Samurai Champloo Fan Fiction ❯ Nenju ❯ XXVI. Under one roof together ( Chapter 26 )

[ 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 (I believe the translation of the haiku this chapter’s title is taken from was done by R.H. Blyth, but if anyone can tell me differently, please, please do let me know so I can credit the proper source).

A/N: Must . . . fangirl . . . Japanese! A kodachi is a sword, shorter in length than the katana. Many thanks to my WONDERFUL beta, FarStrider, who is an eleven on the one to ten scale of awesomeness for putting up with me.

And I heart the readers and reviewers like whoa; you’re all crazy, kids, but I love you.


Nenju


She hated Jin a little, in that moment.

He’d been smiling — that warm, disconcertingly happy smile that made him look years younger than her, the way she thought he would have looked back when he’d been a boy at the dojo. That smile, that made her chest fill with giddy sunlight — as he’d stepped off the engawa, the twins laughing as they walked behind him.

And then, he had not.

That not-smile — because when did he ever let on when he felt any pain, any need, she thought, he never needed anything, anyone — the sunlight inside her tangled up in knots. How could he look at her like that, when if anyone did, he knew what she was doing? He knew how much the world would be nothing but darkness, if she didn’t —

She hated herself even more, in that moment.


The streets were filled with people, almost as many as at Kyoto’s festival, with enough red lanterns hanging overhead to make the town nearly as bright as midday and the air full of the smell of yakimanju and the oil someone was frying it in. Any other time, Fuu would have wheedled them into stopping — now, she was reminded unpleasantly of the last Obon they’d all been together, just before she’d sent Jin off with Sara. Memory nipped at her: he’d known what the goze was and gone anyway — she shoved that thought as far down as she could, concentrating instead on keeping up with the man striding along ahead of her.

Fuu bumped along in Mugen’s wake through the crowds, his warm fingers threaded through hers, the tall ronin a solid presence behind her as they reached the center of town. The Obon tower was here, dancers swirling about the base; she felt Jin’s breath ghosting over the top of her head as he drew closer. He must have seen something, she realized, as Mugen’s head snapped round to look —

— someone, she realized, a pretty woman who was staring at Mugen as if she knew him very well.

Very well.

“Didn’t know if I’d see you before we left,” Mugen rasped, his shoulders tensed. “You’ve got some balls.” His free hand came up to rest on the longsword’s hilt, tugging Fuu behind him with the other so that he was between her and the strange woman.

The woman’s eyes shifted to Fuu, sweeping over her before pointedly looking at their linked hands. “I thought she’d be bigger,” the woman said, her mouth turned down. “You figured out how to talk to her, I see.”

“Bundai helped.”

“He would’ve.” She came closer to them, and Fuu caught the familiar scent of her rice powder. “That wasn’t done well.” An older man was saying something to Jin — she strained to make out the words over the woman’s voice, but only managed to hear the cheerful tone and the resulting sharp click as the ronin thumbed his katana past the scabbard guard.

“Shouldn’t have been done,” Mugen said. It took Fuu a moment to realize he and the ronin both were moving slowly away from the crowds, drifting past a line of shops closed for the night toward the relatively clearer end of the road; she crept along behind him, taking tiny steps. “Was it you?”

The woman shook her head, matching his pace.

“Don’t matter. Not gonna bring him back.”

A momentary lull in the noise of the crowd let Fuu hear the older man as he spoke to Jin, then. “You must be the teacher killer,” he said, as she took a sharp breath and Mugen stiffened. “I’ve been looking forward to seeing you in action.”

Don’t — she pleaded silently. Jin wouldn’t allow the man to see his reaction, she thought, but it was still too near the surface for Mugen —

— as she found herself grasping only air with the hand he’d been holding, his voice gone smooth. “And which teacher killer did you mean?” he said to the man.”Because I’ve been looking forward to seeing you.” Both Fuu and the woman turned to look; the woman’s face had gone still and watchful.

Jin made a small noise of warning, as the older man chuckled. Mugen’s eyes narrowed, the longsword hissing out of the sheath on his back as he drew.

Fuu moved away, her eyes on Jin and Mugen, until she felt a rough wall pressing against her backside; she’d be out of the way here, wherever here was.

There weren’t that many — six of them, she saw: the woman, the older man, and four men who looked to be about as old as Mugen and Jin. One of the men, incongruously kind faced with a mole high on his cheek, had his eyes fixed on Mugen, ignoring the ronin. The rest of the men milled about the older man, darting glances back at him for instruction.

For his part, the older man acted as if the ronin and the Ryukyuan were the only others present. “That’s right,” he said to Mugen, with something like approval. “It must be eating you up to know you killed him, and you weren’t even there to do it. I wouldn’t worry about it too much, though; he was drunk when it happened, I hear, so he probably didn’t feel much of anything.”

Mugen began to move toward the older man’s side, longsword at the ready.

“Of course, throat cutting is tricky business. It’s always difficult — do it a little wrong, and they die in a great deal of pain without being able to tell you. It’s not like running your master through,” the older man told Jin, smiling. “I’m sure yours had a few words for you — something very touching, I’m sure. Did he forgive you for ending his life with such dishonor?”

Jin looked back at the man, his head bent toward the man politely. Fuu’s eyes followed the line of his arm; as she watched, the ronin loosened his grip on the katana hilt. “You know a great deal about us,” he said. “It would be discourteous of me not to at least ask your name.”

The jolly face the older man wore slipped a little, then, his gaze sharpening. “How rude of me. I am Jinpachi of Iga.”

“Ah.” Jin nodded. “The shogun’s loyal dog?”

“Mm.” The older man’s attention was focused almost entirely on the ronin, a slow movement away from Mugen the only sign that he paid any heed to the danger approaching him from the side.

Fuu flattened herself against the wall at her back as Mugen quickened his pace, bringing the longsword up — one of the young men panicked then, drawing a kodachi to block Mugen’s swing — the young man shuddered, as Mugen’s sword flickered a bright arc through the air, cutting him down.

She heard Jin sigh, muttering something like “I swear,” before the katana at his hip was out, blocking a thrust from another one of the men as the shogun’s men attacked.

Not the shogun’s girl, she noticed; the woman held her weapon in her hand, but stood watching on the side of the melee. The older man stood next to her, his face set in sardonic lines as his eyes followed Mugen slashing open one of his men.

One of the attackers tried to close with Jin, bringing his short sword up as the ronin parried, spinning around behind the man. The shogun’s man choked, coughing in scarlet as the katana slid through him from the back — Jin tugged on the katana to free it, but the blade had caught; the man tottered toward him in grotesque mimicry of the dancers round the Obon tower as the ronin’s eyebrows drew together.

Fuu looked away, as Jin resorted to bracing his foot against the man’s rump and pulling — Mugen was hacking at the man with the mole on his face, she saw, but the man was managing to keep ahead of the Ryukyuan’s vicious swings; he was quick, as quick as Mugen —

— as the older man moved forward, toward Mugen’s unprotected back.

She opened her mouth to scream — bizarrely, no one at the festival seemed to even notice a group of men brawling with swords — but shut it again. What would he be able to do about the man coming up behind him, she thought, her mind racing. There was nothing to be done, except — despite the situation, Fuu smiled to herself. Not original, but it was the only thing that could work under the circumstances.

She turned away from the sight of Jin trying desperately to shake the dead man off his katana, jumping to reach a red lantern bobbing a little lower than the rest. Her fingertips brushed the edge of the lantern, tipping it — the lantern swayed, but remained on its hook. She jumped again, her outstretched hand making it tilt wildly almost almost almost — ah! The lantern dropped from its hook, falling into her cupped hands.

Mugen smashed out at the other man, sharp edge of his geta flashing, as Fuu quickly pitched the lantern at a shop with several colored banners fluttering in front of the door; she apologized mentally, as the lantern fractured into pieces against the shop wall, scattering flame all down the shopfront. Sparks caught in the banners, glowing pinpoints that grew into greedy flames that began to lick at the cloth.

“Fire!” she screamed . . . sounding absurd to her ears, as she wondered what happened to people who tried to burn down cities — probably not any worse than what happened to women the shogunate was trying to kill, she decided. Anyway, it wouldn’t get very far.

Probably.

She tightly clutched the bundle the twins had given her, pressing the soft parcel against her chest as she watched; Mugen spun the quick man in a circle, using him to block an attack by the older man. The woman was watching them as well — why wasn’t she helping, Fuu reflected, what was she waiting for? Their eyes met over the battle in the middle of the road, and the woman gave her a crooked, bitter smile, nodding at the shopfront that was blazing merrily by this time.

Come on, come on, she chanted inside her head. Anyone. Your town is on fire! All attention this way!

The katana slid free at last with a sickening crunch of bone, as the man Jin had killed flopped limply off the end, Jin moving around the body. He called out to the older man, and she felt cold pool in the pit of her stomach; the numbers were even, especially if the woman stayed out of it, but there was something off — she felt a wave of adrenaline sweep over her, urging her to get them and get out get out get out —

“Fire!” someone shouted. “The market is on fire!”

Finally, she thought.

The older man gave them a look of appraisal through the thick smoke, before motioning the others back. He nodded as Jin began leading them away, the Ryukyuan following reluctantly. When she paused — they were just allowing them to leave? — Mugen grasped her wrist and pulled Fuu gently after him.

They found an old, ramshackle hut in a field just outside of Hiroshima; the roof was partially caved in on one end, but by that time, Fuu couldn’t have cared less. Mugen dropped his pack and let his legs buckle, his back sliding down one of the crumbling walls, as Jin set his belongings down. She let her eyes drop closed for a moment —

“Oi. Fish face,” Mugen said, even-voiced, as she blinked them open. “Get lost for a while, willya? I want to talk to Fuu.”

“Ah.” The ronin’s face was perfectly composed as he glanced over at her. Fuu looked away, unable to meet his eyes, or Mugen’s. “. . . I see,” Jin said. “You do still intend to leave for Nagasaki in the morning?”

“Yeah.”

Jin nodded and got up. “Don’t be long,” he said only as he left.

Fuu raised her head as the sound of his footsteps receded. It was like the first few days she’d known them, when he’d hardly speak at all to her — when he did speak, the words were for Mugen as much as for her.

“You were fine with me when we left Mihara,” Mugen told her, leaning tiredly against the wall. “You can’t look at me now, though, can you?”

“I can.”

“Well, you ain’t.” Grimacing, he flexed his hand. “Don’t go thinking I’m all noble and shit. If you want me, it better be for me, not ‘cause you two got your heads all fucked up and you think you’re supposed to pick me for some stupid reason.”

“The last thing I think about you is that you’re noble,” she said, and came to sit by him, holding out her hand. “Here. Did that ever heal right?”

“What? Oh. Good enough.” Mugen watched as she took his hand in her soft fingers and began to rub it tentatively, hissing between his teeth when her thumbs moved over the place where it had been broken on Ikitsuki. “Careful.”

Fuu gave him a look, but decided she’d let the idea that she could be less than careful pass. “Are you trying to get rid of me?” she asked, instead.

He chuckled. “Nice try.”

“Anyway, you’re the one who said you weren’t staying if I didn’t choose you,” she said. “You hate Ryukyu that much?”

He glanced up at her face. “That what this is? You just want me along that bad?”

Fuu rolled her eyes. “No. Mou, why all the questions? Maybe it was just that you’re . . . you.” She gently pushed into the pad of muscle at the base of his thumb, as his eyelids drooped in pleasure.

Mugen made a soft ‘hn’ sound. “Maybe I have a hard time believing it, when he’s all over you.

“I believed you, when you said that this wasn’t about which of you was going to win,” she observed. “If Jin believes me, then I don’t understand why you don’t.”

“Mm.” He thought a moment, before acknowledging her statement with a lift of the eyebrows.

“Anyway, I’m not even sure you still, uh . . . want . . . me.” Fuu blushed, her face an echo of her pink kimono, her fingers slowing.

“You choose me, you’re gonna have a lot more to be embarrassed about than talking.” He gave her a lazy smile. “I know I don’t wanna ask this, but what makes you think that?”

“I know you go to see that woman, the one from the festival.”

His eyes opened completely, as he shifted against the wall to look at her, his face interested. “Oh, yeah? Jin tell you?”

She shook her head. “I could smell her powder on you when you came back.”

“Huh.” He scratched his nose. “Hadn’t thought of that.”

“And if you get close enough to her for me to smell her on you — “ Fuu shook her head, rubbing his hand briskly again. “I’m not going to be second-best, Mugen, no matter what. I might have been willing to do that when I was fifteen, but not any more.”

“Don’t s’pose you would,” the Ryukyuan said, amused. “Not like you would’ve then, either.”

“So, are you or aren’t you?” She poked him in the side, her face hot as the words came out; when had she become so forward, Fuu wondered.

Mugen chuckled, calloused fingers closing around her hand; she went very still, as he held her pale little hand in his, turning it from side to side as he looked at it. “Long’s I’m not second-best, either, “ he said. “I meant what I said.”

“Mm.” She nodded. “As long as you need me.”

“Yeah.” He lifted her hand up, the sleeve falling away from her arm where the skin was a smooth, creamy peach. He brushed his fingertips of his free hand against the flesh curiously; the light touch made her shiver under his speculative eyes. “So,” he mimicked. “‘M I sharing my mat, tonight?”

Slowly, Fuu shook her head. “I won’t do that to Jin. Not in front of him.”

“‘S fair.” His eyes gleamed. “He’s not here now — “

”Mugen!”

“I’m not the one who said ‘not in front of Jin’.” His hand dropped familiarly to her leg, fingers pressing against her through the suddenly very thin cloth of her kimono. “Just sayin’, he’s not here.”

“He’ll be back any minute!”

“It could be quick,” Mugen said persuasively, rubbing the center of her palm, which — she blinked.

“Are you telling me it doesn’t take you very long?” she asked, hiding a grin as she remembered a conversation with one of the other brothel girls back in Kasumi.

He gave her a look of horrified outrage. “What? No! I can go for — dammit, you’re just screwing around with me,” he said, as she began to laugh. “First, you try to burn down a town, and now this?”

“Well, sometimes it gets boring having you two save my life all the time,” she told him, smiling. “It’s been a while, so I thought I’d try it again.”

He grinned at her with something that felt like approval. “S’pose I should be happy you didn’t use fireworks this time — Mihara’d still be burning.”

Pleased, she stuck out her tongue at him. “It wasn’t that bad, when I did it in Edo.”

His eyes shone wickedly, as he wrapped an arm around her waist and pulled her tightly against him. “Don’t do that, if you don’t plan to use it,” he told her, his hand smoothing over her hip. “If that’s all you can think to do with it, I have some ideas.“

Uh, a small voice at the back of her mind murmured. It would be —

The door creaked noisily open, swinging inward slowly enough that she had no doubt that Jin was expecting to see them doing something more than they were. “You’re — “ he said. “Ah.” His eyes went from Fuu to Mugen, as the Ryukyuan got to his feet.

“Yeah, got it,” Mugen told the ronin, before bending over Jin’s pack and picking out Fuu’s sleeping mat; he unrolled it close to his with a snap, as if to defy the other man to challenge his right. Jin watched him without any change in expression, bringing out his own mat on the other side of the hut.

Fuu sat on the battered tatami, suddenly bone-tired. Whatever this was, it’d keep until morning, she decided; she curled up on the mat, awake only long enough for her mind to register as Jin lay down on his, facing away from their side of the hut.

That’s not how he sleeps, she realized hazily: then unconsciousness washed over her, and she knew nothing.