I don't own Tenchi Muyo.
No Choice
By The Great El Dober
Chapter One - Poor sole
'I always said that people should have the freedom to choose and live freely no matter what others do, my past has made me believe that very strongly. So I always believed that everyone has the right to be with who ever they want and normally I would never dream of interfering.
Normally.
But what if you knew what your daughter was thinking? What if you knew exactly what she would do to herself if she couldn't have happiness?
And what if you just found out that she couldn't.
Most mothers would sacrifice anything to save their children but how many would sacrifice their principles, how many would become what they hated just to rescue their child?
And how many would go even further than that?
Would I?
I'm sorry Tenchi but I have no choice and I can't let you have one either. You may not love Ryoko yet, but I still do.'
The stark neon displays were scattered like piercing pins of light around her and sent dots of light sparkling like shining moon drops into her black pupils, as cold and black as a frozen night sky. Yet Washu's eyes still seemed distant and vacant as she stared through the moment and into something far beyond.
Her statue composure and stone vacancy was observed by a vigil of silence broken only by the eternal droning song of the humming machines and occasional click of a key or bleep of a screen. Throughout the looping hours of her cycling days those were the only sounds that repeated in her ear, as if she was the only person in the world.
And in some ways she was.
She sat surrounded by cards, letters, words of contact, physical proofs that she was alive, that she meant something to someone, all dated and signed centuries before. That flow of recognition had stopped dead lifetimes ago, but it never stopped her hopeful heart from fluttering with anticipation when she would check everyday, but in the end that heart would always end up shot down and bruised. The lined up cards were now the only a reminder of her past, like a shrine to the dead. It was sad, especially since most of those cards, the ones displayed with the most pride and prestige had come from a girl who lived only steps away.
It is heartbreaking when an anchor to your past, a corner stone of your life rejects you. You suddenly realise that its all gone, the comfort, the familiarity, the defining moments of your happier days have been torn from you and what hurts even more is that you can't imagine what you have done to deserve it. Its like you suddenly glance at the calendar and realise its been one day too long and that its all been a waste, that the boat has sailed on without you, or like standing in the aftermath of some ill-chosen words and trying to trace the offence in them. You're just left standing, muttering discontent words as your thoughts waft back to those happier times when the skies were clear and blue and wonder why those moments of joy suddenly seem erased and lost.
As Washu touched the fear-churning sides where loving arms had once held her and the dry crusts of tear tracks on the cheeks that small lips had once kissed, she could do nothing but close her eyes and hope, no pray, for a bright blue sky. She was constantly enveloped by this melancholy sense of loss however there was something else that would hang in the air around her.
Unnoticed, or ignored, by Washu was the deep, scathing sense of irony that would whisper in a paranoid mind like a vengeful, bitter wind but the irony of it all was that Washu's mind was not paranoid, it was compassionate. This had become her world, a lonely realm of faceless metal and soulless programs, a mechanical desert desolate of human contact and yet inside this maddening isolation she still had thoughts of love and concern. To think that she would sit banished in her secluded exile, torn from her warmths and comforts, and yet pass the time thinking and worrying about her rejecting daughter. There was something very sad and ironic about that but for whatever lucid or subliminal reason Washu pointedly refused to acknowledge it.
With a gasp that was drawn out by her stretched sense of despair and gloom she brought her empty eyes back into focus and rested them upon the radiant scrolls of writing that shone before her and read, once again, the standard report that read like a proclamation of doom.
Calculations and projections completed for 'Masaki, Tenchi.'
Organic pattern test - positive
Astral pattern test - positive
Overdimension and Parallel Pattern test - positive
Psycho Layer Pattern test - positive
Suspicions confirmed with a 97.8% certainty.
Her idle fingertips hovered above the keys, contemplating, wondering, awaiting an easy route out of this unnaturally disturbing dilemma but, just like the letters, she knew that none would come. Love couldn't be altered with the flick of a switch, there would be no easy solution, the computer would calculate no logical response for there was none.
There was only desperation and drastic plans so extreme that they sprouted from the muddled minds of either the insane or the frantic. Could Washu, caring futile mother, really commit such outrageous acts? Could she . . . .
Her furrowing thoughts were overshadowed as the border bells rang out, the cell doors swayed slowly open and an outsider delicately tread into her desolate domain.
Foreign feet, blind in the masking darkness, fumbled slowly across the obstacles laden floor, sending clumsy echoes chorusing through the hidden depths of black. Darting eyes focused on the illuminated scientist and the shell of dancing lights that encased her like a beacon shining in the dark storm's sky. Those unsure feet staggered their way towards this beacon, like a lost ship swaying in the thrashing currents, as they tripped and stumbled over unknown traps below them, each step a leap of faith.
She reflected an indifferent glance towards the intruder's direction, her exploring mind and charred heart already knowing it was not who she longed for. As the her ears listened to the approaching fumbles her marble green eyes watched the developing figure form against the pool of firefly displays that jumped in her eyes. First came a tone outline quickly followed by a shaded form as it lurched forward in an awkward stumble but soon the figure became defined and accented by the unearthing lights that its trance-like steps seemed drawn towards. Soon she could see colour in the skin, read confusion on the face and feel a strange note of disappointment at the sight. It was nothing more than the root of her problem, Tenchi.
"It's a bit dark in here Little Washu," he smiled with a friendly approach warming his words, "Why are you working in darkness?"
Motionlessly absorbing his words she considered their meaning and observed her murky surroundings that enclosed her like a blindfold to the world. It seemed natural, a blanket of darkness like a majestic dress that flowed from her dazzling throne and carpeted the vast expanse of her cold kingdom. It reflected her mood, the lair of the scheming black widow, the threatening dark cloud that held the brewing storm, the midst of a gathering dark intention. In recent days it had become her natural habitat.
"Nothing interesting, just part of an experiment," she lied in more ways than one, a fake but friendly bounce being forcibly vaulted into her flat, depressed tones, "What can I do for you?"
"Oh nothing, its just that lunch is ready," he replied with a shaded yet gentle smile and deep excepting eyes whose dark pools were host to a thousand flickering star-point-lights, "I was wondering if you were coming to join us."
"Sure," she chirped with the songful voice of a young fledgling but the heart of a withering crow. Her hands heaved outwards like twisted wings and weary fingers, sapped of encouragement and interest, went to work. As each program was sent to sleep, the brilliant illuminations that had shone in orbit around her began to slowly fade like tiny candles being snuffed out one by one, the deepening tones of darkness advancing on them.
As the last neon star vanished from sight a cat's-eye path of light awakened from the floor with an echoing shunt as they lit a safe path out. Warm cores of light, like glowing stepping stones, were lined like a runway, a red carpet for a lonesome procession. She walked with confidant, almost regal strides down that path, letting the sprouting glows splash and wash waves of colour onto her grey face and drained hair and cast bold shadows in the echoing wake of her footsteps.
The only other sound was the timeless one note drone of her bland creations, a tedious fanfare to their departing Queen and a sharp reminder that her kingdom would await her inevitable return.
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Across the cramped, bustling lunch table, Washu watched her beloved yet painfully distant daughter with a stirring spark of thunder-struck fear in her eyes, the sort of terrified glance more appropriate for spotting a defenceless child wander onto a busy road, and in a sense completely justified. The drooping blue and yellow sleeves coiled around Tenchi's neck like stripped snakes and tried to lure him into a warm embrace. Ryoko was still trying in vain, each move like a call in the night, hopeful and unanswered. Yet her daughter's undying spirit remained buoyant, still waiting faithfully for his return of affection.
If only she knew the truth.
It was that flickering flame, that faint hope that Tenchi could love her, that was the entire foundation Ryoko's haunted, confused life. Her existence had become a flimsy house of cards precariously balanced on this single rock solid belief and it although it denied all logic and sense, Washu's strong maternal emotions compelled her to protect her daughter's flawed hopes, with a frenzied desperation.
It was a strong instinct woven into the strongest dyes of her emotions, a bold screaming nature that was impossible to ignore and so unbearably painful to be denied. She would willingly char skin or shred flesh to protect Ryoko from pain, but far worse than the bitter artic winds or hellish flames that she would voluntarily endure was the rejected helplessness of her deprived isolation. She stood shield and sword, ready to defend and nurture, only to be brazenly informed that she wasn't required, no, that she wasn't wanted. All she could do was watch as each passing moment twisted in her heart like an eternity of torture.
"Ryoko," a word that held such fathoms of spiralling dizzy yet powerful emotions in Washu's heart was spoken like a contemptuous profanity as Tenchi sharply squirmed away from her coiling arms as if they really were venom fanged serpents. The treasured mind link, the only thin thread that remained between her and her daughter, suddenly became a hideous curse as it spewed forth waves of anguish straight from Ryoko's bleeding heart.
Everyone was looking at her, Ayeka was laughing, she had made a fool of herself again. She had opened up her scarred heart and as it had been presented, exposed and unguarded, it had stabbed once more, stabbed by the very one she had so willingly offered it too. The broken trust, the humiliation, the embarrassment, all burned in her cracked heart like golden coals that slowly wilted through a raging torture.
She felt small, substandard and shamed. She knew that she wasn't perfect but she had tried, she had taken her whimpering soul, battle scarred and haunted, and thrust it into one final battle, and now that soul lay crawling, writhing in pools of crimson rejection, wounding words and lethal neglect. Her breaths lost rhythm as that soul gasped strained breaths of stale air, her hands trembled as her soul's pasty limbs convulsed in erratic pleas and a hidden tear trickled down her cheek as sickly trails of blood seeped from its sides.
Much as she ironically understood, shared and sympathised with the dejected nature of her daughter's suffering Washu was chained to the same fate. Her muscles trembled, wavering between the yearning to comfort her child and the knowledge of what the consequences for such actions would be, so instead of acting she acted, she acted like it was all right and that it didn't really matter, just like Ryoko did. Mother and daughter both restraining their aching souls, trying to salvage whatever worth was left for them, sharing twin sorrows but on separate sides. So close yet so far. All she could do was restrain herself and endure the sight of the irreparable damage being inflicted.
Or was it.
Cast against a familiar setting, familiar feelings had once again surfaced. The protective parental yearnings, now thoroughly associated with the natural light of day, pumped through her heart with a passionate life and coursed through her veins with its regular fury, but those yearnings coursed down rare and fresh channels as they focused not on the moment but rather on the future.
If this was Ryoko now what would she be like in a few days, tomorrow, tonight, whatever random moment that revealed the horrid truth to her. What would happen when the ground crumbled beneath her feet and her longing heart lost the will to beat again?
Washu knew exactly what would happen and it was for that reason that her emotions flared and swelled to new crashing heights, potencies that her soul struggled to manage and her principles paled in the face of. Self-righteous comforts were cleared from her thoughts and replaced by the notion that the ends would justify the means and all of the sinister plots that fringed that belief.
Her philosophy had been so altered by this discovery to the point that her mind now resembled an undeveloped photo, inverted and dark. Ideas that she would have once labelled insane now appeared perfectly lucid and understandable through these new eyes and to add to her unpredictable nature was the colossal pressure and strain of this awful knowledge as it thrust her forward, pushing her through doors and avenues without a moment's consideration.
They say that knowledge is power but this knowledge weakened her knees, quivered her soul and spun her mind like a twisted maelstrom of bright hopes and dark plans.
And now she stood at the land's end, the very edge, the selected moment in eternity where she would choose a path that would affect the lives many more than herself. She could either follow the lure of her dutiful desires or relinquish to the shackles of her morality.
With less than a second's thought she stepped boldly forward with her decision.
"Lady Ayeka," she spoke through numb lips that quivered with the lingering sting of her emotional pain, "Could I see you in my lab after lunch. I need your assistance with something."
And so it was set in motion, the dark beast that had lurked in Washu's mind breathed it first breath of life. The table was ringed with facades and gentle lies, an illusion of life, the shimmering surface that sheathed the hidden fathoms of truth. She wouldn't let her daughter drown in it and she would change this world to its very core to do so.
She had tried to save them both, mother and daughter together, but with the passing of each day her hopes slowly faded into dismal reality. She couldn't save both of them but she could save one. The cost would be high but she would make the sacrifice and save Ryoko from what lay ahead.
Her Little Ryoko needed her.
End of Chapter One
Note - Any feedback would be greatly appreciated as I'm finding it harder to write these days and I'm really unsure of how I'm doing. Thanks.
