What's Best for Fuu

Rescues and Realizations

Shino moved to Jin's side, leaning her own head against his shoulder, "That was very well done, Jin, dear."

"Hn..." He turned a slight smile to his own wife as she offered praise for his handling of the situation, "You shouldn't have rushed with them..."

As the stoic ronin rested a pale hand over her swollen abdomen in concern, Shino couldn't help but smile and place her own small hand over it, "I'm fine, Jin, dear. And someone had to try to calm her..."

This didn't seem to ease the worry etched into the young male's features, though. Sometimes the former brothel worker wished he would fret over her less, though she did appreciate how much he cared. Leaning up she placed a soft kiss on his cheek, earning a nice flushing of his pale features at her bold public display, "Really, I'm fine, Jin. I'll take it easy now."

With that reassurance she moved toward the corner where Jin had been sitting, taking a place in a chair at one of the tables normally used by tea house patrons. Her husband soon settled at her side, his eyes drifting shut again behind his glasses as he focused on the sounds around him, waiting for the doctor to report some outcome for the situation.

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Mugen was surrounded, but wore a confident smirk nonetheless. He wasn't sure how many thugs there were, since counting wasn't something he liked to waste a lot of time on, but he could handle them. He held his sword out, shifting it's tip from one enemy to the next as he tried to determine which of them he wanted to kill first. Of course, he could always wait to see if one of them made a move.

The yakuza around him exchanged glances, trying in vain to hide their nervousness. If they'd really thought they stood a chance they wouldn't have run from Mugen in the first place, after all. They knew what they were supposed to be...fodder for the madman. They were sacrifices meant to delay him so the higher ranking member could get away. And dying was scary. Dying at the hands of the Dancing Death had them scared shitless.

With a smirk of his own, the head of the small outing of yakuza temporarily set Fuu down, pulling her close to his side with her arms pinned down, "I'll let you have a last look at him, girl. You belong to us now, so make a pretty memory of his ugly face."

Mugen bristled, finding that the creep had gotten far to close to Fuu while murmuring to her, especially since he made no real effort to actually hide his words! The vagrant couldn't suppress a snarl as the lead thug pressed his face in closer to the struggling waitress, his nasty yakuza lips grazing against her jaw before he nipped at her earlobe.

Fuu wanted to tell Mugen to ignore the attempt to distract him, knowing similar tactics had been Hiroshi's downfall. But honestly she doubted the jerk holding her was providing as much distraction with his actions as her own voice crying out might. She was shocked at an animalistic snarl from Mugen's direction, so much so that it momentarily caused her struggles to cease, but only until she felt the heat of the yakuza's breath on her jaw right before his teeth closed on her earlobe. That set her to thrashing like a fish on a line, "What the HELL? Let me go!"

At the same time Mugen made to lunge forward, momentarily seeming to forget that he was surrounded by thugs, "YOU'RE A DEAD MAN!"

The distraction tactic seemed to have worked, which thrilled the lead thug, who grinned viciously, deciding to keep tempting fate a moment longer by pulling the girl around in front of him and trapping her arms in a firm one armed embrace before slipping his free hand ever so slowly into the opening of her kimono, "Oh-ho, am I?"

Fire blazed in Mugen's eyes, and even though one would have thought he was far too distracted with his desire to slaughter the one forcibly groping Fuu to pay attention to anything else, his body seemed to go into autopilot where the rest of the world was concerned. Anything that tried to stand between him and his final target would be automatically cut down, as was proven when the first three swordsman rushed in at once.