Part 2

Mugen stood outside the Lusty Diamond for a long time, struggling to read the sign with his questionable literary skills. He knew he was in the right place, of course. Everyone he'd asked had directed him here and the smells of smoke and drunken laughs wafted through the open doorway as evidence. The outside of the establishment almost looked as if it could be respectable during the day, probably posing as the average Nagasaki teahouse, but now it had transformed into a night spot for men to lose their money and drown themselves in drink.

He walked in finally, hands in his pockets, whistling casually and taking long, lazy steps. The atmosphere of the place surrounded him as he entered and he breathed it in deeply, letting himself be immersed in it all at once. While the crowds of people and musty air made him feel claustrophobic and trapped—he was more used to open skies and rough seas—it also invigorated him. There was so much energy here. He grinned darkly, knowing an exciting night lay ahead.

There were tables set up in the front, waitresses serving their customers—mostly men, dark men looking for dark pleasures, some that carried themselves with an arrogance that he guessed came from the possession of a high government position. Nagasaki seemed to be overflowing with figures like these and it probably meant that a vagabond like Mugen had no business being in this city. He snickered to himself. Looked like he'd be staying a while.

Behind the teahouse portion of the place were the gambling tables. He swaggered over to them, eying the pretty girls dealing the dice and the cards, wondering what other services these woman performed with an evil glint in his eyes.

The first one was a tall girl in a black kimono, with long dark hair that hung to her waist, her thin fingers deftly dealing cards to hungry men. Some of these men had their own girls hanging off their arms, girls that giggled and jumped for joy when the object of their attention won a hand. He paused, the dealer at the table glancing up and noticing him as he stood there. Winking, he continued on, his sandals making soft clacking sounds against the wooden floor that he could not hear, but could feel. He'd have to come back for that one later.

The next table was for a game he did not recognize. Something involving chips and dice and cards all at once. The dealer at this one had her hair in a tight bun, with skin as light as rice paper, offset by the darkness of her indigo clothing. Thick makeup made her eyes seem to pop out of her head and he found it strangely distracting, in a way that reminded him of the wild gaze of a wolf. This one was dangerous, and he considered what kind of mood he was in tonight, whether he'd prefer this woman over the first.

The last table was simply a dice game. There was a thick crowd and he had to shove his way through to see who the dice thrower was. Between the shoulders of two particularly large men, he caught a glimpse of dark brown hair in a high ponytail, and a deep red kimono with intricate black flower designs. The face—

He froze.

The face he knew. He tried to swallow and found that he couldn't, instead directing his energy into shoving the two men in front of him completely out of his way. They grunted and gave him vicious looks that he pretended not to notice, letting their curses bounce off his ears and slide off his shoulders. One tried to push him back, but Mugen punched the guy with a force that knocked him unconscious, never turning his eyes away from her. No one else raised a fist against him.

A circle again. Gone from her only a few days and he'd traveled in another circle—right back where he started.

She was taking in the crowd with a look of power and control, seductive in its mix of innocence and danger. Arms spread wide, she held a dice in each hand, wedged between two fingers with blood-red painted nails. She wore her kimono off one shoulder, revealing soft white linen wrapped around her chest. But it was her eyes that were most compelling, deep black midnight and chocolate brown that seemed shadowed with secrets and mystery, undaunted as they pierced through this crowd of shady figures.

Her lips turned upwards in a humorless smile and seized the future in their tight line, ready to release it at the throw of the dice. She held this crowd captivated. Hell, he thought, she was fifteen and she held this crowd in her hand with the aura of someone who was ageless, timeless. And again he though, hell, she's good.

Her gaze came to where he stood and she stopped, blinking at him for a moment before saying anything. He could see now that her cheeks were flushed, and recognized it as innocent embarrassment from the attention she was getting from all these men. But she played it off as something seductive, weaving it into her act and he wondered where she'd learn to do this. He'd seen her like this only once before on their journey, and had paid little attention then.

For a moment, he saw childish excitement splash across her face, but it evaporated quickly and her dice-throwing persona returned. "Couldn't stay away for more than a week, could you Mugen?" she said sweetly. The attention of the crowd suddenly turned to him.

Her words made him angry and he found that he hated her in this moment. He wished he could stay away for more than a week. But he was trapped in circles.

"Like hell," he answered gruffly. "Just here to earn some money. They must be desperate if they've got you whoring here."

Her answer was a look of daggers. "Idiot. I only throw dice."

He laughed. The noise held no humor. "Right."

She looked away from him then, taking in the crowd, but he noticed with a satisfied smirk that her cheeks were a little redder. "Are the bets set?" The answers were grunts of affirmation and Mugen watched the dirty looks that were turning away from him, focusing back on her.

"Good," she said. For a second more of tightly wound tension she stood motionless, and then with a blur of red fabric and pale skin, she threw the dice to the table, crying out loudly. There was relative silence as they tumbled to a halt on the gambling table, followed by shouts of joy and anguish as she read the numbers.

It was time to go. His body felt jittery with the need to release energy, to fight. "See ya around, Fuu," he threw back over his shoulder. She didn't respond, or if she did, it was drowned out in the enthusiasm of the dice gamblers.

He wandered on to the very back of the gambling room, where he saw a staircase. It only led one direction. Down. The smells of blood and sweat drifted up to him and he felt his muscles tighten, his hand automatically on his sword.

He could feel the fights down there, calling to him.

Punches and kicks and wounds and pain and victories and freedom. Simplicity. Things were always different at the end of a fight. New scars that would never heal. Lives that were ended. And no circles, never any circles. No turning back.

He hungered for that now, and it was that hunger that drove him down the stairs, leaping to their bottom in a series of flips.

He didn't look back, hoping to leave the circles behind. But as he turned the corner at the bottom of the stairs to get his first view of the fighting arena, he knew that was impossible.

He'd just run another circle.