Tenchi Muyo Section submitted by C-chan
It was a normal day in the Masaki household - normal, of course, being a relative term. By anyone's standards, Tenchi Masaki's life would be considered far from normal. In truth, he could hardly remember what it was like to be a normal teenage boy. Not that he regretted the life he lived now, far from it. As chaotic as his present situation may be, he couldn't imagine life without the friends he had come to know in the past year or so, however strange those friends may be. But sometimes, sometimes, he wished that he could go back to being an ordinary teenager again, if only for a day. Today was one of those days. Tenchi stared morosely at the scene before him, the cause of his present frustration.
Ryoko and Ayeka were fighting. Again.
It was a scene all too familiar to the beleaguered young man. The almost daily fights between the Juraian princess and the ex-space pirate were getting to be so predictable that it would have been considered boring were it not for the massive property damage that would inevitably result. Tenchi had even forgotten what had started this most recent fracas. Not that it mattered much anyway; whatever the cause, the reason behind all the fights could be boiled down to one thing: him.
"Uh, girls?" pleaded Tenchi. "Why don't we all just try to calm down, alright?" Unfortunately, his plea went unheard, judging from the way sparks were shooting back and forth between the two. Oh, Kami, he thought, why does this always happen to me?
Ayeka, princess of Jurai, glared at the former space pirate across from her, ignoring Tenchi's attempt at restoring order. "Stay away from Tenchi-sama, you monster woman!" she ordered, eyes flashing. "And take your... 'snacks' away with you. I'll not have you poison my Tenchi-sama with your pathetic attempt at cooking."
With each word Ayeka spoke, Ryoko's face grew even more purple with rage until she could take it no longer. "Your Tenchi?!" she burst out, incredulous. "Ha! As if a prissy, stuck-up little princess like you has a chance with him. Tenchi is mine! Now get out of the way so I can give him these cookies I baked." Ryoko made as if to push past the other girl but found her way solidly blocked.
"No, I won't alow it! Who knows what kind of things are in it!" Ayeka eyed the cookie-filled plate Ryoko held in her hands with distrust. Charcoal would look a lot more appealing than Ryoko's cookies. "A barbarian like you shouldn't even be allowed in the kitchen, much less cook."
"Why you...!" Ryoko reflexively reached out to strangle the Juraian princess, then just as suddenly changed tactics. "Tenchi," she implored, turning dewy eyes on the befuddled boy. "You like my cookies, don't you? Aren't I a better cook than Miss Prim-and-Proper here?"
"That's not true!" Ayeka retorted, stung. "I can make a better dish than anything an uncivilized space pirate could come up with. Right, Tenchi-sama?" She threw beseeching, yet threatening, look at Tenchi.
Tenchi sweated nervously under their intense gazes. This was a no-win situation; to favor any one of the girls would mean incurring the wrath of the other. He wished there was someone else in the room to take some of the pressure off him. Unfortunately, both Sasami and Ryo-ohki were in the kitchen, his father was out to work, his grandfather was up at the shrine, and Kiyone and Mihoshi were patrolling Earth orbit om Galaxy Police business. Tenchi would even have welcomed Washuu's interference, but the diminutive scientist had been locked up in her lab since yesterday.
Out of options, Tenchi settled for a nondescript "Ahh..." while slowly backing away. He racked his brain, trying to come up with ways to stall the inevitable violence, but got nothing. Fortunately for him, rescue came in the form of Nobuyuki Masaki, arriving home early from work. Tenchi gave an inward sigh of relief. Thank you, Dad, he thought.
"I'll go answer the door," he told them hurriedly, rushing to do just that before both girls remembered that Nobuyuki didn't need someone to answer the door for him. By the time Tenchi reached the genkan, the girls had ceased their protest of his actions and were back to fighting amongst themselves. From what the young man could hear, it seemed that Ryoko was trying to force Ayeka to eat one of her cookies — as a taste test, or so she said.
"Well, son, the girls seem to be getting frisky again," the elder Masaki said, grinning at his son, as he tapped his shoes on the genkan to remove dust.
"Frisky is not the word, Dad," Tenchi sighed. Behind him, the sounds of argument grew more heated. There was a sudden crash, followed by several loud explosions. Tenchi winced as smoke billowed out of the living room. Well, there goes the house, he thought wryly.
Nobuyuki laughed and clapped a hand on his son's shoulder. "To have two beautiful girls fight over you... You make your father proud!" His smile widened. "Why, you're a lot like me when I was your age. Such a hit with the ladies..."
"Dad!" Tenchi rolled his eyes in exasperation. After the Kain incident he knew that his father's allegations of being a young Don Juan were nothing more than tall tales. He shook hos head at his father's antics. "Come on, Dad," he said, "Ryoko and Ayeka should be done fighting by now. Here, let me help you with that." He reached for the rolls of paper that Nobuyuki carried with him from work, being careful not to crumple the sheets.
"I'm hungry," Nobuyuki suddenly announced. "I haven't had a bite to eat since breakfast. Do you think Sasami'll be able to prepare me something?" His expression turned hopeful as he thought of Sasami's delicious cooking, a far cry from the usual take-out or instant ramen he and his son were accustomed to before their strange visitors' arrival.
"Well, it's still early yet, but I think she can come up with something," Tenchi said as he and Nobuyuki walked into the house. Suddenly, they heard a shout from the living room, a cry filled with horror and denial. Father and son exchanged a startled glance.
"That sounded like Ryoko," Tenchi said, worried. They hurried to the living room.
The room was a mess. Several of the furniture bore scorch marks and a table had been overturned, two of its legs missing. Pieces of broken plate and cookies littered the floor. In the center of the room lay the still form of the princess of Jurai. Beside her, Ryoko turned fearful eyes on Tenchi.
"I didn't mean to kill her, Tenchi — I swear!" Ryoko pleaded desperately. "All I did was feed her a cookie, I didn't know something like this would happen!"
"Dead?" Tenchi whispered, shocked. He knelt beside the fallen princess and checked for signs of life. He found none. "No... this can't be true. We have to do something! Dad! What should we do? Dad?" He looked around for his father and suddenly stopped, his expression stricken.
"Dad!" he cried, seeing Nobuyuki's still body lying at the room's entrance. He rushed over, frantically trying to revive the elder Masaki. But it was no use; no matter what he did, all his efforts were futile. Tenchi clenched his fists in anger, tears streaming down his face. "Dad... Ayeka..."
A hand gently touched his shoulder. "Tenchi, I'm sorry." Ryoko's voice choked with emotion. "Do you hate me?"
Tenchi shook his head. "No, Ryoko, I don't hate you. It's not your fault. I don't know what really happened, but I know it's not your fault." His eyes suddenly widened as an idea occured to him. "Washuu. Washuu will know what to do."
"I'm sorry, Tenchi, but there's nothing I can do," Washuu suddenly spoke. No one had even seen her enter the room. The diminutive scientist's expression was grave as she looked straight at Tenchi.
"What do you mean you can't do anything?!" Ryoko burst out angrily, grabbing Washuu by the front of her coat and thrusting herself face to face with the redhead. "You're supposed to be the greatest genius in the universe! There should be something you can do!"
Washuu wearily shook her head. "Death is beyond my power. Despite all my inventions, I can't bring someone back from the dead." She leveled a look at the distraught young man. "If it's any consolation, I can tell you that what just happened was no accident. Ayeka and you father were murdered."
The room's other occupants were stunned at the news, Ryoko absently letting go of the shorter girl. Finally, Tenchi spoke.
"Murdered? Who did it? And how?"
"I don't know who, and neither do I know how it was done. A while ago some of my sensors picked up a slight energy spike. It was so brief that I ordinarily wouldn't even have noticed it. But the energy signal was to regular to be natural, and it occured at the same time as Ayeka and Mr. Masaki's... deaths. Circumstantial, I know, but too unlikely to be just a coincidence."
"In other words, you're just guessing," Ryoko growled. "It seems that there's a lot that you don't know, Washuu."
"But it's a start," Tenchi observed. Just then, he felt a tugging on his pants leg. He looked down to see a frightened looking cabbit. "Ryo-ohki?" he asked in confusion. "What is it?"
"Miya!" The little cabbit gave one final tug on Tenchi's leg then ran all the way to the kitchen entrance, stopping to look back at Tenchi and the others. "Miya miyaa MIIYAAAAA!!!!!"
"She wants us to follow," Ryoko interpreted.
Understanding dawned, and Tenchi paled. "Oh my god! Sasami!"
His cry galvanized the others and together they followed Ryo-ohki into the kitchen, stopping at the sight of Sasami collapsed beneath the sink. Washuu hurried over to check on the girl.
"She's alive, but barely," she pronounced. Tenchi and Ryoko slumped in relief. Washuu held out a hand, a gleaming mechanical device appearing in her grip. She ran the scanner over Sasami's body.
"Vital signs are low, but there are no injuries, no abnormalities. However, there's no denying that her condition is critical. Frankly, I'm surprised that she's even alive at all."
"Is there anything we can do?" Tenchi somberly asked.
Washuu thought a moment, then nodded. "Ryoko, I need you to carry her to my lab. I'll need more than just this scanner to find out what exactly is going on. And Tenchi? If it's all right with you, can you see if you can move Ayeka and Nobuyuki to a room until we figure out what to do?"
Ryoko and Tenchi nodded. Gently picking Sasami off the floor, the former space pirate followed Washuu to her lab. Tenchi stood staring at the door as they left. He lifted anguished eyes heavenward.
"We'll avenge you, Dad, Ayeka, Sasami," he whispered fervently. "I swear we will!"
It was a normal day in the Masaki household - normal, of course, being a relative term. By anyone's standards, Tenchi Masaki's life would be considered far from normal. In truth, he could hardly remember what it was like to be a normal teenage boy. Not that he regretted the life he lived now, far from it. As chaotic as his present situation may be, he couldn't imagine life without the friends he had come to know in the past year or so, however strange those friends may be. But sometimes, sometimes, he wished that he could go back to being an ordinary teenager again, if only for a day. Today was one of those days. Tenchi stared morosely at the scene before him, the cause of his present frustration.
Ryoko and Ayeka were fighting. Again.
It was a scene all too familiar to the beleaguered young man. The almost daily fights between the Juraian princess and the ex-space pirate were getting to be so predictable that it would have been considered boring were it not for the massive property damage that would inevitably result. Tenchi had even forgotten what had started this most recent fracas. Not that it mattered much anyway; whatever the cause, the reason behind all the fights could be boiled down to one thing: him.
"Uh, girls?" pleaded Tenchi. "Why don't we all just try to calm down, alright?" Unfortunately, his plea went unheard, judging from the way sparks were shooting back and forth between the two. Oh, Kami, he thought, why does this always happen to me?
Ayeka, princess of Jurai, glared at the former space pirate across from her, ignoring Tenchi's attempt at restoring order. "Stay away from Tenchi-sama, you monster woman!" she ordered, eyes flashing. "And take your... 'snacks' away with you. I'll not have you poison my Tenchi-sama with your pathetic attempt at cooking."
With each word Ayeka spoke, Ryoko's face grew even more purple with rage until she could take it no longer. "Your Tenchi?!" she burst out, incredulous. "Ha! As if a prissy, stuck-up little princess like you has a chance with him. Tenchi is mine! Now get out of the way so I can give him these cookies I baked." Ryoko made as if to push past the other girl but found her way solidly blocked.
"No, I won't alow it! Who knows what kind of things are in it!" Ayeka eyed the cookie-filled plate Ryoko held in her hands with distrust. Charcoal would look a lot more appealing than Ryoko's cookies. "A barbarian like you shouldn't even be allowed in the kitchen, much less cook."
"Why you...!" Ryoko reflexively reached out to strangle the Juraian princess, then just as suddenly changed tactics. "Tenchi," she implored, turning dewy eyes on the befuddled boy. "You like my cookies, don't you? Aren't I a better cook than Miss Prim-and-Proper here?"
"That's not true!" Ayeka retorted, stung. "I can make a better dish than anything an uncivilized space pirate could come up with. Right, Tenchi-sama?" She threw beseeching, yet threatening, look at Tenchi.
Tenchi sweated nervously under their intense gazes. This was a no-win situation; to favor any one of the girls would mean incurring the wrath of the other. He wished there was someone else in the room to take some of the pressure off him. Unfortunately, both Sasami and Ryo-ohki were in the kitchen, his father was out to work, his grandfather was up at the shrine, and Kiyone and Mihoshi were patrolling Earth orbit om Galaxy Police business. Tenchi would even have welcomed Washuu's interference, but the diminutive scientist had been locked up in her lab since yesterday.
Out of options, Tenchi settled for a nondescript "Ahh..." while slowly backing away. He racked his brain, trying to come up with ways to stall the inevitable violence, but got nothing. Fortunately for him, rescue came in the form of Nobuyuki Masaki, arriving home early from work. Tenchi gave an inward sigh of relief. Thank you, Dad, he thought.
"I'll go answer the door," he told them hurriedly, rushing to do just that before both girls remembered that Nobuyuki didn't need someone to answer the door for him. By the time Tenchi reached the genkan, the girls had ceased their protest of his actions and were back to fighting amongst themselves. From what the young man could hear, it seemed that Ryoko was trying to force Ayeka to eat one of her cookies — as a taste test, or so she said.
"Well, son, the girls seem to be getting frisky again," the elder Masaki said, grinning at his son, as he tapped his shoes on the genkan to remove dust.
"Frisky is not the word, Dad," Tenchi sighed. Behind him, the sounds of argument grew more heated. There was a sudden crash, followed by several loud explosions. Tenchi winced as smoke billowed out of the living room. Well, there goes the house, he thought wryly.
Nobuyuki laughed and clapped a hand on his son's shoulder. "To have two beautiful girls fight over you... You make your father proud!" His smile widened. "Why, you're a lot like me when I was your age. Such a hit with the ladies..."
"Dad!" Tenchi rolled his eyes in exasperation. After the Kain incident he knew that his father's allegations of being a young Don Juan were nothing more than tall tales. He shook hos head at his father's antics. "Come on, Dad," he said, "Ryoko and Ayeka should be done fighting by now. Here, let me help you with that." He reached for the rolls of paper that Nobuyuki carried with him from work, being careful not to crumple the sheets.
"I'm hungry," Nobuyuki suddenly announced. "I haven't had a bite to eat since breakfast. Do you think Sasami'll be able to prepare me something?" His expression turned hopeful as he thought of Sasami's delicious cooking, a far cry from the usual take-out or instant ramen he and his son were accustomed to before their strange visitors' arrival.
"Well, it's still early yet, but I think she can come up with something," Tenchi said as he and Nobuyuki walked into the house. Suddenly, they heard a shout from the living room, a cry filled with horror and denial. Father and son exchanged a startled glance.
"That sounded like Ryoko," Tenchi said, worried. They hurried to the living room.
The room was a mess. Several of the furniture bore scorch marks and a table had been overturned, two of its legs missing. Pieces of broken plate and cookies littered the floor. In the center of the room lay the still form of the princess of Jurai. Beside her, Ryoko turned fearful eyes on Tenchi.
"I didn't mean to kill her, Tenchi — I swear!" Ryoko pleaded desperately. "All I did was feed her a cookie, I didn't know something like this would happen!"
"Dead?" Tenchi whispered, shocked. He knelt beside the fallen princess and checked for signs of life. He found none. "No... this can't be true. We have to do something! Dad! What should we do? Dad?" He looked around for his father and suddenly stopped, his expression stricken.
"Dad!" he cried, seeing Nobuyuki's still body lying at the room's entrance. He rushed over, frantically trying to revive the elder Masaki. But it was no use; no matter what he did, all his efforts were futile. Tenchi clenched his fists in anger, tears streaming down his face. "Dad... Ayeka..."
A hand gently touched his shoulder. "Tenchi, I'm sorry." Ryoko's voice choked with emotion. "Do you hate me?"
Tenchi shook his head. "No, Ryoko, I don't hate you. It's not your fault. I don't know what really happened, but I know it's not your fault." His eyes suddenly widened as an idea occured to him. "Washuu. Washuu will know what to do."
"I'm sorry, Tenchi, but there's nothing I can do," Washuu suddenly spoke. No one had even seen her enter the room. The diminutive scientist's expression was grave as she looked straight at Tenchi.
"What do you mean you can't do anything?!" Ryoko burst out angrily, grabbing Washuu by the front of her coat and thrusting herself face to face with the redhead. "You're supposed to be the greatest genius in the universe! There should be something you can do!"
Washuu wearily shook her head. "Death is beyond my power. Despite all my inventions, I can't bring someone back from the dead." She leveled a look at the distraught young man. "If it's any consolation, I can tell you that what just happened was no accident. Ayeka and you father were murdered."
The room's other occupants were stunned at the news, Ryoko absently letting go of the shorter girl. Finally, Tenchi spoke.
"Murdered? Who did it? And how?"
"I don't know who, and neither do I know how it was done. A while ago some of my sensors picked up a slight energy spike. It was so brief that I ordinarily wouldn't even have noticed it. But the energy signal was to regular to be natural, and it occured at the same time as Ayeka and Mr. Masaki's... deaths. Circumstantial, I know, but too unlikely to be just a coincidence."
"In other words, you're just guessing," Ryoko growled. "It seems that there's a lot that you don't know, Washuu."
"But it's a start," Tenchi observed. Just then, he felt a tugging on his pants leg. He looked down to see a frightened looking cabbit. "Ryo-ohki?" he asked in confusion. "What is it?"
"Miya!" The little cabbit gave one final tug on Tenchi's leg then ran all the way to the kitchen entrance, stopping to look back at Tenchi and the others. "Miya miyaa MIIYAAAAA!!!!!"
"She wants us to follow," Ryoko interpreted.
Understanding dawned, and Tenchi paled. "Oh my god! Sasami!"
His cry galvanized the others and together they followed Ryo-ohki into the kitchen, stopping at the sight of Sasami collapsed beneath the sink. Washuu hurried over to check on the girl.
"She's alive, but barely," she pronounced. Tenchi and Ryoko slumped in relief. Washuu held out a hand, a gleaming mechanical device appearing in her grip. She ran the scanner over Sasami's body.
"Vital signs are low, but there are no injuries, no abnormalities. However, there's no denying that her condition is critical. Frankly, I'm surprised that she's even alive at all."
"Is there anything we can do?" Tenchi somberly asked.
Washuu thought a moment, then nodded. "Ryoko, I need you to carry her to my lab. I'll need more than just this scanner to find out what exactly is going on. And Tenchi? If it's all right with you, can you see if you can move Ayeka and Nobuyuki to a room until we figure out what to do?"
Ryoko and Tenchi nodded. Gently picking Sasami off the floor, the former space pirate followed Washuu to her lab. Tenchi stood staring at the door as they left. He lifted anguished eyes heavenward.
"We'll avenge you, Dad, Ayeka, Sasami," he whispered fervently. "I swear we will!"