Author's note: Hello! Finally! The "prequel" to my first fanfic, "The Killing Moon". It took me a while to get into Mugen's head, but I think I finally got there. Please feel free to give me feedback! I definitely need it on this one, even though it's fun to write. I write slowly (I really should be writing my dissertation!) and prefer short chapters, so please be patient with me.
All the standard disclaimers apply. I don't own Samurai Champloo, its characters, its music, or plots. Neither do I own the rights to Depeche Mode's "Halo", which ran through my head along with this story's bouncy plot bunny.
This first chapter is dedicated to Supreme Bananas, who kept my muse kickin'. Thanks!!
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Chapter One: Shackles on your feet
When the dead man bit Mugen, he knew it was time for a change.
He had no idea how many weeks, months, hell, years had passed since he walked away from the stiff and the brat on a clear summer's day. Mugen thought it had maybe only been a couple of years, but it had never occurred to him to keep track. Somewhere along the way, he had stopped counting anything but the number of assholes he'd killed on one hand, and the number of women he'd screwed on the other. He didn't know which hand he liked counting on more but he knew he liked to keep those hands busy.
Because he was too occupied keeping those hands busy, it was several seasons before he realized he was going nowhere in an all-too-familiar route.
Mugen hadn't just been wandering wherever he felt like going; he had been subconsciously treading the route he'd taken with Jin and Fuu in their crazy search for a smelly old man who died before Mugen ever had the chance to see if he'd been worth the trouble. Occasionally, he'd rouse enough from the haze of his indifferent thoughts to recognize a place – we tried to sleep here once, but my snoring woke up the old broad who lived inside – and he'd shudder in disgust at his sentimentality. Such fragments of memories made him feel weak, stupid, and pathetic, so he tried to ignore them. Still, it wasn't until he had had six or seven – or, scratching his head, maybe twenty? – of these flashes of recognition that he realized what he'd been doing. He was looking for traces of stiff or the brat. Hunting for them like a lost dog. Fighting and chasing tail along the way, sure, but beneath it all, he knew he'd never felt more satisfied than when he'd had a purpose, a destination. What had we said? Friends? Just thinking the word made him want to automatically spit in denial.
He wondered if he was nuts, or just desperate. Deep down Mugen thought in either case, it was pathetic.
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The fish was none too fresh, and the serving girl's ass was way too bony, but Mugen kind of liked this little place – Where am I? Naka-something – mainly because he had a lifetime guarantee of free nihonshu here. Some months ago, he'd been sitting in this same spot when a rowdy group of bandits had burst into the tiny restaurant and began harassing the owner and his wife and daughter. The bandits hadn't been much fun to kill, as they weren't even well-armed (Who the hell fights with fish knives?), but at least their leader had put up a satisfyingly good fight. Though he'd only jumped up because it had been days since he'd had the chance to kick somebody's ass, his action had been misinterpreted as honorable (the word made Mugen's shoulders twitch in irritation), thus, the offer of eternal gratitude in the form of booze.
Mugen chuckled to himself at the memory. Dumb-asses, he thought smugly, don't know what they got themselves into. I can drink a lot of nihonshu. He glanced sideways towards the serving girl, who was kneeling next to another table, carefully pouring tea to a couple of pruny-looking dudes. Mugen raised his eyebrow when he noticed her wiggling her butt in his direction, clearly trying to get his attention. Old man should've just let me screw his daughter, 'cause I ended up nailing her a few times anyway. Give me enough booze and I'll nail almost anything.
For some reason, Mugen suddenly thought of a scrawny pink-kimonoed brat, and slammed home another shot of the wine.
Ah, just what I needed.
Mugen roughly swiped his forearm across his stubbled, sweaty mouth and forcibly blinked a few times to clear his vision. He looked again to the serving girl, and frowned slightly at the disgusted look on her plain face. Her customers had clearly drunk too much, and were clearly asking for more than the bill. Ordinarily, Mugen would keep his nose out of such business, as he knew very well his scruples could hardly compare to most anyone's, but Mugen, in the end, was a practical, if not always foresightful, man. And he'd be damned if he let any pea-brained dorks screw up the one and only sure deal in his whole life. It was, after all, free booze.
So, grumbling a bit, Mugen hauled himself upright and slid over to the only other occupied table in the joint, picking his teeth with his pinky nail as he sized up the competition. Shrivelled, yes, but they might be scrappy.
"So, you assholes gonna bother this chick all night, or are you gonna get the hint and get the fuck outta here? Some of us have luh-," Mugen stumbled a bit here – maybe he was drunker than he thought after perhaps six hours of non-stop nihonshu, "-legitimate business here." The serving girl gave a little squeal of delight at this "speech" and scurried back towards the kitchen.
One of the men snapped back his neck with an audible crunch and looked Mugen in the eye with an angry look on his face. The other man quickly grabbed his wine flask and chugged the last of the rough liquid, wiping his mouth much as Mugen had just a moment before. Mugen narrowed his eyes in feral anticipation and began to back out of the restaurant, one hand on his sword hilt, the other beckoning to tonight's exercise dummies with one slender, rude finger.
They followed. Dumb-asses.
When his partners arrived outside, Mugen began his favorite dance.
They were clumsy movers but made up for their lack of finesse in a surprisingly coordinated attack. As Mugen probably hadn't fought anyone in five or six days, he decided to play with them a little. He leapt back, parrying one blow and dodging a thrown rock at the same time. Unfortunately, his geta slipped in a mucky puddle, and Mugen's leap turned into a backflop onto muddy ground. "Shit!" he roared in frustration, startling his combatants. Fortunately, this distraction provided adequate time for him to thrust himself upright again, shake muddy droplets from his hair, and get a better grip on his sword hilt. "Crap," he yelled, "now I'm wet and smell like piss! You've really fucked up my night!"
To make matters worse, in that moment, it started to rain.
Though the rain hardly bothered his fighting strength, it did dampen his interest in prolonging the fight. Now he was just wet through and through, and worse, he was losing his wine buzz. Royally pissed off, Mugen decided to end this stupid fight. Why are we out here again? flashed through his mind as he slashed one guy across the chest, and whirled around to gut the other guy. In a matter of seconds, it was over.
Just then, the rain began to pour down unrelentingly. Mugen stood still over the bodies of his two opponents, breath heaving slightly, and wondered what to do next. Wiggling a finger in his ear to be rid of an errant raindrop, he was startled by a hoarse scream muffled by the pouring rain coming from somewhere behind him, accompanied by the not-so-muffled ring of a metal weapon being drawn.
Without pause, Mugen pivoted in the rain and swung out with his sword into the dark.
It struck an old man, eyes scrunched tight in pain, mouth open wide with the words "My sons!" dying on his dying tongue. Aghast, Mugen pulled back his attack as best he could, but it was too late; the man had fallen to Mugen's sword, bearing no more than another damn fish knife. What is it with this stupid village and their fish knives?
Mugen stared at the old man's skinny body laying at his feet, and was struck mute. His mind was a whirl of emotions: frustration, apathy, disgust, and self-loathing were all battling in an unprecedented confluence for a brain that was used to only dealing with one emotion at a time. Dammit, dammit, dammit, kept repeating in his head while the roaring of the rain drowned out any other sounds.
As such, he was completely prepared for the final attack.
The pain hit him before he was able to see its source; sharp, hot pain, that made the night suddenly seem brighter, the raindrops shimmered. The pain was racing up his body from his foot, so instinctually, Mugen pulled up his foot to get it away from the source of his pain. When he found he couldn't move it, and his actions had only made the pain worse, he began to scream and curse in earnest. Especially when he finally managed to look down to see what had happened.
Blood was spurting from Mugen's large toe, which was clenched firmly in between the dead man's teeth.
The dead sonofabitch had bit him. Mugen howled.
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Please drop me a line if you want more. Thanks for reading!