________________
This is the first Chapter of "First And Best"
Please enjoy.
-----------------------------
**************************************************************************** *******
*The Names, Characters and some of the Places are the product of *
*PIONEER ENTERTAIMENT and AIC. I am not nor will I ever be part *
*Of the Making or creating of Tenchi Muyo! Thank You. *
**************************************************************************** *******
A/N: I am sorry that this chapter was very short.
It was an introduction, this is set in the OVA
Time line. Also this is written in First Person.
Once again, thank you and do enjoy.
Please, if this helps with the story click here for a PHOTO of The YOUNG RYOKO:
http://www.geocities.com/ai_0rikasa/Littloko.jpg
That is an real photo of Ryoko From the Tenchi Muyo Ryooh-ki OVA Art book v.7
Written by: My Lady
First And Best
My house… was a strange one to me. I lived among eight people and myself.
First there was the Masakis consisting of Kasuhito, who was an old shrine keeper, his son Nobuyuki who I often called father, played the role as a middle age architect, and his son Tenchi a normal teenage young man who spent most of his time in a carrot file or training with his grandfather. Next up was the Jurais who happen to be the third cousins of the youngest of the Masaki men. Ayeka a teenager who appeared to be the same age of Tenchi; is the oldest to her younger sister Sasami, Sasami was a little angle sent from the heavens above, a exultant cook and my best friend came to live with us for reasons unknown to me.
Mihoshi she was an under cover policewoman who has somehow came upon living with us, and again for reasons unknown to me.
Then there was the Hakubis, Washu my mother who was a scientist that was very protective of me, and I who had happen to be thirteen of age and had never been to school.
That never really seemed to have troubled me, what did was our appearances not the men of the family but the women. My mother was a tall attractive woman standing at five feet eight inches with hair that touched her ankles the color seemed to be pink almost red at times, to me all her hair styles always use to remained me of crabs even though it was spiky. The best and most beautiful thing about my mother was her eyes.
That seem to contain the entire world in them, they were a dead sea green. Every time I told my mother that I loved her they would glitter like stars and reflect the ocean.
I however did not look to much as my mother, my hair was always in two spiky pigtails with two huge red bubbles holding them, my hair color was a unusual one a sky blue ice green color, but the blue stood out more, only in the dark did the hint of green kicked in. I was four feet and nine inches. My golden honey colored eyes was what my family loved "Heaven's Gate" Tenchi would call it. To me it looked like cat eyes but much larger with a hint of human in them.
Mihoshi who I have seen very little of, have been ether working or somewhere away from me. She stood at five feet seven inches with her skin was a beautiful tan color; her hair was a sun yellow that had lost its sine. Her bubble gum blue eyes seemed that it also lost its flavor. Something inside me told me that Mihoshi was a fun life loving woman, not this woman that seems she wanted to end this life and eager to begin a new. Whenever the family spoke of the first and best Ryoko, Mihoshi's once duel hair would become just as bright as the sun, her eyes would pick up life and she would look as though she had found something she had lost a long time ago.
Sasami was my best friend who I knew loved me and wasn't afraid to have shown it. Sasami was an inch shorter then I was she stood to be four feet and eight inches. Her aqua blue pigtailed hair, ended at her feet. Her eyes were the largest pair of eyes I have ever seen in my life the color was a pink that reminded me of Mama's hair; and her voice was a high baby blue bird's sorrowful song that seem to have missed the life before.
Ayeka had the silkiest skin I have ever seen, silkier then the finest of silks Japan had to offer. Her eyes were a blood red and her hair was a royal purple color; the top layer of her hair was cut just above her neck and at the far back hidden under the top layer of hair was two long pigtails that touched the ground. Her voice was high yet soft whenever Tenchi was around, but when ever it was she was with me her voice sounded like finger nails on a black board. Ayeka always wore her best purple kimonos.
From the very beginning, I knew Ayeka was my enemy especially when she pretended to be my friend. Even though I wanted her as my friend, I new she hated me. She was jealous because I was a Ryoko and she wasn't. I just wanted Ayeka to like me and admire me, as I liked and admired her, because she was normal and didn't have to try and be like someone who was dead and gone. My mother and the rest of my extended family always use to tell me that I was special, that was what everyone said… but Ayeka. Ayeka was found of telling me that I wasn't really special, that I was 'merely strange'. I seem to be unable to remember what happened in my early childhood; truly I was unable to recall anything that had happened in my pass- the week or even the day before. I didn't know why I knew the things I new, or even how I knew the things I shouldn't have known.
I was treated differently because the first Ryoko who had died exactly thirteen years before I was born.
The first Ryoko had been a beautiful, and brave girl. I felt oddly haunted, wanting to be her so badly my insides ached. I wanted to be her. So I would be special and feel as loved as everyone said she has been.
The tales Momma told me of the wonderful first Ryoko, everyone she told me made me know I was not the best Ryoko, only the second and the inferior- not the special and perfect one.
The first and best Ryoko had stolen my childhood, she was allowed to go to school and I wasn't, she was able to go out to play and run free wherever her heart lead her, but no not me… and everyone talked so much about her I thought it was because of her that my memory was so full of holes. Ayeka would try to fill those holes by having me sit in fount a dark cave that was near our home. She wanted me to be filled with Ryoko's memories and capture her 'special powers' since she was dead and didn't need it anymore. Even Ayeka wanted the first Ryoko back.
And if one ghost wasn't enough, we had a second one that I thought only I knew of, Sasami. Even though she was my best friend and I loved her there was always something about her that made me hate to be alone with her, as though there was someone with her at all time, that I couldn't see.
My mother home schooled me, at the age of thirteen I had the IQ to surpass 'Earth's Colleges' Tenchi once told me, after I hade asked him to help me with problem.
"Ask Washu" he said, as he place his hand behind his neck and began to rub it, he had a strange way of being nerviest.
"People from earth wouldn't know something like that"
I ran to ask my mother, she was in her lab. It was located in what looked to have been a closet but it had stairs to go down to what I though was the basement, but it was huge, as if it had cover the hole under ground of Japan and more. My mother had everything a lab would need, and she even had her own garden that lead to our rooms, in her lab there were more places to go, I knew it yet I was forbidden to go. I found my mother where she was always to be found once entering her lab, as soon as you get off the stairs and open another door she'll be sitting on a pillow that she said flouted from the air pressure tank it had in it.
I ran up to her and taped her on her shoulder, when she turned to look at me I asked her about the problem and she looked at me as though I have asked her the most stupid question she has ever heard.
I knew then that by that look the first Ryoko would have known that answer for my problem, she might have already passed me at my age.
"My child you didn't carry the two" She said, after she had scanned my paper. Then turned back to her computer.
I felt stupid, a 2? I didn't carry the 2? The first Ryoko would of, but not me.
"Momma" I asked
"What is it that you want?"
"Momma, I asked Tenchi about the problem and he said that 'People from earth wouldn't know something like that', what did he mean am I that dumb, that people wont know this?" I said as tears formed in my eyes.
"No little Ryoko, this is something that Tenchi wouldn't understand even if he wanted to"
She said as she looked at my face trying not to give me eye contact whenever I cried.
"I don't understand," I said after clearing the tears from my eyes.
"Little Ryoko, This is the kind of work a… lets see a VERY smart person would do like you and I" she said and at she went back to her work.
My mother was very strict when it came to work, once when I was in her lab staring at a painting of a woman who was exposed for the world to see her, I thought that the woman in the painting looked shy, but acted bold. My mother had came up behind me and explained to me about the woman's expansiveness in a way that worried me and made me think about men and women.
"Don't judge women by what you see in paintings and statues. Judge them only by what you yourself know about the women in your life. The day a man understands any woman will be the day the world comes to an end."
My mother wanted no man to 'control' my life.
She was the one to do so.
**************
Why did I have to have an older sister dead and in her grave at the age of fifteen? Why did I have to be named after a dead girl? It seemed peculiar, unnatural. I hated the first Ryoko, the Best Ryoko, the Perfect and Good and Never Wrong Ryoko. Yet I had to replace her if ever I was to win a permanent place in my family's harts.
In the after noon before lunch I ran to Tenchi and right away he'd pick me up and whole me close as the grandfather clock in the hallways relentlessly ticked on. All about us the house was as silent as a grave, as if waiting for death to come and take us all, as it had taken the First Ryoko. Oh, how I envied and hated my older dead sister.
"Where is everyone?" I whispered, glancing around fearfully.
"Out in the yard" he said, letting me lose of our embrace " It's Saturday, Ryoko. I know time isn't important to you, but it is to me."
He looked a me with so much pity I felt sick, I didn't want his pity I didn't want anyone's pity, why did I feel that he was hiding something or lying to me?
Then Papa came in; I remember that on Saturdays Papa would get home early. I ran and did the same to him as I did with Tenchi.
"Papa, why can't I remember everyday like other people? I don't remember last year, or even before- why?" as he lower me to the ground.
"Um… Tenchi what was it that Washu said?" Tenchi father asked
"Something about heritages Dad!" he called from his room upstairs.
"Ah, yes we are all victims of dual heritages," he said softly, stroking my hair. "Each child inherits genes from both parents, and that determines his or her hair color, and eyes."
"I see." I said, but I really didn't see.
Why was it they never talked about my real father?
Was he unable to remember anything, as I wasn't able too? Had he forgotten he had a daughter?
Or he didn't want me? When I did have the guts to ask the family my mother had told me my father had died some while after my birth, and that was the end of it, I was never to talk about it again.
The family soon came in one by one from the yard.
"I see you have forgotten what today was again Ryoko" Ayeka said as she was the last one to enter the house. Sliding the door behind her.
I stared at her, dredging up from my treacherous memory something I might or might not have dreamed. It could even be a dream that be longed to the first Ryoko, who'd been so clever, so beautiful and so everlastingly perfect. But before I could capture any illusive memory, all were gone, gone.
I sighed, unhappy with myself, unhappy with the adults who ruled me, with the 'friend' Ayeka who insisted I become more ladylike, as she was.
Sunday came, and as soon as we had completed lunch we were off to she grandfather and visit the family cemetery, that was be hind the shrine following a small dirt road leading where many trees surrounded it, to a clearing where one cherry blossom tree stood alone at the edge of the small hill over looking the lake. We were all dressed in our best kimonos and bearing the best and most rear flowers. We slowly waked to a grave that had Grandfathers first wife, and at her side was his seconded next to her was Tenchi's mother Achika. We placed the flowers down and said a long pray, I dared not look over my arm to the lonely cherry blossom tree, instead I looked at Tenchi as he placed his flowers next to his mother's grave. A tear came to his eye but it did not fall down his face. I stood there looking at all the women in this family that have died, it was surely sad. The family then began to move to the lonely tree that I had so heated. Papa tugged me from my spot in front Achika's grave. I resisted, hating that tree that we had to visit and that dead girl that slept under it, that dead girl who stole everyone's love from me.
It seemed this was the first time I could clearly remember the words Momma must have spoken many times before.
"There she lays, My Little Ryoko" sorrowfully, she stared down at the flat grave with slender white-marble headstone bearing my very own name. I wondered when my family would recover from the shock of her mysterious death.
It seemed to me that if thirteen years hadn't healed their shock, maybe ninety wouldn't, either. I couldn't bear to look at that tombstone, so I stared up into Momma's face so high above. I watched as my Mother blinked back her tears.
She smiled at me.
"My first Ryoko is in that grave, dead at the age of fifteen years. That wonderful, special Ryoko, just… just as you-"
I swallowed. Visiting this grave and hearing about this Ryoko always made my throat hurt. Of course I wasn't wonderful or special, yet how could I tell her that when she seemed so convinced? In my own childish way I figured my value to her depended on just how special, wonderful and smart I turned out to be latter on in life.
When my mother had said that Mihoshi had began to cry starting off a chain reaction Sasami, Ayeka and even Tenchi let one rolled down his chin. Not for his mother but for this dead girl?
**************
Not worthy, not loved, not wanted was the words that ran in my mind as we slowly walked back to the house.
I ran off ahead of the small family to change into my practicing clots. I went to the lab door and opened it and ran down the stairs as I opened the other door and took a left to our sleeping quarters in my mother's lab. I ran thru her garden and up to a door as I opened the door, that looked just as the others did I was in a hall. To my left was my mother's room and the right my room. I ran in and received my clots and began to change as I remember what I had to do to have this privilege.
I had seen Tenchi for the first time training with his grandfather and I became hypnotized with his movements it look as do he was in a waltz, he looked so free to move his body so alive and young he was the king of all nights he would save the princess. I too wanted to master this dance, I ran up to grandfather and asked.
"Ryoko it is not up to you nor I, but your mother" with that said and done I made a mad dash to the house.
I had no time to take off my shoes as I ran for my Mother's lab door as I pulled it opened I heard Ayeka's scream that had sounded as if it had came from the deepest pit hell.
"Ms. Ryoko, those shoes off at once!" I took hold of my shoes and thorn them to the door passing Ayeka's face only an inch away.
"You little demon" She screamed as she came to me, I slammed the door and found my mother.
In side my mother stood looking at me as if I had phoned ahead.
"Yes Ryoko" She said as she leaned down to have eye contact.
"Mother please, you must I don't do anything in this house but clean…. I want to- I want to"
"You want to what?" she asked looking at my as I tried to catch my breath.
"You see I seen Tenchi training and I want-" I was cut off
"No" she said so fast I decided to act as if I had not heard her.
"To do it was well, I wont be alone Grandpa will be there and" Again
"No" She said and began to stand to her full length.
"But why?" I said as she began to walk away.
"Don't you want to be normal? Like every other girl on earth? You don't want to become a killing lunatic? Do you?"
She grew so angry her face was almost the same color as her hair, as she contained to yell.
"You wont like it, you'll get hurt why don't you just become a scientist, what's so hard? That's not for you and at the stage your at it's off limits. You wont do it again! This time you'll be normal"
"The First Ryoko did it?" I asked softly, when she answered she wasn't screaming this time and the way she spoke made me feel that she didn't want me to know the First Ryoko took those lessons.
"Well… Yes she did, BUT she wasn't as fragile as you are. She was special and" this time I cut her off.
"Your first Ryoko this, your first Ryoko that! I'm not normal I can't even remember before I was thirteen! Mother face it I'll never be your First, your best, your special and wonderful dead Ryoko! Hate her, I hate you, I hate it all!" I was screaming I couldn't take it. I ran from the lab and out the house and passed the shrine and to the only place I know in the woods that Ayeka have shown me the Demon's Cave.
I sat at the mouth of the cave and cried for hours. I missed Lunch and my stomach told me it was only a few minutes before Dinner. I knew that the hole house must of missed lunch too, my mother would, no my 'family' would never let me leave the house alone, not even to go to the lake that stood only three yards from the side of the house.
I heard the leaves and old dead branches being bent and broken as my mother call out my name.
It be became louder as she came closer I wanted to run but my legs had fallen asleep.
My mother came into the clearing and behind her stood Ayeka, my mother gave a sighed of relief. No not Ayeka she stormed her way to me and I gaze never moving from my mother, this was between us not Ayeka.
"Where in the world have you been? Everyone was looking for you, poor Sasami crying her eyes out! Not to mention you made us all miss lunch!" She yelled trying to make me fix my gaze on her. She came closer.
"Why do you just sit there and not answer? Have you lost your vocal cords as well as your memory?"
"That's enough Ayeka" Mother shouted
"Ms. Washu"
"You may go home… NOW"
"Yes very well, I'll tell everyone we have found her and have Sasami start dinner." With that said Ayeka was gone.
My mother sat next to me we were in complete silences. Minutes passed I couldn't take it any longer.
"Momma! I'm so sorry! I just-I just wasn't thinking!" I flung my self on her as I cried on her lap.
"I'll never do it again, I don't hate-hate you! Momma I love you. I'm so-SO SORRY!" I yelled into her lap as I took a good grip of her white shorts.
"I'll never run away again, I-I was going to come back but I was so scared you wouldn't want me back after what I said about the First Ryoko. I'm-I'm so Sorry Mommy I'll-I'll never ever do it again and-and if " I raised my head to look in her eyes. Her eyes were as unreadable to me as English was to Tenchi. I didn't even know if it was hate that was glaring dong on me, I stood there my arms around my mother's waist her arms lay lifeless at her sides.
"And if you don't want me to train with grandpa that's-that's ok as long as you know that-that I love you." I said al one more tear ran down my face I closed my eyes and yelled.
"Momma say something!" She didn't so I continued to think of what she was going to do to me. After what seemed to be a lifetime my mother finger wiped away a fallen tear and I opened my eyes again.
"I forgive you," she said and I hugged her with all my might, and my mother returned my offering with one just as tight.
"I'm so"
"I know little Ryoko. I know," She said knowing that I wanted her to know how sorry I was.
We spent a hole ten minutes in our embrace.
"Momma I'm hungry." She looked up into the big star filled sky and told me that we missed dinner, but that Sasami had save of some.
As we walk home mother and I was in no mood to talk after what had happened.
"You'll need to get something more suitable for training with your Kasuhito." She stated I looked up at her, my mother the Worrier.
"You mean I could?" I asked not truly sure my large ears were working right.
"Oh, not this week after what you just pulled going out here alone" She said as she took my hand in to hers.
"I'm so"
"Ryoko, I know child, I know," she said with the sweatiest smile I have ever gotten from her.
"Ryoko your going to be late hurry up" Momma called from the other end of the door from my room breaking me from one of my very few memories that I have.
"I'll be there Momma" as I changed in a flash and was out to train with Grandpa.
**************
"Dinner is ready" Sasami called out to the family as I was setting the table.
"Ryoko can you get everyone?" she ask as her small head picked from the kitchen.
"OK" I placed the last plate on the table and ran to the closest person.
I opened the door and fan down the stairs and again with the door. I never really asked Momma why she had so many door in her lab but then again, what does a door matter for?
"Momma dinners ready" I said as I opened the door to peep in to see if she was there.
"I'll be right up sweetie"
"Ok I'll go call Mihoshi now"
"Alright dear"
I was on the search again, Mihoshi was getting harder and harder to find now a days. I looked everywhere only to find Tenchi or Ayeka, after I told them of dinner I went off again to find Mihoshi on the verge of giving up I tried the Library.
There she was looking at a photo album.
"Mihoshi it dinner" She shout the book with much force.
"OH, Ryoko it's you… I'll-I'll be there soon" She sniffed
"Mihoshi are you alright?" I asked now concerned
"I'm just peachy," She said as she stood on a small ladder and tip-pie toed to place the album out of my reach on the top on the shelf.
"Alright, Ryoko lets go"
"Yep I'm right behind you," I said as we left the library while I was closing the door I couldn't stop but help look at the album, which laid on top there so high never for my eyes to see.
Sasami, Ayeka, Tenchi, Papa, Grandpa, Momma where already at the table when we got there I took my seat next to Momma and Sasami as Mihoshi seated her self nest to Ayeka who was at the left of Tenchi and the right was Grandpa and Papa.
We began dinner and I eat slowly as I always did while Ayeka complained that I wasn't eating, as a Lady should.
"Feeling better Ryoko" Tenchi asked me from the other side of the table.
"Yes, Tenchi," I replied with a bright smile "I feel fine now"
"Ryoko where did you place my hair brush?" Ayeka asked me her hairbrush?
"I-I don't know," I said looking around the table.
"That was my new one, young lady you have to remember where it is." She was so protective of her own things.
"But-But I don't remember" I wanted to cry why couldn't I remember anything?
"Swiss cheese for brains!"
It was salient again and I broke it and much more.
"What-what happened to the First Ryoko again?" With that said everyone pick there plates up thanked Sasami and left. I was alone.
I ran to my room, threw myself on my bed and I bawled. All I had was a quicksand. I wanted a family who were honest, consistent from day to day, not so changeable I couldn't depend on their love to last for longer then a few minutes. An hour later, the hall resounded with Momma's soft treads. She didn't bother to knock, just threw open the door so hard I thought the door would have fallen off.
She sat on my bed, caught my hand in hers, allowing me to see her soft long fingernails that were buffed so much they shone.
Minutes passed as she just sat there holding my hand. The little clock on my night table said twelve o'clock, but it wasn't the real time.
"Well" she said at long last, "what have we done this time to wound your fragile ego?"
"How old am I Momma?"
"You are thirteen, soon to be fourteen"
"How soon to be fourteen?"
"Soon enough." She gave a small yon. "How old do you want to be?" she asked.
"Only as old as I'm supposed to be"
"You'd make a good Lawyer, Ryoko. You never give me a straight answer."
Neither did she. I was catching her habits. "Momma tell me again why I can't remember exactly what I did last year, and the year before, or with Ayeka's hairbrush?"
She sighed heavily, as she always did when I asked too many questions. "My little Ryoko, how many times do I have to tell you? You are a special kind of girl, with talents so extraordinary that you don't realize the passing of time. You walk alone in your own space"
I already new that, and didn't want to walk alone. " I don't like my own space, Momma. It's lonely where I walk. I want to go out and have fun like the people on TV. I want friends to play with…"
"Ryoko we are all here for you and when you can remember I'll be right here waiting for you."
She said good night and gave me my 'Memory pill' to help me with my memory, and then she closed the door not forgetting to put my night light on.
Screams woke me up that night. My screams. I was sitting up, clawing at the sheet, covering myself up to the chin. In the long corridor I heard the pounding of Momma's feet as she came running. On the side of my bed she perched to hold me in her arms, smoothing my tousled hair, hushing my piercing cries, telling me again and again that everything was going to be alright. Nothing could harm me here. Soon I fell asleep, safe in her arms.
Morning light woke me, and Momma was in the doorway smiling broadly, almost as if she never left me alone.
"Sunday morning, Little Ryoko, time to rise and shine. Put on your best Kimono and we'll be off"
I stared at her, sleepy-eyed and disoriented. 'Was it only last week it was Sunday? Or was it much, much longer?' It was a question I put to Momma.
"Little Ryoko, you see what I mean? It's December now. In a few days it'll be Christmas. Don't tell me you've forgotten."
But I had. Time had such agility when it came to fleeting past me. Oh, Gods…. What Ayeka had said was true. I was vacant headed, forgetful, perhaps brainless.
===========
End Of Chapter One
===========
This is the first Chapter of "First And Best"
Please enjoy.
-----------------------------
**************************************************************************** *******
*The Names, Characters and some of the Places are the product of *
*PIONEER ENTERTAIMENT and AIC. I am not nor will I ever be part *
*Of the Making or creating of Tenchi Muyo! Thank You. *
**************************************************************************** *******
A/N: I am sorry that this chapter was very short.
It was an introduction, this is set in the OVA
Time line. Also this is written in First Person.
Once again, thank you and do enjoy.
Please, if this helps with the story click here for a PHOTO of The YOUNG RYOKO:
http://www.geocities.com/ai_0rikasa/Littloko.jpg
That is an real photo of Ryoko From the Tenchi Muyo Ryooh-ki OVA Art book v.7
Written by: My Lady
First And Best
My house… was a strange one to me. I lived among eight people and myself.
First there was the Masakis consisting of Kasuhito, who was an old shrine keeper, his son Nobuyuki who I often called father, played the role as a middle age architect, and his son Tenchi a normal teenage young man who spent most of his time in a carrot file or training with his grandfather. Next up was the Jurais who happen to be the third cousins of the youngest of the Masaki men. Ayeka a teenager who appeared to be the same age of Tenchi; is the oldest to her younger sister Sasami, Sasami was a little angle sent from the heavens above, a exultant cook and my best friend came to live with us for reasons unknown to me.
Mihoshi she was an under cover policewoman who has somehow came upon living with us, and again for reasons unknown to me.
Then there was the Hakubis, Washu my mother who was a scientist that was very protective of me, and I who had happen to be thirteen of age and had never been to school.
That never really seemed to have troubled me, what did was our appearances not the men of the family but the women. My mother was a tall attractive woman standing at five feet eight inches with hair that touched her ankles the color seemed to be pink almost red at times, to me all her hair styles always use to remained me of crabs even though it was spiky. The best and most beautiful thing about my mother was her eyes.
That seem to contain the entire world in them, they were a dead sea green. Every time I told my mother that I loved her they would glitter like stars and reflect the ocean.
I however did not look to much as my mother, my hair was always in two spiky pigtails with two huge red bubbles holding them, my hair color was a unusual one a sky blue ice green color, but the blue stood out more, only in the dark did the hint of green kicked in. I was four feet and nine inches. My golden honey colored eyes was what my family loved "Heaven's Gate" Tenchi would call it. To me it looked like cat eyes but much larger with a hint of human in them.
Mihoshi who I have seen very little of, have been ether working or somewhere away from me. She stood at five feet seven inches with her skin was a beautiful tan color; her hair was a sun yellow that had lost its sine. Her bubble gum blue eyes seemed that it also lost its flavor. Something inside me told me that Mihoshi was a fun life loving woman, not this woman that seems she wanted to end this life and eager to begin a new. Whenever the family spoke of the first and best Ryoko, Mihoshi's once duel hair would become just as bright as the sun, her eyes would pick up life and she would look as though she had found something she had lost a long time ago.
Sasami was my best friend who I knew loved me and wasn't afraid to have shown it. Sasami was an inch shorter then I was she stood to be four feet and eight inches. Her aqua blue pigtailed hair, ended at her feet. Her eyes were the largest pair of eyes I have ever seen in my life the color was a pink that reminded me of Mama's hair; and her voice was a high baby blue bird's sorrowful song that seem to have missed the life before.
Ayeka had the silkiest skin I have ever seen, silkier then the finest of silks Japan had to offer. Her eyes were a blood red and her hair was a royal purple color; the top layer of her hair was cut just above her neck and at the far back hidden under the top layer of hair was two long pigtails that touched the ground. Her voice was high yet soft whenever Tenchi was around, but when ever it was she was with me her voice sounded like finger nails on a black board. Ayeka always wore her best purple kimonos.
From the very beginning, I knew Ayeka was my enemy especially when she pretended to be my friend. Even though I wanted her as my friend, I new she hated me. She was jealous because I was a Ryoko and she wasn't. I just wanted Ayeka to like me and admire me, as I liked and admired her, because she was normal and didn't have to try and be like someone who was dead and gone. My mother and the rest of my extended family always use to tell me that I was special, that was what everyone said… but Ayeka. Ayeka was found of telling me that I wasn't really special, that I was 'merely strange'. I seem to be unable to remember what happened in my early childhood; truly I was unable to recall anything that had happened in my pass- the week or even the day before. I didn't know why I knew the things I new, or even how I knew the things I shouldn't have known.
I was treated differently because the first Ryoko who had died exactly thirteen years before I was born.
The first Ryoko had been a beautiful, and brave girl. I felt oddly haunted, wanting to be her so badly my insides ached. I wanted to be her. So I would be special and feel as loved as everyone said she has been.
The tales Momma told me of the wonderful first Ryoko, everyone she told me made me know I was not the best Ryoko, only the second and the inferior- not the special and perfect one.
The first and best Ryoko had stolen my childhood, she was allowed to go to school and I wasn't, she was able to go out to play and run free wherever her heart lead her, but no not me… and everyone talked so much about her I thought it was because of her that my memory was so full of holes. Ayeka would try to fill those holes by having me sit in fount a dark cave that was near our home. She wanted me to be filled with Ryoko's memories and capture her 'special powers' since she was dead and didn't need it anymore. Even Ayeka wanted the first Ryoko back.
And if one ghost wasn't enough, we had a second one that I thought only I knew of, Sasami. Even though she was my best friend and I loved her there was always something about her that made me hate to be alone with her, as though there was someone with her at all time, that I couldn't see.
My mother home schooled me, at the age of thirteen I had the IQ to surpass 'Earth's Colleges' Tenchi once told me, after I hade asked him to help me with problem.
"Ask Washu" he said, as he place his hand behind his neck and began to rub it, he had a strange way of being nerviest.
"People from earth wouldn't know something like that"
I ran to ask my mother, she was in her lab. It was located in what looked to have been a closet but it had stairs to go down to what I though was the basement, but it was huge, as if it had cover the hole under ground of Japan and more. My mother had everything a lab would need, and she even had her own garden that lead to our rooms, in her lab there were more places to go, I knew it yet I was forbidden to go. I found my mother where she was always to be found once entering her lab, as soon as you get off the stairs and open another door she'll be sitting on a pillow that she said flouted from the air pressure tank it had in it.
I ran up to her and taped her on her shoulder, when she turned to look at me I asked her about the problem and she looked at me as though I have asked her the most stupid question she has ever heard.
I knew then that by that look the first Ryoko would have known that answer for my problem, she might have already passed me at my age.
"My child you didn't carry the two" She said, after she had scanned my paper. Then turned back to her computer.
I felt stupid, a 2? I didn't carry the 2? The first Ryoko would of, but not me.
"Momma" I asked
"What is it that you want?"
"Momma, I asked Tenchi about the problem and he said that 'People from earth wouldn't know something like that', what did he mean am I that dumb, that people wont know this?" I said as tears formed in my eyes.
"No little Ryoko, this is something that Tenchi wouldn't understand even if he wanted to"
She said as she looked at my face trying not to give me eye contact whenever I cried.
"I don't understand," I said after clearing the tears from my eyes.
"Little Ryoko, This is the kind of work a… lets see a VERY smart person would do like you and I" she said and at she went back to her work.
My mother was very strict when it came to work, once when I was in her lab staring at a painting of a woman who was exposed for the world to see her, I thought that the woman in the painting looked shy, but acted bold. My mother had came up behind me and explained to me about the woman's expansiveness in a way that worried me and made me think about men and women.
"Don't judge women by what you see in paintings and statues. Judge them only by what you yourself know about the women in your life. The day a man understands any woman will be the day the world comes to an end."
My mother wanted no man to 'control' my life.
She was the one to do so.
**************
Why did I have to have an older sister dead and in her grave at the age of fifteen? Why did I have to be named after a dead girl? It seemed peculiar, unnatural. I hated the first Ryoko, the Best Ryoko, the Perfect and Good and Never Wrong Ryoko. Yet I had to replace her if ever I was to win a permanent place in my family's harts.
In the after noon before lunch I ran to Tenchi and right away he'd pick me up and whole me close as the grandfather clock in the hallways relentlessly ticked on. All about us the house was as silent as a grave, as if waiting for death to come and take us all, as it had taken the First Ryoko. Oh, how I envied and hated my older dead sister.
"Where is everyone?" I whispered, glancing around fearfully.
"Out in the yard" he said, letting me lose of our embrace " It's Saturday, Ryoko. I know time isn't important to you, but it is to me."
He looked a me with so much pity I felt sick, I didn't want his pity I didn't want anyone's pity, why did I feel that he was hiding something or lying to me?
Then Papa came in; I remember that on Saturdays Papa would get home early. I ran and did the same to him as I did with Tenchi.
"Papa, why can't I remember everyday like other people? I don't remember last year, or even before- why?" as he lower me to the ground.
"Um… Tenchi what was it that Washu said?" Tenchi father asked
"Something about heritages Dad!" he called from his room upstairs.
"Ah, yes we are all victims of dual heritages," he said softly, stroking my hair. "Each child inherits genes from both parents, and that determines his or her hair color, and eyes."
"I see." I said, but I really didn't see.
Why was it they never talked about my real father?
Was he unable to remember anything, as I wasn't able too? Had he forgotten he had a daughter?
Or he didn't want me? When I did have the guts to ask the family my mother had told me my father had died some while after my birth, and that was the end of it, I was never to talk about it again.
The family soon came in one by one from the yard.
"I see you have forgotten what today was again Ryoko" Ayeka said as she was the last one to enter the house. Sliding the door behind her.
I stared at her, dredging up from my treacherous memory something I might or might not have dreamed. It could even be a dream that be longed to the first Ryoko, who'd been so clever, so beautiful and so everlastingly perfect. But before I could capture any illusive memory, all were gone, gone.
I sighed, unhappy with myself, unhappy with the adults who ruled me, with the 'friend' Ayeka who insisted I become more ladylike, as she was.
Sunday came, and as soon as we had completed lunch we were off to she grandfather and visit the family cemetery, that was be hind the shrine following a small dirt road leading where many trees surrounded it, to a clearing where one cherry blossom tree stood alone at the edge of the small hill over looking the lake. We were all dressed in our best kimonos and bearing the best and most rear flowers. We slowly waked to a grave that had Grandfathers first wife, and at her side was his seconded next to her was Tenchi's mother Achika. We placed the flowers down and said a long pray, I dared not look over my arm to the lonely cherry blossom tree, instead I looked at Tenchi as he placed his flowers next to his mother's grave. A tear came to his eye but it did not fall down his face. I stood there looking at all the women in this family that have died, it was surely sad. The family then began to move to the lonely tree that I had so heated. Papa tugged me from my spot in front Achika's grave. I resisted, hating that tree that we had to visit and that dead girl that slept under it, that dead girl who stole everyone's love from me.
It seemed this was the first time I could clearly remember the words Momma must have spoken many times before.
"There she lays, My Little Ryoko" sorrowfully, she stared down at the flat grave with slender white-marble headstone bearing my very own name. I wondered when my family would recover from the shock of her mysterious death.
It seemed to me that if thirteen years hadn't healed their shock, maybe ninety wouldn't, either. I couldn't bear to look at that tombstone, so I stared up into Momma's face so high above. I watched as my Mother blinked back her tears.
She smiled at me.
"My first Ryoko is in that grave, dead at the age of fifteen years. That wonderful, special Ryoko, just… just as you-"
I swallowed. Visiting this grave and hearing about this Ryoko always made my throat hurt. Of course I wasn't wonderful or special, yet how could I tell her that when she seemed so convinced? In my own childish way I figured my value to her depended on just how special, wonderful and smart I turned out to be latter on in life.
When my mother had said that Mihoshi had began to cry starting off a chain reaction Sasami, Ayeka and even Tenchi let one rolled down his chin. Not for his mother but for this dead girl?
**************
Not worthy, not loved, not wanted was the words that ran in my mind as we slowly walked back to the house.
I ran off ahead of the small family to change into my practicing clots. I went to the lab door and opened it and ran down the stairs as I opened the other door and took a left to our sleeping quarters in my mother's lab. I ran thru her garden and up to a door as I opened the door, that looked just as the others did I was in a hall. To my left was my mother's room and the right my room. I ran in and received my clots and began to change as I remember what I had to do to have this privilege.
I had seen Tenchi for the first time training with his grandfather and I became hypnotized with his movements it look as do he was in a waltz, he looked so free to move his body so alive and young he was the king of all nights he would save the princess. I too wanted to master this dance, I ran up to grandfather and asked.
"Ryoko it is not up to you nor I, but your mother" with that said and done I made a mad dash to the house.
I had no time to take off my shoes as I ran for my Mother's lab door as I pulled it opened I heard Ayeka's scream that had sounded as if it had came from the deepest pit hell.
"Ms. Ryoko, those shoes off at once!" I took hold of my shoes and thorn them to the door passing Ayeka's face only an inch away.
"You little demon" She screamed as she came to me, I slammed the door and found my mother.
In side my mother stood looking at me as if I had phoned ahead.
"Yes Ryoko" She said as she leaned down to have eye contact.
"Mother please, you must I don't do anything in this house but clean…. I want to- I want to"
"You want to what?" she asked looking at my as I tried to catch my breath.
"You see I seen Tenchi training and I want-" I was cut off
"No" she said so fast I decided to act as if I had not heard her.
"To do it was well, I wont be alone Grandpa will be there and" Again
"No" She said and began to stand to her full length.
"But why?" I said as she began to walk away.
"Don't you want to be normal? Like every other girl on earth? You don't want to become a killing lunatic? Do you?"
She grew so angry her face was almost the same color as her hair, as she contained to yell.
"You wont like it, you'll get hurt why don't you just become a scientist, what's so hard? That's not for you and at the stage your at it's off limits. You wont do it again! This time you'll be normal"
"The First Ryoko did it?" I asked softly, when she answered she wasn't screaming this time and the way she spoke made me feel that she didn't want me to know the First Ryoko took those lessons.
"Well… Yes she did, BUT she wasn't as fragile as you are. She was special and" this time I cut her off.
"Your first Ryoko this, your first Ryoko that! I'm not normal I can't even remember before I was thirteen! Mother face it I'll never be your First, your best, your special and wonderful dead Ryoko! Hate her, I hate you, I hate it all!" I was screaming I couldn't take it. I ran from the lab and out the house and passed the shrine and to the only place I know in the woods that Ayeka have shown me the Demon's Cave.
I sat at the mouth of the cave and cried for hours. I missed Lunch and my stomach told me it was only a few minutes before Dinner. I knew that the hole house must of missed lunch too, my mother would, no my 'family' would never let me leave the house alone, not even to go to the lake that stood only three yards from the side of the house.
I heard the leaves and old dead branches being bent and broken as my mother call out my name.
It be became louder as she came closer I wanted to run but my legs had fallen asleep.
My mother came into the clearing and behind her stood Ayeka, my mother gave a sighed of relief. No not Ayeka she stormed her way to me and I gaze never moving from my mother, this was between us not Ayeka.
"Where in the world have you been? Everyone was looking for you, poor Sasami crying her eyes out! Not to mention you made us all miss lunch!" She yelled trying to make me fix my gaze on her. She came closer.
"Why do you just sit there and not answer? Have you lost your vocal cords as well as your memory?"
"That's enough Ayeka" Mother shouted
"Ms. Washu"
"You may go home… NOW"
"Yes very well, I'll tell everyone we have found her and have Sasami start dinner." With that said Ayeka was gone.
My mother sat next to me we were in complete silences. Minutes passed I couldn't take it any longer.
"Momma! I'm so sorry! I just-I just wasn't thinking!" I flung my self on her as I cried on her lap.
"I'll never do it again, I don't hate-hate you! Momma I love you. I'm so-SO SORRY!" I yelled into her lap as I took a good grip of her white shorts.
"I'll never run away again, I-I was going to come back but I was so scared you wouldn't want me back after what I said about the First Ryoko. I'm-I'm so Sorry Mommy I'll-I'll never ever do it again and-and if " I raised my head to look in her eyes. Her eyes were as unreadable to me as English was to Tenchi. I didn't even know if it was hate that was glaring dong on me, I stood there my arms around my mother's waist her arms lay lifeless at her sides.
"And if you don't want me to train with grandpa that's-that's ok as long as you know that-that I love you." I said al one more tear ran down my face I closed my eyes and yelled.
"Momma say something!" She didn't so I continued to think of what she was going to do to me. After what seemed to be a lifetime my mother finger wiped away a fallen tear and I opened my eyes again.
"I forgive you," she said and I hugged her with all my might, and my mother returned my offering with one just as tight.
"I'm so"
"I know little Ryoko. I know," She said knowing that I wanted her to know how sorry I was.
We spent a hole ten minutes in our embrace.
"Momma I'm hungry." She looked up into the big star filled sky and told me that we missed dinner, but that Sasami had save of some.
As we walk home mother and I was in no mood to talk after what had happened.
"You'll need to get something more suitable for training with your Kasuhito." She stated I looked up at her, my mother the Worrier.
"You mean I could?" I asked not truly sure my large ears were working right.
"Oh, not this week after what you just pulled going out here alone" She said as she took my hand in to hers.
"I'm so"
"Ryoko, I know child, I know," she said with the sweatiest smile I have ever gotten from her.
"Ryoko your going to be late hurry up" Momma called from the other end of the door from my room breaking me from one of my very few memories that I have.
"I'll be there Momma" as I changed in a flash and was out to train with Grandpa.
**************
"Dinner is ready" Sasami called out to the family as I was setting the table.
"Ryoko can you get everyone?" she ask as her small head picked from the kitchen.
"OK" I placed the last plate on the table and ran to the closest person.
I opened the door and fan down the stairs and again with the door. I never really asked Momma why she had so many door in her lab but then again, what does a door matter for?
"Momma dinners ready" I said as I opened the door to peep in to see if she was there.
"I'll be right up sweetie"
"Ok I'll go call Mihoshi now"
"Alright dear"
I was on the search again, Mihoshi was getting harder and harder to find now a days. I looked everywhere only to find Tenchi or Ayeka, after I told them of dinner I went off again to find Mihoshi on the verge of giving up I tried the Library.
There she was looking at a photo album.
"Mihoshi it dinner" She shout the book with much force.
"OH, Ryoko it's you… I'll-I'll be there soon" She sniffed
"Mihoshi are you alright?" I asked now concerned
"I'm just peachy," She said as she stood on a small ladder and tip-pie toed to place the album out of my reach on the top on the shelf.
"Alright, Ryoko lets go"
"Yep I'm right behind you," I said as we left the library while I was closing the door I couldn't stop but help look at the album, which laid on top there so high never for my eyes to see.
Sasami, Ayeka, Tenchi, Papa, Grandpa, Momma where already at the table when we got there I took my seat next to Momma and Sasami as Mihoshi seated her self nest to Ayeka who was at the left of Tenchi and the right was Grandpa and Papa.
We began dinner and I eat slowly as I always did while Ayeka complained that I wasn't eating, as a Lady should.
"Feeling better Ryoko" Tenchi asked me from the other side of the table.
"Yes, Tenchi," I replied with a bright smile "I feel fine now"
"Ryoko where did you place my hair brush?" Ayeka asked me her hairbrush?
"I-I don't know," I said looking around the table.
"That was my new one, young lady you have to remember where it is." She was so protective of her own things.
"But-But I don't remember" I wanted to cry why couldn't I remember anything?
"Swiss cheese for brains!"
It was salient again and I broke it and much more.
"What-what happened to the First Ryoko again?" With that said everyone pick there plates up thanked Sasami and left. I was alone.
I ran to my room, threw myself on my bed and I bawled. All I had was a quicksand. I wanted a family who were honest, consistent from day to day, not so changeable I couldn't depend on their love to last for longer then a few minutes. An hour later, the hall resounded with Momma's soft treads. She didn't bother to knock, just threw open the door so hard I thought the door would have fallen off.
She sat on my bed, caught my hand in hers, allowing me to see her soft long fingernails that were buffed so much they shone.
Minutes passed as she just sat there holding my hand. The little clock on my night table said twelve o'clock, but it wasn't the real time.
"Well" she said at long last, "what have we done this time to wound your fragile ego?"
"How old am I Momma?"
"You are thirteen, soon to be fourteen"
"How soon to be fourteen?"
"Soon enough." She gave a small yon. "How old do you want to be?" she asked.
"Only as old as I'm supposed to be"
"You'd make a good Lawyer, Ryoko. You never give me a straight answer."
Neither did she. I was catching her habits. "Momma tell me again why I can't remember exactly what I did last year, and the year before, or with Ayeka's hairbrush?"
She sighed heavily, as she always did when I asked too many questions. "My little Ryoko, how many times do I have to tell you? You are a special kind of girl, with talents so extraordinary that you don't realize the passing of time. You walk alone in your own space"
I already new that, and didn't want to walk alone. " I don't like my own space, Momma. It's lonely where I walk. I want to go out and have fun like the people on TV. I want friends to play with…"
"Ryoko we are all here for you and when you can remember I'll be right here waiting for you."
She said good night and gave me my 'Memory pill' to help me with my memory, and then she closed the door not forgetting to put my night light on.
Screams woke me up that night. My screams. I was sitting up, clawing at the sheet, covering myself up to the chin. In the long corridor I heard the pounding of Momma's feet as she came running. On the side of my bed she perched to hold me in her arms, smoothing my tousled hair, hushing my piercing cries, telling me again and again that everything was going to be alright. Nothing could harm me here. Soon I fell asleep, safe in her arms.
Morning light woke me, and Momma was in the doorway smiling broadly, almost as if she never left me alone.
"Sunday morning, Little Ryoko, time to rise and shine. Put on your best Kimono and we'll be off"
I stared at her, sleepy-eyed and disoriented. 'Was it only last week it was Sunday? Or was it much, much longer?' It was a question I put to Momma.
"Little Ryoko, you see what I mean? It's December now. In a few days it'll be Christmas. Don't tell me you've forgotten."
But I had. Time had such agility when it came to fleeting past me. Oh, Gods…. What Ayeka had said was true. I was vacant headed, forgetful, perhaps brainless.
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End Of Chapter One
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