The snap of a branch woke Mugen from his dreams. As he leapt to his bare feet, he was only in time to see the swirl of a woman's white skirt disappear through the trees. In the next moment, Jin was chasing after the phantom lady and Fuu was writhing and screaming on her mat. Horrified, Mugen rushed to Fuu's side and pushed her shoulders to the ground.

"What the hell is wrong with you?" Mugen yelled. Fuu threw her head back and howled. Her back bowed and her arms and legs tensed and curled in unnatural angles. Desperate to calm her, he climbed on top of her body and buried his face into her neck. Despite his attempts to restrain her, Fuu's little body strained and bucked and nearly succeeded in throwing him off.

"Fuu! Snap out of it!" Mugen shouted into her ear. Using all of his strength, he subdued her arms with his and trapped her legs between his thighs. Although he was anxious that he was hurting her in this position, the longer he lay atop her, the more calm she became. Her screams subsided to pitiful mewls and then to silence as Fuu fell into a faint. Mugen slid to her side and gathered her up in his arms. His entire body ached and his head rang with questions. Who was the woman? Did Jin need his help? But most importantly, what was wrong with Fuu? He pulled her slight weight closer and took a deep breath of her hair. As a black cloud entered his thoughts and stole his consciousness, Mugen's last thought was that if anything happened to his girl, the whole world would burn.

The next thing Mugen knew, it was dawn and Fuu was no longer lying still at his side. He sat up quickly to look for her and instantly regretted it as his head seemingly split into two separate halves.

"Shhhit!" Mugen hissed as he collapsed to the ground with his hands fisted in his wild mane. As he lay completely lifeless, waiting for his skull to repair itself enough for him to stand, he felt a pair of small hands slide over his grizzled cheeks.

"Mugen?" Fuu whispered. "Wake up, Mugen. It's time to play."

As Mugen's brain registered this interesting announcement, he realized that the same small hands that had just caressed his face were now running down his chest and were unfastening his dingy shorts. He retained just enough presence of mind to clamp his hands over hers before she was able to pull them over his hips.

"Little girl, what are you doing?" Mugen asked as he slowly opened his eyes. When his gaze met hers, he was shocked to see her sweet face transformed by naked desire. And when he was able to tear his eyes from Fuu's, his shock was amplified when he saw two silky brown ears jutting out of her hair on either side of her head.

"What the hell?" Mugen exclaimed as he reached up to touch one of them. In response, Fuu closed her eyes, gripped Mugen's forearms and purred. His body's response to the sound was swift and violent. In a second, he had Fuu pinned beneath him, his headache coming a distant second to the fierce and instant pain in his loins. She was hot; her skin burned him everywhere he touched her. Her smiling mouth drew his eyes, and as he looked at her lips, he saw that her teeth were different. They were longer and sharper, like…fangs?

"Mmm. Mugen. You feel so good." Fuu stretched underneath him and lifted her hips. Mugen slammed her body back into the dirt and kissed her with all of the heat and anger that only she was able to draw from him. He reached down and pulled the hem of her kimono up until he could slide his hand up and push his fingers into her heat. The pirate ronin was clever in these matters and as he searched, she moaned and closed her eyes so tightly that tears ran down the sides of her face.

Fuu, he thought, you are the only one that makes me feel like this. I am no poet and romance was murdered in me; but with you, I can be the hero and the thief.

And when she broke her mouth from his and scared a flock of birds from their rest as she climaxed, Mugen took a split second to contemplate what his actions in next few moments might do to their future. He could fuck her; her slick body was all the permission he needed to do so. He wouldn't even need to feel guilty if she got pregnant because she was the one who-who was totally acting in a way foreign to her nature. Even now she was reaching up and biting at him, begging for more. His hot glare traveled from her wild eyes to her new ears and everything started to feel wrong. Damnit.

Mugen jumped up and looked around. Nothing out of the ordinary there; they were still in the same spot they had prepared camp the night before. No sign of Jin. And as Mugen had performed his cursory investigation, Fuu had risen to a lazy crouch and was licking her forearm wrist to elbow. Two catlike ears were still perched on her head and Mugen was not entirely surprised to see a long, facile tail lounging behind Fuu's back.

"You there. I'm still hungry," Fuu hummed as she untied her obi. Mugen watched in heated disbelief as she discarded her obi and her kimono, leaving her body nearly nude. As Fuu knelt and pressed her breasts together with her slender hands, clad only in her thin, travelworn underclothes, Mugen's shaking hand reached out toward-

"Don't touch her, Mugen" gasped Jin, "unless you want to be cursed, too."