Samurai Champloo Fan Fiction ❯ On Their Own: POV Trilogy ❯ Fuu ( Chapter 1 )

1. Fuu

 

They thought she never learned anything, that with everything they went through, she never got any smarter about any of it - how to find food without paying for it, how to find a good, safe spot to sleep, how to avoid dangerous situations in town, how to defend herself when in one, how to recover from one. She thought that perhaps they knew she was a little more capable at the end, but they still treated her like a child when it came to her safety and health - Jin because he felt it was his duty and because he honored his promises and followed through with his responsibilities, Mugen because he didn't want to hear her bitching, and keeping her safe and fed was the surest way to accomplish that.

 

But she'd learned a lot, dammit; there were things she knew, despite what those two jerks might think about her. She knew what to wear and how to keep her hair so that she was largely invisible. She knew where to sit in a room so that she could see everyone who came in and out. She'd learned to tell the difference between someone who was just ugly and someone who really was looking at her in the wrong way. She'd learned that sometimes, you really couldn't talk your way out of a confrontation, especially when you had a sizable bounty on your head.

 

And she'd learned from Sara that carrying a big stick was always a good idea when traveling alone. Granted, Fuu's big stick didn't have really sharp blades that shot out of it, but she was okay with that. She'd just cut herself on them anyway, and besides, she still got freaked out thinking about how close Mugen had come to getting skewered on those blades. No, a nice-size walking stick with a piece of metal nailed to the bottom worked just fine for most garden-variety muggers and thugs who wanted to bring her in for the bounty money. And mostly it was just muggers who saw a skinny girl walking alone and thought she was easy pickings. Very few individuals got past her plain dark clothes, the simple way she kept her hair, and if they asked, her name.

 

Those that did, though... She thumped her walking stick along the road and relived some of her most thrilling victories, striking down with a few good whacks of her walking stick, the dirty, nasty men who hunted her. She hadn't even been scared! Or, at least, she hadn't let them know she was scared.

 

Every girl should have one of these, she decided. If every girl walked around carrying a big stick, they'd never have to do a job they didn't like, marry someone they didn't want, clean up a mess they didn't make, cook or serve a meal they didn't intend to eat themselves... it would be great! If Mugen tried taking her food, she could just threaten him with her big stick and he'd back off like a sulking puppy. And Jin... well, Jin didn't have too many discipline issues, usually. Though if he even thought about going after that Shino tramp, she'd make good use of her new-found, stupid-man clobbering skills. She'd make sure that he never even looked at-

 

A hoarse scream sounded up the road and jerked Fuu right out of her vengeful musings. She jumped and pulled her kimono tighter across her chest, gripping her walking stick until her knuckles turned white. Another scream pierced the air and she shuffled to the side of the road, trying to get a look around the bend. She heard a scuffle, feet scrambling on a hard-packed road, and moved a little closer. She heard a child crying, voice rising in panic, and started to run. Angry male voices shouted and echoed amongst the trees.

 

“What are you hoping to achieve, Ayaka? You can't leave the Katsuki gang. Boss has other plans for you.”

 

“I want nothing to do with him! It is my choice to leave; I'm not even a part of your gang! Please get away from my baby; you're hurting her!”

 

The child's cries got louder and Fuu found herself around the bend in the road before she could think better of it, nearly plowing into the stocky man who held the woman named Ayaka. A few paces away, another man held a screaming toddler upside down by her tiny ankles. Fuu regained her footing and her composure, bracing her feet in the dirt, gripping her walking stick in both hands. She glanced between the two men and at the woman, who didn't take her eyes away from her child.

 

“What's going on here?” Fuu asked. She narrowed her eyes and puffed up her chest a little. Without really intending to, she tried to sound like Mugen, disinterested and dangerous. If he were here, he probably would have laughed at her.

 

“Who the hell are you?” The man who held Ayaka glared down at her, taking in her diminutive size as well as the length of the stick in her hands.

 

Fuu scowled right back at him. “A traveler. I want to pass through here and you're in my way.” She lifted her chin and tried to look down her nose at him. She'd seen Jin do it dozens of times.

 

“No he's not,” the other man said, shifting the child's ankles into one hand so he could point at where his partner stood. “Neither of us are. Now go away; this doesn't concern you.”

 

Fuu growled and thumped her stick in the dirt. “I wasn't speaking literally. I was telling you to put the kid down and let that woman go! Geez, why are men always so dense?”

 

Both men looked at her as though she were speaking another language. One of them shook his head. “Don't you know who we are? Do you realize what you're getting yourself into by messing with us? We're yakuza!”

 

Fuu opened her mouth, about to explain that she didn't give a crap who they were, heard the word 'yakuza' and stopped the words in her throat. “Ya- yakuza?” she managed to squeak. She gripped her stick a little tighter.

 

Both men looked pleased that she recognized the danger of the situation. “That's right. Now this bitch had some trouble coming to her and we're givin' her what's due. So, just move along. You don't want to mess with the Katsuki gang.”

 

Fuu shook her head and begged her voice to stay steady. “No, I really don't.” She begged her spirit for courage, too. She took a step closer and hefted her walking stick, taking comfort in its familiar weight and the smooth woodgrain against her palms. “Doesn't mean I won't, though. You should really let them both go.”

 

This is what Jin would do, she thought. He would help this woman. Mugen might help her so that he could try to sleep with her later. But I would help her. This is something I would do. She thought this as she raised the walking stick readying for a strike. “Let them go,” she said again. “I'm not going anywhere until you do.”

 

The man glared at her for another moment before snorting a derisive laugh and shoving Ayaka behind him. He brought up his short sword from where it had been at her throat and cleaved downward in a swift, whistling strike. Fuu didn't even have time to swallow a jolt of icy terror before she shifted her weight to her left foot and spun away, winding up for a blow to his sword arm. She pivoted and felt the stick connect with his arm with a satisfying 'thwack.' Her shoulders jolted with the impact and she quickly backed away as he shouted his surprise and anger. Fuu watched and felt like cheering when the man released Ayaka and sent her sprawling in the road. The woman regained her feet and scrambled toward her child, drawing a tanto from her sleeve. The toddler's crying continued unabated and nearly distracted Fuu from the Katsuki member's next strike. She stepped out of her sandals before she fell out of them and backed away from the angry slashes of the short sword. This is okay, she thought. I can handle this man. So long as he doesn't actually touch me. She knew she wasn't nearly so graceful as Jin and she also didn't have the loose joints that allowed Mugen to bend in ways she didn't think physically possible, but she was tiny and he was big, and she was quick and he was built for opponents who moved in broad obvious strokes. He would already be dead if either of her-

 

She shook herself, ridding her mind of the useless stupid longing that filled her chest nearly every day and made her think useless stupid thoughts about her useless stupid men. They weren't here. They didn't know where she was. They weren't coming. She ducked under a wild swing of the blade and dropped to the ground, swinging her walking stick in a tight arc until it connected with the man's heel. He shouted and dropped like a hunk of meat. He hit with an even more satisfying 'thud.' She scrambled to her feet and brought the walking stick down on his ribs, wincing when she heard them crunch. He grunted, and reached for his ribs, breath suddenly loud and wet. He gasped a few times and passed out, Fuu thought probably from the pain. She remembered the agony of cracked ribs and forced herself not to back down out of sympathy. He had been attempting to slice her in half just a second ago.

 

She whipped around when she heard the frantic struggle behind her grow even louder. Ayaka's tanto was stuck deep in the other gang member's shoulder. The child was on the ground, crawling away, screaming its head off. The mother shrieked like a wild cat at her child's tormentor and kicked him in the gut, sending him staggering back until he tipped over and fell on his ass. She closed the distance between them and pounced. Fuu shouted for her to stop, but could only watch as the man jerked the knife from his shoulder and shoved it deep into the woman's belly. Fuu's hand flew to her mouth and tears filled her eyes as they did every time something like this happened. How many times had she seen it? The woman reached out to her attacker and rested her hand on his shoulder to steady herself, blood spattering onto the road, spilling over her knuckles as she held the wound. Fuu dimly noticed that the world had gone very quiet. Ayaka finally fell to her knees, turning her head, seeking her child.

 

“Chie.” The name reached Fuu's ears as the woman toppled to the side and lay still.

 

Fuu turned, feet still rooted to the spot and saw the child staring blankly at her mother's body, all the life gone from her face. Her attention returned to the grisly scene in front of her to see the man rising to his feet, wielding the dead woman's tanto.

 

She didn't know Ayaka's story, why she was trying to flee the Katsuki gang, or why the gang would rather kill her than let her leave. But that kid was now an orphan, just like her, and dammit...

 

She wiped her dripping nose with one hand and then grabbed her walking stick in a two-handed grip, stalking forward a few paces before breaking into a run. The man held the bloody knife and watched her approach, skeptical of her strength, assured of his own. She could work with that. They always underestimated her, even her outlaw lovers, even after all they'd done. They still thought she couldn't make it on her own. She wished she could prove them wrong and still have them with her. She wished they were here now to see this. She took those last few running steps, skipping the last, and then twisting into a terrific windup. Her hands slid closer together along the stick, lengthening it's reach. She planted her feet and swung hard, feeling every muscle and joint line up and slide into motion exactly when she needed them to. This was the hit she was looking for in that stupid baseball game. Her body moved perfectly, swinging into the strike with a grace and precision that even her two outlaws would have admired. Her hands came together at one end of her walking stick, the other end cracking against the man's jaw, snapping his head to the side.

 

Watch me, Jin, Mugen. Be proud of me.

 

The man stumbled back, blood spraying from his mouth. The momentum from her hit spun her around and her moment as a skilled fighter ended. She staggered and just barely regained her balance when her staff came up against and was caught in something unmoving. She watched her opponent fall and then hesitantly turned to see that the metal end of her walking stick was held by a tall fearsome man, presently glaring murder down at her.

 

“Uh...” she started.

 

Damn, damn, damn, she thought.

 

The man's gaze darted amongst the three bodies on the ground, finally sliding to the child where she sat, still staring at her mother. “I am Katsuki Katsuo,” he rumbled. He turned dark eyes back to Fuu's. “And you...” He jerked once on the stick and she let go, taking a prosaic step back. “...are messing in business that is not yours.”

 

Fuu kept her mouth shut, gaze sliding to the side when she heard pounding feet approach - a half dozen men, none of whom looking too friendly. But they didn't look too bright either, she thought hopefully, especially when she stood them next to her outlaws. If they were here-

 

But these men were certainly enough to punch her ticket. Not to mention the giant right in front of her, holding her only real weapon. From the way he was looking at the dead woman, Fuu thought he had to be the 'boss' the others had been speaking about. She didn't wait around to confirm her suspicion. Time to cut her losses and make a run for it, hide out a in a tree for a day or two and then run like hell until she was a safe distance from the yakuza and their drama. She didn't want to lose her walking stick, but she'd find another one - a better one. She was resourceful. She was on her own, making her own way in the world for almost six months now. If only Jin and Mugen could see her now, they would-

 

She darted to the side and made a bee-line for the kid who still looked numb and blank. She scooped her up in one arm and clawed her way up the hillside with the other. The forest was just ahead providing ample cover if she could just get there. The Katsuki leader hadn't moved as she made her escape and she grinned as her bare feet gripped soil and rocks and propelled her away from the crowd of men behind her. But as she neared the tree line, she felt him moving behind her, felt him looming, saw his shadow, and whispered, “Hold on, Chie,” a moment before her legs were swept out from her with her own walking stick. She stumbled but managed to twist to the side, cushioning the child's fall with her body. They slid back down the bank and landed right between the leader's feet. She caught a quick glimpse up his kimono before she back pedaled, shuffling back up the bank a little.

 

“You know, Katsuki-san, I'm really really sorry about all this, but I didn't kill that woman. I didn't know anything about any of this, and I saw that man over there hurting a child, and I thought I should help her, and it doesn't matter now anyway because the woman you want is dead and you couldn't possibly want anything to do with either of us. She's just a little kid and I'm nobody, and so why don't you just-”

 

She half-squawked, half-shouted when the yakuza gang leader abruptly swung her stick in a short downward stroke, aiming right for her head. She instinctively turned Chie away from his strike and took the hit on her raised left arm. In the very second before her staff connected with her forearm, she thought of how this would have gone six months ago. Maybe she'd just wandered off away from them and gotten herself into trouble, as she'd done on so many occasions. Maybe they were just around the bend, or on their way back from hunting for dinner. But they always heard her cries, heard her senseless babbling and found her. She saw how this should have gone in that moment before how it actually went happened.

 

She heard him cursing in a language she didn't know, landing on her attacker out of one of his flying leaps, one steal-lined geta pressing down on the yakuza boss's abdomen, the other on his sword arm, his blade pressed against the man's throat. Mugen's rage would be terrifying, and she'd be glad it wasn't directed at her. He would rip that man apart for daring to touch her. He would pretend to be irritated that she was getting herself in trouble again, but really, he'd be nearly blind with panic that something might happen to her. And because they were perfect together, and only together, Jin would be there too, in that second, to grab onto her and shield her with his body, protecting her from both her attacker and from Mugen's vengeance. She could almost feel Jin's fingers in her hair, hear his heart hammering against her back. She started to cry before the pain even registered.

 

Her cry turned to a high keening sound when she felt a bone chip and crack, and she thought that she hadn't heard herself make that sound since she was maybe six or seven and her mother was scrubbing out a dirty cut in her palm. Chie remained silent and still in her arms as she flinched back from the man above her. She cradled her arm to her chest and tried to scramble back from him. She was surrounded now; all exits were blocked except straight back up the hill. And the Katsuki leader would just step on her if she tried that one again.

 

Then she heard the twang of an arrow leaving its bow and she hit the dirt as the arrow zipped over her head and buried itself in Katsuki Katsuo's shoulder. He dropped her stick and staggered back, recovering in an instant and roaring past her to face the new threat - a half dozen men emerging from the trees. Most were rangy and wizened. All were grim and silent - and armed to the teeth. They stepped out onto the road, three of them with arrows knocked. Fuu gasped and flattened herself further against the road when two young men who looked nearly identical slid down the hillside behind her. She pulled the child closer against her chest and tried to figure out their part in this whole mess. They were obviously brothers, and one was significantly younger, with a smaller topknot and brighter eyes. They were both by far the youngest of the fighters to emerge and Fuu suspected they were the leaders. They stood over her and she cowered in the dirt, keeping her eyes on them both and knowing without a doubt that she was dead if they wanted her to be. Then they both knelt beside her and the elder of the two reached down to brush the child's hair from her face. The girl didn't respond and Fuu chanced a look up to see the young man seeking out and then finding the body of the mother. His handsome face twisted in pain and the younger brother grabbed for his arm as he rose to his feet.

 

“Eiji, no! Don't!”

 

But the brother was already up and gone, drawing his katana and facing off against the Katsuki leader. Fuu rolled into a sitting position and started when she felt the younger brother's hand on her back, but his eyes were on the fight that had suddenly descended upon the valley. Fuu recognized this for what it was when the younger brother sprang to his feet, drawing his own blade, shouting for the other fighters to join in. This was a blood feud. A yakuza family against another family, one seeking vengeance for some past brutality. The boy's eyes were lit up with the prospect of battle. Fuu could see it and she feared for what was about to happen to him, what would surely happen to someone so young and brash. But before he joined the fight, he reached down to haul her to her feet, grabbing her broken arm before she could jerk it away. Pain shot up her shoulder and she almost threw up with the shock of it, instead shouting up at him.

 

“Asshole, my arm's broken! Get off me!” In Mugen's absence, she'd started talking like him, just to keep him with her, even if it was in that small way.

 

“Get out of the way or you'll end up trampled!” he shouted right back at her. She got to her feet and glared at him, realizing then that he couldn't have been any older than she was. He was skinny like her, too - like all the others. But his dark brown hair was thick and healthy, so his body type must just run in the family. He pointed up the hill. “Take Chie with you; we'll find you when this is over.” Then he grabbed her right above the elbow, right where Mugen used to sometimes hold her when she wasn't walking fast enough. She'd always hated to be held there - felt like a scolded child. But she clenched her teeth and let him give her a good push, first by the arm and then by her ass, getting in a good grope in the process. She rolled her eyes as she stumbled up the hill, thinking that most men were fundamentally identical in a very important way. Men like Jin were better at hiding it, but they were all the same.

 

She scrambled up the hillside as best she could, unable to grab onto anything with her left arm, holding onto the child with her right. “I really did it now, Chie,” she huffed. “Couldn't just mind my own business like they told me to, couldn't just stay hidden like they said. No, I had to stick my nose in someone's blood feud, break my arm, and end up with a kid on my hip without spreading my legs for anyone. Good thing my mother's not around to see this. Good thing those two aren't, either. Though I wish...” She trailed off when they reached the tree line and she ducked down out of sight. She sank gratefully to the ground and tried to block out the sound of the battle below. “Though I wish they were, Chie,” she whispered. “I wish they were here.”

 

The child now had both arms wrapped around Fuu's neck, her tiny legs clamped firmly around her waist. Even though it hurt, she rested her left hand on the child's ear, the one not pressed against her chest, in an attempt to block out some the gruesome noises from below. But the girl had already seen enough, had already heard her fill of violence. She didn't respond to anything Fuu did, not even the soft questions she asked. “It looked to me like that handsome warrior loved your momma, Chie. Is that true? Is he your poppa? Is someone else your poppa, and is that the reason everyone's fighting? Is that boy your uncle?” She got no answer and eventually she stopped asking. They huddled together like that for what seemed like forever and and at the same time only a few moments. She jerked upright when she heard the younger brother's voice, a child's voice, ring out in the trees. She got a very bad feeling in the pit of her stomach and swallowed a few time to try and make it go away. But she knew what she'd find when she turned around. This was a blood feud; entire families wiped each other out in these things.

 

She crawled out from behind the tree in time to see the older brother fall, Katsuo striking him down with her walking stick. She saw blood dripping along the wood grain and thought distantly, with a vague numb annoyance, that she'd never be able to get that stain out.

 

There were so few of them left. The younger boy was running along the road toward his fallen brother - Eiji was his name, she remembered. The last archer stood over another Katuski member and fired his last arrow into the man's throat. He looked up as the boy drew near, as he raised his katana for a clumsy, desperate strike. Fuu'd been around her two outlaws long enough to know a good swordsman when she saw one, and in the boy's movements and in his body, she saw a fighter who would have to work for every gain he made and every skill he had. He was good, but unlike Jin, he was letting his emotions run the fight, and unlike Mugen, he didn't know how to use them to his advantage. The archer apparently knew this about him too, because he ran to intercept the boy's reckless advance.

 

“Jun!” he shouted. “Stop!”

 

Her heart clenched and her stomach dropped for all of three seconds when she heard that name. On instinct, her body reacted to the possibility that somehow, maybe he was here, that somehow, of all the places she could be, he'd found her. It took her brain three seconds to repeat what she'd heard and realized that “Jun” was not “Jin.” But it was enough to get her out from behind the tree and sliding back down the hill. Chie now clung to her back, so she had a free hand to drag through the dirt, steadying herself as she went. The archer spun as she reached the bottom of the hill, turning to meet Katsuo just before the boy could get to him.

 

It happened so fast that she wouldn't ever remember all the details, but she watched, mouth agape, as the archer somehow managed to trap the Katsuki leader between the bow and it's sharp string, pinning the man's arms to his sides, holding him just long enough so that Jun's strike landed and did its work and ended the fight.

 

***

The older brother had lost too much blood, and his skull was fractured in multiple places. She told Jun this as she felt around the injured man's scalp. They knelt around his body, and Fuu was the only one who cried. She was the only one who ever cried. She looked at her bloody fingers and the dying man and the dead woman across the road, felt the weight of the child on her back as well as the heavy gaze of the boy beside her. His eyes were bloodshot and puffy, she realized when she finally looked up at him. His nose was running a little and most of his hair had come out of its knot. He sniffed and wiped the back of his hand across his eyes and then his nose.

 

“I'm the last one,” he murmured. “My father and my two brothers are gone now. I've trained for this day; I've known it would come. Just not yet, not now. I'm not ready.” The archer laid a hand on the boy's shoulder and squeezed.

 

“How long has this feud been going on?” Fuu asked. Eiji's chest had nearly stopped rising with short shallow breaths. His heart still beat, but it was slowing. It was all slowing, and there was nothing she could do to stop it. She couldn't look at the terrible head injury that had killed him.

 

Jun's shoulder's rose and fell in a shrug. “Fifteen years, sixteen maybe?”

 

“How did it start?”

 

He spoke softly, never taking his eyes off his brother. She watched him, curiosity emerging from the flat black pool of grief in her gut. “The Katsuki gang moved in on our territory right when I was born. They killed my oldest brother in one of the first raids. I never knew him. They took my sister a few years later when I was about four. They're thugs and criminals. They give us yakuza a bad name.”

 

Fuu started, her eyes narrowing. “You're yakuza too?”

 

Jun nodded. “My father was a good man. The Fujiwara ran the village right, were good to all the people. We watched out for them. But the Katsuki wouldn't leave us alone. They destroyed as much as they could.” He clenched his fists where they rested on his knees. “And for what? So they could take over a ransacked village, terrorize people who hated them? That's no way to rule. That's not honorable.”

 

He was proud, no doubt about that. The way he held his head, even when bowed in mourning - he was still proud. He was like Jin in that way.

 

“Ayaka was part of the Katsuki gang, right? Is that why...”

 

He nodded. “She was married to Katsuo's brother. Chie is that man's daughter. But Ayaka loved my brother. Eiji killed her husband a few weeks ago, and she was running away from Katsuo to join us, but she didn't make it to our camp in time.”

 

At the mention of her name, the girl on her back looked up, but when Fuu turned to look at her, her face was still blank. Jun reached up to touch the girl's hair and offered her a small smile. “Where will you go now, Chie? What will become of you? If you come to live with us, they might try to take you back. But there are so few of us left, we need every child we can get. And every...” His dark eyes slid to Fuu and she barely managed to keep her expression blank. “I'm sorry for my rudeness. I don't even know your name,” he murmured.

 

“Suzume.” She said it without hesitation. She'd been working on saying the name for months. She liked to remember when Mugen had given it to her.

 

“Suzume, would you like to return to camp with us? We can offer you food and a place to sleep. And I can help you with your arm.”

 

She nodded and quickly looked away. She really didn't have much choice in the matter. She needed all three of those things, and she needed to get rid of the child on her back. The girl didn't show any signs of loosening her hold on Fuu's neck, so she figured she might as well get her to a reasonably safe place before she tried to pry her off. Unless...

 

“Um...” she started. “Do you think your camp is the safest place to go? Won't the Katsuki regroup and attack?” Jun shook his head and so did the archer. Jun spoke first.

 

“We took out their leader and they took out ours. They'll need time to lick their wounds and reorganize.”

 

“You will be safe,” the archer said. He rose to his feet then and so did Jun. “We will send a party back for the wounded, but we should go now.”

 

Jun nodded in agreement and turned to help Fuu to her feet. When she stood upright, she found that they were almost the same height. Jun appeared to notice this as well, and he flushed, looking down and away. She lagged behind as they set off, feeling uneasy and unsure of her best course of action. As they walked, Jun looked over his shoulder at her more than once.

 

***

Their camp had “desperate” and “tragic” written all over it. From the near-obsessive neatness of the temporary shelters to the somber, blank faces of the women moving about between them. A few children ran about laughing, and that seemed to lighten the atmosphere a bit, especially when the children saw Jun and the archer returning. But when they all saw how few had come back, no matter where Fuu went within that clearing on the north side of the hill, she heard crying and pained gasps for breath as more mothers and wives lost their men. She squeezed her eyes shut and pulled the girl around into her lap, grateful for the presence of another warm breathing body, even if she was silent and still. She stayed there on the edge of the camp until Jun found her and offered to help set her arm.

 

She had enough experience setting Mugen's broken bones that she was able to guide Jun's sometimes clumsy hands in the construction of a decent splint. When that was done the boy smiled at her and she felt an odd squirming in her belly. Before he could speak, the small search party returned with wounded fighters, and Fuu was drawn into the makeshift hospital to help them. She gladly left Jun behind and did the best she could with one arm. Mostly she told the women she worked with what to do and they did it without question. If she hadn't been in a fair amount of pain, nearly strangled by the girl who still clung to her neck and back, and numb from exhaustion and overexposure to blood and loss, she might have enjoyed or at least noticed the confidence she felt when tending to the injured. She might have wished that her two outlaws had been there to witness how well she did in a difficult and tense situation. As it was, she didn't have a spare second to think about anything until she was in her own tent, trying to fall asleep.

 

It was a dead man's tent. He'd died awhile ago, and he didn't have a family. But she was trying to sleep in a dead man's tent. She wasn't alone either. Chie had finally let go of her when it became obvious that Fuu wasn't leaving and they were going to sleep together. It'd gotten a little ugly when a couple of the women tried to pry her off and the little girl's fingers had dug into Fuu's throat and latched onto her hair with a tenacity Fuu had only recognized in herself up until that point. And she understood. The girl couldn't have been more than four years old and she'd just lost her mother. Fuu had been there - was still there. They were both orphans. She could sympathize with the the need to grab onto something and not let go.

 

She lay in the dead man's tent with the orphan girl and thought about what she would grab and hold onto forever, when given another chance. She would find them again; she knew that without question, and when she did...

 

She shivered at the memory of Mugen's fierce, possessive grip, at the way he claimed her when he touched her. And he always fought her until the very end, never wanting to hand anything over to her in return, never wanting to let his control slip. Except he inevitably did in the end, when she had him, when all he could do was say her name and try to keep breathing. She thought about what it felt like to have Jin holding her. He didn't clutch as hard as Mugen, but the need was still there, deep-seated and dark. She felt like he honored her, like she was a better, older, more beautiful and more perfect version of herself when he held her. And when they both touched her, grabbed onto her, held her between them... When she had them both in one of their rare moments of peace and stillness, they looked like boys again. Jin lost that cold and bitter edge to his eyes and his voice. Mugen's snarl softened and the frown lines between his eyebrows smoothed away.

 

She realized she was crying again and shuffled closer to the child sleeping beside her.

 

Jun had barely been away from her after she'd finished with the wounded. Despite his obvious grief for his brother, he'd tried to get her to smile as often as he could think of something to say. He'd offered her food - a weakness of hers, she admitted it - and helped to set up her tent. It was undoubtedly a bad sign. She should leave before anything happened. But she was very tired, and her arm was broken, and she missed Mugen and Jin so much that she didn't think she could even move.

 

They thought she didn't know anything about surviving on her own. They thought she hadn't picked up anything in their travels together. She'd learned plenty, and right then, she didn't want any of it.