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After Swine	By : angelynx Category: +S to Z > Samurai Champloo Views: 2882 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: I do not own Samurai Champloo, nor any of the characters from it. I do not make any money from the writing of this story.

Chapter List
- 1-After Swine
- 1
"After Swine" -- A reaction to the rape doujinshi "Mugen Champloo"

Usual disclaimer: I do not own any of the characters of Samurai Champloo which are (c) 2004-to-infinity Manglobe and Simougusa Champloos, and it
tees me off right royally when others willfully abuse them, which is what this is all about.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Fuu didn't realize she was dozing until Jin sat down soundlessly beside her. Guiltily she sat up straight
and knuckled her eyes. She must not have slept long, it was still pitch black outside.

"Gomen nasai--I should have--"

"It's all right. He's still asleep."

Mugen had not stirred since Jin had carried him in from the yakuza hideout hours ago, half-naked, bloody and dazed.
Under the circumstances, scruples and modesty would have been foolish: they'd scraped up the price of a bath, filled
the inn's tub and gotten him in. Peeling off his red jacket--the only item of his clothing he still had--Fuu had taken a
long, steady look at him, her suspicion gradually becoming a cruel certainty. He was bleeding, but only around his mouth,
and between his thighs and buttocks; bruised; and laced all over with streaks of sticky, pearly goo, everywhere, on his
face and in his hair�

She flinched, and glanced sideways at Jin, not raising her head.

"So.. can I guess what happened here?"

"I don't know how he made them angry--"

"Not that part. Yakuza guys. A roomful of them. Right?"

Jin had raised a surprised eyebrow: he always did forget, Fuu thought, that she'd been around the block a little more
than she let on. "That's right."

She nodded, bit her lip. "I wish we were a little more familiar..I'd like to really look at that wound, but I think he'd
try to kill me�"

Jin looked where she was pointing and closed his eyes. Steadily: "I saw what caused it, if you want to know."

"I know what caused it, " just as steadily. Long pause. "I never told you, but my mom worked in a brothel for two years
after my dad left us. We didn't have enough money to keep our house. She couldn't leave me there alone, so I went with
her. I worked in the kitchen, made tea, helped the girls do their hair�no bad stuff. But I saw and heard a lot."

She sponged warm water over unconscious Mugen, not looking at Jin. "The brothel mistress was friends with the guy who
ran the nanshoku teahouse--I'm sure you--"

"I do, yes."

"Figured. And she was good with medicine and herbs, too." She wrung a spongeful of water out over Mugen's head, scrubbed
his hair carefully clean with her fingers. "One day they brought in a kid from the teahouse who was hurt a lot like this.
He'd been...used by one of those yakuza guys. One who'd, um, done a lot of jail time, if you know what I mean." **

"So had this one," said Jin, low voice razored with cold contempt.

The way he'd looked when he came in with Mugen still gave her a chill to remember. He'd killed every yakuza in the room,
he'd told her: his face, still pale and calm as an ivory Buddha's, had been streaked with blood, and his eyes so fierce
she'd stepped back from him half afraid. Look at him now, sleeves tied back, half soaked, patiently holding Mugen's
unconscious deadweight up out of the water to be bathed: for the hundredth time she thought that Jin was like a tiger
carefully trained as a playmate to little children�

She remembered her story. "He was ripped up so bad inside�the mistress..well, cleaned him out, and there was so much
blood it was scary. Washed him with herb tea every few hours for days. He ran an awful fever, but he pulled through."
She looked worriedly at Mugen. "We can't afford a doctor�"

"I've also seen someone hurt this way," said Jin, "and our herb-mistress treated him just as you said." He thought for
a moment, leaning into the side of the tub, arms hooked under Mugen's. "We passed an apothecary's shop on the way here.
Can you remember which herbs she used? The treatment seems simple."

"You know, we could do it, sure. It's just making a strong tea from the herbs and cleaning out the wound with it every
few hours. I bet I can remember." Fuu wiped water and blood from Mugen's face, traced the torn corner of his mouth
with a gentle fingertip. "He's tough. We can get him through this."

She hesitated, decided she had to know.

"---you've seen this too?"

"At the dojo. There was an older boy who'd received some money from his family. He hid it from sensei and boasted how
he and his friends would spend it in the city...sake', women, gambling. They were warned, but�" eloquent
shrug.

"Oh, that can't have gone well." --Look at these bruises�what did they do, get through with him and just kick him around
for fun? A quick rush of anger rose in her at the fingermarks, blunt-object-marks, Amida-knows-what, dark and ugly on
the wet tawny skin. Rotten, bullying gangsters�like they hadn't done enough already�

"The prefectural police brought them in just before dawn. They'd been gambling in a yakuza den. One had been stabbed." Jin lowered his head.
"The other two were..violated..like this."

"Probably drunk or stupid enough to call the dealer out for cheating," muttered Fuu. "Guys."

"Most likely. --But the herbal treatment did help�"

Fuu gave a final sponge and rinse. "OK, done. Help me get him out of here."

Jin shifted his grip and hauled Mugen up onto the shelf at the lip of the tub; Fuu got his legs and they managed to cart
him to the futon. There really wasn't anything to dry him with, so they just stretched him out in it and left it at that;
Fuu draping his red jacket over him for want of better. They sat down on the floor, catching their breath.

"Those boys from the dojo, then, they were OK?"

Long pause. "..No. They didn't die of their wounds, but.. The stabbed one recovered easily. But of the two who were raped,
one never recovered his confidence; he left the dojo. The other killed himself within the month." Jin gazed at unconscious
Mugen, eyes unreadable. "Inushi was his name. I liked him. He was determined to be a swordsman, and trained devotedly,
though he had no talent whatever. If he'd been content with the naginata�he was quite good at that�"

"�never recovered his confidence?" Now they were both looking at Mugen.

"No. You saw it in his eyes. He was always afraid..."

She couldn't help imagining it�Mugen with his spirit broken, his boundless, fearless energy stolen away�it would be worse
than a crippling wound, worse than death, to put out that fire. He would prefer dying, to that. She glanced at Jin,
wondering if he'd had the same dark thought.

Jin drew a deep breath, straightened up. "I'm going back for his belongings."

"You're going there alone?" Couldn't help thinking that a yakuza den full of dead yakuza might've atttacted bad attention by now...

Calm as could be. "Why not? They�re all dead."

And he had gone, leaving Fuu with their patient. She'd made him as comfortable as she could, and then sat down to keep
watch over him, anxiously checking him every ten minutes for signs of fever. If his wounds were anything like as bad as
that other boy's, she had no idea what they were going to do�

And she'd dozed off, worn out by worry, until Jin had returned.

She glanced behind Jin, where he'd dropped the bundle: he'd located everything, shorts and white shirt, both geta and even his sword. Plainly the
yakuza hadn't thought anything of Mugen's worth taking, except himself. The lacings of the shirt were sliced through,
but.. that was easily replaced�

Fuu yawned, and shook herself; she'd started to doze again. Jin had settled himself by Mugen's head, gazing down at him.

"You should get some sleep. I'll stay with him."

She didn�t argue, she couldn't have kept her eyes open no matter what. A quick wash of her face and rinse of her mouth
later she was settled in a futon, the lantern standing on the floor between her futon and Mugen's. Ordinarily she'd have
asked for the light to go, but Jin might need it, and nothing was going to keep her awake�

She was nearly asleep when she heard Jin speak, and cracked an eye open. He was leaning close to Mugen.

"�something for you." He had drawn something small out of his sleeve. "To remind you which one is dead and which lives."

Fuu did not stir a muscle, but was now paying the closest attention of her life. Surely, Jin must believe she was asleep�

"Collecting them was very satisfying." Just for a moment his voice made her shiver. "Enough for a bracelet, I think�we'll
see." He unfolded Mugen's slack hand, tucked the small object into it--she caught a soft gleam of red fabric, silk or
brocade--and folded his fingers around it.

"Sleep, aite. This place is safe."

He folded his katana in his elbow and straightened his back, prepared to sit the night watch.

Fuu squeezed her eyes tightly shut. She had a very good idea what was in that little bag�what might be enough for a
bracelet�but she did not want the mental image of Jin calmly, precisely slicing and picking them out, one by one.

She swore that, when she saw Mugen with his new pearl bracelet, she would never, ever say a word.

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Footnotes:

**It's tradition for a yakuza man to insert one pearl under the skin of his penis for every year of jail time that he's
served. Presumably, the badder a bad-ass one is, the more years behind bars and the more pearls. Some are downright
studded.

Nanshoku teahouse = gay male brothel.

Aite: "necessary other"; the other of any working set of two. Can mean partner, comrade, ally,
but just as much adversary, opponent, enemy. Takes two to tango, and a lot of other things as well.
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After Swine