Samurai Champloo Fan Fiction ❯ Wayward Wanderers ❯ Chapter 1

Wayward Wanderers: Chapter 1

 

 

The blade sliced through the rain; he could hear it. It cut the rain and the air and it was headed straight for his guts - again. She had him cold - again. He'd spun and twisted and ducked and ripped himself apart where she'd already cut him. He felt himself tearing where Fuu had so carefully put him back together. Be like the fish. Go with the fucking current. Fucking bullshit. This woman was way out of his league. She was going to kill him, and Jin had told him to be a fish. The fucker couldn't even catch a fish! There was no one in the world less qualified to talk about being a fish than Jin. Unfortunately, Mugen would not get the chance to tell him this because, any second now, he was going to die. Well, he'd wait in hell for Jin to show - because he would; that fucker had serious demons - and then he'd bitch him out about the whole fish thing. In the time it took Sara to swing her blade, Mugen had settled on this plan. He was okay with his plan. He was about to die; he was about to go to hell. And he'd wait there for Jin to show up, because that was right, somehow. Fuu would never end up in hell. Little bitch was way to innocent and pure and what-the-fuck-ever that she'd never show up there.

 

The sound of her screeching voice and the feel of her stick limbs covering him when Sara tried to kill him the first time flickered through his mind. On second thought, she was far too annoying to go anywhere but hell. So, in a few years, after Jin had died from some sword in his back - one of those psycho kids from his old dojo still holding grudges - Fuu would most likely end up with them as well, probably because they hadn't been there to save her ass from her next set of kidnappers. In the end, they'd all be together again anyway.

 

Thus, Mugen rationalized his death, a fraction of a second before Sara pulled her last strike, jerking the blade way from Mugen's side, just before it sliced him open. Even this stilted, last-second motion was graceful. Before Mugen could stop himself, before it even registered that he wasn't dying, that he was living, he ran her through. Then she was on the ground and he was on the ground with her. She was feeding him some bullshit story about the government being after them, trying to stop them. The government? After Fuu? Fuu who had bird bones instead of people bones and the flattest chest he'd ever seen on a broad? He'd wanted to call her a lier. Instead, he asked her why she didn't kill him.

 

“I want you to live, Mugen.”

 

He figured he was half in love with her when she died. He showed it by throwing away her weapon with all his might and cursing at the top of his lungs. A minute later, after he'd stood there in the rain, like an asshole, just looking at her, he waded across the river and picked it up again. He laid it down beside her and then straightened her limbs and hair. Then he covered her in stones. When Fuu came out to fuss over him, he didn't hear her voice or feel her fingers under his shirt, checking his bandages. He slung his arm around her shoulder and let her lead him back into the hut. Jin was awake, propped up on an elbow, looking pinched as usual. Mugen sat down by their fire and shivered and scowled.

 

“We've gotta get movin' as soon as you're up and around,” he finally said, voice low. Jin cracked an eye open and Fuu lifted her head from where she sat against the wall. “She was the real deal, and she was just the first.” He looked Fuu in the eye. “This sunflower, dude? The government doesn't want us to find him. She was supposed to stop us.” Fuu nodded, not looking too surprised. “So, we gotta be ready for the next badass who comes after you.”

 

***

He lost count of the days they stayed in that hut. They didn't speak much. And they didn't go out of earshot. Mugen fished in the river and Fuu cooked what he caught. Jin mostly slept. They washed in the river when they thought of it, without concern for modesty. Mugen'd never given two shits if anyone saw his junk, but he did enjoy his first real look at Fuu's chest. She didn't want to leave them alone so she stayed close. Her tits were small but they were also very perky. He didn't tell her that he'd gotten an eyeful. He didn't want to hear her squawking.

 

This was not like the other times that they'd had to stay put while one of them healed up. After he'd run into Mukuro, it'd been a week or so until he was ready to hit the road again. They'd driven each other fucking nuts during that week, with Fuu fussing over him and Jin sitting and looking disinterested in the corner. He'd been ready to throttle them both for being so strange - like no one he'd ever dealt with. He'd never had friends, never had people who drove him insane, but at the same time looked out for him. He would have killed them both for confusing him so thoroughly, but Fuu was feeding him and patching up his hurt, and Jin kept the fire going.

 

When that fucking psycho, who'd been on the mainland learning fancy sword techniques that were just wrong, sliced him up without even touching him, he'd needed time then to get himself together. He hadn't wanted to tell them that, though. He hadn't wanted Fuu's hands on him again, or Jin looking away as though he had a million other more important things to think about. He hadn't wanted their pity or their indifference. He just wanted to keep moving.

 

He'd collapsed without warning or a scrap of dignity when he'd bent over a stream to take a breather and get a drink. The stream turned out to be deeper than it looked and his arms and legs turned out to be more useless than they looked when his insides were all fucked up and bleeding out through his hands and his belly. He'd felt her hands on him again, clutching with twig fingers at his haori and his hair, her voice distorted and blessedly quiet from under the water. She was calling to someone and then Jin was in the water with him, bodily hauling him out. He'd felt every bit of the pinched bastard's arms and chest, felt the strength of his legs as they pushed him up out of the swirling current and into Fuu's arms. By the time they were all on the bank, he was wide awake - that water had been freezing! - but he was also bleeding again. He'd stared up into the trees, not wanting to hear her, not wanting to see Jin staring at him, measuring him, his black eyes narrowed and - shit, he didn't care what Jin thought of him, anyway!. That uptight bastard was nothing to him but a promise of the greatest fight of his life. The only thing they owed each other was an effort to stay alive for that fight.

 

He'd realized that was quite a lot a few days later, when he could walk again and his head was back where it should be. He realized that was the reason Jin had jumped in after him.

 

He leaned against the wall of their dingy, leaky hut and thought that those times were not like this time. Those times were annoying and confusing and strange. This time was just heavy. Whenever they had to stay put for a while, to earn some cash or to work off a dine-and-dash they hadn't quite pulled off, or to heal up, they'd spent as little time with each other as possible. They checked in and made sure everyone was around and unhurt - which was still more than he'd ever done before with anyone else - but they didn't- they weren't- like this.

 

Mugen had never been one to linger on lost chances, the past, or the many people he'd killed over the years. He didn't regret his actions, his choices, or who he was. Yesterday meant about as much as tomorrow to him. And yet, something in him ached for Sara. He didn't understand the nuances of regret or guilt but he knew that, in the days after he'd killed her (after she'd killed herself, his mind whispered) he thought about what she could have been. She'd said things to him that had pissed him off, that had led him to believe she felt things for him that he couldn't name. He was certain that had they spent any more time together, he would have pissed her off beyond any hope of reconciliation. She would have left, but she would have at least been alive. But who knows - with the government after them and after her if she'd decided not to finish the job - they could have at least had some fun fucking with the assholes messing with them. He could have done some serious damage with her at his back.

 

If she had been their ally, Fuu would be safe. If this whole cluster fuck had proven anything, it was that he and Jin were not invincible. Sara had very effectively gotten them apart. If given the right amount of time, she would have killed them both, and then Fuu would have been dead.

 

The fact that he was still thinking about this shit, days after it happened, was part of the problem. Mugen did not like to think, to re-examine, and reconsider. If they could just get up and moving he wouldn't have to. If he could just leave the fucking hut and go back to the village to buy a girl, he wouldn't have to. But Jin was still all sliced up and so was he, and he couldn't bring himself to leave, knowing that there would be another person - like Sara, but probably a lot less hot - coming after them. There were people way worse than Sara hunting them down because of who Fuu was and what they were to her.

 

And he really didn't want to think about that anymore, so he limped back into the hut and sat down across from her. She was mending Jin's hakama with the needle and thread she kept somewhere in her kimono. The dark cloth was still stained with blood. He bet she'd be down by the river scrubbing as soon as she finished sewing up the wide slashes in the fabric.

 

He'd never been good with people, never been good at talking to them or starting conversations with them. So he figured, since he still had questions for her, he'd just start with those and see where they got him.

 

“So, this sunflower dude's your dad, right?” he said by way of greeting.

 

She looked up, a little startled. “Yeah.”

 

“You don't seem to like him very much.”

 

She lowered her eyes and went back to her sewing. “I don't really know him. He left when I was pretty young, about ten years ago now.”

 

“Then why go to all this trouble? Maybe you're better off not finding him again, since he was the one who dumped you on your ass.”

 

Her shoulders tensed, rising up to her ears. She made that small growling noise that he sometimes found funny. “Because he didn't just dump me; he dumped my mother, too! He left us without anything. Do you know how hard it is for a single woman who has only one daughter? We had nothing!”

 

“'Fraid I don't - mothers and daughters didn't have the same problems where I came from.”

 

She looked up, mouth twisted downward. “Well no, you wouldn't understand.”

 

He let that one roll off his back. Sometimes he rose to the bait when she insulted him like that, but he didn't feel like it today. Instead, he leaned forward and leered at her. “Hey, girlie, I understand lotsa things. I understand that you need us if you're gonna get to Nagasaki. I understand that you don't know what the fuck you're gonna do when you get there, or what you'll do afterwards. I understand that you're hopin' seeing this pop a'yours will put you back up somewhere in society. But if he's not givin' handouts or taking in abandoned daughters, I bet you're looking for some sort of invitation from one of the two of us.” He watched her go as pink as her kimono and glance very, very quickly at the sleeping ronin in the corner. He looked away before she could turn back and finished quietly, “And I bet it's not from me.” He didn't think she'd heard him when she finally spoke.

 

“Well I- I'm not, I mean-” She took a breath and seemed to regroup a bit. “What I intend to do when when we reach Ikitsuki Island is to give my father a piece of my mind and then sock him one in the eye!” She punched a fist into the dirt floor for emphasis. Then she smiled tentatively. “And I- I thought maybe you could scare him just a little bit, in front of his new wife, if he has one - make him nervous.”

 

Mugen found himself mirroring her smile. Sometimes Fuu thought in his terms, even if it was about something as stupid as confronting a deadbeat dad. And he knew he'd do it for her. Shit, if he'd ever bothered with his own father, he would have had to-

 

“I want to show him that even though he left my mother and I with nothing, I didn't give up. I'm making something of my life.” Her resolve faded a bit. “Even though I don't really know what that life is, or who I'm making it with, or... anything, really.”

 

Mugen hadn't expected that. He'd expected a lot of squawking and posturing, a lot of hot air aimed at him for questioning her.

 

“I guess I don't know what I'll do after our journey is over.” She looked up at him with one of her sincere, heartfelt looks. Usually when she did that, Mugen either blew her off by saying what was in his own head - which rarely related to whatever heartfelt confession she was making - or being a dick and pissing her off so she would stop looking at him with those big dumb eyes of hers. “Part of me wishes that the three of us could just-”

 

He snorted an interruption. “Yeah right. The three of us ain't gonna do shit. I can barely stand the two of you as it is; why the hell would I want to hang out with you losers for any longer than I absolutely had to?” He'd had to say that, both to reassure her and himself that things weren't changing between them, that their relationship was the same, even after all the shit they'd been through. To his relief, she did look reassured. She laughed a little and glanced over her shoulder again at Jin.

 

“You could at least pretend to be considerate of a girl's feelings,” she said, turning back. “Sheesh, it's painfully obvious that you didn't grow up around any women; they would have taught you how to talk to one.”

 

“Uh-uh,” he muttered, jamming his little finger in his ear. “The chicks where I grew up were just as scary as the dudes. Sometimes they were worse. They were good for a quick fuck sometimes, so long as you hit the road right after and never asked for anything.”

 

Fuu looked like she wanted to be disgusted at his crude words, but curiosity won out. “What kind of stuff would you ask for? Did you ever...?” she trailed off.

 

“Hell, no!” he laughed. “I liked my balls right where they were. I remember hearin' that some dude asked for a meal once after he fucked some chick...” He watched her reaction. Her eyes were wide; she was hanging on every word he said. “Well, you ever seen a pair of praying mantises doin' it?” She shook her head, no. He made his fingers into jaws and snapped them shut. “She bites his head off!”

 

She flinched back and swallowed. “Really?”

 

He grinned and flopped back on the floor, resting his head on his arms. “About the bug part? Yeah. But the dude - he was just pissin' blood for a week.”

 

She breathed out. “Jeez. That is pretty scary.”

 

He thought this was probably the longest conversation they'd ever had.

 

“But what about your mother... or sisters? Wouldn't they have, you know, looked out for you and-”

 

“Nah, my mother was dead before I could remember her. Snake bite, my old man said.” Fuu shuddered. “And my sister, she was wilder than me. I didn't see her much.”

 

Jin's hakama lay forgotten in her lap. He had her full attention and he found he liked it. He wanted to see just what she thought of him. He could read her face better than anyone else's and certainly better than he could read letters. He waited for the revulsion to show up. It hadn't surfaced after the praying mantis story.

 

“She was wilder than you?” He thought that she was doubting him, but then he realized which word she'd emphasized.

 

“Yeah, 'was.' I was still real young when a buncha scum bags cornered her, tried to grab her. She turned around and ran right off the cliff.”

 

Fuu's mouth fell open and in the dim light, he saw her eyes fill with tears. “Oh, Mugen, you saw that?”

 

“Nah. S'just what someone told me. I looked for her body for a few days but never found it.”

 

“Then maybe she's-” She looked hopeful.

 

“Yeah, maybe. Doubt it.”

 

“But you did it. You nearly drowned when that ship blew up, but you didn't. Maybe she made it off the island.” She looked like she really wanted to believe it, so he shrugged and said nothing. “What was her name?” she asked finally.

 

He thought back to those endless, hellish years on the island and suppressed a shudder. He hadn't said the name in years; he hadn't even thought it. “Mei.”

 

She said the name silently and then looked down at Jin's slashed hakama. She'd almost finished sewing them up. “Was she older than you?”

 

He shrugged. “Yeah, I don't know how much. Four or five years? We didn't have the same dad; she made sure to tell me that a buncha times. She said her dad was a wolf named Aka, but she was as dark as me. She was a little nuts, I think.”

 

“Must run in the family,” Fuu said with a watery smile.

 

“Yeah, whatever.” He rolled into a sitting position, holding his bandaged abdomen. He'd had enough sharing for one day. He was about to go outside for a bit when the clouds opened up and it began to rain. He didn't feel like getting wet again, and the rain on this particular spot of river drew his eyes to the mound of stone down the bank that he usually succeeded in avoiding. Fuu scooted out of the way of a leak in the roof and quickly finished mending Jin's clothes.

 

Mugen leaned against the window sill and watched her fingers nimbly stitching the fabric together. He kept his back to the pile of stones. He didn't like to think about what had already happened. He didn't care to think about the future either, so he watched what was in front of him and thought about having those capable bird-bone hands on him again.