I do not own Samurai Champloo – sadly, neither Jin nor Mugen.

READ AND REVIEW PLEASE!

Please be kind, since this is my FIRST Samura Champloo fic - well, it's more of a dip since it's a drabblet... (I'm more used to writing Kakashi)

Inn of Fate

Entering an inn is a bad business.

Behind the blue flags can lay your fate.

Do I rue that day I stepped into the dango shop? Considering where it has led me?

Here.

Here in another strange town – a place I never had in mind to visit – it is a third-rate watering hole. Where fat ladies bath in spas and ogle the men: a true hell.

But this is where my fate has bound me – an invisible thread binding us all together.

Us.

One moronic, insane idiot who moves before he thinks – it's wild instinct personified – I fancy even Fate has a hard time keeping up with Mugen.

The other – a vivacious girl – full of vitality and courage beyond reason –.in some ways, she too defies the logic of Fate. Fate has been kind to Fuu

But not to me.

No.

Here I am – inexplicably bound to unpredictable stars – this unreasoned – unseasoned group to search for what we do not know.

I'm sure there's a proverb about this – the whimsical nature of Fate toward the enduring man –

I'm sure –

But Mugen is in my face about another duel. And Fuu is screeching about her hunger, her boredom – and – as I draw my katana to at least exterminate ONE of my tormentors -

"You PROMISED me that you wouldn't fight each other until we found the samurai who smells like sunflowers1"

I leave this thought then for a rainy day – right now – it is good to walk in the sun.

I leave the inn and put my sandal to the road.