Disclaimer: I may kidnap samurai, but I don't steal them! The characters and setting of Samurai 7 are not mine, and I'm not making money off this. Just some giggles.

Samurainapping

Kambei was in the back of Masamune's workshop, speaking quietly with the old mechanic. They looked up as Kikuchiyo thundered through the door.

"He's still got his head—" Masamune started.

"Look here!" The mechanical samurai dropped his burden on the ground with a thump that made Katsushiro wince.

Komachi examined the coat-wrapped Kyuzo, who was starting to stir feebly again.

"This," Kikuchiyo announced, "is Samurai Number Three."

He unrolled the coat. Kyuzo was on his feet in a second—but only for a second. Then he staggered, blinked dizzily, and very slowly sat down again.

"Well?" Kikuchiyo asked.

"…" Kyuzo said. Kambei echoed him. They turned and started at Kikuchiyo in unison.

The mechanical samurai stopped with one arm shoved in his coat. "What?"

Kambei stroked his beard. "Well, you did it."

"Yes, we did! Admit it, old man. You didn't think we could."

"Well…" Kambei sighed. He seemed almost disappointed. "Thanks for your effort." He offered Kyuzo a hand up. "It's good to see you again."

Kyuzo's swords flashed. Kambei narrowly avoided losing his hand.

He fell back, rubbing his wrist as if to assure himself it wasn't severed. His tone, when he spoke, was surprisingly even—or not so surprising, considering it was Kambei who spoke. "I suppose I must apologize for the rudeness of my companions."

"Did you order this?" Kyuzo's voice was a little slurred. Either he was still scrambled from Kikuchiyo's strike or he was too angry to speak clearly. He seemed pretty coordinated, though, now that he had stood up, and Katsushiro feared it was the latter.

"I, um, might have encouraged it." As Kyuzo's swords twitched, Kambei raised his hands defensively. "Wait! I didn't think they'd go through with it!"

"What?" Kikuchiyo's gears whirred menacingly. "Do you think we're cowards, Kambei?"

"Not at all. I simply didn't believe you'd—" he looked at Kyuzo's swords meaningfully–"ah, go through with it."

"Oh," Kikuchiyo said dully.

"You…wanted to get rid of us?" Katsushiro said. His eyes grew wide.

"Seems like it," Kyuzo growled.

"Why?"

"Guess," Kambei said.

"Kikuchiyo is loud and annoying?"

"That's part of it, yes."

"Katsushiro!" Kirara appeared in the doorway, lit from behind like a gentle spirit from the heavens, then ran up and hugged him. "I didn't know if you were still alive!"

"My Lady." The room felt suddenly warm and close. "I…"

"He is, as you can see." Kambei nodded to Kyuzo. "And he brought us our friend here."

"Oh." Kirara jumped out of Katsushiro's arms to stare raptly at Kambei. Then she spotted Kyuzo. "Oh…" She jumped behind Katsushiro.

"Hey," Kikuchiyo said, "I brought him here, too…"

Kyuzo glowered. "I'm not your friend."

"Oh." Kambei wilted. "Really?"

"Absolutely."

"Maybe we could become—"

"I don't have any friends. I've never had any. I don't want any."

Thirteen words. They were probably the most Kyuzo had ever spoken at one time. They carried a chilling tone of finality.

"That's a shame," Kambei said.

"Yeah," Kikuchiyo rumbled. "Even Kambei's got friends. Of course, I couldn't name any of them off the top of my head, but…"

"Kiku," Komachi chided. She was sitting on his shoulder, and spoke between nervous glances at Kyuzo.

"Kiku," Masamune echoed, more chidingly because he sounded less terrified. "I'm one of Kambei's friends."

"Thank you," Kambei said.

Kyuzo was staring at the opposite wall with the glassy look Katsushiro had come to associate with Ayamaro's employees. Only in the case of most employees, it didn't look quite so homicidal.

"If there's any way we can make it up to you…" Kambei started.

He nodded to Kikuchiyo. "Will you let me kill him?"

"I'm afraid not."

Kyuzo snorted.

"Is there any other way we can make it up…?"

"Finish your job quickly so I can kill you."

Kambei's face fell. "Oh. Should've guessed you'd say that."

"I'm going now." Kyuzo turned to the door.

Kikuchiyo stepped in front of him. "Hey! Where do you think you're going?"

Kyuzo did not dignify that with an answer.

"Hey, Kambei! You're not just gonna let this guy go, are you?"

"Do you want to be the one to stop him?"

The spout of Kikuchiyo's helmet released a cloud of angry steam. "Do you mean to tell me Katsu and I risked out necks to get this guy for nothing? Samuranapping isn't a walk in the park, you know!"

"Kikuchiyo's right," Katsushiro agreed weakly. After all, it had been no easy task doing…whatever he had done. He remembered holding some doors open. But that had been a necessary task! And anyway, the damage his nerves had incurred would never heal completely.

Kirara wasn't hugging him anymore, and without her support he felt suddenly…supportless. And betrayed. His sensei had let Kikuchiyo lead him into almost certain death just to get rid of him!

Was he really that annoying?

He realized he was whimpering and stopped.

All the while, his hard-won success was sidestepping Kikuchiyo in an effort to make it out the door. There was some cold comfort in the fact that Kambei looked equally sorry to see him go.

"Is there anything I can do to convince you to stay?" he asked, sounding uncharacteristically desperate.

Kyuzo's expression closed off, which was a considerable feat because mere moments ago Katsushiro wouldn't have been able to imagine his face with any less emotion in it. He had seen mechanical samurai who looked livelier.

One of those mechanical samurai was still standing in the door, looking very lively indeed.

"Kikuchiyo, step down," Kambei said.

Masamune shook his head warningly. Komachi whimpered. The order, the warning, and the pitiful cuteness somehow drove the message into Kikuchiyo's head, and he stepped aside.

"Well, we wish you the best," Kambei said to Kyuzo. "I'll be sure to seek you out when the job is done. If I survive, that is."

Kyuzo stopped midstep.

"I mean, these are Nobuseri I'm going to fight. They're powerful warriors. I don't know how well I'll stand up against them."

"Of course, you've survived a lot of battles," Masamune mused aloud. "It almost seems like your luck's due to run out any day now."

"Of course, there's always freakish accidents," Katsushiro said. Sacrificing pride for his sensei's plan, he added, "It's quite possible I'll make a mistake with fatal consequences for all of us."

Kyuzo looked like he could believe it.

"And the road to Kanna is dangerous," Kirara said. "Even if we manage to avoid the bandits, there's the desert…and mountains…canyons…waterfalls…"

"And Uncle Kambei isn't getting and youn-ger," Komachi chimed.

Kambei glared at her, but only for a moment.

Kyuzo turned and met the white-glad and, quite honestly, aging samurai's eyes. "Live," he said.

"I'll try." Kambei's tone was a masterpiece of uncertainty. Just hearing it made Katsushiro almost lose faith in the chance of his sensei's survival. Kirara's eyes glittered with unshed emotion. He wanted to tell her that Kambei was just acting, but he wasn't actually sure that he was.

Kyuzo was obviously unsatisfied with that, though Katsushiro didn't know how he realized that. The red-coated samurai didn't seem capable of looking happy about anything.

"Well…" Kambei shrugged in a way that said more fluently than any words, What can you do, anyway? And stood up. "Shall I show you to the door?"

Kyuzo glanced at the doorway, which was two or three long paces away. "I'm all right."

"Until next time, then. If there is a next time," Kambei added in an extremely loud murmur.

Kyuzo stalked out the door without another word.

#

"Well, I still think the kid and I acted like true samurai," Kikuchiyo rumbled.

"That may be so." Kambei's comment appeared to be directed at his rice bowl.

"So?"

"I'm sorry?"

Unnoticed, Katsushiro sighed and shook his head. It wasn't like his sensei to be so distracted. The loss of Kyuzo must have struck deeper than he had thought.

"So, if we're acting like true samurai right now, why can't we be true samurai?"

Kambei attempted to answer that with a look, but his greater-than-usual melancholy sapped it of its strength.

"Are you certain you should stay here?" Masamune asked. "If that…bodygua…samura…man tells the magistrate where you are, and there's no reason to suspect he wouldn't—"

Kambei gave the ceiling a look as if he were asking it why the world always conspired against him. Katsushiro recognized it—being hardly out of the teenage years himself, he'd shared his grief with many ceilings just recently.

Because Kambei was stuck in anguished communication with the rafters, he missed the shape that appeared in the doorway. In fact, everyone except Katsushiro missed the appearance of that shape, because they were either lost in silent suffering, glaring at those in said suffering, or just not facing the door as Katsushiro was. Fortunately, they were quickly alerted to the shape's presence by Katsushiro's expression.

"You look like you've seen a ghost!" Kirara exclaimed, before she turned around and put on the exact same expression.

"…" Kyuzo said.

Kambei looked up and smiled. But only for a moment, before he caught himself.

"You've changed your mind?" he said.

"Nothing and nobody will kill you," Kyuzo said, "Except me."

"Good to hear," Kambei said. "Would you like some rice?"

"No, thanks."

Katsushiro supposed Kyuzo had probably eaten on the way there. And it had probably been still alive. That was just the feeling he got looking at the samurai.

All the same, he thought, it was good to have another samurai.

He hoped they wouldn't have to kidnap the next one.

As Kyuzo took his place beside Kambei—the white-coated samurai looked ecstatic—Kikuchiyo caught Katushiro's eye and nodded.

Katsushiro nodded back and hoped it had only been a nod of understanding, and not an agreement to something. He had the feeling he didn't want to go along with Kikuchiyo's ideas anymore. He'd find some other way of proving he was a samurai.

Preferably one that didn't involve so much risk of injury…but you could never tell.

He went back to eating his rice.

-end-