Samurai Champloo Fan Fiction ❯ Nenju ❯ XXI. Of the warrior's dreams ( Chapter 21 )

[ 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), nor are any opinions on religion expressed herein meant as my views.

A/N: Fangirl Japanese attack! This time, kemari is a sport that’s a little like football. And hackysack . . . and keep away, sort of? Also, a juban is a first layer of clothing, a very lightweight kimono — you see both Fuu and Jin in their juban (but not like that!) in ep #18 after Mugen makes sure to mark their stuff.

As always, my deepest thanks and admiration for readers and reviewers; you’re all crazy, kids, and I love you.

Coffee Gyrl, you make me giggle.

Nenju


Once he’d collected himself enough to be able to think again, Jin kicked himself for the time it took to walk from the tree they’d stopped under to the Christians’ house.

Fuu hadn’t been flirting with him when she was talking about the future, he knew; she was worried about what would happen to her, and she was right to be. He hadn’t thought — hadn’t wanted to think, Jin admitted silently — about what she would have made of her life if she’d never gone to Nagasaki. The idea that she would still be at that teahouse in Edo, or worse by far, married to some faceless man who would not, could not, appreciate her for what she was made Jin feel as if something inside him had gone to ice. Stupidly, he’d wanted something, wanted her to tell him somehow that that would never have happened — he could not remember feeling so alone since the first cold days of his flight from the dojo.

It had been such a short step to take the opportunity when she’d given it to him.

Fuu’d surprised him, though not at first. At first, the tentative kiss had been what he’d expected, sweet and hesitant, and her fragile bones had felt like a bird’s under his hands; he’d meant this to be something gentle, something that she could walk away from if she wanted. She’d startled him then, as her hands threaded into his hair and she arched against him as if she would take flight — the part of him still capable of rational thought watched passively, as the part of him that he’d been warned about at the dojo gleefully pulled her legs up around his waist.

He’d have taken Fuu against the tree if she hadn’t stopped him, he realized. As it was, even seeing the brief flicker of fear in her eyes, he’d been reluctant to let her go. He’d known what it was, the moment he’d seen it there — Mariya-dono had been right to teach him to guard against that part of himself.

For the first time in years, Jin felt afraid.

How was he to defeat himself?


Of course, how to defeat himself was a secondary consideration at the moment.

The first was how to get through the meal without using the katana on his host.


“The shogun’s archers are very good,” Jin said mildly. “I’m surprised you escaped.”

Daigoro smiled. “My brother and I knew Ikitsuki as well as we knew our own house. It wasn’t hard to hide our mother on the island until we could get across to Nagasaki.”

“I see.” The ronin allowed himself to glance in the direction of the women. Fuu was listening, her face contorted into an expression of horror, to something Maria had said; for a moment, the warmth banked inside him threatened to spill out as laughter. The light from the brazier painted the girl’s face golden, her eyes matchless and dark as she looked up at him. He smiled as she blushed, her eyes dropping to her lap as the old woman patted her hand. There was still the walk back to the clearing they’d chosen for the night, he thought, it had been too long since he’d heard her laughing —

The other man turned to see where Jin was looking. “A pretty girl,” Daigoro said knowingly, and the ronin wanted nothing more at that moment than to feel the bones of the Christian’s nose splintering under his hand. He contented himself with giving the man a cold look; it would be unseemly, if satisfying, to start a fight with a man whose rice he’d just eaten. “Are you — “

”She is under my protection,” Jin told him. It could lead to trouble if the Christian failed to take the hint, he thought.

“Good,” a lighter voice broke in, as the ronin turned. The younger son, Matthew, looked at him guilelessly. “I’d hate to see any harm come to Seizo-san’s daughter. Did you ever meet him?”

Jin shook his head.

“The most remarkable man,” Matthew said. “It was years ago, but I still remember him so well. Remember the lessons, ‘Ra — sorry, Daigoro?”

The older brother gave a very nearly genuine laugh. “Course I do. You should’ve been washing the floors while you were down there, you spent so much time knocked on your ass.”

“It’s true,” Matthew told the ronin. “Seizo-san gave us lessons in the sword. I wasn’t very good, but he said he wanted the village to be able to defend itself. He even tutored the women in the naginata a little. He said he didn’t want any martyrs when the shogun’s men finally came.”

“Hn.” Jin’s eyebrows lifted. It was . . . sensible advice, surprisingly; he would not have believed it of the Christians before this, but what he’d seen of how they were organized caused him to wonder if he’d been underestimating them. He set that thought aside for consideration later.

“Didn’t help. Shogun’s archers still went through the village like a scythe through wheat. They waited until everyone was at prayer, then picked us off as they started to come out,” Daigoro said, sneering. “They killed as many as they could, and then they set fire to the buildings to take care of the rest. Sword drills or not, we still couldn’t defend ourselves.”

The younger brother frowned. “Our Lord tests those he loves,” he chided.

“He must love you a lot, then,” Daigoro shot back.

Jin coughed, wanting to forestall outright bloodshed between the two. “How was it that you were discovered?”

Daigoro remained silent, as Matthew shook his head, saying, “No one knows. We thought we were careful, but — “ He spread his hands. “ We were prideful, and sin will out.”

The ronin made a noncommittal noise, as the pleasant background noise of Maria’s voice trailed off. “I don’t mean to interrupt,” Fuu said clearly in the quiet. “But there was a girl named Yuri, one of the Christians — “

”Mm.” Daigoro nodded. “Her mother was killed on Ikitsuki. She and her father settled near here, before the scandal with the false European.”

“Is she still here? I was hoping to see her again.”

The old woman reached out and gently laid her hand atop the girl’s. “I’m sorry, Fuu. She was discovered during one of the fumi-e,” she said. “She’s in a better place.”

Fuu looked at Jin, who shrugged.

“She was a good woman. You knew her?” Matthew smiled at the girl.
“Not very long. We met her the last time we were here — she was the one who told me to try looking for my father on Ikitsuki,” she told him.

“Ah. She was the one that told you Seizo was still alive, wasn’t she?” Matthew turned to Daigoro. “I’m not surprised they kept in touch. He was a good friend to her father.”

Fuu looked at the younger brother, her forehead wrinkled.

Daigoro nodded. “Yeah. Sad.”

“Hn.” Gracefully, Jin rose to his feet. “My thanks, for an enjoyable evening.”

“Oh, already?” Maria looked disappointed. “You’re welcome to stay the night, if you like.”

“Thank you, but we mustn’t. Our companion will worry,” the ronin lied. He nodded to the brothers, as Fuu embraced the old woman and made her goodbyes.

Maria stopped him for a moment, as Fuu was putting on her sandals. “You must take good care of her,” she said. “Seizo’s daughter is very important. Promise me you’ll look after her.”

“Ah,” Jin answered, his eyes searching the old woman’s.


They had barely passed the edge of the Christians’ tiny courtyard, when Fuu spoke again. “What do you think Maria meant when she said Yuri was in a better place?”

Jin paused. “I suspect she is dead,” he told her at last, slowing his pace for her to draw alongside him.

“Oh. That’s what I thought, but . . . I wanted to be wrong.”

“I know.”

She looked over her shoulder at the small cottage and dropped to a whisper. “He was lying, Jin.”

“I thought he was,” he said quietly. “What was it?”

“Yuri never knew if my father lived through the archers’ attack, because she never saw him again after that; I asked her. She couldn’t have told the oldest son that he was still alive.”
“Ah.” He gave her a little smile. “Good. A mistake.”

“How is that good?” Fuu asked him curiously, a small furrow appearing between her eyebrows that he wanted to smooth away with his thumbs.

“Now we know they can make mistakes.” He glanced down at her, the smile lingering at the corners of his mouth.

“What?”

“The trouble with lying is that, except for a practiced liar, it’s difficult to know what to say to keep up the pretense,” he said with great satisfaction. “Daigoro will hardly want to ask to see either of us again.”

She grinned, sighing with relief as the lantern light of the cottage faded behind them.

Mugen’s clothes were lying on the sand, by the time he got there. Jin sat close to them, but far enough away that the longsword lying atop the red gi was out of reach.

He waited.

The Ryukyuan broke the surface moments after, the wiry brown body moving gently on the water as he floated. Those unsettling pale eyes came to rest on him speculatively, as Mugen emerged from the water, making some joke about drowning.

Jin winced. He knew he’d injured the other man, but by daylight it was difficult to believe Mugen was still able to move; split lip, gash running into his hair, gouges, and a sunset of bruises concentrated around his middle. The apology stuck in his throat, as a question about how badly the other man was hurt came out instead.

Mugen shrugged it off; telling him it evened the score between them. They began discussing the Christians instead — his suspicions sounded unreasonable the morning after, Jin realized. Fuu had caught the older son in an outright lie, so he did tell the Ryukyuan about the man, but — the words were awkward, and where he would not have hesitated to talk about his uneasiness regarding Maria and her sons before, he now found himself as silent as in the first days out from Edo all that time ago.

The other man was not forthcoming about meeting the woman the night before, either, he noticed.

Mugen was the first to bring Fuu up, though, so it was possible that the easy camaraderie they’d shared was not entirely dead; wounds healed, Jin hoped. Perhaps things would be better, once they reached Mihara.
Or perhaps not, he realized.

With all the humiliations Jin had suffered in his life — a disproportionate amount of them occurring around Fuu and Mugen, he realized; how many other ronin lost their daisho in eating contests? — surely, he thought, he’d have grown to be at ease with feeling like a fool by now.

This time, it had started with the older of the Niwa twins bringing him something to dry off with as he sat in the bath. The younger man (and how odd was it to think of the twins as men, he wondered) was more solemn than he was used to seeing. “Please,” Jin said, nodding at the comfortable floor where the boys were accustomed to sitting to talk to their guest from the Mujuu as he bathed. “What is it?”

Tatsunoshin gave him a quick, rueful smile as he sat, like sunlight glinting off fish in the river. “How old are Kazu and I, again?” he asked. “You still have to pick us up when we skin our knees.”

Jin made a ‘hn’ of amusement. “My timing has always been poor,” he offered.

“Mm.” The other man shook his head. “We always just look bad when we see you. You probably don’t even think we’ve changed at all since you used to have to get Kazu down from the chestnut tree. Remember?”

“Ah. The one Master Niwa told you not to climb under any circumstances — you did fairly well, I thought.”

The younger man made a noise of deprecation. “Thanks for never telling on us.”

“It’s not necessary. What is it?” Jin leaned back against the edge of the tub.

Tatsunoshin looked out over the courtyard, away from him; never a good sign.

Jin sighed. He’d always had a soft spot for the twins, even before their father had asked him to look after them.

The Niwa family had always been so warm, so spontaneous — the boys and their father had thought nothing of the way the brothers tumbled over each other like puppies, or of their father stopping lessons to join in an impromptu game of kemari; it’d been as foreign as the continent to Jin. He’d never wished that Mariya-dono had treated him that way, as he saw the boys hug and kiss each other and their father; he’d only thought of what it would be like to have Master Niwa hug and kiss him the way he did his sons.
“Tatsu,” he said, disliking himself for using the childhood name; the older he got, the easier it became to resort to manipulation. “I would never think less of you, no matter what you’ve done.”

Tatsunoshin nodded. “I miss him, most of the time.”

“Hn.” The ronin sluiced water over his arms.

“But now?“ Tatsunoshin shrugged. “I’m glad he isn’t here. He would’ve been so disappointed in us.”

“Tatsu — “ The water was cooling, but not even if there had been a skin of ice forming across the top of the tub would Jin have moved.

“After you left last time, Kazu and I went to Edo with Uohori Andou. He liked our designs,” Tatsunoshin said bleakly. “He thought we were talented.”

“I remember.”

“When we got there, he was the only person we knew. Your — “ The other man cut himself off, mid-sentence, but Mariya Enshirou was as present in what went unsaid as if he’d sat down next to the younger man and asked the ronin if he had been practicing his jujitsu.

“Ah.”

“We stayed at his home,” Tatsunoshin said. “It was . . . nice. He was very good to us. He listened to what I said, like it was important, you know?”

Jin made an encouraging noise.

“Everything was great. Kazu and I were doing some amazing things with tagging, so it was like we’d finally got somewhere. We’d done something worthwhile. Then . . . it was little things at first, like how he’d lean over a piece of cloth I was working on, and then he’d look at me. Or how he smelled. He still has all those people hanging around him, but it was like there was something special.”

“Mm.”

The younger man rubbed his palms across the fabric of his hacked-off gi. “I finally got the courage to do something about it,” he said.

“What happened?”

Tatsunoshin bit his lip. “Kazu found out. He felt the same way about Andou that I do, but he kept it to himself. We couldn’t stay there after that — Andou wanted us to, he said we’d figure something out, but we just couldn’t and this — it’s still home, sort of.”

The ronin’s eyes widened. “I see.” This . . . was unlikely to have been what Master Niwa had meant when he’d asked for Jin to look after his sons if anything should happen to him, he thought. Or perhaps it had; either way, it wasn’t what he’d expected at sixteen, when the height of romance would have been to walk with Yukimaru from lessons back to the dormitories. What to tell him? Sure, Tatsu — I can’t even persuade a woman to take me over someone who can stick his finger up his nose so far you can’t see the first joint, but yours should be easy.

The other man’s shoulders sagged. “You don’t approve.”

“No,” Jin said. “That isn’t it.”

“What, then?”

“I may not be the best person to ask about something of this nature.”

Tatsunoshin gave him a questioning look. “Why not? What about the squirrel girl? Aren’t you — “

Jin looked back. “Hn,” he said in what he hoped was a vaguely reassuring manner.

“Right,” Tatsunoshin said, now thoroughly confused. “What would you do, though?”

The ronin raised his eyebrows. It was a good question, but he kept that to himself; he stepped out of the tub, thinking. “What do you want?” he asked.

“Andou,” the younger man asked without hesitation. “But I don’t want Kazu to hate me, either.”

“Hm.” Jin dried himself on the rough cotton that Tatsu had given him. “What does Andou want?”

“I don’t know. I don’t think he does, either.”

Of course. Who did? Jin nodded, pulling his juban up over his shoulders. “Which is more important to you?” he asked.

Tatsunoshin groaned, letting his head drop to his hands.

“Ah.” Jin tied the juban neatly closed and set the water to drain out. “It’s not necessary that you decide tonight, Tatsu, but do it soon.”

“Yeah,” came the muffled reply.

Fuu was sitting in the garden with Kazunosuke under the chestnut tree, listening to some story about dyes that Jin only caught part of as he walked toward the house.

Kazu caught sight of him and grinned, waving him over as the ronin sighed. He’d have preferred to talk to her when he was completely dressed, not in his juban and with his hair dripping gently down his back, but — his feet took him across the courtyard to the garden, almost of their own volition.

“Hey, bro,” the younger man said. “You just missed the mystery tagger. He said to tell you he was going out.”

“To see the man with the mole,” Fuu cut in, her hands folded in her lap. She turned her face up to him, biting her lip.

“Ah.” Jin stood there awkwardly.

Kazunosuke looked back and forth from her to the ronin. “I . . . should find out if Tatsu managed the futon already.” He stood up, giving Jin an encouraging smile before hurrying off toward the house; Jin turned to follow —

“Hey,” she said quietly.

— before she could say anything.

Dammit.

Stiffly, he sat.

“So, I sort of had a fight with Mugen,” she said conversationally. “Is it appropriate to apologize for messing up an apology? I don’t know if he’ll really listen, but I should try, I guess.”

“You fought?” He looked over at her, interested in spite of the tiny voice at the back of his mind shouting at him to put on his hakama and kimono, and possibly some armor for good measure.

“Mmhmm.” She picked up a fallen leaf and began to shred it nervously. “He . . . tries, you know? I see it, I really do, but I don’t know. I don’t even know if we shouldn’t try to go back to how we were.”

“We can’t,” Jin said gently. “Sake can’t be made into rice again.”

“Yeah.” Pieces of chestnut leaf fluttered to the ground, as she turned its bare bones between her fingertips. “I just can’t imagine two of us without the third being there, somehow. And even then, he’s jealous of you, did you know?”

“Ah.” Once she’d said it, it was plain; mentally he slapped his forehead, for not seeing before.

“I should be able to choose, but right now . . . “ Fuu let the tattered leaf fall to the ground. “I can’t. I lo — you and Mugen are the most important thing in the world to me. I’m not strong enough to leave you again.”

The ronin nodded and got to his feet. “We should go in,” he told her, holding out his hand. She took it, rising lightly; she did not let go, once her feet were under her.

“Thank you,” she told him. “I’m sorry. I know it’s not what you wanted.”

Jin brought his free hand up to touch her face. “I want what you want.” He leaned in and kissed her softly. “I want you to be happy,” he said.

She looked at him a long moment, her hand warm in his.

He smiled, letting her hand go. “Come on. Kazunosuke and Tatsunoshin are probably attempting to suffocate each other with the pillows by now.” He turned toward the house, only catching the movement of her hand up to touch her mouth from the corner of his eye.

“Only probably?” she asked, walking after him.

“Hn.” He made a noise of amusement. “I’ll tell you later.”

She laughed.