Sanctuary and Asylum -99-

Forward-Forewarned:

***

In the aftermath of torment---our aliens find their foresight.

By the gravity of freedom---our friends search out their starlight.

***

Regardless of the details that might deter new interests from bringing themselves up to this point, these are the final verses. Sanctuary and Asylum, begun at [.33] and continued through 66, will ^not^ be abandoned.

Once again, to all those who have not yet read Sanctuary please do. I'm grateful for all consideration and recommend beginning from the beginning to anyone who wants to enjoy the story.

---

There are a number of whoever's gratitudes, compliments, and questions still to answer directly, and I plan to do so an Afterward-Aftermath. Till then, there are only a few things needed to properly welcome those invaluable individuals who've come this far for an ending.

The last third will be finished in least time, and just as sections have been ever mired in over-ambition, so will they again be burdened with cliché. I am offering neither a warning nor a preemptive apology here; fanfiction, by its very nature, begs for wasted and regretted time. A metaphorical synopsis rhyme does little to sweeten the upturned palms, but like its predecessors, it is intended to encourage readers to touch their heads, and mouths, with new ideas, if second thoughts.

However the characters may have exercised their insight up to this point, it is now easy to assume that the future of Tenchi and his family will rely on their 'foresight', on how they project themselves adjusting to an 'aftermath'. Seeking a guide, a consort, a 'starlight', is a common theme in almost every story, but with so much space and so much 'gravity' for the performers to consider it might be easiest to recycle, or sacrifice the carnival altogether. When the end comes, I hope to have brought them and their audience something more.

***

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:

Isolate perpetually transient items from freshly sterilized areas.

Tenchi Muyo: Sanctuary and Asylum

-Verse Eleven is Shadow-

***

Her rain is like black rust. And melts down heavy on dreaming heads.

It cuts through.

She floods the haunting roads of the past. Like the dark night embraces a shadow.

A fold in time brings her madness. Worn from an age of wars.

A sovereign pain.

A will tattered by a thousand storms. An explosion of memories echo in the skull.

Faith in this.

Will bring us all.

To her.

We will know.

And feel

All that is real.

-Neurosis (Sovereign)

***

"Snow storms in Tokyo have-"

Tenchi killed the well-dressed anchor with a button.

"I'm home! Boy oh boy it's cold out there!" Nobuyuki slammed the front door and eagerly escaped his snow-caked jacket.

"Welcome home dad," Tenchi offered some warmth as he tossed the TV remote to the other side of the couch, "we saved some dinner for you."

"Thanks, I'm starving."

Sasami stepped out of the kitchen with a dishtowel and freshly dried plate.

"Welcome home Mr. Misaki, I already made you a plate, you shouldn't have to reheat it too long."

"Let's hope not." Nobuyuki hurried into the kitchen and prepared the microwave. It took him a few tries to get a similar greeting to Mihoshi through the clatter of dishes.

"It was really good." Tenchi added over his shoulder.

"^Little Washu didn't seem to think so^." Sasami mumbled to herself as she weakly set the dish on the counter and herself on the couch, making a lap for a sluggish Ryo-ohki.

Tenchi opened his mouth with a smile to make friendly, but the pleasantry-momentum had expired. He closed his eyes and sighed.

"Come on Sasami, you know your food is the best. Washu's just--- wanting to spend more time with grandpa, that's all."

"Yeeeah, I know." Sasami brushed away his reassurance rudely enough for an eye-role. Tenchi told himself that time and times were more than enough to excuse less than the usual sweet self, but he still had to swallow.

Aeka entered the living room with a polite bow. Nobuyuki promptly raised his chopsticks above a stuffed smile. She was walking in Tenchi's direction when Ryoko phased in and sat down by his side.

Cocooning herself in an afghan tightly enough to leave only the remote free, Ryoko flipped through the channels with surly disinterest. Tenchi's gulp and Aeka's glare were both lost in the rejuvenated babble. She barely breathed between odd shivers.

The only thing on Tenchi's mind was an escape, preferably a tactful one. He'd been forming them every time he even smelled the space between the two girls. In a double-dare he looked away from the friend next to him to dare a glance at Aeka. She had already sat down next to her sister, petting Ryo-ohki and speaking hesitantly. The cabbit hardly seemed to notice.

"Don't worry Sasami, she did take some with her."

"Forget it." Sasami hung her head lower and let her hands rest along her legs.

Aeka looked up and caught Tenchi watching them. He seemed to recognize her plea for assistance and forced himself not to look away. He couldn't speak of course, but at least he could smile. Instead of looking away before she smiled back, she missed his surprise as she instead passed over him to Ryoko.

"Ryoko, isn't dinner always delicious?" The diplomatic tenderness was obviously more for the sake of Sasami's doubt than her rival's isolation.

Ryoko changed the channel again without an answer.

"Ryoko, I asked you a question." Agitation trembled in Aeka's voice.

The pattern had continued steadily since their forcefully indirect reactions to Washu's good news, one tightening and sharpening their manners while the other let them rust.

"Ryoko?!"

Sasami picked up Ryo-ohki and gently set her down on the cushion next to her. She began standing slowly, clenched fists, and closed eyes. Only Ryoko was able to ignore the obviously imminent announcement. The formality of her movements snapped as she flung her teary eyes open and tried to shout in both directions at once.

"Am I the only one around here who has to be happy all the time?! Can't I just be grumpy once in a while, ^huh^?!" She pulled in a harsh breath through her nose, igniting a fierce tremble in her fists.

"Sasami!" Even Aeka's gasp was held in close.

"I've---I've got just as much right to still be upset as anyone!" The tears broke through her tight eyes.

Without a forethought, Tenchi looked over at Ryoko. He only saw the side of her face, still lost in a dull TV glaze. By the lack and distribution of color it was hard to tell if she was drunk again before Sasami recalled their attention with an even louder outburst.

"You all go on about how we need to remember that he's dead, that we can all go back to normal, well he's never ^really^ gonna be dead and nothing's ever ^really^ gonna go back to normal!" She began to sob again, and managed one last pitiful cry before rushing off.

"I just want us to all have dinner together!"

The door slammed down the hall and silenced each movement in the house. Everyone remained mute till moments later Ryoko rose, letting the thick afghan fall absently around her feet. She held her arms solemnly and hung her head, but didn't shiver.

"I'm going to bed."

She closed the study door softly. Nobuyuki had cleared away a good deal of papers to set up a cot and space heater for her, and had received similarly lively thanks. Tenchi suspected that she would have exited this way regardless of the content or mood of the room.

---

After finishing his dinner, Nobuyuki helped Mihoshi finish the kitchen in silence, leaving them with a forcibly more cheerful 'goodnight'. Tenchi bent and began refolding the afghan.

"Thanks, Tenchi." Mihoshi murmured as she prepared her space on the couch behind him.

"No problem, Mihoshi." He answered kindly without turning and put the folded comforter on the couch where it could be properly unfolded again. Aeka offered her own soft voice as he walked past.

"Sleep well, Lord Tenchi."

"You too, Aeka."

There were times when Tenchi wished the stairs wouldn't creak so much, and times when he wished Aeka hadn't picked up Ryoko's talent for sneaking up on him.

"Lord Tenchi."

He looked to his side with a start and almost tripped on a step. She matched his pace without ever looking over at him.

"I want to apologize for Sasami's behavior, she is at a time---when it's hard for-"

"It's okay, Aeka." Tenchi tried to sound like he knew some things about enduring and explaining.

They walked down the hall towards his room with a few silent steps before Aeka continued with a harsher note of difficulty.

"I would also like to apologize for miss Ryoko."

"Huh?" Tenchi glanced over in disbelief.

"I have been trying to set an example, to get her to stop ^sulking^ all the time." Aeka sighed. "But it seems I am only making things worse."

Tenchi looked away, blinking slow towards his room.

"She's right you know."

"What? Who is?"

"Sasami."

"H-How do you mean?"

"It is probably stupid to think we can all just---go back to normal. Even if we'd seen him die ourselves, we'd still be-" Tenchi stopped and looked back down at Aeka. Her eyes were hidden under the rim of her hair.

"All I mean is that we're all trying to deal with this our own way. We all-" something clenched in Tenchi's throat, but he swallowed it quickly, "we know what each other went through. And we all tried to say our peace up at the shrine."

Tenchi felt the memories vie for which wall to tie his innards to; his grandfather saying a prayer for an empty urn, Mihoshi crying and crying without making a sound, and he'd sworn Washu really had sent her mechanical double to do nothing. It had already occurred to him that his Grandfather had actually been the only one to speak at the ceremony.

"Ryoko wasn't there." Aeka reminded him darkly.

Hating to think of things like bad dreams ever more, Tenchi closed his eyes tightly to scrape for the next way to dilute the animosity lingering in her throat. He couldn't deny his own distress with Ryoko's behavior, but planned never to admit it, to root it in Aeka.

"I think Ryoko still blames herself for what happened to Grandpa." Tenchi tried to speak calmly, then tried to remember without thinking about how much she didn't tell them of that last confrontation at the shrine.

Success was mixed as his next words were unnervingly even, and delivered at the end of the walk to his door.

"And I think Seita must have tried hardest to get her to---to-"

"Join him," Aeka finished with even less sympathy. Tenchi opened his mouth, but knew it wouldn't work. He hoped Aeka could sense how much it pained him to hear her talk this way, but she merely continued in a coarse mumble.

"^At least she only had herself to worry about^."

"Aeka." He reflexively asked for civility, unsure of who he was defending.

"I-I'm sorry, Lord Tenchi. Please forgive me I-" The sobs began to rise in her throat, and she placed a hand tightly over her eyes. Her head lowered and Tenchi thought he felt her hair press against him before she even moved.

"It's okay." He could the feel the words vibrate in his throat as clearly as he could feel her hair smoothed beneath his hands, but wasn't sure if she could hear him.

Aeka leaned against him so forcefully that he almost had to support himself against the door to his room. The tears soaked warmly through his shirt, begging him to remain strong and screaming at him to join. She chose for him, backing away and wiping her face with the sleeve of her kimono.

"Thank you Tenchi, for everything," she began with a tiny sniffle, "I would not have been able to make it through this ordeal without you."

Tenchi heard her leave the title out of his name, the affection in her tone almost soothed the lingering voice that accused him of full responsibility. He hung his head with a heavy exhale, hoping only to wish her goodnight without more credit or criticism in any direction. Hearing her take a step forward he began raising his head in time to have Aeka spread her hands over his shoulders and kiss him on the cheek so close to his lips that he inadvertently kissed her back.

"Please sleep well." She whispered, stepping back and down the hall without another word or glance up from the floor in front of her.

The silk was still melting his face to the floor when he stepped into his room. All the rest of him was running, pumping him across the world too fast for any reason.

***

Aeka passed by Nobuyuki's study and stopped after a few steps. She tilted her head to the side with a suspicious expression before walking on to her room with a scowl. For some reason she hadn't heard any snoring.

***

The railing creaked near the entrance to Yosho's office as Washu leaned, eyes closed to the sensation of icy winds rustling her hair. She thought back to her lab, waiting for her at the bottom of all those steps, with climate control and the images of countless different environments all at her command. It had taken far less time than she'd imagined getting almost everything back online again, even with her post-robotic commitment. Yet, as sterile-pleasing as this was, she knew it would be impossible to duplicate the exact feeling of tranquility she could have at the shrine. With all the snow she had expected it to be more dormant than peaceful, but was glad to be wrong.

"These coats of yours are quite impressive." Katshuhito walked up behind her with two steaming mugs and a content smile.

Washu pinched and massaged the corner of her wide collar, looking down at the change of color in the thick plush material. The old man stood next to her, working the handles into one hand and using the other to brush some snow off the railing to make a place for their drinks. The slushy swipe ended with a dull plop in the growing mass.

"But we are still in the early stages of winter, we might not be able to stand out here like this much longer." He blew on his tea, looking down at her cup, then not quite so far down at her face. It was hard for him to tell what she was looking at.

"So what do you think of my decision?" He tried again after a little serious throat clearing.

"What decision?" She asked plainly, if genuinely ignorant.

"My 'retirement'." He clarified himself as if the idea were still playful to him, and as if she'd only been passing by when he'd made the announcement months ago.

Washu quirked her mouth to the side and picked up her tea. She closed her eyes and shook with an almost inaudible chuckle, mixing breath with tea steam.

"I guess this place could use a little freshening up." Her tease came out like an unenthusiastic joke.

"There is nothing wrong with Misaki Shrine," Katshuhito frowned seriously and took another sip, "it is merely a practical matter."

"Oh?"

"Yes, more of the older patrons have begun making comments on my longevity."

"I see." Washu stepped back from the railing and looked down at her tea for enough time to prepare her next long drink...now she could give the tiny dregs at the bottom the same blank stare.

"Are you sure you're not just trying to wash your hands of something." The personal question came out decidedly more genuine and less reserved. She moved her head very slowly towards him, catching his face in time to see him pocket his glasses and take a very deep breath. As far as she could tell he was restraining either the stress of indignation or indecision. Washu looked back out at the sleeping forest.

"You never really told us what happened up here," the long-jaded trickster continued to prod him without regard for his difficulty or her own class, "or was that ceremony your way of closing the book on the whole thing."

Katshuhito let out his breath almost forcefully, but took his tea with utmost patience.

"As I recall, Miss Washu, you never really told us what happened 'down there'."

Washu's face darkened. She quickly swallowed the last of her tea and set the mug down. She pursed her lips roughly rather than wipe them, looking deeper into the forest without any apparent intention of a reply. Not a branch moved for the wind, even as she brought more into her field of vision. And still more fell under her scrutiny; mechanically analyzing the spectrums of the two color extremes, extracting a pattern from the various heights of the trees and curves of the forest floor. It would translate to numeric code easily enough.

No real point in being up here, then. She should be back in her lab. Now. What was she thinking, coming up here like this? He won't give any straight answers, and she can't. That feeling: eyes pressing together, jaw slouching, it means 'time to abort'.

"I-"

*No. Yosho, please don't. Neither of us is ready yet.

Washu tried to close her eyes, but only dropped her head. Some of the larger roots were still visible, and she knew she could see the life flowing through them and knew it made her feel metallic, sterile-separated. Wanting Yosho to know her thoughts was new to her, and she hated futile stubbornness. If there was any chance of him turning back, he had to take it now.

"I believe what happened, between Seita and myself, was as much between he and I," Yosho looked down at his tea, uncertain of how to be lost again, "as it was between us and ourselves."

Impossible, but it was going to hurt even more in a second, when she ignored what it had taken for him to say this, and dismantled what it gave to her. She could estimate to the number how long she crushed and melted her expression at the far corner of the shrine, and count to the decimal till it was ready to even be dropped at his feet.

"Though I'm not sure if that makes any sense."

The sound of Yosho's uncertainty was the memory of his deterioration, but disagreeing with him before she knew why pushed out the other pains like a callous tyrant. After he drained his tea and set the mug on the railing next to its match her eyes managed to follow his hands up to his chest. Swallowing and speaking made her hurt like a little girl.

"Actually, it does."

Yosho turned toward her, hands in his pockets like a man rather than a priest, and she could feel him looking at her like a woman rather than a genius child. The jacket's pockets could connect, and she saw him twist something on his wrist.

A few soft hums of energy set the tone for his voice. "Then, could you at least be yourself around me?"

The vulnerability was too old, or naive to even border on flirtation, but Washu wanted to blush so badly. She pulled her coat closer against more breeze than was there, wishing he was in it.

It was possible, truly, she could let him know everything, how weakened she felt, how all her experience was being surrounded by wounded animals, whimpering that she wasn't really a doctor anymore. This was the right and best thing to do, but she knew it was a huge wave headed to break a damn in the sky; justification wanted more answers, and wouldn't let its opportunity go.

"Yosho, after all this, has your 'faith' in anything, has it changed?"

Washu pulled her coat closer still, shivering now that she deserved to.

"Yes." Yosho answered solemnly after another real breeze had fully come and gone.

For all the strength it took to face him then, she was disheartened to see his eyes closed, then struck dumb to see them reflect her own forced reason.

"I cannot uproot the seeds of doubt, each day will be a battle now simply to continue what I'd made second nature centuries ago. And whatever he did to me---I know I must have helped him."

He swallowed almost invisibly.

"So yes, my faith, my self, they will never be as strong again."

Yosho closed his eyes. And at his sincere, hopeful smile Washu closed her own to feel his every breath.

"But even though I am now less sure of things, I am also less afraid. It is my faith in all of you that has strengthened. Tenchi, Aeka, even yourself, you've all endured something that no shrine or dojo could have imagined preparing for. Now we have the even greater opportunity to survive it."

He turned and opened his eyes to reach for the mugs, shaking the dregs out before turning.

"I simply hope this new young man takes enough time to-" Yosho made a sound like a hiccup as he startled back a step and dropped the mugs, not bothering to watch as they shattered. He stared eye to eye and to the rest of Washu.

She shifted her folded arms in the slightly more snug-fitting coat and looked down at the pile of shards between them. With eyes closed tentatively, she stepped forward with a crunch of ice and ceramic. Her voice was throaty and anxious.

"I try not to depend on second chances."

Washu held Yosho by the neck with both hands, making him tense for the surprising warmth. Slow melting movements closed his eyes and brought his hands up to the small of her back. She leaned and stretched, taunted and cursed back at reasons while they were momentarily taken off guard by so many ancient and fragile ideas.

Their kiss deepened and traded angles before Washu finally pulled back, waiting for Yosho to open his eyes. It was strangely paralyzing to see someone look at her like a benevolent Goddess, yet the strange mixture of desire and fear did look handsome on him.

His first steps inside her emerald pools quickly retreated as panic shimmered across them like a sudden memory.

Washu removed her hands and stepped back, looking down and walking past him.

"I'm sorry, I have to go." She muttered, summoning her laptop and typing at it as she quickly descended the stairs.

Yosho extended a hand and an anxious expression shortly before she walked into a subspace shortcut. He turned back and looked at what remained of his favorite two mugs. As he bent to pick up some of the larger shards he stopped and moved his head toward the forest, sensing what might have been the death throws of a distant earthquake.

***

The air above the trees was nearly freezing. Ryoko, however, could fly thorough it fast enough to defiantly invert it into a burning pressure against her face. She'd already bit back at the numbness in her fingers by making them crush themselves. Another amusing thought combusted with the rest; she imagined her sweat pushing back into her hair and freezing it in an even more monstrous style.

With a snarl blown out to a grotesque howl, the wind shouted back even louder. She flew closer to treetops and spread her eyes gleefully at the rage that brought the rough and moldy white sea even closer.

And she wondered if she were going fast enough to set these Popsicle sticks on fire yet.

Her teeth clenched tighter and her chest began to shake, reminding her of what it was like to laugh when there was absolutely nothing funny about a situation. Kagato had taught her how to do it.

Thus she slowed, but not enough to make the laughing stop. Gloves full of angry swarms still shook her by the skull and tightened her smile. Finally stopped above a small clearing, she looked down to see her own ghostly reflection, a tiny glare of color on a frozen pond. She tried to push back the hands in her head with her own. Dry-ice feathers were soft for a moment.

The laughter was still clearly audible, pecking out of her throat in a repetition so much like a little girl giggling and gasping back sobs.

"Pop-si-cle sticks..." Her voice jumped out in a scrambled Morse code.

"Trees. Trees. Treeeeeeeeeeeeeeees!"

Ryoko grabbed two fistfuls of hair close to the root, now a deceptively strong and potentially razor-edged plastic. She fused her eyes shut, then flung them open as wide as possible. Her reflection on the ice below looked like a stain poorly scrubbed off a wall.

Clenched hands slid out of her hair and clapped above her head, praise and pleas as every muscle in her body strangled itself. The energy rising between her hands was beginning to burn, ready to vaporize the rest of her if she didn't let it out.

"STIIICKS!"

The scream brought her hands down and aimed a blast directly at the bit of color on the pond. Dirty ice and smoke made it past her fangs during the moment of bliss when everything disappeared beneath her blinding wrath.

Weak, she panted, almost too drained to stay afloat. Desperate breaths clenched her fists tight against her thighs and sank her toward the crater's edge. She blinked lifelessly, guessing it was probably a little smaller than the one left behind after her fight with Seita. If she didn't move her head she wouldn't have to see anything; smoke and black rocks instead of snow and trees. The laughing had stopped so she'd been right.

After positioning herself on a cooler boulder she made two efforts to look up just so far. She was deep enough to only see the stars scattered around the rim of her hole.

"You really should be more careful, you know. I don't exactly have power to spare for repairs like this." Washu tried to call it teasing.

Ryoko whirled at the small excess of red hair making its careful way around the scorched stone. She almost instantly turned back and clenched her fists.

"Then don't"

Another hop and Washu stood next to her.

"What's going on Ryoko? You've always had a temper, but releasing this much energy could do some serious damage to this planet, not to mention yourself."

No response, then definitely no response.

"I suppose I should be grateful that the other gems are still in the sword, I haven't seen you release this much power since-" Washu trailed off at the first gleam of pain in the only visible corner of Ryoko's eye. She cursed herself to have needed it.

"Ryoko I-"

"And it still wasn't enough." She reflected in a small, strained voice, easy for a genius to imitate.

"What?"

"I tried so hard, but I couldn't do a damn thing. I couldn't protect Tenchi. I couldn't even protect that silly old man." Overeager sobs shook her head in a choking motion. Clenching fists did little to steady it.

Alongside her daughter, Washu looked helplessly into the crater for long moments, barely glancing to see if clogged flow had given in or retreated. Silence amid a freshly desolate setting began to wear thin. She tried to arrange the correct words, but the dead air itself began to frustrate her and she almost kicked a dirt clod down into the darkness simply to make a sound.

Before the next chance for an idle distraction, Ryoko turned to level her eyes at Washu, then to curse her with them.

"Why didn't you DO anything?!"

Washu could only regard the mired tone with a stunned stare.

"All that time...you knew what he was doing." Her voice hushed a little by the next futile choking back battle.

"I did everything I-" Washu defended weakly after her own swallow.

"The Hell you did!" Fresh tears pierced the moonlight as Ryoko jerked up and bore her fangs. "You ^knew^ what was happening, but you just hid in your little lab while he...while he-" her sobs came so forcefully this time that Ryoko had to cough, clutching her ribs. The black silence seemed ready to return for its next harvest.

Washu was clenching her fists now as well, her newly healed fractures still hurt but all she could think of was violently embracing her daughter, begging forgiveness, trying to convince her that it was over.

"It was---it was just like Kagato." The sobs were gone, replaced by a piercing mutter that vibrated out like last words.

"Some bastard, playing with my mind, then threatening Tenchi---and I couldn't do anything." Ryoko sank onto the rocks, propping her elbows on her knees while her hands tried to breech the infection. "And you! And you just ^watched^!

"Now wait just a damn minute," Washu shook, overwhelmed.

"I did everything I could! Just because I couldn't get rid of him with a push of a button doesn't mean I just gave up." Fury had moved steadily forward, standing her over Ryoko to drip her own tears onto the quivering shock of hair.

"I didn't stay in my lab because I was afraid; I needed him to be bored with me. I couldn't have him discovering the containment field."

"It didn't work anyway!"

Ryoko's voice echoed over the crater, the last vibration tearing Washu's best nerve into a furious calm.

"It was all I could do."

They stood fuming. Washu waited no longer than was absolutely necessary for Ryoko to speak, then frowned as harshly as she could.

"Kagato is dead Ryoko, I removed the part of your physiology that allowed him to control you, and Seita," her teeth ground off to one side, "he's gone too. If we can't accept when scum like them are out of our lives, then there's no point in even fighting."

Calming breaths conquered and subsided. Washu took Ryoko's next silence for understanding or exhaustion and tried to offer a hand up regardless.

"Is Seita really dead?" Ryoko's voice rose like a vengeful corpse, her words digging rotted fingers into her mother's tendons.

"W-What?" The genius child's little hand came trembling back to her mouth or throat.

"Is he really gone, or do you still have him in a 'test tube' somewhere?" Ryoko raised her face but only to Washu's chest.

"You can't be serious," Ryoko's previous dying voice was even easier to mirror this time.

"Are you waiting to put him under a better microscope?" Ryoko continued, climbing to her feet and starring down into the fleshy part of scientist's heart. "Are you still tying to figure out how you can use his powers for you own-"

Ryoko's feet worked automatically to keep the smack from knocking her over.

"H-How ^dare you^! How can you even think that I would-" Washu stared back up with vicious denouncement.

"Tell me, Washu." Still dead.

"I just did!"

"Tell me." Still dead and not convinced.

"Ryoko, stop this." Weakened but still convincing.

"Tell me."

Washu folded her arms and calmed her eyes closed.

"I don't have to be badgered here. I told you, 'he's gone'."

For a fractioned moment Ryoko stood like a cemetery statue feigning remorse. Washu went pale as the stone cracked and flooded, eyelids forced down over golden fires, teeth clenched a breeze away from cracking.

*Tell me.

The shock of Ryoko's first forced communication made Washu clutch her skull in wonder. Her next breath was dense.

*He's gone, I'm not lying to you.

*Tell me.

*This isn't going to help anything, you have to believe me!

*TELL ME!

Washu's stomach almost turned at the sudden terrifying awareness of another presence trying to force through the interlocked walls of her private mind. It was difficult to search through memories, even for her, and the agonized struggle on her daughter's face told well enough the inevitable outcome.

This sudden fight to overcome her mistrust by making it obsolete drug back a distant memory of a child exploding into violence at their own parent for denying them some indulgence, kicking and screaming like a wild animal. Through the ordeal the mother could only stand fast, not fearing any physical harm, but agonizing through every tiny desperate blow.

Washu waited with tortured patience till Ryoko collapsed to her knees, clutching her head in every place at once, sobbing again at full force. Washu bit tears out of her lip and bent once more to offer a hand.

"Please Ryoko, please trust me."

The short width of a deep chasm remained between them, Ryoko's teleportation echoing across it like a muffled tuning fork.

***

*Focus. Control. Action.

*Focus. Control. Action.

*Form. Form.

*Focus. Control. Action.

*Action. Action. Action!

*Focus.

*Control.

*Action.

*Focus. Control. Action.

*...

*Stupid! *^%$#$ing! Frozen! Firewood!

Tenchi looked at the third-spilt log refreezing onto the axe. He flexed his hands and lifted Thor's Hammer just above his shoulders, bringing it down on the tree stump with a battle cry that was supposed to sound much mightier than it did. The hammer's head hit its target at a slight enough angle for the whole tool to tip and fall to the side.

Some snow lodged in his gloves as he caught himself, but at least he kept his rear dry. Every grit of ice melted against his throbbing palms before he even stood up all the way. He almost expected them to start steaming.

He looked at his progress, forgetting the prevailing quiet of the entire day and feeling every second of the two hours he'd spent to chop half a week's worth of firewood. The blisters were eager to rise through the gloves' padding, the sweat was running in happy rivers beneath his superbly insulated jacket, and his jaw still jumped with the recoil from each and every swing. Tenchi felt his temper beginning to waver and he held it back, not with any intent of keeping calm; he merely wanted to make the most of it.

The tool stayed on the ground till his teeth were properly clenched, cursing incoherently as he thrust it forward at the stump to knock the log off. It finally dislodged when he stopped counting and rolled into the snow as he thrust the axe forward again like a ski poll to balance himself. His fists on the end of the handle dug into his belly so painfully that he flung the tool into the snow, hoping it would at least strike something wooden, not caring that it wouldn't make the late twilight any easier to see in.

With a few stumbles and a series of raged breaths, he pulled off his jacket and yanked the sword from his belt. Jurai illuminated the snow like one big blue Christmas light.

The small reserve stared back, daring him to step forward and make mulch instead of kindling. He stabilized the blade with his other hand and blew violent steam around it. A grin spread up one side of his face.

"Now why didn't I think of this in the first place?" Tenchi asked himself deviously. It was easy to envision the blade flashing in the snow like a series of stylish photos, then he would stand back coolly as the wood lay unchanged for a moment before falling to pieces. But by the first step forward he was frozen. His grandfather's voice crept up his spine and down his hand, lowering the sword as a memory made its permanence known.

Tenchi had been using the sword for just such a purpose in the autumn after Kagato's defeat. Katshuhito had snuck up on him and taken the sword so quickly that he'd almost swung his empty hand at the next log. After checking the ground, he swiftly turned around and saw his grandfather standing there, holding the deactivated hilt up like a stern endorsement.

He'd know precisely what the problem was, but the foolish reflexes in his mouth hadn't.

"Hey grandpa! What's the big idea?"

His face had fallen into fear at the shadow spreading over him, and he'd felt it; and he'd hoped it would be enough to save him.

"Tenchi, I've told you the history of this sword, haven't I?"

A corner of the energy his grandfather used to remain composed had been enough to scare out an audible gulp.

"Uh...yeah."

"And you know that this particular sword was designed specifically for the defense of home and family."

"Yes, sir." Tenchi hung his head in what he hoped would pass for a bow.

He'd heard his grandfather take a step forward, and prepared to have a lesson knocked into him. To his surprise his grandfather had only taken his hand and ceremoniously closed it around the sword.

"You must treat this instrument as a part of your soul, Tenchi; with the respect and honor it deserves."

With that he'd merely walked away.

Now Tenchi watched as the blue glow returned to its proper place. Never for a moment did he believe his grandfather had been lenient with him, and he'd never called upon the sword again, save for practice on special occasions, and with Seita.

*No wait...I was using the Lighthawk when I-

At the memories of his sixth guest's varied faces Tenchi was ready to shiver rage despite the temperature inside his clothes. But there was no cry for vengeance or whimper of guilt; he felt his grip on the sword loosen as he put it back in its holster without even glancing down. He did not relive his 'mother's' appearance, nor did he see the girls' faces as they lanced themselves to retell their own experiences.

Nonetheless, he thought his reaction appropriate, to experience his emotions shutting down for a moment to observe something he'd hardly even let himself try to understand. He simply thought about Seita's unconscious body, how it had felt when he helped Washu carry it down to the lab. Though his frame remained tall, his body had been as pungent and frail as a stray dog.

Gradually, but formally this time, every guise, as the clever and cultured benefactor, and as the arrogant Ghost of Madness, they all screamed claws out of separate falling cages, smothered under that drained and miserable voice begging for judgment.

With a determined exhale, Tenchi harshly reined in and disciplined his thoughts.

*Snap out of it, Tenchi. I don't care how many times you have to tell
yourself this but: he's DEAD!

*Washu said that she even atomized the samples she took of him! So come on, think about something else. At least try to get some more firewood ready before it's too dark to see.

Tenchi picked up the axe and positioned his hands with a few resolute breaths. He focused on his teachings again, making sure every blow would count after making sure the next log was smaller.

"Hmph. Maybe grandpa has some ancient---traditional---Jurain wood splitter- --in a different cave somewhere---that he's just---not telling me about." Tenchi sarcastic thoughts spaced themselves between each swing. The log split apart and he smiled, searching quickly for another before he'd even set aside the ready pieces. "Heck---why couldn't I just get Ryoko---to do this---I'm sure she'd have no problem---getting ^her^ soul dirty to-"

Tenchi's first swing into the next log stayed imbedded. He merely stood there holding the axe, a struck and gradually unsettled expression clouding over him. Each thought chanted its way into his head in whispers too hurried and urgent to stop for his mouth or let him breathe. He'd tired of frozen air anyway.

*Ryoko.

*I've hardly said more than two words to her since---'Washu's news'.

*Of course, it almost seems like she's been avoiding me.

*But she's been that way to everyone.

*But I still can't stand it when she acts so...

*'Hopeless'? No, no it can't be that bad. It's more...more like
she's just 'detached'.

* But she should be getting back to her usual self by now.

With a shake of his head, Tenchi tried to continue where he's left off.

*Maybe she really wanted to do the job herself.

The log came down harder this time, but froze again. This accusing theory shoved in something blunt and heavy to drag its way down his throat. He let go of the axe, it teetered but stayed upright in the log as he reflexively massaged for an obvious lump. The coldest wind yet failed to sting his clenched face as he tried to recycle the idea as soon as possible.

*No.

*She's not really like that.

*And who am I to judge anyway?

*It's not like I'm---'back to normal'---or anything.

*No, this is all probably just her way of dealing with it.

*She'll be okay.

Tenchi lifted the log on his axe and began hammering down again. It was nearly split and nearly impossible to see.

*She should be proud; at least she was able to stand her ground against him.

The axe was getting heavier, and his breaths seemed to be giving more to his thoughts.

*It's strange.

*I was so sure he'd come to me that night for 'recruitment' too.

Two pieces fell on either side of the axe. Tenchi stared blankly at the new notch in the base stump as he relived every agonizing detail of the help he'd walked into. Those shared dreams were supposed to make his final decision easier. They were supposed to relieve him of so much doubt and guilt. But he couldn't help but imagine it as Seita's last strike; to actually make the choice more complicated.

*They both care for me more than any friend I ever thought I'd have.

*But I knew that, right?

*They were both trying to protect ^me^ by not saying anything about Seita.

A helpless grin quivered up Tenchi's face, like a destitute man holding his last silver lining.

*Ryoko, she would try to watch over me no matter what.

*Such dedication...

The second part of his aided vision took every part of a long breath.

*But Aeka, such ^passion^.

*I would have never imagined in a million years that she felt so strongly about me

*It was like her entire soul revolved around mine.

Something similar in size, but impossibly more bitter began rolling down Tenchi's throat again, but he hardly wondered if it was out of place.

*It's like she's already pledged her life to me; all the while being so shy and reserved, but all the while being even crazier about me than-

Tenchi blinked slowly and shook his head again. Running from the decision didn't bring any mental metaphors this time, just a pain that made it to the roots of his teeth this time. He began to gather up the ice- sculpture firewood into its metal basket. It wasn't as heavy as it felt, couldn't be. His eyes closed on the last piece of wood, smooth for having its bark knocked off. Exhausted thoughts ran off to the warmest comfort they could find.

*Aeka, First Princess of Jurai. Out of all the nobles in the galaxy, she would give her life to have my love.

The idea was so instant and intensely comforting, making him forgo lingering feelings of failure for promises of soft hands and sweet eyes, reverently pressed against his chest. There could be no more worrying about who liked who, or whether someone was using someone else. A princess was madly in love with him, one so beautiful that-

His snowcap needed to be adjusted after he shook the perfumed satin clouds from his head. He made himself focus on caring the basket back to the house. It was best not to think too much in any one direction till everyone really started to feel more at home again.

After hurrying back to take the axe in with the firewood basket, Tenchi picked up his step and breathed out a more hopeful and lighthearted thought.

"I hope they saved some dinner for me."

***

Sasami picked up the two dressings and switched their positions on either side of the salad bowl. She straightened a few napkins then sighed back into the kitchen. An idea struck and she turned with a snap of her fingers, happy to remember that she had forgotten something. Her face sank at the sight of the same table, still perfectly set and ready. Mihoshi saw the chef's disappointment and tried to sound reassuring.

"What's wrong, Sasami? Everything's here, and it all looks very nice."

"Thanks Mihoshi, but I still feel like I must be forgetting something." Sasami crossed her arms and frowned at the table.

Ryoko phased in at the end of the table and set herself into a chair without a sound. The movement imitated something weightless rather than graceful. She kept her hands folded in her lap, lethargically pulling her head and shoulders down with them.

"Well there's one thing; we forgot Ryoko." Mihoshi closed her eyes and smiled a ready-made version of her bubbly voice.

Sasami smiled over at Mihoshi like a mother who couldn't tell her child about futility yet, and yet, she sat down adjacent to Ryoko with the mother's smile that would never stop teaching comfort.

"I know you don't like salad much, but I put some pieces of ham in it."

Ryoko coughed numbly, perhaps replying, perhaps just letting her throat gargle up whatever sound might suit. A tiny leak of air and she swallowed with obvious difficulty but bored pain. Sasami leaned forward invisibly and opened her eyes a little wider, making sure she wasn't seeing something stranger than her friend.

Oil and grime weighted Ryoko's hair with a sickly gloss. Telling herself not to pinch her steadily wrinkling nose, Sasami looked down and noticed that the thicker winter kimono was significantly wrinkled and darkened in a number of places.

She remembered the men she'd seen while shopping with Tenchi's father, emaciated and grizzled around their rag clothing. What had stuck in her mind was not the way Mr. Misaki walked past, taking care to ignore their hands and hold Sasami's tighter, but the less visible ones, perfectly motionless in tattered sleeping bag cocoons. She'd told herself that they just preferred to sleep during the day, but couldn't be certain that they were really sleeping at all.

Now, as she looked at her brave friend, she began feeling desperate to stop thinking about them.

"Well ^there^ you are, Ryoko!"

Aeka strode over with a dishtowel crumpling into her hands. She sat down roughly in the chair across from Sasami, also adjacent to Ryoko. The towel slapped onto the table before she even pulled her chair in. Normally she would have taken off her kitchen apron before coming to the table, but it seemed to go unnoticed as she leveled the mother of all uneven-distribution- of-labor glares.

"How nice of you to join us."

Her sarcasm killed any trace of true hospitality and all but killed itself in the process. Unable to get gratification from staring anger into an unkempt mass, she busied her eyes by removing her royal tiara and a special cloth from her sleeve. She spoke again in the same tone, unaffected by the rapid polishing the nearly invisible headpiece required.

"We certainly couldn't have prepared everything without your help."

A sway in Ryoko's hair came as the only sign of life, presumably caused by small breaths and not a smaller draft. Aeka moved her eyes over like a tank's turret, snapping them back when the target made nothing resembling a threat. From the look she ground into her headpiece it was the filthiest thing in Jurain history. Fancy-frail wood tested its imitation of a wishbone.

"Ryoko, we all try to do our part around here. If you don't want to speak to me that's more than fine as far as I'm concerned." Aeka restrained some anger, but forced the rest to show its force in soft tones.

"But I don't think it's too much to ask for you to simply ^try^ to help out around here."

Sasami and Mihoshi sank and recoiled but couldn't look away. Washu watched the front door hopefully, till she remembered that Nobuyuki wouldn't be coming through for another few hours. And so, with even more urgency, she turned to the back door; Tenchi should have been back by now. And thus, when she looked back at her daughter, draining lines began to scrawl her face. Even after she closed her eyes the mark of desperation remained. Her attempt at telepathy would have been obvious to anyone.

*Ryoko.

*Ryoko, please talk to me.

Nothing, a static and smoke imitation of the machinations normally echoing in her daughter's head even when she was shutting her out. It should have at least been more abrasive, but she figured there wasn't enough force behind things. In any case Aeka was already turning indifference into too much violence to ignore.

Despite the dishtowel, condiments and utensils rattled as Aeka slammed her headpiece against the table, all but baring her teeth.

"Damn it, Ryoko! Is this your latest tactic to infuriate me?! I know you haven't gone deaf, or mute, or anything but sulky! We all have a right to still be upset---but we all have a responsibility to acknowledge that there are other people living in this house!"

Aeka needed a quick breath to continue the lecture's force, giving Sasami enough to throw a surprised but nonetheless hurt expression.

" But, Aeka, Tenchi said we should all eat without him-" Her voice pleaded almost inaudibly, but loud enough for Aeka to redirect her anger in a flash.

"Stay out of this, Sasami!"

Pain quickly shocked young eyes open too wide to hold up, and the little princess began to imitate the accused. Aeka had already turned back with no more remorse than needed to scold an insolent kitchen drudge.

"Now answer me, Ryoko! I want to know right now: are you just going to stay like this for the rest of your miserable days? Just wander around half-alive without any regard for anyone?"

If it could have been a response then it also could have been a small amount of hair changing position; but Ryoko's head seemed to sink a little lower. Her face finally tightened enough to turn red, Aeka nearly shouted now as she leaned over the table to force a bit of eye contact.

"Do you think everyone should have to adjust to how rotten ^you^ feel, that you can just shanghai us all on your little self-pity trip?! It's over Ryoko! If you can't push out the thought of---of all THAT, then maybe you're better off somewhere else!"

Her chair felt its age as she forcefully realigned her posture, at first her closed eyes and deep breathing seemed to promise some kind of closure or abandonment, but Washu's mouth tightened as she saw Aeka do the same.

The First Princess tasted something sour, but chose to enslave the flavor rather than endure it. A piece of cruelty crept up her throat like phlegm, ready to strike, then ready to drip onto Ryoko's head in a calmly disgusted string.

"Are you ^really^ so wallowed in yourself? Do you need Washu to reexamine that head of yours?" Aeka turned in Washu's direction then turned back to Ryoko too quick to meet the scientist's sunken, but truly frightened gaze.

"How about it, Little Washu?" Aeka asked Ryoko. "Do you have any pills that might turn her into a civil human being for at least one evening?"

Washu merely tried to look under her daughter's hair again, eyes still pleading.

*Please, you have to stop this.

The white noise that replied wasn't any louder, but had finally grown significantly more abrasive. The scientist felt alone before a hostile crowd, hoping the last megaphone could keep it from becoming a mob.

*Ryoko. Daughter. I'll do anything I can...anything you want, just please talk to us!

Obviously not really expecting an answer from Washu, Aeka threw one last spiteful glare in hopes that Ryoko would raise her head in time to catch it. She exhaled once for frustration, then again for failure. But when she spoke again, ready to wash her hands of the unmoved and unresponsive parasite, her haughtiness began to waver. Pain confused and bloated with too many conflicting mixtures, her lecturer's podium began to waver.

"I hate that we can't be allies in this, Ryoko," ready to cry for half a second, Aeka quickly pored another layer of concrete to stand on, "but if you can't deal with life then that's ^your^ problem."

She sat still for a minute after another, nostrils flaring at the murdered air above their table, before picking up her headpiece and polishing it more gently, elbows held in close to formal. If she could finally see herself in its shine, then that was her right and no one else's.

"It's really no wonder that Tenchi prefers my company lately...and no wonder that Seita took such a liking to you."

Ryoko's chair fell back, struck the floor, and bounced to crack thunder again before dying with a wooden scratch. The former pirate was standing tall, looking down her right arm and the blazing length of her sword to Aeka's frozen profile. The movement had been so fast that she was still holding her headpiece and its cloth in both hands. She was still looking at it as well, though her eyes were much larger. The rest of the family stared first at the sword before they could decide which end of it to focus on.

It was obvious to at least one of them: with the power-converting headpiece removed it was only the last microsecond of Ryoko's restraint that had kept Aeka from losing her head like a dandelion blossom. And by the way the sword vibrated, it was a macrocosm of will that was letting her keep it.

"Come on, Aeka." Hushed and vaporized, so much acid could force itself through so many needles.

The princess's eyes slid down her nose then off to the side, making sure Ryoko's sword was as close as it felt. They began ascending the nearly blinding glow, the clawed grip trembling an impossible frequency, the crushed line over pale lips, and finally into a white gold to explode suns.

Rage could not be so focused, Aeka reasoned, then imagined the face Kagato had tasted and Seita had swallowed. But the moment she leapt to this conclusion she instantly fell into it; petrified for real to see something like that blue insanity gleaming down on her without any want of presentation.

"Say it." Apparently waiting for the precise moment when the princess braved her attacker's face, Ryoko's precision exacted to a hiss.

"R-R-Ryoko-" Aeka's neck began to pull instinctively away as she tried to stammer out a response.

"You've wanted to say it for months now. Well go on." The increased force released a horrid rasp, then descended and twisted itself sharper.

"Tell me I'm just---like---HIM!"

Clenched fangs flashed, but Ryoko quickly sealed her lips again, vibrating her sword a few centimeters closer. Sasami could see a red gleam on the sweat of her sister's neck. When Aeka winced and gasped at the sound of lightly singed flesh, the younger princess sprang out of her chair; another one knocked to the floor.

"Ryoko, don't! Please!" The desperate cry finished with pitifully struggling sounds as Washu reached out and restrained her with more force than Sasami could have budged, if she'd thought about it.

"Stay back!" Washu's own shout didn't sound like it had the force to back up the small arms still securing the futile struggle. And she was still securing it till the very last of the miniscule twitches brought Ryoko's face over them.

From what might have been her mother to what could have been her sister, she tore herself into both ends of betrayal. Her sword began to lower, and as she looked back at her prisoner her loathing began to invert.

Aeka was still too petrified to take any sort of hope from the water welling up in her would-be murderer's eyes. The first tear fell with no more recognition than a bead of sweat, but managed to remain trembling on Ryoko's chin. Justice dissipated with a fading sparkle, but the executioner's arm remained at relatively the same angle, clutching for alms or something invisible. Just as Washu began to ease her hold on Sasami, Ryoko stepped back, pulling both hands up to her head as it wilted towards the floor.

They could all still clearly see her eyes this time, and tried to be ready for her to pull the sky down into a scream. But still silent, knees began to bend as quick breaths were sucked in for dry sobs.

"^Ryoko^." Sasami reached a hand out supportively, but was still too frightened to bring it close enough for any contact.

They watched her nearly pull her head into her shoulders before she faded away, and they remained staring in the same direction for a number of minutes. Winter surrounded them with gentle winds and death unashamed without its mask. A few more minutes and Tenchi's hearty footsteps were shaking up the porch.

He used his bent elbows and the wood basket to work the door open and didn't notice the fallen chairs till after he'd shut it. The rosy cheer of his escape froze and crumbled to the ground within a few moments of scanning the dining room. All eyes shied from him as he ignored them, unblinking on an empty place at the table.

"Where's Ryoko?"

***

The mountains threw back her name from out its crevices and over its swells. It had been a shock to run back out into the cold after barely a minute inside, but Tenchi still felt even stranger for having committed to finding someone when he'd no idea where to look. And it remained 'no idea' for a while after the only idea refused to share space. Once fully obscured by the forest, he finally stopped denying so that he could start arguing.

*I knew something like this was going to happen.

*But did I do anything to stop it?

*Noooooo.

Mihoshi and Sasami were staying close together, but calling out from opposite directions. Their voices echoed more despairingly than his, and each time they rose up he wanted to call out again, maybe to drown them out, maybe to make sure he found her first. But these thoughts just made him more determined to keep the rest of his pace in silence. He knew she wasn't going to answer anyone even more clearly than he knew where to find her.

The industrial strength flashlight made a painful glare in the snow, and he had to experiment with different angles as he snapped branches and dodged stones. A few stumbles and a few moments of blindness only doubled the curses beneath his freezing breath. He only hoped this trek would take long enough for him to sort details, and maybe even form a plan.

Tenchi's head hermit crabbed back into his jacket. The innocent voices were getting farther away, still yet to be joined by either Washu or Aeka.

*'Ryoko and Aeka had a fight'---no kidding Mihoshi, but could you tell me why the only damage was a few upturned chairs, or why Aeka looked scared out of her wits?

Ready to grind his teeth the rest of the way, he quickly realized he was misplacing his anger, then helplessly accepted that he'd no idea where to place it.

*Who am I so angry at?

*I don't even know who started it.

A particularly large branch would have bent for him, but he decided to break it anyway.

*And how do I still 'know' where she'll be?

*I mean, why the hell would she ever want to go there again?

*The last place we'd look?

Tenchi stopped to catch his breath, then realized he wasn't as tired as he'd thought. He should keep going, any second now. There, pick up the pace.

*Yeah, well, just what am ^I^ gonna say if I find her?

*'Ryoko, come inside before you catch a chill'.

*She's probably less likely to freeze out here than I am.

The ground beneath the snow was so firm where Tenchi slammed his feet to a stop that he almost jumped back. He held onto a frozen sapling, bending to suck in more freezing air than his hushed thought needed.

"What---what am I doing?"

A tail of wind nearly whipped tears into his eyes, but everything else was silent. The other girls' voices might be lost under the force of his breathing, and his heart might be pounding for more than the task of ascending a snowy mountain.

"Ryoko," Tenchi closed his eyes and took a long moment to calm himself, "you'd better be there."

***

Washu picked up one chair and pushed it in with the same robotic movements she'd used for the other. Aeka was still staring at her headpiece, tangled in the polishing cloth like a restless sleeper in their sheets.

Neither had spoken as Tenchi entered, nor when Sasami and Mihoshi went chasing after him. When the only signs of a struggle had been erased, Washu merely held on to the chair, looking down at Ryoko's empty plate.

"Washu," Aeka haunted evenly.

Washu stopped breathing and blinked before looking over at the royal profile, low enough not to risk eye contact.

"She---she was really going to kill me," being so brave finally made her frail, "wasn't she?"

Without a mouth, Washu reached over and began to pile up Ryoko's untouched place settings. Aeka waited till she was back from the kitchen to speak again.

"Did you try to stop her?"

Washu began to gather up her own utensils in a similar matter, answering directly, though flesh and bone were none of her business.

"You mean more than speaking to her? No."

Aeka closed her eyes and began to realign her headpiece in slow uncertain movements. She looked down at the cloth in her hands and began to wring it.

"Is she---is she-" Aeka tried to force it, then wished she could take it back as she knew Washu would fill in the rest. Her first tears couldn't find an apology in regret.

Little Washu took her own empty plate into the kitchen.

"Washu, is Tenchi going to find her, or...will you have to?" Aeka gambled a sudden compromise when she saw the red crown returning, presumably for the other plates.

"Sasami is still with Mihoshi, I suggest you try to make sure she isn't out there too long." Washu replied as she passed the table for the couches, slowly bringing her laptop up to date.

Aeka stared at the polishing cloth or nothing for a time before slowly and dutifully rising from her seat.

***

The entrance was fenced with snow. Tenchi used a large branch like a cement trowel to gradually scrape enough away for a entrance. Before his first step he smiled down at the flashlight, gripping it tighter and numbly relieving himself for keeping it dry. The pitch inside the cave glimmered with tiny patches of frost as he swung the light around, letting it fall on the iron gate, then approaching with the beam steadied on the lock as if that might unfasten or melt it.

His long sigh of exasperation clouded into the light like a tested stage effect. He looked down, then hung his head and let himself fall forward so that the cold iron could give him some hearty discipline for his forgetfulness. The gate smarted for a moment, but yielded a strained groan rather than a resilient rattle.

Tenchi almost fell forward as his head pushed the door open.

Shock took him a step back, hardly believing that he'd left it unlocked all this time. Had he left it unlocked? Has his grandfather? Had vandals broken in? Tenchi let such questions present their claims all at once, making it easier to dismiss them altogether when he began his second steps inside. Though the path was so far free of hazards, he kept looking up when he wasn't carefully unfastening the sword from his belt.

*I can't even remember if I'm going to need this again.

*Am I going to have to slide down there on ice this time?

*She has to have heard me coming by now.

*But I can't hear a thing down there.

When he arrived at the end, where the rock had parted for him, he had avoided feeling anything to see it closed. He looked from one hand to the other, from the flashlight to the sword. Neither seemed to offer any comfort, and the gulp definitely made things worse.

*At least this rules out vandals...unless they got caught down there somehow and are a now just a bunch of mummies with spray paint and beer bottles and-

Tenchi shook his head roughly.

*Snap out of it Tenchi---now how did I get this thing open.

***

"Where could she be?!" Sasami cried as she ran down from a small vantage point near the front gate to the house.

Mihoshi bent a little to lay her hands reassuringly on Sasami's shoulders. Her teeth were chattering but she quickly set them together.

"She'll be okay, Sasami. I don't think it'll snow again tonight."

The paling to red face pulled away, looking hurt and a little angered.

"I'm not worried about her catching a cold, I---I just want to make sure she's okay." The words fell away in timid clouds as Sasami hung her head and sniffed roughly.

The professional shielded the wind from her eyes then stood on her tiptoes for a wider search.

"^She sure seemed lively enough to me^."

She had whispered to the self beneath her breath, but quickly regretted even thinking it when she looked back down at Sasami's widened eyes.

"Mihoshi, you don't think Aeka meant what she said, do you?" The fear in Sasami's eyes cut in like a falling icicle, making her crouch down to eye level with the younger princess. It fully dawned on her for the first time that she didn't have so far to go anymore.

"Of course not, Sasami. She was just frustrated, I guess---they both were." Mihoshi tried to finish with a smile and stand up straight again. "Come on, we'll never find her if we just stand here. Well, probably not, anyway."

Sasami tried to smile for a moment, but a thick frown began to drag her head back toward her boots, sending a shiver back up.

"Sasami? What's wrong?"

"What if she doesn't want us to find her?!" The younger princess exploded into tears, burrowing into Mihoshi and nearly knocking her over.

"Sasami," she held on tightly in her own pained confusion, "don't say that, we're her friends."

"How do you know?" Sasami's muffled sob was just audible enough.

Mihoshi's already weak smile deflated to a crumple. For a few moments they tried just standing there, silent as snowmen. When Aeka called out to her sister from the house, Mihoshi looked up with teary but slightly relieved eyes.

***

The simplest answer wasn't always the best, or the first to be considered, but Tenchi wasn't in any mood to question good fortune, or dumb luck. He'd held the sword up to the stones and willed for them to part, trying not to show that he even imagined it would work. It was harder not to celebrate when he saw the descending ramp, with the water gone from its rectangular stones.

By the time he'd perfected the tactic of using the butt of the flashlight to steady himself as he waddled down he was a quarter done with his possible list of numbed places. He could see more of a faint light at the bottom, but still couldn't hear anything. Stopping in an attempt to redirect some blood to his left knee, the careful stretch lifted his jacket pocket and dropped the sword hilt. Tenchi let the flashlight go and grabbed the ancient device with both hands.

For a few speeding seconds he was glad his rear had been one of the first things on the list.

The thump of his final landing shrunk his entire body into itself as the flashlight bounced to take another crack at the floor. It scratched, rattled, and finally rolled in a half circle toward the large elevated pool in the center of the chamber. Tenchi didn't think to check for damages, he merely stared, following the shadow over him to Ryoko's back.

Sitting sideways at the lip of her tomb, legs bent together and arms pressing down in front, it looked comfortable only for the flexible. The pose reminded Tenchi of some old western painting with a hyper-feminine girl admiring her reflection in a park fountain. Ryoko's wide hair almost fit the image of the big hats Americans wore in those days.

She wasn't huddling into herself to fight the cold that had even managed to penetrate this far, and he couldn't hear her crying, and he couldn't tell if she'd heard him arrive. Thus he looked at her with a renewed, but entirely different fear. For too long the difference between a mummy and a ghost kept him more still than he could be and paler than any jacket could help.

"Ryoko?" Tenchi whispered not to loosen a shower of huge stalactites.

No answer. With extreme caution, and a renewed knowledge of the pain in his joints, Tenchi rose and tried again. His voice grabbed at some sense of calm for both of them.

"Ryoko, what are you doing down here?"

He walked forward with a breath for every step, looked down at the flashlight, and stepped over it lightly, then lighter till he stood where he might sit next to her. Tenchi tried to keep his eyes on her wilted hair and not on whatever he might see if he looked into that tomb again.

"C'mon Ryoko, can we please just talk about whatever happened, I promise I'm not mad at anyone."

No response, and no sign of breathing, and there was no way he could have kept himself from looking back. The only way out would probably be easier to climb without the water. His shadow next to hers wavered slightly amid a chilling sound. He didn't want to turn back either way, but the circular sound reeled him regardless.

She was lazily stirring the whiter-than-paint water, small ripples hardly affected its luminescence.

"Ryoko."

Tenchi shocked himself with the frailty in his voice, how a new boulder could sink down his throat so slowly without snapping anything. Terror was as real as ever in the moment that she actually ^couldn't^ hear him, and wasn't enough in the next.

"I could have killed you that day."

The stones were still cold after she crushed them in her fists, and the apathy in this was curious.

"You weren't quite up to speed. You were-" she let her hand dangle motionless in the water, "very frail."

Enough fluid dripped from her withdrawn fingers to imitate a fountain, a leaky sink, and the last drops of sake. She thumbed the tips but didn't shake them out.

"And if I wanted to---I could probably kill you now."

Tenchi's memories were fighting with the instincts to the envy of Berserkers, but the battle was entirely muted, hushed for whatever sliver of wind might escape between Ryoko's teeth and burrow into his throat.

"People would scream, and cry. Some of them would want me dead.

"But that's all."

Instinct enslaved the vanquished and eased Tenchi's eyes over to Ryoko's other hand. For a moment he thought he saw a small square of folded paper between her index and middle finger, but she closed it in a fist before he could be sure. Folding both arms tightly against her stomach, the flexible reflector turned to sit full on her rear with knees bent too far out to lean against, or catch her slouching head. The new posture interrupted the next instinct fighting for Tenchi's strongest hand.

"Ryoko."

Serious fear might make the jump to serious concern in the next breath.

"What are you talking about?"

Almost.

She sat there unresponsive while Tenchi tried to hear a good sign in that his ears had adjusted to the tiniest ripples in the water, his breath, and hers.

"Tenchi, think back to that night---at your school."

With instinct distracted by a fear surpassing his, even in its restraint, Tenchi's memory came back vivid and detailed. The mad dashes had been painless till he paused them, the explosions should have singed his hairs, and he should have fainted after the surreal conclusion.

*Does she actually feel guilty about all that?

"Ryoko," Tenchi began tentatively, putting everything into reflex humor "about the school; they already rebuilt all the damaged parts."

He forced a smile but only felt a gulp.

"And they needed a new science lab, anyway."

Silent and unmoving for a moment, Ryoko continued, at least confirming that she could hear him.

"I meant before all that."

A chill raised Tenchi's skin into his jacket that her tone hadn't been an accident and wasn't going to change. Helpless or oblivious, he let his gaze wander fully into the pool. He remembered the mummy that had risen from it, grabbing him and bringing his life closer. The ether of her moans, the piercing wails of energy from the sword; the sounds kept the images welded fast. And as he waited to be free of that narrow escape he forgot to guard against an easy comparison; the empty white pool looked so much like one of Seita's portals.

*Don't think about ^him^, Tenchi! Say something!

"Ryoko, I'm sorry, its just---I was afraid, I didn't really expect for there to be someone down here." He nearly had to gargle it out, but almost felt ready to attempt sense, or at least reassurance by the next breath.

Ryoko remained unmoved and would have cut him off, just the same.

"No Tenchi, right after that."

"What---what do you mean?" Genuine confusion afforded him a few blinks, but Ryoko stole his blood right back the way she'd begun.

"Do you remember how we ended up alone on that roof together?"

"I---I feel asleep, and when I woke up everyone was-"

"Do you usually sleep so deeply at school?"

"Well no I-"

"Tenchi, I made it so you wouldn't hear the sound of the bell."

The choke in Ryoko's voice attached a hook to each of his lungs, and chains, and an iceberg. For the space between his skin he wanted to think about meaning, yet the space within his bones needed all the support they could get. Tenchi was able to pull his eyes from the pool and keep them on Ryoko with relative ease.

"I made it so that you'd only hear the wind while you dozed off."

Calm returned with an iron jaw; she'd make her point without retreating, and if it killed her it was of no consequence. Any of his pitiful confusion would be ignored.

"But how did-"

"Then---" Ryoko bent further inward and shivered like someone exerting nearly all their strength, "then do you remember---just before I revealed myself to you---that little cat."

Tenchi wouldn't breathe, but Ryoko couldn't be this upset. He didn't understand, and had to ask if he'd want to.

"You bent down to pet it."

Memories and instincts killed each other to make way for a revelation, even though Tenchi felt horribly unprepared for it.

"And it disappeared."

Someone cut the chains and let in the cold, needling through his coat and into his soft flesh.

"It was never there Tenchi---I---I ^made you see it^."

Tenchi knew every sensation as the sparks and acid fell from Ryoko, a miracle machine wailing beneath the hammer. But there was no cry of injustice, for mercy. The heat was slow and white as it cauterized nerves together rather than bind them, paralyzing him just the same. The common heritage Ryoko shared with Seita rose out of the earth like a hellish icon. Understanding felt helpless, but he had no blood and nowhere to go till he could speak, till she was out of breath.

Ryoko continued, still shaking, cruel to the world that she was not yet crying.

"I---I just wanted to make a big first impression with you."

Again she should have been growing closer to tears, but instead climbed farther from air.

"I've always hated making illusions more than almost anything else Kagato made me do."

At last her posture began to fold, knees folding in slow to catch her forehead. In his throat, Tenchi could feel how tightly she was closing her eyes.

"I hadn't for a long time, even before I met up with your grandfather. It takes a lot of concentration, but I can still do it. I bet even Washu knows that I could probably make illusions almost as good as- "

Fists trembled and eyes contracted, but everything stayed dry. Tenchi, however, might have marveled at the sweat gathered when he pulled his palm over his face. He couldn't remember telling himself to move so much, and as he looked down at every crease in his hand he noticed it was red enough to be raw for forgetting to put his gloves back on.

*So that's what this is about.

The cave would be too warm for a jacket soon, but Tenchi could only think of the cowering emptiness left in his mind where the next thought should have been. He should have some of any idea within the next moments. He should feel like the hardest part was over.

"Now do you see, Tenchi?"

*She's standing up. Oh God, she's standing up!

Tenchi moved at a little more than the same pace, turning to face what was rising to face him. And though she wasn't bringing her gaze above his knees, he could see her face entirely, one half vivid in the light of the tomb. He'd been ready to be petrified, but a crippling pity was far worse. The weight against him had rotted notches into itself, grinding against him with every detail draining and stretching the yellow tar of her eyes underneath her skin.

"Aeka's been right all along." Sickly strings of amusement fell from her calm like oily cobwebs, shaken off by her first, then second step toward him. Her hands fell slowly to her sides when she stopped within arm's reach.

"It's only going to get worse. I'm going to keep drinking and hiding until- "

She closed her eyes on uncertainty. Her breath was hot and pungent when it grabbed him by the collar.

Tenchi listened to the same childish cry twitch itself into a ball for him to say anything that might make everything okay again. He wanted to end its suffering almost enough to call out his own cowardice.

All things aside; she was going to finish her sentence soon, this was the last chance for him to run.

Ryoko beat her whimper flat, gulping to mock any nausea, and opening her eyes just like she had strength.

"I don't trust myself anymore, I look around and the whole world seems rotted out."

Desperation had its moments, even if they were regrettable in the next. Tenchi managed to think back to the unity he'd felt when they'd embraced each other after fully sharing their battles. Everyone had cried on everyone, but seeing the bitterest rivals together had been the worst. Nobody had forced them, nor had they acknowledged them; they'd looked so frail and fearful, drifting limply apart rather than emerging cleansed.

Explosions of red energy burst in, twisting him till his skin felt ready to crumple off like wrapping paper. Something please save him before he started begging.

"Nothing seems worth doing, but I still manage to do plenty of damage." Ryoko was lifting her eyes into his, but as she shook even more Tenchi could tell her voice was impossibly steadying.

"Sometimes I feel like, any day now, it's going to be too late."

Tenchi's thoughts stopped bothering to breathe; if she was going to make a significant decision now while of less than sound mind, then she was. The dreams he'd seen hadn't changed shape, and if he let them fall from his fingers they wouldn't wilt and wouldn't grow. He wanted to know why she was doing this to him but knew best that he was still too afraid to ask.

"I have an idea though."

The softness was drastic but not unexpected as she picked up his hand by the wrist and used it to pull part of his jacket back. Tenchi felt his blood tighten everywhere but beneath the touch.

"Maybe there's a way for everyone to be safe."

Ryoko used her new tool like a pair of tongs to remove the sword, delicate hands like ice as she made him tighten his grip on the hilt. She lifted her head, eyes closing before they would have caught his. The two remaining gems glowed or caught the light as she pulled the sword at her exposed neck.

"Put me back, Tenchi. Please, if you know what's good for you, take my gem and set me in that pool again. I'll just go to sleep."

Tenchi's eyes widened at the sword, then back up at her. The weight died and crumbled in his throat, burying the rest of him in its rubble. The surreal gravity of what she was asking struck him over and through, but he didn't feel it, only the cruel irony in a base reflex to make sure he'd actually heard her.

"Who knows---" she began trembling again, one tear line on each side, neither with any real hope of meeting at the edges of a slow smile, "maybe after another 700 years I'll be okay."

Almost too far in for him to know, Tenchi senses of compassion and forgiveness burned against each other. He clenched two years of memory, every color of experience with the beautiful demon he'd accidentally unleashed. And for the first time since Aeka's arrival he considered what their relationship might have been without the princess. Nothing came to him but the weight, mortaring itself back together.

Inevitably the most recent events took over, her unpredictable, volatile personality remaining the only constant. In light of what had driven them both back to their meeting place he considered it, at last feeling blood again. His grandfather might not have wanted him to get the keys after all.

The silence in his throat remained unwavering till his initial indecisiveness finally came full circle, leaving him to stare down at the sword and the being behind it without any hope of action.

Tenchi let the cave go dead again, muted beneath the throbbing in his head, empty till at last Ryoko took great care to lower her head, and let her hand slip away. She held its wrist and turned her head to follow their long shadows from the wall to the floor.

"I'll take that as a 'no'."

Tenchi lowered his own hand, turning the sword sideways and looking down at it, numbed with disbelief at the continued link of memories between Ryoko and the last of Seita. He didn't feel any more capable of looking at her eyes than his.

"Since I can't do it myself I guess we'll have to figure something else out." She turned and sat back down facing the pool, cross-legged, her back relatively straight.

It took him more than another moment to remind himself that a less than lifeless voice was no clear sign of anything. His feet felt new, or on loan from someone else, but shockingly functional. He turned toward her despite himself.

"You can go now Tenchi, I'll be out soon enough. Tell everyone not to worry."

Something like exhaustion took over his reflexes and did as he was told. A few steps from the exit, he stopped and looked over his shoulder, just as the weight had sharpened and commanded.

She hadn't changed.

Forced or not, he didn't consider, it was all he could do to make it up the painful ascent; retelling himself that he'd done all he could eventually matched the pace of his breathing.

---

Alongside the modified cryogenic chamber of Prince Yosho's once grand ship, his first and only prisoner looked down at more than enough light and no reflection. Amid the captured chaos it took to reassure herself of everyone's everything the press of colder air was hardly a concern. She unfolded and held up a small piece of paper, looking through the pitifully smudged drawing to the fingertip shadows behind it. With her other hand she pointed a small drop of energy.

Her quivering hands haloed the falling ashes, a wide and wider smile shook the next tears loose and caught them perfectly.