Disclaimer- I do not own Samurai Champloo, or the characters. I've seen up to episode 20 & read reviews thru ep. 26.The show left me wanting more, so I decided to write it & hopefully tie up some loose ends. This is an unfinished work in progress, subject to change. Any suggestions, corrections or advice are welcome in order to help me improve. Thanks for reading.

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The tall, silent figure walked alone, without a destination in mind. He had been a wanderer before, and a wanderer he still remained. Disgraced, homeless, penniless- an outcast, ronin- hunted by friend and foe alike. Others sought his head, and that fact would never change- not until the day he was bested at long last and had fallen in defeat.

When he left the others at the crossroads, he simply headed east and never looked back. From time to time, he thought of his former companions. Fate had brought them together, and then just as quickly drawn them apart. Friends- to think I actually had friends in my life. Real friends, a luxury I had never known. I have always been alone, yet…for that brief period of time, I was a part of something bigger than myself. Perhaps, fate willing, we shall meet again.

For many long days he had walked. Now the path was leading him uphill, up into the mountains, shadowing a river. Looking around, he realized he was in familiar terrain. I know this place- I've been here before. Was it still there? Yes. He spotted it- a lone grave, by the riverbank.

He paused for a moment, remembering cold steel and warm gushing blood, indigo blue and deep forest green locked together in a dance of death.An image formed in his mind: a gently falling snowflake landing on his palm and melting into nothingness.

Fuu had witnessed their final moment together, and had later asked him simple, yet utterly impossible questions. Thankfully, they had been interrupted- not that he could muster an explanation that she could comprehend. How could she possibly understand? Yes, he was like a little brother…but there was far more to it than she could ever know.

But, it was Mugen who had surprised him most on that dreadful night- crude, vulgar, illiterate, thoughtless, reckless, heedless Mugen. Fuu had been snoring, fast asleep, oblivious. Sitting by the campfire, he was staring off into the void, deeply lost in thought. Without a word, Mugen simply plopped next to him. He gritted his teeth, prepared for Mugen's inevitable tasteless, cutting insult. It never came.

"I'm sorry." Words so quietly spoken, he almost missed them.

"What?" Surely he had misunderstood- had he heard correctly?

"I said, I'm sorry." It was a simple statement. Mugen didn't meet his eyes.

Gone was his cockiness, his who-cares attitude; Mugen sounded almost human. He remembered sitting there, dumbfounded. An apology? From HIM? Mugen took the silence for some unknown cue to continue, and spoke again.

"I mean, umm…having someone like that who actually cared about you…I never had that. I never let anyone get close to me like that, growing up where I did… Everyone I cared about always died, so I quit caring….until……I met you." The last three words were a mere whisper. Mugen's voice trailed off and fell silent.

The honest, heartfelt admission stunned him. Perhaps, in his own way, the crude pirate boy had understood, after all... A quick, furtive glance revealed the faintest trace of shining wetness in Mugen's eyes. Surely I had been imagining things… Suddenly, dismissively, Mugen began picking his ear, inspected the contents and flicked them into the fire. The moment, whatever it had been, vanished.

"C'mon. Let's get this done before the crows get to him." Mugen got to his feet, stretched, and walked away without waiting for a reply. None was needed. They spent the rest of the night together hauling stones in silence, burying Yuki's body along the river. Neither of them had spoken of the incident after that, and Fuu never brought the subject up again. But, that one night, even for but a brief moment, they became something different: friends, comrades-at-arms, burying the fallen, mourning the lost.