Last chapter! Please review if you enjoyed it :)
(P.S. If I get really bored with life I'll make a sequel to this...)
They walked for an hour, two hours, three.
She kept falling behind him. She'd be right up close and then he'd turn around and she would have stopped twenty feet back, standing there clutching her sides. The fourth time it happened, Mugen stopped walking. "Hey, you let yourself get outta shape or somethin'?" he called back. "You forget how to walk long distance without wheezing to death?"
Fuu let her arms fall from her sides quickly, and hurried to catch up to him, not stopping where he was but continuing on, waiting for him to follow. "No, I'm really fine," she said, but one of her arms snaked its way back around her waist.
He narrowed his eyes at her. "Now hold up," he said, feeling the growl rise up in his throat again. Mugen grabbed her shoulder from behind to stop her, and was surprised when she cried out in pain. "What the hell-" Before she could stop him he pulled the fabric down off her shoulder. Under the white paint on her shoulder a fresh cut was plainly visible, with smudges of red mixing into the white to make a sickening pink line. "I thought you said they didn't touch you yet-"
"They didn't, not really. One of them.. used a whip. They do it to all the new girls." She didn't try to cover her shoulder back up.
Mugen felt like a molten rock had settled in his stomach. He didn't know if he wanted to see what the rest of her body looked like. "Why didn't you fuckin' say something?" he snapped. "You can't go running long distances with those kinds of injuries. Do you have a death wish?" Good thing she didn't mention this back at the brothel or I might have tried to burn the whole damn building down with everyone inside.
"I'm really fine!" she protested.
"Oh no," he snarled. "Don't you start. God damn you can be stupid sometimes. We'd better find somewhere to start a fire. You look like you're about to pass out."
Ignoring her outraged protests, he hoisted her over her shoulder and began to follow the steady slope farther up onto the mountainside. It was bad enough he made her run for miles, he wasn't gonna let her struggle up the mountainside and bleed to death. After a while Fuu eventually stopped struggling to get down. The mossy dirt under his feet began to give way more often to hefty boulders and layers of rock. Fuu had grown quiet, but every so often she would ask him to stop and pick a thick-leaved plant growing alongside the base of some trees. She said it was for treating wounds- killing bacteria or something like that. Well, good thing she had her wits about her then because he didn't know jack shit about treating wounds. He usually just wrapped his in bandages and forgot them till they healed. Eventually in the pale starlight he spied a dark opening in the side of a massive boulder. When he struck a match at the entrance he saw it was rather deep. So he left Fuu there for a few minutes and came back with his arms full of fallen branches.
While he kindled the fire, she was gingerly pulling apart the stems and leaves of the small plants he'd gathered. She was avoiding looking at him, for good reason. He was glaring at her. With what intention, he wasn't entirely sure. He watched with curiosity as she ground the leaves to mash with a small rock, and used Mugen's water to turn it into a kind of green leafy paste. When she was done, she turned away from him with predictable shyness.
"Mugen," she said quietly, "I need your help to put this on my cuts."
"Yeah, sure whatever," he agreed, scooting over toward her.
"If you'll spread it on my back, I'll do the other side," she said, and he could actually see the blush blooming on her face, where she had wiped the makeup away as they walked.
"Yeah alright," he agreed casually.
She turned fully away from him, pulling the purple fabric from her shoulders and letting it pool around her waist on the rock floor. Mugen bit his lip to keep from swearing. Under matted white body paint there were three large slashes welling angrily across her bare back.
"I uh, probably need to get this paint off first," he said, unsure what else to say.
Without responding, Fuu upended Mugen's water canteen over her shoulders, letting it run down her back and her chest. Mugen cast about for something to use that wasn't his bare hands (though he kinda wanted to use those) but ending up using his red own shirt to wipe away the running paint, which came off rather easily. He focused hard on what he was doing, attempting not to imagine what Fuu's hands were doing on the other side, delicately cleaning off her stomach, her breasts-
Breathing deeply he started applying the green paste across the long marks on her glistening skin. He tried not to think about how the water drops looked like sweat in the firelight, definitely wouldn't think about how he wished he was sweating too, that they were both sweating-
"Mugen, I'm trying to figure out how you found me." She sliced through his dirty thoughts effectively. "In the brothel… what did you say to them? Did you ask for me by name? I never told them my name…"
Mugen chuckled under his breath. "You wanna know? Fine. I walked right up to the front desk and I asked for the best virgin they had."
"You're not serious."
"Oh, I'm dead serious." He savored the blush on her cheeks that just kept getting brighter and brighter. She was so easy to embarrass, it was almost no fun.
She seemed to realize he was looking at her face and turned slightly farther away from him so he could see less. "I don't understand, I never told them I was a virgin. I never told you I was a virgin, you pervert!"
"Oh come off it," Mugen snorted. "You don't have to hear a girl say so to know she's a virgin. I can tell from half a mile away whether I'm looking at a virgin or not."
"You ass, you're lying through your teeth. You can't just tell like that. You don't know if I'm a virgin, you barely even know me at all! I haven't even seen for like four years you know. Anything can happen in four years."
"Yeah, anything could happen." She seemed smug until he added, "But it didn't. There's a fine distinction between virgins and other women. The virgins, they walk around like they got somethin' to hide. Arms crossed over their chest, legs crossed when they sit, their eyes dart around down streets like they're always expecting to be somebody's prey. Once a woman loses it though, she ain't got nothing to hide anymore. You can see it the way she walks, hear it in her voice. Those guys probably smelled the virginity on you as strong as the booze that was on your breath."
Fuu was apparently shocked into silence. "I knew it," he snickered. She still didn't answer though. Her silence was prolonged this time, and her head lilted downward as she finished applying the green paste to cuts on her chest. He followed suit, wondering if he really had offended her beyond repair this time. After he was done, a few more minutes passed in silence, the only sound that of the low crackling fire.
"Um, you probably don't wanna hear this," he started, "but you can't put that kimono back on until this shit dries. Otherwise the fabric's going to glue itself to that sticky stuff, and you'll have to rip it off your scabs. Won't be pleasant."
"I'll just wait till it all dries then," she said emotionlessly. "I don't care. I know you've been peeking at my chest this whole time anyway."
She's just trying to get under my skin. No way she saw me looking. I was so sneaky, all twenty times.
Mugen was taken further aback when she picked herself up and went over to sit facing the fire. She didn't seem to care at all that he could see her whole naked upper body now. "When you and Jin left," she said, "I walked away with my head held high. But in truth I was terrified."
Mugen just stared at her, waiting for her to continue.
She obliged. "I didn't know what I was supposed to do. You guys helped me achieve the only life goal I had. So I just started wandering. I would get to a town and find a job, get comfortable. But sooner or later I would realize that there wasn't anything for me there, and I would move on. I must have lived in a hundred towns in my life." She giggled softly. "To be honest, I was sure I'd meet you somewhere eventually. I've seen Jin twice since we parted, he said he was checking up on my wellbeing. I thought it was really sweet of him." She glanced at Mugen, who must have had a pretty shocked expression on his face. "You're probably wondering why I'm saying all this," she continued. "Well, I think the reason I kept moving on from town to town to town is that I kept on waiting for something to happen, something new."
Mugen still stared blankly. He had no idea what she was going on about. One moment she's solemn and sad and the next she's spouting her life story. This girl was so hard to keep up with.
"My point is that, while this whole ordeal was terrible, it doesn't feel terrible. It feels like something has finally happened… Mugen, come over by the fire," she added quietly. He almost thought he was hallucinating because he was sure she batted her eyelashes at him in the same way some girls beckon him from across the room. He was wary, but he went over and sat by her, trying really hard, and mostly failing, to not stare at her bare chest. God damn was that difficult.
"Why did you come here to rescue me?" she asked, looking him right in the eyes.
"What kind of question is that?" he retorted, unsure what to actually say.
"I want a real answer," she prodded. "You don't have any obligation to me. So why'd you come?"
"You want the truth?" Her face said yes. He regretted his answer before the words even left his mouth. "I uh… I felt like I owed you. You know."
Her expression quickly turned to bewilderment. "What for?"
Was she serious? He scowled, unwilling to admit the memory that wouldn't leave him alone and haunted him in the silent hours of the night. Did she not even remember, or what?
"Mugen," she pressed, "tell me what you think you owe me for."
"For this, stupid," he snarled, lifting his white undershirt to show her the pale jagged scar that reached across his chest. "Or don't you remember?" He had painful, foggy memories of drifting in and out of seering pain, interspersed with the soft touch of two cold hands touching and trying to mend his ragged flesh.
Fuu looked at his scar, not understanding. "I remember sewing this nasty thing back together," she admitted quietly, touching the end of his scar lightly and sending goosebumps racing down his arm. "Why would you owe me for that?" she said incredulously. She still didn't get it.
Don't kill him he heard, echoing from some dark recess in his mind. No, don't kill him. He had heard it over the roar of his blood in his ears, over the white hot feeling of iron being smelted inside his body, over the dying laughter sounding inside his own head that was cackling through the pain saying I was right, and now I'm going to die.
But he hadn't been right. He'd been wrong. The laughing voice in his head was an illusion, and what was real were the words No, don't kill him, and she had lain down between his body and his killer, and at the time he was half convinced this was all a mistake and he had already died.
"When the blind samurai and I were fighting, she told me something I already knew was true. That no one in this world gives a flying fuck. We live in a madhouse, that's for damn sure. I lived my whole life in that madhouse, I based all I knew on the fact that we're all just floating around and no one gives a damn what anyone else is doing. I live in that madness. I fight by channeling that madness. I thought I had it all figured out. I knew I'd just keep floating around until finally someday someone else's madness caught up with me, and I would die face down in the mud somewhere, and nobody would bat a fucking eye. World would keep turnin'. It's just the way it goes."
Fuu looked horrified, so he didn't wait for her to butt in before continuing. "So there I was, flat on my back in the mud, thinkin' Yeah,I fucking knew it. The world didn't give two shits whether I lived or died. I wasn't nothin' and I never was. I thought it was funny how some people thought they were special, thought they'd be remembered once their bones were rotted. Tough luck. The world was just a crazy puzzle and we were all just pieces making random patterns out of chaos. But then you fucking show up and ruin it."
Fuu jumped back an inch, clearly startled.
"I had it all figured out, but now I just… I can't fit you in with the pattern, you stupid bitch. It doesn't make any sense. I should have been right and I should have died alone and laughing. You should have let me die. What did you do it for? What?" he snarled, more harshly than he meant to. The tears in her eyes made him angry. What was she upset for? Then, to his complete surprise, she laid her hand gently on his cheek. He was too stunned to retort or shove her away.
"Oh, Mugen," she said softly. "Only you could ask such a stupid question." She turned away again and let her hand fall away from him, clinging to her other hand on her lap. "I can't convince you that you're worth saving. Only you can do that."
He felt like she had punched the rising anger out of him, deflating it as easily as a balloon.
"I was worried when we all left each other for the last time," she said, switching gears. She could switch gears so quickly, it left him in the dust. "Worried that I was just another face that would be gone out of your lives forever, like everyone you had ever met. But when I got a ways down the road, something struck me, and I turned to look back at you guys. And you know what- I found you both looking back at me.
God Mugen, you're so stupid, you know that? If you would just stop and think for one second it wouldn't be such a god damn mystery why I needed to save you. And maybe I don't fit into your chaotic pattern. Or here's a wild idea, maybe your pattern is just wrong." She gingerly poked at the drying green clumps on her chest and her finger didn't come away wet, so she shrugged back into her skimpy brothel kimono. He didn't stop her when she went to lay on the sloping rock at the back of cave, away from the warmth of the fire.
After what felt like forever the fire burned itself down to red hot coals, hissing in the dim cave. Neither of them had spoken in what seemed like hours.
Sure she was asleep, Mugen quietly stepped over the rock with bare feet, reclining with his back leaning comfortably against the steep slope of the cave wall. It was harder than the forest floor, but for some reason the angling slope made him feel like he was leaning back into a nice wooden chair.
"You didn't really want to die," Fuu said. She was obviously not sleeping. It wasn't a question, she just stated it matter-of-factly.
"No," he admitted in annoyance. "I didn't want to die. But I lived my whole life on the assumption that when my time came to die, there wasn't gonna be anyone there to stop it or to care. You threw my whole world into skew, Fuu."
"I see," she said softly. "I do. No one has ever loved you before," she said, in a forlorn voice.
Mugen chuckled. "You know, that's just exactly what the blind samurai said to me."
"You know, maybe us women can smell it on you the way you men can smell our virginity," she sneered.
He shrugged, past caring at this point.
She laughed in derision, and winced in pain. "Ow," she muttered. "Ow."
"What?"
"It's this stupid hard surface, it doesn't feel good to lay on at all. I feel like someone is jabbing tiny rocks at all my cuts no matter which way I roll over."
"You can share my bed," he joked, motioning around him at his identical bed of rock.
"Very funny," she said, glaring. "But you know, would it really be okay if I leaned up against you? I think it would a lot less painful."
"Yeah, yeah," he answered, "I can tell how hard it is for you to keep your hands to yourself over there, not since you caught sight of my rocking muscles." He lifted his shirt again and flexed, feeling the tension lighten tangibly in the cave as she rolled her eyes, knowing he was joking. "Comere," he said gruffly, beckoning her closer. She made to lean against the edge of his shoulder but, he pulled her all the way onto his lap. Fuu began to protest, blushing furiously, but he shushed her. "Oh calm down. Trust me, you'll be way more comfortable this way. He let her settle in between his legs, so that her back was laying flat against his chest, the back of her head resting in the crook of his shoulder.
"I don't know that I've ever said this, but you are so right," she muttered enthusiastically. "I am so much more comfortable than I was before."
"Yeah, just enjoy it, chick. Because my back is leaning against a boulder, just so you know."
Two eyes peered up at him. "I know. Thanks Mugen. For… everything."
He shrugged. "You know, I've been thinkin.' How much of a troublemaker you are. Now don't start, just let me finish, okay? I don't know if I feel okay letting you wander off to another city by yourself to make more trouble. Then it's my ass that's responsible when you get yourself killed, or sold, or what have you. I don't think I feel like dealing with the wrath of Jin if he found out I just let you go off alone like that, especially after this."
It was hard to concentrate on what he was saying to her because every time she took a breath her chest would heave and fall again, and god it was maddening. He wondered if she was exaggerating her breaths on purpose.
"So um, I was thinking you could just tag along after me for a while," he continued. "It's not like I'm going anywhere special, but at least it's somewhere. You can leave whenever you want, as long as you let me teach you how to use a sword first."
"A sword?" she asked incredulously.
"I'm serious," he persisted. "It won't be easy, but I'm not letting you go wandering around the forests and mountains anymore without knowing how to fuckin' protect yourself. Just stick around with me long enough to learn how to wield a blade, then you can go your own way. That's all I'm askin'."
"You really think I could learn?" she asked dubiously.
"Well, you're the biggest clutz I've ever met, but I can teach you things that'll put you far ahead most other samurai. It'll probably take a damn long time, though."
"Hmm," she raised one eyebrow at him, as if appraising his motives before deciding. "You know, I accept. Although I probably won't be able to start until these cuts heal up a bit."
Mugen's eyes drifted away from the low cut of her kimono and toward one of the leaf-covered lashes which went up her left breast, onto her clavicle. He found his finger lightly tracing it upwards like he so often did to his own scar, coming to rest on her clavicle bone. To his surprise, goosebumps blossomed on her skin where his finger touched. "Ya know," he said quietly, "you're going to have scars from this. Not trying to upset you, but you should know. Cuts this deep never go away completely."
"I don't care," she said plainly. "Scars are a part of being human. Besides, you have more scars than anyone I've ever met in my life."
"I know," he laughed, "It's just that your body was so…"
"So what?"
"So perfect? But some women think a scar makes them look tarnished. But me, I think I side with you on that one. If I turned away every woman with a gnarly scar, I'd never get laid. Ha, you know, there are women who would commit crimes you couldn't even imagine if it got them a body like yours, Fuu. Oh stop blushing, you know it's true, I can see it on your face. You've seen the way men go mad over you."
He suddenly realized he was still tracing the along the edge of her cut with his finger, not on it but just to the side, up and down from the edge of the fabric near her breast up to the cleft of her clavicle. He stopped abruptly. "Is this okay?" he asked in the silence.
"Yeah, Mugen. It's okay."
So he let his fingers wander again, tracing her arm up and down. They seemed so small. He felt her shiver suddenly, although it wasn't cold in their cave. So he did the only thing he could think to do, and pressed his face into the side of her neck, leaving a kiss there, and another. Even now he wouldn't admit to himself how badly he wanted her, then and there, how perfect and surreal she looked in the dark red light of dying embers. She didn't seem offended by his touch at all, like he'd expected. He'd imagined kissing her half a billion times, and many more explicit things, but he never guessed that when he actually did kiss her, she would turn around and kiss him back. But she did. She lifted her face up to his and hesitated with half-parted lips, before gently pressing them against his.
They fell asleep long after the coals had died away, leaving them in the chilly damp darkness of the cave. Mugen fell asleep easily for once, drifting into the dark without hazy troubling memories slipping in and out of his consciousness, without feeling the white hot pain he sometimes felt- instead dreams came softly like the warmth of something wrapped tightly in his arms.