Blood tasted of metal and sweat of salt. She'd learned that over and over again in her travels with Mugen and Jin, but she'd never been so familiar with the flavors merging as she had become in the days approaching her execution. Death was more than welcome.

She'd been raped before. Once, in a field of sunflowers, a man who carried Death's scythe on a chain had taken her against her will. He'd pinned her and broken her and then tied her to a cross to draw out the cruel, wild outlaw, Mugen. When he came to save her, when their eyes met it was as if she'd never known him at all. She could have lived in the space of that moment forever. Even with the ache and shame ravaging her body. Even after the beating the one eyed devil had delivered. Even with all her hope stripped away until her heart was naked, the moment had been the closest to perfect she had ever known. She could have died and had not a single regret, not even the regret of never seeing her father.

Still, she had seen her father. She had seen him die. She should have been the next to perish had Jin not arrived. The same steadiness she had always known in him remained and something more she could not place. She could no more place what she saw in Jin than she could in Mugen, but she knew with her soul exactly what resonated between her and each man even if she could not name it. She had no desire to give such a thread of divinity a name.

She was on the floor of her cell and everything ached. Two days and it would be over. She focused on the memory of the eyes of Mugen and Jin. She drew the memory close and the corporeal world fell away and was replaced by intangible, ethereal threads of unknowable truth. When they left her alone and the door was locked, she drew her robes closed and dragged herself to her bed. It didn't matter how they tortured her, she had learned, so long as her face was unbruised for her beheading.

Fuu closed her eyes and let herself fall back to the days Mugen and Jin had hovered between life and death. The island was a quiet place. Her father's servant had circulated the rumor that she and her father were dead, as was their assassin-killed by the ronin he had dueled on the dock. A false grave still stood next to her father's on the quiet cliffside overlooking the burnt and decimated church. She had watched them sleep, had tended their battered bodies, had fed them and cared for them with the steady hands of one who had walked through hell.

It was a night as dark as the one which slowly invaded her cell. She had fallen into a light doze between Mugen and Jin. Their wounds had just begun to mend and close but had not yet ceased bleeding. At first she thought the elderly servant of her father had come and wrapped a blanket around her but then could feel the soft breath on her neck and recognized the strong arms cradling her close. She opened her eyes and saw Jin still asleep only a few feet away, then closed her eyes.

"Mugen," she whispered, but he did not reply. His steady breath and the fluidity of his embrace spoke to the depth of his sleep. Had he woken enough to see her form and mistaken her for a brothel whore? His arms tightened around her and he took a deep breath, his nose buried in her hair.

She sighed and let herself drift back to sleep. The next morning he still held her in his embrace and when she tried to move, he only held her closer. "Mugen," she said softly, covering his hands with her own. He breathed her in deeply and then relaxed his arms enough for her to move away. He rested on his stomach then, still no closer to consciousness. His features were peaceful as she had never seen them before. The premature lines in his brow were relaxed and smooth as if they had never existed. Impulsively, she reached out and gently touched his brow only to find him leaning into her fingertips. She smiled and continued her vigil over both men until, finally, they woke. Mugen never seemed to remember any of his time hidden in the shed; Fuu would never forget.

"It was something Sara said," his voice was distant and hollow as they walked through he night. Jin looked to Mugen in question. "She said I was like her- that nobody had ever loved me."

"Sara was broken. She wanted death."

"She was right. She saw me clearly- more clearly than I've ever seen myself," he let out a puff of breath and shook off the memory of the blind woman and her betrayal along with his first pang of guilt. "We need to think of a distraction."

"They will expect a distraction," Jin replied. "They will be prepared for it."

Mugen scowled, "Well then what the fuck do you wanna do? Walk up and ask them to let her go with us?"

Jin was silent for a long time. "Even if we did, they want all of us dead. Each of us has our own death warrant and they will not let us go, even if we tried to sacrifice ourselves for her."

"So it's a suicide mission," Mugen drawled softly, remembering the times he had faced Death and his harbingers. Fuu's voice had brought him back both times. Perhaps, if he was lucky, she'd make the journey with him this time. "That's what this has always been, I guess. We aren't walking away from it, but at least we'll die together."

The ronin couldn't help but smile at the pirate's words. "We will die with honor."

"Fuck honor," was Mugen's acrid reply. In all honesty, he was aching for a fight. He was ready to cut through as many men as he needed to in order to see her face one last time. Sara had said he'd never been loved. It had been true when she'd said it, but he knew it wasn't any longer. The memory of Fuu tied to the cross, meeting his gaze across the ruin of the church representing the difference in each of them that their world could not accept or tolerate. She wasn't his ideal woman, but he knew she loved him- she would always love him. That was worth fighting for and dying for.