Blue Eye Samurai AU | Mud Bugs

Invited For Tea

By the next day, Mizu was feeling slightly better but was not entirely healed. Ringo came out with a bowl for Mizu. "More medicine." He said, handing her the bowl. "The first brought your fever down." Mizu sighs, wondering how much medicine she can take. "This one will speed your healing and rebuild your strength. It has vegetables, cod liver, herbs-" Mizu takes the bowl and takes bowl and gulps up the medicine."Oh..." Before Ringo could even finish his sentence Mizu finished the entire bowl, leaving Ringo slightly surprised. Mizu puts her hat back on and watches Taigen training with the broken blade. His movement with the blade seemed very appealing to Mizu. Ringo seems to think so too. "Master Eiji's broken blade is a good fit for him." Mizu hummed. "Where's Chikyu?" "She was out in the woods all night." "All night?!" Mizu expressed concern. Suddenly, crows were cawing in the distance. Taigen and Mizu came back to back, gripping their swords. Then came approaching footsteps, coming closer and closer. The footsteps finally stopped. Mizu looks to her right and sees a giant man with a giant club. Someone else was behind him. It was none other than Chikyu.

"Are you okay?" Mizu asks her. Chikyu walks to her sister and tells her that he brings a message. The giant man reaches into his pocket and shows the scroll to Mizu. Mizu went to grab the scroll but was stopped by Taigen. He takes the scroll and unrolls it to read what message this man brings. " 'As I trust you are a man of honor, I hope you can credit the same of me. If you follow my man, Okiyamma, he will lead you to a medial place where we can, in common safety, meet for tea. Please accept this gift as a token of sincerity from one eager of your acquaintance. From Heiji Shindo.' " Taigen quoted. Okiyamma turns his head to the horses that he has set up for the four of them to follow. Mizu and Chikyu immediately went to the horses. "Whoa, whoa. Wait. Where are you going?"
"For tea."
"There's no tea. You know that, right? He's leading you to an ambush." Mizu groans as she mounted on the horse, pulling her stitches. Chikyu was more concerned about her sister then Heiji Shindo, but she climbs onto the same horse with Mizu. "Hey, I need you alive! We have a contract, remember? No one gets to kill you but me." Mizu looks at Taigen with a blank stare for a moment. She knows she can't push him away now. The twins then look at each other, leaving them with no choice.

~

All four of them ride on their horses following Okiyamma to Heiji Shindo. They didn't notice Ringo was having so much fun with the horse, moving the horse from different directions. "Whoo-hoo-hoo! Right! Left!" He laughed in delight and his exclaim echos the snowy fields. "I'm on a horse!" Chikyu can't help but smile at Ringo's delight of riding a horse. She loved having something to smile about too. She wishes her sister did. Taigen moves closer to the twins, having something to say more about this "tea invitation" "There is no possibility this will be anything other than a trap."
"Heiji Shindo will be there." Chikyu says.
"He's a direct line to one of the men we are sworn to kill. Revenge does not hesitate." Mizu finished. The horses the go into a full gallop as they run through the forest.

Just as they slow down, Taigen caught something from the corner of his eye. A wolf was following them from behind. He warned Mizu, but she expected that the wolf was still following them. "It's following us for the horses." Taigen assumed.
"He's not." Chikyu tells him.
"How do you know?" Taigen asks, as if she knows the wolf wasn't following them for that reason.

They make it to the mountains as Ringo still swayed his horse around. Mizu stops the horse to see the view of the mountains. Chikyu was mostly surprised to see something so beautiful as a mountain. Taigen stops beside them. "They scattered white flowers on the Buddha, and the flowers they scattered were piled as high as Mount Semeru." The twins said nothing. Mizu nudges the horse to keep going. It was getting close to dusk. They soon needed to find a place to sleep for the night. Taigen still caught up with the twins and decided to talk to them. "I didn't see a mountain until I was 12 and ran away from home. Nothing there but cliffs and boats. Fish guts and fish minds. Do you remember Kohama?" They gave no answer. "Why would you? I try to forget it." Taigen then had a recollection about his late father. "My father lived and died by how many fish he caught in his net before sunrise. Enough fish and he could drink his fill. Not enough, he beat me instead." Chikyu was starting to feel pity for him. Hearing this made her remember how much their mother would smoke so much opium and it wouldn't be enough. "And I could still smell the cod on his fists. I smelled them on his deathbed. Eighty-four thousand Dharma doors. For me, there were only two. The net or the sword. I could become my father, or I could cut my way free of the net. And I could forget all about Kohama." Taigen finished. The twins then spoke in perfect sync, responding to Taigen's question earlier. "We remember Kohama."