Samurai Champloo Fan Fiction ❯ Nenju ❯ IX. To the moon beholders ( Chapter 9 )

[ 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).

A/N: My apologies for the lateness, guys — the flu is not 3Jane’s friend.

Nenju


It was easier to remember it in the detail he wanted, if he closed his eyes.

He wasn’t much for kissing, normally; brothel girls just wouldn’t do it. That was fine with him — if he wanted a woman’s mouth, he had something different in mind than a kiss. When was the last time before this he’d kissed anyone? Not the girl in Osaka, she’d nailed him a solid one in the nuts when he’d tried, and he couldn’t remember many since Kohza. She’d given him his first kiss, back on the island . . . Mugen put all thoughts of that treacherous bitch out of mind.

Fuu was no Kohza, though.

Little idiot — she’d had no idea of the panic he’d felt. His mouth had gone dry when he’d woken to see that the space where she’d been lying was empty, and that neither he nor Jin had wakened when she’d gone — whether by the shogun’s men plucking her out of the temple grounds or not. It was adrenaline that rolled him fluidly up, weapon in hand, and out toward town; he’d figured that if the bastards had come for her, they’d be heading in the direction of Edo.

He wouldn’t have been able to say exactly why he hadn’t woken the ronin. It was quicker not to, yes, but Jin slept as lightly as he did and woke with his mind as unclouded by sleep as if he’d been up for hours; it would have been a matter of “Oi, fish face,” as he went down the steps, and there would have been a second sword in case there were more men than he could manage on his own. It was — well, he just hadn’t.

Mugen hadn’t been running long before he’d come to the bridge and seen her on it, looking down into the water like the answers to every question she’d ever had were flowing by underneath. He’d stepped onto the wood planks, deliberately letting his geta clatter noisily against them to warn her of his presence; she’d looked up at him like she’d known he was there, even without him speaking. He had, anyway, especially after what they’d overheard. He wanted to control the silence between them, make things almost like they had been, make her what she was before he failed her. He knew it wouldn’t work, but pretending went a long way, sometimes almost far enough.

She’d said she couldn’t sleep, so he’d scolded her as much as he’d had the heart to, which wasn’t much. She looked so lost; more lost than he had ever seen her, so he’d seized on her shivering as a way to pull her close and comfort her.

And then Fuu had put her arm around his waist — the sudden pressure of hip and breast against his body had almost undone him, coming from her. She’d looked at him with such trust that he’d wanted to howl; not him, how could she trust him, it was his fault that Satsuma fucker hurt her — and in the end, the part of him that wanted to show her how stupid it was to trust him found it easy to talk the part of him that wanted to touch her but knew it shouldn’t into doing just that. With her hand on his hip, it had been even easier.

Her mouth had been soft and hot under his, and her skin in its smoothness made a mockery of silk, his fingers sliding downdown — he could feel the fluttering of her heart under his hand, poor bird, as the weight of her breast filled his palm with hunger. He moaned against her mouth, frustrated, as her fingers slipped into his hair and tightened — and when she’d moved against him, her thigh sliding over his through the cotton of her kimono, he’d been scant moments away from taking her right there on the path, passersby be damned. It was her goddamned trust in him that pushed him away, in the end. Not Fuu, not like that — he told himself that it had been too long since he’d had a woman, that was all. He would have reacted the same way to any other woman who touched him, and it was staying at that stupid temple that was doing it to him; it was the idea that anyone would choose to give up physical solace that made him think about it continuously, nothing more.

He could almost even convince himself he hadn’t said her name as he finished himself in the bathhouse.

They were quiet, each of them lost in their own thoughts, as they neared the town.

“You!”

Aw, man —

A very angry-looking brothel owner was standing in front of Jin, when Mugen looked back.

He groaned inwardly, pushing Fuu behind him, only partially registering her indignant squawk. Fuck. The man had to be one of the first people they saw in Hamatatsu, didn’t he? Just once, he’d like to go through a town without having to kill anything more dangerous than a bottle of sake. Garden variety idiots like this were so boring.

“You’re the samurai who helped the girl to escape,” the man, apparently still holding a grudge, said furiously to Jin, who looked at him with polite interest. “Do you know how much money she cost me — and how many men you killed?” He’d hired more, by the looks of the men who were coming out into the street, drawn by the sound of the angry voice. Mugen counted six, seven — ah, a fair fight then; he let his sword drop back into its scabbard.

Fuu pushed at his back. “You aren’t going to help him?” she demanded. “There’s six of them!”

He gave her a curious look. She’d seen the ronin fight before, and still thought he needed help? Huh. “Pretty sure there’s seven, and no,” he told her. “He doesn’t need it.” He crossed his arms over his chest, settling in to wait, until the brothel owner spotted him.

“Him in the red, too,” the man declared, pointing at him. “He was with him last time, too!” A couple of the men drew back from the group surrounding Jin, advancing on Mugen with their swords drawn.

The ronin said something to the angry man that Mugen didn’t quite catch — probably spouting some crap about shogi, knowing him — as he bumped her back. “I want you to stay out of this,” he told her. She glared at him, but moved away from the men, further behind him. Assured she was safe, he turned his attention to them and frowned. He only rated two? Clearly there was some confusion here.

“Oi, fish face,” he called.

“Hn?” The other men were circling Jin, swords drawn —

“Didn’t you learn your numbers in that stupid-ass dojo of yours?”

There was an indignant snort from the center of the larger group of thugs. “Of course.”

“Then how come you get five and I get two?”

He heard a cough that sounded suspiciously like it had started life as a laugh. “You aren’t counting the owner?”

“Hah. Six and two? More like five and a half and two.”

“That seems high.”

“Fine. Five and a third, then.” The thugs were beginning to look at each other uneasily, as the brothel owner’s face turned more apoplectic by the minute.

There was a pause. “Bundai taught you arithmetic as well?”

“Yeah. Easier than reading, turns out.”

“Hn.”

Fuu’s annoyed voice broke into their conversation. “Mou, will you two hurry up? My feet are tired.”

“Just saying,” Mugen grumbled. Women.

“Perhaps you should ask them?” the ronin remarked.

Mugen eyed his pair of thugs, who looked discomfited; the people they went out to beat up were normally more concerned with “Not my arm! Not my arm!” than with inequities in thug delegation. “They don’t look real bright,” he conceded. On the other hand, he thought, there wasn’t as much room between buildings as he would have liked, Jin might be quicker — “Tell you what. When I get done with these two, we’ll split whatever’s left.”

“Fine, but I’m not waiting for you,” Jin said.

The brothel owner had reached his boiling point. “Will one of you idiots just kill them?” he screamed.

The braver of Mugen’s two thugs stepped forward; from the corner of his eye he saw another draw his sword, advancing on Jin — “You want to help your friend?” the braver thug sneered. “You’re gonna have to go through me, first.”

The Ryukyuan shrugged. “Okay, but it’s gonna hurt,” he warned, reaching back.

Emboldened, the two men moved up, unsheathing katana —

Stupid, he thought, bringing the longsword up and out in a fast arc, slashing across their chests. Not even smart enough to come at me far enough apart. He shook his head as they collapsed, leaky bags of bodily fluids and flesh on the ground. He stepped between them, watching his footing, and caught a third coming from the larger group toward him, sliding the steel blade up and behind the man’s rib cage where it caught. Aw, dammit. The man gurgled as Mugen yanked the sword free, stepping to the side to avoid the spray of arterial blood as the body fell.

The ronin was already wiping the blade of his katana, when he looked up. “Slow,” Jin remarked to him.

Mugen growled. The brothel owner had vanished into the building behind them.

“Can we leave now, or do you two need to be manly some more?” Fuu gave them both The Look and continued past them down the street. The two men exchanged looks — what was that all about? — and hurried to catch up.

“We’re going to have to figure out what to do about money soon,” she said, totting up the numbers for their dwindling stash. “We’ve been really good, but at this rate, we’ll run out before Osaka.”

“Knew I should have hung onto Rodriguez,” Mugen grumbled. He stretched out on the tatami, enjoying the warmth of the little room; they’d decided to take lodgings in town, rather than to camp out, as easier to defend if the disgruntled brothel owner decided to hire a third group of thugs. That, and Fuu was becoming insistent on the matter of baths once again, which — why had he ever found her attractive? Somewhere around Matsumae, he must have forgotten how much maintenance she took —

His eyes dropped from the businesslike set of her shoulders down to rest on the delicate line of her ankle as it curved softly into her calf. Oh. Maybe not such a stretch, then. She really had great legs, he decided, interestingly long for such a small woman. His eyes traced upward, following the length of her thigh —

Jin cleared his throat, as Mugen jerked his glance upward to meet a pair of cold eyes being narrowed at him; he’d forgotten as well what a particularly icy stare the ronin had. He glared back defiantly: what?

The ronin raised an eyebrow at him. Don’t do that.

Mugen crossed his arms. Do what? And, kiss my ass. I don’t see your name on her. Lazily, he let his eyes rove over the contours of her chest.

The eyebrow dropped ominously, as that little vein in Jin’s temple pulsed. You won’t be able to, after I finish with you.

Oh, yeah?

Yeah.

Oblivious to the silent threats of death being exchanged, she shuffled the coins back into the pouch and handed it back to Jin, who tucked them into his kimono. “I’m going to look for a job in the morning,” she said. “But right now, I really want a bath. Do either of you care if I go first?”

They shook their heads no.

She sighed. “I don’t understand why I can’t get either of you to shut up. It’ll be nice to have a quiet bath,” she told them, and left for the inn’s bathhouse.

They waited until her footsteps had receded before pouncing.

Cursing, Mugen found his head being shoved into the closest wall; painful, but more annoying to find that with his head turned away, it was more difficult to jam his thumbs into the ronin’s eyesockets. He lashed out with his foot and felt a satisfying thump as he made contact with a knee. The hand that was shoving him into the wall let go, grabbing instead for his ankle, hauling him up to let the back of his skull connect with the floor. “I told you not to do that,” Jin hissed in his ear.

“Oh, come on. Not like you don’t do the same damn thing,” Mugen groused, slashing up into the other man’s hip. “I see you when you think she’s not looking.”

“I am nothing like you,” Jin snarled, rocking back and kicking him square in the rump. Ow! Pale and wussy-looking as he was, the Ryukyuan decided as he got to his feet, the other man was solid as a rock.

Not that that was going to spare him the ass-kicking of his life, however.

He caught the ronin around the head, contenting himself for the moment with twisting Jin’s ear while he decided on something particularly evil. “You trying to tell me you never think about it? You never once thought about taking a peek at her while she’s having her bath? I saw her, and you should,” he taunted. “Even better than in your dreams — “

”You piece of shit,” the other man hissed, as Mugen found out the hard way that someone caught in a headlock was at the perfect height to smack him in the kidneys. Gaaah!

“Hey, I forgot my soa— “ Fuu slid back the shoji, as they both looked up guiltily. Her brow creased. “What are you doing?”

“Um, evening workout?” Mugen offered, rubbing his lower back as Jin straightened.

She rolled her eyes and shook her head. “I don’t even want to know, do I,” she muttered. She took her soap and pointedly left the shoji open as she walked away. “Idiots.”

Jin sighed and sat down, tucking his feet up neatly. “She’s right, you know. There has to be a better way of doing this.”

The Ryukyuan shrugged from where he’d dropped back down to the floor. “Wouldn’t be as much fun, though,” he mused.

“True.”

They sat silently for a moment, watching a moth fluttering against the shade of the oil lamp. “It’s about that time, isn’t it?”

“Hn.” The ronin nodded.

“What’re you going to tell her?”

Jin closed his eyes. “The truth.”

“Which is — ?”

“I cannot, as long as I’m responsible for Fuu.”

Mugen made a rude noise. “Thought you said you were going to tell her the truth.”

“That is the truth. I can’t very well leave Fuu to you, can I?”

“You know, you’re supposed to be the smart one,” Mugen told him. “I’d of known your glasses were where your brain was, I would’ve tried finding them.”

There was an exasperated snort. “Thank you, I think. What would you have me tell Shino?”

“The right truth.”

“Hn. Right truth,” Jin said heavily. “There is no rightness to that truth.”

“And in Japanese, for those of us who aren’t fluent in dumbass?”

The ronin shot him an annoyed look. “I have nothing to offer Fuu, unless you consider death threats from my master’s students an asset.”

Mugen frowned. “There’s still some left? I thought you killed them all.”

“Five or six, I think. They left me alone for a while after Kariya, but one tracked me down a few months ago.”

“Huh.” Reluctantly, he let that go for another time, hating himself for the knowledge that he was about to open his mouth and — “Father Zuikou told me something you probably would be interested in.” Crap.

“Mm?”

“Yeah.” Gods, he thought, he was the biggest fool, to tell Jin something like this. The other man was his friend, or best enemy, or something like that, but this went way beyond that. Mugen sighed. “He said she loved you.”

The ronin went very still, even more still than usual; Mugen realized the other man was holding his breath, as — “He said that to you?”

“Uh-huh.” He watched the ronin’s chest begin to move calmly once again, face carefully schooled.

“Hn.”

“Course, he said she loves me too.” The Ryukyuan rolled onto his back.

“I see.”

“So, I’m going to have to kick your ass for her.”

There was a brief glint of teeth, out of the corner of Mugen’s eye. “You can try,” Jin told him.

Life was terribly unfair, Hideo the brothel owner decided, as he regarded the stack of unwashed crockery in front of him. Business was down, due to the disturbance in front a few hours before — he still couldn’t figure out how two men alone could decimate the ranks of his employees, and now their families were demanding that he do something about their loss of income — and he had to find still more men to watch the shop; he was going to have to start offering even more money in wages, once the news of this got out.

His head twinged painfully, and he winced. If he had stayed on the family farm in Kansai, like his mother had told him —

There was a brief tap at the door. “My apologies, but I didn’t know if you were open.” There was the glimmer of gold ryu in the stranger’s hand, and Hideo brightened. Of course, compensated courtship was a growth industry, he told himself.

“Come in, kind sir!” he said cheerfully. “Did you have any particular girl in mind? Our rates are very reasonable — “

”Actually, I was hoping for some sake before I made up my mind,” the strange man told him and smiled.

“Certainly. Sweet, or — “

”Sweet sake is fine.” Hideo poured the drink with the ease of long practice, stopping only when the stranger gestured for him to stop. “I heard there was some fighting here before?”

The brothel owner sighed. “Yes, unfortunately. Nothing involving any of the girls, though, the customers were completely undisturbed,” he added.
“Hm. What happened?”

Hideo shook his head. “A ronin — who’d helped a very troublesome girl escape a couple years earlier, nothing like our current girls, who are all most biddable and willing — came through town with another swordsman and a girl, who looked no better than she should, if you understand me.”

“I see. Did the other man have an odd sword, not a katana, but straight, with an unusual hilt?”

Hideo frowned. “He did, yes.”

“How interesting. I’ve heard of these two, before.” Another ryu clinked onto the table. “I wonder, may I trouble you for more of that excellent sake?”

“It would be my pleasure.”

“Do you know where they are now?”

His back to the stranger, Hideo replied, “No — “ as hands fastened on both sides of his head, twisting. There was a loud snap, and the brothel owner slumped gracelessly in a heap to the floor; the stranger picked up his ryu and walked out.

“Well, what now?”

“It’s them,” the stranger said. “They can’t be far.”

“No,” the voice agreed. “We might even be able to find them tonight.”

“We just report in, then?”

“Yes. No contact of any sort whatsoever. You heard what they did to the Hand of God, didn’t you?”

“Mm.” The stranger agreed. “Come on, I’ll buy you dinner somewhere.”

The voice chuckled. “Your own money? I don’t like ramen that much.”

Grinning, the stranger walked off into the center of town.