Disclaimer: I don't own "Tenchi Muyo" or any of those characters. I do own the characters I made up, so please do not use them without my permission. Well, enough of my rambling; ON WITH THE SHOW!!!
Fires and the Future
"Well, let's go home and get her into bed. I bet she's exhausted. I know I am." Tenchi said.
A siren from an ambulance passed by.
"Where's Ryoko?" Aeka asked.
"Oh, she said she was going to wait outside."
But when they went outside, Ryoko was nowhere to be seen. "Well, she can come home when she wants to,"
Aeka rocked Shiri back and forth in her arms. "I want to get my baby home."
At home, Aeka and Chibi-Shiri fell asleep very quickly. But Tenchi couldn't sleep. He walked downstairs to the living room, only to find another with a case of insomnia. "Oh, hi Shiri."
"Hi, daddy!" she chirped. "Come sit with me." He did. "What are you still doing up?"
"I couldn't sleep."
"Thats what I thought. Why?"
The truth was after the 'dream' he had the night before, he was feeling a little different around Ryoko. But he couldn't talk to Shiri about all that. "I was thinking about my daughter-- or you... It's just confusing. Why did you come here in the first place?"
"I already told you that I can't tell you." Suddenly, there seemed to be a chill that ran through the room.
"Something's wrong..." Tenchi murmured.
"You got that right. I just hope- oh please don't let it be this..." Shiri took the tie from her hair that held in the braid and put it around her arm just below the elbow. It wasn't any ordinary hair tie. Tenchi watched as she pressed some very tiny buttons on it. A tinted green force-field formed around Shiri except for her arm below the hair tie. Her arm, the part not in the green tint, began to fade away, kind of like TV during a bad thunder storm. "No, it is."
"Shiri...?" Tenchi looked down at her in confusion.
"C'mon, dad. We gotta go, NOW!" she got rid of the force field and grabbed Tenchi's arm, dragging him out to the van.
"Where are we going?" he asked once they were in the van.
"We have to go to the hospital."
"But we were just there, can't you just go to Wash-"
"DRIVE!" she commanded. He did. They were about to turn into the parking lot at the hospital when a bright orange light on the side of the road ahead, accompanied by some sirens caught Tenchi's eyes. "That construction site up the road is on fire," he said.
"Construction site?!" Shiri screamed, opening her eyes. The van was slowed to turn into the lot, so when Shiri opened the door and jumped out, she ran right away.
"Shiri! Wait!" Tenchi yelled. Instead of bothering with the parking lot, he quickly swerved over to the side of the road, got out and chased after his daughter.
When he caught up, she was just standing there staring up at the building. She heard the shouts of the men attempting to put out the fire. "It just keeps burning. Nothing we do seems to put it out. I'm telling you, something's fishy about this..."
"Just let it burn itself out. Nothing we can do will save that building now."
"Shiri, come on." He put a hand on her shoulder. "Let's go."
"No," she wriggled away from him. Then she spun around to face him. "Ryoko's in there!" she cried. "She's the reason they can't get the fire out!"
"What? Why is she in there? Why doesn't she come out? She's perfectly capable of escaping from there."
Shiri bit her lower lip and pushed her glasses up on her nose. "It-- oh, i-it's her suicide."
"What?" he repeated, only this time even more disbelieving. "Sh-she... why?"
The girl's eyes narrowed in anger and fear. "Forget why. You have to go save her."
"Me?"
"No; King Bob of Egypt. OF COURSE YOU!"
"But I-"
"Listen, we don't have much time left. Two lives are in danger here."
"Two? Who's the other?"
"ME!" she screamed over the noise of the raging fire, water hoses and sirens. "MY life is about to be ruined if you don't go in there RIGHT NOW and give that woman a reason to live!"
"Shiri...?"
"AND STOP CALLING ME THAT! I can't STAND Shiri! I'm Majandra!"
"But if you're not my daughter then..."
"God! You're dumb! Yes, I AM your daughter, and if you really cared, you'd go in there RIGHT NOW," she stomped her foot to make her point, "Or at least yell to my mother to get her ass outta there before we both die!"
"Your mother?" 'That's it,' he thought. 'That's the explanation. For her ears, the shape of her eyes, her sharp insisors, her attitude. But Washu said the DNA was identical...'
"YES!" she was waving her arms and hands all over, trying to get Tenchi to understand.
"I'm going. But when this is all over, you have a lot of explaining to do."
"I can't be hearing things." She took her hands down, made a fist and closed her eyes tight.
"RYOKO, If you don't come out, then I'll have to come in and the chances of me surviving that blaze are pretty narrow."
"Tenchi?" She abandoned her spot next to a red-hot metal pipe. Ryoko crawled over to where a wall should have been, but it had either burned away or hadn't been build yet. She glanced down 2 stories and saw him standing near the building, yelling up at her. "Tenchi!" she yelled. Suddenly, she felt the floor beneath her break away, just as the rest of the building began to collapse completely. It was going to fall towards the rising sun, which was right behind Tenchi. She forgot all about what Shiri had told her and the only thought was to save the love of her life.
She flew down, grabbed him by the waist and got him out of harms way. Once she had landed him safely on the ground, she threw her arms around him in a hug and lightly cried on his shoulder. He wrapped his arms around her, too, happy that she was alive.
It was then that Tenchi noticed Shiri, or Majandra. She no longer had the dark purple braided hair, but now it was a short spiky dark teal. She had her arms crossed and a smirk on her face that said she was very happy with her work. "Well," she said. "I've ensured that I'll be born. Time for me to go home."
"Wait," Tenchi broke away from Ryoko, but he held her hand in his. "Explain all this to me."
"What's with your hair?!" Ryoko demanded.
"Ok, mom. I'm gonna te-"
"MOM!?!" she growled.
"Yes, MOM." Majandra growled back. "See, I had to come to the past to make sure that I would be born, otherwise there would be a lot of messed up stuff in the world, not just the absense of Majanda Reihyou Masaki. So, Washu sent me back to make sure this happens. Mum, I'm sorry about that whole thing. At the hospital and everything. It's... See, Washu gave me a list of things to keep the space/time continuum in balance. And unfortunately the whole heart breaking, fire incident was on the list."
"Why didn't you just come back as yourself?"
"Washu said that when Shiri.... or me... came to visit her thirteen years ago, she claimed to be Shiri, so in order to keep the continuum in working order, I had to do the same."
"The DNA?" Tenchi asked.
"I receieved a disk before I left. I gave it to Washu before she did the test on me, and she accepted it. Any other questions?"
"Your hair."
Majandra took the hair band around her arm and pressed a few buttons it. Her hair changed back to the style it had been when she first showed up; braid and all. With a few more buttons, she had her hair back. "Well, if you don't mind. I'm feeling a little homesick. I think I'll go now."
"Wait..." Ryoko reached out a little. "What happens with us?" she asked, refering to herself and Tenchi.
"I already told you, mom. Back at the hospital... 'My father stays with my mother until... now- when I left to come here.' And about Aunt Aeka... she'll be OK. After a while, she'll decide that she can't love someone who isn't in love with her, so... Bye. You can tell everyone else what happened." Majandra tousled her short hair. "I guess I'll see you in nine months." She smiled, pressed some buttons on the hair band, and finally after squeezing the earring on the lobe of her ear, in a flash of light, she was gone.
Thanks SOOO much to everyone who read, and please review. :) I suppose I should get to bed now.