Stepped Over Bigger Things
In Edo, she stopped to smell the roadside flowers and eat sizzling hot sweet dumplings off fresh woven bamboo plates. She rested her legs, thin and knotted from running miles and beyond, and proposed a toast to her two best friends (the two who left her alone).
They parted weeks ago, no necks turning back, all three understanding they will meet again—someday far, far away—but that would be years from now. As of late, Fuu lived the life of a solitary traveler who has had more adventures than suitable for a lifetime (or an eternity's worth).
"Would you like some more, Miss?"
She smiled and forked over the last of the silver, never regretting. She was hungry today. She can earn money tomorrow.
"Thank you. These dumplings are really delicious."
"Always happy to serve a pretty girl."
"Oh, who? Me?"
Some things never changed.
--
Still sore and morbidly crass and gruesome, Mugen remembered the better days (and the worst days) and thought back to the Islands and of the Road to Nagasaki and to Another Island. And how his life consisted of a never-ending series of archipelagos and crushed paulownia wood burnt into incense.
In the corner of his left eye, he spied a girl winking his way. And suddenly, today didn't seem so austere and miserable anymore, almost like today had a purpose and maybe he had a place in it too.
Not that he cared (much).
To hell with this place (except for the food).
He drunkenly waltzed through life in desultory half-swishes of the blade and foul-mouthed, ill-tempered shrewish curses. This was the only way he knew life, embracing by seizing it full on by the sharpened horns.
"One more…jar of…sake."
"Don't you think you had enough, Sir?"
"I'll tell you when I've had enough, ya dumb broad. Just give me my damn drink!"
He had fought and won (back his life). He had reached journey's end.
This was a new beginning that started in tears and blisters.
--
Eventually he pawned his glasses off (again, Jin sighed). At least they fetched a handsome price. At least he had enough money to survive—for just a few more days.
Wounds still refusing to heal properly (no money made in hired-help or mercenary gentlemen), damn blood still running free as water downhill, and no signs of rescue anytime soon. Jin was lost, trapped in some ridiculous forest, unable to see the sun past the canopied ceiling or slice down the dense foliage like he would an opponent's arm.
He was stuck and dying slowly. The medicine had run out, and the sick stench of festering flesh flooded over, choking him with the rank miasma of his own impending death. It was all a matter of time, and then he will say goodbye forever.
And it had been going so well, like he would actually emerge whole and perfect. Hope was a dirty, nasty player.
But by the end of the third day, Jin saw light trickling through the leaves, dashed onwards, and collided head-on with a girl.
"Fuu."
Caught up in a trance, she started crying, couldn't help the influx of emotions, torrents of joy and sorrow. This was remembrance in action.
--
They told him to walk towards the west (swore that's where the girl went).
But Mugen thought better of the advice and pondered whether to cut them up or not. Lying was a sin and pride in fallacy made it a cardinal one.
--
"Try to get some rest, Jin. I really thought you were fine. I…I wouldn't have left if I didn't think you'd be okay."
"It's all right, not your fault."
Fuu wrapped the white gauze around once more, tightening it harshly against his pale skin, fiber bound to tissue like an eerie second soul.
"I'm sorry, Jin, I'm so sorry."
And he would only smile wistfully, kindly, like she wasn't the person to blame. And slowly, he would unsteadily reach up to caress her face, then arm crashing down—all spent and worn.
--
Mugen caught up with them soon, sulking inside a roofless shed, and offered some valiant insight: that he was an idiot for getting lost (honestly, no sense of directions at all) and that she was a bigger idiot for allowing him to wander around the village alone (stupid girl as always).
For hours, without breaths intercepted in between or hesitation in words, Mugen growled and ranted off insults. But Fuu simply gathered him up in her arms, holding him, unyielding and tense.
"I'm so glad you're alive," she whispered.
"I'm not that easy to kill, not like this jerk over here."
--
The morning that Jin decided he was lithe and spry enough to move (to leap over boulders simultaneously decapitating heads) Fuu announced that they owed her their lives. Or at least Jin did, but Mugen owed her countless coins (food and lodge, etc.). And to repay her in full, they had to accompany her back, trekking backwards all the off-beaten paths and cruel terrains they encountered.
"I ain't going nowhere with you again!"
"You can't trick us like you did last time."
Fuu paid them no attention, plucked Momo from a swinging twig and placed her warmly inside the kimono's front. Head straight forward, nose up high, Fuu continued on—knowing they were only a few paces behind.
After all, they owed her their lives and hard-earned money. This was a debt she will hold over them, if only for a while.