Hello, I'm here with my first Samurai Champloo fic! Hope you guys like it :)

-Gan

He dreamt of his mother again.

These dreams had haunted him in his sleep for months now, and at first, he wasn't too sure what was happening. It was not the first time his mother had appeared in his dreams; he remembered dreaming of the same woman when he was a small boy, but the barbaric lifestyle on the Miyako Islands of Ryukyu literally beat them out of his head until he only saw the blackest and most life-scarring of nightmares. That is why when he started to dream of her again, it startled him, and he couldn't recall where he had seen her face before.

The dream came to him again not too long after he agreed to embark on a journey with Fuu and Jin, his two traveling companions. One night as he gazed deep into the dying embers of the campfire, he drifted off and was met with a soft smile in the darkness. The smile made his heart stir, and soon the smile had a small nose above it, placed on a smooth face with a pair of gray eyes that reflected whatever good and beauty was left on Earth. Long brown hair framed and shaped the smiling face, and he could have sworn he heard a gentle giggle.

At first he thought the woman in his dreams was Fuu, a thought that confused and scared him to death—of course, he would never admit it. The way she smiled made him feel as if he had a place to belong, and the way those gray eyes gazed into his brought him to his most vulnerable state. Under her understanding gaze, he did not have to hide his true self. For once, even if only in his dreams, there stood the true helpless Mugen who yearned for something better than the wickedness that was the world to live in; a part of him that almost seemed to completely vanish from existence.

Staring into this serene face brought warmth to him that he knew didn't come from the fading campfire. No, he knew he had felt this particular warmth at one point in his life, many, many years ago. It was not until he had seen the dreams a few times when they finally fleshed out into something of a memory more than just a face that he realized this woman was in fact not Fuu, but his mother.

He hardly remembered her at all. She had died when he was too young to retain many memories of her, but her death was the beginning of his life in the deepest pits of hell. Years and years of striving to survive in this hell calloused his soul and ate away at his emotions. They laid crumbled in tiny fragments somewhere in his black heart, and he had been so sure there was no way to rekindle his ability to hold any sort of feelings for anyone or anything, save for hatred.

This somehow changed over the course of his time traveling with Fuu and Jin, and no doubt the dreams of his mother brought the tiniest hint of feeling back into his soul. Once again, it frightened him like no other, and yet some part of him wished these dreams would never stop. Sometimes during their travels he would walk in a daze as he reflected on his dreams and his mother, only to answer with gruff and sarcastic remarks whenever Fuu asked what was wrong.

She was another thing that scared him. He could remember how much he hated her for roping him into a journey with the very man he vowed to kill. He asked himself numerous times why he did not just run away in the middle of the night and abandon them both. He would lie to himself and say because he needed to kill Jin; other days he would try to convince himself that he had nothing better to do.

But when it came down to the truth, Mugen realized he was not a liar, and never went back on a promise, no matter how much of a rugged pirate he was. The truth of the matter was that he could not leave a girl as clumsy as Fuu to fend for herself. She would surely get herself killed, and it terrified him how much that thought alone made his blood run cold.

So as the three companions traveled through Nagasaki, he caught himself occasionally turning his head away from the scenery ahead of them and over to the happily humming girl on his right. It wasn't until she began to turn her head slightly that he would snap his gaze forward once more, brushing off any sort of embarrassed emotions that screwed his expression into one that was very unlike him.

He knew their journey was coming to its end; he felt it in his bones. Ikitsuki Island was less than one hundred-fifty kilometers Northwest of their current location, and a peculiar feeling warned him that matters would not be easy once they arrived. He suspected that once they made it to the island, Fuu would get tangled up in some kind of trouble that would require him to barge in and grab her pathetic ass out of there.

Why did he even bother risking his life to save her? Did he really pity her that much? He had already been through his fair share of near-death experiences, and he wasn't ready for the day he would catch a glimpse of Nirai Kanai again and not be able to pull himself out like all of the other times. He always managed to make it out alive; that was his most dangerous assumption about himself. He would always be around to withstand whatever beating came his way. For some unknown reason, the futuki obeyed his rash request to remain on this hellish Earth. Once he wondered what would happen if the Ancestral Spirits returned for him to claim him when he was not yet ready, and Fuu was left defenseless. He dared not venture further into these thoughts in fear of answering it with a scenario he hoped would never become reality.

Mugen did not realize until that moment in their journey that he had a reason to live. Up to this point, he had only gone along for the free ride to see how long he could last before the world no longer wanted him, and he could no longer fight back. Things were different now; he had someone to look after, someone to protect, even if he could not admit it out loud. In his mind, he had failed to protect his mother, and he couldn't fail to protect someone like that again.

Jin must have noticed how much he spaced out and stared at Fuu during his musings. Mugen suddenly watched as Jin shot him a curious look before he conveniently took long strides, placing distance between himself and the other two.

Now only Mugen and Fuu were left to walk beside each other. Fuu let out a sigh and said, "I can't believe Ikitsuki Island is so close now. I never even thought of what I would do at the end of this journey."

Mugen let out a low grunt and folded his arms behind his head. "Just live like you used to, duh. 'S'not hard to figure out."

Fuu didn't take any offense to his rude reply and smiled to herself. "I guess so, huh? But it's like my whole life has changed now." They walked for a moment in silence. "Hey, Mugen? What will you do once this journey's over?"

He didn't want to think about it, because the reality was, he didn't know either. For the first time in his life, Mugen wasn't sure what to do. "What's it to you?"

The girl beside him raised a curious eyebrow. "Oh? I expected you to say you'd finish your battle with Jin. But I'm glad you didn't."

How the hell did he forget to mention that? "Who said I won't finish things with him? That's my first line of business."

"Mugen, don't do that! You know, I really hoped we'd actually run into each other again someday. That means you two have to be alive, you idiot."

A strange feeling came over him. He couldn't remember the last time someone wanted to see him just because they missed him or wanted to catch up, and not just to behead him to stab him in the gut. Warmth spread through him like in his dreams, and he found that he couldn't look at Fuu directly in the eyes.

"I ain't promising anything, girly."

The air grew quiet, and the two of them shuffled along the path in silence for a while. The sun had slowly begun to set in the West, and the sky burst into shades of deep orange with a tint of pink and violet. He noticed how Fuu marveled at the colors and called them beautiful.

"You know, I wonder if my father knows about my mother's death. Or if she ever told him about me. I still miss her so much," Fuu said quietly as she looked down at her hands. Then she asked a question he never expected, "Mugen, do you remember your mother?"

His breath hitched in his throat, something he hoped she didn't notice. Did he really remember her? All he knew was the face of the woman in his dreams. There was no name attached to it, no voice, or anything else to give him a clue as to what his mother was like. But from the very little information he did have of her, something told him that she did love him.

"What's got you so curious all of a sudden?" he asked much more harshly than he had intended.

Fuu puffed up her cheeks childishly like always and said hotly, "I was just trying to have an actual conversation with you for once! All we do is fight and argue, and the one time I try to be nice and get to know you, you shut me out! Fine, see if I give a care."

She began to quicken her pace, and Mugen's brain ran a million thoughts in just that once second. Shit, now she's in her bitchy mood again. What the hell am I supposed to do now? I swear, she's going to—fuck! Why the fuck are you still standing here thinking? Grab her, dammit!

His hand shot out to grab her tiny wrist in his large tan hand. Fuu stopped in her tracks and looked back at him, her anger melting into confusion. "What, Mugen?"

"Look, I'll think about not killing Fish-Face only if you make me one promise."

This certainly peaked her curiosity. He urged her in his mind to accept his damn offer, because he wasn't going to change his mind until she did.

"Fine. What promise?" The way she looked at him with those same understanding eyes reminded him of his mother, and his pride shattered enough for him to finally get his request out of his mouth.

"You have to promise me that whatever the hell we're up against when we get to Ikitsuki Island, you'll make it out of there alive."

Fuu furrowed her eyebrows and frowned. "Mugen, what's wrong? Do you think there's something dangero—"

"Dammit, Fuu, I just need you to promise! Can't you just do that for me?"

He didn't mean to sound so desperate. He didn't want to let her know how vulnerable she made him feel; that if she died, he no longer had someone to live for. He didn't want to go back to a life where he had no one to live for. So for the first time, Mugen pleaded his young, innocent girl to make a promise to a ragged, murdering pirate.

Yet Fuu stared deep into those gray eyes and didn't see a pirate. She always saw past his rough exterior. She wriggled her wrist out of his grip and held his hand in hers, and gave it a reassuring squeeze.

"I promise, Mugen."

Satisfied with her promise, he let her hand linger for a moment and squeezed it back before letting it fall from his grasp. He continued walking along the path without a glance back at her. "Good. Now quit falling behind, girly. It's almost dark and I sure as hell ain't sleeping outside in the cold again."

As usual, Fuu let out an exasperated cry and started after him. "Mugen, you jerk, don't leave me! How's a cute girl like me supposed to fend for herself alone? Some creep's just going to kidnap me again, you watch!"

Mugen scoffed and rolled his eyes. "Yeah, probably because they'd mistake you for a wild beast. Now hurry it up, Fish-Face is way the hell ahead of us."

He could hear Fuu's bickering behind him, but he was already lost in his own thoughts. Normally he wouldn't ask her to keep safe, because he was confident that he could save her. He always did. But the bad omens he was receiving from their destination ahead told him that this time was different. He could hear the futuki practically calling to him, that he had escaped Nirai Kanai too many times. If he couldn't escape this time like before, he couldn't stand it if Fuu didn't make it out alive either.

The world would continue to turn if he perished; but his world would collapse if she did.

As you can see, Mugen and Fuu are kind of my OTP in this series ;P Please, let me know what you think! It's my first Samurai Champloo fic, so I'd really like some feedback :) In character, out of character, things to change...?

Also to clear things up, Nirai Kanai is a mythical island in Ryukyuan religion where all dead spirits go, and is where they believe all life originates. The Futuki/Futuchi are spirits of ancestors dressed in black crow-like outfits; they appear in episode 14 and 26.

Thanks again for reading!