Samurai Champloo Fan Fiction ❯ Nenju ❯ XI. Its wings in the scent ( Chapter 11 )

[ 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: All right. I’ve had a couple of reviewers who’ve expressed interest in the romance between Mugen and Fuu, and who’ve been, ah, frustrated that there hasn’t been sex ‘right here and now, oh god, take me on Father Zuikou’s kitchen table!’ And I get that; lemons are pretty, what with the dimples. However, as in real life, sometimes sex is more interesting when there’s more to a relationship than a $20 changing hands, yes? So relax.

Also, this chapter touches on a little political and religious theory, which is central to the story; it’s not a comment on political or religious climate, nor do I intend it to be.

Nenju


Not for the first time, Mugen cursed Jin’s inability to hold sake.

If the ronin was even halfway normal, he’d have been able to take him out drinking, get some liquor in him, and he’d be spilling his secrets faster than a sack of sugar that rats had been at; however, he’d been stuck with Jin. How long had the other man even stayed awake, the last time they’d drunk together? Two cups? Three? Goddamned lightweight.

Not for the first time, Mugen wondered how he had offended the gods this much.

There was no help for it. He was going to have to ask. Shit.

He eyed the ronin curiously. “So what happened when you went out there?”

Jin paused in sharpening the blade and gave him a look that indicated there was no way possible that the Ryukyuan was going to get him to tell, not ever.

“Come on. Otherwise I’m going to have to set Fuu on you, which will be about a hundred times worse than telling me. I’m barely keeping her off you as it is,” Mugen told him.

The ronin raised an enquiring eyebrow.

“Not like that!” Asshole. Mugen crossed his arms and gave him a dirty look. “Whatever. Too bad you don’t want to talk, though, because a couple interesting things happened while you were gone.” He settled himself comfortably against the wall. He leaned back casually, keeping the ronin in his direct line of sight; Jin would have to turn his head, or at the very least, look to the side if he wanted to see the Ryukyuan, and Mugen would win. That would even the score from breakfast, when the ronin had nobbled the last of the miso —

“Do you mean the man who followed me to the enkiri dera?” Jin asked calmly, sighting down the edge of the blade as he judged its straightness.

The Ryukyuan frowned. “No, but you didn’t tell me about him.”

“Hn.” The ronin nodded. “A man followed me to the enkiri dera.”

One of the nice things about Japan, Mugen thought, was that there was always a handy forest; he’d be able to hide the body. Easily. “Have you always been this much of a pain in the ass?”

Jin wiped the katana with the soft cloth he carried in his kimono. “It depends on who you’d ask,” he said thoughtfully.

Mugen glared. “So. Tall? Short? Fat? Thin?” he asked. “Samurai? Kabuki dude?”

Goddamnit, the bastard looked like he was trying not to smile — “No,” Jin told him. “Just a man, in green.”

That was it? “Pfft. You’re pathetic.”

“Mm.” The ronin ignored him. “He was remarkably unremarkable.”

“Is this another one of those ‘you must think like a fish’ things?” Mugen asked suspiciously. “Because I really hate those.”

“No.” Jin sighed. “No one would have looked twice at him. I saw him as I was walking out of town, and once there were fewer people on the road, it was difficult for him to follow me without giving himself away. He did make a good effort, “ he conceded.

“He followed you back here?”

Jin nodded. “Almost up the steps.”

Mugen frowned. “Then they know where we are,” he said. “We’re going to have to get her out of here sooner than I thought.”

“Yes.” At last, Jin sheathed the blade and laid it aside reverently. “She doesn’t really believe us,” he observed.

“Yeah.” The Ryukyuan scrubbed his hand through his already shaggy hair; it was getting long again, he thought to himself idly. He’d have to cut it, soon, unless he could talk Fuu into doing it for him. “There really wasn’t anything about the guy?”

The faintest smile touched the ronin’s face, and was gone. “He did have a large mole on his face,” Jin said, and tapped his cheekbone. “Even then, he’d blend into a crowd.”

Mugen’s forehead wrinkled in thought. For some reason, a man with a large mole on his face was famil — oh, fuck. Fuckity, fuck, fuck. “His name’s . . . “ He racked his brain. What had she said? “Hankichi, I think.”

Startled, the ronin looked up, his complete attention on Mugen. “I think you had better tell me what these interesting things are.”

The Ryukyuan made a face. “Do you remember that pond outside Osaka?”

“The one with the counterfeit koban?”

“Yeah. And we went into town and ditched Fuu — “

”Hn.” Jin nodded impatiently.

“I saw the pretty whore yesterday, when I went to find the sign board.”

Jin considered this a moment, then: “Shit.”

“Yeah,” Mugen agreed.

“Did she see you?”

“She bought me sake.”

Jin’s eyebrows twitched. “I’ll assume she saw you, then,” he said dryly. “You asked her what she was doing here, I hope?”

“She said she couldn’t talk about it, so . . . “ Mugen shrugged. “Bet you a ryu I know why she’s here. She even asked about Fuu.”

The ronin sat, thinking hard. Finally, he said, “We can’t do anything about it.”

Mugen gave him a scornful look. “We could take them. Easy. I’m pretty sure she’s the tough one, out of the two of them.”

“Killing them would draw attention that we don’t need,” the other man pointed out. “Now, we know we’re being followed by at least two, and we know who they are. We also have another advantage over them.”

“And what’s that?”

Jin smiled faintly. “We can control a large part of the information that goes to the shogunate.”

“How are we going to — oh. Through me.”

“Through you.”

The Ryukyuan pushed off the wall to lie on his back. “I still don’t get why they don’t just grab her when she’s not with us.”

“They don’t want to run the risk of creating a martyr for the Christians. If they made a move publicly, especially in a town, too many people would see. They’d never be able to keep it from getting out.” Jin shook his head. “They might decide to kill us between towns — it wouldn’t be noticed if three travelers simply disappeared — but I think that is unlikely.”

“Why not?”

“If we are allowed to continue, there is the possibility that we will make contact with some of the underground Christians,” Jin said. “We’d lead the shogunate right to them.”

“And then — “

”Yes.” The ronin looked over at him. “We led them to Fuu’s father last time, so we know that they see that as one of their options. I think it’s likely, if only for the reason that it’s been years since the end of the Shimabara Rebellion and they’re still finding the Christians. They need to do something soon, or risk the Christians becoming so entrenched that they’ll never get rid of all of them.”

Mugen folded his hands behind his head. “I still don’t see why anyone cares,” he said. “I don’t give two shits about ringing bells or your beads — doesn’t bother me none.”

“Mm.” Jin rubbed a gentle thumb over the nenju of turquoise beads at his wrist. “Mariya-dono once told me that there was no need for the martial arts to be taught in a land at peace. I don’t know as much as I would like about the Christians, but they do seem to think differently — in a land at peace, is it a danger to do that?”

“Land at peace, my ass.” Mugen rubbed at the scar on his stomach.

The ronin’s eyebrows twitched in amusement. “You’re the one having sake with the shogun’s men. What do you know?”

Grinning, Mugen wadded up the sword-polishing cloth, and flung it at the other man’s head. “Even so, I don’t like Fuu being out there without us.”
“Yes.” Jin nodded. “She’s right, though. We’re going to need more money than we have.”

The Ryukyuan’s grin only widened, as he said, “That was the other thing I wanted to talk to you about.”

“Hn?”

“What would you say if I told you I had an idea about where we might be able to get sixty thousand ryu?”

Mugen inwardly exulted, as Jin’s face froze in surprise.

I win!

Neither one of them had been willing to let the other be the one to fetch Fuu after she’d finished work for the day, so they went together to the teahouse.

“How sure are you of this?” Jin asked.

Mugen scratched his ear. “Pretty sure. He would’ve had to have help getting it wherever he put it, but it would have to be stored somewhere. For one, it’s too big to carry everywhere, and then you gotta figure that someone’s trying to figure out what happened to all their money.”

“True.” The ronin folded his hands into his sleeves. “How do you suggest we go about finding it?”

“He’d have it stashed somewhere he could get to easy, but it would have to be out of the way enough that it wouldn’t be found by the first idiot out. Probably it would be somewhere you could only reach by water.”

Jin digested this for a moment, then asked, “Why not in the water?”

Mugen shook his head. “Tide’d bury it. You’d never find it again, and it would be too much to bring it up, especially if you needed it in a hurry.”

“I see.”

“There were a lot of cliffs around there, weren’t there?”

Jin gave him a look. “There were.”

Mugen frowned. “One thing’s for sure.”

“What?”

“We’re going to need to find a boat.”

“Yo,” Mugen called out as they entered the quiet teahouse, spotting the top of her head over the top of the screen dividing the kitchen from the serving area.

“Be right out!”

He sprawled out on a bench to wait, as Jin watched. “What?” he asked the ronin.

“I was wondering if you ever sat up straight in your life.”

“Fuck you.”

“You’re not my type.”

“Did you just make a joke?”

“No.” The clatter of cups being stacked and put away came to them.“We’ll have to tell her,” Jin said thoughtfully.

Mugen shrugged. “She’ll find out eventually, won’t she?”

“Mm.”

Scrubbing her hands together, Fuu emerged from the kitchen and smiled as she saw them. “Hey. What are you two doing here?”

“Out for a walk,” Mugen told her breezily. “You done?”

“Yeah — “ They turned to look as footsteps sounded from the other room, Jin’s hand going to the hilt of his katana.

The teahouse owner’s wife pattered out from the kitchen, face bright and inquisitive, as the men relaxed. “Fuu! I was just coming to tell you to be careful walking home this evening. The dango seller was telling me this afternoon that two very rough men started a fight at the brothel a few days ago.” She lowered her voice and leaned in close to the younger woman. “She said they killed twenty men.”

“Oh, um, really?” Fuu glanced up at the men. Jin looked back at her calmly, as Mugen screwed a finger into his ear with a very bored expression. “I should be all right, I think.”

The other woman looked at them coquettishly. “So, Fuu, which one of these handsome fellows is your young man?”

Mugen’s hand froze, as somehow, Jin went even more still.

“Heh.” Fuu blushed furiously. “They’re — it’s — uh, that’s Mugen in the red, and Jin in the gray.”

“Oh.” The woman blinked. Then: “Oh!” Her eyes widened appreciatively.

“But it’s — “

Jin coughed gently. “If you’re ready, Fuu-chan — ?”

Fuu nodded, face aflame with embarrassment, as Mugen stifled a grin. She’d never let him hear the end of it, if —

(He really, really wanted to, though.)

He fixed the older woman with a predatory look, and slipped his arm around Fuu’s waist possessively. “We’d like to get her home,” he purred. “Sort of . . . need her there.”

The other woman’s eyebrows rose to the middle of her forehead, as Fuu emitted a tiny, high-pitched squeak; the squeak stopped, as he casually let his hand slip to her ass and squeeze the firm flesh there. His mind noted dispassionately that Fuu was now making a nearly imperceptible hissing noise, like water coming to a boil.

And that tiny click he’d heard was the sound of Jin’s katana slipping past the guard of the scabbard. Hm.

Hesitantly, Jin said, “I’m afraid — ah — Fuu will not be back.”

“Oh.”

Fuu stared at him, then relaxed. “We’re traveling,” she said firmly.

“Hn,” he agreed.

“Well, then,” the owner’s wife said faintly. “I think — you’ve been paid, Fuu, so I wish you luck on your journey.”

Fuu gave her a strained smile. “Thank you.”

Arm still around her waist, Mugen steered her out of the teahouse, Jin following closely behind.
The teahouse owner’s wife stood for a moment, watching after them, then sighed nostalgically and went back into the kitchen.

It had been worth it, but —

Thwap!

“OW!”

“Pervert!”

“Do n’t hit a man there, bitch!”

Thunk!

“AAAAAGH! Goddamnit, fish face! What the fuck?”

“He has a point, Fuu-chan. Try to hit him in the head instead.”

“No! Don’t hit him, anywhere!”

“Like this?”

Thwap!

“OW!”

“Hn. Much better. But try to get your weight behind it, next time.”

“You son of a bitch — ! Why are you telling her that? And what do you mean, next time?”

Somehow, things always went back to normal.

After they’d finished the evening meal (Mugen still moved a little gingerly as he got up from the table, but he was shaking it off better than he’d expected), they walked back to the little room.

“So. Leaving, huh?” she asked companionably.

Mugen looked down at her face. She seemed all right with it — he casually dropped his arm down to block her access to his midsection, just in case. Troublemaking ronin, showing her how to hit people properly — maybe if he waited until the other man was asleep tonight; there was that little trick he’d learned back in Ryukyu of waiting until the other person wasn’t looking, then licking his finger and sticking it in their ear. Hm. He chuckled to himself.

“Yeah,” he said. “We’ve been spotted.”

She sighed. “I was just getting used to regular baths again.”

The corner of Jin’s mouth quirked up briefly. “We aren’t going far,” he said.

She crinkled her nose, as she looked at them dubiously.

“Toyohashi,” Mugen supplied.

Ooh — she was giving them The Look. “Boats.”

Mugen rubbed the back of his head. “Yeah. What about it?”

“But only across to Ise,” Jin told her.

“Why do I get the feeling you two are planning something?” she groused as they reached the inn and climbed the steps. “Remember? Making decisions, and how all of us do that, not just you?”

Mugen smiled to himself. He remembered; her eyes had been bright, her face slightly pink, and that ritzy kimono had been slipping a little open, though not nearly enough. Mm!

The ronin gave him a questioning look, as he fell silent, lost in thought. “Yes,” Jin said, lighting the lantern. “Do you remember that pond outside Osaka . . . .”