Tenchi Muyo: Ryo-ohki OVA4
Episode 22: Baby Blues
By Galaxy1001D
Tenchi Muyo, Tenchi GXP, Tenchi Universe, Tenchi in Tokyo and all related characters and movies are © AIC/Pioneer/Funimation. This story has been written solely for entertainment. The views expressed herein do not necessarily express the opinions of AIC/Pioneer/Funimation, the author, or this website.
Chapter Four: Virtues and Flaws
"I can't believe you did that, you little traitor!" Ayeka growled while she and Ryoko cleaned the house. Ayeka had the floors while Ryoko, who considered the law of gravity a polite suggestion, cleaned the walls and ceilings.
"Did what?" the former space pirate asked innocently.
"How you could rub my mistake in my face like that?" Ayeka fumed. "If I didn't know better I'd say you were responsible for little Washu acting up as well."
"Like I've ever had any control over Washu," Ryoko snorted as she levitated up to clean cobwebs out of a high spot. "Usually things go the other way."
"Not anymore," Ayeka said as she scrubbed on the floor. "Now you've got the power. Until she's at least old enough to read I think that you've got power over her right now. Do you really expect me to believe you had nothing to do with it?"
"I swear, I had nothing to do with it," Ryoko replied guiltily. "Not a thing."
"Humph!" the princess grunted. "Anyway you didn't have to point out my faux pas like that. It was painful and obvious enough, don't you think?"
"I don't know," Ryoko made a big show of thinking it over. "It didn't seem to be painful and obvious enough... It seemed to be missing something."
"Ooh! There's just no talking to you!" the princess threw her scrub brush on the floor in frustration. "What happened to joining forces against the new menace? What happened to our truce? Did you forget all about that?"
"No…" Ryoko lied. This time her guilt seemed genuine.
"You know what I think?" Ayeka snarled as she rose to her feet to confront her rival. "I think that you don't know how to have fun unless you're tormenting somebody!"
"You take that back!" Ryoko stopped floating and faced the angry princess.
"Why should I? It's the truth," Ayeka sneered. "You know I'm telling the truth! And the truth hurts doesn't it? After dancing on Kagato's strings for a thousand years you don't know how to enjoy yourself unless you're making someone else completely miserable!"
"I'm warning you Ayeka!" Ryoko clenched her fists.
"You really are a monster, aren't you?" Ayeka snapped. "You don't know any other way to behave do you?"
"Take that back!"
"Eek!" the princess yelped. Just as Ryoko threw a punch Ayeka took a step backwards as over a dozen wooden cylinders appeared in the air around her, each about the size of a thermos. Ryoko's fist bounced off the invisible force field that appeared just inches from Ayeka's face.
"Ow!" the former space pirate staggered backwards as she clutched her fist. She squeezed her golden eyes shut in a futile attempt to keep the tears from escaping.
"Ryoko?" Ayeka asked in a quiet voice. "Are you hurt?"
"Go away," Ryoko turned her back to keep Ayeka from seeing that she was crying.
"Ryoko," Ayeka took a hesitant step forward. "I'm sorry! I didn't mean it, I swear!"
"Oh yes you did," Ryoko said through grit teeth. "And you were right. Every word of it. Damn you Kagato." She disappeared with an electronic hum, leaving the princess alone in the hall.
"I've got to find her," the princess decided. "She shouldn't be alone when she's like this."
Meanwhile, in Mihoshi's room, baby Washu was crying. "Oh my!" the Galaxy Police officer cried. "What's wrong, little Washu? You just had your nap. Do you need changing?" The blonde picked up the infant super genius and rocked her in her arms. "No, you don't need changing. Either that or your diapers are really absorbent. What could be wrong? You seemed so happy a moment ago. I know, I'll see if I can find a book on child psychology." With that, the buxom blonde set the baby on her futon and left the room.
Moments later Mihoshi dashed back in and picked up the baby. The dizzy blonde wasn't the sharpest knife in the drawer, but she wasn't about to leave a baby alone and completely unattended.
She walked down the stairs and saw Tenchi sitting on the couch trying to relax after a hard day in the fields. "Oh. Tenchi," she began hesitantly as she brought the carrot topped baby over to him. "Could you hold little Washu for a moment? I want to see if there's any books on taking care of babies in your father's library. It's kind of dusty in there and I don't want little Washu to choke on anything."
"Sure Mihoshi," Tenchi nodded. "I don't mind. As a matter of fact I've been looking forward to spending some quality time with her now that she's little."
"Thanks Tenchi," the blonde giggled girlishly. "You're the best."
After she left Tenchi held the baby and muttered in a soft voice. "Well, Washu, you've finally done it. You've found a way to be truly innocent. Is this penance or a reward for everything you've put in motion? It's hard to believe that you're so much more than you seem." He paused. "Well, we're all so much more than we seem aren't we? There isn't anyone in this house who's what they seem are they? And you least of all.
"Were you always a goddess, Washu? Did you exist before the universe began? Were you ever a baby or did you always exist? Do you even know anymore?" He ruefully chuckled to himself. "Well you don't know now, but somewhere you must still exist in your almighty timeless and immortal goddess form don't you? So somewhere, on some dimension of time and space you can understand what I'm saying. Did you turn yourself into a baby just so you could forget that you're a goddess? Or is this supposed to help Ryoko?"
"I wish you hadn't gone back to a second childhood like this," Tenchi sighed. "Now I'm the only one who knows that the history of the universe, the history of all of time and space, is all part of a plan for the three Chousin Goddesses to find the most powerful being in all creation. You know you never did tell me why you were looking for him," he smiled at the baby who had fortunately cried herself out and went to sleep.
"You know, sometimes I wish I had never went into that cave," he sighed, "but now most of the time I'm terrified of losing you, all of you. The sad fact is that I don't deserve the love and devotion you girls give me. It's destiny, or fate, or this weird 'god-force' that's in me. The girls can't help being attracted to me. I could probably treat them like garbage and they'll still come crawling back."
"How can I keep stringing them along?" A tear escaped Tenchi's eye. "They don't deserve to be used this way. They've been the chess pieces for you and your sisters for their entire lives. Are they going to be my playthings too?
"If I had any decency I'd tell all of them to leave before they get too far in but I'm scared! I'm scared of being all alone. I know I complain about not having any privacy but the truth of the matter is that I can't go back; I'm not the same boy who went in the cave anymore. Let's face it, after everything that's happened, I feel like an alien on my own planet.
"After everything's that happened I trust you girls more than my own flesh and blood," he continued. "Even you Washu. You didn't know that you were a goddess and that you and your crazy sisters put all this in motion. You were as horrified as I am when you figured it out; that's why you decided to erase your own memory and why your goddess persona decided to arrange this 'accident' for you. I don't blame you for everything that's happened. I guess I'm still ignorant enough to think of the goddess Washu and the mortal Washu being two different people. Silly huh? Shows what a crummy god I'd make."
He sighed and looked up at the ceiling. "I know who you're going to be when you grow up but who knows who I'm going to be in the future. If the girls keep spoiling me like this I might become a real creep. Can you imagine what would happen if the most beautiful women in the universe became my willing harem? I'd become the most arrogant being in the universe!"
He shook his head. "I can't let that happen, Washu. I can't let Tenchi Masaki become anything less than a saint or as the decades go by I'll become more and more evil. I'll become an arrogant pervert first, then a selfish jerk, and then someone who doesn't care who lives or dies as long as he gets his way. And thanks to the power within me every woman in outer space will go along with it until it's too late. I can't take the risk. I've got to have boundaries. Right now. Before it's too late. While I'm still impressionable."
He looked down and smiled at the baby. "Actually, I think I should thank you and your daughter for keeping me in my place. You never pass up a chance to humiliate me and Ryoko doesn't let me get away with much. As long as she and the others aren't too nice to me I might be able to keep this up for a long time. People from outer space don't seem to age as fast as Earthlings so I don't have to change the status quo because someone's biological clock is ticking. I can wait until we all grow up a bit before I have to decide what I'm going to do."
He shook his head in disgust. "Listen to me! I'm afraid that one day the girls are going to wise up and leave Earth when that's what I should tell them to do in the first place. I'm not just afraid, I'm terrified! I love all of them like my own family but if I made them all my wives I'd be the cruelest pervert in the universe! I know what the right thing to do is but I can't bring myself to do it!"
He sighed as he looked at baby Washu's exhausted angelic face. "I'm sorry, Washu, you were right. I should have erased my memory when I had the chance. I suppose I still could but this seems to be the best way to make sure that Tenchi Masaki becomes the man the girls think I am instead of the monster I don't want to be. I hope I'm making the right decision and that you grow up fast enough to help me through the rough spots. In the meantime I'll pull my weight around here and take care of you for a change. Loving an innocent baby should keep me a 'good guy' long enough to figure myself out. Don't worry, I won't let you down."
"What's the matter, Tenchi?" Noike asked as she walked in behind him. "Weight of the cosmos got you down?"
"What?" Tenchi flinched. How long had she been in here? Had she been listening? Honestly when they wanted to those girls seemed to be as silent as cats. "Oh, you know… It's still a shock to discover that I'm royalty." It wasn't really a lie was it? "There are only two bullets between me and rulership of Jurai. Let's face it; if anything happens to King Azusa and Grandpa, the universe is in a lot of trouble!"
Noike gave an indulgent giggle. "Don't sell yourself short Tenchi. Lady Seto would be there to advise you. Even if the worst happened, I'm sure you could handle the responsibility. Don't worry so."
"I can barely handle living with all of you," Tenchi winked.
"After living with us, the difficulties of being a king should be easy," Noike joked as she sat on across from Tenchi on the other side of the 'L' shaped couch.
"No really, Noike, think about it," Tenchi sighed. "I've got the power of the lighthawk wings and the adoration of the most beautiful women in the universe. How do I know that it won't spoil me and turn me into someone I don't want to be? It would be different if I was only going to live for a handful of decades, but Jurian royalty lives for thousands of years. How do I know I'm that I'm not going to change into somebody I don't like as the centuries go by?"
"You'll probably change many times as the centuries go by," Noike told him, "but if you like who you are now why don't you try to enjoy it instead of worrying yourself to death? Tell you what? Why don't you spend some time on my ship, Kyoko? It will help you relax and maybe then you can finally get a little privacy."
Outside, under a tree by the pond, Ryoko was sitting on a rock watching the sun go down. The former space pirate had finally stopped crying and was trying to get ahold of herself. "How did you find me?" she grumbled.
Ayeka thought she had been quiet, but apparently Ryoko's oversized ears weren't just decorative. What to say? She couldn't tell her that she had followed the sound of the space pirate's sobbing. "Usually you're in a tree and not just sitting by one," she commented to evade the question. "What's the matter? Did you suddenly develop a fear of heights?"
"I was feeling down," Ryoko quipped grimly. "You were right, Ayeka. I'm a monster. The only way I know how to have fun is to torture someone."
"Oh we all do that at one point or another," Ayeka smiled disarmingly as she sat next to Ryoko. "Even Sasami has a mischievous side."
"Yeah but for me it's constant," Ryoko grumbled. "I bore easily. Nothing gets my attention. And now that I got Zero in my head I've started noticing. I'm hopeless."
"Zero wanted to be you more than anything in the universe," Ayeka told her. "If you were as bad as you say she would have completed her mission, slain Tenchi and captured Washu."
Ryoko looked at Ayeka skeptically.
"She was willing to sacrifice her life for what you believed in," Ayeka insisted. "Why would she do that if deep down you were really a monster?"
"Maybe I got a really strong personality," Ryoko suggested. "My mind must have overrode hers. She couldn't have had a strong sense of identity. She was always absorbing other people's memories. Even now I can't remember anything from her life before she met lady Tokimi. She was weak, I was strong. It's that simple."
"If that was right, how come she was a much nicer Ryoko than you?" Ayeka winked. "She copied the real you and she liked that better than herself. Zero had fun making Tenchi happy. She was programmed for infiltration and betrayal so why would she forsake her own creator in order to be you? I think you're not giving yourself enough credit. She knew who you really are and just… reinterpreted you a bit. She read all your mind data and liked what she saw so much that she only showed your virtues, because where she was sitting, they outshone your flaws. Even the perfect infiltrator couldn't copy you that easily. You're just too complex."
"Since when did you get so nice all of a sudden?" Ryoko gave a wry smile.
"I've always been nice, most of the time," Ayeka said. "Not as nice as I'd like to be, but I'm very nice."
"How do I get nicer?" Ryoko grumbled. "If I don't shape up neither one of us is going to get Tenchi. I'll act like a jerk and you'll overreact. Noike will waltz right off with Tenchi and there won't be a thing we can do about it."
"Overreact?" Ayeka frowned. "I don't 'overreact' do I? You said yourself that you like torturing people! Can I help it if I…?"
She stopped when she saw the frown on Ryoko's face.
"Oh," the princess blinked before she clasped her hands and looked away. "Maybe I do overreact, just a little."
"Yeah," Ryoko sighed. "So what do we do?"
"Well, I guess the first thing we need to do is find out what else will entertain you," Ayeka decided. "And we need to brush up on our etiquette."
The look on Ryoko's face combined skepticism and resignation.
"Come on, please!" Ayeka pleaded. "This is the one thing that I'm good at! I'm a teenage princess! I'm not really good at anything else but being a lady! Please give me a chance! I don't think my self-esteem can take much more."
"Why are you so good at doing chores?" Ryoko asked abruptly.
"I'm not good at doing chores." Ayeka put her hands on her hips. "I just try harder than you, that's all."
"Come on," Ryoko grunted. "It took you no time at all to pitch in and earn your keep around here. And Sasami could cook professionally. What's up with that?"
"Oh, well…" Ayeka shrugged. "It's the philosophy of the royal houses of Jurai that one must learn to serve in order to learn to lead. The idea is to instill empathy and humility so that later in life when the young royal gets ahold of some real power there will be less temptation to abuse it. Since we're nearly immortal it's not like those years working beneath our station will be wasted."
"And it'll be handy knowing how to wash dishes if there's ever a coup and you find yourself out on your ear," Ryoko smirked.
"I'm trying to be nice," Ayeka snarled. "Can't you try to be more pleasant? You better start behaving like a lady if you want it to be second nature."
"Do you think maybe it's a plot of Lady Seto's to find out who can take being a servant and who's arrogant enough to make a play for the throne?" Ryoko asked.
"Oh dear," Ayeka put her hand to her mouth. "I hadn't thought of that. You're right. It's an easy way to find out who the bad apples are from the very beginning. Dear me, who'd have thought? Isn't she devious?"
"Yeah, and she's the one who trained Noike," Ryoko grit her teeth. "We've got to be just as devious and just as ladylike if we want a chance to marry Tenchi. Okay, Ayeka. You've got a deal. You can teach me to be a lady and I'll do my best to find something to entertain me aside of tormenting you for fun. Together we can beat her at her own game."
"Hey!" Ayeka clenched her fists. "I thought you had fun tormenting people in general! Why are you picking on me specifically?"
"You make it easy on me," Ryoko shrugged. "Honestly, sometimes it takes more effort not to torment you than to pick on you."
"I do not make it easy!" Ayeka protested. "I don't get upset any easier than the next girl. Do you expect me to believe…?"
Ryoko gave her a look of disappointed resignation.
"Er uh, yes," the princess stammered. "Perhaps I do have a thin skin." She gave an embarrassed laugh.
Next: Get a Clue