Ryoko sighed quietly.
Gazing out the window, she found a deep well of sadness forming in her heart once again. Raining, nearly dark, and Tenchi still hadn't returned from his trip into town. Ryoko had the strongest desire to look for him, but there was a problem with that plan.
"Damned Washu," she simmered under her breath. "Setting up a barrier so I wouldn't be able to follow Tenchi. It'll be her fault if anything happens to him." With a groan, Ryoko's eyes flickered over to the nearest support beam just past the top of her head. Still laying sprawled on her favorite rafter, the ex-Space Piratess idly looked over the whorls of the wood's grain, the curious inscribed hiragana, the faint wear from the years, the slight - ...
...
Ryoko's pupils abruptly narrowed to feline slits. That four-character message had not been there last night. And Ryoko had been there the whole night and morning through. Turned over and leaning in, pupils dilated back to normal, Ryoko tried to decipher the meaning. She knew kanji quite well, but she had never gotten a chance to catch up on her hiragana. All she could make sense of were the second and fourth characters: Both "ri."
Someone began knocking on the door. Looking around, Ryoko saw that no one was coming to answer. She mused to herself:"Let's see...The Spoiled Little Princess and Sasami are off visiting relatives of some sort...Mihoshi's off running amok somewhere near Beta Centauri...And Ryo-Ohki's Adult Form is being tested by Washu to see if there's a safe way to improve balance. No way that Washu hasn't completely proofed the way into her lab against me just to piss me off." She snarled as the knocking persisted. "Keep your shirt on, dammit!" Ryoko shouted. Down to the front door in a rustle of air, Ryoko quickly opened the door.
And was very nearly trampled by the woman who barged right in. Dressed in a long, bulky dress and a widebrimmed hat, Ryoko could see nothing but a flicker of pink hair. Immediately on edge, she waited for the woman to explain herself. She certainly was not amused by what the apparently very old and very addled woman trilled.
"Hel~lo~~~! My dear, is your mother home?" She smiled beneath the shadow of her hat.
Ryoko gave a flat stare. "Yes. She's in the basement, playing doctor with my little sister."
"Oh, how precious! Well, I won't bother them!" This woman was fucking creepy. In the next instant, she was pulling all sorts of strange dresses out of a handbag like she was a demented Sigfried and Roy stand-in. "So, I have all sorts of dresses here, let me find a color that suits you, my dear~!"
Ryoko stared, thinking to herself. This woman is probably harmless.
"I have blue, red, yellow, blue and yellow, yellow and red..."
Ryoko inspected the tail affixed to her sash, largely ignoring the prattling mental case.
"...I have pink, magenta, chartreuse, navy blue Rickenbacker 4001..."
...The hell did she just say about that last dress?
"...Or maybe you'd like something in a Furi. Kuri. Color?" Her voice abruptly turned much more high-pitched and almost petulant.
Ryoko looked back. The woman had what looked like an electric guitar or a bass guitar raised above her head. Her pupils had shrunk down to tiny pinpricks, and she wore a wide, maniacal grin of pure bloodlust.
Swiftly jetting away, Ryoko barely avoided the woman bringing her guitar down. Instead of even suffering a notch, the guitar blew out the front door and a significant portion of the wall around it. The woman seethed with deranged fury.
"Tell me where Ta is now, you despicable, booze-mongering harlot!" Lurching in a clearly destabilized fashion, she drew closer.
Ryoko conjured a slicing energy rod to her hand. "Who's that, your boyfriend?" She snickered. "I already have my Tenchi."
The pinkhaired woman snarled. "I was going to come back to him, just a day later...He was going to be so, so happy...And he was gone...! It's ruined!" She charged in.
As Ryoko and the pinkhaired bashee's attacks collided, all of the windows in the house were shattered explosively.
Without warning, the door to Washu's lab slammed open - And the genius herself leapt out. "Ryoko, we have to find Tenchi! Something's gone wrong!"
Face gone blank, she stared at the two women. The pinkhaired stranger seemed to have broken her rampage, and was staring blankly.
Meanwhile, Ryoko's face twitched with despair. "I...I...Tenchi...I should have..."
The pinkhaired woman dug a pinky into her ear, utterly bored.
"Oh. The name's Haruko, by the way. Looks like you didn't take Ta. Huh."
Ryoko was beginning to hyperventilate, before standing up shakily.
Haruko looked at her blankly. "Huh? You oka - "
SMACK.
She stared blankly, face still stinging. Ryoko reared back to slap her again, before -
SMACK-SMACK.
Thus, the two of them erupted into a savage catfight.
Washu sighed in utter despair.
"Shit. As if this house didn't have enough unbalanced, super-powered young women."
Taking out a narrow cylinder, she turned the last one-third.
Held out at arm's length, Washu leveled the open end with the fighting girls.
SSSSSSSSSSZZZZZZZZZZTTTCCCHHH.
Both of the girls smoldering faintly, they looked at Washu.
The pint-sized genius tapped her foot impatiently.
"Now that we're all calmed down, it's time to trade stories."
Reluctantly, Haruko and Ryoko sat down apart from each other.
"Good. Ryoko, you go first. Explain our story."
Thus, Ryoko proceeded to recap the past few years with Tenchi.
Expression blank again, Haruko listened.