infinity x 3
samurai champloo
ryuujitsu & co.

A/N: This is something new for me...I wasn't originally going to post it due to a lack of confidence, but here it is. A Timeline?What Timeline? kind of drabble; a vague interpretation of the events that occurred in episodes 13 and 14. Possible spoilers. I hope you like it.

-

If Jin had looked, he would have known that Koza wasn't the only one crying. As it was he was squinting out into the sunset and blinking away the reddening glare and doing his best not to look at anything. He took his glasses and began to clean them fastidiously; surely they were filthy, blurred with the dust and sweat of combat.

Mugen mugen mugen said Fuu beside him, her voice strange and damp.

-

Mugen fell. There was blue all around, black-blue like the samurai's outer robe, filling his eyes and nose and mouth and he gargled, Jin you bastard but his arms were too weak to fight, and he fell and kept falling. In his mind he saw the girl—disheveled dark hair and that look—guilty, wide-eyed look, clinging and cloying like jungle vines. Above him through the silk-soft blue he could see nothing but midnight. The salt of the water burned his open eyes.

Koza said, Mugen. Infinite like the stars.

Endless, he corrected. If there was one thing he hated about sand, it was the fact that it got everywhere—tiny white particles that seeped through his clothing and rubbed his skin raw in awkward places. Sand is infinite too but it's a pain in the ass, at least stars don't get caught between your toes.

Somewhere in his ears that damn squirrel was chattering and Fuu was shrieking about something or another. His throat was on fire—his lungs were on fire—breathe, breathe, breathe—

Jin smiled knowingly. Mugen snarled and jerked and almost inhaled.

He clawed at the water. He could see her at the surface on her knees in the water, Koza—Fuu?—sandy, wet, rubbing infinity between her fingers.

"Mugen, Mugen!"

Shut up for a minute, Fuu. He closed his eyes.

-

The sun was gone now.

Oh, God, whispered Koza. She had fallen to her knees at the very edge of the pier and swayed drunkenly—Jin moved closer, in case she should lose her balance entirely. Don't leave me, Mugen! Don't leave me with Mukuro! Mugen!

"Mugen will not die so easily," said Jin to Fuu, but how could it be so? Hadn't they seen the explosion? The firestorm, the hollow knell of the waves? And now the vast empty sea that could offer no comfort—cold and quiet and chill like Jin, and now only the smoke remained, for the fire had been Mugen through and through and the frigid sea had taken the flames and extinguished him.

Mugen, Mugen, said Fuu.

-

He stood at the edge of the cliff. Not by your hands! he shouted, and as he tumbled through the air he heard the guns going off above him, little raps that accentuated the whistling wind in his ears.

The water at the base of the cliffs was raging—foamy and unbearably soft. As he hit he thought of Koza, taking him into her arms.

Obtain bearing. . .

The abyss grew darker. He plunged deeper. He thought of Jin and with sudden clarity understood that he would soon be drowning, that soon the blue water would invade his body and drag him to the bottom.

You are mine to defeat, Jin said, and his voice echoed and carried far into the watery ravine.

-

Inexplicably, Fuu felt her body begin to move. Stay with Koza. She began running.

-

What the fuck? said Mugen.

They were standing around him in a circle, tall not-quite-men with spears, adorned in animal pelts.

He looked at their sightless eyes and understood and felt a sudden sharp panic deep in his stomach, like a frozen blade to his side. No, he said, trying to leap away, lying with his arms caught at his sides, lying flat on his back, lying helpless. I'm not dying today.

They drew back their weapons as if to impale him.

"Mugen!"

No—I promised that smug bastard I'd kill him—I have to find that damn samurai for Fuu—and Koza, Koza—what about the sand and the stars and I want to live, I want to live, and then he was screaming it, screaming I WANT TO LIVE, and—

They were gone.

Fade to white.

-

"Mugen!" It was four minutes after sunrise and, lying on his face with a mouthful of sand and seaweed and his head in a fisherman's net, Mugen knew he would never die. He heard her feet on the sand, running to him, crashing to her knees beside him, arms around his neck and up came more seawater, dribbling down his chin—Koza?

Mugen, said Fuu into his briny, sweaty neck. Even that damn squirrel looked happy to see him—in the distance, there came Jin, walking slowly, sedately—

Ah.

Suddenly Mugen was grinning, grinning wide enough to split his head in two.