going to make you sit quietly?”

“The guy was a complete asshole. He couldn’t even answer a simple question!”

Her hand came up to rub at the bridge of her nose. “Fine. I am going to see Father Zuikou. If you don’t want to come to Motomachi, you don’t have to,” she said wearily, and started walking again.

She heard him grunt to himself, before he walked past her . . . toward Motomachi. “I’m going that way anyway,” he told her, his hands laced together nonchalantly behind his head. “So don’t think I’m doing this because it’s a good idea. Because it isn’t.”

Behind them, Jin snorted in derision. She hid a grin as Mugen pointedly ignored them both.

...

Dammit.

Mugen couldn’t figure it out. Why Motomachi? It was a couple of weeks away, maybe a little less than two if they really pushed it. He could have seen it — maybe — if Shoryuu had been alive and willing to help them; not that he was either, anymore, but the killer had been strong, maybe strong enough to fight the government’s dogs. The only other person they knew in Motomachi was that monk, a bujutsu master once, but now? Living at a temple was entirely different from being on the run from the shogun’s men.

Dammit. What was she thinking? He frowned and rubbed his chin, trying to remember her at the temple. She’d mended a little bit of screen, she’d talked to some of the locals, she’d done some meditation, and he knew she’d talked to the monk. About what, he had no idea; he’d been busy getting ready for the fight with Shoryuu. He could ask . . . but he didn’t really think she’d tell him.

He glanced down at the subject of his thoughts, walking alongside him giving every indication of great interest in the landscape around her. It was green, he’d give it that. Not quite like Ryukyu, which was warm and lush and his gold standard for beauty, but okay for all that; for one thing, there was more to eat. His eye automatically began to tally the available sources of food. There were a number of rivers and lakes for those oddly bony freshwater fish, and it was fairly common for them to come across wild fruit trees on their journey. The last time he’d eaten plums had been with Jin and Fuu, just outside Saga — ah. He could hear Fuu’s stomach complaining. He’d eaten most of the dumplings in Kasumi, so he wasn’t too badly off, and he thought the ronin had eaten some fish before they’d gone into town, but he had no idea of the last time she’d eaten. She looked a little thin, anyway, not that he noticed. Much. Certainly not the little hollow under her collarbone, anyway.

There was one of those fruit trees; a pear, this time. Not his favorite, but better than nothing, and he never passed up any chance at a meal if he could help it. Mugen drew the longsword from its scabbard fluidly and cut breakfast down for himself; and extra, for Fuu. She gaped at him in surprise as she took the pear, and he felt — slightly — a little prickle at the back of his mind. Why would she be surprised? “Eat something,” he told her gruffly. “I’m not carrying your ass all the way to Motomachi if you faint.”

She gave him a funny look, then softened. “You too,” she told him.

He bit into the fruit. “Have to get my ass there somehow,” he said, giving her a snarky grin through half-chewed pear.

She snickered quietly at the idea of carrying him almost all the way to the Hakone checkpoint, then took a bite, still smiling as she looked up at him. “That was really nice of you, Mugen. Thank you.”

Unnoticed by Fuu, the ronin gave him a sour glance, and picked a pear for himself.

Mugen’s eyes narrowed, and he smiled to himself. Enemies, comrades, friends; it was still sort of fun to yank the other man’s chain, as long as he was the one doing the yanking. And it was almost as good as the look she’d just given him, which was . . . a big fat so what, and why did he care? This was why he liked whores — there wasn’t any need to think about shit like looks that made you want to roll over like a puppy. Meh. Women. Wouldn’t hurt to make sure she ate, though. She still wasn’t into food like she had been, for some reason, which he added to his list of Things to Figure Out.

Either way, he could tell that the ronin was so jealous, he was about to eat his own liver. Heh. Maybe he could kill two birds with one stone.

The first time he did it, they had stopped for the evening to set up camp. They’d been trying to avoid towns as much as possible, at least until they got far enough away from Kasumi to make tracing them difficult. Jin and Fuu were occupied in building a fire, so he slipped off to a likely looking pond he’d noticed on their way there; he’d always been good at fishing, so it didn’t take him long to catch enough for all three of them, and thread them onto a young bamboo shoot. Fuu was telling the other man the story of what had happened to that pet furball of hers — Nono? Bobo? — but broke off when she spotted him. “Mugen! Where — “ He held up the string of fish, and some sticks he’d found to cook them on.

“You hungry?” he asked, nonchalantly.

He grinned as the ronin sent a particularly evil glare his way. Heh. Whether it was for the shining look she gave him, or for reminding the other man of the time he’d nearly been killed by a woman, it was still priceless. He stretched out on the ground alongside the other man, watching the girl spit the fish onto the sticks and arrange them around the fire.

Fuu continued to chatter happily as the fish cooked, darting these little pleased glances at him, which were . . . nice. Huh. Mugen scratched his head contemplatively. He could be responsible for catching their food, he thought. It would make her happy, which he didn’t care about. Right? Right.

...

The plan worked until he got sick of fish.

...

“AAAAAAAAAAH!” Really, she had the loudest scream he had ever heard. Jin looked up for a moment, then went back to his katana and rice paper.

“What the hell is wrong with you, woman?” Confused, Mugen dropped his neatly trussed burden to the ground, Fuu’s eyes following.

“How could you — what were you thinking — I can’t eat that!”

He stared at her in disbelief. What the hell was wrong with her? It wasn’t as if he was asking her to kill and clean the damn thing. “Why not?”

Dinner looked up at them with wide adorable eyes, fluffy little cotton tail twitching.

She looked up at him furiously. “I’m surprised you didn’t try catching a squirrel!”

Well, he had, but —

Maybe not the best time to tell her that.

Instead, he tried to reason with her.

Sort of.

...

“Bitch!”

“Idiot!” ;

...

“Whiner!”

“You jackass!”

...

She stalked off in the direction of the river.

“Hey! Where do you think you’re going?”

“I,” she bit out, “am going fishing.”

“I’m cooking the damn thing anyway,” he called after her retreating form. She ignored him, still grumbling to herself.

Jin continued to polish the blade of his katana silently, corner of his mouth twitching once.

Behind him, Mugen growled. “Shut up.”

...

Dinner was, for the most part, a quiet affair.
...

“Your vermin is actually quite good.”

“Shut up.”

...

“I’m not talking to either of you. Bunny killers.”

“Hn?”

...

She waited until the next day, until Jin had excused himself tactfully to make use of the privacy of the forest, and she and Mugen were alone.

“Mugen,” she began hesitantly.

He cocked an eyebrow, an expression he’d stolen blatantly from the ronin and found to be quite useful; it could mean Oh yes? or Free crab thingies? or The yakuza in this town like to carry lots of cash on them, you say? or an infinity of other and equally delightful meanings. He’d also noticed it was handy to pry information out of other people, who for the most part were uncomfortable with silence and would try to fill the conversational vacuum by talking more. It worked especially well on Fuu, not that he generally needed to encourage her to talk, but sometimes the background of her voice was pleasant. Kind of, he amended.

“I was wondering — that is, I remembered that, uh, I wanted to —“

Not about last night, then; she’d have come straight out with it, he realized. He waited patiently as she sputtered.

Gaaaah. Had she realized just how mortifying it would be to ask him, she would have waited until she’d have an opportunity to ply Jin with sake until he fell over — actually, maybe it would have been a better idea if she’d drunk the sake, and then she wouldn’t have cared, although sake made her face as flushed as she could feel it becoming — oh, great. Try not to think of embarrassing things, Fuu, she told herself. Momo. Yes! Remember when she bit that pervert? Right before you nailed him with that vase? Ah. Maybe not so much ‘nailed’, as — is he looking at my chest? She eeped to herself and crossed her arms tightly.
”What?” Fascinated, he watched. She was blushing furiously as they walked, a crimson wash spilling down over her face and her collarbone, down, down, past the edge of the silk. Just how far down did she blush, he wondered, then cursed himself and tried to think of other things. His sword needed sharpening, he’d have to borrow Jin’s whetstone and the ronin always complained about the condition he returned it in — ah, that was better. No scaring the girl. Although —

She took a deep breath and tried to concentrate on embarrassment number one. “I owe you some money.”

“Money?” he asked, mystified. When had he given — oh. Right. “Forget about it,” he said awkwardly.

“No, I — ah, I was thinking. When we get to the next town, I want to change this kimono for something a little less noticeable,” she explained. “I thought I could probably find someone who would buy it, then I could buy another kimono as a replacement and still have a little left over.”And then, she added mentally, I could buy some cloth for bindings so I’m not bouncing all over the place in front of the two of you. “Then I thought about why you spent your money in the first place.”

He rubbed a hand through his hair, confused but unwilling to show it. “Mm?”

“I never told you thank you.”

Ah. Her blush was subsiding a little, the skin at the vee of her kimono becoming pale again. There was still a faint shadow there, a crease in the skin — his eyes narrowed thoughtfully. Her arms were still crossed and she was slouching. Hm. Save that thought for later. “Yeah, well, don’t mention it.”

“No, really. Thank you. It was — I didn’t want to be there.”

He nodded and shrugged, mind working. Now that she’d brought it up —

“And I want to pay you back, really,” she said. “How, ah —“

”How much were you?”

She nodded incoherently, and tried to will herself to sink into the ground before Jin came back to find them discussing prostitute pricing, or to hurry Mugen along. Or, barring either of those two options, to will the ground to open and swallow her whole.

He scratched an ear. “Nine monme.”

Finally! That wasn’t that bad, she could probably come up with that much at some point in time —
“— which is very low, actually.”

— except, of course, for the fact that it was a different sort of bad. “Oh, um, is it?” she said, feigning complete ignorance. “Huh. Stupid brothel, it figures that they’d mess up like that. But if I sell the furisode, it should go a long way toward — ”

He gave her his how-stupid-do-you-think-I-am look and ignored her attempt to distract him. “Very low,” he repeated. “For a girl’s first.”
Crap. She had forgotten she was talking to the man who could have been known as the Brothel Tour Map. The tiny, logical portion of her brain that wasn’t busy screaming Eeee! in panic was unhelpfully telling her We need to come up with something, fast! which she knew already. She missed what he said next as her mind whirled, only catching the timbre of his voice. “Mm?”

“So, was it there?”

“What?” she said, automatically, thoughts skittering through her head in no order whatsoever. Maybe she could convince him that she’d lied to the madam to make her think she really wasn’t, except for the fact that it was so illogical that he’d see through it immediately; damn logic.

“Your first. Was it at the whorehouse back in Kasumi?”

“None of your business.”

He frowned. “It was before that?”

“Would you just drop it? I don’t want to talk about it. Ever.” Her face was flushed again, and her mouth set in that stubborn line with which he was so familiar.

“When would — it was that asshole in Kyoto, wasn’t it?” he demanded.

“I said, I don’t want to— “

”What is in Kyoto?” A different voice broke in. She closed her eyes. Oh, no. No.

“Nothing is in Kyoto,” she told them shortly. “If you don’t mind.” She held the sleeves of the furisode carefully so as not to snag the silk on the underbrush and walked off under the trees.

Frustrated, Mugen looked after her until they could no longer see the watercolor glimmer of silk, then turned away to see Jin’s eyes on him.

“Kyoto?” the ronin repeated.

“Somehow, we got to get to Kyoto.” Mugen glared at the ground. “We’re going to find that bastard, and I’m going to cut his head off.”

“What — ?”

“There was,” Mugen paused for emphasis, “a guy in Kyoto. A guy.”

“And you believe he needs killing?”

“The woman at the whorehouse charged me nine monme for her.”
They walked in silence for a moment, before Mugen glanced out of the corner of his eye at the other man. The ronin’s face was calm, but the knuckles of the hand gripping the hilt of his katana were whiter than Fuji-san’s snow.

For once, Jin was the one to break the silence. “I see,” he said evenly. “Tell me, though, why you will be the one to kill him.”

“Because you’d do it quick.”

“Hn.” From his tone, Mugen took the meaning that the other man thought this debatable, but wasn’t going to press the issue right now. “Kyoto, then.”