Mugen didn't understand. He just didn't get it.

Why him?

Jin alone would have been just as good. Hell, she'd have probably been safer with just Jin. He'd been perfectly fine before he met her. Perfectly happy with his life. But now he just felt like trash.

She made him start to consider someone else's feelings for the first time ever. Damn her. He should have dumped her and ran when he had the chance. Before all this happened. Before he got attached.

Because he had. He had become attached to the dumb broad. Four-eyes too. Damn them both. Why did she have to do this to him!?

After all the terrible things he had said to her, all the threats, all the trouble he had brought her, she had still cared. She had cried for him. She had thrown her body over his to protect him when Sara was going in for the kill.

He didn't get it.

Jin was the nice one. He was always the one to comfort her. Mugen wouldn't even know how if he wanted to, all he was good at is punching shit. He didn't feel worthy of protecting her, and that fact pissed him the fuck off. He had never cared before, and now suddenly he did.

She was just so…so…pure.

She was someone who would cry when an enemy fell. She was kind even to the most grotesque of monsters. She had a stubborn sense of righteousness and a heart too big for her own good. Any other person he had met would have left him after all the shit he had put her through, but not Fuu. She had some misguided notion that they were friends.

Or at least he told himself it was misguided.

Maybe thats why he liked her so much. He was like a pot of ink, everything he touched was ruined by the stain he left. He didn't want to stain her.

He wished she wouldn't cry for him. It wasn't any good for her to care for him, he wished more than anything that she would just hate him. It would make things so much easier.

She was an innocent, kindhearted girl. And he was a man who had murdered, pillaged, tortured, stolen and done things that even he wouldn't admit to himself for the sake of his sanity.

But it was too late. The ink was already starting to stain, as hard as he tried to suppress it. She had been hurt because of him. That blindfolded bastard and his brothers had beaten her and groped her and it killed him inside. Maybe it was karma, coming back to get him for all of the awful sins he had committed. But when he saw her strung up to that cross, beaten and bloody, he had never felt so helpless. Helpless to watch the ink spread.

Thats why parting ways was the best option. He wouldn't be there to ruin her life anymore, at least thats what he kept telling himself. But it was one of the hardest things he had ever done, watching her walk away and forcing his feet to do the same in an opposite direction.

He didn't even care that he never got to fight four-eyes. He was too busy fighting the internal battle that wanted him to turn around and race to catch up with her. Stupid bitch, making him feel like this. Even so, he couldn't find the heart to be angry with her.

This was for the best. She would live her life now. Find a job in some other tea house. Find a husband who would treat her right, be able to afford a nice house somewhere and give her kindness. She would have kids of her own, little bratty pigs who would stuff their faces just as well as she did. She would be happy. Without him.

Mugen's feet stirred up dust as he stopped in his tracks.

He really was ink. Even if one removes the pen, the ink still seeps further into the paper. He stood there, staring straight ahead as the gears in his head whirred.

Maybe he was an awful person. Unredeemable. If he truly cared for her he would let her go.

"Fucking bitch!"

Mugen spun on his heel and sprinted back in the direction he had come, leaving a trail of dust as he ran. He knew he would hate himself for this, but he just wasn't strong enough.

Because once ink stains silk, you can never get it out.