A/N: If you don't think this how Mugen would see missing Fuu, then you're wrong. I probably had way too much fun writing this.

Disclaimer: I own nothing.

001. Disease

Mugen is dying. Day by day the illness worsens, pumping through his veins and rotting his flesh, weakening him little-by-little. He wonders if anyone else can see it yet, or maybe smell it on him, like they can the whores and booze and blood.

He thinks of writing a death poem, but the idea nearly makes him choke on sake and spit out a lung laughing. Other men will leave fancy words behind, words that don't really mean anything, but he'll leave his own mark. Generations of punks will get shivers down their spine when they clear the clomp of heavy geta, and never know it was because long ago their ancestors were tormented by a demon wearing human skin. But Mugen's spirit will laugh, and even in hell feed on their reaction.

"Goddamn it," he grunts, head aching from these deep thoughts. He doesn't like thinking; not because he can't, but because he likes things to be simple. This ain't simple. Dying in slow degrees instead of in a battle, like he's always imagined. Head chopped off, sword in the gut, tanto in the heart, being blown up. But they've thrown everything at him, haven't they? Guns and bombs and assassins, and he's still alive, left to die because his own fucking body is rejecting him.

"I want her." The whore he picks out has brown hair and brown eyes and Fuu's mouth. Even her little tits.

He might be dying, he might be weak, but he fucks her so hard she screams and goddamn means it. In the morning he moves on, kicking up dust and spoiling for a fight. Hangovers are hell even on dying men. Some puffed up fucking samurai bitches get in his face – five of them go down in minutes, it's a goddamn disgrace. Little shits like that shouldn't even be allow to touch a real blade, much less carry one.

They got money though, enough that Mugen thinks he might actually end up dying in comfort. On a clean futon in a nice inn, with a full belly.

The thought makes him sick.

Days pass, and he ends up in a little, hole in the wall sort of town. If he blinked he might have missed it, but he finds a tea house that smells like fucking heaven – he'd eat a goddamn shoe at this point, to be fair though – and is quick to go inside.

And suddenly, it's two years before. In the dimly lit interior of the tea house, he hears, "Fuu, order up!"

It is followed by, "Coming!" and fuck him running, but it's her voice. He'd know it anywhere. She's twirling around, red faced from the heat and maybe something else.

A hand on her wrist pulls her up short. "You didn't answer me," Mugen hears some little bitch say, some pretty fucking boy with long hair and big black eyes.

Women probably think he's handsome. Mugen wants to throw the fuck up, just looking at the prick.

"I'm working, Hayashi-san." She's not exactly coy, but she is flirting. Looking at this stupid fuck out from under those stupid fucking eyelashes, biting the corner of her mouth in a way that still keeps Mugen up at night.

"Meet me tonight," the man presses, lowering his voice. "Under the bridge."

Mugen hears himself saying, "Yeah, fuck no," before he's across the tea house with a hand wrapped around the dude's wrist. He twists – the little fuck not quite screams – and Fuu shouts,

"Mugen!" half-horrified and half-ecstatic. She tosses herself at him, somehow wiggles under his arm and presses close, so close Mugen feels sick all over, sick and weak. "Let him go – come on, you big jerk, he wasn't bothering me. It's okay, really!"

"Bullshit," he grumbles, but with the way she's got an arm around his neck, combined with the sick look of fearful anger and defeat on this Hayashi dude's face, makes Mugen feel...merciful. Which is, of course, a byproduct of the disease.

"Don't ever let me see you near Fuu again, you little fuck," he snarls, before promptly dismissing the bastard. He doesn't care that patrons are gaping at them, that the cooks have come out of the kitchen, that the owner is shaking a fan at he and Fuu and making rough noises that are clearly unfinished words. All he cares about is wrapping his arms around her waist and picking her up, making Fuu squeal as her feet leave the ground.

She's so fucking soft. None of his sharp angles. His fingers tremble, crinkling and wrinkling her kimono. Why the fuck didn't he do this before?

"Fuu quits," he announces, hooking an arm under Fuu's (absolutely fantastic) ass, proceeding to carry her out.

"Fuu! Fuu – someone help, get the police –!"

She's laughing, waving her hands over Mugen's shoulders. "No, there's no need! We're old friends! I'm sorry, but I have to go. We haven't seen each other in a very long time and – Mugen, would you stop and let me explain –"

"No time," he answers, and then they're outside. He takes side streets and alleys, knowing all the attention he'd draw with a woman very nearly slung over his shoulder. Uptight pricks.

"Where have you been?" asks Fuu, feet swinging idly. She curls a hand around Mugen's neck, and he almost trips. Goddamn it.

"Here and there," he grunts. He begins to trek up a weedy foot path, into the woods. Fuu will want privacy for this, though he would have her on a busy street. She wouldn't appreciate it, though, and if there is one thing he learned from traveling with and then being without the bitch, it's he needs to make her happy if he wants to get anywhere.

"I've only been here a few months," says Fuu, and suddenly she's twisted around enough to bury her nose in the side of Mugen's head. She makes a noise that isn't a sigh and isn't a groan, but some bastard of both. "I can't believe it, you smell just the same. Always a little bit like the sea."

This isn't as far inside the shelter the trees as he wanted to be, but goddamn it, it's good enough. Mugen drops Fuu on her feet, not roughly but not gently either, because he's not fucking gentle and he won't ever be, and that's the goddamn end of it. But he ain't going to rough her up, either.

He's got her pinned between his body and a tree, and she's looking up at him with bright eyes and quirked lips. Her kimono is purple, and Mugen misses the pink one with it's stupid flowers, but she looks older. Bigger tits, wider hips; not a lot, but more than before.

Gasping, the sickness washes over him, harsh pangs in his chest and stomach. Who ever thought his mind would kill him? But he thinks about the time lost, how he didn't get to measure the growth of her body with his hands, and for a moment he is frail.

"Mugen?" asks Fuu, her voice gone high and worried. He used to find it annoying, but now he's got some kind of sick response to it. Fuu worries and he gets a hard on, probably because he knows her touch is coming. How many times would he hide in the bushes and jerk off, teeth gritted tight together so he wouldn't wake her up, thinking about her hands cleaning wounds on his belly, his thighs, his back and legs. She would bend over and her kimono would gape – she always complained that she could never get her obi tight enough – and he could see the swells of her breasts. White as clear sky clouds, and sometimes her bindings were gone and there were pink, pink nipples, pink as her kimono, begging for his tongue.

"I'm sick," he admits on a rough gasp, tugging at her clothing. "I'm dying. Now shut up and let me fuck you."

"Dying – what!?" She reaches a pitch heard only by animals and to the too-keen eared Mugen. Hands grasping his haori, Fuu is suddenly all wild, angry fear. Tears make her eyes shine, and her nose turns red.

Goddamn it. Crying. How the hell is he supposed to fuck his bitch if she's crying?

"Mugen, what's wrong? Have you seen a doctor? What is it? We're going to a doctor right now, okay, you're not going to die, I won't let you –"

He kisses her, hard. There's blood in his mouth. His or hers? Doesn't matter, not really. Fuu fights him, or tries too, but then she's got her hands under his clothes and is palming his sharp hips, and she's kissing him like a starving woman set before a free meal.

"You're killing me," he groans against her jaw, down into her neck. He's fighting with her obi – mother fucking piece of shit, why the fuck won't it come loose – more than half wild. She's going to be covered with marks from his mouth, his teeth, his whiskers, and the thought of it makes the bottom drop out of his stomach and his knees shake. "I get so fucking weak when I think about you, like I'm going to fall apart. You stupid bitch, you goddamn little whore, you're killing me and I can't stop – fuck yes, finally –"

Hands full of soft flesh as the obi finally unknots and unwinds, Mugen feels insane. So much like blood lust, and yet not. Fuu moans, and he is weakened; she shudders as he tears away her bindings, and he is made strong again. None of it makes sense, none of it: not his reactions, his thoughts, his need, and this is the disease that has been eating him alive since they last saw each other. No, since far before that, when she hiked her kimono nearly to her hips and played in the cold ocean water.

"Infected me with something," he's growling into her breasts, dizzy as her nipple pebbles against his tongue. "Cursed me. Fucking witch. Open up, bitch, let me – feel – fuck Fuu, you're so wet –"

She's whining, twisting against his mouth and hands and the sturdy press of his body. Her kimono is catching, probably tearing, on the tree bark, but Mugen doesn't care. He'll kill a hundred fucking samurai and buy her a new one, or five, or fucking twenty. Not that he's going to let her wear them, no. Little bitch is going to be naked and on her back or knees or belly, pussy ripe, dripping, and waiting for him.

How did his shorts get jerked down? Did he do it, or did Fuu...? Doesn't matter. Her thighs are soft against his hips, quivering, and he's rucked her up against the tree, is holding her in place with the strength of his wiry arms. Her hand is between them, slipping in her wetness, lining their bodies together.

Mugen pushes forward violently, stars exploding behind his eyes and his breath escaping in a rough shout. She's the tightest bitch in the world, soaking wet, and he's wanted to be here for so long – and he can hear her sobbing, but it's not pain (or at least not entirely), because her nails are digging into his back and she's wriggling and gasping, "Mugen, Mugen, Mugen," like his name is some kind of prayer or something.

He fists a hand in her hair and fucks Fuu, fucks her so hard that soon he has to kiss her to keep her screams from calling up 'rescuers'. Swallowing shrieks and moans and his name, always his name, Mugen allows her shoulders to drop back against the tree so he can slide rough fingers between them. Feeling himself sinking into her, pulling out slick and wet, it fucking drives him crazy.

But when he sets a knuckle against that little place and begins to roughly rub, when Fuu clamps down like a vice grip and turns red, every muscle pulled so tight he thinks she's going to rip herself apart, he completely loses himself. She's trying to scream but can't, can't pull enough air in, so she's croaking and squeaking, body tensed and taunt while her cunt spasms and grips and fights each upward thrust of Mugen driving into her over – over – over – over –

He cums so hard it it's like dying, except without the Crow Men. It's like being pulled apart and put back together and reborn, all so quickly that he hasn't got the time to process it all before he's hurled back into his body. Gasping for air, arms so tight around Fuu's waist that he knows she'll have more bruises, he can just hear himself babbling into her hair, "You stupid bitch, you've been killing me – can't ever leave me again, if you try I'll kill you myself – fucking need you so much, I'd rather see you dead than without me –"

Fuu holds him tight, despite her trembling, her tears wetting his skin and her mouth wet and soft as she whispers I love you, I love you, into his neck.