A.N

This one's been on the sidelines for a while now, and has reared its ugly head once more simply because I finally bought the last two volumes of the Samurai Champloo DVD collection today and it re-inspired my original spark for this. It's a love/hate sort of thing - so if you hate it then leave it be. If you love/like/tolerate it, let me know. I don't rely on reviews to post chapters, but I do appreciate them smiles

-These Days-

Chapter One – Not Like The Other Girls I Know

It was a wet and frankly miserable start to the spring. Weighty daubs of rain fell smartly against the pavements and roads, making it wretched, even cruel, for people to have to venture out. Of particular, the local young school students starting back on yet another malignant term of high school. Above in the imminent skies there was a grey suggestion of the sun through a stolid mist of cloud and drizzle, but nothing unanimously warm and fuzzy to see away the sodden shivers of a drenched school uniform, and one's endless woes.

The young girl was particularly slight, with plain brown hair slung unenthusiastically into a pony tail, grey-white socks piled thickly around her gaunt ankles and simple black shoes that squelched with exasperated protest through the puddles. From all angles there was an appearance of pitiful blandness of such plain proportions that it almost seemed as if she were deliberately trying to bleed away into the background, with granted success.

A haunch of books was pressed tightly to her flat chest and an awkwardly oversized rucksack floundered across her narrow shoulders, due to it being empty. The top of her back curled in a long C-shape as she kept her chin tucked neatly into her shirt collar and her glassy eyes fixated firmly on the path below foot. In the context of casual observation she was just like any of the other thousands of teenagers across the country taking part in the ritualistic return back to school for another ridged set of months. However, even just a peak over this one's case file gave light to the one stark fact that brought fear and dread to every fibre of her small body. She was starting in a new school. A new school in a whole new city; the very alien and very loud prefecture of Tokyo.

During the holidays – where most pupils happily forgot about their tattooed desks and the gum-woven corridors and that one particular teacher who always had a grudge to spare – every part of her old life had been stolen away from her, torn apart and destroyed, and on the surface at least, unwillingly forgotten about. All the friends she had ever managed to make, the school she had grown to know the ways of, the teachers she had loved and the home she had grown up in with her mother for the past sixteen years, had been left behind, caged in the cruel hand of fate which had just as easily snapped her life in two as she might crush a flower's petals in her palm… And deep down, though she wore the façade of amnesia well, she could not, would never, forget.

The rain fell harder - not cold but unpleasant all the same. She had yet another fifteen minutes to go and a hill to battle up, but her mind was logged into autopilot, following the journey subconsciously just as she had learnt to do over the last week of break. As the weather sternly grew though it felt as if she would be hoofing this road till the end of her days, and in the back of her numb mind she knew that was exactly how she wanted it to be. If she just kept going then she could eventually disappear, along hopefully with the swarming of knots in her stomach like a mess of hungry snakes, and the pounding in her heart like a constant injection of adrenalin, and it would all wash away slowly with the rain in the street and no one would ever consider it again, consider her again.

Rubbing her left hand subconsciously with the tips of her fingers where she had burnt it last night making tea, Fuu Kasumi was a world away from the world, and oblivious to everything and anything around her. Especially of anything coming up behind her…

It was easy to say that she was unreservedly unaware of the low buzzing cadence playing beneath the pattering of stormy rain upon the hard, steely ground. Even as it carried on louder, faster and more menacingly, progressing to orchestrate into the low, guttural growl of a small motorbike engine, she carried on with fixed, arid eyes, feet stepping one in front of the other with as much consideration to it as a robot has of its own footsteps in the world.

At the moment the sound burst past her it was too late to do even a small part of a thing about it. The dull red hull of a bike, more a scooter than a motor, bulleted past her on the sodden road and without so much of a lemon slice of a care it careened right through the middle of a puddle of mud-soaked water. The very same puddle suddenly jumped up with the force of the wheels and landed still as a whole over the entirety of the young girl Fuu, devastating what had managed to stay dry and clean of her in her hike to school. Every page of her books, fibre of her clothes and stitch of her bag was thoroughly and then once more drenched, with mud and garbage and all those typical things, and in an instance she was stupefied to the spot. Her little mouth froze into a silent O and her knees clanked together as her body tried to retreat into itself with shame and shock.

As she stood there, struck ridged on the side of the pavement, the scooter carried on up the hill insidiously, with the ease of a reckless driver who had simply not a care in the world. Managing to look up and focus just at the very last moment, Fuu caught a glimmer of unruly black hair atop an unhelmeted head, a man's head. No, a boy's head. A horrid, baleful, unforgiving boy's head, full of careless ego.

Her eyes quickly flared with a fury of hot tempered emotions and lit up with sudden life, angry and dangerous, like an alter ego to the demur of her expression but only a minute ago. However, she remained speechless and motionless, save from one gear-grinding thought that would not leave her head. From the moment she had left Nagasaki, Fuu knew fate was no longer on her side.

----

The silence was like a stab through the ribs, echoing around the room embarrassingly, making it a tremendous effort to stand ground. She felt like she was facing the final hour, waiting for the guns, for the blood – her blood – to spill.

Slowly they came; low hesitant whispers, inaudible words circling with great alacrity, cruel and curious, wondering and fathoming everything untrue that there was to be known about her.

The tutor was sat next to her behind an immaculately spread work desk, legs crossed, her eyes betraying every bit of boredom she felt. She settled her sights on her blood red nails, sucking loudly between her teeth, rooting out the remainders of this morning's breakfast which stuck fast between her pearly whites. She then tapped her foot in midair, legs remaining firmly crossed as she passed Fuu a sidelong glance, impatient for her to start. Fuu stared uneasily back, lost as what to do with herself in front of her sudden audience.

"Well?" the tutor finally purred, the words stretching languidly across her lips, "Have you nothing to tell us, not even your name?"

A few sniggers stirred in the back. Fuu nodded hesitantly, aware of the nausea tipping around in her bowels.

"My name is Kasumi Fuu. I moved to Tokyo over the holidays from Nagasaki to live with my aunt. She's the only living relative I have left now, that I know about at least. I did have a cat which I considered family but my aunt wouldn't let me keep her so she lives with my old neighbours in Nagasaki now, who do like cats, and I'm sure…"

She trailed off as suddenly as she had started. She was staring to bring out looks of confusion and disgruntlement amidst her audience and was hesitant to see how far she could take these before they passed to malevolent snarls. The tutor looked up at her for what seemed another eternity, and then finally she nodded to her new pupil.

"Well Miss Kasumi, welcome to the class. There are a few spare seats in the back. Feel free to sit in one and we'll get started with the opening lesson for the term; History, the Edo period."

Almost stunned by relief Fuu wondered lightly through the aisles of pupils, every single one watching her closely from the corners of their eyes, judging her without respite. She already knew what their verdicts would be. She didn't really care much either.

In the rows of desks at the back the populous began to thin. The odd body lay sprawled out to capacity, desks untidy, uniforms fashionably bedraggled. This was as cheep as schools got in Tokyo, surviving almost purely on charity to house the most desperately unteachable children in the city. It was simply as it worked; Fuu had never applied herself, not even in the old school where she had had something of a life. She had talent, she just didn't know what in yet, and she was not willing to put in the effort it would take to find out what it was. For now her life was confusing enough, without a journey of self-discovery to knot it up even more. So without any sort of self-discovery she was here, where she rather simply belonged.

She finally collapsed into an empty seat in the second to last row, relief washing over her now that she had the chance to sink into the shadows and forget about everything that surrounded her. Most of the eyes had turned back to the front, few as interested in the teaching as they had been in her just a moment ago, most of the student body using their limited knowledge of maths to count down the minutes till morning break. Lethargy was the real topic of the day, and would haunt most of the young bodies in this room until their dying day. Few would ever escape from the rat trap their fates had released them into, and no one wanted reminding of that by trudging through lessons and lectures they would never understand, let alone ever pass or use. Fuu felt no less the same, and soon found herself completely a captive of her own world.

Until something black and bushy caught the corner of her eye. She perked up from her sleepy poise at her desk, eyes suddenly shimmering with life as her memory rushed her, screaming that something was amiss here, something was trying to catch her attention.

She wrinkled her nose and then slowly turned to her left, following her peripheral vision to the bobbing black bush that had stirred her interest in the first place.

There was a boy sat two desks along from her, shut off completely from the lesson with ear phones plugged tightly into his lobes and a rhythmic beat running through his long, knobbly fingers as he tapped the desk obliviously. She stared coyly at him, taking in the details of his odd appearance; his weathered-tanned skin, his thin, almost translucent lips and his enthrallingly long limbs, with legs that seemed to stretch out in front of him forever and arms that draped over each other like orang-utan's arms. His back was arched sinuously and he wore a pair of strapy brown sandals on coarse feet, his toenails like claws at the end of gnarly toes. But what she could not avoid glaring at no matter how hard she tried to divert back to the chalkboard was his mop of unruly, jet black hair. It went everywhere; up, down, straight out, over his eyes and down the small of his neck, in and out of his ears and even the corners of his mouth. It looked like it hadn't seen a bottle of conditioner in ten years and a comb for even longer. More importantly though, she was sure she'd seen that same head of hair careen past her earlier that morning, on a scooter, soaking her to the bone…

The boy turned his head as the beat of the song ended on his walkman. She gasped, not knowing what else to do as she was caught off guard by his sudden sardonic grin. There was menace and amusement in his eyes, and they were golden and dangerous as he gave her a long stare back. He grinned again, baring his pointy canines, like the grin of a cat, and seemed to laugh with his eyes as if he had remembered her from this morning just then as well. Then he turned front again, just as the next song's beat kicked up, and went back to closing his eyes and bobbing his head in complete oblivion. Fuu slowly turned back too. She begged the clock to run forward. She had to get out of this city.

----

She watched with passive dismay as a devious forelock of her stringy brown hair slid sneakily back over her nose. Her uniform clung to her as if for its own dear life, hugging every bony curve of her shivering form, helping her to look possibly even more bedraggled and pitiful than she had when walking to school. She sniffed and ached and yet could find solace nowhere else but outside in the endless rain.

Fuu had abandoned all hope of redeeming a good first impression with her new classmates, so instead of following the back of the queue to the countless number of common rooms they all shared variously, looking for the one that might on a whim accept her into their walls, she let her instincts lead her back outside.

There was a bike shed to the west of the school's cramped grounds, abandoned too, and devastated by rot and neglect. It was here that she decided to huddle into herself in what little shelter it offered amidst the plains of flat concrete that surrounded the monstrous school building from all sides. Spitting out rainwater from her mouth she struggled with numb white fingers to start her lighter and fire up the cigarette that trembled between her lips. There might have been a tear on her cheek, but it was hard to tell in this weather as she continued to be soaked across the face and as she fixed a solid stare in her eyes, dead ahead and lifeless as she put all her efforts into lighting this one cigarette.

After an evanescent moment though the tiniest frown flickered across her brow. Her thumb was chaffing against the stubborn flint of the lighter, cheep as it was. The cigarette was waiting, her entire body was waiting, but still nothing would happen.

Something broke across her lips, a half tremble and a half growl. Her stomach churned and her toes curled, her skin crawled and she could feel her hands bunching into tight, furious fists. Everything was building inside her, and slowly that everything was leaking out, transcending over her whole body until she shivered with a hatred and anger that stretched far beyond today's bad luck, or yesterday's, or even all of the holiday's. She was fighting against the whole damned world, yet had no one at her side to fight with. She was screaming in the back of her soul to get out of this God-forsaken city, even the country, she could feel herself successfully losing it, and sometimes she simply wished she had. Then, at least, she would have an excuse to stay off school.

Suddenly she started. There was a soft hiss in the air and then a warm glow of light, a slight blaze of heat and as if from nowhere, and then there was fire dancing before her eyes. It blazed through the hands of another who stood before her as if he had stepped through the mist of the rain itself, just as the fire had appeared. Broken nails clutched onto a long wooden match, and without thinking she put her cigarette to the flames and lit it.

Slowly her toes uncurled, her stomach settled and Fuu let herself close her eyes just for a moment, calming.

Then she snapped back to life and looked up at him, the boy with the black mop on his head.

"What do you want?" she spoke bluntly, but cautiously, her voice a little deeper than one would expect it to be looking down on her very slight figure.

Nevertheless, despite the snarl in her eyes the black-haired boy smiled his toothy grin at her, his own eyes glinting with amusement, almost patronising her big-attitude-in-a-little-body act. She tilted her head to the side as she glared piercingly at him, eyes darting over every part of his body, trying to read something off him, trying to challenge him even as he kept that stupid smile on his face.

"Just helpin' out a freak," he finally replied casually, his voice rough and heavily accented, but not of the capital's accent, "a little payment for the amusement."

Her temper flared just as he had anticipated and she stamped her foot forward, daring him to repeat himself.

"What did you say?" she barked, cigarette all but forgotten now between her fingers as she clenched her fists and felt the fine hairs down the back of her neck rise like hackles to the challenge.

"Don't deny it," he carried on casually, "You know what you are."

Fuu was as infuriated as she was ashamed to admit that he was right. Still…

"What gives you the right to call me a freak? You're just a looser with a poor attitude!"

Inside she cringed but standing before him as tall she could make, she kept her ground, unflinching.

"Name's Mugen."

She stopped, blinking as rain ran into her eyes. He was soaked through as well, no blazer on, just a sodden shirt, thin black trousers and (she just noticed) worn brown leather sandals. There was no tie, no rolled down socks, no attempt to brush away his thick black hair as it dangled loosely around his eyes. He had no sense of care or subtlety. She was brushed by an almost immediate wash of jealousy and she tried not to flush across the cheeks as she looked up at his tall, slender body.

"To survive in this school you'll need at least one ally. Not saying that's me, haven't decided if I even like you yet, but it be best for you to know my name from me first, before someone shit tells you it an' all the baggage that goes with it."

Fuu let a small frown show, and a glimmer of distain.

"Enjoy your smoke. I gotta go kick the crap out of some people now."

It was like a bad line out of an even worse movie, but he left on it and she could say nothing back to it. She blinked as water streamed back into her eyes and trickled up her nose. By the time she had wiped it away he was gone, and she was alone again with only the squall of the wind behind the bike shed and the embers of her cigarette for company.