A/N: yay new chappie! sorry for the wait! i need to think about this one, my inspiration was lacking. well i hope you like it anyways :D thanks too all your wonderful reviews, they always make me smile!! .

Disclaimer: i don't own nothin' so please don't sue!!

xxx

A few days had rolled passed and normality had returned between the three. Normal, meaning Fuu and Mugen fighting the war of 'who can piss who off the most' while Jin just sat back and sharpened his sword, trying to drown out the insufferable noise. The men's injuries had almost fully healed, and if it wasn't for Fuu, who insisted they remain inactive for a few more days, Mugen and Jin would already be having daily 'work outs'. Usually Mugen wouldn't have given a rat's ass about Fuu's demand, considering he listened to no one, yet lately he had been selective about which fights he would have with Fuu.

'Four eyes probably wouldn't wanna fight cos' she doesn't want us too…fuckin' pansy ' Mugen decided this was the only reason he didn't press the matter further. Instead he and Jin would sometimes accompany Fuu for walks around the Island, avoiding certain areas, such as the abandoned church. However one day Fuu had once again wondered off whilst Mugen wasn't paying attention, when he finally realized that she had gone he had stumbled upon a huge field of sunflowers.

'Ah, so this is why he smelt like them fucking things' he thought wisely to himself, before he hurriedly went in search of Fuu. After randomly running around for a good 20 minutes he finally found the girl on her haunches feeding Momo some seeds she had found. Hearing his footsteps she looked up.

"Mugen! Where did you go?"

"What? Where did you go?"

"You were the one following me idiot!"

" You just wandered off on your own without telling me!"

"Once again Mugen…YOU-WERE-FOL-LOW-ING-ME!" she yelled, emphasizing each word as if he was a child. Ironically Mugen folded his arms and dare I say, pouted?!

"Whatever bitch! I was going to show you something, it was gonna be kinda a surprise, but since you're a being a mega bitch I don't feel like it now!" Fuu's head perked up at the word 'surprise'.

"What surprise Mugen?" she asked curiously.

"Nup, your too late kid."

"Oh come on Mugen! Stop being a baby!"

"…and now I'm defiantly not gonna show ya" Fuu's eyes widened in horror, she was loosing!

" AH PLEASE MUGEN! I'M SORRY!" Fuu yelled as she ran up to the pirate and gave him her best puppy dog eyes.

"I'm really sorry Mugen, please show me I'll do anything!" Mugen smirked at this.

'Ah ha! Finally were getting somewhere!' Fuu confused at Mugen's smug smirk, put two and two together, and horrified flung her hand across her mouth.

'DAMMIT!'

"…ah I mean-"

"Nuh-uh girlie, you said anything!" Mugen was grinning wildly now.

"Come on Mugen! That's so unfair!" Fuu started to whine.

"Hey, do you want the surprise or not, and I'm tellin' ya it's a good one, plus when have I ever given you a surprise?" Mugen grinned, bribery was fun. Fuu sighed. She desperately wanted to see the surprise and he knew it, but the sheer thought of how he would make her pay made her want to run and hide.

"I wanna hear what I have to do first" she stated firmly.

"Nah that's not how it works, besides I haven't thought about it yet."

"Well start thinking!" Mugen sighed. He might as well come up with something anyway. Thinking hard, he went through all the possibilities. He couldn't make her his slave, she practically was both his and Jin since they were recovering. He couldn't make her have sex with him, that was just out of the question, for a variety of reasons. He couldn't make her give him a massage, she kinda already did it when he was treating his wounds and asking would be weird. Mugen, baffled that he couldn't come up with something mildly evil resorted to rational requests.

"K' I got one. You gotta stop being a nagging bitch and let me a fish face spar."

"That's two, pick one" Fuu inwardly, let out a relieved sigh. She was bracing herself for something horrific.

"Fine! You gotta let us spar."

"Done."

"Good, come on then." Fuu followed Mugen until they were near the border of the woods, when he stopped. Looking past him, her eyes lay on the field of sunflowers. Her first initial thought was 'beautiful' until she realized it was the same patch were the brothers had found her and…Fuu looked up only to watch Mugen's figure almost disappear amongst the tall flowers. Without hesitation she ran to catch up.

"So these are sunflowers right?" Mugen asked, even though he looked more bored than ever.

"Uh-huh" Fuu, walking behind Mugen gazed sadly around. Memories of her father's flooded her memory, his departure when she was only a child, and then the last time she saw him alive then dead.

"Looks like someone's been gardening" Mugen stated at random. Clearly confused, Fuu took notice that they were standing in a clearing, in which some of the flowers had been cut off at the stem. Fuu stopped dead in her tracks. This was the spot. This was the stop where she had been captured, were that awful weapon had almost decapitated her, where that man…Fuu gulped, truly uncomfortable. The man, she remembered his filthy nose, trailing along her neck from her collarbone to her ear, where he began to lick and whisper.

"Don't be afraid little girl, this will all be over soon." Fuu shuddered at the memory of his hands, roaming around her body, until they reached her legs and slowly began to pull her kimono up. He then began to spread her legs apart. It was then when Fuu realized what was going on, and what would happen if he continued, panic struck her all at once and she began to thrash violently. Unfortunately it was all in vain, as the man hit her hard in the back of the head, causing her to fall unconscious. The next thing she knew she was tied up and being beaten an inch from her life, before Mugen had shown up. Fuu choked on a sob, as she fell helplessly to her knees. It hadn't occurred to her, not with everything else that had happened, that there was a decent amount of time that her unconscious self and that man were together before she had woken up, …what had happened? What if he had done something to her?

Mugen, sensing that Fuu had stopped following him, turned around only to find her kneeling and crying silently into her hands.

'Dammit! Now what?' Mugen covering his concern with an annoyed expression on his face knelt down next to the petite figure.

"You hate the surprise?" Fuu shook her head in her head and mumbled into them.

"No, the thought was really nice."

"So what, you hate sunflowers or something?" Mugen lamely tried to brighten the mood, however it backfired when Fuu answered,

"Yeah, something like that."

"Oh…" Fuu looked up, barely noticing the disappointment in Mugen's eyes, but enough to elaborate.

"It just reminds me of things…"

"Like your old man?"

"Kinda…well it did, but something different…" She wasn't making any sense, but Mugen was being uncharacteristically patient.

"Then what?" he pressed, now lying back to watch the clouds. Fuu sat down and glanced at Mugen. He raised his eyebrow questioning, egging for her to continue.

'Why am I doing this?' he wondered as a cloud lazy rolled by.

'Should I tell him?' Fuu wondered, watching the same cloud.

"This was the place I was caught by the guy with the eye patch and the other in the chair thing…" Fuu started, catching Mugen's attention fully. Springing forward, he looked at her squarely in the eye.

"And what happened." Fuu gulped, she felt as if she was drowning under Mugen's intense gaze, and not in the good way.

"Uh…well he almost decapitated me, but I think he was trying to mostly scare me, cos' he kept me alive anyway, you know to use me as bait and-" She was blabbering, Mugen growled, there was something she didn't want him to know.

"Shut up Fuu! Just fucking tell me what happened!" Fuu winced at his harsh tone, the last thing she wanted was for him to get upset and pissy.

"Um… he sorta came onto me, like kinda touched me, I guess, but when I tried to fight him off he knock me unconscious, after that I dunno…I woke up and was tied to that cross, and then you showed up." Fuu explained, leaving minor details out. She readied herself for the outburst, but it never came. Instead Mugen lay back down at stared at the sky. He could tell she was leaving out some parts, but he didn't really feel like fighting at that particular moment. He remembered how much time he stalled trying to fight that Kariya guy and how reluctant he was to leave. If he just stopped fucking around, he could have prevented Fuu from getting hurt. Distressed, Mugen groaned softly and ran his finger through his coarse dark main.

Fuu, thinking that he was mad at her brought her knees up to her chest and let the remaining tears fall.

"Mugen please, don't be mad." she whispered. Mugen, shook his head, she had got it all wrong, was she crying because of him? He sighed.

"I'm not mad idiot, I'm frustrated."

"…Oh…" that wasn't an improvement. Mugen glance over his shoulder and could see how uncomfortable she was. Rolling his eyes he sat up and gently tugged her sleeve toward him.

"Get here" he brought Fuu into his lap and wrapped his arms tightly around her, placing his chin on the top of her head. Fuu sighed contently and snuggled deeper into his warm chest.

"Tch…don't get too comfortable, this ain't gonna become a regular thing got it?"

"Yeah, I got it" Fuu couldn't help but smile, Mugen was hopeless sometimes. After a while she spoke again.

"Mugen, let's go home." Mugen complied and released her and they began to leisurely make their way back towards the hut.

"So that surprise sucked." Mugen grumbled.

"Yup, pretty much."

"Tch, whatever, we are still gonna spar."

And before they knew it, they were out of time. They men had fully recovered and they were running out of reasons to stay on the island. It was Jin who suggested that they leave the following day, during a peaceful meal. Fuu and Mugen hid the fact that they almost chocked on their food as Jin spoke.

" I think it's appropriate that we depart tomorrow, we have already outstayed our welcome on the island."

"…Yeah I guess that's true…"

"Tch. Whatever."

However secretly all three of them couldn't believe that their final day together had come and gone without them realizing it. None of them spoke in the morning of their depature. Fuu tried to convince the old man to come, however he politely refused, claiming the only place for him was the island. After saying a final pray and farewell at her father's shrine, Fuu boarded their boat and they sailed away.

Once in town, it felt like nothing had changed, they were still the random threesome traveling together. However on the outskirts of town it wasn't long before they came to a junction in the road. Three different paths for three different people. Fuu held her breath as her boys took their opposite paths.

"Well, see ya" Mugen smiled mildly as he looked over his shoulder.

"Until we meet again" Jin added, wearing the same pleasant smile. Smiling back Fuu inwardly groaned. It was now or never.

"Um, listen…There's something that I haven't told you." She nervously looked back and fourth between her friends.

"Huh?"

"As in?" both Jin and Mugen gave her skeptical looks.

"Way back when we started this trip, we made a bet remember?" both men nodded at this, remembering their awkward union.

"The thing is…it actually came up heads!" Fuu smiled brightly, disregarding the other two's reactions. It had been on her conscious since and now that she had let go of her burden she felt 100 times lighter.

" Say what?!" Mugen couldn't believe it; he had put his ass on the line for nothing!

"You didn't…" Jin couldn't believe he was actually fooled, by Fuu no less.

"That's all" Fuu smugly walked between the men, taking her own path. Letting their shock settle in, both Jin and Mugen smiled and they watched Fuu walk away.

"She had us completely fooled." Jin always knew that she was smarter than she seemed, it gave him new confidence that she would be all right on her own.

"What did we even come on this trip for?" Mugen asked rhetorically, not expecting an answer. He for once didn't care, as he watched her retreating figure intently.

"Well, 'bye! I hope we meet again!" Fuu waved her hand in the air without looking back. Instead she focused on the horizon, feeling the warmth of the sun on her skin. This was for the best, she confirmed, smiling at her new resolution.

'Time to get on with my life.'

The path that I'm walking

I must go alone

I must take the baby steps 'til I'm full grown, full grown

Fairytales don't always have a happy ending, do they?

Mugen and Jin slightly nodded at each other, content for the first time in their lives, before turning to their individual paths and began to walk away. Hearing both of their footsteps fade away, Fuu willed herself not to turn around, she didn't know if she could trust herself if she did.

And I'm gonna miss you like a child misses their blanket

But I've got to get a move on with my life

It's time to be a big girl now

And big girls don't cry

A/N: WAHHH! and? what did you think? too rushed? im sorry if it was, i just kinda wanna get on with the rest of the story :D hehe. i Also didn't want to put in huge monologues about how much the others wanted to declare their love and what not, cuz i just recently watched the ending, and they actually look pretty content. i think it was a mutual thing. sometimes things a better left unsaid! :D hehe Also im sorry if Mugen is too OCC for you, but consider it is the last few days i think he would have been a bit nicer. i mean he was actually smiling at the end! Mugen never smiles!

oh i also never do a lyric thing, but i was listening to it when i was writing and it kinda fit so yeah i thought why the hell not. I might do this randomly but not so often, haha so please bare with me! :D

xxx Read Review!! thank you!!