Samurai Champloo Fan Fiction ❯ Nenju ❯ XXXV. The scent of flowers in the evening ( Chapter 35 )

[ 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: The history fangirl strikes again! The Noshima were the most successful branch of the Murakami, a family of pirates who controlled the sea between the islands of Honshu, Kyushu and Shikoku during the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. Also, noro are the primary religious figures of the Ryukyuan indigenous belief system; all noro are female.

Shima is a less formal name for awamori, which is a tasty Okinawan distilled rice liquor.

And FarStrider? A term for superior beta skills. All the good stuff’s hers, really.

Nenju


He woke up disoriented. The ocean was still there, he could smell it, but it was further away; and the sailcloth screen was gone —

— he sat up automatically, looking for her, before he remembered.

Mugen got up quietly, the old planks soft underfoot. One groaned a little as he stepped on it, and he glanced over toward Fuu. She was still asleep. He saw with some worry that she’d curled in on herself, with her knees drawn up toward her chest; she’d started sleeping that way on the Dutch ship, after Nagasaki . . . she hadn’t bothered to take her hair out of its knot the night before and the knobs of her spine were clearly visible between her neck and the collar of her kimono. She’d lost weight she hadn’t had enough of to begin with, more than he had. He’d find something and make sure she ate all of it, he decided, even if it was nothing more than a mango — maybe he’d been too quick to get rid of that habu from the day before.

He rubbed the sleep out of his eyes as he went down the hill. The path wasn’t as overgrown as he would’ve expected it to be, for a house in that kind of disrepair. He guessed the Europeans had been using it — probably not recently, but the question of what they would’ve been using it for was very interesting; when Maurits had said that European ships put in here to refill their casks, he’d had a hard time not laughing out loud at the idea that a ship seven days out of port would need water.

The Europeans had very definitely been here, though — he could tell that much just by looking at the boat. It wasn’t exactly like the one Wen had, he thought. This one was bigger, stronger: the sails were worn threadbare enough for him to see the horizon through as it bobbed in the harbor, but their cloth hadn’t come from around here. What the boat did look like was one of the small boats the Europeans used as a tender to the big ships, ferrying people and things from the ship to shore, or for short voyages; he’d seen them at Nagasaki and Saga, where they’d impressed him with their quickness. To find one here —

There was a skinny man standing on the beach, looking at the boat; squinting, Mugen recognized the man from the gambling hall the night before. The man was just standing there, almost as if he was waiting for something — Mugen quickened his pace, the longsword a comforting weight on his back. If the man was there to make trouble, he was ready.

The man looked over at the sound of feet sliding through the sand toward him. “You’re here.”

“Oi.” Mugen lifted his chin toward him. “What d’you want?”

The other man held out his hands, palm up. “Thought you’d be here earlier.”

“I’m here now,” Mugen said, patience beginning to fray. “You looking for me?”

The man nodded. “I wanted to know what you’re gonna do with her.”

“Not in a great mood this morning, so get lost.”

The man ignored this, and turned back toward the water. “She needs more than one person to sail her,” he said. “Five man crew works best.”

“Hn.” That had been, Mugen decided, the broadest hint he’d ever heard; he’d been thinking that he’d need to walk down to the village for some shima to hear about this part of the island, but this . . . this might be worth a morning. Even if it turned out to be a waste of time, he’d learn something and be back to check on Fuu by the time the sun was overhead. “You got a name?”

“Shuri.”

“You sure you want to be one of the five?” Mugen scratched himself leisurely as he thought, then pointed at a rocky outcropping on the horizon. “You get me from here out there without taking a sounding, and I’ll think about it,” he said. “But try screwing me over and I’ll dump your ass out for the sharks to find.” He laced his hands together behind his head and grinned unpleasantly.

The man shrugged. “Fair enough.”

Once on board, Mugen leaned against the side as he watched Shuri take them out of the harbor, correcting course automatically to avoid the reef. Bad at gambling, but the man was a good pilot — unless he really did intend to try to kill him and take the ship back, he’d take the man up on his hint. The sails filled with a loud huff, cloth snapping taut as the ship picked up speed. “Where’d you get this?” he asked.

Shuri kept his eyes on the horizon. “Man who had your house before you, he used to be with the Noshima up north. He died maybe ten, twelve years ago — he didn’t have family, so we split up his things among the village. I paid nine ryu for the ship,” he said with some pride.

Mugen’s eyebrows rose. He’d have to talk to Fuu about finding a place to hide their money — the sooner, the better. “How old was he? Been years since they were anything but daimyo’s lapdogs.”

The other man nodded. “He had bad luck,” Shuri said. “Some of the people in the village think that house might be haunted.”

“Might be?”

“The Europeans have been using it — we found him on the path, so he didn’t actually die inside the house,” the other man said helpfully. “It’s probably not, I wouldn’t worry about it. You’ve had good luck so far!”

“Yeah.”

“Anyway, you have a good ship. And your woman is generous.” Shuri blushed lightly.

His woman — Mugen gave the skinny man a sharp look, before realizing the retort he’d been about to make was a bad idea. “Mm.”

“So, ah, have you thought about what you want to do with the ship? Good fishing around here.”

Mugen gave him a crooked smile. “Only fish when I’m hungry,” he told Shuri. “You said this is a Noshima ship — think I might like to try it out.”

Shuri’s eyes widened, as he shook his head. “They won’t like it — they don’t come this far south normally, but the Murakami are still allied to the Satsuma-han. Even if they’re just some daimyo’s dogs, as you say.”

“Yeah, well, doesn’t matter how many dogs you got if they don’t have the stones to bark when they’re out by themselves.” The rock was coming up, Shuri bringing the ship up to circle behind it. “How deep’s it through here?”

“Deep. You only have to worry about the bottom closer to shore.”

“Hn.” Mugen waved him away from the tiller; reluctantly, Shuri sat down with his back to the first mast as he took the skinny man’s place.
The ship was wonderfully responsive, heeling obediently as Mugen took them south; he could feel the rudder as the ship came round, ocean flying by under the keel.

She was a good ship, good enough to take out on the open sea between the island and the mainland: and, he had to admit, Shuri was a good pilot. He knew the waters around the island, too, another plus. “All right, fine,” Mugen said casually. “You can have a tenth of whatever we make, but piss me off and I’ll kill you.”

“You’ll kill me?”

“I don’t like shit that pisses me off. Got a deal?”

Slowly, Shuri nodded.

“Good. Don’t piss me off,” Mugen said, pausing as a thought struck him. “Something that wouldn’t piss me off would be to tell everyone you know, that the woman who won this ship off you shouldn’t be bothered.” He grinned wolfishly at the skinny man.

When Mugen went north after leaving them on Ikitsuki to see where Okuru was from, he had seen the most amazing things.

It had been incredibly cold; until reaching the north in wintertime, he hadn’t understood what cold was, he realized. Cold burned — almost like fire, but worse in a way. Cold crept in to curl round bones and shiver under clothes, and cold had a funny way of making people stop caring about how blue they were turning.

Cold was especially weird in how it made things change their nature.

He’d been walking around the docks, trying to stay out of the wind, when he saw it: it was a puddle, or would have been a puddle if the water in it hadn’t been frozen into a thin sheet on the ground. He stepped on the edge and the ice fractured into countless small sharp fragments, their edges gone white as snow.

Watching Fuu, he was reminded of how brittle the ice had been.

It was unnerving to see her this calm; from what little Jin had told him about the time when he’d gone on that last raid with Mukuro, she had been anything but calm when they’d seen the boat explode — she’d left the ronin and Kohza on the pier and gone searching for him on the beach. She’d known he wasn’t dead . . . Mugen thought uneasily of her insistence that Jin was still alive. Fuu had the power to be able to call him back from the crow men when they came: how could he say she wouldn’t be able to tell if the ronin was alive or not? Especially now, after Deshima — and the other man wouldn’t have gone easily, he thought.

There was another possibility he could think of, though; he checked the impulse to run up the hill, the hair prickling at the back of his neck. He’d never liked thinking about women’s things —

How likely would it have been, that — if Jin was dead — the shogun’s men would have gone to the trouble of giving him a proper funeral? The ronin had usually been insistent on doing the right thing, especially when it was someone who was important to him or to one of them; they’d spent an extra day in the mountains when it had been that boy from Jin’s dojo, and Jin had gone with him to take care of Bundai’s body the same day he’d found it. And if the shogun’s men desecrated Jin’s body after execution — he could see how the ronin could end up as a spirit, maybe even an angry one. Fuu might still feel the presence of his ghost, which was a very worrying thought.

Or, even worse, Jin could still be alive in Nagasaki, with his spirit here, following Fuu — which would be like him; the bastard never did know when to give anything up — or she could have gotten separated from hers in the escape, her spirit staying with him. It would explain the amount of time she spent asleep, and the way she never really seemed to be there even when she was talking, if her spirit had been injured like that.

He shrugged as he reached the top of the hill. Whatever it was, it wasn’t for him to screw around with — do it wrong, and the spirits might just get angrier. He’d ask around about the local noro, the next time he walked down to the village, or maybe when he talked to Shuri again.

Whether it was Jin’s ghost or not, he couldn’t look at her without seeing the empty space where the man should have been.

As it always did, no matter what or who he’d escaped from, life settled into a rhythm.

Unbelievably, not only did Shuri want to work for him, but the skinny man found four other men who were willing to sail with him for a share of whatever profits he made and who didn’t mind a little smuggling: there was Iehisa, who was quiet about how he’d ended up in Ryukyu, but who’d come there from Shiwaku; there was stocky Ki with a face like a pumpkin, a cousin of Shuri’s wife; and Shoshi and Gen, brothers from Tomigusuku, good sailors both who turned out to be very good carpenters as well. As soon as he found that out, Mugen put them to work building a tiny bathhouse for the house on the hill — there was a tub for bathing, but if either he or Fuu wanted to actually use it, the other wound up sitting on the beach or in the vegetable garden.

There was an additional side benefit to taking the men on to crew the ship — not only did he get the use of their labor on land, he heard from them what was happening in the village, often before anyone else knew it; so when one of the old women of the village died, Mugen was the first to have The Idea as to how he might be able to interest Fuu’s spirit enough to bring it back.

Of course, there was the matter of convincing the men to haul it up the hill.


And of convincing her that it could be something she might like.

“What is that thing?” Fuu gave him a dubious look, as Ki set his end down with a thump; Gen was panting after the climb up the hill, wiping his broad face with the tail of his ratty haori.

“It’s a loom,” Mugen told her.

“A what?”

“A loom — women use ‘em to make cloth.”

She sat down and gave the wooden frame an experimental poke with the tip of her finger, her eyebrows rising. “When you said you had something for me, I was thinking it would be something more — I don’t know, fish?’

“We can get rid of it, if you don’t want it,” he said.

Behind them, Shuri groaned.

Fuu shook her head, still looking at the loom. “No — leave it for now,” she said thoughtfully, a spark of interest in her eyes.

Mugen brought his hand up to rub his chin, fighting not to smile.

In the fourth month since they’d left Nagasaki, one of the Deshima ships anchored in the harbor.

Ki was the first one to see it, tapping Mugen on the shoulder and pointing to draw his attention to the speck in the harbor.

“Europeans!” Shuri brightened. “I hope they’re here to trade — my wife has extra basho-fu she’s been saving, they’ll want that — “ Shoshi started arguing with him then about what the cloth would be worth, as Mugen stopped listening to the two men.

”How often do they come here?” he asked Ki, who was still watching the harbor.

The heavier man shrugged. “Together? Twice a year. On their own? Maybe three or four times. Depends on what’s happening on the mainland — couple years ago, they were here six times.”

“Huh.” They had a nice cargo of silk they’d traded a hold of raw sugar for, they might be able to trade well for that — Mugen changed course for home.

They moored the ship a short distance away from the Europeans, almost close enough to shore that he could have walked to the beach; Shuri almost fell into the water in his haste to get off the ship and to his house, sprinting into the village as soon as his feet touched sand, the rest of the crew following behind.

Mugen stayed on the beach, watching the sailors from the galleon labor to bring a jolly boat through the surf; one of the men, a man sitting in the prow of the crowded jolly boat, caught sight of him and waved until they beached.

The man jumped out, coming directly up to him: Mugen laced his hands together behind his head, comfortingly close to the hilt of the longsword, as the man grinned. “You are Mugen? I have something for you,” he said, in thickly accented Japanese, before turning to look over his shoulder to where the boat was being unloaded.

Mugen frowned. What the hell — he walked down the beach to see what it was that Jouji’d thought worth sending on. Wasabi? A teapot? Whatever it was, there needed to be an extra person to carry it. Hell of a teapot, then.

There was a smaller figure standing up in the boat, the dark gold of the kimono dull against the green; the figure looked up, as Mugen felt recognition wash over him — he waited, as a sailor hoisted the person out onto the beach.

“Mugen,” Yatsuha said.


Fuu took one look at them and hurried off with a significant look at Mugen, muttering something about the garden; as soon as he heard her in the distance, scolding the chickens for fighting, he turned to the ninja. “You missed me that much?”

“I’m pregnant.”
His mouth had gone dry despite the tea, which was churning quietly in his stomach. Oh, shit. “You sure?” he asked.

Yatsuha gave him a sour look.

“Don’t mean that,” he said, and shrugged. “I always thought it was hard to tell, in the beginning.”

“‘In the beginning’? I haven’t seen you for months.”

“When’s it . . . “ Mugen trailed off awkwardly; maybe Jouji wasn’t so dumb, he thought to himself.

Her eyes narrowed. “In Nagasaki,” Yatsuha said, voice frosty.

“Yeah, I got that much. When’s it gonna be here?”

“What?”

He crossed his arms. “I don’t know, all right? Weren’t many women having babies where I grew up.”

“Oh,” she said. “Months yet. Four — maybe five.”

Mugen sat back down, relieved. “Good. It’s not gonna be much, but it’ll have a roof. And I want a place for a bath — I’m not running up here every time I want one,” he said. “We can stay here until it’s built, Fuu won’t mind.”

Yatsuha stared at him. “What — look. I’m just having a baby. We’re not getting married.”

“Didn’t say we should.” He shrugged. “You don’t want to, that’s fine by me. But that kid’s as much me as it is you, and it’s not gonna live like I did. Besides — you ain’t here ‘cause you heard Ryukyu was a great place for the shogun’s men, ‘m I right?”

She shook her head, shoulders drooping, and for the first time since she’d walked up the hill, he took in how tired she looked. Her body was fuller than he remembered it; her waist thicker and her breasts larger, but her face was gaunt and drawn, the veins in her hands evident through the translucent parchment of her skin. “I’m not one of them, any more.”

“Because of the baby?”

“No.” Yatsuha smiled. “I’d be a disgrace to the family, but that’s not unusual for ninja. It was that the girl escaped, and you did too. I didn’t fight you when I should have — you and I weren’t discreet enough, either, that didn’t help. So, I’m here with the two of you.” She rubbed her arms as if she was cold.

Mugen opened his mouth to ask, then shut it again. If he didn’t ask, then maybe — “You know what you want to do next?” he asked her instead.

“Han are always looking for people,” she said bleakly. “Satsuma-han especially — I’d probably have to leave the baby with you and the girl.”

“Her name is Fuu,” he said, without rancor. “You should stay here until the baby comes, and decide what to do then.”

“Fuu.” She nodded. “I’d like to do that. Thank you.”

He grunted and reached over to pull a quilt off the neat stack Fuu had piled against a post, handing it to her. “Yeah.” Mugen got to his feet and walked over toward the engawa. “Get some sleep.”

She was already wrapping it around her shoulders as she sagged to the floor. “I will.”

“Yatsuha?”

“Hm?” The ninja opened her eyes.

“The man we were with — you know what happened to him?”

She shook her head. “I saw him being run through. After he fell, my father and his men handed him over to one of the shogun’s counselors and his footmen,” Yatsuha said. “I thought he was dead. I’m sorry.”

“Yeah. That’s what I thought you’d say.”

He left her there and climbed up the steps to the garden, where Fuu was pulling weeds out from around the plants. She looked up, brushing the dirt off her hands as he walked over. “When I was little, my mother used to tell me seaweed was good for gardens,” she said lightly. “I can’t remember if there was a special kind she looked for, or if anything would work.”

Mugen squatted next to her. “Couldn’t tell you,” he said. “How much did you hear?”

“Most of it, I think,” she said, giving him a rueful smile. “I should have gone down to the beach.”

“I would’ve told you anyway.”

“She’s angry. I can’t blame her, either.”

He frowned. “What’re you talking about?”

Her eyebrows rose, as she began stripping a weed of its leaves, shredding them into a neat pile. “You remember when we were in — oh, I don’t even know any more. All those places are starting to blend in together — where that boy picked my pocket?”

“Yeah.” Mugen snorted. “He was a crappy thief.”

“I wonder sometimes what happened to his mother. Did I ever tell you she was sick?” Fuu shrugged. “Probably not. He was so angry — he was angry that we didn’t have more money, angry that those yakuza were trying to take it — angry at everyone. Except he wasn’t really angry, you know.”

He gaped at her — this was even more random than he was used to, from her. “Eh?”

“He was scared,” she told him, as if it were obvious. “He thought that he should be able to help his mother, but he couldn’t. People do stupid things when they’re scared, Mugen — sometimes they end up driving the ones they need the most help from away. Give her some time.”

“Hm.” Grimacing, Mugen stuck his finger in his ear, as he turned that thought over. That . . . wasn’t so dumb, really.

“Anyway, it’ll be nice to have another woman to talk to,” she said and grinned, making her look fifteen again. “Otherwise, there’s just the chickens, and that makes me sound crazy.”

“Yeah, I wouldn’t worry. It’s not the birds that make you sound crazy.”

She flicked a piece of dirt at him, giggling. “Jerk,” she told him affectionately.

Mugen gave a huff of amusement, watching her calloused hands as she pulled weeds from around a fat melon. The springtime sun was agreeably hot on his back, the warmth feeling like it was seeping through him into his bones; the last time he could remember being this warm, they were in Nagasaki —

“She was there when they took him away,” he said abruptly.

Fuu shook her head, the grin wiped from her face as she stared at the vine. “He wouldn’t die that easily.”

“Would’ve heard something by now if he was alive,” he told her. “Jouji’d have got word to us.”

She exhaled, closing her eyes. “Mugen, don’t.”

“It’s been months, Fuu. You gonna spend the rest of your life waiting for him?”

“Yes,” she told him. “If waiting is all I can do for him, then that’s what I will do.”