Chapter Six

Mugen's Tale

(as told by Fuu)

Once upon a time there was a boy who loved to fight. He fought anyone, for no reason other than to see who was best. Even love, or the night-long approximation he often found on the road, was a kind of fight. Always moving. Always rough. Always fun.

And then it wasn't.

It just took one time for things to change. One fight. And even though he still won, even though he was alive at the end and his opponent was dead, something was different. He realized not everyone fought to see who was best. Some people had reasons. And then, just as suddenly, he had reasons too.

He did not like having reasons. But once he had them, he had them. And when he tried to fight for no reason at all, it was boring. He tried inventing reasons to fight again. Reasons that were simpler, and less complicated. Perhaps someone called him a name. Or perhaps he was caught bedding another man's wife in the kitchen of Joe's Crab Shack.

"Don't eat at Joe's Crab Shack," said Mugen. "People have sex in the kitchen there."

But fake reasons weren't any better then no reason, and he found it was still boring. He fought all the good fights, he realized. There was no one left.

Then one day, he saw some members of the shogunate shaking down an old women at a bodega. She sold little coin purses. They said she needed protection. "Protection from what?" asked Mugen. "Little coin purse ninjas?"

And so, the boy who liked to fight broke their arms in three places. And that was fun. "Cause fuck 'em. You know?" said the boy.

When the old lady told her friend what he had done, her friend found Mugen. The shogunate took her grandson's dog because she did not pay a dog tax. Mugen did not know there was a dog tax.

So Mugen went to the guy's house, and smashed his nose, and got a dog. Five dogs, actually. None of them the old women's. But she was happy just the same, and she gave him dinner, and soon other people had favors to ask. And Mugen did them, because it was better then being bored, and it was better then sitting around, thinking about his own reasons.

But then something weird happened. What simply amounted to a bunch of errands to Mugen, suddenly seemed much grander to others. Soon people Mugen had never met thought they knew his reasons, and they believed them too.

And when people began to follow him, when they began to whisper his name in the streets, the shogunate began to suspect Mugen's reasons. They had a name for it. They said he was a terrorist.

And so they sent people after him, and Mugen killed them. Because he could. And because it was the surest way to not die. But with every new person he dispatched, his Reason grew grander. His Message got bigger. And he couldn't shake his new followers, or his new enemies.

"I kept telling them to fuck off," he said, exasperated. "But they just didn't. And then they started giving me tips and shit. Like, which whores were double agents. That kind of thing. That was good to know, so I just gave up. If they wanted to get me food or info or...hats...I guess...I let them."

"And now you have a revolution," Jin said, sounding equal parts concerned and amused.

"A revolution..." Mugen repeated, rolling the word around on his tongue. "Christ, I guess you're right."

I plopped down on a log. It was arranged in a homey way, next to other logs, around a fire pit. Someone had arranged it. Someone other than Mugen. Our Mugen. Who became a freedom fighter entirely by accident. "I can't believe it," I said quietly.

"I know, right?!' Mugen exclaimed, plopping on the log across from me. He seemed relieved to be able to talk like this. Like people, and not like generals and majors.

"What do you plan to do?" Jin asked, taking a seat on the third log.

"Uh...die, I guess."

"Mugen!" I knee jerked. The thought of either of them dieing still made my blood run cold.

"Aw, come off it, Fuu," he said, but a tad more gently then I would have expected. "They're sendin' them in waves. One of them's gonna get me."

"No," I insisted, immune to his logic. "We can get you out of this. Maybe...maybe if we faked your death," I said, thinking crazy. I had visions of dummies going over waterfalls, of scarecrows being torn apart by stampeding cattle. All that is left of him is his sandal, I would say, inconsolable. I'd walk the hills in a long black veil, until the timing was right and he'd reveal himself, and we would all laugh and laugh and move to Amsterdam.

"Fuu!" Jin said, startling me. I must have had the crazy eyes.

"Yes!" I yelped back.

"I don't wanna die, not even for pretend. If those guys kill me...if they even think that they killed me...," Mugen's eyes darted to Jin's. He looked almost as if he was pleading.

"...then you become a martyr," Jin said softly.

"And then they have everything," Mugen said, nodding. Something just passed between them, their own secret language that I never learned to speak.

I had a vision then, of him standing in the door way, his hair wet and matted down, telling me to leave. His death was always the one thing left he had to give. These people, both these children in the forest and the shogunate themselves, were trying to take it from him. And suddenly I was in the same place Jin was, starting at him from the same point on the map, and understanding.

"Well," Jin said. "I think there are ways out of this. But tell me. Do you ever see yourself staying out of trouble?"

Mugen stared directly into Jin's eyes for a moment, seemingly searching for something. Then finally, he said, "No."

"Then we have to get you out of Japan."

"But where will he go?" I asked, my voice sounding even more like a child. This decision was being made too quickly. He can't go where I can't run into him again.

Mugen shrugged. "I hear Bolivia is nice. Maybe I'll play baseball."

"This isn't funny!"

"I know. Baseball is very serious."

"Wherever you go," Jin cut him off. "We can't know about it. I might be able to get you into free waters, but that's all."

Mugen nodded. I did not like this plan. This is a very bad plan. Didn't I get a vote in any of this? "I feel this is a terrible plan," I piped up.

Both of the boys shrugged. They didn't have anything else. There wasn't anything else. Either we jettison Mugen like so much dead weight or we all go down with his ship. I felt like this was all pointless, that we would run into each other again only to immediately go our separate ways.

"Look, I'm not eager to run out and get stabbed or anything," I admitted. "But there has to be something between going down in a hail of bullets and shipping Mugen off on some banana boat, isn't there? I feel like...I feel like we're ditching you," I said.

Mugen and Jin looked at each other in that "bitch is crazy" way that I hate. "And what? This time you mind it?" Mugen asked.

I was indignant. "What you are you talking about. I never..."

"I believe it was you who last bid us an abrupt farewell," Jin said. "Twice in a row, I think, depending on how you define the word 'ditch'."

That was unfair. It wasn't a ditching as much as it was...an abrupt farewell. "You guys were trying to get away from me all the time," I said, folding my arms. Infinity, no backs.

"Right!" Mugen said. "That's like...our thing!" he gestured wildly between the three of us in a crazed sort of triangle.

"Is it!?" I said, raising my voice to defcon levels for the first time since we were reunited. "Is that Our Thing? That we just flit in and out of each other's orbits, leaving nothing but chaos and mass destruction in our wake? What the hell kind of a thing is that to have?!"

The three of us sat there for a moment, nothing audible but the sound of my heavy breathing.

"I dunno," Mugen said at last. "But it's Ours."

I sighed, defeated. And so it goes.