Sanctuary and Asylum 66

by Negative-Z

And Tenchi's direction moves as Tenchi's voice. And Tenchi's perception is still Tenchi's choice.

1. Verse Six is Monster

Sanctuary & Asylum {.66}

Forward-Forewarned:

***

And Tenchi's direction---moves as Tenchi's voice.

And Tenchi's perception---is still Tenchi's choice.

***

Another synopsis verse naturally deserves another explanation, but first let's quicken some questions:

1.) Will readers be able to appreciate the story from here if they haven't already absorbed Sanctuary&Asylum[.33]?

2.) Is it original to 'pace' the story to lure in readers who may be hesitant to catch up on chapters?

3.) Does the author have any ulterior motives above a preoccupation with the number 3?

The answer to all these questions...

is 'no'.

Before I explain further I must first thank new readers for their curiosity while also thanking old readers for their patience. The verse's meanings should be clearer in the context of all that has happened, just as it seems comparatively more direct. Rather than replace the first, this next synopsis adds on to themes of fortune and regret by suggesting a connection between the ways choices speak and perceptions are chosen. Tenchi and his family will thus be further confronted with the hidden costs of an open mind.

Standard Disclaimer:

I thank all the owners of the Tenchi characters who have chosen not to sue me for suggesting some alternative uses for them.

Standard Advertisement:

I thank all the readers who have perused my other submissions and favorite authors.

Standard Procedure:

Give credit where credit is due.

^Tenchi Muyo: Sanctuary and Asylum^

-Verse Six is Monster-

-Part 1-

The lure of the grotesque---need not imply destruction.

Meeting new cruelties---requires no introduction.

-ZJS

Deja vu snapped Tenchi out of his breakfast trance. Some scene between the alien themed word-find and looking over at Washu's closet door struck him as familiar, or planned. The moment passed and he shrugged it off to scrape his bowl. It had been hard to convince Sasami that he didn't have time to eat more than a little cereal, but he told himself it would be worth it to be able to walk to the bus stop rather than jog to it.

"You really promise?"

"Yes Sasami, I promise I'll eat a huge breakfast on Saturday, okay?" Tenchi doubled checked his school case rather than catch her stern little frown.

"Don't worry Sasami I don't have be on patrol for another..." Mihoshi trailed off into her control cube, looking for the time like a fortune in a murky eight ball.

"Oh no! I'm late again, why-why-why can't I set this alarm right!" After a virtuosi control cube fiddling, she dashed through a specialized portal and into Yukinojo without even saying goodbye.

"I swear that woman is going to forget her head someday." Aeka shook her head down then smiled up. "I hope you have a good day Lord Tenchi."

"You too, Aeka." Tenchi looked over his shoulder with a smile, still warmer from a recent unexpected hug. He turned but paused with the door half opened, bracing himself for Ryoko's next scheme to keep him home. The silence that responded was a little disappointing and more than a little unnerving. Once far enough down the road he checked the roof but found it empty even of a discarded sake bottle.

*Please let her just be sleeping somewhere else, not drunk, not waiting to ambush me, not-

"Hi Tenchi, where ya goin?"

Ryoko leaned casually against one of the guardians, smiling at him and his freshly stretched heart. She had been quieter and less intrusive since their 'date', yet he couldn't envision anything good coming from this checkpoint.

"My first class starts in an hour, I need to get to the bus stop on time. I'll be doing this every weekday for a few more months." Tenchi responded casually, continuing to walk as he spoke and beginning to curse himself for providing an easy-to-follow schedule. He wasn't sure if he ever wanted to take Ryoko out in public again after that last scare, but he knew he wanted to keep her and his academic career as far apart as possible.

"Have a fine day Lord Tenchi."

"Indeed, may all your studies be rewarding."

Tenchi mumbled thanks to the guardians' programmed politeness, still tensing himself for Ryoko's objection.

"Can I walk with you to the bus stop?" A soft voice floated adjacent to him.

For some unexplainable reason Tenchi started to feel flustered. It was far too early to blame the rising heat in his face on the weather, but he'd seen Ryoko levitate on her back plenty of times, and she'd certainly tried to affectionately anchor him from school before. To add to it; a gut knot was tightening with every step and working up a new theory as to how she recovered from drinking binges so well. A less than unlikely explanation, but he slowed his pace and turned. No voodoo in her hopeful pools of gold, but danger nonetheless.

*What if she started flying again near the bus and someone saw her; there'd be snoopers then government agents here in a flash, and if they tried to test her or take her away-

Hardly needing to read the fine mind print, Ryoko settled on her feet again and held her hands.

"Don't worry, I promise I'll act normal." The sudden transition to meekness was hardly believable, in fact to Tenchi it wasn't.

"Uh, Ryoko, actually---the house was kinda messy when I left, could you maybe go give Sasami and the others a hand."

The leather handle on his school case started to feel sticky as he waited for the argument, the pleading, and hopefully not another attempt to fly him to school.

Ryoko looked at the ground, clutching her hands tightly over a mob of potential reasons to help them later. For all their screaming none seemed genuine, and she almost considered severing her own gem-hand and tossing it towards the house for bitter effect. In the end she cleared the crowd with a pitiful sigh.

"Okay, Tenchi."

She phased away before she could be asked again, much less thanked. Tenchi stopped to blink before continuing on, a frown cutting off his own exasperated sigh. He gulped at the knot like an unmentioned side effect even with the placebo now dissolved. It was a beautiful spring morning but he was missing most of the grandeurs, once again consumed with Ryoko- worries. The baggage band paraded through his mind, content to play the same song down the same street. They were so old and difficult to approach that he rolled his eyes and simply waited for them to nag themselves out like a windy professor.

Eventually he was able to look up and appreciate the breeze trapped between clouds of flower pollen and waves of grass. If somebody ever asked he would have to grudgingly admit being glad that Ryoko had moved his house out here. Despite the long walk to the bus stop, peaceful countryside was getting harder to find by the minute these days. It would be difficult for him to live again without a daily dose of nothing but wind through trees, even if interrupted by explosions. He tried to breath in the tranquility around him, staring up at the sky's nearly post-rain brilliance.

What might have been a sound stopped him and threw a pinch of narrow- eyed suspicion over each shoulder; Katshuhito was too fast or not there. A billion amorous insects swallowed up the breeze. He ignored the pre- mechanical buzz and looked closer at each shadow and contour surrounding him, trying to see past objects as his grandfather had instructed. The old man would have made a move by now and would have laughed at him for wishing there were a secret weapon compartment in his school case. It felt slightly invigorating to wait for the master's bokken to all but fall out of the sky and he smiled at a good defense idea, but hoped harder to catch the bus in time.

Heavy breezes drowned the insects again and swirled on either side of him. A tiny piece of tree bark shot back out of his mouth without breaking his concentration. Though obviously formed from nervousness, the returning knot hardly resembled what he'd felt with Ryoko, or with his grandfather. Growing certainty kept him on the defensive but soon he couldn't even guess why. A disoriented and dry nausea made the tendons on his neck tense and he whirled around again, neither surprised nor relieved to see a seven-foot dilation of complete emptiness.

Seita stepped out in a similar yet unsettling parody of how Ryoko looked when she phased through walls. He was wearing the same combination of black pants and crimson shirt that he'd introduced himself in. The knowing smile, the intense blue eyes made chemical over thin eyeliner; each now common flamboyance unsettled Tenchi anew. Though the breeze had died down, a few wisps of hair still billowed gently. The oblivion portal blinked shut behind him and he brought his hands out in a ceremony to his host's lingering tension.

"Did you need this for school today?" He asked calmly, his consideration and Tenchi's forgetfulness pulling up either sides of a smile.

"Huh?" Confusion relaxed him almost too suddenly to keep his posture. Tenchi reflexively accepted his statistics book, complete with homework bookmark.

"Oh no! I can't believe I forgot this."

"I can't believe I got it to you on time." Seita held his hands behind his back

Tenchi followed Seita's nod over his shoulder at the bus pulling to a stop. Not realizing how lopsided he was till he had one book instead of none in his left hand, he stumbled and dashed and nearly stumbled again to holler back thanks at the icon in the road.

***

Remember: knees now, back later. Aeka hefted the clothes hamper and emptied it with all the grace of a railroad bull evicting a crowd of hobos. Stepping over unsorted pile after another she remembered the palace chutes she'd imagined to be magic for the longest time. A tiny rustle answered her sigh before she could make it back up the stairs. Expecting to have to reprimand Ryo-ohki for some ^other^ mischief, she glanced down into the living room with a frown.

Seita finished turning the page of a rather large encyclopedia and cleared his throat absently. The relaxed posture he read with always bordered on slouching with a poor old man's doze, yet his face always remained focused over an invisible pair of expensive spectacles. Aeka waited for him to look up at her and considered clearing her throat. Instead she chose to set the empty clothesbasket down with a thud and an overloaded exhale. He moved his eyes up to compare her to the latest chapter.

"Excuse me, have you seen Sasami?" Aeka scanned around expressively.

The only other person in the room looked back down like an eavesdropper and turned the page with more of a gargle when he re-cleared his throat. He answered with the usual softened calm in time to reassure her that he wasn't some sort of library automaton.

"She went outside to play with Ryo-ohki while you were changing the bed sheets. They were moving fairly fast, but shouldn't have gone too far."

Aeka forgot her curiosity at how he could read an entire encyclopedia page in less than a minute and remembered hearing Ryoko's voice while she was in Nobuyuki's bedroom.

"And just where did Ryoko go?"

"She's in the Onsen."

The uncooperative laundry, the detached Seita, scolding Ryoko with no one to listen, none of these options drew her interest as strongly as a rising worry for her sister. She surrendered one last glance back at the dirty clothes and went out into the clean spring air with a startled wince at the sun jumping out from behind a cloud.

Although the peaceful hum of the forest was nice, the absence of her sister's laugh tightened her face. She lifted her kimono to take wider strides through the tall grass. After a few steps she began to raise it a little higher, but itchy ankles where worse than tickled knuckles, and even with Tenchi at school it wasn't ladylike.

A birdcall caught her attention, noticeably cheerful and solitary. The thick shade over the shrine steps would have made them look foreboding to a stranger, she thought. Stopping and putting on a hand visor, she was just able to make out Yosho's office. Squinting, thinking to bring Sasami up for a visit when she found her, she smiled. She remembered how awkward some things still were. She frowned.

"Azaka, Kamadake!"

"Yes, princess Aeka." Almost instant formality echoed on both sides.

It had been so long since she'd called on them for anything but serious matters that her voice raised out of habit. Startled then blushed for sounding urgent without any apparent reason, she cleared then softened her throat.

"Could you two please be an extra pair of eyes and ears for me while I search for Sasami?"

"Of course, Your Highness." Azaka replied.

"Would you like us to do a full scan?"

"No Kamadake, that won't be necessary, I'm sure she's fine. Don't tell anyone, but checking on Sasami will provide the perfect diversion from that infernal washing machine." Aeka said in a low voice.

"Of course Your Highness." They replied in unison as if just given a secret weapon's code.

A number of times Aeka tried to hurry ahead of her guardians, feeling odd to be stuck in a shadow between them. It felt stranger to ask them to not escort her so closely. Before she could complete her fantasy of replacing them with a single prince she heard a distant laugh.

"Ah, there she is." Relief dropped her shoulders with a sigh and changed her course into the forest. The guardians faced each other curiously then gradually closer as they had to weave between trees.

"Sa-sa-miii." That her guardians did not echo the extended call was unexpected, that her sister did not reply was exasperating. A few dead branches snapped to catch her sleeves and harden her face. She called again a little louder and longer, listening as the forest replied with less than no echo. Had Azaka and Kamadake not looked so different from all the other trees they were weaving around it might have been even more unsettling to keep catching their movement in the corners and shadows. Sunlight kept beckoning from what must have been a clearing and must have been where Sasami was playing. The ground shifted to an easier decline, she was almost there, then almost ready to call out again.

"Are you familiar with our surroundings Your Highness?"

"Don't fuss, Azaka. We're not that far from the house, I can still see the field behind us." She dismissed her servant's concern and walked a little faster without thinking to look back.

The clearing was only another tree away and she readied Sasami's name at a level tone. For a moment the first step into the tall grass made her wonder how in the world they'd been turned completely around. This break in the trees looked so much like the field they'd come from that she trailed off the last parts of her sister's name. Another more pronounced laugh relieved her.

A hop, skip, and a stone's throw and the grass shortened into sparse weeds at the edge of a ravine. Aeka saw her sister chasing Ryo-ohki in a circle of giggles and meows. The tall blades in this clearing were much gentler as she trudged forward.

"Princess Aeka, please wait for us." Kamadake asked to be ignored.

"There you are Sasami, I've been looking everywhere. Now you know I don't like it when you go off without---Sasami?"

Aeka's volume lowered to a softer confusion. Surely one of them had heard her, yet they both just kept running in a continuous circle. Apart from how difficult it was to tell who was chasing whom, the sight of their game struck her curiously, as if she were recognizing a new or nearly forgotten memory. Sasami was acting so very young, bright streamers of hair twirling between a pinwheel and a kite tail.

Their free fun brought them gradually closer to the edge of the ravine. Both princesses gasped. Sasami balanced on one foot, waving her arms between a pinwheel and a wounded bird, and dropped with a high-pitched plea for anyone.

Eyes stretched dry, Aeka's other organs prickled with a coat of ice. A handful of seconds to fight off the paralysis and another scream erupted that surpassed her sister's the way thunder distracts a Hurricane. The command scattered birds and Ryo-ohki but wanted to at least uproot a few saplings.

"GUARDIANS! SAVE HER!"

Her sprint broke like lightning then fell like a hailstone as she tripped over her kimono and flung herself into the shorter grass. She yanked herself up almost instantly, and ran forward with bundles of cloth in each fist. Earth and sky blurred till sky seemed to win. Nearly blinded by approaching shock, it took a few extra moments to notice she'd bounced off a wall.

"Look out your highness!"

"Yes, please step back from the ledge." Azaka continued their plea.

The familiar surrounding of energy stabilized her vision, the distant chasm bellow turned back to grass as the guardians pulled her back. Their charge fell with their shield and scurried towards the ledge on her hands, knees, and a thin moan. Some dusty pebbles fell down the side of a cliff so high that the body at the bottom could have been covered with a thumbnail.

"Princess Aeka, the only Jurian energy I am picking up in this vicinity is yours."

Kamadake's words were solemn, then less than mechanical, then worse than cold.

*They've given up? Are they telling me that it's too late? Nothing they could do?

Aeka's next breath came in a rabid snarl as she leapt to her feet and turned to the guardians. Three shields came up in a screaming flash at such a hysteric pitch that she felt needles cover her throat and ears at once.

"You-YOU WORTHLESS ^STUMPS^!"

Two wide cracks split open across the characters on each guardian. Azaka and Kamadake were propelled backward, braking through a few trees, falling into shadow, dust, and a little smoke. Their charge couldn't even hear the crash of three story pines around them or feel the energy still singing her knuckles.

"You're telling me s-s-she's ^dead^!" She tried to scream again but only managed a torn whisper.

One of the collapsed trees shifted a little, another lighter shade of wood lay still but blinking in the shadow of a pinched jaw breaking open to consume them in another bellow.

"^Answer me^!"

Azaka righted himself and slowly floated towards her with Kamadake close behind. The original cracks now had dark smudges and glaring dents to compliment them. Though limbless both guardians seemed to suppress a limp.

"Please Your Highness, try to calm yourself, we-"

"SILENCE!"

White flames poured up from Aeka's belly, hyperventilation condensed acid through her teeth. Rage shimmered her shield as Jurai energy turned to Jurai power and molded the filthy pretty kimono into traditional battle garb. She plummeted into the canyon, tears streaming and lips trembling at a pace to match her heart. The guardians submitted their reluctance in a moment's hesitation then surrendered, following as fast as they could.

In her desperation she'd rocketed straight down and barely stopped before hitting the rock bottom herself. Having misjudged her descent, she landed a few meters to the side of where her sister lay. Sasami's little face was turned away. A dark red stream trickled along the curves of her left pigtail, a blue snake dead on a bed of boulders.

"S-S-Sasami?" In a weak croak Aeka reached out where her feet refused to move.

The silence that responded tore like an iron rod through a pile of decaying leaves. A chaos of memories and media flooded in, her mouth moved soundlessly with each wave. The initial shock was returning to consume the rest, the pillar of her will freezing and warping into ancient untreated wood. Sasami's body remained still, clothing folds and strands of disheveled hair trembled in a faint breeze to the dance of a dying insect.

*Sasami, please no. It can't be. It isn't possible. She---Tsunami---

Trading the ability to blink for the capacity to walk, Aeka planted a rubbery leg forward and stumbled, nearly feinting. She tried to tear the pain from her head and stomach at once, so many sobs coming at once that she could only hiccup. Empty nausea washed over her, yet she took it as appropriate, never imagining that Seita would be standing over Sasami's body when she looked up again.

The princess's beautiful skin turned as white as the hole closing behind him, her heart straining further to meet the demands of its crumbling empire. As the slender man moved forward shirt velvet moved around him like a red flag heavy for representing both last hope and final confrontation. Uneven as the ground was he kept his feet steady the way he kept his face empty, all the while focusing down at the girl between them.

"Seita...Sasami...she-" A starving mother's last words wouldn't have sounded so pitiful had they fractured a rib for the exertion.

One, two, a few extra locks of blonde fell forward with the clean softness of a child's ghost. Hands still formally held behind his back, he gazed up unaffectedly as Azaka and Kamadake joined the show. Aeka angled her head at them like one broken toy to two others; the worn guardians occasionally bumped into the massive wall of earth beside them, sending down trickles of stone and dust. Desperate pink and white and bloodshot eyes silently turned back and rose into Seita's. Cold accusation manifested itself in his smooth frown and soft voice.

"Why blame ^them^?"

A cruel stranger clutched at Aeka's neck with her own fingers then pulled at a knot tighter than the crash of stones against her knees. Some mortal wound was being treated with a pressurized spray of alcohol, shrinking the world around Seita as he kneeled before Sasami with palms out in disbelief. The strained bubbles tumbling out of the accused did not lift his tone.

"The guardians were designed to protect and serve The First Princess, not baby-sit The Second. That, Lady Aeka, was your responsibility."

Looking down again, or simply losing feeling in her neck, Aeka saw Sasami unchanged save for a thicker stream. Her own voice, like an echo of Seita's, imploded and looped with unnatural calmness.

*You let Sasami die.

*You let Sasami die.

Blackness, forced enough for a red tint, swallowed her eyes and spit wailing denial into the space between her tight hands. A guttural moan took over to shake Aeka's head and crush her throat, drawing out in asphyxiation.

"Noooh-"

Shiny boots pounded the rocks one at a time.

Affecting no one, but answered by a skeleton's hard fingers, Aeka was hefted to her feet by both shoulders. Her moan shattered into morbid sobs.

"Look at her Aeka, look at what you've left your sister to." The harsh whisper poured over her face, wet and cold without leaving a trace. She only shook her head more fiercely, turning her hair into the pelt of dead animal torn in two by competing scavengers.

"I said ^look^!" The wholly alien sound of him raising his voice ripped open her eyes.

Seita only let her shoulders go for the second it took to swing behind her. Parts of Sasami's stream where already turning brown at the edges, thus the surreal photograph dissipated into a hellish truth. The choking sound began to sputter in her throat again, each mini convulsion further paralyzing the rest of her body.

"Shame-shame-^shame^ on YOU!" The reprimand came point blank into her ear, a subhuman hiss crawled up to dance perversely on her failure.

Aeka's forearms crushed between her stomach and thighs as she bent to rock back and forth in a first wave of tortured bawling. Enough flashes of strength halted the second and scrambled her over the stones into a praying position at Sasami's side.

"Tsunami! Do not abandon my sister now! Please, Goddess, any Goddess, Gods ..Devils! ^Anyone! Spare my sister, I beg of you^!"

Aeka clutched her skull to finish the ritual, nearly burying her face next to the altar in an underground bow. Sobs came in again to make up for the interruption, Seita walked between them to the other side of Sasami, positioning his legs at a leisurely pace.

"Now-now princess, there's no need to trouble any of ^them^ with your shameful carelessness."

Sarcastic condescent dangled over her like a fresh pelt seared with too much perfume, his charm and intelligence overdone into an affected confession that compelled Aeka stare up as the executioner unmasked himself. He looked down, head tilted at an angle parallel with his smug half smile, solidifying her position at his feet and giving her emotions more of a shadow to fester under. In the short time it took him to be both satisfied and disappointed that neither princess could look any worse, he reposed and knelt into dignity, lifting Sasami in his arms like a precious doll.

The blood had slightly condensed the lock into a rubber cord. Seita looked down the length of darkened blue to the dripping tip as if contemplating a paintbrush. His half smile moved up the other cheek and he tilted his head to look at the face still turned from Aeka. Cheap nanny rocking first relaxed then stretched Sasami's body into a figurine. He stood her on a larger rock facing her sister, head still down, a new stream starting down the other pigtail.

Aeka watched his sensual movements; cracking his knuckles and stretching his lean figure with such miserable narcissism that she expected him to shatter like a seashell. The savored warm-up exercise made her take closer notice of the slightly elongated and sharpened nails on his smallest digits. He kept the dandy extensions pulled in from Sasami's face as he lifted it for her sister's inspection like a fine teacup. A deformed rodent dug it's claws into the young woman's entrails and began to breath for her.

A wide gash spread from the apex of Sasami's skull along the left side of her face. Blood gleamed on a quarter of her clothes and three quarters of her head. The right eye had rolled back into a clean white marble whereas her left had dislocated, drooping from twists of nerves and vessels. A dislocated and half-crushed mandible weighed down the entire side of her mouth in a lifeless gape.

"Don't worry princess, I can fix her right up." Seita returned to his more common voice, its soft reassurance like a comfort robot programmed too well. Aeka could only stare in mindless horror while he searched his shirt pocket with dainty fingertips.

"Ah ha." He chirped happily, withdrawing a small paper rectangle between his index and middle digit. First holding it up for a moment's appreciation, he began to remove the packaging around the adhesive bandage. A soft squishing sound strapped the dangling eye back into place amid the doctor's hum of Sasami's latest favorite tune.

In the time it took him to handkerchief his hands Sasami's skeleton jerked itself to attention with good eye rolling forward and connected jaw-side smiling brightly. Aeka stepped back, clutching her mouth as her sister let out an underwater giggle.

"Run along now Sasami-" Seita lifted his hands to the sky at precisely the moment to catch a meowing meteorite, "-and don't forget Ryo- ohki."

She took the cabbit from him and dashed towards the cliff face with another giggle. A white hole opened and closed for her like an automatic door. One more knuckle crack for good measure echoed like a shattered mountain as he turned face first and body next toward his patient audience. Slowly over and into Aeka's horror, he lowered and narrowed his brow with a small smile and deep anticipation. Completely unnoticed during the operation, the guardians landed a few meters behind her and exchanged a glance.

"I believe Lady Aeka may be unwell." Azaka said in a quiet and solemn prompt to his partner.

"Yes, perhaps we should try to get her back to the house." Kamadake added.

"I'm still not picking up Sasami's life frequency anywhere within the vicinity."

Under oversensitive circumstances their conversation was clearer in a whisper and enough to throw Aeka from a steaming onsen into a snowdrift. Her other hand whisked up to her mouth as she blinked rapidly at her paralysis. Seita's smile tore open in an electric movement. The corners of his wine lips sharp, bright teeth clenching tightly, he extended his palms towards her.

"Oh, come now princess, surely you know there is no vanity like jealous vanity, and no jealous vanity like a sister's---jealous---vanity. Admit it; a part of you was hoping some sort of...^accidental disfiguration^ might really befall her."

Seita's balancing steps toward her choreographed the way he savored words and maintained his wicked smile. Blue eyes swirled with sapphire water while gold hair tossed back in a windless billow. Trembling sweat came together between Aeka's hands and jaw and began to remold her forgotten ability to speak, to scream, to call her guardians.

They could not read her thoughts, yet even through their damages they had no trouble recognizing and pinpointing the source of a threatening voice.

"Mr. Seita seems to be upsetting the princess." Azaka reported seriously.

Mr. Seita ignored their concern. Aeka began to remember her little moments of jealousy like gruesome murders.

"Love her though you may," he began again with a bitter tint, "the part of you driven by your own 'beautiful' ambition---it overrides any simple desire your sister might have to be 'pretty'!"

A tiny pair of movements distracted Aeka downward; two smallest nails poked and tested the resistance on Seita's thumbs. Breathing together the satisfied and the anxious, he called her attention from the puff of his chest.

"But this scenario brings to mind so much more."

The entire accident and aftermath replayed itself in a sun's explosion, summoning enough rage to ignite Aeka's voice against the imposed delusion. Though it came in a strangled rasp, it was enough for her guardians.

"Azaka! Kamadake! D-D-Destroy this creature!"

They hurled themselves forward with enough force to swirl a cloud of dust over their hysteric mistress. A sphere of arching and glowing energy surrounded the target, red arcs ignited all around him as the containment field began to shrink.

Seita stepped through a harmless smoke, never taking his focus off Aeka enough to truly ignore her bodyguards. She gasped in disbelief, and threw out her own shield. Solid energy pulsated forward, flattening the surrounding stone and stopping his approach within an inch of the sphere. Sharpened lines dulled and drained while he closed his eyes with a disappointed exhale. Aeka gritted her teeth.

Hands kept behind his back, Seita leaned forward in a half bow, his torso phasing through the shield without any visible effort. He lifted his head without straightening his body, the Cheshire bliss replaced by a bored twist of lips.

"Please don't tell me I have to explain my invulnerability again."

By the time he invited himself the rest of the way into her personal space Aeka had pored the last of her color into the shield. She jumped back and thrust her fists forward, sending bolts of Jurai energy streaming through Seita towards her guardians. They dodged narrowly while the true target only shook his head at the ground with a nasal chuckle.

"I've no desire to waste time even touching you Milady, we've still yet to truly smell the ^delicacy^ of your loss." A subhuman hiss enunciated the key term.

With a murderous scream she hurled a boulder of energy at him, promptly bringing up her shield again to protect herself from the resulting shower of rubble.

"How will you, can you, begin to digest this? This false end to your sister has brought out the true forfeit of yourself. Is there any way to hold your blood bond the same now that it circulates the malady of your jealousy ^and^ your guilt?" Seita clutched the air beneath his chin and pulled his smile into a quiet snarl. Backing into stone, Aeka's next screaming attack was aborted as the guardians shadowed their target pathetically.

"Forgive our failure Your Highness. We do not have enough power left to continue a sufficient attack."

"We need Ryo-oh to recharge us." Kamadake tried to explain stoically.

The snarl relaxed into a tilted smile but Seita still ignored them, as Aeka had to; her opponent was close enough to slap now. A raging fist passed through his mild entertainment and made her stumble forward through the rest of him, she turned sharply to make sure he was still there. He had already turned to face her in kind, head pulled back so eyes could stare down.

"Often it takes projections such as this to make one appreciate how debilitating negative emotions can be when properly combined. It will be interesting to see the joy you took in your sister's presence converted into a loathing for your own, and a ^fear^ for mine." He looked up at the ledge, holding his chin, tracing his bottom lip with the point of his nail, taking in the last lines of satisfaction.

"This session has been most invigorating, I think it's best we stop here."

Aeka carved a point in her throat.

"Y-Y-You-"

A focused look then a belly clutched fit of laughter replied, quiet clucks crawling out into cacophonous blasts of reveled derangement. Aeka sickened at an outburst as loathsome as the presence of his empty dimension. Her mouth felt full of tar and fingernail trimmings, she saw the rocks around her begin to bleed, fresh and burning rubber filled her lungs. The self-proclaimed perversion of humor itself settled again in a hearty exhale, running his fingers back through his hair with a sensuous grin till cruel vanity relaxed into a pronounced and consuming detachment.

"No princess, save your words. This whole interaction, as I said, has been well worth my time, so please do not throw it away with some tired and inaccurate label for me.

"Naturally you have the chance to discard this incident as merely a 'bad dream', or to continue living not with a haunting hallucination but with an invaluable vision of yourself---and your 'love' for Sasami." He closed his eyes, enjoying his own advice with a relaxed grin, missing Aeka's reaction to her sister's name.

"Sasami! Where-^Where is she^?!" Aeka clenched her fists till the pressure took her a threatening step closer.

"How fortunate she is to have such a caring sibling." He smiled genuinely, before a chuckle undid any potential humanity. Another berserk attack welled up in the princess and was forced down with a grunt.

"Where is she?" Her strained calm went unnoticed as Seita crossed is arms thoughtfully and turned away.

"Your Highness, it's been so very long since I've lived with a supportive family, I'd hate for our little exchange to shorten my stay."

"What!?" She stabbed.

"I'm sure you understand. These days it's so hard to find doors open to all the things you wanted to call me. Now then, aren't you worried about me continuing my work with little Sasami, or perhaps your dear Tenchi?"

Murder feeling obsolete, she was hardly able to imagine what he was asking. He noticed and smiled a little wider.

"You really are anxious to keep them safe, aren't you? Well I'm equally anxious to stay in my host's favor. So-" he looked over his shoulder, speaking with only a hint of his relished affectation, "don't force Tenchi to find out ^what^ I am, and I'll tell you ^where^ Sasami is, so that you can go tell her ^who^ you are."

Aeka swallowed a cannonball to stare beyond the deceptive blue, the obvious potential for cruelty, and into a distinct depth of unfathomable patience. When she nodded in agreement Seita breathed to the sky, slipping into the warm waters of her submission as irons clamped down on her chest.

"Thank you princess. Hm-" Hesitation marked him clearly for the first time, seeing him reconsider anything must have been the only thing left to increase her fear.

"Drat---I always have disliked making threats, much less increasing them, but I guess there's no way to forget it now." He accepted whatever was concerning him almost casually. The now familiar wedged hand gesture forced Aeka to hold back her vision like the waters of an entire ocean. Wind on steel, the pressure in her head remained uninterrupted longer, then longer.

Silence luring out desperate naivety, luring vision back. Everything Aeka had known in seeing Sasami's body reinvented itself as she unclenched her eyes to experience her father speaking with Seita's subhuman hiss.

"Furthermore; share the details of our dream Aeka, and I might be forced to enter the roll of your father," he stroked his replication of the Emperor's beard thoughtfully, looking away in devious contemplation, "the ^roll^ of your father, the ^robes^ of your mother."

Solid, authoritarian features began to melt into the porcelain skin and bright eyes of her mother, one layer of royal wax beneath the other. Misaki closed bluer eyes and moved her hands up her torso, over her breasts, along the sides of her face, and into her hair with all the seductive grace of a natural harlot.

"Indeed, I might take the roll of your mother."

The Queen, though appearing in an outdated style of hair and dress, seemed no less real as she imitated Seita's glaring smile, waiting for a scream or whimper, oblivious that The First Princess had already tried and failed at both.

Misaki's lips softened and puckered into the air as she lowered her hands onto a second pair creeping over her shoulders. A terribly accurate imitation of Funaho's face leaned into her collarbone. Both their hands caressed The First Queen's face, tilting gently to the reflection and welding of textures, all smiles and coos, all pursed lips and hums. A nose dimpled a cheek. A strand of hair tickled a forehead.

"Perhaps I would even take the rollsss of your ^mothersss^."

Funaho hissed into Misaki's ear, neither taking their eyes away from Aeka's even as one queen kissed the other on the cheek with a silent and no less perverse squeak of moisture. They sighed into a collective movement. The First queen leaned forward to snake her hands around The Second's hips. Misaki in turn pushed out her chest to bend her arms over and back through Funaho's hair, down her neck. Looking at Aeka with blackened now matching bluer eyes, Funaho lifted the front of Misaki's robe to look down at her fine white legs and the effeminate man between them.

Seita, sitting cross-legged with elbows on his knees and chin in his hands, moved forward on an invisible conveyor belt. He looked up at Aeka like a child smugly anticipating an older relative's blatant cover story. Almost entirely red eyes smoldered down at him less than half a meter away, trying to replace horror with rage. With his hands folding behind his back and a deep breath filling his lungs he rose while asking:

"Do we have an understanding?"

"Y...Y-Yes!" Aeka kept her head down and answered in a predictably strained whisper, though it came quicker than she believed.

"Good," he affirmed darkly, "now-" she looked up loathsomely and saw him regarding her with the same sideways superior expression he had when she was collapsed before Sasami. "Should I tell you---to 'politely' ask me--- to tell you---where Sasami is?" He questioned the air, turning his eyes to the sky in mock contemplation. Aeka pressed her chin to her neck and considered biting her tongue. The smug smile dissipated, along with the statuesque queens behind him.

"No-" Seita turned on his heal and began walking away, "that won't be necessary. I've wielded out enough hoarded emotions for now; humiliation can wait." A portal opened up a few meters in front of him and he called back to her without slowing his exit. "Sasami should be fine, in fact, she should still be in the onsen with Ryoko."

Oblivion swallowed and shut. A choke later, despite overwhelming urges to collapse, Aeka rocketed up from the ravine with a desperate scream. The guardians strained a hover then managed to follow far behind her.

***

"Hold on Ryo-ohki, you're still wet!" Sasami laughed as a scruffy mass of fur bounded down the hallway.

"Damn it, who's gonna clean this up now?" Ryoko mumbled around the puddles of water her ship was leaving on the floor. The muffled meow captured in a towel went unnoticed even as Ryoko's ears perked up and eyes narrowed.

*Something's coming towards the house---fast!

Cyan and light blue cloth blurred, Ryoko's towel fell to the floor. She formed her sword and teleported to the roof within the same second. Ready to meet the intruder head on, the attack jerked to a stop when Aeka landed in the back yard, wrapped in Jurian battle gear and nearly sweating energy. She ran into the house faster than her rival had ever seen her move.

"Aeka? I thought you were doing the laundry. What's wrong?" Sasami asked innocently as her sister pulled the screen door off its track.

The responsible sister looked around wildly then lunged into the living room. Princess Sasami put her hands up defensively at the startling movement while Aeka stumbled to her knees and embraced her as tightly as their mother ever had.

"Sasami! Sasami! Are you all right? Please tell me you're all right!" She cried, lifting the smaller girl off her feet a few times.

"A-e-ka, what's-" A crushed voice fretted.

She released her grip and held her sister by her shoulders, looking her over with wild eyes, touching her face gently, fearful she might break after being treated so roughly.

"Aeka, what in the world is wrong?" Sasami tried to sound calm, but was already far too worried for the near-hysterical First Princess.

Their eyes exchanged wonderment, caught gradually deeper in reflections of compassion. Sasami took the vice-like hands from her shoulders and gave them a reassuring squeeze. The older princess stared back, shock and desperation melting, exploding into tears too large for her exhausted eyes.

"SA-SA-MI!"

The name repeated then stuttered into muffled sobs as Aeka ground her swollen face into the tiny neck. Sasami could only stroke Aeka's hair with tender shushes, ignoring the pinch beneath her sister's white knuckles.

Ryoko watched the scene unfold from a distance, eyes wholly confused yet helplessly softened as she waited for an answer or at least some believable reassurance.

"What's gotten into her?" She asked herself quietly, turning her head towards the living room to identify a thin noise with half a frown.

*Seita sure doesn't let anything interrupt his reading.

***

^Tenchi Muyo: Sanctuary and Asylum^

-Verse Six is Monster-

-Part 2-

***

The afternoon sun was almost intense enough to make Tenchi wish he'd brought a pair of sunglasses; even the cloudless sky seemed faded from the exposure. He'd tried to lie back to let their picnic lunch settle, but the inescapable glare kept it impossible. Thoughts of a long and heavy summer made him shiver. Something to enjoy the fleetingly mild climate was in order and making conversation with his grandfather without opening his eyes, a friendly imitation, might be just what he needed. Glancing to his right her noticed that, oddly enough, Katshuhito's glasses were not catching a glare. His wrinkled eyes were still resting.

"Yes Tenchi?" He began calmly without so much as fluttering an eyelash. His grandson chuckled and shook his head.

"How do you ^do^ that?" Tenchi asked in mock exasperation.

"I told you; it comes with the trade."

"I guess so."

Tenchi looked back out at other picnickers and smiled. Mihoshi and Sasami had convinced Ryoko and Aeka to join them in a game of hot potato, using a real potato that they'd forgotten to wash before bringing out for Ryo-ohki in another failed attempt to put some variety in her diet. The four girls giggled and squealed, alternately daring to hold the spud for longer than half a second. Seita remained in the shade, leaning against the trunk with his head hung low. He'd been designated to call time at random increments, being as his automatic defenses reacted even to a tossed vegetable. His hair hung too willowy to see if he was watching them or not.

"Grandpa?" Tenchi began again in earnest.

"Yes, Tenchi."

"I was wondering," his words organized in an exhale, "I can't remember the last time you asked for undisturbed meditation."

"Yes, indeed it has been a while since I've needed to."

No commitment there.

"Yeah, um, so did it go well?" The hesitant politeness that often arose in his voice always made Tenchi feel younger than he was. He looked up at a slight frown marking his grandfather's hesitation.

"No Tenchi, I'm afraid it didn't." Katshuhito replied solemnly, yet still without giving away more than the obvious disappointment.

"Oh, I'm sorry to hear that." Tenchi forced some more confidence into his consolation. The silence between them was starting up again, and he knew he still needed more assertion.

"Any idea why?"

Katshuhito, cleared his throat, but answered promptly as someone who'd already anticipated the entire conversation.

"I'm not sure exactly, I was searching for an answer to a question--- more of an uncertainty than a question really. Once again, even mental and spiritual transcendence cannot always acquire something so well as simple patience."

"I see." Strangely enough, Tenchi thought that maybe he really did.

Sasami pouted playfully as Seita called out time with the potato headed into her hands. His voice had been just loud enough to be heard, though he kept looking at the ground. Mihoshi accepted the game piece as Sasami skipped off towards the timer's tree, replaced by Ryo-ohki's toddler form.

"Well, I guess we don't have to worry about her eating the game anymore." Ryoko joked knowingly. Ryo-ohki's sound of extreme disgust was rewarded with a round of laughter.

Tenchi turned back to his grandfather after absorbing a little more of the happy scene, noticing with mixed relief that he was also watching Sasami.

"I guess I was just a little concerned."

"Oh." Katshuhito looked over at his grandson's contemplative face without moving his own.

"I don't know, it's just that---well, little Washu's been in her lab for over a week now and-"

"Did you think her and I were plotting something?" An old man's slyness was still enough to make Tenchi chuckle with a faint blush.

"Oh no! Nothing like that." He argued before returning promptly to sincerity. "What I meant was---when people withdraw its usually the first sign that something's wrong, I was kind of worried."

"I see."

The both of them returned their focus to Sasami as she tossed flower petals and grass into the air and swayed in an absent dance beneath it. She offered Seita a few more dinner suggestions while the unmonitored potato got hotter and hotter. Frozen with wide nervous eyes, Sasami watched a moderately sized spider thread down a little too close to her face. Seeming to sense her distress, Seita reached out a hand to catch the tiny creature. Yosho, remembering the guest's earlier method of enjoying the tree bark, leaned forward.

"What's wrong Grandpa?"

Unharmed, the spider descend time and again, hand over hand, Seita treating it like a delicate breed of yoyo. Tenchi watched his grandfather relax and replaced his worry with renewed curiosity.

"Nothing Tenchi," Katshuhito assured, hoping to return the silence.

"So what are you uncertain about anyway?" Tenchi tried to ask quickly and casually enough to lure out a quick response.

"Tenchi, sharing a question does not always make the answer easier to find, sometimes quite the opposite." Katshuhito replied in his favorite sagely tone.

Tenchi just sighed, decided to ponder ^that^ one later, and let their attention turn back to the impromptu nature lesson going on amidst a game of chaos.

"See," Seita began kindly, "if you learn to identify their colors, you'll be able to tell the dangerous one's from harmless little fellows like him."

"They're still kinda scary." Sasami grumbled, still scratching her hands in emphasis.

"But look, he's not even trying to bite me. You know, I've read a lot about this planet since I've been here, and I've only come across a few creatures that would ever set out to hurt you."

"Yeah I know, and without spiders all the other bugs would overpopulate." She recited, sighing at logic's inability to overcome old emotions.

"Precisely." He affirmed to both Sasami and the tiny creature in his hand as he let it crawl off into the grass. "Do you think its time to stop the potato yet?"

Sasami turned around at the now focused and determined competitors.

"Hmmm, almost, count to three first." She suggested smartly.

"Alright, one---two---"

---

"You're out Ryoko!" Aeka cheered, while Mihoshi and Ryo-ohki tried to shake out their tensed hands.

The game was not even a real competition; based purely on chance as Ryoko doubted Seita gave a flying potato about who won. Despite all this, something about Aeka's laugh dug into her. She wasn't loosing entirely, the princess still had Mihoshi and Ryo-ohki to outlast, but the infuriating superior gleam in those bright eyes still shone down on her. With a lowered sneer she held tight to the potato for a few calculated seconds, then tossed it with a fanged grin.

"Here you go Aeka---catch!"

Their game dropped into the grass with a small curl of steam. A squeal of pain demanded everyone's attention.

"Why you-" Aeka began, scowling at her rival with shrinking eyes.

"What?" Ryoko responded with mock innocence. "It's called ^hot^ potato, right?"

Within seconds two angry foreheads pressed together ferociously. Sasami called out the first sentiment to cross Tenchi's mind.

"Oh no, not again."

He'd seen the whole interchange, and as he feared, was soon dragged in as a material witness.

"Did you see what she did, Lord Tenchi?" Aeka hollered, pointed finger aimed at its usual target. "I'll probably get a blister from that."

"Don't listen to her Tenchi, she's the one who just got a perfectly good potato all dirty." Ryoko tried her big innocent eyes for emphasis.

"They already come ^out^ of the dirt you twit!"

"What did you call me!?"

The argument ensued and decayed into pure malice, too heated even for Sasami to interject. Tenchi felt a pain bubbling up in his skull.

*Why? WHY! Why can't they just grow up!? What am I doing wrong? How many different ways do I have to tell them that it's driving me mad? I'm so sick of this I could just-

"STOP IT!"

Tenchi's reprimand came not in a shout, nor a scream, but in a roar. Everyone gathered assumed a stance of pure shock, Katshuhito included.

"How many more times do we have to go through this, huh!?" The referee's rage suddenly dwarfed the other players. No answer.

"Every time we try to have fun as a family someone has to go and act like a spiteful little child!"

Ryoko and Aeka, drug their eyes towards each other in unrelenting accusation. Tenchi saw this, prepared another lecture, but characteristically lost his nerve, hanging his head with a sigh. He gave no sign of continuing his lecture, nor any sign of ending it. The heavy silence remained.

"Come along Sasami, it's time we went back inside." Aeka recommended softly, with a lingering hint of disdain for whoever might catch and dare return it. Mihoshi helped the two sisters gather up the picnic supplies while Tenchi and his grandfather did the same. Ryoko glided up to him timidly.

"But Tenchi-" she began again in a pitiful whine. Tenchi clearly didn't want to hear it.

"Ryoko...why can't you just play by the rules?"

The solemn question lingered in the air while he made his way back to the house, taking no notice of the emotional distress on the post-demon's face. Seita remained seated for a moment longer and stepped out of the shade into the replaced silence of the meadow, an unexplained pair of tight rectangular sunglasses wrapped about his eyes. He walked up to Ryoko's side expressionlessly. At the sound of his approach she clenched her tears back and turned her head away. The remaining guests stood silently, leaving each other unacknowledged as they watched the rest of the family reenter the house.

"The sun is awfully bright today." Pre-emotion began and, receiving the lack of response expected, continued just the same.

"If you're going to stay outside-" He removed his sunglasses and held them under Post-emotion's chin, "you might want to wear these."

Ryoko accepted the offer in curious reflex, but held them without any apparent interest. Seita stepped into oblivion and left her standing alone, refusing to show any signs of the subsequent mild disorientation caused by his personal highway. They looked like they might be a little too large, more importantly they looked ready to fade away the moment she stopped resisting the urge to crush them.

***

"Hey Mihoshi, look at this!" Sasami held up and stretched a department store catalog across the table.

"What is it Sasami?" The officer brightened and sat down next to the princess, eager as always to see something new.

"See here," the young shopper put the page down and pressed her finger into it, "it looks a lot like the couch we have in the living room, but look; it folds out into a bed."

"Oh yeah, I've heard about those." Mihoshi leaned forward with now only slightly perked interest.

"But think about it Mihoshi, we could replace the one we have in the living room with this one, then it could fold out and there'd be enough room for you ^and^ Seita, that way you wouldn't have to go sleep out in your ship any more."

The dishes stopped rattling on one side of the sink. Aeka projected herself into the conversation by slowly starring up at the wall. Still washing, Tenchi hoped to not be drawn into how such a normally sweet little girl could make such a thinly veiled suggestion. Meanwhile, Mihoshi had been mysteriously replaced by a cherry red mannequin of herself. Sasami waved her hand in front of the detective's vacant eyes.

"Hello-oh, Mihoshi, what's wrong?"

Aeka moved her jaw against lost words. Missing the extent of her vacancy, Tenchi could not help but stifle a laugh and could not help nearly jumping into the sink when Aeka whirled around as if her sister had offered to sell her soul for a pack of chocolate poky.

"What? She said that it got lonely out in her ship sometimes." A tiny hint of laughter was showing at the edge of Sasami's shrinking innocence, and she knew it.

She looked over at Seita, reading on the couch as if alone. He looked up from his book with a single raised eyebrow. It was finally more than she could stand; The Second Princess allowed herself to be caught in her own mischief for the umpteenth time. Young laughter filled the house. Tenchi had to bite his lip and face the dishes to keep it in. Mihoshi's head fell to the table with a dull thud.

"Nevermind Sasami, its time to go to bed." The urgency was clear, flat, edgeless crystal. Aeka was so locked in dignity that her sister stared harder for sincerity.

"^Yeah--- time for bed---goodnight everyone^." Mihoshi rose in an airy trance and walked out the back door in a wavering hurry.

"Sweet dreams Mihoshi." Sasami called with a new chuckle.

"Yes, sleep well Miss Mihoshi." Aeka echoed with extra concern rather than sympathy.

Sasami buried her face in the catalog and tried halfheartedly to hold off another bout of laughter. Very slow and very quiet, Aeka kept her eyes on her sister as long as she could as she turned back to the dishes. Tenchi exhaled the last of his chuckles gratefully, trying to be as oblivious in his washing as Seita was in his reading.

"Go on Sasami, I'll be with you as soon as I finish these dishes." Aeka said with calm finality, unable to be detoured from the subject.

"But I'm not tired." The Second Princess protested with uncommon defiance.

Strings of authority training and ropes of observed parenting told The First to ignore any inconsequential argument. Sasami frowned for a moment then smiled cleverly.

"You want me to go to bed? Well then, you have to read me a bedtime story first." She crossed her arms to emphasize her own stubborn royal authority. Aeka turned with a disbelieving look.

"You what? Sasami, aren't you more than a little old for such things?"

"Aren't you a little ^young^ to be handing out bedtimes?" Sasami answered smartly.

"Sasami-" Aeka began again with confused irritation.

"If you want to treat me like a baby, then that's how I'll act. I'm not going to bed unless someone reads me a story!" She stamped her foot for emphasis and glared back at the mortified look on her sister's face and the stupefied look on Tenchi's. The standoff might have gone on all night were it not for an unlikely intervention.

"Very well, Sasami." Seita spoke up calmly, already at the bookshelf with his hand tracing the titles.

Tenchi scratched his head and shrugged at Aeka, who looked at the floor motionlessly. After thanking the sixth guest with excessive formality, Sasami bounded over and onto the couch, swinging her legs as she waited.

"Oh well, at least she didn't ask for anything big."

Still ignoring her Prince's shrug, Aeka watched them sit down together with pale cheeks and trembling lips. Seita offered them both a hat-tilting smile before he returned his attention to Sasami. Tenchi had washed four more dishes when he looked up to see Aeka still petrified at the backs of two heads. She began to turn back to the dishes and so he did the same, noticing this time how slow she moved, but distracted by a very dirty and very sharp knife.

"This story is told as a poem Sasami, it's by an author who passed away a while ago. He wrote in English and when translated to Japanese the syllables and rhymes don't maintain the same flow, however, I believe its themes are the most relevant aspects." Seita's introduction was almost too professional for a bedtime story, but Sasami's interest only seemed to increase.

"Okay." She smiled eagerly.

"And you'll do as your sister says if I read to you?" He showed her the proper way to do a clever smile. Sasami watched, learned, and replied in kind.

"If the story's good."

Seita chuckled and opened the page marked by the nail of his left little finger. He cleared his throat and announced the selection formally before continuing with a crisp narrative.

"^The Walrus And The Carpenter^, by Lewis Carroll."

"The sun was shining on the sea---shining with all his might. He did his very best to make---the billows smooth and bright. And this was odd, because it was---the middle of the night." "Huh?" Sasami asked, as if Seita were not translating to a language she could understand. The narrator looked up from the book like an old turtle and half-smiled in mock annoyance.

"Just listen Sasami, when I get to the end it will all either make sense," he paused and turned back to the book with a full smile, "or not need to." Sasami complied, leaning in a little closer with a puzzle-solving face. "The moon was shining sulkily---because she thought the sun---had got no business to be there---after the day was done. 'It's very rude of him,' she said. 'To come and spoil the fun.'" Seita quoted the moon, not in his previous soft and fluid reading voice, but with the upper crust pitch of a proper old Englishwoman. His captive audience stifled a giggle. "The sea was wet as wet could be. The sands were dry as dry. You could not see a cloud, because---no cloud was in the sky: No birds were flying overhead---there were no birds to fly.

"The Walrus and the Carpenter---were walking close at hand; they wept like anything to see---such quantities of sand: `If this were only cleared away,' they said, `it would be grand!'---'If seven maids with seven mops--- swept it for half a year, do you suppose,' the Walrus said, 'that they could get it clear?'---'I doubt it,' said the Carpenter, and shed a bitter tear."
The Walrus came to life in an exaggerated portly baritone, whereas the carpenter mumbled with nasal pessimism. Seita paused for Sasami to pry her hands away from her mouth and breathe in enough calm to make it through at least the next line. "'O Oysters, come and walk with us!'---the Walrus did beseech---'a pleasant walk, a pleasant talk, along the briny beach: we cannot do with more than four---to give a hand to each.'---The eldest Oyster looked at him, but never a word he said: the eldest Oyster winked his eye, and shook his heavy head---meaning to say he did not choose---to leave the oyster bed. "But four young Oysters hurried up, all eager for the treat: their coats were brushed, their faces washed, their shoes were clean and neat---and this was odd, because, you know---they hadn't any feet. "Four other Oysters followed them---and yet another four---and thick and fast they came at last---and more, and more, and more---all hopping through the frothy waves, and scrambling to the shore. "The Walrus and the Carpenter---walked on a mile or so, and then they rested on a rock---conveniently low: and all the little Oysters stood---and waited in a row. `The time has come,' the Walrus said, 'to talk of many things: of shoes, and ships, and sealing-wax---of cabbages, and kings---and why the sea is boiling hot---and whether pigs have wings.' Seita let a small grin rise and fall with his breath. "'But wait a bit,' the Oysters cried, 'before we have our chat; for some of us are out of breath, and all of us are fat!'---'No hurry!' said the Carpenter. They thanked him much for that.
Sasami's mouth and eyes both chocked on a laugh at the absurdly high pitched squeak Seita achieved. She nearly doubled over again at the sight of Ryo-ohki putting her paws in her ears with a painful grimace. The narrator, once again, showed absolute patience.
" 'A loaf of bread,' the Walrus said, 'is what we chiefly need: pepper and vinegar besides---are very good indeed---now if you're ready, Oysters dear, we can begin to feed.'---'But not on us,' the Oysters cried, turning a little blue, 'after such kindness, that would be---a dismal thing to do!'---'The night is fine,' the Walrus said, 'do you admire the view?--- It was so kind of you to come! And you are very nice!'---The Carpenter said nothing but---`Cut us another slice: I wish you were not quite so deaf- --I've had to ask you twice!'
"'It seems a shame,' the Walrus said, 'to play them such a trick, after we've brought them out so far, and made them trot so quick!'---The Carpenter said nothing but---'The butter's spread too thick!'

"'I weep for you,' the Walrus said: `I deeply sympathize.'--- With sobs and tears he sorted out---those of the largest size, holding his pocket-handkerchief---before his streaming eyes.---'O Oysters,' said the Carpenter, 'you've had a pleasant run! Shall we be trotting home again?'--- But answer came there none---and this was scarcely odd, because...they'd eaten every one."
Sasami's head angled back till her chin touched her neck, on eyebrow raised in utter confusion. She opened her mouth, rethought her question, and tried again in a disbelieving voice.

"They what?"

"^They'd eaten every one^." Seita re-recited.

"But I thought they said-" Sasami began frankly, then softened a glance at the book, "that's kind of sad."

"Yes, and what do you think the moral of the story is?"

"Um, don't walk off with strangers?"

The narrator chuckled at her shrug and grinned at her reflexive smile.

"I suppose that's close enough."

"That was weird, but it was kinda cool."

Couch springs groaned as Sasami chuckled, leaning back into the couch and hugging her knees. For some reason she felt compelled to picture both the walrus and the carpenter dressed in Seita's clothes. The gold buttons of the emerald green shirt were stretched and snapped along the walrus's huge belly while the purple velvet pants drooped in saggy folds on the carpenter's stocky legs. She looked closely at his calm profile and giggled into her hands again.

"And what's so funny now?" He asked without looking up from the next skimmed page.

"Oh nothing. Do another one---pleeease."

"Hmmm, let me see-" Seita smiled at her sweet command and searched back through the pages, clearly happy to oblige with an encore.

From the kitchen Tenchi laughed lightly to himself, shaking his head. He dried another dish and spoke up, assuming Aeka was listening as she continued with the washing in strict silence.

"I remember that book, those stories with Alice and all that 'nonsense'," he chuckled again, "it figures he'd pick it up."

The dishes clattered noisily in the next sink and he turned a startled glance at Aeka's back, seeming cramped for trying to straighten too fast.

"Who-who is Alice?" She asked meekly.

"Alice, oh, she's just a character in a children's story." Tenchi explained casually. "She goes down rabbit holes and through mirrors and meets all these strange creatures. I've heard the author was using hallucinogens when he wrote it."

A recent memory brought on by his explanation drained the joy from his face while Aeka managed to close her eyes and breathe. They continued with the dishes in unwritten silence.

"Ah, here we go, this one's my favorite so far."

Sasami grinned in anticipation and pressed her chin into her knees as Seita cleared his throat.

"Now try to wait till I'm finished to ask questions. If any words seem unfamiliar it's because they only exist in this poem." The disclaimer made her lean in closer with a half grin of double interest.

His narration began in a sensual flow, somewhat softened and darkened with ghost story smoke. Even though it wasn't being read in its original language, the words still came together with precise eloquence.

"Twas brillig, and the slithy toves. Did gyre and gimble in the wabe. All mimsy were the borogoves, and the mome raths outgrabe." For a tiny breath and a few rapid blinks, the little princess was ready to ask, but didn't know what. Instead she leaned, tilted her head, and tightened her brow at a very important puzzle.
"Beware the Jabberwock, my son! The jaws that bite, the claws that catch! Beware the Jubjub bird, and shun the frumious Bandersnatch!" Scared pink fascination gorged Sasami's eyes and attracted the narrator's for less than a moment.
"He took his vorpal sword in hand: Long time the manxome foe he sought---so rested he by the Tumtum tree, and stood awhile in thought. And as in uffish thought he stood, the Jabberwock, with eyes of flame---came wiffling through the tulgey wood, and burbled as it came."

A smoky buzz had been rising up and now conquered Seita's campfire voice. Tenchi chuckled a little, making the dishes gleam as Aeka made them rattle.
"One, two! One, two! And through and through---the vorpal blade went snicker-snack!---He left it dead, and with its head he went galumphing back.---"And hast thou slain the Jabberwock? Come to my arms, my beamish boy!---O frabjous day! Callooh! Callay! He chortled in his joy.
"Twas brillig, and the slithy toves. Did gyre and gimble in the wabe. All mimsy were the borogoves, and the mome raths outgrabe." Circling the story back into his softer tone, Seita looked up from the book with a satisfied smile. He watched Sasami blink fiercely and shake some comprehension into her head.

"That was even weirder than the first one...what was it called, anyway?"

"'Jabberwock', of course."

"It was kinda creepy too." Sasami looked mildly down at Ryo-ohki, who cocked her head in confusion, soon recognizing the need to be of comfort and snuggling into the young princess's lap.

"Hm, I suppose so," the narrator's voice shrugged calmly then smiled at his audience again, "but at least the hero always slays the monster in the end."

His attempt to sound sagely was laced with almost intimidating confidence. Sasami took quiet solace in the texture of Ryo-ohki's fur.

"Will you guys keep it down, I'm ^trying^ to sleep." Ryoko grumbled from the rafter, her surliness rimmed with something more and less than exhaustion.

"Sorry Ryoko, I almost forgot you were up there." Sasami apologized.

Ryoko rolled over without another sound.

"Sasami." Aeka called almost too softly to be heard. Sasami turned, her attention soon drawn to the forceful way her sister was drying her hands.

"I think that's enough strange stories for one night, I don't want you having any more nightmares."

"Come on Aeka, just one more." The request came in a whine almost too immature to be taken seriously.

"Just go to bed, Sasami!" Ryoko snapped again. "Aeka always knows best, just ask her."

The snide and lazy tone in her comment made Tenchi frown and notice Aeka's knuckles twist whiter than her towel. He waited in defeated and resentful silence for a response, but none came, and he thought for a fearful moment that she might be truly biting her tongue.

"Come along Sasami." Authority hushed itself tight enough to shatter nerves.

"Ohhhkaaay." A long sigh trailing out as Sasami shifted her position and for the first time, Tenchi saw Seita taken by surprise. Sasami leaned forward and hugged his neck with tender familiarity.

"Night, Seita. Thank you for the story." Her voice was so solemn it gave the impression that sleep itself was punishment. The story-man never took his hands off the book, and the unsure expression still stuck to his face as he watched her go.

"Good night Sasami, good night Aeka." Tenchi offered warmly and received in kind, though a little more softly from the elder.

"Good night---daughters of Jurai." Seita offered in an almost nostalgic whisper, looking down at the intricate pictures on the books cover. He set it on the coffee table and stretched out on the couch with a long breath.

"Sleep well, Tenchi."

The serene voice from the host's couch was polite and final. Tenchi looked down with a friendly half grin and began walking towards the stairs.

"You too, Seita."

An eerie silence followed to make him pause on the first step, thinking he'd forgotten something. He trotted over to the kitchen, turned off the light, and returned. A quarter of the way up the stairs and he stopped again, realizing that no one had said 'good night' to Ryoko. There was no snore, and he couldn't see more than the tips of her hair, he wondered if she'd fallen asleep already. After considering saying it to her regardless, something heavy weighed down in his chest. He sighed silently, steps slowing till he reached and eased around the door to his room.

---

Sleep approached as cool breezes across his face and smooth wooden balls echoing in his stomach. His muscles stretched out like basking lizards that care not that we know not if they grin. Soft blankets enveloped his skin with a relaxing caress. As accustomed perception began its eager yet polite farewell, his lips slipped to the side and began to crumple in a sneer.

Tenchi took a deep breath and offered his face back to serenity with the hope of continuing his previous path.

'I will sleep now', he thought sternly as he offered himself to all the surrounding comforts. But as fast as slumber approached, an urgency stood in its path. The need to relieve the stress building deep within him would not be ignored despite his attempts to reason that it could wait till ^after^ he'd had a good night's rest.

The alluring embrace of unconsciousness was thrown aside in a flurry of sheets as he sat up, put his hands on his knees, and frustrated at the floor. He looked back longingly at the indentation on his pillow but felt helpless under the impatient glare of acknowledged procrastination. Then and there it was loud and clear that he should have taken care of his gut- feeling sooner.

"No way out, I have to do it now."

Mumbles dragged him grudgingly to his feet. He put on his robe and walked into the hallway, stepping lightly so as not to wake anyone, but maintaining an expression of stern exasperation.

---

Ryoko's beam wasn't uncomfortable so long as she kept her hands behind her head. She convinced herself that it would be quite satisfactory if the thought of Tenchi's cozy-looking bed didn't keep popping in. An embarrassed shiver and a hot face courtesy of Zero washed over her at the subsequent idea. Normally the reaction to such naughty fantasies would necessarily be hugged or pinched out, but she still felt too sullen to do more than bite her lip. Blocked adrenaline congealed in her chest, weighing her down further. The sketch was tickling by her feet again, but she told herself that it would only make things worse.

The ceiling had proved completely un-hypnotic---twice, and sleep seemed in no hurry to take pity. The nearest available pattern to sooth her was coming from the couch below. She crinkled her lips.

*I can never tell when that guy's trying to be nice or trying to make a joke. I put his glasses back on the table, but he probably has another pair, or two, or two hundred.

*At least he's not trying to make small talk.

A silent sigh rolled the pirate's gold to the side curiously.

*Is he asleep?

With a little bit of concentration she fazed her body just above the waist, letting it sink through the wood to the other side. A mass of Cyan hair, then a face, then a neck and shoulders appeared over the couch, creating a fair imitation of turning upwards during a freefall. She looked Seita over from head to toe.

His face was deathly calm and emphasized by almost emaciated hands folded neatly over a slender chest. The only part of his position that would have mismatched a coffin was his bare feet, crossed at the ankles. Looking at the proportionately long and narrow feet, she chuckled once through her nose to wonder why they weren't painted like his fingers. By moving slowly her phasing atoms were barely a whisper above Seita's own breathing. Back on the pillar again she frowned, jealous of the relaxed time he seemed to have doing everything, and busying herself to think of a some way to make sure his head didn't start to swell as much as Aeka's.

*Well there are those clothes for one. I still think they're just another trick. I bet he needs to make them up; probably not another man in the galaxy that would be caught looking like such a---

* I bet Tenchi would never wear purple and green like that---surprised he doesn't do chores in a maid's outfit.

Ryoko caught her giggle just in time, picturing hairy chicken legs dangling out the bottom of a little ruffled skirt. Once calmed, she listened for any changes. His breathing was harder to hear than anyone else's, and she could tell by the slight whistle that he kept his mouth closed. Another excessively perfect quality; even Aeka snored sometimes. Each breath came not only slow, but long, sounding more like somebody trying to mediate than sleep. She listened closer and narrowed her eyes in further fascination at how much air he could take in. Remembering his serene face, the strange sleep tactic seemed worth a try. Instead of breathing casually, she tried to imitate the man on the bottom bunk. The first deep breath couldn't even follow through as something caught her nose.

*That's---Tenchi's cologne, with Tenchi underneath it!

Footsteps crept lightly in the upstairs hallway.

*Is Tenchi coming down?

She sniffed and listened again.

*He is! But why? In all the time I've been sleeping out here he's never once come out for a snack or even a glass of water, that must mean-

Ryoko's heart pushed air from her throat into her eyes.

*But-but ^why^?! I don't understand, did he leave something out here? What if he wants something? Would he come out to ask for it an hour after going to bed? What if---what if he wants to ^talk^?

*But to Seita? Oh hell! What if he wants to talk to me---damn-damn-damn! Does he want to apologize for being so harsh before? Does he---

Of all her fantasies, the declaration of love series always fought to the frontline. Ryoko started to breathe more anxiously, the hope and consequent fear building up in her like a seizure.

*What am I going to do?! He's in the living room now, ARGH! Maybe I should pretend I'm still asleep, yeah, I should-

"Are either of you awake?"

Tenchi's voice rushed over her like a bucket sized ice cube. The shock of him speaking was doubled by the tone he used; it was quiet, but it wasn't a whisper. He seemed to know they were both awake and was speaking this way only to keep from waking anyone else. Ryoko bit her lip and hugged herself.

Seita's pooling breath rippled and splashed with a faint snort, he cleared his throat and shifted on the couch.

"Tenchi? What brings you out here?" His waking voice was faint, but not as jumbled as most people sounded after stolen sleep.

"I'm sorry to ask you this, Seita, but...could you give Ryoko and I some privacy, I need to talk to her." The quiet voice was clearly not only for consideration, Tenchi was nervous, focused, but nervous.

Ryoko looked down at her chest, surprised and relieved that her heart hadn't shot out and up through the roof in an explosion of ribs and lumber. Her surreal hysteria calmed down to overwhelming panic.

"Alright, Tenchi." The reply below was polite if still slightly confused. There was a silent pause, followed by lacing boots. Ryoko leaned over enough to catch a glimpse of the scene.

"I'll be taking a walk along the dock till you're finished."

"Thank you, Seita." Tenchi answered without looking up or uncrossing his arms.

Though she couldn't believe it, and knew she would never admit it, Ryoko had leaned back out of sight to send out telepathy imploring Seita to stay. She listened to his footsteps with growing agony till the door sounded her demise. The shaking simply would not stop.

"Ryoko, are you awake?" Tenchi asked in a plane yet still weighted tone.

*Go down there! Get your but down there NOW! Pretending to be asleep won't work this time and you don't want to make him angry again do you?!

Ryoko teleported down and stood on the couch, and instantly regretted it when she remembered how much that power unnerved him. His value of the furniture seemed secondary.

"W-What do you want to talk about, Tenchi?" Her stutter was a stronger and more coherent reply than she would have imagined, though still no encouragement.

"Sit down Ryoko." Tenchi's frankness was too solemn to be rude. He walked over to the window while Ryoko stepped down from stressed cushions and took a single step towards him, her right hand struggling to reach out to but merely shaking at the waist.

"We've been living in the same house for a while now."

She was mute and nearly petrified, but she nodded, assuming he could see her in the windows reflection the way she could see him.

"It's been almost two years, hasn't it Ryoko?"

Another nod filled in for her while he took a long breath.

"Since you...since I let you out of the cave, my life has just been so---so strange. We all almost got killed fighting Kagato, then Professor Clay, then there was that fiasco with Aeka's parents---then things were pretty quiet for a while. But I guess it was pretty silly of me to think I could go out into space again without some more trouble finding me."

Tenchi's chuckle was stillborn as he pressed a hand against the glass and hung his head slightly.

"I try to tell myself that all these brushes with death always have a happy ending; yeah, Seita's a good guy to have around, but he's going to get bored of this place eventually, I can tell. I know I told Aeka and Sasami they could stay here as long as they wanted, but their father isn't going to let them actually live here, sooner or later he'll come back and he won't take no for an answer." His voice was starting to waver now, emotion building a swaying tower word by word.

"Wh-" Ryoko couldn't even decide what question to ask much less ask it at an audible volume.

"Mihoshi has her police work, and I guess Washu could have already gone back to the science academy without too much trouble."

A strong air of uncharacteristic bitterness crept into Tenchi's monologue. He took a breath and hesitated. Ryoko crossed her arms, lowering her head to hide her clenched teeth and watering eyes. This was all going in a bad direction, and she knew her name was next on the list. She wanted to cry out, wrap her arms around his neck and beg him to stop talking this way. The concentration required to restrain herself was so great that it was rubbing off on the rest of her senses, causing her to levitate slightly.

"And then there's you Ryoko---the person who started it all." His voice was distant again, he turned around to face her but she couldn't bare the sight of anything above his feet. The simplest part of her wanted to phase out as far away as possible from this physically sickening suspense. She almost attempted it, but she could hear the grave seriousness before it even made its way out Tenchi's throat, and it kept her paralyzed.

"I-"

He hesitated, clumsy with conversation even when consumed by its importance. A windy vibration rang in her ears as she clenched her jaw and eyes closed with enough force to turn her face inside out. Slowly, she was able to lift her head, simultaneously enraged and relieved to see him looking down at the floor.

"I just don't know Ryoko, I know you're not trying to ^kill me^ anymore, but-"

"Tenchi, I-" Her hollow moan suggested sobbing, but her eyes were stretched watertight.

"I keep telling myself that you're going to change, that any day now you're going to stop fighting with Aeka, stop drinking like the town lush, and start acting like a civil person." His voice was getting more strained now, a ghostly combination of anger and sadness. Weak enough to faint at his feet, Ryoko felt her jaw shake in such tiny rapid movements than it was almost still.

"But, you're not really going to change, are you? Every time you try to turn around it's-it's like it's just an act to get my attention. I don't know why I keep getting my hopes up." He read on through her rough draft epitaph with badly coping cheeriness.

"I care about you Ryoko, same as all the rest, but I don't know what real good it's going to do anybody if you stay here the rest of your life. I'm not going to be here for-ever; I'm going to transfer to another school eventually, probably need to live with a roommate or two, and I couldn't just have you appearing and disappearing and going through walls and who knows what else all the time."

The sound of Tenchi swallowing filled in for Ryoko's heartbeat, long since muffled.

"I wonder a lot lately, if---if it wouldn't be better if all you girls would just---^get bored with me already^. I'm nothing special, I just wish I could have a normal life again, no more explosions or other dimensions or-"

He sucked in a ragged breath and hugged himself back to a focus.

"I've been as patient as I can think to be Ryoko, but I don't think that my home, that this ^planet^, is the right place for you."

Knees that had endured through centuries of battle dropped into the floor with a soft thud. Fingers that had done even more could only worm into the carpet. Ryoko's lungs stopped, but she conveniently couldn't register any other pain or thought. One emotion she'd barely understood during Zero's assimilation presented a loathsome inversion of itself, and it would only allow her to writhe, moaning desperate incoherencies.

"Tenchi...pl-please..."

"Ryoko, try to understand." Tenchi's own emotionally shaken voice was a sincere, yet cheap imitation of regret.

"^Please Tenchi---don't---don't throw me out^!" She raised a hand and clawed at the sheets of her deathbed.

"Ryoko, you can take Ryo-ohki anywhere you want, you have the whole ^universe^!" The reassurance barely sounded believable to him even as he offered it.

"I-I don't want the universe, I just want-" The burn of carpet against her forehead went unnoticed. Tenchi froze as his first guest crawled to his feet and clutched at the flannel around his shin.

"I just want ^you^ Tenchi!" Scream to whisper and over and through again till she finally collapsed on the later.

"Please Ryoko, don't do this." Tenchi's own whisper brought back his previous suppression of anger.

"Tenchi, I---I love-"

"No Ryoko, you don't."

When dying of dehydration in the desert, freezing on a glacier can seem inviting. Tenchi had answered with callousness in something like the same principle.

Ryoko clutched her head and tried to scream, prayed for everything to wake up or die. She felt Tenchi's hands grasp her under the arms and remained limp to his lift, already apathetic enough to start discarding any comfort as a formality. When he spoke, it was to someone who'd lost a favorite and easily replaced toy, an almost condescending compassion.

"Don't be so sad Ryoko, we could always write to each other."

Her shivers were so weak that they stopped halfway up his arms.

Besides, there's plenty of other guys in the universe. Why heck, even that Seita fellow's pretty handsome-"

The inconceivable inappropriateness of his tone was enough to force her to meet him eye to eye while he paused.

"^Don't you think?^"

Pearl cheeks and petal lips spread soft, up and around the bottomless sapphires. At such an intimate distance it all looked painted-on.

***

From the best seat in the house Tenchi rested his elbows on his knees and let out a small sigh of relief. He was ready to tear a piece from a roll of fine quilted luxury when a massive explosion sent a shockwave through the entire house. Appliances and ornaments were upset in every room while he was sent to the floor with an endless white streamer trailing an arch over his head. A similar explosion followed within 30 seconds considerably farther away, but it still rattled every window and every second tooth. In one horrified gasp, and two quick movements to properly use and dispose of the streamer, he was dashing into the hallway with a slight hop to re-secure his pants.

"What in heaven was that!?" Nobuyuki called into the empty hallway, looking about for anyone to answer.

"Dad! What-" Tenchi burst out into the hallway with a gasp.

"I'm still trying to figure it out." Nobuyuki whined and flinched as Aeka blurred past.

"Lord Tenchi, are you all right?" Aeka called out, clasping onto his arm and startling a yelp out of him.

"Oh, Aeka, it's you." He exhaled.

"Of course it's me." Aeka responded anxiously, before blushing at her handful of tense muscle.

"Ten-chi-" Sasami mumbled tiredly, wandering out after her sister.

The few seconds of silence extended themselves as a psychotic battle cry erupted faintly in the distance. Everyone exchanged knowing glances and tried to stabilize themselves for the next shockwave to pass through the house.

***

A rain of pebbles and debris fell on Ryoko's battle armor as insignificant as sea spray on a crab's shell. Her thin energy saber shone through clouds of smoke and dust as she flew the perimeter of a smoldering crater. The weapon remained tilted at the ready, her arm rigid while the rest of her body sailed in the other direction with a violent jerk, enraged facial gestures, and a sharp whip of hair.

Approximately ten meters to her left a white circle began to dilate parallel with the ground to the size of a manhole cover. It made no sound, gave no light, and failed to even stir the dust around it. Slender hands stretched out of it as delicately as a fairy waking from a nap within a budded flower. Emerald fabric hung back around the elbows but fell back to the wrists when palms pressed firmly along the sides of the tunnel and pulled the rest up and out. Once his torso was raised Seita sat on his rear, dangling his legs in the pool of emptiness. He brought his knees up slowly, keeping them bent, and positioned himself in a crouch before standing on the edges of the hole with a show of height.

Gold spun from sand blew back in elegant tendrils while he stretched his hands behind his back, watching Ryoko with smug amusement. In a contemplative set of movements he held his right elbow then traced his right thumb and every successive finger across his lips. Each digit spread a different color across his lips that his eyeliner instantly mirrored, moving from a blood red, to a cloudy turquoise, to a tart orange, eventually settling on a deep violet. He glanced down with a satisfied smile to make sure it matched his pants.

"I guess it's a good thing I stepped back before congratulating myself on a performance well-delivered," sensual arrogance chuckled, "you might have sent half the house-"

A blast of energy large enough to drill a train tunnel enveloped and interrupted him. Ryoko had destroyed him three times already, each time seeing him come out of his hole in a nearby location. She told herself that he had merely dove into his bunker at the last minute, that if she pretended not to see him the next time he appeared she might catch him off guard.

The confidence he nearly sang, however, seemed to come from something much deeper than quick reflexes. Her distant, logical part, called out that such direct attacks wouldn't be of any use. But just as his voice served to confirm this, the very sound of it filled her ears like scalding bile, and all potential meaning was consumed in fury.

Ryoko couldn't see through the fiery glow of such a huge attack, and thus couldn't tell if her target had retreated in time. While watching for the white of his eye again, the single focus of her emotions steadily fed into her sword, almost tuning it into a thick staff. A perfect reflection of her stepped out of an oblivion portal a boulder's throw away from the original. It held its energy sword like a bored aristocrat's cane, and characteristically leaned against it with a casual sigh. His throaty chuckle was faint as a witch cackling defiantly from deep within her own cauldron. She whirled around, furious enough with herself to spare some for her target audience.

"-^into oblivion^." Seita's chuckle sharpened itself for itself. The original reflection opened her eyes a little wider.

"Dear, dear Ryoko. Would you just ^look at yourself^." He shook his head with a succession of tongue clicks. The cheap pun met another battle roar, drug up from her subconscious store of pain like a twisted vehicle from a drainage ditch.

Ryoko leapt and swung down at him with so much force that the path of her energy blade formed a giant luminous sickle. She landed sharply amid the diagonal trench slashed out of the earth directly behind her latest imitation. When the debris settled again she turned to gloat over both halves of a surely bisected charlatan. Her reflection leaned away from its sword, dissipated it, and turned to regard her with a disappointed half- frown.

"I suppose that sight ^would^ be wearing a little thin on you by now, wouldn't it?" Cyan spikes faded and fell into blonde curtains, brushing a different set of sharp feminine features over Ryoko's face. Seita's height and attire absorbed the battle-ready form as he crossed his arms and began to pace thoughtfully.

The pirate's brilliant gold recognized itself as lead, weighing down her attack as she crouched in horrified awe.

*He-he-didn't even move, it went right through him...just like before!

Her sword dissipated as she clutched at the ground between her knees, waiting with bloodlust for another sign of vulnerability.

"Now let me see, maybe a different variation on the search for the original." Seita thought aloud as he stopped his pacing and leaned forward with an indulgent smile. Beginning on either side of him exact reflections stepped out from behind each other again and again. The shoulder-to- shoulder line gradually curved and surrounded Ryoko, whose warrior eyes instinctively remained on the nucleus. Within seconds, however, the circle of challenging glares faded back into the same dissatisfied one-sided grimace.

"No-no-^no^," the copies sighed, flicking their wrists dismissively in a perfectly aligned choreography, "that ruse was tired even before my time." The Seitas began to fade away more with each tired shake of their heads.

Ryoko tensed when she noticed that the point of origin was dissipating as well, she whirled around in her prone crouch to find him standing, predictably, directly behind her. He was massaging his chin and seemed to be contemplating the few meters of ground between them.

"Hm, I never really had much of a talent for improvising, but it wouldn't do-" Ryoko lunged for his throat, sailing through him and landing roughly on the ground with a hard grunt, "to keep you waiting." He finished his sentence with mild annoyance.

The hum of teleportation softly echoed Ryoko's throaty growl. She reappeared ten meters above her landing place and reformed her sword. Seita looked up at the promise of murder and relaxed. His arms fell to the sides, fingers moving and flexing like perpetual centipede legs. As he focused, she got her first good look.

They were real, but the malice there was not for her, nor was it a facade adapted for the sake of intimidation. His pupils reminded her of fan blades moving so fast that they could be seen individually, moving all over her body without leaving her face. The unmistakable spite was made even more unsettling by the boyish softness in his cheeks and the feminine sway of his hair. She was being watched the way he must often watch the universe itself; perhaps with the bitter detachment of someone viewing their own squandered and naive childhood.

"You really are upset, aren't you Ryoko? You've feared the night Tenchi would come with your 'eviction notice' for quite some time. The thought of going through the rest of your existence as a hopeless and shunned monster; it haunts you like a murdered sibling."

With every word Seita's voice descended more into his subhuman hiss, the syllables stretching and sharpening. Ryoko raised her sword to the ready, wanting to hide the terrible face behind it but too experienced to let him out of her sight.

"But there is something far more loathsome than solitude haunting you- " he paused and lifted his nose, stirring the air surrounding them as he inhaled. "I can smell it...^fermenting^ at the base of your spine. Your loneliness is but a single angle to the star of ^failure^, of having to surrender in humiliation." His arms bent upward at the elbows, his fingers limp save for the smallest, their sharpened nails pointed inward like venomous barbs to match the completely transformed rasp of his voice.

Chaotic clouds of response thundered into Ryoko's quivering jaw and kept it locked tight. Her opponent continued with his newly affirmed tone.

"That is why you attack me with so much force. ^That^ is what tortures you, not the fear of being discarded, but the fear of being ^defeated^!" A laugh poured out in searing gasps, the validity of his insight seemingly unquestionable.

"And so, my lovely little space pirate, my vengeful little demon--- since you simultaneously think so much, and so little, of how truly dangerous I am---I think I should put more effort into our session."

Seita's hair fell out in locks, squirming down to disappear at his feet like a can of worms dumped into a lake. His elegant fingers grew soft then as amorphous as melting taffy, but rather than drip onto his elbows they stretched and poured sideways over his ears. Arm flesh followed, the green of his shirt fading into his bare gargoyle's scalp. Ryoko's battle to ignore the illusion began to fail as his entire body split up the center and curled in waxy ropes.

A single head floated up to face her, a scheme ready to be unsheathed from his wide smile. Ryoko ground her teeth and savored the destruction in her weapon, forcefully reminding herself that it was real. Seita's head chuckled cleverly and grew larger, then larger still, looking down his nose at her till he was expanded enough for her to have flown up it. She considered such an attack with violent revulsion, thinking it might throw him off, hopping she could fly straight to his twisted brain and hack it to pieces like a mound of sour custard.

Regardless of any plans, she was nearly petrified. A giant head was not so frightening in itself, but Seita's eyes in this context made her innards churn. She reasoned that he must have opened one of his portals nearby.

"I know this is hardly better, but at least it's more-"

Seita seemed to be considering an adjective then deciding the modifier was enough. His lips remained motionless, as if his smile had stretched too far and stuck. Instead a few teeth here and there retracted into gum or trembled in it. Something red and wet tried to push through behind them, making him sweat, or rather glow with a thick excretion of oil. Ryoko figured he was getting closer rather than larger by his breath, the same temperature as the air and same smell as one of Kagato's particularly extensive massacres, exactly the same.

"Your childhood is nonexistent---and your adolescence seems perpetual, so is it really possible to explore your past? No, I'll need far more than slavery-history if I'm to go to the trouble of getting inside you."

At the last words his brow bounced upward ever so slightly before it tightened down further, but its size commanded what his tone suggested. Ryoko let her sword dissipate only to focus on two beads swelling in both claws.

"We need to scrape up the ^filth^!"

A few teeth teetered like high notes, maggots the size of carrots crawled beneath the skin of his chin up into his lips, the group splitting then meeting again beneath his nose where they disappeared. Ryoko relaxed her gritted teeth till they spilled out, some stuck together with a green film.

"That swallowed septic perception."

Both eyes blinked slow, reopening with long eyelashes. The right pair stretched and flattened, growing into thin cuts that opened perfect redlines all the way till they met at the back of his head. Winking to brush over Ryoko like fan feathers the left pair curved inward and hardened into teeth, biting down with a dead wood snap. His eye drooled down like egg white full of tiny sapphire yolks.

"It must be ^poisoning^ you."

It took his face a moment to re-glamorize itself with a fresh coat of silver and wine makeup, enough to begin scrawling itself with infected green veins. Houseflies as big as heads began to crawl out from their pus cradles.

"Rotting your ^in^-sides!"

The gurgle slime cheer was barely coherent, barely audible above the screams that matched the smell of her past massacre. Ryoko raised both hands, sucking in as much air as she could before hurling a gigantic beam of energy that would have been too large for him to swallow even in this form. Screaming till her throat stung, till it burned, till it threatened to shred into bloody ribbons, she reflexively turned away from the continuous blast that would surely have blinded her.

***

"Aeka, Ryoko and Seita are both gone!" Tenchi turned back from the
banister overlooking the living room with wide eyes and a strained neck. Aeka only stared back.

Before she could respond he dashed downstairs and froze at the back door, his father and the two princesses a few steps behind him. They all watched in awe as a beam of reddish orange light rose into the sky from a position at least a mile away. Without taking his eyes off the foreboding sight, he spoke in a calm and almost commanding tone.

"Aeka, try to wake Mihoshi, Sasami, try to get Little Washu to answer her door."

No reply, no matter, Tenchi opened the door and broke into a run, vaulting over the porch banister. Sasami broke the shock first and ran after him, calling without any practice for a final goodbye.

"Tenchi!"

He stopped and turned, visibly anxious not to be delayed.

"What are you going to do?" She continued despairingly.

Tenchi looked at the ground solemnly, and answered with little reassurance.

"I don't know."

Sasami watched as he sprinted into the wilderness.

Nobuyuki noticed Aeka's eyes as they followed her sister's dash to Washu's door. The nervousness in them was so great that it doubled his own. While Sasami called out pitifully to the scientist between knocks, he forced himself to be recognized.

"Miss-Miss Aeka, do you know what's going on?" He managed, somehow, to demand a direct answer with the most timid of voices.

Aeka looked up at him, for a moment he was afraid she might run crying into his arms. Instead, she looked down as soon as their eyes meet and answered in a ghostly voice.

"I---I can't say."

He could only scratch his head as the princess hurried off to the lake.

***

Ryoko fell from the sky, landing amidst the tangled roots of a large tree, overturned by an earlier failed attack. The air burned her lungs, but exhaustion demanded it. She pulled herself up to her knees by one of the surrounding roots and coughed.

She couldn't remember, or even believe in a blast that could drain her like this, amid the growing aches she tried to comfort herself with mental images of a gigantic head with a bloody hole through it crashing to the earth. Maybe she'd using the skull as a summer home. Not fully satisfied with that, she envisioned a lanky girly-man screaming in agony, his skin searing off as he was pushed back into his personal hellhole, too damaged to open it up again, doomed to float forever with raw flesh that could not heal.

She chuckled morbidly as she pulled herself to her feet and leaned back against the mass of roots, smiling at the depressing imitation of looking up through barren trees. For every moment that silence remained was a divine kiss of relief, seducing her senses to relax. Not yet. Each breath and movement of the wind was thoroughly scanned for signs of the fool who'd thought he could play with ^her^ mind. For what seemed like half an hour she waited, gradually starting to smile and rest her eyes. The gem on her wrist still burned with her exhaustion, and she looked down at it gruffly.

A boy and a girl giggled in the dreamy distance of Ryoko's mind. Her eyes flew up and she stood upright with a sharp pain in her knees. A low mist was rolling across the ground, revealing the grass in random patches the way a cluster of clouds reveals the sky. From ten meters away she saw the laughter.

Barely more than a single meter tall, two naked dolls were escorting Seita towards her. Their plump sexless bodies were segmented loosely, the weak motors propelling their limbs made them sway and lumber. Their heads, both roughly shaved with a dull razor, lolled hollowly about on their shoulders. Ryoko looked at a few missed longer hairs more closely and recoiled to see only one eye shimmer in the moonlight. It had winked.

She bit her lip, pinched the gem in her wrist, but to no avail. This hallucination could not be a nightmare, and once again Ryoko considered trying to self-destruct, nauseated by the idea of anyone watching her mounting this much fear. Every suffering she'd endured and conquered tried in vain to comfort her, but the putrid essence approaching would not be compared.

Seita walked alongside his bodyguards with perverse anticipation, moving in a guise of slow motion, wanting her to take in every nuance of his reentrance. He would clearly not be content till she collapsed at his feet, begging him not to release the surreal terrors held behind the emotionless faces of his stripped and broken toys. Tasting the verge of another desperate scream, Sayta stroked the dolls' heads like the arm rests of his newly acquired throne. Responding like faithful mastiffs, they began to speak, or rather, to recite a short verse in the voices of children created for the calmly wicked. Innocence flowed out of their square jaws in overlapping rhythms. Ryoko clutched the gooseflesh on her arms.

"Useless water. Useless flame."

"The Ghost of Madness killed the Ghost of Pain."

On and on they repeated, jaws bobbing in sync despite the still less than zombie-like movements of their limbs. Ryoko covered her ears, ready to crush her skull if their draining song didn't end. She opened her eyes for a split second and saw them nearly standing over her. The voices had not grown louder as they closed in.

Nothing was there; it was all an illusion, everything save Seita, yet this hellish glimpse into his mind offered more than enough. What ever she'd seen in his eyes was declaring itself, and would not be silent till she crumbled before it. One more glance at their approach, one last line of their song, and her wall of denial fell.

Ryoko knew him then, a perversion of the line between a being and an incarnation, his power untouchable, unaccountable to her own. There was nothing that she could do to defeat and, she realized, nothing she could do to escape---this. Falling to the will of someone, not by a show of their strength but merely by a recognition of it, the idea welled up in a cry of helpless violation. With the last ounce of confidence, the last spark in her gem, she forced steel beams through the rubber sticks in her knees and stared back at her tormentor with desperate defiance. To her elation, the movement surprised him enough for the dolls to stop their chanting

"The Ghost of-"

Interrupted, relaxing his grin, Seita watched curiouser and curiouser as Ryoko leaned back into her own stare, cold and unwavering. She reached to the sides, grasping a large gnarled root in each hand with a ritualistic breath.

"Oh?" He hummed up an eyebrow. "I thought you'd finally understood- --but if you've thought of some grand new strategy, by all means share it."

Ryoko's entire face melted with the exhilarating terror of entertaining a final desperate attempt. She sunk her hands into the thick tentacles of earth and wood as if they were clay. The crossed and crashing scars of her psychosis similarly twisted Seita's smug smile into a thin line of genuine interest.

"You want ghosts?"

She hissed the last drop of violence in her, seeming to draw encouragement from the overt flux in the surrounding atmosphere. Seita looked above her and nearly gaped at the black within black vapor seeping out of the cracks in the fallen tree's bark.

"I'll ^give you ghosts^!"

The vapors swirled around them both and converged directly above Ryoko, each melting into the next to form the curling serpentine body, wide claws and grotesque head of a freshly extracted 'evil spirit'. Its smoky form loomed over them at least six meters in height. Relatively tiny rubies gleamed in its eyes above a cylindrical jaw that ended in a hanging mass of pointed tentacles that ungulated chaotically as it arched its neck to the sky and let out a wretched scream. The sound poured over them not unlike the reverberation of forceful vomiting in a plastic bucket.

This access to such reinforcements took the current champ by unmasked surprise. The new challenger stretched its arms and clenched its claws in a show of power while its nearest targets remained paralyzed with exhaustion or fascination. Seita checked back down on Ryoko, no longer able to stand. He bent slightly and regarded her with an almost proud smile, yet her almost fetal position nullified it.

Without looking away from her, he straightened himself and raised his index and middle finger in a loose gesture. Ryoko turned her head weakly and caught a glimpse of the two dolls pulling themselves into the air on invisible strings, she watched with a prayer repeating too rapidly in her mind to be spoken. Each of the escorts spread their arms out in an unnerving cross between trying to frighten a group of children and invite them in for hugs. The tentacles around the new challenger's mouth pulled apart in sinister anticipation a moment before it brought both its claws in an upward slash directly through its opponents. Seita did not even watch his own minstrels fade away like unmemorable tunes. The sadistic triumph in Ryoko's smile stole enough energy to make her hang her head again, nearly hyperventilating through clenched teeth and crying helplessly now at the thought of what would happen to her after the spirit was through with the smaller ghost.

Tentacles ungulated and spread out, curving inwards again like anxious fingers. Already beady eyes narrowed further on the gentle strands of hair below him. It supported each of its hands on a large root and bent down to consume the tall drink of fruit juice in one swallow.

Blue eyes looked up into red. Seita held his hands behind his back and tilted his head with a mock-innocent smile, all but batting his eyelashes to greet his new opponent. The attacking smoke froze, its eyes too small to convey the emotion displayed in its frantically withdrawing tentacles. Even from Ryoko's slightly obscured perspective, the spirit's next sound turned its first into a lullaby. The ants were nearly clogging the piglet's squealing mouth and were biting and fizzing in a chemical reaction to its saliva. She could have empathized with the fear it had for a direct look, but didn't. The last resort cowered back with mighty claws quivering over its face. It split back into a swarm of dark featureless specters all scattering and retreating back into the tree within the shadow of a minute.

Ryoko had almost forgotten the feeling of suffocation, but when it returned could at least remember to grasp at her throat. Confronted with her own miserable and humiliated end, her own body began to turn on her; she clutched at her skull and dented the ground with her forehead, grasping for a few last sobs before The Ghost of Madness took possession of her.

"Well, that was certainly unexpected." He began in a casual voice still slightly laced with his subhuman hiss. "Ethereal life forms are very tricky, Ryoko. I'll have to get Washu to tell me how you are able to extract them like that.

"It's very difficult to find them, much less exploit them. They are generally solitary beings, yet word travels among them fairly quickly." Seita chuckled to himself and took another step towards the broken Ryoko. "I guess I've already made quite a name for myself."

Ryoko began to shiver between decrepit coughs.

"Once intimidated they seem easy enough to influence. I take it that if you'd had all your gems you'd have been able to send him after me despite his fear. Of course, you might also have destroyed this entire planet in your efforts to---redistribute my energy."

Fistfuls of dirt shook out with her sobs. Ryoko tried to let her senses collapse, to end this cruel delay, get to the pain that could only be beyond anything Kagato could have conceived. Seita continued speaking nonetheless, a captivated audience, a freshly broken slave; one in the same.

"I've read that E.L.F's, like your friend there, were created to guard large energy sources, and when these were abandoned or exhausted they had seek out new ones to patrol." Crouching down low enough to kneel on Ryoko's head, Seita's fingertips connected before his face, focusing through the cage onto every nuance of her shattered will. A crueler smile stretched across his face again as to properly slice out a gentler hiss.

"Indeed Ryoko, what will happen when ^you^ are abandoned, exhausted, and obsolete?" He leaned in closer, fluttering the hair over her ear. "Who's mercy, who's ^pity^ will you accept when curled into a broken ball---at the feet of a dainty illusion."

A loud snap moved Ryoko's head up. She could see the veins in Seita's arm still stretched out beside her, he was perched so perfectly on his toes that he must have been propping himself up against the tree. Two snaps this time, directly into her ear. The same smile he'd given her after taking off his Tenchi mask squirmed down her throat; a few remaining muscles sent the nausea back down.

"Will you make me ^touch you^ to lift you back up again," disgust curled his lip, "or will you stand up defiant again, to attack me like a blind and toothless dog. Perhaps you'll remain silent while I-"

Seita had lifted her up and rested her back against the roots, gripping her shoulders gently and holding her at arms length. But as he flamboyantly poured iodine into the wounds of her humiliation he was surprised to be interrupted not by an energy sword, or even a fist, but by a thick drop of spittle flung onto his cheek.

For a moment Ryoko was surprised that her true last attack had not phased through him like all the others. But the way Seita stood and stepped back, the way he closed his eyes and lifted a hand to his face made it seem he'd allowed, even wanted it.

He sighed his own seduction, touching the wetness with his index and middle finger. The shadow of hateful defiance remaining in the gold coins was already undermined by the quivering purse of lips, but it descended completely into horrified disgust as he closed his eyes and further massaged her insult into his skin.

"Oh Ryoko, how proud your mother would be. And how fortunate I am for this fleeting reminder of so many things now lost to me." He smiled softly, vibrating his mad eyes blue cruel. "But my question remains; whose pity will you accept? After being so belittled by me will you be able to withstand the searing, if indirect, condescent?"

Ryoko clutched her arms tightly and bent her head to strangle out a tear.

"Ten-chi."

***

"Tenchiii!" Aeka called out behind him, he turned his head from the path for a second.

"Tenchi! Where are you?!" Mihoshi echoed.

Their search party leader put his hands up to his mouth to call back to them, but let them drop. He'd been so focused on finding Ryoko that he'd set aside any planning on how to handle things once he found her, and Seita, or Seita. That painful weight in his stomach caught up with him first, nearly doubling him over. It was worse this time than anything he'd consider going over the counter for, worse and simply different. For some reason the ordeal with Dr. Clay crossed his thoughts, followed by the pairing of Ryoko's shots at his school to the cannon blast searchlight he'd seen earlier.

*Damn her! What the hell is going on!

"I'm over here!" He bellowed painfully from his renewed sprint.

***

Tenchi's voice was a distant whisper cut through the fog like a flaming comet. Ryoko's eyes tore open and threw themselves around wildly for the source of her name. One laugh at her cheek was enough to bring her back.

"How wonderful; the humiliation you've suffered before me has been most valuable, but the humiliation you'll suffer when your 'savior' gets here...oh, that will be-"

His hands shivered into her shoulders with a decadent giggle. Ryoko could not back any closer against the roots without phasing through them and she still felt far to exhausted to even think of it.

"What will our host think when he discovers how close you came to destroying his home...^our^ home?"

Through everything, she was just lucid enough to sense what he was implying.

"Ryokoooh!" Tenchi's voice rose above a whisper.

Seita looked in his direction then back at Ryoko, his lunatic smile relaxing again into a knowing grin.

"Perhaps it would be better for everyone, especially you and Tenchi, if we kept our little session between us---try to imagine how 'intrusive' my future methods might be." His voice inflated a light joke then disemboweled it, hair flinging itself back, eyes narrowing and never leaving as he stepped away.

"^Ryoko^!" Tenchi would be running past them at any moment.

"I'll take your silence as an agreement. And don't fret about Tenchi, I like him, and enjoy his home. Besides, it's unlikely either of us would benefit from a session."

Ryoko shook her head, agreeing with the ground in tiny shivers.

"I don't disperse poison---anymore than I can dilute it," he added plainly then rasped it up, "I turn it into sake."

Only Seita's footsteps departing then something heavy and rubber popped in her ears when Ryoko slammed her palms into them.

"Over here, Tenchi!"

Delicate hands cupped around a decadent mouth moments before the stoic host came scrambling over a hill. He seemed to notice the fallen tree foremost as he ran up and bent to catch his breath.

"Seita! Wha-Wha-What's going on?" Tenchi panted. "I heard explosion's---and screaming." Midway through noticing Ryoko crouched amid the roots, a formal apology knelt and bowed into his attention.

"Forgive me Tenchi, I---I believe I went too far in testing her abilities, I did not consider the consequences." The normal calm voice sounding distraught with guilt only twisted Tenchi's face with more confusion.

"What?!"

"I am to blame for waking everyone, and for the destruction around your home. Ryoko and I were talking about perhaps exercising out abilities together. We planned to begin tomorrow morning and, good-naturedly, exchanged a few childish insults to prepare for the event. But-but I offended her thoughtlessly and thus should not have been surprised when she began our duel tonight.

"I have only now succeeded in calming her enough to accept my apologies. I had no idea that this would happen, but I am still to blame. I hope that you can see to forgive my foolish and belligerent behavior."

Tenchi scratched the back of his neck, but with a completely perplexed rather than nervous expression. Taking his focus of the head bowed beneath him for the first time, he looked over at Ryoko, still crouched in what looked like exhaustion.

"Are-are you okay Ryoko?" He asked with timid concern.

*Please Tenchi, don't even look at me! Get away from here before I do something desperate again! I beg you...

Ryoko seemed to tense at the sound of his voice, but all he needed to relax was her nod.

"Lord Tenchi!" Aeka nearly screamed when she caught sight of him, and ran to his side as if his life were at stake. She clutched the fabric around his arm again and looked up at him with wild eyes.

"Lord Tenchi, what has-"

"HEY, wait for me!" Mihoshi cried as she ran to join the princess, her police uniform only half assembled in some places.

"It's alright Aeka. Calm down Mihoshi. I think we can all go back to sleep now." Serious relief stared down into their wide, fearful eyes.

"I'll do whatever I can to right the situation Tenchi, please, just tell me." Seita began again in an almost groveling tone from his still humbled position.

"Don't worry about it," he assured unconvincingly, "I'm just glad no one was hurt."

When the next few steps he took back towards the house were not echoed, he turned again. Seita was walking slowly beside Mihoshi, still in apparent disgrace, while Aeka was standing still, looking down at Ryoko.

"Come on you guys, let's try to get some sleep."

He worried about the crouching figure for a moment, then told himself that she would come down when she wanted, as usual. When Aeka turned back towards him her face seemed drained and softened with a lingering mixture of emotions he would have guessed, but not believed, to be empathy.

***

After trying in vain for half an hour, Sasami retreated from the closet door and, feeling helpless, began to cry the path to sleep. After successfully forcing herself away from the night's events, Washu did the same.