I, of course, do not own Samurai Champloo.
Born to Be Hanged
In the Ryukyus, it is well known that the salt in the ocean comes from the tears of the mothers of Hochijo Island. Forced to follow their husbands into exile, they've drowned the world with laments for the lives of their children.
Because of the rocks, the tiny harbor is the only way onto the island. The black-sailed ships drop new exiles there twice a year. There is only one way off the island, too, and every man, woman, and child leaves that way eventually.
Kohza's mother added her share of tears to the sea, until her brother finally sent her to join them. It was mercy, Mukuro promised her. On Hochijo Island, a woman's life is worth less than the grains of sand that form its shallow beaches. Then Mugen told her that, from the stars, they all look like grains of sand.
The graveyards filled up long ago, so they wrapped their mother in a blanket and weighed her down with stones before casting her off the Takai Cliffs. Two years later Mugen sent himself straight down to Hell off the same cliff face.
"Gonna steal me a stick of sugarcane bigger than my dick," he'd boasted the evening before the raid. "…If I can find one."
Kohza tasted sugar for the first time the morning after, when Mukuro begrudged a spoonful of it for her morning tea. Though the rest of the gang exclaimed over the exotic taste, she found it strangely bittersweet.
By the time the warden's fat bureaucrats noticed that the black-sailed ship was missing, they were already in sight of the mainland and Mukuro was draping a heavy gold necklace around her neck below in the Captain's cabin. The rooster charm hung between her breasts until Mukuro gambled it away in a rigged poker game in Fuzhou.
There is a saying on Hochijo Island – "Nothing else can kill you when you're born to be hanged." And so one day, when they were down on their luck and short on men, Mugen was back, blown to her by the same wind that brought the carrion birds.
"Take me with you," she'd said. But when her fingers found the draw-string to his shorts he grabbed her wrist and shoved her into the sand.
"I'm not that kind of guy." He left her again then. When he was only a lanky silhouette framed by stars, he added over his shoulder, "But I guess you're that kind of girl now."
Kohza thinks of Mukuro, thinks she would have liked to have had a choice about that.
It's raining on the night Mukuro double-crosses Mugen again, and for that Kohza is grateful. She's grateful that the stars cannot see them now.
After he kills Shiren, Kohza never sees Mugen again. But she becomes intimately familiar with something he first showed her – the sight of a man she loves walking away.
There is knowledge to be had in the wide world. From Masters, she learns that the salt in the ocean is a scientific phenomenon, not tears. And that the stars, with all their accusations, are just nebulous balls of gas.
From experience, she learns that Hell is not a place.
Eventually she concludes that all she learned on Hochijo Island, everything anyone ever told her in that bad place, was a lie.
Then a man who smells of pipe smoke slips the noose around her neck and she realizes that that's a lie, too.
END
This is my first
departure from he Naruto fandom in a long, long time. And it's
complete angsty crack (crangst?) focusing on a minor character whom I
just couldn't get out of my head. Thanks for reading nevertheless! Feedback is always much appreciated.