Samurai Champloo Fan Fiction ❯ Rescue Remix ❯ Chapter 1

1.

 

It was just a damn good think he liked drinking and brawling so much. Even though he'd started realizing some things about himself in the past few months; even though he recognized that his life had been permanently altered by the time he'd spent with Jin and Fuu, some things, thankfully, didn't change. But, shit, how many times did he have to get loaded, get into a stupid fight, and pass out somewhere conspicuous before someone really took notice of him? Was he that fucking scary that no one dared get close even when he was out cold and snoring?

Yes, he thought smugly. Of course he was.

 

An entire season of searching and he had jack shit to show for it. He'd spent the winter nosing around Kyushu and the southern parts of Honshu and he'd found squat, not even a word. He'd moved north as the weather got warmer, finally heading east to Kyoto and Edo. There, he'd caught wind of the gang Jin was running with, but no one would tell him where the asshole was headed or where he'd been.

 

It was just a damn good thing he liked to travel, that he needed to keep moving in order to feel like he was in control of his own path, because he felt like he'd crossed back and forth between the western sea and the ocean following leads enough times to be able to do it drunk and blind-folded. He was starting to recognize towns he'd been to when he'd been traveling with them; he'd developed a few favorite restaurants; he even had a couple girls waiting for him in places he'd been more than once. And he'd lost count of the number of times he'd said 'fuck it' and spent a few days cursing the whole concept of friendship.

 

But, inevitably, when he woke up in some town, in the same shitty whorehouse he'd slept in three days before, he came back to the inescapable truth: he had nothing better to do.

 

So it was with great relief that he awoke to tight ropes around his wrists and ankles, and a sword poking him in the back. The left side of his face was pressed into the ground, and he could feel pine needles and twigs leaving neat little lines in his already scarred cheek. Fortunately, his hangover wasn't too atrocious and the only evidence of the bar brawl the previous night was a slightly stiff hip. Yes, the belligerent fucker Mugen had gotten belligerent back at had kicked him in the hip before he could stomp his face into the wood grain. All-in-all, he felt pretty good, especially now he had someone's attention.

 

He craned his neck around to get a look at the dude guarding him and raised an eyebrow when he saw that the dude was actually a chick, a scrawny, mean looking chick with several teeth missing from the left side of her mouth. “S'up,” he muttered. “Lose those in a brawl?”

 

She grinned, showing off her gums and poking her tongue through where her teeth had been. “My husband knocked them out before I bashed his head in with my wok.”

 

Mugen grunted his approval, which she appeared to mistake for scorn because the blade in his back dug in, and he felt it tear his shirt, the one she'd made for him. “Back the fuck off,” he snarled, attempting to sound threatening with half his face in the dirt. He ended up with pine needles in his mouth. “I ain't goin' anywhere,” he added as some sort of offering.

 

The woman peered down at him over his hunched shoulder. He glared back up at her, deciding she was singularly unattractive, and worse than that, old. She had to be close to 40. “You that felon, Mugen?”

 

He smirked. “You bet. Gonna take me in now?”

 

She gave him her toothless grin again. “Been meanin' to for the last three weeks we've been following you. You were such a pretty target last night; the opportunity finally presented itself.”

 

That explained the constant itch between his shoulder blades he hadn't been able to get rid of. “Where are we headed?”

 

She leaned a little closer, and since Mugen was already on the ground, he couldn't back up any further. If this woman meant business, there wouldn't be much he could do other than squirm. He tested the knots around his wrists again and found them to still be solid. “Wouldn't you like to know,” she sneered. Then she clubbed him over the head with something she pulled from behind her back.

 

*

He awoke to rhythmic jostling movement underneath him and incredible stiffness in his shoulders. He cracked one eye open and came face to face with the coarse, short hair of a gigantic horse. He knew the horse was gigantic without having to look any further than the distance between himself and the ground passing by below. Several pairs of feet escorted him on either side of the gigantic horse, and immediately he closed his eyes again when he heard their conversation. But as most of his face was pressed against the horse's side, he allowed himself a small satisfied grin.

 

“I figure we're only a few days away from Kanazawa. We should be able to get there before they execute him.”

 

“You think they'll give us more for this one since they've already got the other one? Two out of three would make for a popular beheading.”

 

He recognized the woman's laugh immediately. “Why stop with this one? Word's gotten out the girl is in the mountains nearby. We drop this one off and go after her, too. She's got the most money on her head anyway, and we could bargain for more since she'd be completing the set.”

 

“But everybody knows about her now. Those woods have gotta be swarming with hunters.”

 

The woman's voice was low and fierce. “We can take'em. With these two together, we'll be the richest gang in Honshu. We'll get all the biggest bounty heads so we can choose which ones we take. No more of this petty criminals shit.”

 

Mugen stopped listening at that point. He squeezed his eyes shut tight as familiar, dangerous emotions began to bubble and broil in his belly. They'd been quieted and controlled for the last half year as he searched - directed into his task so that he could focus. He felt them warming his gut like shitty sake, felt them spill out to his fingertips. It was like before, after they'd left him, when there'd been a demon in his belly, but not like then because he'd been crazy then. He didn't feel crazy now, but he definitely needed to... He now had something very specific that he had to do. He had to get moving; these obnoxious fuckers were taking way too long to get where they were headed. And they'd already outlived their usefulness.

 

His opportunity to be rid of them came much sooner than he anticipated.

 

He thanked his lucky stars that people could always be trusted to let greed override their better judgment, and that greed often counted as their better interest. If he had been in a different position, he probably would have done the same as any of these men and women. But a different sort of greed was driving him now.

 

As the gang of bounty hunters flooded out of the trees and down the hillside onto the road, Mugen knew that his captors were as good as dead. Against the new competition, they were no more than amateurs. All the hairs on his arms stood up when he twisted his neck around to try and see them all. Mugen didn't ever hide; he didn't blend in; he'd always stuck out wherever went. Kept things interesting, kept him from getting bored. But the number of people who wanted him dead was getting ridiculously high. He didn't need this much attention. But, he realized, these people weren't necessarily all here for him. They were here for Fuu because she'd been discovered in the mountains outside of Kanazawa. Why else would all these thugs hang around this middle-of-nowhere side of the world? And if they were still here, then maybe they hadn't found her yet. The same could not be said for Jin.

 

Apparently separating from them had been completely pointless. Until they were all hunted down and killed for their various crimes, they would always be bound up together. He decided this would serve as his working definition for 'family,' not just 'friendship,' and that, while he didn't like the implications, he didn't think there was a way around them, not at this point. The year on his own was coming to an end.

 

He admitted that joining up with a gang of bounty hunters had been an excellent way for Jin to keep track of who knew about Fuu and, more importantly, who knew where she was. But to end up in the slammer when there were still at least a dozen of these guys frothing at the mouth to catch her seemed downright idiotic. Mugen would be sure to make this fact painfully clear when he found Jin. Before he could do that, however...

 

“Oi, Toothless,” he called down to her. She made a small noise in reply as she hovered by the horse's flank. They were completely surrounded, and she knew they were all in trouble if something didn't happen to turn the fight in their favor. “You're gonna need my help if you wanna beat these guys. I'm rootin' for you to be the ones to bring me in.”

 

“Hand him over if you want to live.” The leader of the new gang shouted this even as the rest of his men attacked.

 

“Better cut me free now while you got the chance.” The first of the woman's gang died with very little effort and not much noise. The second quickly followed. Mugen found himself shoved off the horse, his bonds sliced away and his sword in his hand before he could count to five.

 

He sniffed the air and breathed in the metallic scent of blood. It woke up something ugly and furious in him. Then he fell upon them with a mania reserved for any idiot who threatened what was his. He was glad to kill them, and he didn't stop, even when he'd finished off the leader. He didn't watch any of them die; he moved onto the next until only the woman was left. He'd killed her entire gang, and before he killed her, he called his mind back from one of the darker places it had ever been and made his tongue work. “Kanazawa?”

 

She nodded. The whites of her eyes were a little distracting - very bright.

 

“Bet you're wishin' you had that wok right about now,” he managed before he sliced her open and left her to bleed to death.

 

*

Mugen crested the hill as the sun was at its hottest. It beat down on his shoulders and when he ran a hand through hair that had gotten too long, the tangled strands were hot to the touch.

 

“Fuckin-a, why the fuck are you all the way out here?” he grumbled to himself. “Why can't you ever be north this time a'year?” His hand went from his scalp to the reassuring grip of his sword and then to the back of his neck. He squeezed a few muscles that had gotten tight. “And why are you such a whiny bitch?”

 

Growling furiously at himself, he unwound from his wrist the piece of fabric he'd resorted to using as a hair band. With abrupt, angry movements, he wrapped it around his forehead and then tied it underneath the sweaty hair on the back of his neck. The stupid thing made his hair stand pretty much straight up, but at least it was off his face. The new ritual of tying back his hair helped to calm him a little bit. If he was honest with himself - and he had been, for some reason, as of late - the heat wasn't really the problem. He'd grown up in hell after all. No - the problem was nerves. Pure and simple. He was nervous.

 

“Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck...” he muttered under his breath, staring down the steep slope below him. The mountainous woodlands behind him had been cleared all the way to the sea. He could see exactly where he was headed, and this only made it worse. He rubbed a slightly sweating palm against his cut-off hakama. “And why am I talking to myself?” he finished as he started down the slope.

 

*

This was a rich town. He could see it as he casually approached the guard station. From above, it was easy to make out the quality of the houses, the neatness of the gardens. If he'd had more time, he could have become a rich man off the schmucks wearing their wealth in conspicuous, easy to filch pouches. Regretfully, however, he had a very specific task in mind, and would be unable to dally in the market or the sizable red light district.

 

As he drew his sword with a satisfying 'swish,' it looked like the louts at the guard post were beginning to catch on to what that task was. “Yo,” he called with his usual drawl. “Wanna have some fun?” He rolled his shoulders as they raised the alarm and came at him, giving his sword a few warm-up swings and cracking his neck. He bared his teeth in a manic grin as they closed in on him. He wondered briefly if today was the last day he'd fight in the sun. He immediately rejected that familiar and oddly comforting question. He too much had shit to do. He took two running steps forward and ducked beneath the first of the guards, crowing triumphantly, “I'll take all you bitches on!” sliding between two more, and with two precise slices, cut open their kimono and hakama, leaving them clutching at their under-wrappings. He brought his blade up to block a heavy downward stroke and then he stepped to the side, sliding his sword down and around and back up, the hilt clipping the soldier's temple as he stumbled forward.

 

He ducked, dodged and rolled between the men as they came at him, steadily working his way closer to the guard house and the gates of the town. He killed none of the men who attacked him for one very large and important reason, but this reason was becoming more of an annoyance as the fuckers he didn't kill kept coming back to attack him, holding their pants up as they ran. He hoped the uncharacteristic care he was taking with the situation paid off. He hoped the bastard appreciated it.

 

He ducked as a man swung at him from behind, the blade taking off a few hairs. He growled as he spun around, bringing his sword up to slice off the entire knot of hair atop his attacker's head. He was running out of time. The commanding officers were emerging from the guard station, squinting at his face, watching him fight, making the connections they were supposed to. And he was rapidly running out of room. He took a few running steps toward the entrance and threw himself forward onto his hands, legs scissoring over his head to smack two soldiers away. His hips swiveled and snapped to the side and he swung himself into a tight spin, flipping back to his feet when he'd cleared some space for himself.

 

He took a moment to size up the men surrounding him, eyes sliding from them to the open door of the guard station and back. He really wanted to tear these losers limb from limb just for doing their jobs and being so damn tenacious. He wanted to feel his sword bite into bone and slice tendons from muscle. He wanted to be a monster, and a few months ago, he probably would have gone ahead and done it, despite the giant reason not to. But a few months ago, he was feeling pretty shitty about a lot of things. And today... well, today he thought he'd do right by his girl and their stupid samurai.

 

He didn't promise her that he wouldn't start fights he couldn't win, as evidenced by the dozens of men now circled around him with their swords pointed at his throat. But he did promise her that he wouldn't throw his life away and so, with a sly grin, he let his sword fall from his hand, keeping his gaze on the soldiers when he heard it stick, point down, in the ground.

 

“Be nice, boys,” he started. “I was real careful with you.”

 

The soldiers stared at him for a moment, not believing that he'd really just given up his weapon. He nodded his encouragement and beckoned with one hand.

 

“That's right; you can do it.”

 

“Grab him, you idiots!” an officer called from the back of the crowd.

 

He sucked in a breath, taking an involuntary step backward as they surged forward. A path cleared behind him and he leaned out of the way of a few fists and sandaled feet until he stumbled into the wall of the guard station and then abruptly slid down to avoid a sword strike that bit into the boards over his head.

 

“Easy, easy! I said be careful!” he shouted. He twisted away from the hands that grabbed for him and the fists aimed at his face, contorting his body into strange shapes to evade capture. But the cluster of soldiers grew larger and the number of hands grabbing him and attempting to hold him increased until he was nearly immobilized. He squirmed in their grasp, something very young and instinctive in him screaming in his head to 'keep moving!' even though he'd voluntarily given himself up. His chest grew tight with incipient panic when someone grabbed his hair and a few others shoved his arms out to his sides, flat against the wall of the building. He flexed his fingers in their grip and someone chose that exact moment to shove their tanto through the meat of his palm.

 

His head thumped back in shock and all traces of panic drained away. He knew that some people went a little crazy when they were in pain. They begged and pleaded. They threw up or they pissed themselves. They did all four. Mugen knew pain intimately and there was nothing like a blade through his palm to clear his head. He turned to look at the blood running down the side of the building and remembered the feel of three blades piercing his hand, fighting a mutant maniac under water, beneath a capsized ferry. This wasn't so bad - same hand even, his left, thank god.

 

Still his eyes watered just a little when someone shoved their knee up under his ribs and knocked all the air out of his lungs. He tried to draw a breath, but his diaphragm was stuck. Before he could stop himself, he wrenched his right hand free and reached out to curl it around the scrawny neck of some goon about to kick him in the ribs. The man's eyes bulged from his head when Mugen started to squeeze, and damn, did it feel good to watch the guy start panicking. But the voice of reason in his head - sometimes sounding like Fuu sometimes like Jin, depending on which would be more obnoxious in the given circumstances - was shouting at him to 'Stop it, stop it, stop it! You try to kill one of them, they will execute you before you can get inside!'

 

He snatched his hand back as one of them looked like he was about to hack it off. He squirmed and bucked for another few seconds, all the while trying to take in enough air to do more than make pathetic choking sounds, until finally he drew a gasping breath when his muscles loosened.

 

“Just let me in, goddammit!” he shouted. “I just want inside!”

 

That shut them up, he noticed, as he focused on his breath and with the rest of his attention watched the soldiers give him wary but curious looks. They parted ranks when their commanding officer bullied his way between them to stand a safe distance from his new prisoner. If Mugen didn't have a smart ass comment ready on his lips, it wasn't because he couldn't think of one; he was just glad to breathe again.

 

“So this is really the infamous Mugen?” he said with a smirk.

 

“Vagrant Mugen,” he corrected. “That's me.”

 

The officer looked him over for what Mugen thought was an excessive period. Yes his clothes were ratty and now torn more than before. Yes, his hair was a mess; he was a bloody mess. None of this should be shocking to the officer who could now claim that he'd subdued the wanted criminal, the dangerous felon, Mugen.

 

“So, boys, you got me,” he said, licking at a cut on his lip. “Wanna take me inside now? I promise I won't run off.”

 

The officer's lip curled. “I highly doubt a promise from someone like you holds any water.”

 

Mugen, who'd regained his breath and was feeling much better, sneered right back at him. “Holds more than your weave there, pal. You should just accept the fact that you're goin' bald and give up the-” He snapped his teeth shut around a sound that he really didn't want to let out as the officer grabbed the tanto and twisted.

 

“I'm not going bald, and this isn't a weave; it's a hair style,” he said with perfect aplomb. “But I wouldn't expect you to know that. Nor would I expect you to know just how much money you're worth right the moment; you probably can't count that high.” Mugen thought about defending his great skill in counting money, but there were only two people in the world who could get Mugen defensive, and this dickhead certainly wasn't one of them. “And you're worth the same dead as you are alive. The shogunate doesn't even care to bring you in for questioning. So your life is now completely in my hands. I can do whatever I want with you, so long as I kill you in the end. Tell me why I shouldn't shove this knife into your throat right now.”

 

Mugen stuck out his chin. “Two reasons, I'd guess. First, you wanna know if I've seen the girl. And second, you wanna jack off to a public execution.”

 

The officer quirked an eyebrow. “Very good. Though you might want to watch your mouth. It will only get you into more trouble.” Mugen chuckled to himself, trying to narrow his list of rude rejoinders down to the best one. But before he could open his mouth, something heavy struck him behind the ear and he blacked out.

 

*

He woke up when he landed in the cell, instinctively tucking into a ball and curling his injured hand against his chest. He half-skidded, half-rolled to a stop and groaned his discomfort and foul mood to whoever might happen to hear him. Then he sat up and pulled the band from his hair, wrapping it as tightly as he could around his palm. “Fuckin-a,” he grumbled. He glared at his surroundings, finding this cell was quite similar to others he'd been tossed into - small, damp, dim, and dirty. Only difference was, this one had a pale, half-starved, but unmistakably alive ronin directly across the way, hands tucked into his sleeves, hair pulled back neat as ever, as though nothing was in the least bit out of sorts. Mugen shuffled forward on his knees and rested his forehead against the bars, suddenly feeling as though there really was nothing in the least bit out of sorts.

 

“Found you.”

 

Jin reached up to tuck a bit of dirty black hair behind his ear, his sleeve sliding back just enough to reveal a newly healed tattoo encircling his wrist.

 

“Yes you did.”