(Author's Note: The plot thickens. As usual, I must thank someone. Props to Sean and Keith, my Toshi and Tamasine.)

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

Saiyu came down the stairs, hakama billowing. His hands rested on his swords, to steady them. He crossed the room; already, it held a dozen samurai, all armed, most drinking (though some refused because of their religion) and laughing (not too much, of course, and they had to scowl properly even when snickering) and reminiscing about the past.

Saiyu went to a low table by a window. Cool air blew in the wooden bars from the street, cooling the heat of the room.

He knelt and accepted a drink.

"Saiyu-san!" one of the men greeted him.

"Tamasine-san," replied Saiyu, nodding.

Tamasine leaned over the table and asked, in a hushed voice, "Did you see him?"

"Yes," said Saiyu.

The samurai on Tamasine's right leaned forward. He was identical to Tamasine; they were twins. Tamasine had a brown kimono and short hair; Toshi had a green kimono and short hair. But they shared a face, slanted eyes and small beards, something neither had every really forgiven the other for. "What's he like?"

"Honestly, Toshi, you went to the same dojo."

"I never spoke to him. Never fought him, thank the stars…"

"I fought him!" exclaimed Tamasine. "You couldn't see him draw his sword. It was just a flash and then…" He snapped his fingers.

"He must have put up a good fight," said Toshi.

Saiyu shook his head. "Not really."

Tamasine and Toshi exchanged looks. "No?"

Saiyu shrugged. "He's a very quiet man. He keeps to himself. Right now he's upstairs meditating. And before that, he was writing. He's not terribly violent. Actually, he's rather shy." He sipped his drink while Toshi and Tamasine looked on incredulously.

"What was he writing?" asked Toshi abruptly.

"A letter," said Saiyu. He held up a neatly folded envelop. Immediately, a group of samurai were surrounding it.

"What's in it?" asked Tamasine.

"I don't know. It's sealed."

"Then open it!"

"I told him I'd deliver it."

"To who? Who's it for?"

"He said, for a girl in a pink kimono named Fuu."

There was a pause while everyone processed this information. "What if you can't find her?" asked Toshi.

"Then I guess I'll just throw it away."

Everyone exchanged glances. "Saiyu-san…" began Tamasine. "We don't know what's in that letter. It could be anything! We can't just deliver it without knowing what's in it."

"It's for a girl in a pink kimono, how much of a threat could it possibly present?"

"A lot!" snapped Tamasine, swiping for the letter. Saiyu jerked away.

"It wouldn't be honorable—"

"Oh, shut up about honor! Let's read it!"

"I already promised—"

"Give it to me!"

"No!" Saiyu tucked the letter safely in his kimono and rose. "I'm going to deliver this letter right now, before you two do something you'll regret!"

"It'll be you who regrets delivering that letter!" said Tamasine, rising.

"KOHACHIRO!" shouted Saiyu. Kohachiro, who'd been in the center of a group of people admiring Jin's katana, excused himself.

"Yes?" he asked, bowing.

"Come on. We've got to deliver a letter."

Kohachiro looked longingly over his shoulder, at the group of people he'd been showing off to. "Can't it wait until morning?"

"No!" said Saiyu sharply. "We must deliver it tonight. Jin insisted on it."

"You're delivering a letter for him?" blurted Kohachiro. "Saiyu-san! You can't be serious!"

"It's just a letter. It can't harm anything. It's to a woman."

Kohachiro looked unconvinced. Tamasine leapt back into the conversation, nearly knocking over several glasses of sake with a sweeping motion of his arm. "How are you supposed to find this girl, anyway?"

"Jin seemed certain she'd be in the city."

"I'm coming with you," said Tamasine, adjusting the swords in his obi and looking pointedly at Saiyu. Toshi rose as well.

Saiyu sighed. He and Kohachiro took each other's arms, and trailed by the twins, they left the dojo together.

"You know," said Rini happily, "I've never felt so elegant."

"Stop moving," commanded Fuu. It was night, and they must have looked very strange. Rini was kneeling under a cherry tree while Fuu stood behind her, pulling her hair up. Fuu was no stylist; she had very little idea what she was doing. Mugen was standing a ways off, hands on his daisho, keeping guard. Occasionally, he would experimentally swish his hakama, then shake his head with disbelief that anyone could move, let alone fight, in such clothing. Fuu had already fixed his hair. It had taken over an hour to pull out all the spikes, knots, and tangles, and left Fuu wondering if Mugen had ever tried combing it before. ("Nope!" he'd said cheerfully when she'd ventured to ask.) Lying flat, she was surprised to find out it reached down to his earlobes and could be tugged into a small ponytail. ("Really, it just looks like a puff of hair sticking out of your head," Rini had said. "Shut up," Mugen had replied.) The end effect, in Fuu's opinion, wasn't too bad. And if she could make Mugen into a samurai, she was sure she could make herself and Rini into a pair of believable geisha.

"If we pull this one off, I'm going to send you to a brothel, my treat," she grumbled.

"Really?" asked Mugen eagerly. "Cool." He took a few small, hesitant steps and nearly tripped. "Whoever invented these needs to be stabbed…"

"Heads up," said Rini suddenly. All three turned their heads. Four samurai were walking down the street.

"Ah-ha!" said Mugen. "There's our ticket to the dojo! I bid you adieu, ladies!" He bowed clumsily and, with slow, careful steps, disappeared into a small space between two buildings.

"I'm out of here!" squeaked Rini, darting away with her hair half-fixed, leaving Fuu standing there alone.

The instant the four samurai spotted Fuu, they made a beeline for her. Fuu cast an anxious glance around her, looking for a place she could easily escape to. She looked at the samurai again, and her stomach twisted when she recognized two of them. "Hey," she said weakly.

"Fuu, right?" asked one.

"Yeah. And… um… Saiyu?"

He nodded. "Jin wanted me to deliver a letter to you," he said.

"Really?" said Fuu in surprise. "And… you agreed to deliver it?"

"See, even the girl thinks you're nuts," muttered one of the samurai Fuu didn't recognize.

Annoyed, Saiyu handed Fuu the letter. She tore it open; the samurai leaned forward to look at it.

"Dear Fuu and Mugen…" began Fuu.

"Who's Mugen?" asked Toshi.

"Oh… he's a friend… but he didn't come with me," said Fuu quickly.

"He's that guy in the red coat that nearly drowned in the koi pond," said Kohachiro.

"Yeah. He left…" lied Fuu. She hadn't expected the samurai to remember what she and Mugen looked like. She hoped Mugen's appearance was changed enough; he was as good as dead if they realized who he was. "You've probably tailed me to Kisarazu…" she read.

"True enough, here we are," said Saiyu mildly.

"Shh!" Tamasine hushed him. "Keep reading," he said to Fuu.

"You've probably tailed me to Kisarazu, which is why I'm sending you this letter. I admire your loyalty to me and thank you for your friendship, but it would be foolish to try anything, and I would consider it a personal dishonor to put either of your in harm's way. Master Enshirou-san's students are the best of the best. You can't hope to defeat them. Please leave Kisarazu and continue your quest without me. Mugen, DON'T DO ANYTHING STUPID…" She laughed bitterly at this part; Jin had underlined it three times. "…go with Fuu to Nagasaki, and try not to spend all her money on sake and women. Good luck on your Enlightenment. Jin. PS…" She laughed again. He four samurai leaned closer to her, so she was obligated to read the last part. "…PS, I'm sorry I addressed the letter to Fuu, but I know you can't read. Maybe you should learn."

"That's it?" asked Tamasine.

"That's it," confirmed Fuu.

"No it's not! There's writing on the back!" exclaimed Kohachiro, pointing.

Fuu flipped the letter over. "Oh. That," she said.

"Read it!" hissed Tamasine.

"A spring came with no bud or flower. Then the butterflies stitched themselves on the points of thorns."

"What's it mean?" asked Toshi.

"Nothing. It's a tanka," said Fuu, turning over the paper. "He writes them."

There was an abrupt pause. "How morbid," said Kohachiro.

Fuu cleared her throat. "Well, I guess I'll see you around, then."

"You'd be smart to take the advice Jin gave you," said Saiyu. His eyes narrowed. "If we think something presents a threat to us, we'll kill it. Regardless of whether it's young, or female."

"Or really, really cute," said Toshi, smiling flirtatiously with Fuu.

"Forget it, pal." Tamasine grabbed his kimono and turning away. Toshi looked at her longingly as the four samurai began walking back down the road.

Fuu cast an anxious glance around for Mugen and Rini. The samurai remembered her; they might remember Mugen too. Suddenly Fuu wasn't sure that this was such a good idea, particularly after Jin sent her such a dire warning. But she didn't see either one; the buildings all cast long shadows, and the only clear strip was a piece down the middle of the road, lit by pale lanterns.

Fuu turned the letter over in her hands until it was crumpled and unreadable.

"…stitched themselves on the points of thorns," recited Tamasine.

"Dreadful," said the man next to him, shaking his head. "Well, I always said he was morbid, Toshi…"

"I'm Tamasine!"

"Oh. Sorry, Tamasine-san." The man hid his face behind a glass of sake, while Tamasine scowled. He cast a scrutinizing glance to the other side of the room, where another samurai had just entered.

"I'm surprised how many have come," he remarked.

"Really? I'm surprised there's not more."

"How about you, Shenji?"

"Hm," said Shenji, who was slouched over the table holding his glass of sake and playing idly with his eye patch. (He'd shoved his glasses up onto his head.) "Why'd they untie his hands?"

"What?"

"To write a letter, they would have had to untie him. It sees foolhardy, doesn't it? Where'd he get paper, anyways? Doesn't anyone think that it was strange that there was a tanka on the back of the letter? For all we know, there was a code…"

"Shenj… you're just paranoid."

"He probably just ripped the page out of a journal or something," added Tamasine, with a swig of sake. "Who's the guy who just came in?"

"I was trying to figure that out, actually. He looks a little like Yukimaru…"

"Yuki died."

"Did he? What a pity."

"What?" asked Shenji.

"I said, Yuki died," said Tamasine. "Killed by Jin himself! Would you believe it?"

"No, no, I know that already!" snapped Shenji. "Before that! About the letter!"

"Oh. I said, he probably just ripped the paper out of a journal without noticing there was something already written on the other side. I don't think it was a code… it just seems a bit far-fetched. Shenji? Are you okay?"

"Fine," said Shenji in an off voice. "Excuse me, please." He rose and began crossing the room. He had almost reached the stairs when a hand reached out and grabbed the front of his kimono, pulling him behind a screen.

"Hey!" he exclaimed, twisting away. "What the hell do you think you're doing?"

"Shh!" hissed Koto. "Keep your voice down, will you?"

"What'd you want?" asked Shenji nervously, in a voice just above a whisper.

"To make a deal."

"What kind of deal?" asked Shenji suspiciously.

Koto peered around the screen to ensure they weren't being eavesdropped on, then leaned closely toward Shenji, lowering his voice so that Shenji had to strain to listen. "You're a real snake in the grass, Shenji." Shenji started to protest, but Koto continued, "I admire that. You set up the fight with Jin so that you couldn't lose. Very clever. And interestingly, the fight was interrupted by us. It would only be fair to call a rematch. I don't think it would be hard to persuade the others that you two have to resolve this. And of course, you still can't lose. If you win, we'd have to relinquish Jin to you. If you lose, he'll own you for, say, two seconds. And then we'll kill him. It's pure genius."

"What's your point?" asked Shenji impatiently.

Koto slid even closer to him and put a hand on his chest, slinging the other over his shoulders. Shenji didn't like the buddy-buddy closeness of it, but bore it as best he could.

"My point is… I don't really want Jin to die just yet. You're a Miyazaki, aren't you? You're in good with the Shongun. So I am. I work for Kiyara-san now. Both of us want to put that Takeda bastard in his place. This isn't just about Master Enshirou-san… rest his soul…"

They both bowed their heads respectfully.

"…it's about family honor and loyalty to the Shogunate. I hated him the moment I got to the dojo. So did you. The only thing that stood in our way, that kept us from turning him in or killing him in his sleep, was Master Enshirou-san… rest his soul…"

They both bowed their heads again.

"But now that he's gone, that Takeda traitor has it coming. I think we both agree, he doesn't deserve a nice, honorable execution."

"No," agreed Shenji. "What did you have in mind?"

"Would you think it was dishonorable to throw a fight?"

"Yes. But I'd do it anyway."

Koto grinned. "I love your style. Here's the deal. I can convince them to let us hold a rematch, tomorrow morning."

"Uh-huh," said Shenji.

"These guys are all busy celebrating. No one really feels like watching Jin. So I selflessly volunteered to take up guard duty tonight."

"Uh-huh?" prompted Shenji.

"I just have to make sure he doesn't escape or anything. Keep vigil. But I'm gonna be outside his room all night. And I might just happen to doze off. And if someone happened to sneak past me to Jin, well, I might just happen to overlook it. Get it?"

"Got it!" said Shenji.

"And let's face it; this Jin guy has a serious complex. He could be flayed within an inch of his life, and would still put up a fight. You can win tomorrow, if you fuck him up tonight."

"Oh, don't worry," said Shenji with a slow smile. "I will."