Vol. 33 Vagrant's Volition

-Fuu-

You had to give it to Jin, when he wanted to do something he put all of his efforts and energy toward the matter. The downside to all of that though, was that he was running himself into the ground. In two weeks I might've been able to count the hours he slept on just my hands. He looked more tired than I'd ever seen him, but it wasn't like I could exactly tell him to take a break.

We couldn't find a single trace of Tsuki, and we had really tried. Even Mugen had put in effort, and that was saying something. Nobody had seen her, nobody had heard of her, she was just gone…

"Tell me there's something to eat in this shit hole," Mugen griped as he and Jin came in from another day of scouring the city we had just gotten to the day before. Since they didn't look all that pleased, I took it as a sign that they hadn't gotten anywhere.

I shook my head. "Sorry Mugen, we don't have a thing left. No money either." Just like the good ol' days.

He scoffed and flopped onto his bedroll. He rubbed his stomach and grimaced. "I've barely had any food in three days. This is such bull."

Jin moved across the room and sat in the corner facing the room. "No one, not a person, has any information. Do you think it possible that Tsukiko went back home?"

I thought about it. "No, she said she broke her ties to her country, she said she wouldn't go back. I don't think that even with what happened that she would go back on that."

"So whadda we do now?" Mugen asked us. Jin and I looked at each other, neither of us having the faintest clue. When no one answered, he got the hint and sighed. "Shit, maybe she just doesn't really wanna be found, ya know? She could be avoiding towns and cities because she knows that's the first place we'd look. Maybe we should look in the country and places without a lot of eyes to see her wanderin around."

Jin gave him the closest thing I had ever seen as an appraising look to Mugen, which in itself was like the signal of the world ending. He never thought anything Mugen did was worth appraising. "It's not an entirely bad idea." And then just as quickly as the hope had some into his face, it was gone. "But searching all of the rural areas in Japan will take years. It would be like finding a single pebble thrown into the ocean. The possibility-"

"Damn the possibility and damn your negative attitude," I growled in frustration. "You want to find her, right? So who cares how long it takes if you really love her?!"

Jin and Mugen gawked at me like I had sprouted a second head and it was speaking backwards with a lisp.

Calmly, Jin answered. "Fuu, I understand that you think idealistically, but the sheer size of this country indicates-"

"That you are going to give up so easy?" I spat. "Look here Jin, you're the one who messed everything up, and you're the one who hurt Tsuki. You're going to get her back no matter what. You lost me a friend, and I don't like it when people mess with my friends. I don't care what we have to do to find her, but we are not ever going to give up, understand?"

"Fuu, jeeze. Chill out," Mugen said with a chuckle in his words. "We'll find'er, kay? But you know that Jin's right, we ain't got a chance lookin for her the way we are. It means we gotta do somethin that we said we weren't ever gonna do again."

I arched a brow at him. "What's that?"

"Split up."

Jin and I said no at the same time. We couldn't.

"I can't condone that," Jin disagreed. "If we split up, we may not ever find one another again. Fuu wouldn't have our protection. We wouldn't have a way to contact each other again even if we did find her."

"I gotta plan fish-face, relax." Mugen sat up now and began explaining his apparently brilliant idea. "You go forward just in case Tsuiki kept heading down the road, and I'll go back the way we came to see if she didn't just settle down somewhere there. In a week, we meet back here whether we found her or not, and if one of us doesn't show up then the others come lookin cause we know something went wrong."

The plan was all well and good, aside from the splitting up thing, but there was one detail missing. Where was I in all of this? What role did I have?

"So where do I go?" I questioned.

"I might be going to some pretty rough places. I know how to get information in places like that. I think you should go with the four-eyed freak since it wouldn't be as safe for a girl like you in the places I'm plannin on bein in."

I didn't voice any more objections, even thought I still didn't like the idea. It was the best shot we had and I wasn't going to ruin it for Mugen. He was concerned, and that was something, so I'd do what he asked just this once.

"We should get some rest then; we'll leave in the morning," Jin added.

-Mugen-

At the crack of friggin dawn the next morning we were all outside the inn, getting ready to go and all that crap. We got to that awkward point where we all stand around tryin to say goodbye, but no one does so we just sit there until we get all twitchy and feel like idiots. I rubbed a hand along the back of my neck where the little hairs were all standing up. It was goddamned cold as hell out here, and I kinda wanted to get movin so I could at least warm up a little.

"Well, we should get goin. Burnin daylight and all," I started, tryin to get the ball rolling. "So…see ya in a week."

Jin nodded and started off up the road at a slow pace. Fuu gave me a sad look and grabbed her elbows. She always took this stuff so hard.

"Be careful Mugen, remember that me and Jin won't be there to save your skinny butt if it gets in trouble."

I gave her a smirk. "Never knew you were so attached to my butt, I'll be sure to tell it how you feel. You can even kiss it when I come back."

I was tryin to make this a little easy on her by givin her some confidence that everything would be okay, but Fuu was smarter than that. She flung her arms around me and hugged me tighter than she ever had before hurrying off after Jin. When they were all the way down the road and I couldn't see them anymore, I went back down the road we'd already been over. I had a few places in mind that I could check, and none of 'em were ones I was looking forward to. We made enemies back this way, and I was alone this time. No that I didn't like being alone, 'specially in a fight, but if they came at me all at once…Well there weren't no way I was gonna make it back next week, and that meant that Jin and Fuu would walk right into the same trap. Fuckin nightmare. I couldn't mess this one up.

-Jin-

"Fuu, you seem distracted," I pointed out. We had been traveling for only a few hours now and the whole time Fuu hadn't said a word. This was particularly disturbing since I was the one who was growing uncomfortable in the silence. I don't recall that ever happening before.

She sighed a long, drawn-out breath. "It's nothing."

"You're worried about Mugen," I supplied.

Her cheeks flushed and she looked intently down at her feet. "I always do. You guys kinda have a patter with this stuff. Now Mugen's alone and no one will be there if something goes bad."

I nodded sympathetically. We did cause Fuu a good deal of distress. "But this isn't just that, is it?"

"Not really…"

"You're afraid for Mugen even more than usual because you-"

She quite suddenly hit my arm. "Can we please not say what you're about to say?"

I once again nodded my head. "So how long has it been?"

Looking impatient, she sped her pace up. Her back to me, she grumbled her answer. "Too damn long."

--

(a/n: More soon, sorry for the space session. It's not edited, so sorry about that too. I thought I'd try again for you guys, so enjoy the present. It was on discount and I lost the receipt, so no returns…not even store credit.)