Fic: Fast times
Title: Fast times
Author: Lazaefair
Fandom: Samurai Champloo
Prompt: floor
Warning - swearing, set post-series
The floor's a good one. Rough, but no splinters, and planed flat. There's a weak spot in the northeast corner that has a little more give than the rest. Yatsuha had sized up the room carefully before she picked it, though the opponent fighter she was trying to trap in this isolated little house was definitely not Mugen.
Why he'd shown up instead of Akane is a mystery Yatsuha is currently trying to solve. After she beats his ass into the ground.
"What the HELL are you doing here?"
"Felt like it." His grin is feral.
"That's not an answer!"
The floor protests, loudly, as she bends backwards to avoid a sweep of his sword. He does a weird flippy thing - does he have a spine? - and avoids the katana backslashing toward his midsection. They break off, circle, and the floor creaks a little more under his metal-soled geta.
Yatsuha grits her teeth. She'd dreamed about this, dammit, except she's on a job and Mugen's presence causes unpleasant questions about said job to pile up in suspicious corners of her mind. Dangerous distractions considering that this time he appears to genuinely want to fight her. One thing's for sure, this stage of the operation is shot to complete fuckin' hell.
"Where the hell is Akane?"
Dodge, sweep--
"Who?"
His blade - a straight-edged one this time, and where did he get a European sword - whispers over her neck as she twists down and away. "Don't fuck with me," she warns.
"Yeah, like I got to do that last time," he snorts, and rebounds off a wall.
"Shit!" she curses, and not just because he'd just nicked her arm. They freeze - at least she'd made him break out in a sweat this time - and blood slides down her skin, pools in the hollow of her elbow.
Hankichi's going to be so pissed.
"Screw this," Yatsuha snaps. Mugen isn't the one she came here to fight, and it's not like she's going to be able to promise him sexual favors in exchange for wiping ninja clans out like last time. This time it's more like delicately tracking down and staking out treasonous yakuza bosses, and assassinating their bodyguards, completely undetected. "Did you take out Akane, or what?"
Her muscles loosen a fraction, and she realizes she's responding to him relaxing his stance. He lowers his sword a little. "Dude with the beads and shaved head? Nah, he's in a teahouse right now. Likes the owner's daughter." His mouth falls into a leer, aimed squarely at her chest. "She's all right, but got nothin' on your--"
"Which. Teahouse."
The grin widens. He straightens, lowering his sword completely. Even leans casually on it, drawls, "Promise me something."
"Like hell."
"You want him or not?"
"I can beat it out of you."
"Fuckin' try it." The feral grin flashes back, and suddenly he's closer - much closer. "Give me a kiss, maybe I'll think about it."
She stretches her lips over her teeth and doesn't step back. "Oh, just a kiss?"
"Hmmm...no."
It's tempting, very tempting. What better way to go through an opponent's guard than getting him hot, bothered and pantsless?
On the other hand, she could very well end up pinned against a wall again and staking the operation - again - on imaginary naked women. He's the better fighter overall and she's not willing to find out if he'll fall for the same lame line. Twice was incredibly lucky last time, and anyway this Mugen she's facing isn't the same one. Wiser, scarred, (marginally) less horny. Steadier.
"Sorry, I'll have to take a rain check," Yatsuha says and shifts back.
His face changes an instant before she blurs towards the door. When she looks around, he's scowling, but there's a hint of wry resignation in the lift of his brows. And then she's outta there.
&
He leaves about a minute later; Yatsuha peeks over the edge of the roof and notes where his gaze falls. Hankichi is fast, but she's the agile one of the team, and a natural propensity for climbing up just about anything made it easy to scramble up here immediately after her own dramatic exit.
Mugen's annoyed - his movements are sharp and petulant, but she's more tipped off by the mumbled curses drifting up to her ears. But he sets off the path to the left, and - it's not the stride of someone with nothing better to do. He has a determined look to him.
Maybe it's the determination to go eat or go whoring, but then again it might not. The odds of random Ryukyan criminals showing up in place of yakuza bodyguards who'd been conveniently distracted in teahouses? Not fucking likely.
We're not finished with each other, not by a long shot, she thinks, and slips off the roof to follow him into the wilderness, for better or for worse.
Author: Lazaefair
Fandom: Samurai Champloo
Prompt: floor
Warning - swearing, set post-series
The floor's a good one. Rough, but no splinters, and planed flat. There's a weak spot in the northeast corner that has a little more give than the rest. Yatsuha had sized up the room carefully before she picked it, though the opponent fighter she was trying to trap in this isolated little house was definitely not Mugen.
Why he'd shown up instead of Akane is a mystery Yatsuha is currently trying to solve. After she beats his ass into the ground.
"What the HELL are you doing here?"
"Felt like it." His grin is feral.
"That's not an answer!"
The floor protests, loudly, as she bends backwards to avoid a sweep of his sword. He does a weird flippy thing - does he have a spine? - and avoids the katana backslashing toward his midsection. They break off, circle, and the floor creaks a little more under his metal-soled geta.
Yatsuha grits her teeth. She'd dreamed about this, dammit, except she's on a job and Mugen's presence causes unpleasant questions about said job to pile up in suspicious corners of her mind. Dangerous distractions considering that this time he appears to genuinely want to fight her. One thing's for sure, this stage of the operation is shot to complete fuckin' hell.
"Where the hell is Akane?"
Dodge, sweep--
"Who?"
His blade - a straight-edged one this time, and where did he get a European sword - whispers over her neck as she twists down and away. "Don't fuck with me," she warns.
"Yeah, like I got to do that last time," he snorts, and rebounds off a wall.
"Shit!" she curses, and not just because he'd just nicked her arm. They freeze - at least she'd made him break out in a sweat this time - and blood slides down her skin, pools in the hollow of her elbow.
Hankichi's going to be so pissed.
"Screw this," Yatsuha snaps. Mugen isn't the one she came here to fight, and it's not like she's going to be able to promise him sexual favors in exchange for wiping ninja clans out like last time. This time it's more like delicately tracking down and staking out treasonous yakuza bosses, and assassinating their bodyguards, completely undetected. "Did you take out Akane, or what?"
Her muscles loosen a fraction, and she realizes she's responding to him relaxing his stance. He lowers his sword a little. "Dude with the beads and shaved head? Nah, he's in a teahouse right now. Likes the owner's daughter." His mouth falls into a leer, aimed squarely at her chest. "She's all right, but got nothin' on your--"
"Which. Teahouse."
The grin widens. He straightens, lowering his sword completely. Even leans casually on it, drawls, "Promise me something."
"Like hell."
"You want him or not?"
"I can beat it out of you."
"Fuckin' try it." The feral grin flashes back, and suddenly he's closer - much closer. "Give me a kiss, maybe I'll think about it."
She stretches her lips over her teeth and doesn't step back. "Oh, just a kiss?"
"Hmmm...no."
It's tempting, very tempting. What better way to go through an opponent's guard than getting him hot, bothered and pantsless?
On the other hand, she could very well end up pinned against a wall again and staking the operation - again - on imaginary naked women. He's the better fighter overall and she's not willing to find out if he'll fall for the same lame line. Twice was incredibly lucky last time, and anyway this Mugen she's facing isn't the same one. Wiser, scarred, (marginally) less horny. Steadier.
"Sorry, I'll have to take a rain check," Yatsuha says and shifts back.
His face changes an instant before she blurs towards the door. When she looks around, he's scowling, but there's a hint of wry resignation in the lift of his brows. And then she's outta there.
&
He leaves about a minute later; Yatsuha peeks over the edge of the roof and notes where his gaze falls. Hankichi is fast, but she's the agile one of the team, and a natural propensity for climbing up just about anything made it easy to scramble up here immediately after her own dramatic exit.
Mugen's annoyed - his movements are sharp and petulant, but she's more tipped off by the mumbled curses drifting up to her ears. But he sets off the path to the left, and - it's not the stride of someone with nothing better to do. He has a determined look to him.
Maybe it's the determination to go eat or go whoring, but then again it might not. The odds of random Ryukyan criminals showing up in place of yakuza bodyguards who'd been conveniently distracted in teahouses? Not fucking likely.
We're not finished with each other, not by a long shot, she thinks, and slips off the roof to follow him into the wilderness, for better or for worse.