Samurai Champloo Fan Fiction ❯ On Their Own: POV Trilogy ❯ Jin ( Chapter 3 )

Jin.

 

I.

 

As long as he could remember, there had always been drums. They guided his breath; they were in every person's footsteps; they moved his own feet when it seemed that all the forces of the universe were bent on stopping him; they strengthened his heartbeat when he fought. Even now, flying through the tall grass after his quarry, they were in the wave of the blades as they bent under the wind. His partner was an even darker shadow approaching their target from the left. Their rhythm converged and they drew close. If Jin strained his ears, he could hear the boy's laboring breaths. He'd been running for a long time, and they were catching up to him. He almost regretted the time when the chase would end and the drums would quiet.

 

His thumb pressed the katana from its sheath with a soft 'shink' just as his partner put the dart gun to his lips. For such a big man, he moved almost as softly as Jin and definitely just as quick. The rhythm quickened with his heart as the wind whipped the long grass into their eyes. The sharp blades sliced his face and the back of his hand when he raised it to protect his eyes. He'd lost his glasses a long time ago. He'd also just lost sight of their quarry.

 

Then his partner jerked his chin to the left and veered off that way, lowering the gun and sprinting ahead. Jin followed and spotted their target only a few paces away, running as hard as he could, lifting his knees high to keep from tripping on the thick stalks of grass. The boy was fast and determined. It was a worthy quest to catch him, just for the rhythm and pacing of it. Rarely did Jin feel them in this pattern - not since he'd had another partner at his back, a man both enemy and friend, had they pounded in his soul. He didn't know what the boy had done or what fate awaited him upon his return to his family, but Jin knew that if the boy truly wanted to escape, he would do it. Jin and his partner were the only ones to have gotten this close. After they turned him in... well, the boy's fate was in his own hands again.

 

The ground dropped beneath their feet and they watched their target leap and half stumble down the slope. He sprang off a fallen log and flung both arms out for balance. He slid smoothly through the air, turning a neat somersault, giving Renshu almost nothing to aim at. But he had to land some time, and when he did, rolling through the grass and regaining his feet, Jin's partner took his shot. The dart took the boy in the small of his back and he lurched forward, for a sickening moment losing all his rhythm. Then he cut to the right, disappearing again in the ghostly shadows cast by the moon and the clouds scudding before it. Renshu had made the darts mild for this job; he was just a boy, and his family had stressed that he not be harmed.

 

Jin split from his partner and moved to intercept their quarry. At the bottom of the slope, his feet began to sink into soft, moist earth and he wrinkled his nose at the smell of mud. He found the boy, stumbling through the muck, his limbs no longer fully under his command. Jin stopped before him and felt the immediate approach of the end of their chase. “Ito Yuu,” he said, voice pitched to carry over the wind. The boy's head snapped up at the sound of his name, a dagger glinting dully in the moonlight as it left his palm. Jin jerked his chin to the side and the blade whistled by his ear. Then the boy whipped back around as Renshu came up behind him. Two more darts pierced his shoulder and his side, and he fell like a jointed toy whose owner had lost interest.

 

The drums came to an abrupt halt and the wind sounded hollow in Jin's ears. His partner gave their quarry a prosaic nudge with his sandaled foot and finding the boy well and truly out, he bent to hoist him over his shoulder. “Tenacious little bugger,” he grunted as they started back the way they'd come.

 

“Indeed,” he murmured in reply, falling into step beside him.

 

“What d'ya suppose he did to warrant all this fuss?” Renshu asked.

 

Jin turned to regard the burden his partner carried. “I am unsure; however, I suspect it has much to do with that shorn topknot.”

 

“Kid's gonna have serious trouble when we get him home.”

 

“Probably.”

 

“Well, s'long as we get paid, I guess I don't give two shits.”

 

His mouth twitched. “Hn.” Even though Renshu was significantly wider, he sometimes reminded him of Mugen. He supposed that was why, of all the bounty hunters in their gang, Jin trusted him and called him partner.

 

As they walked, Jin's thoughts wandered ahead to the location of their rendezvous with the rest of group. He and Renshu would bring Ito Yuu to Edo and leave him in the appropriate hands. Then they would make their way to the eastern side of the city to meet up with the others and receive the next set of orders. Jin was not particularly looking forward to it, primarily because he would be forced to stay in close quarters with over a dozen men who knew down to the last coin how much money he had riding on his head. Spending any amount of time with them usually resulted in an attempt on his life. But the sooner they got to Edo, the sooner he and Renshu could head out again in search of their next target, and the sooner the drums could grow louder and more insistent.

 

After a while, they stopped to bind the boy's hands and feet, anticipating the time when he would awaken. Then Jin carried him piggy back because Renshu was complaining about an old hip injury. He didn't mind the task. He thought about how many jobs he and Renshu had completed together, how many men, women and children they'd returned to those who sought them or sent on to their next life. There had to have been almost 40 by now. Jin liked the chase because it kept him from missing the only time he'd ever felt stillness. But he knew he couldn't do this for much longer. Somehow he always ended up sympathizing with their targets, wishing at the very end that the chase would not stop and the pursued would never be caught. Even known criminals, murderers - when he found them, they looked at him and all they wanted to do was keep moving. He didn't like being the one to stop them. It was probably because he was being pursued by others, himself. And probably because, in his life, all he'd ever done was run.

 

II.

 

“I think I finally found what I have been searching for all this time. You two are my first real friends.”

 

Mugen didn't say anything in return, but stayed sprawled on his stomach, face turned toward him, and the sound of his breathing was the most reassuring wheezing Jin had ever heard in his life.

 

He squinted when the door to the house slid open and Fuu stood silhouetted by the sun. She carried blankets with her, hugging them to her chest as she stepped inside and closed the door behind her. Jin watched Mugen shove himself into a sitting position, keeping one arm wrapped around his ribs. Jin did not yet have the strength to sit up. They'd all three been battered about, and he was convinced that he and Mugen had actually died for at least a few minutes, during which time they'd sat together by the side of a river and talked about fishing. Mugen gave him lots of pointers and he found he wasn't resentful of his greater skill in this area. It'd been a calm, not wholly rational discussion, peppered with questions about whether either of them thought they'd wake up and see Fuu again. They'd decided that they would, but it'd been easier for Mugen. He was made of sterner stuff perhaps, or he had more experience almost dying and deciding at the last possible second not to.

 

She came into the hut and Mugen claimed that he could eat a horse, but Fuu ignored his rude, ungrateful remarks, instead coming to kneel in front of him and reaching out to touch his matted wild hair. She set the blankets beside her and used both hands to smooth down the strands that refused to cooperate. Mugen just watched her do it, until Fuu gave up and offered him her hand instead. He took it and struggled to his feet, leaning heavily on her shoulder when he got his legs under him. Then, together, they shuffled around the fire pit to where Jin still lay. Mugen collapsed beside him and was mercifully silent, probably in too much pain to be his usual abrasive, nearly intolerable self. Fuu again knelt at their feet, spreading out two large blankets by tossing them in the air and keeping hold of the ends until they fell around Jin and Mugen's shoulders. Then she crawled underneath them, and lay down between them. She molded herself to Jin's side and pressed her hand to his breastbone, one place where he was not bandaged. Mugen fit himself behind her and Jin felt long fingers wrap around his hip bone. He focused on the rhythm of his breaths and wondered at the feeling of being full.

 

 

Jin's eyes snapped open and he tensed momentarily, extending his senses, listening for approaching danger, trying to determine whether he'd missed anything out of the ordinary when he dozed off. He'd been meditating, but he knew he'd slipped into a dream because the sensations that his body was still experiencing - warmth, comfort, stillness - hadn't all come from that scene. That's where it had really started in earnest, but not until later, after much prevaricating, self-examination and flagellation, had he admitted that he wanted the three of them together like that.

 

He'd been remembering, but he fell asleep. It was becoming increasingly common. He couldn't stay awake forever; he had to rest, but he didn't trust any of these men to not ambush him while he slept and turn him in for the bounty on his head. If he stayed awake, they stayed away from him - they were justifiably afraid of him. He'd run every man clean through who'd thought about sneaking up on him during the night. But when he slept...

 

Renshu shifted against the tree a few paces away. “All's well,” he muttered. “You should sleep for awhile or you'll be dead on your feet tomorrow.”

 

Jin gripped his katana where it leaned on his shoulder. “Hn,” he replied.

 

“And we need to be faster than a whore runnin' from her brothel if we're gonna beat out the rest of the competition. This bounty head is known to pretty much every hunter in Honshu now. ”

 

Jin suppressed a sigh at his partner's language as well as his own unease and instead agreed with him. “Right.”

 

“I'm watching your back, Jin,” he said with a gap-toothed grin. “Just so long as you're the most profitable bounty hunter to partner, I won't let anyone close to this camp fire. So sleep.”

 

It wasn't like other agreements he'd made with other friends, but it would have to do for the moment, because, in the week since they'd dropped off their last bounty head, he'd barely closed his eyes. “I'll be fine to take over watch well before dawn,” he murmured, already drifting back to sleep. Maybe he could pick up where he'd left off in that dream...

 

“...That is, if you think we should really be going on this job,” Renshu spoke up a moment later.

 

Jin took a few breaths to bring himself back to full awareness and cracked an eye open. “What do you mean? The price on this one's head is higher than any job we have ever done. You could bring your family over from the mainland with that money.” And Jin could book passage to somewhere far away, somewhere cold where no one was looking for the man who'd killed so many, who'd left so many behind.

 

Renshu was nodding at him. “Sure, sure. I've got a boner just thinking about all that ryo, but this is a complicated case for you.” He sought Jin's gaze. “Right?”

 

Jin kept his face perfectly blank even though his heart was beginning to thud persistently in his ears and he knew that a flush was creeping up his neck to his face. “It is no more complicated than any other job we have undertaken thus far.” The need for sleep was rapidly fading from his limbs.

 

Renshu didn't look particularly convinced by his answer. After a year as his partner, he was starting to make guesses about Jin's life and about his motivations - one of the dangers of having someone he would almost call a friend. Aside from what every bounty hunter knew of him - Jin of the Mujuushin Kenjutsu dojo, brilliant pupil who killed his master Enshirou Mariya and betrayed all that he'd come from, disgraced ronin who wandered from place to place doing odd jobs until signing on to escort Kasumi Fuu to Nagasaki to see her father Kasumi Seizou leader in the Shimabara rebellion, and finally slayer of Kagetoki Kariya, the Hand of God - Jin had revealed very little to his partner. He had proven himself an excellent hunter and they'd left the relationship at that. But Jin could see that Renshu needed a bit more convincing of his ability to take on their next job.

 

“Do you think me unfit to complete the task ahead of us?”

 

Renshu shook his head. “Oh, you're fit; no question there. I'm just saying... you spent a lot of time with this one, time enough for some emotional involvement. And I just want to be sure that-”

 

“Renshu-” he interrupted. His partner looked up at his sharp tone. “Do I seem, to you, capable of caring for anyone other than myself and my swords?”

 

Renshu's brow dipped down for a moment as they scrutinized each other. Then it rose, and Jin didn't know which answer he wanted to hear more. Renshu's voice was flat. “No, Jin, you don't.”

 

Just as he'd been taught, he kept all expression from his features, pinning his partner in place with the strength of his dark gaze until the man finally looked away, cowed. It'd worked well thus far in their relationship, and it'd worked on the last man he might have called partner. Mugen had always postured and blown lots of hot air, but sometimes Jin thought he was no more than a scrawny boy who desperately needed an older brother. Only after they'd split up had he realized just how many things Mugen was to him - partner/rival/friend/brother/lover. And he may have frozen under Jin's black eyes, but Jin, in return, had always felt helpless and confused before Mugen's body - the strange way it could move and the utterly unique rhythm of his fighting style. They'd both known, in their own way, how to stop the other in his tracks, how to bring the other to heel.

 

It was the same principle with Renshu, though with considerably less depth and feeling - thankfully. Jin didn't think he had it in him to form another bond like he'd had before, even if he did like his new partner. Jin had been exhausted when he'd split from Mugen and Fuu. He'd rented a room and slept for two weeks, partially to give himself time and space to meditate on his next course of action, but mostly to recover from the tremendous emotional strain of realizing and expressing his need for the two people he'd traveled with for so many months. And he'd left them. He'd needed to recover from that too.

 

In the ensuing months, he'd either gotten very good at hiding his attachment to them from his partner, or his partner was instead very good at reading him and finding that he was not in fact capable of such an attachment in the first place. He thought he knew which was the correct answer, but how could he ever be sure?

 

*

She touched his face, running her thumbs over his cheek bones and the ridges above his eyes. “Why are you so sad, Jin?” He could hear her heart thrumming inside her ribs. If he closed his eyes, he could feel it through the pads of her fingers. “I know your past, how sad you must be for your master and your Mujuu style, but it is in the past, and... and things are different for you now, right?” She brushed her fingers across his lips. “Jin, why don't you smile?”

 

He pulled her hands away from his face and put them back in her lap. He measured and weighed his words carefully before he spoke. She knew this about him and waited patiently. She watched him with wide brown eyes and Mugen would think that she was trying to manipulate him, but Mugen was easily manipulated, and Jin knew she was just waiting for him.

 

“After I killed master Mariya,” he began, “I had no one to serve. Everything I did was for myself alone. You know this. You were there on the cliff.” She nodded. “I have found those - friends, you and Mugen, as strange as that is - for whom I would give my life. Fuu...” He couldn't look her in the eye anymore, so he did what he knew how to do. He laid his sword before her and lowered his head nearly to the floor. “Fuu, I give my sword to you until you will no longer have it. But, I can give you nothing else. I will fail you in every other way that matters. As I have done for most everything in my life to this point, I will fail.” It was true and she had to see it. He was only good at one thing and even though he wanted to place his life next to hers and to their mutual friend/annoyance/lover, Mugen, he knew that he would be unable to-

 

She pushed insistently at his shoulder until he straightened, and when their eyes met he saw that hers were filled with emotion - compassion and sadness, but also something else... something fierce and protective and much stronger than steel. She rose to her feet and tugged on his sleeve until he joined her and they faced each other. Then she folded her hands together and bowed to him the way he'd taught her.

 

“You can start with what you know, and we'll go from there, okay?”

 

They spent their last afternoon together training. Jin taught her everything he could think of and as much as she could absorb until they both decided they'd had enough of the only kind of foreplay Jin really knew and he pushed her down into the grass and she let him kiss every part of her he could reach without completely divesting her of her clothes. He remembered once accusing Mugen of picking a fight with Fuu as his only means of being close to her. He remembered Mugen accusing him of doing much the same thing. He fervently hoped that Mugen was not anywhere nearby to see how right he'd been and to recognize how pathetically stunted they both were in their ability to talk to a girl they liked.

 

 

He was smiling when he opened his eyes - just the smallest twist of his lips and a softening of the lines of his brow. Renshu, of course, noticed immediately and jabbed him with a meaty elbow.

 

“Thinkin' about a lady friend?”

 

“Hn...” he said thoughtfully, considering his words. “She's not a lady, traditionally defined.”

 

Renshu laughed and completely misunderstood him. “She was worth every coin then?”

 

He bristled and his partner immediately backed off with a conciliatory gesture.

 

As they had done for most of the weeks-long trip thus far, they continued in silence, walking a short distance from each other with Renshu in the lead. His breathing was noisy and he walked with a heavy staff, but Jin couldn't exactly blame him. They'd had to cross the mountains, traveling almost directly west from Edo to the village they were seeking - a small place about a four day journey inland from the new town Kanazawa and the sea. It was a difficult trek and Jin suspected that the villagers liked it that way. The town was perched high above sea-level where the air was thinner and fewer people had cause to go. It was a good place for someone to hide. They were still a couple days away from their target, but from what they could tell, no other hunters had come this route, nor were they being followed. They intended to keep it that way, arriving in the village by mid afternoon the day after next, apprehending their target after dark and disappearing back into the mountains long before any of the competition arrived. That afternoon would give them enough time to get the layout of the village as well as the surrounding terrain. It would give them time to come up with a plan that Renshu believed would work, that would make use of Jin's considerable skills of intimidation, without putting him in a position where he might question his commitment to the completion of the job. Jin took this to mean that they would both track their target, but that Renshu would be the one to blow the darts and tie the knots.

 

Jin decided not to speak up about his partner's assumed leadership in the operation. He was already on the receiving end of enough worried glances. Anything he said would only make his partner more tense, and a tense Renshu sometimes led to unintended darts in unfortunate places. That was one way Renshu differed from Mugen. Mugen didn't need to be in charge; he didn't need to strategize; he just needed to keep himself moving in order to say loose. Renshu was a bit of a contradiction - a slob who needed to maintain order in others' lives, especially his partner's. Honestly, Jin didn't mind. In the year since he'd left his friends, he'd needed someone else to set the agenda. The time would come when he would step forward again to account for his actions.

 

*

When they arrived on the outskirts of the village, they did a thorough perimeter sweep - no easy task, since the surrounding woodlands had been built up with a thick barricade of underbrush and interlocking logs. It looked as though the village had sustained a major attack in the past and was in the process of recovering from it and making certain that it didn't happen again. Access to the village was essentially limited to a road from the west and one from the east. And the pair of hunters had left that road long before their destination came into view.

 

When they were finished with their sweep, Renshu collapsed in the shade, attempting to escape the intense afternoon heat. He fanned himself with the loose fabric of his work shirt and rubbed the sweat from his forehead with a muscled arm.

 

“Looked pretty clear to me,” he wheezed. “You find anything?”

 

Jin shook his head, no. “We appear to be the only ones in the area. I saw a party of merchants leaving toward the sea, but they kept to the road and have gone now.”

 

His partner nodded. “Good. I need a rest; why don't you find a way in while I snooze. Wake me up when you get back.”

 

Jin acknowledged his partner with a noncommittal “hn,” keeping his face blank. “How many others do you think are headed this way?”

 

Renshu shrugged. “From what the boss said, once the shogunate got wind of her location, they passed the information on to only the best bounty hunter networks. S'why we gotta hurry.”

 

“Hn,” he replied, turning away. “I'll be back before dark.” Then he disappeared into the brush.

 

*

She wasn't hard to find; he didn't expect her to be. Her voice called to him; it was the same - girlish and sharp. He heard it, just on the other side of the village wall and he'd stepped out of his sandals before she'd finished the first sentence he'd heard her speak in just over a year. He found a tree suitable for climbing just on the outside of the brush barricade and he looked up the length of its trunk, briefly wondering whether at the ripe old age of 21, he was still capable of scaling one of these.

 

When he was little, before he was sent to the dojo, his mother had to call him down from a tree nearly every day for dinner. He'd climbed every tree in their garden, even the ones that got him sticky with sap, and turned the insides of his arms pink with rashes. He hadn't started to grow his hair long until he'd left home, because his mother had always resorted to cutting out the sappy snarls. Everything changed when he'd turned ten, but he remembered those years in his muscles when he gripped a low hanging branch in one hand and laid his other flat against the rough bark.

 

She was talking to someone who wasn't answering her. He didn't think she was talking to herself, because after she asked a question, she continued on as though it had been answered. Needing to find out what was happening on the other side of the wall, he thanked providence that Mugen wasn't around to see what he was about to do and hoisted himself up into the tree. He pulled himself up by stout branches and clung to the trunk with his knees when their were none. He scraped the insides of his arms raw. They itched and his hair kept pulling on twigs and leaves, but then the garden just inside the wall became visible and as he climbed, so did she.

 

She was bent over, and just like he remembered, the bones of her spine showed through the thin fabric of her summer work clothes. The outer shirt was dark brown and snugly tied closed around her waist. He'd never seen her in clothing other than her pink kimono, let alone a pair of peasant work pants. They hung loosely on her and were cropped just below her knees. She worked bare foot and her feet were very dirty. Her skin was light brown and contrasted less with the color of her hair than it did when they traveled together and she was still a pale tea-house waitress. Her hair...

 

None of it grew past her ears and most of it stood up at odd angles. He saw why when she brushed it off her forehead with a grubby hand. He'd known she was planning to cut it when they split up, but surely in a year's time, it would have grown back. She was keeping it short, then. She looked nothing like the girl he knew, except she was exactly Fuu with that voice and that flush on her cheeks. He noticed that the prayer beads were not around her wrist, nor could he see the comb that Mugen had given her anywhere on her person.

 

Next, he noticed the child she was talking to, the one who didn't respond. The girl walked a few paces behind, holding a basket that was growing increasingly full of weeds. She looked about five years old. She looked more like she'd rather be somewhere other than in a hot, sun-filled garden carrying a basket of weeds. But she followed Fuu closely and kept a watchful eye on everything she did. As they walked along the rows of plants, Fuu picked a few beans and turned to show them to the girl.

 

“These are the ripe ones, see, Chie?” The girl nodded and took them, tossing them into another basket hanging against her back.

 

As they worked, Jin took in all the details he'd missed over the last year. He noticed more muscle in her arms and back. He noticed she'd picked up a bit of an accent, distinctly western. She was blending in. He wanted desperately to see her eyes, but if he saw those, he suspected she would see him.

 

He looked up sharply when he heard a young man's voice calling her name - or rather, her new name. “Suzume!”

 

She pressed on her knees to straighten, muttering, “Oh, brother” under her breath. She turned to face the eager youth as he ran up to her. Jin didn't think he could be any older than Fuu herself.

 

“The merchants from town brought all the medical supplies you ordered! I had them dropped off at the hospital, but I didn't put them away for you because I know you don't like it when I do that.”

 

Jin instantly disliked him. He was like a puppy.

 

When Fuu smiled at the boy, his heart gave an unobtrusive twinge. “You don't know where any of it goes; even after I show you, you forget.”

 

He didn't wear his hair in the popular style of the time. Jin supposed that was one thing he had going for him, though his hair was still gathered on top of his head in a knot. His features were strong, but still boyish. When Fuu handed him the baskets the little girl - 'Chie,' Jin mouthed - had been carrying, he took them without a word of protest. Then the girl raised her arms to Fuu in a silent plea, and she bent down to swing her up onto her hip. That was at least part of the reason for the muscle in her back and arms, Jin thought.

 

As they walked away from him, he thought that they looked like a little family, like two older siblings caring for a younger. If he could have ignored the open adoration in the boy's eyes every time he looked at Fuu, he would have felt a lot better.

 

He leaned forward to keep Fuu in sight as long as he could. His lips pressed together in a small smile when, presumably for something he'd said, she punched the boy in the shoulder. Jin heard him laugh, juggling the baskets to rub his arm. Fuu'd always had sharp knuckles. He watched as the little girl wriggled out of her grasp and landed on the ground with a bump, turning and quickly running back into the garden for something she'd left. Fuu waited for her with a hand on her hip while the boy stood faithfully a few paces behind her. The girl dodged between the rows of vegetables and retrieved her straw hat, pushing it down over snarled brown hair before turning to look him squarely in the eye. He jolted and sucked in a quiet hiss. Her expression remained blank until she suddenly looked past him and her eyes widened. Jin spun about so quickly he nearly lost his balance.

 

He saw the archer the moment he let fly an arrow from his bamboo longbow. Jin reacted with eleven years of training and his own natural grace - the only problem being that he was 20 feet into a tree, hanging over a barricade of brambles. He managed an urgent “Run!” in the girl's direction before he launched himself, blade drawn, into the air.

 

He sliced the arrow cleanly in half as he fell, noticing as the air whistled in his ears and the ground rushed up to meet him, that it was not meant for the little girl. It would have flown far over her head. Rather, the arrow was meant for Fuu.

 

Somehow, he avoided the low-hanging branches and managed to roll when he hit the ground. Still, his joints jolted painfully as he came to his feet. Sticks and sharp pine needles scratched the bottoms of his feet as he ran toward Fuu's would-be assassin, familiar drums thudding to life in his chest. The man already had another arrow nocked, bow drawn and ready to fire. Desperately, Jin threw his short-sword up into the trees, trying to pick the archer off his branch. But the man spotted the blade and dodged, swinging himself down from his perch to land silently in the loamy earth. He straightened and regarded Jin with sober, dark eyes. Jin planted his feet in the dirt and assumed a defensive stance, ready to strike down any more arrows the archer fired.

 

The man moved with frightening precision and suddenly he had three arrows nocked between his knuckles. Jin sucked in a breath and raised his katana to block, but before he did more than lift his arm, he was thrown back against a tree, pinned with all three arrows. The back of his head struck the trunk and he blinked. No more than a second later, three more pierced the fabric of his hakama, along the inside of his right leg. He jerked forward and couldn't move, hearing his clothing tear. When next he looked up the archer was gone. He heard the child's feet pounding against the earth on the other side of the wall and, in the distance, Fuu's concerned questions; but the girl never responded that he could hear.

 

It took him several minutes to work the arrows out of the tree trunk, and for the last few, he had to pull away, dragging his clothes off the arrows, over the fletching. Cursing at the amount of time he'd spent trying to get free, as well as the six new holes in his sleeves and hakama, he took off for his partner after retrieving his blade. As he ran, he replayed his encounter with the strange archer, a man obviously intent upon ending Fuu's life, but making a great effort to avoid injuring Jin - using six arrows to keep him from moving. In his year of experience, that was not typical behavior for a bounty hunter. Was he a shogunate man then? He shook his head, no, as he ran. If the archer had been a government official, then he would have instantly recognized Jin and tried to kill him as well.

 

No, the archer must have been another bounty hunter, one of the few who now knew where Fuu had been hiding. And if another hunter was already here, then the others couldn't be far behind.

 

He came upon where Renshu had been resting just as all hell broke loose. The uproar was sudden and brutally violent, fueled by a dozen desperate men all seeking the same target. He and Renshu should have known, with a bounty that size, their competition would arrive sooner than they imagined. The archer was just the first. He drew his katana as he ran, asking the blade, Kasumi Seizo's blade, to protect him so that he could protect Fuu. Then he swung his way into the fray, finding his partner in the middle of it, wielding his giant walking stick with a skill and a need that Jin had not yet seen. The chaotic rhythm of the battle quickened his blood and he felt so deliciously awake and afraid that he thought his heart might burst.

 

“Oi!” his partner called to him. “What the fuck happened?”

 

He took the time to shrug a response before ducking under the wild swing of a rusty kama-yari, pivoting low and gutting the man who would dare to use a weapon like Sara's so unskillfully. Then he moved on, his blade glittering in the dying light as he wove between the swarm of hunters who'd fallen upon them and each other. He and Renshu had to keep all these men from the village, and then they had to make sure that no one else was going to show up and try to take their prize. How they could pull that second part off was a mystery to Jin since he'd thought they had a good lead on the competition when they arrived.

 

A sharp call from Renshu was all the warning he got before he heard the ominous sound of a chain weapon whistling and clinking toward him. He spun and ducked all in one potion as a small blade scythed over his head; and in that moment, he wished for Mugen's blade and his experience so fervently that he thought, absurdly, the vagrant/felon/pirate/royal fuck up might just be there when he regained his feet. But of course he wasn't, so Jin raised his katana and on the next pass of the chain, he let it tangle around his blade, tilting his chin away from the small scythe as it nearly grazed his skin. The bounty hunter laughed when he saw that Jin was trapped and jerked him forward, nearly pulling him off his feet. As he stumbled forward, he reached for his short sword, drawing it swiftly, reversing his grip on the handle and slicing open his attacker's throat as he came up against him.

 

Then he turned as he heard the gates to the village creak open and a small horde of men stream out into the fading light of dusk. They shouted threats, and Jin saw the flicker of torch light as they approached.

 

“Fuck!” his partner cursed.

 

Jin echoed those sentiments inside his own head as he extricated his sword from the dead man's chain. Warning bells clanged in his brain and he felt a familiar presence behind him, turning just in time to see the archer take out three of the bounty hunters and then disappear back into the trees as the villagers fell upon them.

 

“Renshu!” he called sharply.

 

“I know, I know,” his partner returned, backing away from the band of sword and staff-wielding fighters. Jin categorized them as such immediately upon seeing them engage the remaining bounty hunters. These were not just farmers or craftsmen taking up arms to defend their village. They wore similar colors and Jin realized with a jolt that Fuu was hiding out amongst the yakuza. His eyes widened when he saw the boy from the garden leading the gang, his voice brash and loud. Jin looked about and saw with tremendous relief that Fuu was not among those who'd come to fight, not putting it past her for a second. Then he refocused his attention on the boy as he sprang at one of the remaining bounty hunters, wrestling him to the ground and landing with his knee on the man's chest. His estimation of the boy's character went up a notch when he dispatched the hunter with one neat slice of his blade. In his dark eyes, Jin saw an old tragedy and in his movements he saw a child forced to become a fighter. And in a moment of bittersweet clarity he thought, Fuu did always like the tragic ones. Then the boy flung himself at Jin, teeth bared.

 

“I know why you're here,” he snarled. “We've fended off your kind before, and we'll do it again!”

 

Jin didn't reply, backing away before the blur of sword strokes. Instead he thought, this boy was never meant for the martial arts, but he is very good at caring for others.

 

When Renshu grabbed Jin by the arm and forced him to retreat, he hoped that the boy was as good as his word, and that Fuu would be safe until he could return with different help.

 

*

They half ran, half stumbled down the slope into the sheltering darkness, and they didn't stop until the sounds of their pursuers had faded completely. Renshu bent over, breathing heavily and periodically cursing under his breath. Jin began to come down off the adrenalin high of a good fight and took the time to memorize everything about Fuu that was new. He closed his eyes and held all the details close to his chest - her darker skin, her wild hair, the strength in her arms, the odd picture she made with a silent child on her hip. “Fuu,” he whispered.

 

His eyes snapped open when his partner approached and thumped him on the back. “Exactly what I was thinking, my friend. When are we going back for that bounty head? Probly ought to wait a few days anyway, but they can't watch her all the time.”

 

Jin hesitated and then decided that now was as good a time as any. “We're not going back to that village, and if you ever do - if you lay a hand on Fuu, I will treat you the same as any other hunter, regardless of our history.”

 

His partner's eyes narrowed. “You mean you're taking her for all the reward money?”

 

“No. She is no longer a target.”

 

Now the man's mouth turned down into a scowl. “Says who?”

 

“Her bodyguard.”

 

The silence hung heavy after that one and Jin readied himself for a fight, but Renshu only shook his head. “So it's been about her this whole time,” he grunted, leaning on his staff.

 

Jin pressed his lips together in a thin smile. “Of course it has.”

 

Renshu considered him for a long moment, perhaps seeing him for the first time. His hands flexed around his staff. “I misjudged you, Jin.”

 

He felt his chest begin to thaw a bit after a year of bitter frost. “And for that, I am very grateful.”

 

They watched each other in silence for a bit longer, both unsure of how to proceed. “So, what now?” Renshu finally asked. “You never intended to turn her in - you owe me a bounty head... a big one.”

 

Jin lowered his eyes briefly, as close as he came to acknowledging and apologizing for his deception.

 

Renshu scowled when he remained silent. “Well? How are you gonna fix this?”

 

He sucked in a breath and hardened his resolve. “Take me in her place. I'm worth almost as much.”

 

Renshu regarded him skeptically and crossed his arms over his chest. “Are you insane? You'll be executed on sight.”

 

Jin sighed. “Hopefully not.”

 

 

“We would keep you safe.”

 

“I know you would. You would both die for me.”

 

“Yes.”

 

“I can't let that happen, Jin.”

 

“You would have to trust us.”

 

“I do. After all this time, how could I not trust you? You have to trust me now. I have to know that I can get along on my own, without you. You have to trust that I can do it, and that I will find you again.”

 

He heard Mugen shift across the room. He heard his breathing change and Jin knew he wasn't asleep anymore.

 

 

Fin.