Jin. Jin's dieing.
And Mugen, Mugen, he just wants to teach Jin how to live.
With each day that goes by, Jin breaths become a little bit slower. His steps become a little bit heavier. His days, they ended a little bit shorter. Jin, Jin, the one who was always strong, he becomes a lot weaker.
And Jin, Jin just gets more and more tired.
And Jin, he knows. He accepts, he doesn't try and live.
Because Jin, Jin doesn't know how to live.
Mugen's sandals flopped against the wood surrounding the brothel house. His eyes closed halfway, a piece of cattail stuck in between his lips. His head as held high, a combination of boredom and arrogance, as he searches for the next solution to his current fix of mundane living. Everyday was an adventure, spontaneous decisions, and today, he was simply awaiting the opportunity to arise.
And a girl with short brown hair, she runs. Her sandals slap between her feet and the packed sand. Her kimono flies threw the wind as she grows bigger and bigger as she comes closer and closer.
And Mugen, all he can think, is that it's been so long.
Their adventure ended, the chapter was logged in his novel of life. He came, and he went. There were no strings, there were no goodbyes, there was just the closing of one section and the opening of the next. It was life in process.
This girl, she's panting, out of breath, tired.
"What do you want." Mugen commanded.
'It's-It's-It's." Fuu replied.
"Shut up and speak already." Mugen commanded
"…Jin." Fuu replied. Fuu breathed in heavily. Fuu, she was mesmerized.
"W-What?" Mugen asked. Mugen wanted to command, but Mugen, he just couldn't.
"He's…Sick. Something's wrong with him…" Fuu caught her breath. Her voice was smooth, flawless, matured. Fuu wasn't fifteen anymore.
"So. Why would I care what that stupid Samurai does. Is." Mugen was still full of anger like he always was.
Some things don't change.
And Fuu, Fuu, her face a bit older, her mind a bit wiser, she wears this façade of indifference. Her brown eyes a bit smaller now, stay exactly the same – filled with life as it was so long ago.
And Fuu, Fuu leaves.
And Fuu, being Fuu, she didn't need to yell and scream, to fight back for once. She didn't need to try and stop destiny. So Fuu, left. A cloud of insecurity and unexplainable mystery surrounding her, she still knew where Mugen will head.
Her job was done, and she finally ended the chapter in her book.
When Jin wakes up, it isn't easy for him to. His breath peaks a bit, and his breathing becomes more and more shallow. His small eyes open, as wide as they will go, as he gasps and gapes for air that won't enter his lungs.
It lasts for a second.
And that second, felt like it turned into hours.
And Jin, he finally sits up. His thick white kimono pooling around his hips, growing loose and baggy with each passing day. Jin's hands reaches to the side of the futon, where his spectacles lay dusted and dirty, and place them on the bridge of his nose. His vision is blurred with gray dots, his eyebrows arching, contemplating.
Jin, he breaths in, and his eyes focus. He pushes himself to his feet, not once losing his balance as he pulls on his gray kimono over his white, mixing the shades and forming a monochrome pattern including the shades of his hakama. His vision stops for a second upon two swords, lightning bolts etched on the hilt, before bending back down to pick them up and place them in his red sash.
These swords, there were his life.
The point of his very existence.
He slides the door open and prepares himself for another day.
Mugen doesn't know where he's heading. Mugen just knows he needs to leave. He needs to search, to find, a bespectacled samurai.
Oh. The irony he thought.
Jin passed through Edo, through Nagasaki, he passed through every little town in every little section of Japan.
Mugen, he really really wanted to kill Fuu right about now. Deliberate displacement of irony. And it's him searching for rumors that float by his ears, and it's him asking for the sight of a bespectacled samurai.