Here's the usual disclaimer: I don't own Tenchi, it's characters, or anything else about it. It is the creative and distributive property of Masaki Kajishima, AIC and Pioneer. This story comes out of respect for them and this impressive anime show. Please don't sue me, cos I'm broke. Just kick back and enjoy the story!

Reviews are welcome as always. You can post them up at Fanfiction.net and also contact me via mccpcorn@hotmail.com. My thanks to all who have responded so far. I will do my best to return the favour but as you can imagine this story is a pretty big project and it takes up most of my free time. ^^;;;

A QUICK RECAP:

Washu's latest scheme to extract a 'sample' from Tenchi has gone haywire thanks to a last minute intervention by Ryoko. The result has been everyone in the house having their personality transplanted into someone else's body:

Ryoko is now in Sasami's body. (Ryoko/Sasami)

Sasami is in Kiyone's body. (Sasami/Kiyone)

Kiyone's stuck in Tenchi's body. (Kiyone/Tenchi)

Tenchi now occupies Mihoshe's body. (Tenchi/Mihoshe)

Mihoshe is in Ryoko's body. (Mihoshe/Ryoko)

Washu has swapped bodies with Ayeka. (Washu/Ayeka & Ayeka/Washu)

Noboyuki was - rather fortunately - out of town after driving Katsuhito to a conference, and Ryo-Ohki was out in the Carrot Field raiding the harvest.

The Story so Far: After a fight with Ayeka, Ryoko is missing in the forest. Concerned for her safety the gang have gone looking for her...

Tenchi Muyo: Changing Faces
---------------------------

By Mccpcorn

CHAPTER SEVEN: TRIAL BY STORM
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Kiyone and Mihoshe had thoroughly searched the area immediately around Ryoko's cave without finding as much as a Sasami-sized boot-print. With night now firmly entrenched about them the GP Officers made their way around to the cave's entrance.

Mihoshe/Ryoko shivered. 'There's a storm coming.'

Kiyone/Tenchi cast a doubtful look at the ever-thickening clouds. 'What makes you so certain?'

Mihoshe shivered again. 'I dunno,' she admitted. 'I just know.'

Kiyone looked at her partner for a moment, trying to fit Mihoshe's features to the green-eyed, cyan haired profile that seemed to swim in the gloom before her as they walked. 'Oh,' she replied simply, turning her thoughts back to matters in hand.

The entrance to Ryoko's cave now loomed sullenly before them. 'What a place,' Kiyone thought aloud as she shone her flashlight around the entrance. The gate was firmly shut, it's padlock and chain clearly visible in the revealing beam of her flashlight.

'Looks like Ryoko didn't come this way,' Mihoshe sighed.

We'll see,' Kiyone replied as she pulled a key-ring from Tenchi's belt. 'In Sasami's body, Ryoko may have been able to climb the gate and squeeze through that gap at the top,' Kiyone pointed her flashlight up to reveal that the gate wasn't snug with the roof of the cave. 'She may even have been able to squeeze through these bars if she were desperate enough.'

Kiyone didn't really believe that, but she was determined to make as thorough job as possible in searching the cave, if only for her own peace of mind. So it was with an odd sense of deja-vu that Kiyone slipped the correct key into the padlock and clicked it open.

The gate suddenly jerked away from Kiyone's hand, and she jumped back with a startled 'Ah!' as it was opened from the OTHER side.

'Come on,' Mihoshe/Ryoko said with nervous impatience. 'Let's hurry; the others may need us, you know.'

'Blast it, Mihoshe!' Kiyone ground out through clenched teeth. 'You could've WARNED me before you decided to teleport through the gate!'

'Sorree...'

Kiyone followed Mihoshe into the cave.

* * *

'How about your telepathic link to Ryoko?' Tenchi was asking as he swung his flashlight around the stepping stones at the feet of Funaho's roots. 'Can you detect anything through that?'

'Not really,' was Washu's distracted reply. Tenchi turned to see the scientist adjusting a strange, binocular-like device on her head.

'What is that?'

'Night scope,' Washu/Ayeka replied absently. 'Shine your torch at the lake's surface, could you?'

'Um, wont the extra light blank out your night vision?'

'Not this device. It will use the extra photons to make an accurate 3D map of the lake floor.'

'What could you hope to find with that??'

There was the barest pause. 'A body.'

A cold feeling settled in the pit of Tenchi's stomach as Washu continued mechanically: 'If she fell in, she probably wouldn't have lasted very long. But this water's pretty cold; Sasami's... body will be in no immediate danger. I'll be able to resuscitate it and at least get Sasami's personality back in there.'

'And Ryoko...?'

Again, the mechanical voice served only to conceal, not hide, the tremendous emotional strain the little scientist was clearly under. 'I may be able to build a new personality matrix for her...'

Or you may just choose to let the body die, Tenchi finished for her silently. Grimly, he swung the beam of his flashlight over.

* * *

Ayeka stood at the foot of the steps leading up to the shrine as she pondered her next move. Next to her, Sasami/Kiyone glanced up the steps to where they were swallowed by the gloom.

'The heat trail goes half way up the shrine steps, Princess Ayeka,' Azaka reported. 'From there it turns left into the woods.'

'Can you see where it leads?' Aykea/Washu asked.

'I'm afraid not, Your Highness,' Kamadake announced sadly. 'From the air, the tree cover is just dense.'

'And the much cooler air within the forest would mean a more rapid dissipation of the heat signature,' Azaka finished.

Ayeka considered the report as her two Guardians hung patiently in front of her. Azaka and Kamadake could possibly triangulate a location for Ryoko and transport her and Sasami to that position, but it would be a rough guess at best. Or she could instruct them to inform the other two search parties and bring them here.

A cold speck of rain hit Ayeka's nose, jolting her out of her thoughts. 'Azaka,' she ordered. 'Go and inform Lord Tenchi and Miss Kiyone, then bring each search party here. Kamadake, I want you to monitor mine and Sasami's position so Azaka can bring the others right to us.'

'I will only be able to transport two at a time, Your Highness,' Azaka warned.

Ayeka nodded. 'I understand. Fetch Lord Tenchi and Miss Washu first; they are in open ground and fairly nearby. By the time you return for Miss Kiyone and Miss Mihoshe, they should already have completed their search of the cave and be waiting at or near the entrance.'

'Affirmative,' Azaka replied.

'Confirmed,' Kamadake responded. At once, the two Guardians rose into the sky and departed.

'Come on Sasami,' Ayeka said, trying to still the pounding of her heart. 'Let's get to that middle step.'

* * *

A pale moon; a cold light; a sobbing child.

Ryoko clawed her way through the undergrowth, sometimes stumbling on her hands and knees. A part of her mind wondered why she had chosen the night of a brewing thunderstorm to do this, but the rational thought was quickly overwhelmed by primal emotions. Within Sasami's brain, Ryoko's identity was shrinking rapidly. She was becoming more erratic, less rational, as she began to lose track of herself and her personality began to unravel.

She stumbled once, picked herself up; stumbled again.

Who cares, who cares, who cares!?

WHO cares...?

Ryoko barely felt the cold clammy mud that now clung to Sasami's lower robes; didn't notice as the thorns dug into her hands, scraped at her cheeks, tore into her clothes. The wind numbed her senses as she longed for it to numb her mind of the stinging, humiliating memories.

It kept coming back again and again. The way Washu/Ayeka had plucked her off her feet and dumped her in the living room.

"Now you stay here, CHILD. Or I will tan your hide so bad the only thing you'll be able to sit down on is a block of ice!"

Washu's words. Her exact words... Just a child. I'm just a bad little girl...

No sense of responsibility; no sense of honour. Just a no-good demon who no-one gave a damn about.

Why have I even bothered to KID myself for so long? Tenchi doesn't love me - he's INCAPABLE of loving me!

The shattered fragments of Ryoko's mind continued to throw unwanted memories to the surface. Buildings exploded on Planet Jurai; people scattered, running and falling.

Falling...

Sasami falling. A child's blood pooling around a broken body...

'NO!!!' Ryoko screamed.

Ryoko/Sasami fell to her knees, clutching her head. She fell down on the ground, her body wracked with painful sobs.

'GET OUT OF MY HEAD, DAMN YOU!!!'

I didn't mean it! I didn't want to!! Kagato MADE me do it!

But a vicious voice snarled back at her through her mind: You ENJOYED it! You laughed at their weakness! Jurai with all it's arrogance, laid low at last!

NO! I'd never hurt Sasami! She's an innocent child! I never MEANT her to get hurt!

The voice just laughed.

'Please, no!' she called out weakly. 'Enough! Please, no more! I'm sorry! I'm SO sorry! Please...' her voice trailed off and she began sobbing again.

I never meant it! I never meant to hurt her...

The thought spun away in her mind as Ryoko lost consciousness.

* * *

The ground near the shrine steps was rather stony, and for a few minutes Ayeka and Sasami lost Ryoko's trail when they entered the forest. But then Sasami spotted a small but deep boot-print in the soft earth, and the sisters began to make good progress.

But Ayeka was far from satisfied.

'Sasami had a half hour start on us at least,' she muttered to herself. 'She could be miles away by now, or anything could've happened to her.'

'Ayeka, I'm HERE,' Sasami/Kiyone reminded her sister. 'We're looking for Ryoko, remember?'

Ayeka seemed to pause a moment, just ahead of Sasami. 'Yes, of course, Sasami,' Ayeka/Washu answered as she resumed walking. 'I'm sorry.'

* * *

Ryoko struggled to her feet. She could have slept for 10 minutes or 700 years; she didn't know and didn't care. All she cared about was getting away.

The dreams haunted her; memories tortured her. Things she had buried for so long now rose accusingly in her mind.

"Now you stay here, CHILD..."

"You - you DEMON! Nothing gets under that precious skin of yours!" Ryoko thought she could still feel Ayeka's hand stinging her bottom. Her face burned with the pain and humiliation as it all came rushing back to her.

"It's time your pride took a beating!"

700 years in a cold, damp cave. All alone. Unloved, unwanted.

Forgotten.

I dun wanna be cold... Mommy, I dun WANNA be cold...

Mommy...?

Where did THAT come from?

Please dun leave me on my own; please Mommy!

But I dun HAVE a mommy.... I'm just a construct; an artefact. Just like Ayeka said...)

But wasn't Washu her mother?

But what kind of mother tried to steal away her daughter's boyfriend?

Oh, yeah... Tenchi really isn't my boyfriend. He probably can't stand the sight of me.

Ryoko squeezed her eyes shut; fresh tears ran down Sasami's cheeks as the random memory surfaced; her conversation with Ayeka in the bath, right before Kagato attacked.

"Now he treats me as though I'm some sort of monster..."

I AM a monster...

"One day I hoped we'd play together..."

I wanted to play with him so bad... just once. If only he'd have played with me just ONCE.... Ryoko began sobbing again. The ever shrinking part of her mind that was still rational, wondered gravely why emotions were so painful. Just once...

Then she got up and started running again.

* * *

As they progressed, Ayeka and Sasami found the weather increasingly erratic and uncooperative. Rain was now dribbling down heavily through the leaf canopy; the ground became boggy and treacherous, and their footing became uncertain.

Ryoko's deeper boot-prints filled with water until they were virtually indistinguisable from regular puddles and indentations. In places where the ground was firmer matters were little better as the pirate's footfalls were quite light, and so the rain quickly washed their traces away. On top of that the ground was also torn up with old roots. These became slippery in the rain; hard to spot and dangerous to cross.

Ayeka began to despair. 'This rain will wash Ryoko's trail clean away; it's already difficult to follow.'

'Don't worry, Ayeka,' Sasami answered in an oddly calm voice. 'We'll find her. I know we will.'

Ayeka half turned. 'Well, if you believe it, I will try to also.'

'It's not a belief,' Sasami said, almost dreamily. 'I just feel that's she's nearer than you think she is.' She looked quickly at Ayeka, saw her sister's intense gaze upon her, and quickly lowered her head. 'It's just a feeling,' she ended, rather lamely.

* * *

"You MURDERED Sasami! Do you care? No! Did you care THEN? No! Did you care when you threatened her life aboard my ship when I first arrived on Earth? No!

"You don't care! You've never CARED! It's all you you you you you!"

The cold mud squelched around Sasami's small fingers. Did Ryoko care?

NO! Why SHOULD she!?

'Why SHOULD I?!?' she screamed. 'I don't care! No-one cares about me! Why should I!?!'

Care about others? Care about herself?

Why SHOULD she care about herself? No-one would miss her - why WOULD they miss her? She was only Ryoko.

Only Ryoko....

700 years. The figure haunted her.

Hadn't she suffered enough? Had she not BEEN punished? The warrants were gone; she was free to go where she would - Except that Sasami would miss Ryo-Ohki....

Sasami....

No, not again! Ryoko moaned to herself as it began to start all over again. She stumbled, virtually blind through the undergrowth, hands clutching the sides of her head, whimpering softly. Her mind was stuck like a record; playing the same moments over and over again and slowly but surely pulling her remaining sanity apart.

It was only a gentle slope but it caught Ryoko/Sasami completely off guard. All of a sudden she was skating across the ground on a mat of slippery leaves. Unable to stop, Ryoko grasped vainly at passing twigs and branches which scratched at her hands and forearms. A moment later Ryoko found herself spinning wildly in the open air, her arms flailing. There was a thud as she landed and tumbled end over end into a knot of harsh grass.

A sudden flash made Ryoko/Sasami's pink eyes wince in pain. A few moments later came the great rolling rumble of thunder.

And then the rain REALLY began coming down.

Ryoko/Sasami pulled herself weakly to her knees. Her stomach ached; she dully realised that she had not eaten since that morning - even if it HAD been three lunches. Again, Ayeka/Washu's accusing face drifted up into her mind. She tried to shut the memory off, but the lightning did the job for her as it lit up where she stood and shattered the mental image into glittering fragments.

Her head throbbed from the impact, but Ryoko didn't realise she'd cut her head because her tangled, matted hair stuck to the wound and soaked up the blood. In any case, the pain served as a useful distraction, and she found that she could take a moment to see where she was.

She appeared to be in a dry river, or channel, marked with a tangle of tree roots, dead leaves and broken branches. The sides were made of steep, loose earth, with rough grass and stones jutting from it. A few inches from her left boot, rainwater was pooling, moving sluggishly as the creek began to fill from the downpour.

Wearily, Ryoko/Sasami struggled back to her feet and tried clambering back up. But with the ground so soft and loose, hauling herself up was a vain effort; mud squelched around Sasami's small fingers, and came away in big clumps as she clawed at it. After a few desperate moments' scrabbling, she slithered back down into the channel.

Ryoko took a moment to examine herself. She was soaked clean through from the pouring rain, and plastered with mud. Her sleeves were so badly torn as to be reduced to rags. Dark black marks on her arms, face and hands, revealed cuts and grazes and scratches, all of which now stung with the touch of cold mud.

Although Ryoko did not realise it, the problem of getting out of the channel was saving her sanity. She was being forced to focus on a challenge, to concentrate on a task. This helped to re-enforce her sense of self as she sought a solution. Her mind began to clear a little, and Ryoko, freelance Space Pirate and part-time Demon, could again be heard inside her head.

There was a nearby tree, clearly ancient, with old, gnarled roots that hung across the creek. A little further up, another tree was similarly positioned. If she could climb up the roots on the near-side tree, she'd be able to use the low branches and twigs as a guide-line to step from one tree to another.

Well, if I can't get back the way I came, maybe I can climb across the roots to the other side.

A fluid-like cold sensation was creeping up Ryoko/Sasami's legs. Looking down, her eyes widened in astonishment and concern. The water was now running much more rapidly through the creek and was steadily rising; in a few minutes it would reach the top of her boots.

'It must feed into a river or something,' she muttered aloud. 'I'd better move fast.'

She'd just reached the tree when the situation went from bad to worse. Weakened somehow in the weather, part of the opposite back slid into the creek with a soft 'plop'. The water began to eat away at the obstacle, but all of a sudden half the channel was blocked. The water began to foam and pool swiftly by Ryoko, rising fast due to the partial dam.

Had she her wits about her, Ryoko would've simply scurried along to the other side of the blockage where the water was low, found another pair of trees and tried out her plan there. She may even have tried to jump onto the dam of earth and scrabble across to the other side.

Instead she panicked.

With the water suddenly rising past her boots and up to her knees, a trembling Ryoko scrabbled quickly for any sort of hold on the tree roots and awkwardly began hauling herself up out of the water.

With her boots now full of water, and her lower clothes sodden, the extra weight made her movements sluggish and she found it hard to accurately judge her motions and actions. But after a few false starts, Ryoko found herself clinging to a large root overhanging the channel. She held on grimly by her arms and legs tightening her grip as she saw the torrent of water now rushing by just a few feet below her.

'Gotta make a move,' she said to herself, glancing upwards. There was nothing really suitable above her that she could grab hold of, but if she could make it a little further down her perch she should be able to make a grab for one of the branches on the opposite bank.

Trembling, Ryoko/Sasami began to slowly turn herself around on the root so that she was facing towards her target. Fuelled by the images of Sasami's wounded arms, Ryoko's memories were starting to invade her mind again. The voice was laughing at her.

And you said you never meant to hurt Sasami! LOOK at what you've done to her! Look at her scarred arms! The poor child's been cut to ribbons! Do you ENJOY hurting little kids or something? Maybe it's your destiny to inflict pain on Sasami?

'No!' Ryoko/Sasami snarled. She shook her head violently, caught it sharply against the root she clung to. The image exploded in a blinding flash of pain, and she slipped around, almost falling into the creek below.

Breathing through painful sobs, Ryoko began hauling herself painfully back up. Her arms felt weak and were trembling with fatigue, but after a moment that seemed like forever she found herself perched, hands and knees, on the root, with her target branch a few feet ahead and above her.

She reached for it with her right hand, straining to grab hold. But she found herself swaying frighteningly on her perch and brought her hand down again quickly. She tried to take deep breaths, ignoring the rain and rushing water below. A lightning flash streaked across her vision, setting out hideous shapes of torn trees in stark relief.

Ryoko/Sasami squeezed her eyes shut and tried to concentrate. Then, moving carefully, she edged herself a little further down her perch. Locking her knees and feet tightly around the tree-root, she raised her upper body and tried again to grab for the branch. It swung and bobbed, tantalisingly near, yet still just a little out of reach. Cursing softly to herself, Ryoko/Sasami relaxed her knee-grip. Still gripping the tree-root with her feet, she raised her upper legs.

Just as another lightning bolt flashed across her vision.

Ryoko took the glare full in the face. Totally dazzled, she swung drunkenly, her arms flapping around madly in open air. Just as she began to lose her balance and topple forward, her right hand snagged on something hard, rough and wet. She immediately tightened her grip on it, ignoring the fresh pain in her hand. The dull boom of the thunder once more echoed across the sky.

The branch snapped off in her hand.

With her clothes and boots caked in mud, she had no purchase or grip. The sudden lost of balance spun her 180 degrees around her desperate perch, and tipped her head-first towards the torrent below.

And Ryoko screamed.

END OF CHAPTER 7