Samurai Champloo Fan Fiction ❯ On Their Own: POV Trilogy ❯ Mugen ( Chapter 2 )

Mugen.

 

He thought that for a while, after they split up, he went a little crazy. He didn't exactly remember those first months - he'd been indulging in all four of his most favorite things, blowing every last coin of the money Fuu had insisted they split. He'd done all of those things to the point of blacking out nearly every night since he left them. He drank to forget most often, and always succeeded. He fucked his way to utter exhaustion whenever he could. He picked as many fights as possible and often enough, he found himself at the business end of a blunt object and he woke up not remembering much of it. To be accurate, he didn't think he'd stuffed his face enough to ever pass out. He wasn't sure if it was possible, and honestly, he was okay with not going there. The point was to enjoy his food, beverages, sex, and violence. And he did.

 

He figured he needed to. He deserved it. After all that time, all those weeks and months he'd spent with those uptight, holier-than-thou, judgmental, fucking crazy-ass weirdos, he needed some time to be himself again, and only himself. Not that he'd ever really let them change him, but for the sake of being able to travel together, he'd made a few sacrifices that, after he left them, he really thought had not been worth it. He'd needed to be himself again, be the monster he knew and loved.

 

It was probably better he didn't remember the first few months of being alone too clearly. Even though they were his four favorite things, and he wasn't sorry about any of it - he was never sorry - if he did remember, then he would have found himself thinking about what those two assholes would have thought of him, what they would have said to him. Fuu would have planted her feet in the dust and screamed her head off, pointing fingers and flapping her arms around. Jin wouldn't have even looked at him or-

 

Which was exactly why he tried very hard not to remember or to think about them, because he would only have been more pissed off, and sometimes he felt like if he got any more pissed off, his head would explode. And that was a frightening thought.

 

He was feeling a little better now, if better was a word he ever had any right to use. He felt like his body wasn't wound and coiled up so tight. For those first few months after they'd split, it'd felt like there was a demon in his belly, breathing fire to his fingertips. He'd only been trying to be himself, but that part had been different and dangerous, even by his standards. It'd felt good at first, like a lover that he'd known from before and had never even really liked, but who could get him off like no one else.

 

But it hadn't lasted. He'd gotten bored with not remembering. And that was something he needed to figure out: in those first months, if what he'd been doing - reacquainting himself with himself - got boring, then was he actually trying to reclaim who he was, or was he trying to force it? In Mugen's life, the big changes came because he either got bored, or he got left behind. He much preferred the former to the latter. When he was bored, he was in control. But if indulging in his four favorite things to the point of blacking out got boring, then... did that mean he'd changed?

 

He didn't normally do this 'thinking' bullshit; it clearly wasn't his style. He was a curious kid by nature, but he usually acted on that curiosity. He didn't walk around thinking about it. But they weren't here to harass or fuck, and so for the moment, he had only his brain. He laced his fingers together and rested them on top of his head, affecting a relaxed pose to try and sort out his problem.

 

His haori slid up with the motion, but he'd layered well that morning. As far South as he was, winter still wasn't kind to him. He hated the cold, even though he'd grown up sweating his balls off and hating that, too. He turned his cold nose into the red fabric of the clothing she'd made for him. He'd always had an excellent sense of smell, and if he stuck his nose right in the seams, where her fingers had pinched the fabric together and sewn it, he thought he could smell her.

 

Not that he did that kind of shit often. But it was something familiar that wasn't boring, and that was okay sometimes. Familiarity could be nice when it wasn't boring. Familiarity was as close as he ever got to a positive association with something else. Even running into Mukuro, with whom he was very familiar, had at least been interesting. The guy had been even more fucked up and genuinely evil than he was, but he represented something that Mugen knew.

 

He divided familiarity into two categories, which he admitted, were becoming increasingly problematic. The first were things familiar about himself and the second were things that reminded him of them. In the first months after he'd left, he'd thought he was rediscovering the first category to try and forget the second. But the fact that he'd gotten bored with the first perhaps meant that it wasn't all that familiar any more. And where the fuck did that leave him?

 

It left him fucking frustrated and stuck with the nagging suspicion that somehow, somewhere along the way, the other of the two things had happened - he'd been left behind.

 

***

To take his mind off his maddening questions, he decided he needed to get laid. And given his depleted funds, he needed to do it without paying for it. Mugen generally didn't have trouble finding a nice piece of ass that came without a fee. The trouble started when he had to persuade the bird to hook up with him. Although he saw no reason why a woman couldn't fuck any guy she chose for whatever purpose she chose, the vast majority of the women he met didn't share his philosophy. So engaging the first pretty girl he met along the road wasn't a feasible strategy. Usually, he found the willing (and free) women at sake bars, drinking alone. In these parts, only the truly desperate drank alone. He had absolutely no problem with that - the truly desperate and Mugen had always gotten along very well.

 

He'd been watching the young woman for the last few minutes, and she definitely didn't have a dude with her, nor did she have any girl friends. She was on her own, and Mugen decided without much difficulty that she was the girl for him for the night. He didn't foresee any problems persuading her. Few women could resist his charms. And the ones who did usually gave it up in the end.

 

Unfortunately, of the three he remembered most fondly, Sara had ended up dead before they could really get anywhere interesting, Yatsuha had played hard to get just a little too long, and the last... well, she'd gotten a taste of what he had and had run out on him before they even got to the really good stuff. Not that he would have wanted her to stick around after they finished with the really good stuff - she was fucking annoying at least 80% of the time they were together - but they could have at least a had a little fun before he split.

 

No ladies since those three compared favorably, but in the grand scheme of his life and its progress, or complete lack thereof, who the fuck cared anyway? The girl sitting next to him at the counter would do just fine. She was even named for a bird. She was pretty enough and smiled a lot and she was leaning into him after the first five minutes of his turned on charm. He'd definitely been right about the desperate part. Loneliness was powerful and ugly, something Mugen encountered often but made sure he never felt. He didn't sleep with lots of women to keep it away; he slept with lots of women because he was horny as fuck and preferred to fool around rather than rely on one hand and his imagination.

 

He was just about to lean in for the kill when someone grabbed the back of his shirt and the scruff of his neck and hauled him back, pulling his hair in the process. The girl next to him looked surprised and a little frightened and Mugen knew why the second he craned his neck around and saw who stood behind him. She stood with one hand on her hip, fingers resting close to a pouch that doubtless held several of her fancy ninja toys. She was grinning at him and looking even more dangerous than when he'd last seen her, more dangerous than Sara, and certainly more dangerous than that last stupid broad with the stick arms and bird bones.

 

He had a boner before they said a word to each other.

 

“Hey, sweet thing,” he finally said with a smirk. “Come to deliver the goods after all this time?”

 

Her mouth twitched and she took a swing at him, her fist almost quicker than he could see. But he was ready for her this time. He caught her wrist and pulled it to the side, tugging her forward a half step. His smirk widened. She growled and took the step back jerking him right off his stool. He scrambled to get his feet under him when she turned in the same motion and dragged him out of the bar. He'd already forgotten his former conquest's name, and if he'd had a tail, it would have been wagging in gleeful anticipation. He was man enough to admit it.

 

***

“You really do have a slammin' body, you know that?” He mumbled this into her throat as she shoved him backwards across the floor. He hung on until his back and shoulders hit the wall. Then he released her and looked her over. “I been with lots of girls over the years, but you...” Many of them had been beautiful, many more utterly forgettable, a few definitely best never remembered. Yatsuha was perfect - slim and powerful, but ridiculously curvy in all the places he liked. Her hips and ass filled his hands and he felt muscle bunch in his fingers when he squeezed her there. He slid his hands down the backs of her thighs and hoisted her up, grunting his approval when she wrapped her legs around his waist. He didn't trust her and he didn't know her at all and right then she had her most dangerous weapons pinning him in place up against the wall of the room she'd paid for. She could stop his breath if she tightened those thighs. She could do much more if she got really serious.

 

But she was kissing him just as hard as he kissed her and she had one hand shoved up his haori and under all his layers, seeking out his scars by feeling alone. It didn't appear that she wanted to hurt him, not like the last time when she'd given him a new knot on his head every time he got close. Now, she was willing. He was quite curious as to why she'd touch him now when she wouldn't before. Sure, there'd been that whole counter-fitting gang to bust, but even after they'd gotten the bad guys, she'd still held out. He decided when her hand headed south that he didn't give a shit. If he was still curious after they fucked, he'd ask her then.

 

“Take your clothes off,” she said into his ear.

 

“Don't have to tell me tw-” She cut off his air supply when she squeezed her thighs.

 

“And stop talking.”

 

He nodded eagerly and rushed to obey, even as she kept her legs wrapped tightly around him and helped him shrug out of his layers. She finally dropped to the floor when he practically tore off his hakama and then stood naked in front of her. He waited for a half second as she looked him over, and then tackled her to the floor, fingers reaching for the edges of her clothing. And the amazing bit was, she let him do it all. Her hands slid up and down his ribs, over his shoulder blades, up the backs of his legs. He tugged off her snug shirt and wrappings, tasting as much of her skin as he could reach. She smelled like metal. She bit his neck and then licked the mark she made. He pushed himself against her and she pushed back, meeting him thrust for thrust.

 

“Why're you doin' this?” he asked before he could stop himself. He hadn't meant to ask it then; he really hadn't. He really didn't care.

 

“Because I was going to marry you.” She rolled them over and pinned his legs between hers. “Got a problem with that?”

 

“Uh...” He was very sorry he'd asked.

 

“Good.” She wriggled out of the bottom half of her clothing while he grabbed both her tits, one in each hand. She laughed at him when he squeezed.

 

***

She lay sprawled out over his chest, her breath and heartbeat starting to slow, her belly sticking to his. It felt good to be warm and sweaty and sleepy. Her legs held him still, even though they were finished. He convinced himself that he was actually stronger than her, but only when he could get all of his stringy limbs moving together. And he couldn't be bothered to do that when all he wanted was Yatsuha on top of him.

 

He still barely knew her and yet she belonged in the second familiar category - she reminded him of them. When he'd seen her last they'd been in Kyoto, not too far from here actually. Fuu had just gorged herself to the point where she was three times her normal size and therefore even more unattractive than usual. He and Jin had ditched her at the gate of the red light district. He hadn't seen either of them again until he'd woken up under a tree with a splitting headache and a distinct lack of money and clothing. They'd been on either side of him, Fuu with his haori, Jin with his sword. Neither had said a word; neither had looked at him. He remembered that they'd all gotten to their feet and started walking without saying anything.

 

Yatsuha had never met them, but she still reminded him of them. Pressed up against him, her tits were too big, and so were her hips and ass. Her hair was the right color, but it wasn't thick or soft enough. She was the right height, but she was too well-muscled. Her back was powerful under his hand. And, most obviously, she didn't come along with a pale cranky ronin.

 

“You miss them. You wish I was her.”

 

He ran his palm along her spine and didn't respond, his head still fogged with sex and wandering through remembered familiarity.

 

“You weren't like this when I met you,” she said into his shoulder.

 

“We never got this far last time,” he mumbled.

 

“You barely seemed human.” She shifted on top of him, shivering a little. He reached for his haori and pulled it over them both.

 

“I woulda rocked you world and you know it.” He gave her ass cheek a sharp squeeze.

 

She chuckled. “There wasn't time and I barely knew you, and after that fight, my partner was right there, so I couldn't very well-”

 

“That the guy with the giant mole?”

 

She nodded. “Hankichi. And I don't even see it anymore.” Her voice got soft when she said his name.

 

Mugen really wanted to fall asleep. Few things in the world felt as good as a nap after a good fuck. Right then he couldn't think of anything that felt as good. But he was a curious kid by nature and he didn't understand why she didn't still see that kid's humongous mole unless it had come off somehow. And that, he admitted, would be an interesting story.

 

“Did he lose it or somethin'?”

 

She leaned away to give him a strange look. “What?”

 

He didn't like to repeat himself. “Did it come off? 'Cause seriously, how could you miss it?”

 

She looked at him like he was three years old. “I've known him since I was 12. We've been partners for seven years.” She said those things as though they were the answer. “I'm marrying him in a week, actually.”

 

He barked a laugh. “You actually like that guy?”

 

She shrugged. “Sometimes I don't know whether it's just familiarity or if it's love.”

 

He didn't understand the distinction, but it was interesting to note that Yatsuha also thought in terms of simple categories.

 

His eyelids drooped as she lay back across his chest, and the feel of her steady heartbeat began to lull him to sleep. Yeah, that nap was sounding damn good. In that vague space between wakefulness and sleep, his mind returned to the feel of her on top of him, her pulse faster, all that hair tickling his nose, her small hands gripping his ribs like she could stretch them the whole way around him. He would be there too, somewhere, polishing his katana or maybe meditating. Mugen remembered the feel of his arm across them both, the girl in the middle, in a room that smelled of ginger and felt like a grave.

 

“Do you love them?” she asked.

 

He started and blinked, coming back to full awareness. “What? Who?”

 

She rested her forearm on his chest and looked him right in the eye. “Takeda Jin and Kasumi Fuu. Do you love them, or were you just traveling companions?”

 

He yawned and stretched underneath her. “What's it to you?”

 

She smiled. “I was going to marry you, but then you were gone for a year and I forgot you. I couldn't remember your face in detail or what your voice sounded like.”

 

He was no longer familiar to her, he finished silently.

 

He still remembered them, maybe not everything they did or said - Jin was boring most of the time and Fuu's shrill words tended to run together - but they weren't disappearing from his memory. He remembered or thought something about them every fucking day.

 

“Why the hell would you want to marry me?”

 

She shrugged and began to trace the long lines of muscle in his arm. “The usual reasons,” she sighed. “You're tall and dark and strong and powerful and a little frightening. You're dangerous and you wanted me and the two of us together...” She twitched an eyebrow. “Very dangerous.”

 

Mugen squirmed a little and almost purred at her words. No one actually liked the fact that he was mean and irresponsible.

 

“But,” she concluded, “you're not the marrying type. My father would hate you and I'm sure you'd cheat on me every chance you got.”

 

Mugen leered at her. “You got that right, sweetheart; I'm too much man for one woman to handle.”

 

“And Hankichi...” She didn't seem to have noticed that he'd said anything. “He told me that he would die for me.” She examined his face very carefully and he had the distinct impression that he was being measured and coming up short. He didn't care about that, but she looked like she was coming to some decision. “I'm pretty certain that I am not one of the people you would die for, Mugen. I can't imagine you feel much of anything for me compared to Fuu and Jin. In fact,” she murmured, “I imagine that right now you're thinking how best to get your tanto from your clothes without my noticing so that I'll stop asking about them.”

 

Mugen's expression didn't change from its suggestive leer. “Don't care if you notice. You're reachin' just like me.”

 

He twisted his hips, shoving them to the side and reaching for his knife in the same moment her arm darted for her weapons case. They had steel pressed against each other's throats by the time he came to rest on top of her. He bared his teeth at her in a low snarl, exerting every bit of restraint he had to keep himself from pressing down on the knife out of sheer monstrous spite. But she would be of no use to him dead.

 

“Why do you keep askin' me about two people that you never even met? Whattya from the them?”

 

She swallowed and her skin caught against the blade. She pressed up just a little and he watched two drops of his own blood splatter on her chest. “Not what I want, Mugen, but the people I work for. You know what they want; you're not stupid.”

 

“You seem to think I am. Think I'd just tell you everything about them if you let me spread your legs? I don't give a shit about them and I don't give a shit about you. Fuck you.” Flecks of spit hit her cheek as he shouted at her, but she didn't flinch.

 

“The shogunate knows you split up. They're looking for you all separately now. They wanted me and Hankichi to be part of the search.”

 

“You make it sounds like you're not, but you found me, didn't ya?”

 

“I found you to warn you.”

 

He leaned forward. He hadn't been this angry since they left him. “Bull. Shit.”

 

She had the balls to roll her eyes. “You think I really took all that trouble to track down your skinny ass just so we could fuck?”

 

She made a face as soon as she said it and Mugen gave her a twisted grin. “Yes I do. That and try to turn me in.”

 

“Wrong,” she said between clenched teeth. “I admit I was...” Her eyes traveled from his mouth to his throat and down to his chest. “...curious, but, shit, I'm getting married in a week. Hankichi is waiting for me at the-”

 

“He's here?” Mugen shouted, eyes instantly darting around the room, looking for a small ninja with a big mole and a blade headed for Mugen's testicles.

 

Yatsuha shook her head at him like she still couldn't believe how thick he was. “Mugen, he's my partner. We always travel together. What kind of partner would he be if he didn't come with me for something like this?”

 

For about two heartbeats, Mugen's chest filled with bitter jealousy, and he almost, almost pressed down on his tonto. Then he pushed himself off her and backed up onto his knees. “Get the fuck out,” he spat. “And tell your partner that if I ever see him, I'll rip that fucking mole off myself.”

 

She sat up as well and began to pull her clothes back on with rapid angry jerks. “We're trying to help you, asshole. I'm trying to tell you that Fuu and Jin are both in trouble if they're found.”

 

“You think I care?” he shouted. “I left them both in my dust. In fact, you want my help findin' 'em? Sure. Jin only wears blue with the diamond pattern on the back and he has a stupid pare of glasses that don't actually help his eyesight. And Fuu only wears pink and keeps her hair up in shiny sticks.”

 

She stood up, now fully dressed. She straightened her hair and regarded him with a strange look. “That doesn't jive with the intelligence we've got. Takeda Jin was last spotted in dark gray without the family crest or eye wear, and Kasumi Fuu was seen with short hair and brown clothes, traveling alone.”

 

He was sure his heart had stopped beating and flopped down onto his stomach.

 

“You either haven't seen them since they've altered their appearance, or you're protecting them.” She strapped her weapons case to her hip. “I have to go now,” she said briskly. “I suggest you keep a lower profile from now on. You weren't hard to find, what with the trail of dine-and-dashes, unpaid prostitutes and dead bodies you leave wherever you go. I hopefully won't be seeing you - any of you - again.” She turned to go.

 

He fought with himself for three more seconds and then called for her to wait. “Hey,” he muttered, not looking at her, trying to keep his voice careless and easy. “Do you know where they are now?”

 

When she didn't answer, he looked up to see her giving him a small, sad, smile. He wanted to punch the wall right by her ear, really hard. Then she shook her head. “Not really, no. We've gotten word that Takeda Jin has joined a gang of bounty hunters, which is odd, considering how much money he has on his head. But they move around a lot, and thus far, no one has been able to get close to him.”

 

Mugen found himself grinning. “Ballsy.”

 

“And no one has seen the Kasumi girl in months. Our sources say she's disappeared.”

 

His brow dipped in a scowl, but he wasn't afraid for her. Good girl, he thought. Finally did what I said to do.

 

“You wished I was her, didn't you,” she said again.

 

He looked up. “What? No! Why do you keep-”

 

“Because you said her name three times while we were having sex.”

 

His scowl deepened. He remembered a promise he'd made when she'd had her legs wrapped around him, her back against the shed wall. He wouldn't be faithful to her, but he would say her name at least once. He wouldn't throw his life away in some stupid fight if she agreed to cut her hair and wear simpler clothes, so she wouldn't be doing the equivalent when she left him. He would be hers forever if she found him again and could get him on his back in a fair fight. It'd been almost a year now, time for them to find each other if they could, if it was safe.

 

When he looked up Yatsuha was gone.

 

Well, it definitely wasn't safe. And Fuu was probably better off where she was for the moment. But Jin and a gang of bounty hunters? Why should he get to have all the fun? Mugen shrugged back into his clothes and thought that having a hefty bounty on his own head was probably as a good a way as any to attract them.