AN: Continuing on…please let me know if this whole endeavor sucks or if there's any improving I can do…By the way, there is some violence and adult situations in this chapter, so reader beware. Thanks for reading!! Please review!
Disclaimer: Oops, I forgot about this in the first 2 chapters..I don't own Samurai Champloo…
Yuhana had been on the sweltering island that was to be her prison for nearly a month when, just as the nameless man had predicted, her luck started to run out. She had kept mostly to herself, or as much as was possible. She managed to scrape by through mending peoples' clothes, since there were few people who were able (or would bother) on the island to do the job. Sometimes she was able to make travelers' hats to shield from the sun and rain from the tall coarse grasses that grew on the island. Mostly she traded for food, or various other supplies she could trade for food or a few scraps of money. She decided not to bother worrying where the money or other goods on the island came from, being a prison colony.
Cho came to visit her now and again, mostly only to try and eat with her when she had no food of her own. Yuhana didn't mind so much, but she wasn't used to Cho's boisterous and raucous attitude. One night, Yuhana quietly ate by the fire as Cho regaled her with her adventures for the day.
"You shoulda seen it today! I pulled over a great one on some of the new guys today!" she told her happily. She seemed to be proud of these accomplishments, and Yuhana supposed that they were the only accomplishments she had. She didn't think she was better than anyone on the island, she certainly hadn't led a charmed life. However, part of her still wanted to cling to what little dignity she had left, and it was definitely very thin.
"I told them I wanted them to take me somewhere so we all could be alone, and they actually bought it! I robbed 'em blind!" she said, bursting into laughter. "I came off with a pretty good haul too, it was like picking up shells on the beach!" she told her.
Yuhana looked at her for a moment. "Won't they come looking for you?" she asked. It seemed like they would want retribution for their humiliation.
"Nah, I ain't afraid of those morons." she said. "If I was them, I wouldn't even admit to being robbed by a woman!" She broke into laughter again. Yuhana tried to smile in return, so she wouldn't feel uncomfortable, but then she doubted Cho would feel uncomfortable with much of anything.
"Come by tomorrow and I'll give you the fabric I got from 'em. They must have lifted it from a ship that docked nearby in distress. They probably took refuge on the east cape from that storm the other night." she conjectured, as she left. Yuhana hoped she could continue to survive the way she had been so far, she didn't want to put herself in the kind of danger that Cho did. She slept uneasily that night.
She rose early the next day, and made her way to Cho's home toward the lower end of the hill. As she approached, she noticed that there was a lot of shouting and commotion. Her heart nearly stopped when she came close: Cho was surrounded by five men, and the biggest one had her by the throat. This was exactly what she was afraid would happen. It was obvious he was very angry, no doubt one of the men she had robbed the previous day.
"You double crossing little bitch!" he yelled, the veins in his neck bulging out. "You're gonna give me back everything you stole from me and then you're gonna do what you said you would yesterday!" he said with a disgusting grin. Yuhana stood frozen to the spot. It was early and there weren't many people around, and the ones that were nearby acted as if nothing were happening. How could they just stand by and watch?
Cho only laughed at the ruffian. "What's the matter?" she chided. "Pissed off that you got cleaned out by a woman?" she asked, spitting in his face. "I do what I have to so I can survive, so you can kiss my…" but her words were stopped short, and a look of horror and pain spread across her face.
Yuhana looked down and noticed that the man had a knife plunged into her chest to the hilt. Her insults had been too much. Her body crumpled to the ground and was still. Yuhana looked on in terror. Her mind screamed at her to run away, but her legs wouldn't obey. All she could do was stare at the bloody scene, and at the perpetrators. Unfortunately, they saw her too, standing like a frightened animal there in the road, in plain sight.
"Well, look what we have here." the leader said, wiping the blood from the knife on his shirt. "Looks like we got a spectator. What's up little girl? Whatcha see turn you on?" he asked, leering at her. Finally, her legs began to work and she started to run, but it was too late. One of the gang grabbed her around the waist and shoulders and pulled her into a nearby empty shack.
One of the younger thugs threw her to the ground and she crashed hard, it took her a minute to try and get up, but there was no use. "We were gonna take what we wanted from that dead bitch." he said, "But you'll do just fine, you won't put up as much of a fight." he laughed. She did try to fight back, but she only got slapped and kicked for her effort. She was barely conscious. Everything seemed far away. Suddenly, she thought she heard fighting again, and as her vision came back into focus, there was another man in the room that hadn't been there previously.
She looked around and all the men that had dragged her into the hut were lying in pools of blood. The man stood over them, his sword dripping on the floor. He looked at her with a mix of boredom, scrutiny, and curiosity. He was tall and lean, his shaggy black hair to his bony shoulders. His features were sharp, especially his eyes, and her first impression of him was her unease, though he had just saved her. "I saw you yesterday." he told her. "You're the girl that does the mending around here, right?" he asked. She nodded, her face a mask of confusion. Why had he saved her?
He gave his blade a short, quick swipe, throwing the blood off and some of it onto her. She cringed. "Sorry 'bout that." he said, but he only half meant it. "I been on this island for a long time, so you must be new here. It's obvious, if you're still so skittish of blood." he told her. "You mute, or something?" he asked her in response to her silent stare.
"No." she managed to get out. Her throat seemed dry and constricted.
"Good thing you have enough guts to earn your own keep, though. It may just keep you alive for a while." he said, as though it were nothing. They may as well have been discussing the current level of the tide. "Most of the women around here are usually dragging ass after whatever man they think will take care of them for a while." he told her. "I got an offer for ya." he said coming closer. "Whadda ya say me and you set up shop together?" he asked. "I could use a steady place to sleep and eat, and a steady piece don't sound too bad either." Yuhana only gaped at him.
"Do it, and I guarantee you won't have to worry about anybody messing with you, man or woman. No one around here messes with me." he said proudly. "You'll have protection, plus some extra food to eat." he said. "Sound like a deal?" he asked her. "Better just one guy having his way with you than a whole bunch of them you don't know all the time." he said, once again as if it were small talk over dinner.
Still sitting on the dirt floor, Yuhana said nothing. She was trying to process what had happened in just the past fifteen minutes, but it was nearly impossible. What had just happened? Was Cho really dead, lying out there in the street? Did those men really just try to violate her? Did this new man really cut them all down, then offer to live with her and…what was happening? He had her by the wrist now, and was leading her out of the falling down building. Cho was still lying where she had fallen, and she swallowed hard at the sight, then turned around as the man pulled her along.
She stopped at when they got to her home, and he did as well after noticing she had pulled free of him. She stared blankly at the tiny shack, still trying to figure out what was going on. She could hear his words in her head, and desperately tried to truly understand what they meant to her. She agreed with what he had said, but would he really protect her? Really help her? Was it all even real? He was pulling her through the doorway now. She stared just as numbly at the inside of her house, her eyes fixed almost blindly at the fire pit, searching for something, anything to get some kind of focus.
"Well, what's your answer?" he asked her. "I ain't into raping women, it's no good unless the woman is willing." he told her. She only turned and stared at him, and no words came. He smirked suddenly, coming close, inches away. "You know what they say about silence, right?" he asked, pulling her down onto the newly patched futon, a tone to his voice that sounded almost victorious. Yuhana closed her eyes tight against the pain and willed her mind to take her somewhere else, anywhere than where she was.