A/N: Just wanted you people to know that this is my first fan-fiction and will also probably be the first story I've ever actually finish. I'll probably end up losing interest in it somewhere along the line, but I promise you that if you really want more to it, all you have to do is ask. My e-mail is fairydust513@hotmail.com. I think I lose interest in things because people are never interested in it themselves. So I guess it's for the better, lol! Oh, and I don't own any of these characters, settings, and or cabbits. So don't sue me. Wait… I do own Kagato's son don't I? Yeah, well, he doesn't have a name yet and won't come into the story for a while, I'm thinking, so we don't need to worry about him right now anyway. Now I'll leave you to your reading! I hope you enjoy it ~_*
- "Between Angels and Demons"
Chapter 1: lying hidden
"Wow Tenchi! Look at the sunrise!" the young girl squealed with delight.
"It's beautiful, Sasami," Tenchi smiled as he looked out of the window over her shoulder. The smells of fresh pancakes drifted through the Masaki house, waking up those who wouldn't normally be up until past noon.
Mihoshi yawned deeply as she walked down the steps into the living room. "What smells so good?" She asked in a sleepy, childish voice.
"Sasami is making pancakes," answered Washu, who was already deep into her work. Mihoshi stumbled over to the couch that Washu was sitting on and peaked over her shoulder. She lowered her head to look at Washu's new invention. It was a round head that shared her likeness (a/n go figure). It had a blank face with fake spiky pink hair.
"What's tha-"
"Weather detector" Washu responded quickly without being distracted from tightening a bolt on the bottom of the ball where a neck would have been.
"Why di-"
"Weathermen on this planet are never reliable. Ever"
"Oh… But-"
"Don't ask questions," Washu said with authority. Mihoshi gave her a frightened glance as she walked toward the sliding door.
"It's going to be a pretty day. What a nice warm breeze…" Mihoshi smiled as the gentle morning wind tousled her hair. Closing the door she skipped back to Washu. "What does your weather thingy say about today, Miss Washu?"
"Well," Washu began, taking her chin into her fist. "It's late spring, so we should have about mid-seventies, and by the look of the cloudless sky, it should be a nice sunny day. But let's see what this little baby can do!" She triumphantly pressed a few buttons on her Weather Washu. After a few beeping sounds eyes opened on the blank face then a mouth and a nose appeared. It then yawned, and made a coughing sound to clear its throat. "You don't have a throat to clear, smart-ass." Washu muttered under her breath. The Weather Washu shut its eyes and didn't make a noise for a moment or two.
Mihoshi poked it quizzically on the nose and began to ask, "Is it broke?"
"SNOW!" The Weather Washu yelled out, and Mihoshi screamed and she slowly slumped to the ground. Sasami's hair was on end.
"Maybe I should turn down the enthusiasm in its- wait a minute? SNOW?!?! How can that be?" Washu began muttering scientific terms and curse words under her breath as she banged her new creation on the coffee table. "What the hell is wrong with it? How could I have messed up?!" A small could of anger fizzled around her, and Tenchi felt the need to step protectively in front of Sasami. A lightning bolt cracked through the room and shocked Mihoshi. Her eyes bugged out of her head as she fell to the floor, spazzing. After a few moments of Storm Washu, the clouds cleared, and Washu sighed. She gently picked up her Weather Washu and stumbled into her laboratory. "Where did I go wrong?" They could hear her whimper quietly as she opened the door to the alternate dimension.
Tenchi smiled at Sasami, and she blushed at Tenchi's efforts to protect her. She stared at him in adoration as he opened the refrigerator to get out a carrot for Ryo-oki. "Can't be right all the time, right Mihoshi?" he laughed. Mihoshi was still spazzing and had begun drooling on herself. He called for Ryo-oki.
Sasami had walked over to Mihoshi to help her up. She called back to Tenchi. "Ryo-oki's not here right now."
Tenchi was shocked that Ryo-oki left the house without eating her carrot first. "Where has she gone, Sasami?"
"I'm not really sure. I think she went with Aeka to watch the sunrise." Sasami stood and walked into the kitchen to continue flipping her pancakes. "Come to think of it, I haven't seen Ryoko since last night at dinner time. I wonder where she's gone to?" Flipping over the last pancake she requested, "Do you think you could go find them for me, Tenchi? Breakfast is almost ready, and Ryoko might get mad if she has to eat cold pancakes." She smiled. Last time Ryoko was late to breakfast, everything was cold and she complained the whole day that the reason she couldn't work was because of the disappointment of her breakfast. This of course set Miss Priss off and another fight had broken out.
"Sure, Sasami." Tenchi opened the sliding glass door and stepped out into the early morning. He felt uneasy about Ryoko. Just before he went to bed the night before, Ryoko seemed like she was trying to sneak out. Her eyes worried him, they were cold and scared. He had never seen them look like that in his life.
"What's wrong, Ryoko?" He followed her into the dining room, where the back door was.
"I-" but she couldn't choke out the words, and when she finally spoke, he could tell she was trying to hide a tremor in her voice. "I'm just going for a walk, that's all." She looked down at the floor. She didn't seem to want to look at his face
He reached for her hand. What was bothering her? "Ryoko, please… What's wrong?" he asked gently. She turned her face up to his, but she quickly looked down again. Not before he had seen a tear roll down her cheek. Her cold hand slipped from his grasp.
She reached for the door and stepped out into the cool night. A breezed tumbled into the house and caught Tenchi's bare chest. The sudden chill made him shiver. Without looking back, Ryoko whispered to him "Please don't wait up for me," and she teleported away.
Despite what she had asked, Tenchi grabbed a book, sat on the couch and prepared to stay up to welcome her home. He was hoping she would talk to him then. He may have been able to wait up for her if he hadn't worked in the field early that morning. He had fallen asleep at around two A.M. on the couch, and had woken up stiff and aching.
"Where has she gone?" he whispered to himself. He knew that Aeka would be at the cliff a fair distance from the house that overlooked the forest. His feet moved in that direction and he hoped that Aeka might have seen Ryoko.
~*~
Anger, fear and self-loathing ripped through her body. In her anguish, she hadn't noticed the soft change from dark to day. Her thrashing around had cleared the trees and bracken around her on the ground. She was cold and anemic from the long hours of tears and from the pain she caused herself. The scratches from the thorny bushes began to burn, and her bruises were sore. Now she lay on her side, her body trembling from fatigue. Tears soaked her face, ran down her neck and were absorbed into her kimono.
"That's the one you made for yourself after ruining Tenchi's mother's, isn't it Ryoko?"
"Kagato," she spit out the word like vomit. She saw him sitting on a stump near where she lay. She knew that he was dead, yet he seemed so real. His memory plagued her dreams and was now in her waking conscience.
He laughed. The noise bubbling from him made bile rise in Ryoko's throat. "Oh, but dear, sweet Ryoko. Don't you see that's what you are? You're the plague, not I. Even now at the Masaki house. What have you ever done to contribute? And what about all those lives you stole?"
Ryoko whimpered, "But… but Tenchi… he said that I was a good person… he believes-"
"No matter what you tell yourself, Ryoko, he will never love you. You are a demon. You are a tool of mass destruction," Kagato taunted her.
She gripped her legs tighter in the fetal position. With what strength she could muster, she meekly whispered, "But you're the one that made me this way. Washu missed her real son and she just wanted a child of her own. It's you that made me become a demon," she choked on the last word.
"Now, now Ryoko," Kagato chided, crossing his arms, "Don't deny your past. You are what you are. I only disciplined you."
Rage built inside Ryoko's body. Anger seethed through her veins. She gripped her fists tightly. "You beat me senseless when I refused to satisfy your bloodlust. You raped my mind. You made me believe I didn't deserve love."
He smirked wickedly. "I raped your body, too. Or don't you remember?"
Tears swelled in Ryoko's eyes as the memory with Kagato came into her mind. The fear that she had when he first stole away her innocence returned.
"I remember it well, Ryoko. When you were weak and broken, you would cry out for me to stop, but you yourself could never fight it. Did I ever tell you how much that urged me on? Oh, and those eyes of yours. They showed your utter fear. You should have learned to mask your fear from me. I feed off terror," he whispered and his voice lolled around in Ryoko's mind. She could feel him stand and walk closer to her. Her muscles tensed and she squeezed her eyes shut. Then he leaned down and whispered in her ear, "But do you want to know what was much better than all of that, Ryoko?"
"Please stop," she whimpered.
"Discipline." He hissed. "Disciplining you was much more joy than I could ever have found in my life. To know that I had a weapon of mass destruction in my possession that loved and feared me. Because, like a dog, Ryoko, no matter how bad I beat you, you would crawl back to me."
This took Ryoko's sanity. With newfound strength she forced herself to stand. Anger replaced her sorrow. Now only the urge to kill this phantom was in her mind. Energy had already begun gathering, ready to form an attack. "I never crawled back to you, you bastard! You had to come drag me back to that hellhole you called a ship! I never, ever loved you. I'll kill you again, I swear it!" she screamed out in rage. Then she let loose the awesome amount of energy she had gathered and threw it at Kagato. To her dismay, the attack passed right through him, burning all the trees in its path. He was just an illusion. A cruel joke that her mind was playing with her. His vision faded, his crooked smile still taunting her.
Ryoko threw her body to the ground and cried out for Tenchi. She needed him by her side. She wanted him to tell her that it was all right, and that the things that Kagato had said weren't true.
"But they are, dearest Ryoko," Kagato's voice slithered through her mind. "And this I tell you is no joke, no illusion of your mind. I had a son, Ryoko. I mean, after you got caught, I needed someone to wreak havoc on the universe for those seven hundred years. He never got caught like you did. He wasn't a failure."