Samurai Jack: Stay

Stay

Author's Note: Thought or Emphasis, Flashback, Thought or Emphasis in Flashback.

I don't own Samurai Jack. I do own this cool sword I found in a hole... hmm. Looks familiar.

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Samurai Jack: Stay

A One-Shot

"Let's rest."

"Yes."

They had liberated another village that morning. More robots to dismantle, nothing new. 'Just nuts and bolts,' as he would often assure her.

Ashi had followed Jack, the samurai from centuries past, for nearly a year now. They were partners, and, to those they saved, heroes.

They were enemies at first. To her, he was the bane of this world's existence, her ultimate and only quarry. To him, she was yet another of the countless assassins seeking his head, but of flesh and blood instead of armor and circuits.

She attacked, yelled, insulted, spewed those lies about Aku and his "infinite glory." But then, after a strange adventure in a giant monster, she put her life-long mission on hold, it seemed. She was quieter, though not afraid to slip in an insult or complaint when they met new difficulties.

In time, though, the berating had ceased. She hadn't said much of anything after that, about him or herself. They eventually parted ways without much to say.

Except that she promised not to kill him until she had time to think.

It was months before they met again. She had returned with new weapons, and a new worldview... and her suit was still the same.

She wanted to follow him, she said. He obliged her, and she stuck to him ever since.

And now, here they were, sharing a room in an inn as a reward for their efforts. While not every city had developed much even in the decades Jack spent here, this little hamlet had managed to make beds with thick palates and sheets, a tiny slice of decadence in a broken world.

They had slept in different beds, as always. They were both soundless sleepers, though Ashi was always stiff and outstretched, as if ready for an attack. Jack wondered if she had always slept like that.

He didn't like thinking about what she had been through before meeting him.

She was apparently still awake as she lay. "Jack?"

He recalled how surprised he was when she first called him that instead of "Samurai" (and without the word "die" attached, at that). It was one of the small changes with which she reentered his life. "Yes, Ashi?" That name, he learned before she left.

"Who is Ikra?"

"Hmm?"

"Ikra," she repeated with a curious softness. "I heard you mutter the name in your sleep, but I didn't get to ask today who it was."

Ah yes. THAT name. "She is-"

"She?" She sat upright, now fully awake. "Ikra is a woman?"

"Yes, but-"

"You dream about her." Lately, she had come to despise the thought of anyone else but her at his side, other than the old Scotsman-she respected his ferocity in battle. "Did you like her?"

Ikra? If she were real, who could say. But the truth of that adventure had made certain feelings stronger, particularly a hate against him. "Absolutely not."