Samurai Champloo Fan Fiction ❯ Rescue Remix ❯ Chapter 2

2.

 

He sat with his back to the bars, spine situated between two of them. He was still uncomfortable, ass too bony, ribs too sharp to rest against such hard surfaces. He stared at his injured hand where it rested on his knee, at his ruined headband and at the dried blood that had tracked down his wrist. “What a fucking stupid idea,” he muttered.

 

At his back, he heard the shift of clothing and the scrape of a voice that hadn't been in use for awhile. “I'm impressed you'd come to such a realization so quickly.” His voice was as prim and infuriating as he remembered. “Why you thought joining me in this place was the best way to-”

 

“I meant you getting caught in the first place, dumbass,” he growled.

 

“I didn't get caught; I turned myself in so that my partner could collect the bounty on my head.”

 

“Why?” he hissed, vehemently enough to surprised himself a little. He hated the word partner.

 

“Because, Mugen-” He felt a small thrill at the force with which Jin said his name. “You wouldn't have been able to find me any other way, drinking and stealing and sleeping your way across the Honshu province. Turning myself in was the only kind of signal fire you would see from whatever brothel you were slumming in.”

 

Mugen scowled at the shadows of his cell and tried to rid himself of the image of Jin on top of a mountain, burning longs criss-crossed at his feet, clothes and hair on fire. Mugen stood on an adjacent peak, hand raised to shade his eyes. Fuu stood next to him, kimono hitched up to her thighs so she could climb up onto a rock to get a better look. He gave her a boost, squeezing a tight little ass cheek for good measure, and she didn't even yell at him. She squinted against the glare of the sunset and pointed. “There he is! We found him! Hey, Mugen, there he is!”

 

He blinked a few times and rubbed his belly when it rumbled with hunger. “Hey, when's dinner? I been here a day already and no one's even come to make sure we're still here.”

 

Jin exhaled sharply. “You will soon see why they do not need to do more than post a guard outside.”

 

“S'at supposed to mean?” He went from rubbing to scratching, then lifted his shirt to pick lint from his bellybutton.

 

Jin said nothing in reply. Mugen yawned and tried to decide whether he was tired or not. The days of relentless travel to get there, the fight outside the guardhouse, his body's need to heal; all of those things should have combined to knock him out in a few seconds. Even though the floor was disgusting and the cells in this particular block appeared to be reserved for the criminals that the guards didn't want to get near, he should have been able to sleep like the dead. He should have-

 

Jin shifted at his back and Mugen glanced over his shoulder, irritated and edgy. Jin had never felt the need to fill silence, and somehow Mugen always ended up propping up conversations that even he wasn't particularly interested in having, but were still more exciting than listening to his stomach growl. He was speaking before he even knew what he was talking about.

 

“So how long do you think it'll take for the shogunate to find her and catch her?”

 

“The shogunate sent my partner and I after her, along with several of the most well-known hunting families. It seems they don't feel the need to send government agents after her when she's on her own.”

 

“S'not what I heard,” Mugen said, flicking a bit of lint off his fingers and then scratching a hand through his hair. He really needed to take his knife to it; it'd gotten so long. He was bored enough to do it, of course now that he didn't have his knife.

 

Jin's silence invited him to continue.

 

“I kinda thought she'd already be here by the time I showed up. Met up with a ninja who'd been recruited by the shogunate to bring her in. And that woman knows how to get what she's after.” Mugen worked his fingers through a snarl and grinned distantly at the memory of Yatsuha's legs around his waist. “If we find Fuu at the same time as her, I'd tap that again. Sucks we gotta dick around in the mountains lookin', though we'll probably hear her screamin' her head off if she's in trouble. Or if she's hungry,” he added.

 

Jin sighed sharply, sounding utterly frustrated and disgusted with him. “Mugen, I've seen her. I know where she is. I killed the bounty hunters who were trying to get into her village. Are you certain that more agents like Sara or Kariya will be going after her as well?”

 

He shrugged. “Hell if I know for sure, but I'd guess, yeah.”

 

Jin made a soft, pensive sound, a 'Hn,' that Mugen hadn't heard in well over a year. “We have even less time than I originally calculated. We must escape from here immediately.”

 

“Nah, I thought we'd hang out for awhile. I like it here. The smell is fantastic.”

 

As someone whose words could bite harder than a snapping turtle, Jin was immune to his sarcasm. He got another 'Hn' followed by what felt like an eternity of silence. Finally, Mugen stirred again.

 

“So, I got one really big, really important question to ask you.”

 

“And what's that?” Jin murmured at his back.

 

“If you've seen her, if you know where she is, why the fuck isn't she with you now, while you're on your way to someplace not crawling with bounty hunters?”

 

He could tell Jin had been waiting for that question by the heaviness of his voice. “That's difficult to explain,” he replied after a moment.

 

“Try me; I got nothin' to do but wait.”

 

“...I could not have gotten her away without injuring or killing a significant number of people.”

 

Mugen made a face. “So? When's that ever been a problem for you?”

 

Another sharp exhalation, and Jin continued. “These were people she cared about, people who did not deserve to die.”

 

He waited for Jin to finish, sensing that the words, when they came, would pull whatever stability, whatever drive he'd had for the past six months right out from under him.

 

When Jin spoke, his voice was tight and maybe sad, and Mugen almost told him to save it, told him he didn't care, but then it was too late. “They were her new family. The boy who led the men of the village against us was...” The pause dragged on as Jin no doubt tried to find a prissy way to say whatever brutal thing needed to be said. “He is precious to her in some way. I could not kill him. It would have been the wrong thing to do.”

 

That great ugly thing sat between them long enough for Mugen to consider getting really depressed. He didn't think he'd ever been depressed before, and now seemed as good a time as any to explore the possibility. He was in jail; he was hungry; he had to piss, and by the looks of it, the bucket in the corner was where he'd have to do it; his cell smelled like shit; he was way too wired to sleep; the officer in charge of this hole was a vindictive son of a bitch who would make his time here very unpleasant; his only real friend looked liked he hadn't eaten in a month; and his girl had a new family and maybe some dickweed boning her to boot. Worst of all, he'd spent the last half a year, focused on one precise thing that it turned out, he didn't need to do. He wasn't needed for this thing; he hadn't been for longer than he'd known.

 

He thought about depression and went with anger.

 

“So why all this nonsense tryin' to get me to come here if she's somewhere people can look after her?” If she doesn't need us, he finished silently.

 

The words came out like they tasted bad when Jin said them. “Because I could not help her alone.”

 

Mugen snorted. “Doesn't sound like she needs our help.”

 

“They can not protect her forever, and I am not sure that we can either, but now that so many know where she is, I'm certain that we are better at it.”

 

Mugen shook his head and his tongue tasted bitter. “Hey, if she's moved on, why the fuck should we give a shit what-”

 

“Don't be a child, Mugen.”

 

He scowled. “Fuck y-”

 

“Why did you come here, then?” he snapped, sounding more tired and resigned than he ever had when they traveled together. “I swear, your motivations are as clear as mud, especially to you.”

 

Mugen clenched his teeth so hard his jaw ached and he wished for something other than bars to grab onto. They didn't speak to each other for the rest of the day. He marked the end of it when the light finally faded from the glowing cracks in the slats of the guardhouse wall. No one came to bring dinner.

 

*

“You should prepare yourself,” Jin murmured, rising to his feet. Mugen noticed that he pressed on his knees to do it and that he straightened slowly. Mugen attributed it to the cramped dimensions of the cells and a few weeks of immobility and resolved to sneer about it later. At 21, Jin was an old man.

 

“Prepare myself for what? I'm hungry; they haven't fed us in two days. I'm not doin' shit until I get somethin' to eat.” He didn't move from where he was sprawled on the floor.

 

“You know, you sound like her sometimes. Why is that, do you think?”

 

Mugen didn't miss the softness in Jin's voice when he said 'her' or the stinging bite in his question.

 

“Everybody gets hungry, dude. When's the last time you ate?” Jin stepped to the bars of his cell and ran his hand along the one closest to the lock. Mugen watched him do it, watched long bony fingers wrap around iron in a hard grip. He wanted to see Kasumi Seizo's katana in that grip, darting like lightening between the ribs of the guards who stood outside and didn't come in and didn't feed them.

 

“They'll deliver a meal of dirty water and old rice very shortly. Be ready for it.”

 

He rolled his eyes. “Yeah, can't wait.”

 

“Mugen.” His voice dropped even lower and Mugen craned his neck back to look up at him. “There will not be time to plan where we are going, so head south. No matter what happens, go s-”

 

He sat up, wrapping a hand across his aching belly. “Don't tell me what to do. I'll go where I want. And what the fuck is goin' on that we're suddenly bustin' out? Last I knew these bars're as solid before.”

 

Jin huffed a small noise of scorn. “I am glad I did not count on you to have thought out a way of getting free of here once you arrived. We would have been executed for certain if I'd trusted you.”

 

He raised his chin in a defiant scowl. “Hey, I-”

 

“Hsst!”

 

He snapped his jaw shut as the door to their prison slid back and two guards entered, carrying trays with a bowl and a cup on each. Even though he knew what was in them, his mouth started to water anyway. Old crunchy rice and gritty water was better than his insides trying to claw their way out. As the guards approached, Jin drifted back from the bars into the shadows of his cell and without stopping to consider why, Mugen did the same, eying the man who slid the bowl and cup through the bars with a hooded, predatory glare. His stomach gave a conspicuous rumble and the guard looked up to meet his gaze with a sneer, just as Jin reappeared at the bars of his cell like a ghost, pale wrist darting between the bars to grab hold of his guard's kimono, abruptly jerking him forward. Mugen sucked in a breath as his guard turned, handing flying to his waist to draw a pistol, and then he threw himself at the bars of his own cell, reaching through to draw him back into a mockery of an embrace - one arm across the man's throat, the other about his middle, pressing the firearm to his side. He watched Jin draw the other guard's blade and dark eyes blazed into his with sudden alertness and life as the ronin slid the blade between ribs and through a lung, only letting the guard fall when the death rattle quieted. Mugen's guard struggled in his arms, trying to free himself enough to turn the gun into Mugen's gut. Mugen grinned into his ear. “Thanks for dinner, buddy,” he murmured. Then, eyes still locked with Jin's, he snapped the guard's neck. The sound of it, that wet pop, flooded his limbs with fiery adrenalin as he let the man fall. A growl rumbled in his chest and he wrapped his hands around the bars, tugging fiercely, needing to move and stretch to his full height, needing his sword in his hand, and more than anything, needing to step right through the forced distance between himself and the ronin in the cell across from him. Jin watched him with a faint smile tugging at his mouth. He knelt by the dead guard and began to root through the folds of his clothing and Mugen dropped to all fours to do the same, searching feverishly for keys.

 

They heard the door to the guard house give a sharp rattle, then an ominous groan of distress. They both looked up and then back to each other. “No keys,” Mugen gritted. Jin shook his head; he hadn't found any either. The sound of a body hitting soft ground drew their attention back to the battered door a second before it slid open and a mountainous figure stood in the dark opening. Mugen's fist closed around the butt of the pistol and he raised the gun, the feel of it foreign and heavy in his hand, nothing like how a weapon was supposed to feel. His thumb clumsily drew the hammer back and his finger had tightened on the trigger when Jin hissed at him to lower the gun. He hesitated, realizing that the man in the doorway had a gun trained on him as well. He exhaled sharply through his nose and lowered the pistol, rising to his feet in the same motion.

 

“Who the fuck are you?”

 

“Be quiet,” Jin murmured, not appearing to be concerned in the least as the big man approached their cells and the sound of keys jingling heralded the rough slide of a rusty door. Jin's cell opened and the man stepped forward, entirely blocking Mugen's view of what was happening inside.

 

“Hey!” he snapped, tugging on the bars of his cell with enough fevered strength that they gave an alarmingly loud screech. “I'm talkin' to you, piece'a shit! Who are you?” He couldn't see what they were doing; he couldn't see anything. He jumped up, clinging to the bars like a big monkey, craning his neck to try and see over the man's shoulder, stomach tight with potential energy.

 

Then the big man turned and in the dim light from the lantern one of the guards had hung by the door, Mugen couldn't make out his expression. Jin emerged from the cell a moment later, daisho snug at his waist. They'd been a vital piece missing from Mugen's image of him. He seemed fully awake now, not stiff and tired and distant like he had been for the last two days. He drank quickly from the cup the guard had brought and then discretely scooped out a few mouthfuls of rice with his fingers. Mugen watched him eat and rattled the bars of the door again, impatient and strung tight as a bow, wanting out, wanting to run at Jin, stop short in front of him, get in his space, throw him off balance, do something - touch him again for the first time in well over a year. Jin watched him and, Mugen thought, knew exactly what he was thinking.

 

“So this is Mugen,” the big man rumbled, turning to look at Jin. They stood close together, Jin appearing comfortable with the lack of distance. The giant had him within easy striking range, a swipe of that big walking stick and he'd be down, out, useless, maybe dead. He would never stand that close to someone he didn't know, someone he didn't trust with his life. Mugen's brow dipped down into a fierce scowl. This was “the partner,” he realized as a key clicked in his lock and the door slid aside. Jin's gaze darted towards the door of the guardhouse and he turned his back on them both, taking up a position just inside so he could look out into the dark yard. Mugen's attention abruptly returned to the man in front of him when he caught the quick movement of a beefy arm and the familiar clink of steel against scabbard. He snatched his blade from the man's open palm and then shoved the scabbard into the man's gut, forcing him back a step. Then he reached down to grab his dinner before pushing his way forward.

 

“Outta the way, pork roll,” he muttered over the man's surprised grunt. He bullied his way past him to approach the entrance of the guardhouse, tossing his sword across his back and shrugging it into place against his spine. He scooped rice into his mouth and swallowed greedily, downing half the water in one go, and didn't care in the slightest that it tasted like floorboards. Even when traveling with Jin and Fuu, even after learning to read and finally being able to order food for himself, he'd never developed preferences or favorite dishes. He would never be a picky eater for very practical reasons - this being a prime example of why.

 

He choked on a mouthful of rice when he felt a heavy hand on his collar and was suddenly lifted a good six inches off the ground, geta sliding off one foot to clatter on the floor.

 

“Watch it, bean pole,” the man rumbled as he easily carried him the two paces to the doorway. Jin didn't spare them a glance as Mugen was dropped unceremoniously on his feet. He snarled quietly and shuffled his haori back into place with a few tugs. Then he retrieved his shoe, returning to see the big man leaning around Jin, both peering out into the dark.

 

“What the fuck is this shit, anyway?” he asked, drawing near. “Why did no one follow Big Guy out here? He's hard to miss.”

 

Jin hissed for him to be quiet.

 

“It can't be this easy bustin' outta here. How'd you just walk in there and get our swords?”

 

Jin turned frustrated eyes on him. “It is called planning. And make no mistake; our escape will not be easy.”

 

As if they'd heard him, several voices raised the alarm, just then discovering something amiss in the main guardhouse - probably dead bodies - and shouting for more lanterns. Mugen watched little orange balls of light wink into existence an unnervingly short distance from their cells, and the big man cursed. “The element of surprise only lasts for so long,” he rumbled. “You two should be on your way; I'll hold'em off for a bit and draw them toward town.”

 

“There will be far too many for that,” Jin said flatly.

 

The big man shrugged. “They're all a buncha rich, soft part-timers who wouldn't know a real threat until it bit'em in the ass. I'll be fine. We should go ahead as planned, and I'll meet you in a few days.”

 

Jin appeared to take him at his word, nodding sharply. “Very well. Be safe on the journey, friend.”

 

Big Guy returned the brief nod. “You too,” he said, glancing quickly at Mugen then away and heading out toward the advancing guards, hefting his staff and starting it in a whispering arc over his head. Mugen watched Jin watch him go and the tension that had been ratcheting up at uneven intervals for the last several days finally snapped. He watched the beginnings of the fight out across the field, heard the first shouts of pain as solid wood connected with skin and bone and felt an old spiteful orneriness burble up inside him. He reached back to wrap a hand around the hilt of his sword and tried to keep his thoughts on the straight and narrow.

 

He'd been imprisoned in a stinky cell with a set of guards on watch who apparently had intended to starve him near to death before executing him. Now he was free. He was with his friend, his only nakama who had been both brother and lover to him. They had both been aided in their escape by a man Jin appeared to trust. They were about to make a run for the distant forest to the south before heading up into the mountains to look for Fuu, who was, undoubtedly, up to her neck in trouble, even though she'd shacked up with someone else to try and avoid it.

 

This was what they were going to do. This was more or less what he'd been been planning to do half a year ago when he'd decided to start looking for them. Essentially, all was going according to plan.

 

But when Jin moved to slide out into the darkness away from the guardhouse complex, to carry out their plan, Mugen stopped him with a firm grip on his bony wrist. He met eyes dark enough to be the color of beetle shells, saw annoyance, and a bit of confusion and alarm. It was the first they'd touched in over a year.

 

“Mugen-” Jin tugged at where Mugen held him and then his mouth turned down in discomfort when the bones in his wrist were squeezed. “Let go of me. We have to go now.”

 

Mugen shook his head, no. His right hand still gripped his sword and when Jin tried again to jerk free of him, he tugged hard with his left, drawing him back into the shadows of their cells. Mugen maneuvered him up against the wall with his knee and hip, switching the grip on his sword and drawing it so that the pommel pressed into Jin's throat. Now he didn't struggle but held perfectly still as Mugen drew close, body pressed close, breath huffed close on his skin. Mugen inhaled and then snorted out the smell of stale ronin and even staler guardhouse. He raised Jin's wrist to his nose and slid his hand down to grip Jin's forearm, exposing the marks darkening his skin. They were new and shiny and black, not like his, which had faded to green. Jin's gaze darted to the marks and then back up, eyes narrowing when Mugen's tongue traced the underside of his wrist from one side to the other. The tattoos were raised up in his mouth and they always would be.

 

Jin's skin tasted liked metal, like thick scar tissue always did. The tattoos had been done quick and hard, needle digging deep, raising angry welts and leaking blood down to drip off his elbow. He could see it as though he'd been there. Mugen remembered what it'd felt like to be held down, to have his arms and pinned so that he could be marked, remembered what it felt like when he'd struggled and the needle had gone in deeper, digging around in his tendons. They'd rubbed the blood off his arms with dry, stiff rags.

 

Jin was breathing heavier now, watching Mugen taste the marks on his wrists. “We have to go.” Mugen nodded and pressed the hilt harder against Jin's windpipe. He wanted to snarl out something mean, something about partners and partnership, but he couldn't think past the feel of Jin's leg pressed up the inside of his thigh and the familiar slant of his disdainful eyebrows cocked just so to indicate that anger/lust was in the mix, too.

 

His reason for delaying their escape was no longer clear to him and so, suffering from his own anger/lust combination, he released Jin's wrist and backed off, flipping his sword up and settling his grip on the hilt. Jin glared at him, chest still lifting and falling with quick little puffs of air. He rubbed at his throat and rested his other hand at his daisho. Mugen nodded and jerked his chin out toward the night air flickering with lamplight. They slid out into the dark and headed for the distant forest to the south. He didn't look back because he didn't need to.

 

*

But of course, nothing was ever easy. He'd thought briefly that since Jin had thought all this through ahead of time, their escape would go off without a hitch. Big Guy was covering for them. It was dark. They were fast. They were fucking badasses. What could go wrong?

 

“Aw, fuck,” he muttered, never breaking stride, but reaching over his shoulder to draw his sword, listening for evidence that Jin had done the same. A dangerous 'snick' sounded to his right and he didn't need to look to see Jin's thumb pushing Seizo's blade from its sheath. If he closed his eyes for only a second, he could call up that image just like any other memory of them - Fuu splashing in the ocean, with or without clothes, Jin white as a bleached shell dressed only in a sopping wet fundoshi.

 

He did not need those distractions, but he enjoyed them, nonetheless.

Perhaps the officers running this operation were not complete jackasses. This appeared to be some sort of rear guard, circling the perimeter to make sure that they didn't escape to the south. Mugen sucked in a great breath of fresh air and dove right into the thick of it with terrific forward momentum and a wide swing of his blade, breaking apart the line they had formed to try and stop them. They turned to face him as he blew past, and he rounded on them, geta sliding in the soft earth, one hand reaching down to the ground to steady himself as he started back. He leaped over the first, rolling off his back and landing in a crouch, piercing one of them clean through as he rose. One straightened to raise the alarm, hand cupped to his mouth, but his voice had barely sounded when Jin emerged from the dark before him - the shiny pallor of his skin and the dull glint of his blade all that Mugen could see of him - and neatly slashed his throat. Mugen blinked and whirled at the thud of feet behind him and buried his blade in the gut of the guard, younger than him by several years, who had tried to strike him in the back. The boy slid off his sword as he jerked it free and dropped to the ground with a choked cry. Mugen finished him off without looking at his face, and turned to meet the remaining members of the patrol. “Sorry guys,” he muttered, backing up a few steps to regain his stance as they came at him.

 

In his periphery, he felt Jin's shoulder bump close to his. They paused for only a moment before separating to quickly end the fight. Mugen's geta snapped a man's neck when it connected with his jaw and the sound of Jin's katana cutting through air and fabric and bone quickened his breath even further. Then the sounds of battle quieted as the last of the guards lay dead or dying. Straightening, they counted the bodies, searching for any that might have escaped. Mugen wiped his blade in the grass while Jin twitched his katana in a short downward arc, spraying blood on the ground. His breath was noisier than Mugen remembered and when he returned the blade to its sheath, he thought he saw his hand shaking, but it was far too dark to tell.

 

“There will be more of them. We should keep moving.”

 

“How long you think Big Guy can hold'em off?”

 

“His name is Renshu,” Jin said shortly. “And I don't know. Not long.” They started walking, regaining their breath and listening for sounds of pursuit. Mugen didn't hear much evidence of a fight back at the guardhouse, which lead him to believe that Big Guy had either succeeded in leading the guards towards town and off their trail, or that he was dead, and their recapture was immanent.

 

“Pretty risky maneuver, comin' here on his own, breakin' in to get our swords back and bustin' us out. Guy must really like you.”

 

He'd sneered the last part, and the silence that followed lasted an uncomfortable length. Finally Jin huffed a small sigh and then gave a strange sort of shrug. Mugen didn't recall ever seeing Jin shrug before. Perhaps he was as uneasy with the “partner” concept as Mugen. “He had already collected the bounty on my head, so he was more or less payed by the shogunate to help me.”

 

“And, what, he's gonna help us track down Fuu, too? We're gonna meet up in a few days and have a sleepover? Sounds like you didn't even need me to show up.” Mugen couldn't seem to let this go.

 

“I did not sit for three weeks in a prison cell for my health,” he said, voice thin and patience probably even thinner. “But I had to plan for the possibility that you would not come.”

 

Mugen snorted, picking up his pace. “Yeah, whatever; I don't even know why I did.” The ease of their escape would not last, but it would definitely be made easier by reaching the line of trees he could see in the distance. His irritation and unease with their situation, with Renshu, with Fuu and what they would find once they found her, was growing - and his irritation was turning into annoyance with himself. He waited for some noise of disapproval from Jin for his attitude, and when he got none, he gave himself a sharp shake and forced all of it out of his head.

 

*

They'd been walking through the forest for maybe an hour when Jin appeared at his shoulder and nudged him behind a particularly large tree with tall undergrowth. The warmth of their arms pressed together, however briefly, felt so natural that it took him a full minute to force out a protest. “What,” he snapped. “Why're we stopping?”

 

“Let's rest for a short time, and continue on before dawn.” Jin was already settling himself against the massive tree trunk, katana propped against his shoulder. “We will need to stay moving tomorrow.”

 

The ground was soft and wet beneath the ferns and his clothes would have been soaked if he laid down, so he stretched out against the tree beside Jin. His ass was damp in seconds, but it was better than sitting on a root. He stared out into the woods, knowing that he was still too wired to sleep, too twitchy and uneasy. His stomach growled. He heard Jin's breath slowing beside him.

 

“I am relieved that you came, Mugen.”

 

He snorted. “Right.”