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have chosen not to sue me for suggesting some alternative uses for them.
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Standard Procedure: Present all arguments and appeals in a clear and orderly manner.
^Tenchi Muyo: Sanctuary and Asylum^
-Verse Nine is Charity-
-Part 1-
"This is what happens when a great deal of intelligence is invested in ignorance, when the need for illusion is deep."
"I could also say that those who cannot obey themselves must be commended."
-Trevor Goodchild (Character on animated series "Aeon Flux")
***
Slippery squish. Washu applied the crème to her pale and puffy wrist, too impatient to savor any relief beyond its foul odor. She wiped the excess on a nearby rag and flexed each neglected finger, watching critically for a vein to pop out, a digit to start moving on its own, or any other excuse to begin another rant at the juvenile, if not altogether childish doctors they had on this planet.
"You can step up here now, Sasami." The newly medicated doctor invited calmly.
Without lifting her eyes from the floor, the Second Princess took half a step forward, then looked up the length of arm holding protectively to her shoulder. She watched Aeka withdraw in hesitant embarrassment, recognized someone not watching so as not to be seen, and looked back down at the floor without resuming her approach.
"I told you guys already, I'm fine."
"Please Sasami, let Miss Washu make sure." Soft answered small.
"It's certainly not much, and it won't be half of what my lab used to be for a while, but it's still better than anything this planet's doctors can offer." Washu thought aloud while making some minor adjustments to the reclined chair and its surrounding displays of lighted switches and wired wires. The heavy ones looked mostly sturdy on their extension angles, and the thin tips to flexible anchors were at least secure if at worst sharp
One of them must have smuggled the matching head and wristbands to the examiner's third hand while she gently was adjusting Sasami's position by the jaw. Attaching the blackly uncomfortable gear took greater care if less concern. Washu walked back over to the control station with focus unflinching till something stiff and purple tickled the corner of her eye.
"This might take a while, Aeka."
Washu dictated to some buttons and almost finished inscribing the next letter to them till she noticed the lack of response. Looking up from the controls after a minute, she read the anxiety freezing all but Aeka's eyes beneath her bangs. A sigh and a few steps later Washu returned with a modest office chair to match her own.
"You can have a seat if you like."
Aeka blinked and blinked faster then accepted the seat with a short bow and a mumbled thanks.
***
Tenchi nearly slammed the screen door behind him, panting into his shirt as he wiped his face with it to even out the distribution of grime. Long strides brought the kitchen to him but the plunging ice in the water jug was just slowing things down. After nearly chocking on emergency relief he poured himself another and caught sight of the note on the fridge as he wiped his mouth. Removing the paper sharply and catching the magnet, then dropping the magnet, then replacing the magnet, he read what looked like Sasami's very legible and very girlish letters letting him know that she and Aeka would be in Washu's lab if he needed anything. With more effort than he would have liked he got the paper back under the magnet without spilling his water.
It took a few seconds before he asked himself why the note still needed to be there if he'd already read it. He shook his head at himself, set his water on the counter and reached for the note. The feeling stopped him a few inches from the magnet and ground his teeth closer to glass. If intuition was an uneasy bond between a thought and a feeling then, since this particular dose affected him much more like the latter, he'd naturally have to fight it with the former.
*Stop it Tenchi. If he wanted to keep them from you he'd do something a little more drastic than a fake note on the refrigerator. Just call him out like you always do and move on.
Tenchi half frowned, semi scowled, and most bit his tongue to burn holes in the note. When nothing flinched he took a fighting breath to share through the every limb till the whole throat was wet and cool.
"Is that all you-"
Even the strong silent type of threat forgot not to interrupt sometimes, but at least tension could be in near-perfect harmony when it was consuming. Crystal tones accepted ice as it settled in Tenchi's glass. He almost turned to give it the first blow, quickly looking back at the message, unchanged. Swallowing another mass of hopeless panic, the note and everything else around him became real again.
His breathing evened as he carried his water to the water closet. Halfway across the living room a faint maybe no sound stopped and crouched him slightly and ready to drop his water. Round two came quicker this time, always spreading senses open in a slightly larger circling net. Even as he considered the option he considered he might be trying to hard, but he still thought he felt a gust of heat from the nearest rafter. He swallowed and called out clearly.
"Ryoko?"
More of the same nothing answered.
"Ryoko, are you there?"
More of the same nothing repeated itself incessantly.
Tenchi relaxed again and continued on, gathering up his net as he went.
Ryoko phased her head out from inside the rafter and listened to Tenchi turn on the bathroom sink. She floated out and back up onto her usual spot, looking at nothing without enjoying it at all. This continued long enough for everything between Tenchi entering his room and starting the shower. Each action brought a different picture to mind and the same expression to her face. When the sounds started to blend together, she finally blinked long and heavy.
Her right hand was open beneath her when she could see again. The picture of her and Tenchi had been traced over with a darker pencil. Some hair-thin lines stuck out around a few curves in the drawing, begging to no avail for correction. Forgetting how to enjoy it was one thing, risking it changing accidentally was another. She closed her eyes again and consumed her face with a miniscule strain, cupping a butterfly as closely as she could without crushing it. Resting knuckles to forehead by nodding up into them, support and practice for keeping sobs quiet.
***
The control station was a good ten feet from where Sasami sat, eyes closed and jaw calmed to escape the shower of bright lights and harsh buzzes. Turning off the sounds required focus and no room to pick anything out from the range of royalty and genius.
Precious skin, even handfuls would only massage no matter how much they wanted to wring, and every accidental scratch to her wrist or knuckles tried to compensate.
"Thank you again, Miss Washu."
For being smaller again, Washu's hands needed the rest of her attention to make up the difference.
Aeka continued politely no matter how much she wanted to clear her throat first.
"For working so hard on---this."
"Exactly, what ^else^ would I be working on?" Condescending simplicity examined chaos readings and made microcosm adjustments. At least it didn't expect formalities. At worst it didn't have as much patience. Aeka was fully transfixed on her sister, it was obvious even through Washu's side- glance, into her side glare, and around again to dead emerald weight.
"And I said just 'Washu' will do."
Easy enough to have been heard over the machines; even if facing them again, more than possible for a princess in thought to continue rather than respond, and now forgivable with a diplomat's rule to focus anxiety into urgency.
"Miss Washu?"
The remaining mechanical functions didn't require as much focus, or force as Washu gave them while tightening her jaw that Aeka didn't require a response.
"Please for---please forgive me. As her elder sister I should never have let it come to this."
What control was rapidly being lost from Aeka's words; they were rapidly piled on to the rot gathering around Washu's eyes.
"I---I should not have even let it begin." A delicate hand trying to make it start over, Aeka breathed broken through her already trembling palm. Maybe a royal secret how she continued to enunciate.
"^I failed her. He might have---oh Tsunamiforgiveme^!"
She bent further into her hand and twirled away from the examination. A few near-expertly muffled sobs later and the instructor looked up to see through Sasami and speak through Aeka.
"Are you done?"
The machines bobbed about Sasami head with a series of projected tones and blinking lights that made withdrawn little eyes flinch even smaller. Undaunted, her sister managed to spread a newfound silence that made the slow movements to behold Washu's profile as loud as Washu's work, and Washu's voice penetrate in thick needles, frozen past sterilizing.
"It's very 'noble' and all, but you know as well as I do that he didn't just pick this home by chance. He would have had his way with us one way or the other."
Aeka's head began to hang as limp as her hands as all rigidity was being taxed by her eyes.
"It's rather predictable and quite pointless for you to blame yourself."
Washu sat back stiffly into the office chair that had previously only made the controls too far away. She barely crossed her hands and barely parted her feet to rotate directly into Aeka's face.
"Though it is somewhat 'novel' to see such displays of frailty from you...when Tenchi isn't around." Teases and accusations seem like sides of the same senseless coin when folded up into bitter criticism.
The first signals of Aeka's replacement of her most insulted moment were racing and clenching through her face quickly, but Washu had already begun the lesson on how to truly except blame, speaking to the First Princess through the machines again. First step through last step; it was all about denying your own right of emotional release.
"In any case, ^I^ was the first one to---witness. The unnamable danger should have been clear to me even before that, but I guess I became too confident in my equipment."
Aeka bit a tiny piece of her lip in Sasami's direction, then sealed everything together. She turned her wall, her retaliation toward Washu's guarded profile. She anticipated the moment the genius could know her own medicine cut with royal vengeance; the wait was short but the mix was inverted by the time Washu turned and reflected up into this blackened expression.
"I agree."
The fraction of Washu's surprise made the fraction of Aeka's sneer the same and better.
"Maybe it's not like me to open up for anyone other than Sasami or Tenchi." Even princesses couldn't look violent suspicion down into a person so well, regardless of height. "But it's ^definitely^ not like you to truly admit a fault."
Washu stood from her chair, grinding something horrid in the back of her throat and speaking it almost clean through barred teeth.
"Do we know each other so well then?"
By the lights and hums of well-researched science well-bred intuition looked ready to bring terror and revelation colliding. Not at all like patience, Aeka's stiff posture demanded an answer. Nothing but determination, Washu's angled pose would have the answer or nothing. Molten amethyst and emerald poured hatred into each other, searching the worlds between the noxious steam for traces of synthetic sapphire.
The last of the automatic functions begin to wind down. Sasami's eyes relax tentatively but she does not stir. It takes masterfully hidden effort for her not to be noticed as Washu and Aeka rage to the point of collapse, to the exact point of collapse, to the exactly matched moment. Frightened enough by this search they'd begun, the first signs of tears were almost petrifying till they were seen as reflections. Charge broken, both women watch a tear roll down the others' cheek, breathing sharply at how red and alive the flesh looked through the water trail.
Washu turned away and crossed her arms painfully tight while Aeka again breathed into her hand.
It would be time to comprehensively analyze the results soon, but Washu was just as concerned with who would be the first to, hopefully, acknowledge the presence of shared guilt. If the thought wasn't echoed as the emotions were mirrored, then it rang out loud enough for two.
*How could we have done that?
"At least it seems we were wise not to tell him about Tsunami." Aeka demanded a recovery as best as a beggar could.
Watching over Sasami rather than looking though her, Washu spoke for rationality as best a near-nerve-wreck could. It was hard not to sound when the answer burned her throat like no honesty is painless.
"I only wonder if it was wise for her to reveal herself."
"What?" The hush of air ate at Washu's neck.
"We're acting like Tsunami scared him away, hoping it with all our lives. But, apparently," Washu swallowed hard and deadened, "no one really believes it."
"Perhaps." Exhaustion gave Aeka's voice a clearer shine of the acceptance it couldn't carry.
"It's just that, from what you all told me, Sasami didn't describe him as 'afraid'."
Nothing left of the procedure but to noisily retract the instruments and display the cumulated data. Listening to Aeka's breathing grow faint and slow, Washu was ready to forget postponing doubt around Sasami.
"Is---is he-" Aeka needed, frail for the world to see if only to have a single need granted. The question might truly exhaust her, just as it might take long enough in asking for Sasami to hear. Washu chanced prediction almost like compassion.
"Go ahead and ask Aeka, there's no more room for criticism here and--- and no longer any point in worrying about flattery elsewhere."
Aeka must have believed in force more than most diplomats, but surely believed in catching hesitations of guard.
"Is he ^mortal^?"
"Are you almost done, Washu?" Sasami snapped up both their attentions with a pitifully polite request. "I'm getting kind of sore."
"Yes, Sasami." Washu answered promptly, with the convincing ease of an uncertain parent. "You can go now."
Getting off the chair with more eagerness than her tensed body was ready for, she wavered a little before bowing to the both of them and walking quickly past, keeping her eyes hidden. Washu watched Aeka watch her sister as they followed not very close behind.
"Sasami."
The name halted before the couch and turned, hiding her eyes again.
Washu forced a smile anyway.
"It shouldn't take long to analyze the results, try to stay hydrated and don't stay still for too long," the smile couldn't be forced much longer and the good humor would hardly be touched, "w-why don't you go play with Ryo-ohki."
For a moment the world could see Sasami's lashes fluttering confusion before she bowed out and dashed off calling for her friend.
Aeka breathed deep through the departure, readying her own with slightly less guarded eyes.
"Lady Aeka."
"Y-Y-Yes M---Washu."
Washu grinned to Aeka's side hopefully just enough to be grateful for the princess's attention.
"Your question is valid, and I can answer it with some confidence, probably more than I could if I had the option of using my lab."
Washu blinked slowly into her breath, trying to ignore Aeka's and softening her delivery.
"I'm not sure if the answer will reassure you, heh," Washu couldn't let irony die, but didn't really want to laugh any more, "but it would probably entertain him."
"It was almost certain after Ryoko---after we found your brother. I had to probe them both for more specifics, which probably didn't help matters much."
Aeka looked over, disappointed that Washu's head was focused down.
Science's hypothetical distance continued.
"But the prominent theme remains."
Procedure demanded she look forward, but couldn't force her to look up.
"It's 'ambition', the stuff of grudges and obsessions. Only those bitterly aware of their inevitable end seek, not only to rise, but also to leave something behind. There's always room for miscalculation in this kind of thing, but if someone had all the time they wanted they wouldn't have savored, or created sensations the way he did."
Washu began turning back into her lab, closing it behind her as she finished.
"Simply put; based on what I've witnessed, and what I've learned, he shows all the signs of still ^pursuing^ immortality."
***
Tenchi sipped his stew and nursed the giggle Sasami had given him earlier; if it took an embarrassing gurgle in his stomach to produce then he would gladly pay up. The thick slur of rich meat and sweet vegetables tasted even better for being served late. There was a joke about too many cooks in the kitchen pulling at his collar, but the silent consensus was perpetuating itself again. He looked over to each place at the table for some good humor or even some bad manners to reassure him that the tension was imaginary and not delusional. All he noticed, again, were two empty seats.
"Could someone please pass the bread?"
At times these nearly lifeless requests made him wish that Aeka would just reach across the table like a toddler, maybe even knock over something. Some interruptions of sound only made silence more prominent.
*I hate this.
The ice had melted in the water pitcher already so when Washu poured it only cleaned the instrument when it could have tuned it.
*I hate this. I hate this. I hate this!
*I want to stand naked on the roof and call him out till I go hoarse. I want to hold up his head so no one in this family ever has to doubt their own eyes again.
He chewed a lingering piece of gristle mercilessly. A few lines of anger grew on his face, his suppressed imagination reaching out like a starving child.
*This is where he would spy on my thoughts and whisper in my ear that they'd have to doubt what they hear, and smell, and feel and-
No one noticed as he slurped the rest of the broth from his bowl, and only Sasami responded when he rose with a sincere, if uninspired compliment. Standing there for a while, a businessman who's just forgotten his speech, or the one person in the group who actually thought there would be ^dancing^ at the dance, Tenchi retired to rinse out his dish. A few clinks of ceramic later and he returned with a fresh bowl and spoon.
"I'm gonna go see if grandpa's awake yet." He informed any who were listening, expecting none to show it.
***
Tenchi eased the door open and, catching his hand before the potentially blinding light switch, stepped inside.
"Grandpa?" The whisper was needlessly quieter than the door hinges.
Yosho was breathing, clearly asleep or entranced with his own discomfort. Each half long enough to be considered a snore if it weren't flattened thin, clenching and withering again in his chest cage. First to be banished from Tenchi's mind and the room was a reanimated skeleton and his acute asthma, followed by a formless mutation suffocating under the weight of his own fat. After he set down the soup in the usual place, and after he cursed his imagination again, he let out a louder whisper.
"^Grandpa? Grandpa, are you awake^?"
The rest of the family was clearing the dinner table, quiet through the wall and stabbing through Tenchi's ears.
"This stew is really good." Plain volume and empty tone made their offer.
Sickly breaths grew louder then grew iron nails, dragging along stone, concrete, sheet metal, his skull. A lowering pendulum, each wasting sound swinging heavier onto Tenchi's shoulders, a flood of memories to mock his uncertainty, and a parade of futile plans left a wake of clenched and throbbing cells.
"Grandfather. Grandfather, please wake up." Spoke up the extra calm that always precedes a shout.
Not this time. Yosho was not hearing or was not responding and either way he was not changing his breath. Tenchi swallowed louder than his whispers and exited, leaving a crack open in the door, adjusting it with delicate precision, and inverting the gesture into a frustrated march toward the back door.
"Lord Tenchi? Where are you going?" Aeka asked from the couch, turning uncomfortably with concern.
Half way open, Tenchi looked at the small plastic screen handle and out into the night. Door gripped tighter, voice more detached, he defied the draft.
"I need some air. If you turn in before I get back, then goodnight."
Steady footsteps faded out into the field.
"Goodnight." Aeka hung her head quietly for a moment, looked back toward the screen, and then looked up to the rafter opposite the one Ryoko usually slept on. Barely noting her rival's switched place, completely enthralled that a lost vagrant could sit and look at nothing with such disinterest.
***
He'd worry about grass-stain and grass-itch tomorrow, if he stopped running or even changed his course he'd have to release his energy some other way. For now the cool night air provided enough support for this mad dash.
The dusty path scraped and slapped and almost slipped beneath him, his arms did half a pinwheel before returning to contribute momentum. The dry burn of pulsing breath shredded itself through clenched teeth till he dropped jaw fall for a feral grunt. He wanted to savor the salted gashes in his lungs and the salted slug in his mouth.
Funaho's branches swayed gently, unafraid that the charging brute might plow into her.
Tenchi slowed himself just in time to stay out of the small pond surrounding the long-rooted Jurain tree. Glad enough to be concerned with regaining his breath rather than anything else, he bent, clutched-kneed and clenched-eyed, to the abysmal face looking up at him from the shallow water. No wind louder than his slowly descending gasps as he tried to replace the memory of one voice with another. He would think of tranquilizing Goddess's reassurance, make it drown smug and sinister monologues. Back when it was still enough, determination had already told him it would only be a matter of time before he heard her real voice.
"Alright," he exhaled with enough force to settle his lungs, "where are you?"
He looked the trunk up and down for some inspiration on how to initiate quick contact. Thinking aloud sometimes helped him solve a problem.
"I know Aeka said Jurain nobles have a special code for when they want to pray to you. But all I can remember is---is something about 'from the sea back to the earth' or something like that."
Tenchi gulped and stared up through Funaho's lush branches, the brilliant stars above them, and into the cold black glass to reflect his darkening frown.
"^Tsunami^!" He called out his opponent and appealed to his mistress. "Tsunami, I know you can hear me! Where are you?! I don't have time to learn any damn Jurain mumbo jumbo!" Tenchi calmed and stretched his lungs again.
"Please Tsunami," tears clenched back in his fists, "please speak to me. I...I need you."
Not even a rustle in the tree or a ripple on its reflection. Deeper breaths carried Tenchi to his knees, and he ignored the pebbles and twigs that were usually absent when he kneeled at the shrine. He spoke again with as much reverence as his budding misery would allow.
"Tsunami, hear my prayer. By my birth and my life I beg you, speak to me, save me and my family the way---the way you did before."
A breeze of dust scuff, then a gust of leaf-clatter. As Tenchi forced images of Sasami's future self into his mind, there seemed less left to clog a draining apathy. Anger fought back and fought in.
"Show yourself! I know you can hear me from this tree, wherever you are!" He glared at the pieces of paper hanging from various branches. They swayed in the starlight, suddenly pale as a crumpled letter to The Seasonal Gift Giver in a parents wastebasket.
"Is ^this^ how it is?! Save us once, then ^abandon^ us? What kind of a Goddess are you, huh? I've never asked you, ^or^ Sasami for anything before, but right now I don't care if you're busy or trying to teach me a lesson or whatever! I want-"
It didn't feel as good to yell as he'd hoped, but grabbing his throat with a silencing pain had to have been reflex. At least it didn't feel as bad as staying silent.
This lapse of thought whetted anger for the moment before a thin beam of omni-colored light fell from the branches to his forehead. One lapse deserved; he realized nothing was relief and even less was vindication. The stars and the moon swallowed themselves and left him in the familiar glow of Tsunami's chambers. Numb struck sympathy only with frozen.
The Goddess stood as far from him as Funaho had been, aglow amidst the smooth geometry of ivory green steppingstones and crystal waters. Tenchi had remembered this place a number of times but had never envisioned himself on his knees. At the moment it didn't feel like enough and he wondered what fainting might feel like.
"Welcome Tenchi, it is good to see you."
Her voice enveloped him in silk sheets and warm water, the glimpse of peace he'd achieved when meditating in Hetmu's ship now echoing eternity. To be able to half shut a gapping jaw now felt almost empowering.
"Please rise Tenchi, we have no need for formalities here."
The air above the stepping-stones rippled and glistened on the water, partially obscuring the reflection of a sleeping Sasami. Never left by her smile, never let go from her softening eyes, Tenchi was loath to find the part of himself fighting brutally for freedom. It cursed whatever lack of strength and direction had taken his running legs, pounding the ground incoherently, then insignificantly as he realized he'd tilted his own neck to keep touch with her the whole time. Now she was standing over him, close to him, bending down and lifting him by the shoulders, steadying him even as her very hands begged a collapse.
"Tsu-^Tsunami^." He gulped his whisper down in an invigorating mist.
"I am speaking to you now through Funaho, we are not truly inside of myself, but I thought it would help you to see me like this again."
She let him go, and again simply being able to stand upright slivered him some more confidence. He would not wring his hands, or cross his arms. His fists were almost tight enough to tremble under the next wave of Jurai's Life.
"I am here now Tenchi, do not be afraid."
Tenchi struggled to close his eyes so that lowering his head might be easier. It was.
"Please let me help you, if I can." This thread of uncertainty might have only been for his sake, he thought, but in any case it brought his sails back up to the storm.
"^Tsunami, when Sasami...when Seita...what happened^?" His timid whisper sounded louder than it felt.
Some of the brightness faded from Tsunami's face, and Tenchi felt guilt bend in his stomach like an iron ball. Though, rather than pass it along, he felt himself split his nails and grind his teeth into it.
"I'm not sure if I can give you the answers you want." She hesitated around sympathy's improvement.
Tenchi's response came in a stutter of almost morbid humility and a choke of rising tears.
"I---I'm sorry Tsunami. I just can't figure out why you would-"
"I can understand your confusion, Tenchi."
The ball cracked and cut him, stinging his shoulders back and his eyes tight. His tongue flattened against the roof of his mouth violently enough to tear his jaw up into itself, and he spoke in a disintegrating rasp.
"All this time---where ^were^ you?!"
Tenchi savored Tsunami's surprise for the moment he imagined it was there, then froze, shrinking his insides back to see only a kind of stoic acceptance guarding her serenity. He'd already accepted humiliation, but was not yet dead enough to overlook the real change. The shoulders sinking under the part of her brow and the pout of her lips; it was all too subtle to have been restrained.
Tiny tapings into his throat were ready to say something with too little breath to hear and mouth hung too wide to read. It didn't occur to him that Tsunami might not hear even if he couldn't hear himself.
"^I-I-I---for-give---me.^"
Tsunami blinked slow and reopened her eyes kindly, though still too honest and remembering for recreating life as they could have before.
"Do not apologize Tenchi, I should not have hesitated to try to answer you."
The Goddess blinked again and the prince almost thought he saw her fight not to leave her eyes on the ground for a time.
"It is only that---Seita asked me the same thing.
So well aware of every cell in his body, Tenchi felt the opening, the engulfing of his eyes all too well. He waited to know each of the subtle details involved in cutting his own legs out from beneath him, he waited longer, not even swaying yet. So very ready to surrender every memory of himself, so long as it would halt the full absorption of the Goddess's answer. All of it so much like waiting for nothing in the presence of immortal certainty.
*Seita---doubted her, ^accused^ her, just as he does with everything else.
*And now---now I've done the same thing.
As much as it had pounded the ground to escape her, the same feeling scratched for his hands to plunge them down to grovel at the base of light. Again it grew distant, exhausted in the face of all strength he remembered, from all the strength he'd exerted, from all the support he'd lost in the name of separating his name from that nameless infection.
"Did you...did you destroy him?"
She blinked slowly, catching and holding tight to his renewed, if last-standing tone of life. Her hand reached towards his chest as she already drew in his eyes.
"It is not my place to destroy life. I give my children power to defend themselves, and each other."
The touch returned him, released him in two quick tear lines and a spinning light washing clean through his stagnant blood. It was almost enough not to notice the most fearful tone a savior could convey: even amidst the gentile feminine ethers of her voice, many auroras shimmered black with regret.
"I can only directly intervene when Jurain blood as a whole is threatened, or when great protectors need me."
Tenchi could breath easier, but couldn't accept; but couldn't shake his head.
"But, but you helped me when Kagato was-"
"Yes Tenchi, but you are to be a great protector of Jurai, and of your own people as well. That is why you are able to wield the lighthawk wings so. I have taken great care in watching over your development."
"^What!?^"
"Do not think on terms like 'destiny' if they do not comfort you, just know that you are neither alone, nor insignificant in your struggles."
Tenderness numbed what it could not dissolve in Tenchi's features.
"I had not intended on revealing this to you till much later, yet my only hope is that this does not change the compassionate nature that makes you so ideal."
She managed a small and relatively mundane smile, giving Tenchi room to avert his eyes.
"Then what about Seita," hateful terror turned into a serious matter, "How can I fight him when you're the only one who can even-"
He looked back up at her, pleading everything into her to see she could embrace more.
"Could he be listening to us now?"
He watched Tsunami's lips flutter lightly and he tried to follow her eyes as they searched the ceiling of her chamber, falling back to his with a soft, human, almost enticing grin.
"If he is, then he is, and even if this," she shrugged with another smile, "is just another of his tricks, it doesn't change what you know."
"But what do I-"
Tsunami giggled into her hand, almost teasing.
"He wants to be someone's mentor---but you'd make an awful apprentice."
Her smile invited for the sweet moment before it demanded his own, turning the world upside down to drop him like snow globe flakes onto fresh warm sheets. The laughs might have only been sobs to begin with, but they were surely sobs soon enough. Tsunami felt so very natural as she hugged him to her shoulder
"Shhh, Tenchi. I accept the blame for not thinking him dangerous, you and your family have all had to be stronger than anyone should."
"But---But I can't---I don't know how to-"
Tsunami began to back away, gently leaving Tenchi to his own sway of now relaxed tears.
"Be comforted Tenchi, I was able to drive him away by doing little more than speaking."
The chambers began to darken as Tsunami began receding back towards the center, smiling warmly into Tenchi's panic.
"But what about my grandfather?!" Desperation resurrected half of itself in a drawling shout. "And what has happened to Mihoshi?!"
"The lives of your family are in their own hands, and in yours. My place is to aid, not to govern."
She continued floating backwards, head down, arms crossed beneath her robes. The room darkened till nothing was alight but its visitor.
"Please! Wait! What if he comes back for Sasami again?!"
Simple blackness drew back into the moon shade beneath Funaho.
The ground was crushing into his knees again, then cutting into his hands as he tried to propel himself up to his feet.
"Tsunami!"
The cry extended past the stars then dissipated into Funaho's branches. Anxious breaths began to drive him, but an answer surrounded his sense, cooling the blood in his boiled lungs.
*Remember Tenchi, Sasami and I are one. As a protector I must protect myself.
"But what do I do?!" He spun in a semi circle
*Be brave Tenchi, and kind as you've always been. And hold tight to your love for your family.
"But I...but he-" His pleading voice sank, taking the rest of him back down with it.
*Rest now. I will always do all that I can, and you are more capable than you know.
He repeated her name into his limp hands, the timid sound like the chilling breezes at his back. The effort it was taking to simply approach forgetting his physical body was hardly enough to even keep his teeth from chattering. The last look at Funaho echoed with Tsunami's voice, but was only sparsely pocked with Seita's eyes. It was enough to give him a moment's encouragement and the first push back toward his home. Wishing he'd been careful what'd he'd wished for, every step reminded him that he really was too exhausted to think on difficult things.
***
A few toes peaked out from beneath the sheets. One shuffle and a groan later they were joined by half a kneecap. The extra pillow elevated Tenchi's head almost enough to help his neck and just enough to dangle open his jaw to snore over any shivers.
It would take a sound like this one to stir the prince, newer than Washu's humming deterrent to any would-be bunkers, but easy and classic as memories of pre-digital ticks. Like a self-replicating line it fell in one after another, denting sleep little by little by now it was almost destroyed. They'd dodged the drone of snores and continued through the barrage of last resort snorts and coughs. The misplaced ambiance persisted till it finally struck the biggest whisper onto the smallest drum.
Tenchi awoke so slowly he almost felt the guilty pleasure of an overslept weekend, but the light and the day were wrong. Snuggling back into himself, inverting his morning stretch into a reluctant fetus, he welcomed the darkness his tightly closed eyes offered. No such luck; the sound was still there, a soft whisper marching too close to his ear.
The groan that makes every dedicated alarm clock fear for its life; Tenchi's mind did a stumbling dance with itself through the fog.
*Who left the faucet dripping in my room?
*No, wait.
*Is there a leak in the roof?
*But it's not raining.
Exasperated, Tenchi sat up quickly then remembered to open his eyes. The room was submerged in dark water, so he rubbed his eyelids down to the sinus. On the next inspection he could properly distinguish that he'd awoken where he'd fallen asleep. No faucet, no puddle swelling on the floor, just divided rectangles of moonlight.
It must have been car light after all, he thought, as it gradually scanned over dirty clothes and unmemorable homework. He followed its path, waiting for it to thin and dissipate, wondering why it seemed more like a spotlight till it stopped at the base of a curtain, no a dress, no a robe. In any case it was black, and in this case it was Seita's.
The scream left its skin before it left Tenchi's throat, clawing its way back down into his guts, leaving the skin to drift out in a sallow gasp.
The garment clung to the impossibly shrunken and manipulated diameter of his waist, some sharply triangular corset for clay doves with no bones almost didn't leave enough cover for hands to fold behind. Drinking the hour in to a wine glass, the shoulder padding spilled out into his slender chest and swallowed his long neck. Hair drawn back and black as the rest, it gleamed a little in the redirected light, but not nearly so brilliantly as tonight's face.
Molten ivory for blood, it never rippled or even wavered amid the petrified fury strangling itself around every direction of Seita's eyes. His lips were only a wood carving, and a bitterly lifeless on at that. Smoke darkened electric blue, this grass stain and road rash streaked horizontally through the air before his waist, extending from one hip to two meters past the other. Wide as duct tape, it stretched with the same abrasive call mingling with a slow slide of fresh blade over old music string.
Another one half as long and wide grew to the same right before his eyes.
Another one half as long as that would have been barely enough to seal his lips and fill one ear.
Tenchi could feel himself age through the stillness that followed and the seemingly random places on these latest accessories that melted their color and dripped it on to the floor.
It happened three times before Tenchi could estimate the intervals to a minute; the lines retreated into Seita the way swords would, never an effect to his petrifying glare even as they impaled his already frail- looking waist, cheeks, and skull.
It happened two and a half more times before Tenchi realized the lines were appearing in the same relative position to Seita's body every time he levitated forward.
And he levitated forward, still a statue, motionless, a doll.
There was only the length of the lowest line between them now, and Tenchi managed to drop his petrified back against the wall, thumping his head, doing nothing to breath more than a few times for every small advancement.
Seita's face didn't change, if his eyes had grown slightly more narrowed at the sudden movement it could have been an accident or an illusion of the closer proximity. Yet, normally after he moved into his lines for a dripping minute, they dissipated to reappear in position, this time they stopped solid for the same interval, and another.
Someone puckered lips very tightly and sucked the air very forcefully out of Tenchi's ears. The painfully retracted whistle spread a paneling of the blue scratches over him and his bed. None of them gave off more than air for the senses and none of them wavered as Seita advanced through them.
Blue-violent emptiness still holding Tenchi by the heart, he was still rational enough to notice that Seita had stopped in the center of the spread when each of the lines before and behind him began retreating, collecting inside him.
Again: three horizontal lines and Seita within arms reach.
None of these blue ribbon stains lost their rigid balance as they curved around to form a dome cage on the bed.
The white skin could have would have been less terrifying had it been lined or lipped, shadowed with some of the harlot reds or dandy violets, even a sneering turquoise. Blue intensity standing alone amid the shadow engulfing white wasn't what he was never ready for but had at least expected.
The glare could have would have been less debilitating had it spurred forth a sinister chuckle, or a megalomaniacal roar, even a sinister velvet tail fresh for the quotation collection. Locking eyes with an apparent mute clenched his own throat shut, backing whirlwinds up into his already bursting skull.
*Smile.
*Where's that haughty grin, damn you!
*^SMILE^!
*I can do this but you have to smile---please-please tell me you're going to smile.
Soft shuffle. Tenchi reached for the sword hilt beneath his pillows.
***
In on of the hallways dividing to connect Jurai's great palace two women kept and matched step in a way the standing-watching guards were never likely to understand. Just the same and against better judgment, a few grabbed at their own piece of the conversation.
"You had the dream again, didn't you sister?"
"I'm sorry if I woke you." Funaho answered, taking a moment to build a small portion of her voice.
"It is alright, I was already awake, and our husband sleeps like a log, as always." Misaki made a timid offer of humor.
"Yes," Funaho lowered her head from cool to cold, "so long as 'the emperor' is not disturbed."
"Please do not speak of our husband in such a way, it is his place to be stubborn sometimes."
Funaho did not respond. Misaki looked over at her sadly, then back at the path they shared.
"He knows that change is inevitable, but it is his duty to make sure that Jurai is prepared to welcome it."
Tired of the cold, Funaho's voice simply darkened.
"He has willingly alienated his own son and grandson, he has neglected to tell us the depth of his plans, and he has done nothing to soften the lie so many of the people idolize. He is working for Jurai's future by covering his mistakes."
Misaki stopped walking, reflexively scanning to make doubly sure there were no longer any curious guards in the hall. She waited almost incredulously long for her fellow queen to do the same.
"How---^How can you say such a thing^?"
"Isn't it true?" Funaho answered in a plain halt and turn of the machine.
The queens stared at each other, slowly exchanging their pain and compassion through silent and nearly weeping eyes.
"Sister-" Misaki approached with open arms, embracing Funaho gently enough to release even a reserve as strong as hers. Obsidian fell against turquoise, tears mingled on blushing crème. Misaki pressed her lips against her partner's forehead, shushing and smoothing compacted emotions.
"Forgive me Lady Misaki, the dreams...I know they are not empty." Funaho fought through smaller sobs, slightly encouraged. "And they have only worsened, something is wrong, something terrible has happened on earth these strict limitations on communication cannot be helping."
"There now sister," Misaki cooed, "are you ready then to tell me about your dreams."
Funaho sniffed and stepped away, managing an attempted chuckle for how devious a negotiator her sister could be. She calmed herself and spoke with almost enough strength to bring her eyes up.
"I dream of an emptiness. A terrible, twisting emptiness."
"Go on." Misaki supported after a pause.
"It. It is not just an idea; I have seen it, a silent and colorless hole opening up over my son and his grandson and all their family. It seems as if it will draw them in like a great vacuum, but it simply displays itself, draining their wills like some---some ^insane star^!"
Misaki did not respond, when Funaho was finally able to lift her own head she saw her sister staring at the floor, pale and muted.
"Yes, I know it is strange and unsettling, but I've dreamt of it almost every night for months now."
No reply.
"Please Misaki, say something."
"Sister," the second queen raised her eyes with fearful seriousness, "in your dreams, is there ever a being---a-a---accompanying this emptiness?"
Funaho's eyes widened, but her voice faltered and she nodded weakly. Misaki continued.
"Is he...rather like a tyrant, a tyrant and an artist?"
Both queens commanded each other's lack of color.
Misaki assumed Funaho's movement to be another nod, and closed her eyes tightly till she heard the lighter queen pounding forward with uncharacteristically heavy steps. The off-world queen's hand was shockingly strong as it jerked her eyes open and began pulling the rest.
"Come sister, we must wake the emperor."
***
Blue light blazed above Tenchi's head after passing through Seita's throat, the sword barely held steady enough for another strike.
Seita hadn't moved, didn't become more colorful, and wasn't smiling.
But he spoke, sinister velvet through and through and thoroughly soft enough to soften up. Tenchi could remember predict and relax enough to focus his grip again, however, strategy was overlapped and interrupted during the interpretation.
*Did he just ask 'What am I?'
The former guest had returned his countenance as perfectly as something that couldn't speak, but Tenchi still ground his teeth and narrowed his eyes for a potential repeat offense.
"W-W-What did you say?"
Tenchi could taste how foul his breath was from bedding before brushing. It seemed appropriate for this tone he must have dug out of a rotting wound. This line of thought almost stole from the anticipation of forcing, he hatefully prayed, Seita to act more like himself.
A little softer, quieter maybe, but no condescent or even impatience, sinister velvet restated the question.
"I want you---to tell me---what you think I am?"
A few lingering arm tremors made the light hum as Tenchi, in a nervous ritual, positioned the tip beneath Seita's chin.
"What kind of stupid question is that?" He almost spat at the still unmoved figure, "My grandfather-"
Neck tendons pulsed as Tenchi felt bastions of softer emotion melting down into the rest of his rage. "I don't know what you did to him, and I don't even care 'why' anymore!"
The sword was shaking a little more and Seita was the same.
"I don't know if it takes Tsunami's power to scare some sense into you, but you won't have anything more to do with my home till you kill me."
The shaking stopped and the sword doubled in width and radiance. For the sake of his family, Tenchi tried to keep unstoppable rage hushed without sounding like his opponent.
"Well come on then! You ^twisted^-^coward^! Whatever it takes I will-"
Seita closed his eyes gently, and Tenchi prepared to feel his teeth crumble against each other as he pulled back to make what he hoped was an imprisoning thrust to stop the universe.
The blue of oblivion returned thus the blue of Jurai retreated, falling from Tenchi's hands like a bird breaking against a window.
Once wooden, now ice lips moved with sensual enunciation, drawing in the whole of perception like a moth to an electrified light. Every memory of sensation crushed and melted itself into a needle pointed toward a single ambition; nothing existed beyond The Ghost of Madness, Hell existed within nothing. Still no painted smile, but no memory of believing it would matter as Tenchi at once remembered the portals and experienced them being chewed up like a fist of decadent grapes. Seita was only leaving his mouth open so that the juice could drip and smack as he reinvented the post- immortal rasp.
"^You---are NOTHING!^
"But you will tell me---^WHAT^---you think I am."
High and wide shoulders sighed a little for the first clear breath, and perception returned to Tenchi and itself, causing the former to fall back to the wall again, limp and almost pale enough to compliment what he accepted now as his executioner.
"^Evil^."
It was petrified rabbit's breath, but it was quick and alive enough. Seita took it like a mannequin while Tenchi's motion was limited to simply angling his head slightly closer to the wall, though unsurprisingly unable to break the gaze.
Head lowered, blink lengthened, and someone got their smile. Half- sided, and perhaps uncertain, it was to be remembered even if it remained in black and white.
"I see."
Unfeeling creativity saw its way to a genuine imitation of acceptance amid the lingering realities of the subjective. He saw as Seita would, brilliantly, curiously, and covertly starved for opposition. The scholar's seductive textures of voices would take care of the rest as he stepped back, leaving one foot forward to strike out bare and pale amid the night and the black. He angled his own head to the side and swung a glance upward.
"You are more than honest, and correct enough," he breathed a little break and smiled a little more, "yet, just as your ^honest^ vanity would destroy me; my ^correct^ vanity will not allow me to destroy myself."
The bow took Seita directly to Tenchi's eye level and dissipated the blue bars connecting him to the bed.
"But you don't have power---honest ^or^ correct enough to destroy me, so I must trust that I am correct and give you an honest chance."
Tenchi's eyes widened impossibly, but Seita didn't seem interested in savoring the asphyxia between anger, fear, and confusion. With fluid and unforeseen balance he turned on his heels while still bent, straightening a little more and mumbling loudly with each step.
"^And so we must give...truth and honesty...the violation...the revelation...my truth for his honesty...my honesty for his truth...^"
"What---What are you talking about?" Tenchi's mind leaked out of his throat in a thin steam, almost throwing his hands up when Seita whirled around with tense features.
"'Evil', Tenchi. You have made your choice, honest as possible and thus correct as necessary."
A deep breath and a long step put him back in position.
"And so: if my success must come from the failure of others'---then my failure must come from another's success."
Slow but even, human and obsessive for metal against stone, Seita spoke down to Tenchi like the first person he'd seen in eons.
"You must see; I must injure myself to give you a fighting chance, and I can only injure myself by truly ^helping^ you. There is little doubt so it is more than correct if not at all honest.
His hands flung forward from their cage behind him, fingers growing long and clutching tensely. Tenchi clenched first for the movement, but drained again in a sub-sound gasp as he felt a sliver of the unnamable mouthful he'd nearly die to forget.
Seita looked down at the exaggerations with mouth pulled to the side in disappointment, watching them shrink back to proportion with a nervous gulp and a cooling whisper.
"I know of an elusive problem, a question that wails for justice at the pit of you."
Straight and tall again, he tried to breathe deep to speak calm. Unaware or uninterested that sheer blue intensity was about to make his audience burst.
"It would be a small trouble for me to show you the answer Tenchi, but a tremendous consequence. We would be on even and honest footing and, most importantly, you would have a chance to---'repay me' for my services."
Tenchi tried to speak but only made a tiny choking sound. Seita closed his eyes, folded his arms carefully, and dropped his head.
"By the content it is an easy decision, but by the context...I'll give you some time to consider." He lifted his head to the skylight, starring beyond his reflection.
Tenchi could hear the own short inhale, and helplessly endured a confusion choke his former guest easily ignored.
"If you let me help you, it will present an opportunity to destroy me."
Directly stated up then plainly stared down to Tenchi's wavering position, Seita took a step back into an oblivion blink. The following dizzy chills curled the young man into himself, his exhaustion, and incoherent dreams.
***
^Tenchi Muyo: Sanctuary and Asylum^
-Verse Nine is Charity-
-Part 2-
Age before beauty depart. Age before beauty abstain.
Only a word a touch is asked---to give back incentive withstanding.
Only the gift the moment is needed---for selflessness so very demanding.
Age before beauty implore. Age before beauty remain.
-ZJS
***
The morning hurried its goodbyes and left Tenchi in the care of the afternoon. Dimly aware of the film in his mouth and the crust in his eyes, he smeared his hand down the length of his face.
The painful blur of daylight and the tempting recall of his bed would have to be overcome. Shuffling under a pained groan, pulling his head down by the back of his neck; squinting in any direction didn't encourage much of an outlook. Each heavy and uncertain step echoed out the bare-foot slap against the wood floor. He hoped he was steering toward the kitchen, and away from the aftershocks of unmentionable dreams and worse if he didn't keep convincing himself otherwise.
Another good yawn and a few more stretches; make it up the hall, past the couch, and the pile of blonde curls, and he'd be just fine.
"Good morning, Tenchi."
Gentle acknowledgement, that always helped.
"Guh mornin Mee-ho-sheee."
Tenchi held his hips and bent back, his yawn locking first his jaw, then the rest of him as he gaped over at someone glancing over.
"Mi-Mihoshi!"
He whirled and flung himself back against the wall before slouching anxiously forward, Mihoshi winced and face the living room again lowered her head, eventually rising from her seat to turn and give him a small bow.
"Hi Tenchi, did you sleep well?" She twisted her clenched hands. "Sorry for coming in without your permission."
"Wh-wh-what! Mihoshi, when did you get here?" Still waking bits of paranoia rattled and quieted his enthusiasm.
"I-I. Sorry, Tenchi," she hung her head again, "I landed here pretty early this morning. Your father said you were sleeping really hard, so I told him to just let you wake up on your." Looking up at his still bewildered expression, she lowered her head again to start another meek apology.
"Landed here? But, Mihoshi, how-"
Aeka emerged from the kitchen, softening the air with tender diplomacy.
"She actually managed to set her ship down quite well, sorry to have had breakfast without you, but you did seem to need the rest." Tenchi breathed another step closer to consciousness and relaxed at the effective guise of peace. Mihoshi had already prepared her blush in the short time before he looked back.
"Uh, yeah, I tried to land Yukinojo as quietly as possible. He's safely under the lake now. If...if that's okay?"
"Of course it's okay Mihoshi! My Gods," Tenchi reassured her enthusiastically, circling the couch and circling Mihoshi in his arms. After the initial surprise she returned the embrace with the same humble and almost timid courtesy.
Aeka held her breath, then slowly engorged it. Tenchi moved away from the officer, but kept hold of her shoulders. The sound of him elaborating on 'their' worry and 'their' relief gradually melted into a drone as Aeka continued towards calm, yet in the context of emotional reflex she looked for her rival.
Resting her chin on the table behind her wrists, Ryoko just stared at them. By the distribution of color and weight she actually looked less alive than Tenchi had moments earlier, though, Aeka thought, this had become almost commonplace.
*She looks like she could use another 700 years.
Aeka's thoughts surprised her: to have almost said something predictably insulting but to have come to the observation with mostly pity. She frowned and returned to surer ground.
*This perpetual intoxication isn't helping anyone.
Hearing Tenchi babble on into many double questions prompted a tactful interruption.
"Lord Tenchi," she called out loud and sweet, but cleared her throat apologetically just the same.
"Lord Tenchi, Sasami and I will have lunch on the table very soon, why don't we all sit down and have some tea before we ask any questions.
"Oh," Tenchi blinked dumbly, "sorry Mihoshi." Head lowering thoughtfully for a zombie, his mumbles matched his pose. "Yeah, lets have some lunch, I'm starving."
Mihoshi returned his smile and repaid Aeka with a thankful look. The moment she noticed Ryoko's almost trancelike stare flowing over her and Tenchi, she looked down again.
"Good 'afternoon' Tenchi," Sasami smiled a gentle tease, "did you sleep well."
Tenchi looked down as he rubbed the back of his neck, but did not include the usual nervous laughter.
"Uh, yeah, thanks for letting me rest up guys. Still, I wish I could have greeted Mihoshi when she got here." He noticed her increased blush beginning to pale and simply stared as long thoughts swirled around wide ideas.
*Am I the only one surprised to see her safe?
Before predictions could flood in, he let his eyes fall on Ryoko.
She looked as exhausted as he'd felt the previous night. Her eyes running on stale fumes as they drug themselves over various areas of the house, all the while managing to avoid him. They made contact for a moment before Washu sat down at the table, still in her adult form and humorless face.
"Tenchi, I take it you've welcomed Mihoshi back already."
She didn't even go for a sleep joke.
"Uh, yeah, sort of." He concentrated on cooling his tea.
Aeka and Sasami brought in the sandwiches, distributing them in even silence. Everyone was served and seated, and remained too aware of the issues at hand to speak. Hunger pains twisted him, but he could barely bring himself to look at his food.
"So Mihoshi," Washu began seriously, "do want to fill Tenchi in, or would you like me to."
Mihoshi, shied away from the scientist's gaze, but offered a few short, shy, and thankful glances to the princesses. She spoke timidly again, calming meekness continuing to overshadow any resemblance of her unfocused whine.
"Thank you, Miss Washu. You'd probably do a better job at telling the story than I would."
Washu lowered her head, cleared her throat, but looked up with slight surprise when Mihoshi continued.
"But that's okay, I'll tell him the best I can, maybe I'll do a better job this time." She looked up a smile for Tenchi before quickly retreating back into her tea smiled, and quickly looked back at her tea.
The new relative maturity continued deeper and Tenchi noticed a slightly more subdued but no less overt curiosity round the table.
"If you don't feel like talking about it now, it's okay." Beginner's tact offered.
"No Tenchi," she sipped her tea, dismissing his support almost defensively, "waiting wont help anything. I-I think we all need to know what happens around here."
"Okay, Mihoshi. What," Tenchi still swallowed despite himself, "what happened?"
One breath and a slight constriction of limbs was all it took to get the officer started on her emotionally steady, if even sedated report.
"The last time I saw you guys was before I took," she clenched her jaw for a quick moment, "before I took Seita on another patrol with me."
Tenchi leaned forward for support as Mihoshi's head drooped a little more, but to his surprise, her voice became even more focused.
"I liked him, it had been a while...since I'd decided it would be better for Tenchi and me to just be friends.
"It was kind of nice to think someone might come along who might like me back, I guess. Everyone was probably pretty happy with the idea, but-but I really don't blame anyone for what happened."
An agonizingly though blessedly short moment passed for Tenchi too keep himself from gauging the other's reactions to this previously unmentioned decision.
It surprised Tenchi that she was able to say it all before pausing for a breath, or any other intermission. He considered that the other women of the house had already had an experience with him before Mihoshi's absence; but the significance of this was interrupted before it could tighten its hold.
"I---I tried to show him that I liked him. Just, sort of, made the first move." Her voice finally started to soften on dying batteries.
Everyone watched the top of her head for the first few shakes of a breakdown. Aeka already tightened her throat in a vain attempt to halt the first tears rising in her eyes. She fought every terrible moment from the now long past projection of her sisters fall to the all too recent day of her brother's. She pushed against the day they'd tried to share, to describe each of their sessions.
*Lord Tenchi cried then, almost as much as Ryoko or myself. Surly if Mihoshi can contain herself through this a second time then these details she left out the first time must have been less traumatic.
A few locks curled down on the detective's forehead, but she raised her eyes back up again just enough for the princess to see stillness.
*Or---or something far worse! She's acting almost as withdrawn as Sasami did after-
Aeka moved to look at Sasami like a rusted but anxious machine.
*Sasami! I kept her away this morning but I forgot---I can't let her-
A hasty command stumbled around handicapped in the dark of Aeka's throat, swallowed and nearly forgotten as Mihoshi spoke again.
"He got angry. I thought he was going to-" Mihoshi silently chewed or choked on something in her monotone, "but the next thing I knew, Yukinojo was flying into one of his portals, and-and I guess I blacked out. When I woke up he---just---smiled."
Aeka almost sighed in relief, Mihoshi had told essentially the same story Sasami heard from her sister, save the detail of what had made Seita angry in the first place. The rest should fall in shortly. Small comfort, but comfort just the same.
"I sent out a hale signal, but apparently we were out of range of any GP vessels or stations. It was pretty scary," Mihoshi admitted modestly, "but I just asked Yukinojo to go in the opposite direction we were going before."
She raised her head and forced a weak smile for everyone to see. A single tear made a path down the right side of her face.
"In just a few hours or so we were back inside GP patrolled space, and a cruiser came out to take us back to the nearest station. When I finally had to explain to them how I got out there I said my engines malfunctioned, or something like that, but then the lieutenant said that I was farther away from my sector than my ship could ever go without refueling at least nine times."
Mihoshi lowered her eyes again.
"So I made up another story about getting too close to a strange worm hole and I guess they figured it sounded like something I would do.
"Soon as I got the chance I tried to contact you guys, but," she swallowed, "by that time Washu's machines were already off-line."
The story seemed to end as Mihoshi finally picked up her tea and nearly drained it. Everyone waited till the saucer settled before waiting again for Tenchi's response, then waiting again.
Tenchi merely guarded his tea, stone silent. Washu looked over at him with a measure of professionally distant concern then turned back to Mihoshi.
"I'm sorry Mihoshi, I didn't think anything I could easily do would help."
"It's okay Washu, I'm just glad we're all together again."
They both managed to miss eye contact with each other while speaking in the same tone of hollow reassurance.
"Me too." Sasami's second quickly raised everyone's attention for the few moments before it was stolen by a lethargic shuffling noise at Ryoko's corner of the table.
"^Oh C'mon^---can't you just tell us what really happened?"
The deadpan slur could have come from Ryoko's posture, being curled and curdled into her folded arms. Aeka almost expected to hear a peeling sound as her rival lifted her head up to stare at Mihoshi with rusted eyes and waterlogged mouth.
"What-what do you mean." Mihoshi's childlike shyness returned with added passivity.
Ryoko chuckled, definitely not amused and maybe sinister.
"You know Mihoshi, we haven't even told you ^our^ parts of the story yet, but we know there's more to what happened than him just 'getting angry'."
Aeka moved her sympathy to anger to fear to anger from Mihoshi to Ryoko to Sasami to Ryoko. She stood up with palms set into the table and shouted.
"Ryoko! Stop this at once, I'll not have you acting like this to Mihoshi," her glare wavered by sharpened, "or in the presence of Sasami!"
"^Oh ghuive it a resht prinsesh^," the slur darkened again, "she's not a child and neither is Sasami anymore. And our 'detective' just said," a limp finger propped up on an unsteady elbow dangled in Mihoshi's direction, "that 'we all need to know what goes on around here'."
Aeka's nails made a few pained notches in the table. Ryoko just rolled her eyes from the ever-reddening royalty to the withdrawing police presence.
"So tell us Mihoshi, what did he really ^do^? What special treatment did you get, huh?"
Ryoko began rising, but her head still wobbled and she was having a hard time straightening her arms into support beams.
"Out with it Mihoshi! We know he wouldn't waste the opportunity of having you all alone, so you might as well tell us because here's something ^you^ didn't know: we still don't even know what he was going to do with Sasami! All we know is that it took that damned ^Tsunami^ just to scare him away!"
Between the intoxicated rant interwoven with words shouted for emphasis, Aeka began to shake while Tenchi and Washu both kept their heads low. The scene changed little even as Ryoko's voice lowered to a throaty and almost sultry interrogation.
Tenchi and Washu kept their heads low during the intoxicated barrage, while Aeka began shaking to her very frame.
"Was it ^that^ bad? Did he do something even ^worse^, did he actually ^touch you^, did he-"
"Stop it! You horrid, drunken, MONSTER!"
Everyone at the table recoiled took the cue to jerk their heads up for a better recoil, Aeka simply continued more controlled but no softer.
"How can you even include yourself in such serious matters when the few wits you have are swimming in sake?! You disgusting...dispic---not a single-" Aeka's lecture broke into frustrated incoherence and was thus easily interrupted.
"Drunk, am I? Well 'your highness' maybe I'm not drunk enough, hm? Ever think of that? Do I have to remind you me remind you that---^I can only see through his tricks when I'm drunk^! Maybe I'll need a few more just to make sure he's not sitting right in the damn kitchen!" She swung an arm in the general direction and knocked her tea to the floor.
Everybody stared, horror-pity, inside-out.
"Maybe," she began again even more darkly with a looser finger directed at Mihoshi, "he's sitting right here, impersonating Mihoshi with ^his^ version of what happened to her!"
"Ryoko!" Aeka couldn't work enough anger into her shock.
"Or maybe it's ^you^ princess, hm, I'm sure he would have loved to put on your clothes and ^water down my drinks^!"
"^Your^ drinks?! You steal your sake from that poor grocer down the road!" Aeka bellowed.
"HA! How would you know that if you couldn't see ' everything'?!" The scalding foam behind her fangs kept her movements unsteady, but she managed to rise and meet Aeka's eyes.
"Mr. Misaki surly wouldn't be able to pay for all you've drank since-"
"Since when, Aeka!? Since this ^thing^ decided to make our lives a living hell?! Oh, you're right of course; it wouldn't have to be Mihoshi or you! 'It could be anyone'! All he'd have to do is make a quick switch, he could be Tenchi, or Washu, or Tenchi's ^dad^ even! For all we know the whole thing with Tsunami was another trick, and he's impersonating sweet little Sasami till he gets the chance to kill us all!"
Ryoko had to look around the aurora tips of her index finger at Sasami, but could see clearly through the haze of old rice and fresh salt that the younger princess had just been given devastating news by a callous criminal. The wide and watery pink jewels drained the anger from Ryoko's face and pulled her back down in a disheveled heap.
Her arms curled into each other on the tabletop to receive her weighted head.
"For all you know, for all ^I^ know...it could be me."
Air froze for the half-minute it took Sasami to rise from her seat and scurry over to Ryoko's side, wrapping her hands tenderly around the mass of chaotic hair and trembling shoulders.
"It's okay Ryoko," Sasami pitifully tried to churn her own distress into comfort, "it's okay, we know you're only trying to help."
Everyone stared at the freshly inverted spectacle, each envying Ryoko's release and coveting Sasami's comfort in their own way, save Mihoshi, who sunk her head a bit deeper for the epilogue.
"He said that even though he preferred making ^other^ people...do things, it was even better when someone made a false accusation, that it would always have a bad ending that way."
Mihoshi looked up, the sobs in her voice held back by some fog or metal wall.
"He said that 'the strongest pull towards the of heart of oblivion was ^doubt^'. I think that he doesn't care how upset we get, so long as we stop trusting-"
Aeka looked over in disbelief. The capture echo of Seita's tone; it seemed like they were all going through the same misery she and Washu had barely endured earlier. At the roots of her all was a desire to hold Sasami and hide within Tsunami, to bring everyone together in a massive embrace to shut this blinding wake.
She only hung her head, ashamed for her own lack of control.
"Listen everybody." Washu spoke evenly, beginning with a calm sip of tea. "We have to stop ^blaming^, and we have to stop ^doubting^. Maybe Mihoshi's right about what he's really after, and until I can get my lab running again we have to keep our heads on straight."
By the time everyone, including Ryoko, had given their attention, Washu was already moving to clear her place.
"Besides, there's still a good chance that Tsunami did more than scare him away for the moment. All this paranoia just makes things worse, so today lets try to relax and be glad that everyone's safe."
She rose and looked towards Nobuyuki's room, lowering her head again and whispering just loud enough for Tenchi to overhear.
"Almost everyone."
Silent but fighting to be anti-solemn, each of them helped to clear the table.
Tenchi began a late start on the field as Washu would stop on her lab. The rest of the girls got an early start on their television immersion.
***
The pick swung heavy and loud into the dry ground, singing against a rock more sharply than needed to cut out Aeka's soft announcement from a safe distance.
"Dinner will be ready very soon, Lord Tenchi."
She breathed for another try but relaxed it to watch him a little while longer. A warmed smile eased up her face.
"Don't you look handsome and strong today, Lord Tenchi." Aeka said in a sure whisper, smiling brighter as he continued obliviously.
"Oh, and so modest too."
Flattery weighted a hand to make sure the giggle got nowhere. She cleared her throat and smoother her kimono, proper once more for a second before an empting sigh. With the last dimple of light gone from her face again the wasteland would resume, her feet now as grounded as the rest of her.
Tenchi set the tool down and reached for his water bottle. Aeka waited till he put the cap back on before approaching.
"Lord Tenchi, Dinner will be ready soon." She thought she'd said it too loudly by the way he turned.
"Oh, it's you Aeka, you almost startled me there." Tenchi exhaled.
"I-I-I'm sorry, Lord Tenchi." Aeka bowed nervously.
"It's okay. I was just finishing up here, anyway." He grabbed the pick in one hand and his water in the other and walked towards her, face down or lower.
"Are you-" She began as he reached her shadow.
"Yes?" He asked politely, but continued his trek towards the house. Aeka forcefully picked up her feet.
"Are you---Are you all-right, Lord Tenchi?"
She watched her limited view of his face soften and lower further, instantly cursing herself for not asking instead 'how are you'.
"I'm well enough, Aeka." He answered softly without taking his eyes off the trail. "How are you?"
"Me?" She answered nervously. "I, well-" she lowered her gaze but soon felt Tenchi's eyes on her and had to confirm her suspicion.
It must have been pained concern, but his eyes were even softer than the subtle edges of the approaching evening. Aeka turned away with a helpless blush.
"Are you sleeping any better?"
"M---Maybe, a little."
"I'm glad to hear it."
Aeka bit a tiny portion of her lip.
*He's dwelling on something new, I can hear it in his voice.
A surprisingly cold breeze washed over them, and she rubbed the shiver from her arms while forcefully swallowing the rest.
*But, no. I can't take any more drama, not after this afternoon.
"The autumn is coming early," Tenchi stated plainly, almost to himself, "we had a hot but short summer, usually that means we'll have a long winter."
"I see."
*No. No! We can't talk about the weather now. But, if we start talking about 'him' again then...
"We've got a nice sunset to walk home to tonight." Tenchi looked up with a hopeful smile, urging Aeka to follow.
"Yes." The background glowing forward around him, she felt it cooling some emotions and tempting others to the surface.
"I'm worried Tenchi." She almost blurted out with a serious clenching of her hands.
Tenchi was silent and almost unaffected for a moment.
"About, Seita?"
Aeka gritted her teeth, and breathed slowly.
"No, I still refuse to give him the satisfaction, but I'm worried about everybody else."
"I see."
"No Lord Tenchi, I don't think you do. I'm worried the most about you." Formality submitted a strand or ten to urgency. "You're still the strongest out of all of us, but I doubt we'll be able to function as well if you don't show it."
Tenchi's eyes regressed or sought out the sunset.
"You know how much I---I care for you, Lord Tenchi, but I can't help feeling sometimes that you don't want to confront the situation."
"What about Ryoko?"
Tone, promptness, and content almost struck her over in three directions, leaving a lightning whisper at the pyramid's eye.
"^What^?"
"Ryoko, she's still a better fighter than me, and if I gave her all her gems back she'd probably be just as strong."
"T-Tenchi!" Aeka stopped walking and stared at him. He stopped and turned an almost defeated expression onto her. But this only delayed Aeka argument for a harsh moment.
"You know as well as anyone that we can't fight him like that! Washu was right, the only way we'll have a chance is if we stay confident. Besides-"
Aeka lost her breath and hung her head, slowly easing it towards the house, "I don't think we can rely much on Ryoko."
She noticed Tenchi's confusion from the corner of her eye. Without looking up, she turned back and paid tribute to confession.
"She's been keeping herself intoxicated for months now Lord Tenchi, this-" she bit her lip a little more, "this whole ordeal seems to have only made her more unstable. I know it's not really my place to judge her, but I can't help it. I was-" she forced her head up, "I was rather hoping ^you^ might talk to her."
"Me?"
Aeka nodded down at his apprehension.
"If she'll listen to anyone, she'll listen to you."
He stood in silence for almost a minute, then hefted his tools and headed towards the house again. Aeka blinked in confusion and hurried after him.
"I'm glad to hear you're concerned about Ryoko, but I don't think she wants to talk to me anymore than-" Tenchi trailed off to anyone else and let Aeka find the other paths.
"I see." She whispered loudly enough for him to easily guess at her response.
"I'm sorry Aeka, but I don't think there's much more I can do, when-"
Aeka felt her heart jump at the sudden weight she heard in Tenchi's throat.
"When I went up to help grandpa, Ryoko had been the last to see Seita. It was like---like she didn't even know I was there." Tenchi swallowed, and Aeka's lips began to quiver and clench.
They treaded on silence, mulled over the concept, and bore into their reactions.
"I don't think Seita's gone, Aeka, and I'm not---not sure what he's after next, but, whatever it is he-"
"Please, Lord Tenchi, please don't speak like this," Aeka begged pitifully, wrapping her hands around his elbow and upper arm, thrusting her forehead into his shoulder.
"I can't bare to hear you sound so---so ^surrendered^!"
Tenchi adjusted himself thoughtlessly to the extra weight, fighting down anything that tried to rise up on his breaths. He looked down at her, softening under her storm, and cut himself to keep walking.
Stopping at a loss at the tool shed, his thoughts fell prey to the scavenging and parasitic emotions invited in by neglect. Wisdom armored and hollowed itself with cynical apathy, only to retreat from a princess's grasp.
"'Surrendering'---'awakening', they sound like the same things sometimes."
***
Square squeak. Washu eased the door open, keeping her head low and breathing through her mouth as naturally as possible. There was still enough light outside to see him by; at least there would be when she finally opened the blinds. The floor creaked beneath her taller body and she almost wished her smaller feet back.
Dusk light entered in handsome pinstripes across the sickly bundle in Nobuyuki's bed. Washu braved a nasal inhale and wasn't awarded but was at least reassured. The state of the art air fresheners she'd hid and hung and adhered throughout the room were working nicely. She could still smell the inevitable of course, sharp and draining beneath the sterile waterfalls and engineered blossoms but ^beneath^ them nonetheless. Her tall shadow progressed over him. Gentle movements must be non-threatening and realistic; no false fears or hopes should either of them be awake or dreaming.
"Hello?" Knowing better than to waste her time with whispers, and knowing him too well to resist tenderness, Washu sounded as strained as she was.
"Yosho?"
Scans shifted, watching over him then frowning down at the crude machine she'd needed to settle for. It monitored for any change and thus far seemed bored with tracing simply lighted numbers across her multi-darkened face. It was a small but still far too significant concern that she'd been avoiding the mirrors ever since her decision not to waste power on her child form, outside the lab at least. Only recently had she considered without shying back that it was no longer subconscious, or singularly motivated. Correct and right enough, she'd thought into herself, there wasn't any room in her mind for maturity or vanity. Thinking this into herself again, she turned away from the machines and back to her friend.
"I know we already told you that Mihoshi came back, but no one bothered to ask when you thought you'd be ready to see her." Smoothly, though not yet ready for softly, she cleared her throat in further preparation or procrastination.
"She---she seems to be okay. I examined her of course, and physiologically she checks out normal." Washu looked away from his face and let her eyes fall and rise with his chest, whispering to herself for him to hear.
"Just like Sasami."
A tiny rasp in Yosho's breathing cracked a whip in Washu's ears, and she swiftly turned towards the source. It repeated then dissipated. She'd heard it before, a few times like this, and a few times during her work amongst other patients dying of degenerative diseases. She'd been trained expensively not to think on it.
"Try to savor the food a little longer than usual tonight, Mihoshi's helping and I'm sure she'd like to hear that you enjoyed it." Washu managed to sound tender if frightened as she sat down with her back to his knees, letting her hand spread over his chest.
"^Do you think you could do that, hm^?" She caressed her whisper into his emaciated sternum.
Something small and plastic dropped in the kitchen, and she half-smiled to hear the homey sound of Mihoshi's apologetic whine.
"^If not for Mihoshi, then at least for me^?" She lowered her cheek onto his chest, hands rested above her head, hoping the sheets felt even cooler and softer to him.
"Please." She smoothed the sheets in a quiet and clear whimper.
"^Please^." Sobs clutched into the very fibers as her whimper broke into a sob.
She'd taught herself expensively, during the last few instances such as this, to carefully rest against him rather than on him. It was almost as good as holding him, she thought into herself. He had started to get delirious between the new nausea-suppressing sedative, false encouragement that less and less of the concoction was keeping him asleep longer. The coma would punctuate itself any day now, but she told herself it would not divide her resilient joke: if anyone was going to kill him it would be her.
"C'mon you old fart, you know it's not your time yet! Don't leave me here with these kids! I---I need to have you here---with me!" The humor and desperation melted together, leaving her with an almost whiny voice, further slurred against Yosho's chest.
The sobbing continued unaffected, throwing in a few good chokes and a sniffle for good measure. Tired and sore should have made it easier for her to rise to give him more air, but the urge to hold their bodies even closer prevailed. A few more sobs and she began to feel dizziness and a light tickle against the back of her head. The tickle turned into a comforting sensation, like a thin hand smoothing wild hair.
---
Aeka watched Tenchi's back, his shoulders low even after he'd deposited the heavy pick in a wheel-barrel. She looked at the tools, knowing that they should not be left outside to rust. Before kindly reminding him of this, it occurred to her that Tenchi might not have his grandfather's discipline for much longer.
Thoughts corroded as they clashed together. Swallowing them, and crushing them in her fists, she calmed herself against another explosion. To her surprise, Tenchi noticed that she hadn't followed him after he broke away.
"Aeka?" He began to turn curiously.
"Y-Yes Lord Tenchi?" She collected and propelled herself just in time to catch his glance mid-turn.
"I'm---I'm sor-"
"Please don't. No more apologies. Can't we, for just one evening?"
Aeka knew she was looking up at him with large and unsteady eyes. Wanting to be stronger but not wanting to turn away, she could only wait for his reaction.
Tenchi walked passed her and onto the nearby back porch, offering small consolation as he passively held the door open for her.
"I'll try."
A breath later she was able to hurry in with her chin up and eyes hopeful. But she quickly turned to watch Tenchi close the door behind him. But she quickly turned back at the sound of racing steps and a blur of red hair.
Aeka held her breath for Washu to crash into Mihoshi, but she skidded to a halt moments before a quadruple zeppelin collision. The detective and the princess both winced just the same.
"Washu?" Tenchi's voiced confusion echoed Aeka's as both their eyes followed what could still only be made out as a ruby fireball woman blasting her way into the sick room, arms laden with packaged snacks.
Mihoshi and Sasami in the kitchen, Tenchi and Aeka in the back doorway, and Nobuyuki in the living room, their confused glances all interwoven. The sound of Washu's muffled voice, engaged in what sounded like excited conversation, firmly unified and dominated their attention. Thankfully, Washu was kind enough to emerge again from the room a few minutes later and before they forgot to breathe again. Science herself was strangely winded.
"^He...sayshe'sfamished^!
"What!" The equivalent of everyone responded.
"Yosho...I think he's finally snapping out of it!" An adult Washu with such a manic smile would normally be terrifying, and indeed some of the family remained a little pale.
"Are you sure?" Tenchi gulped as he strode over to where Washu was leaning against the couch for support.
Certainty lowered her head and wetted her throat. A low chuckle shook her hair like a rabid beast preparing to attack from beneath the brush. Tenchi felt something inside him cringe and whimper at her response but barely had time to put his hands up before she grabbed him by the collar and pulled his face in to be devoured by an oversized smile.
"Am I sure?! Am I sure?! I'm The Greatest Genius in the Universe! Of course I'm sure!"
No one could do more than stare as Washu enveloped Tenchi's head in her chest to better feel the vibrations of mad-scientist laugher.
***
Standard Disclaimer:
I thank all the owners of the Tenchi characters who have chosen not to sue me for suggesting some alternative uses for them.
Standard Advertisement:
I thank all the readers who have perused my other submissions and favorite authors.
Standard Procedure:
Present all arguments and appeals in a clear and orderly manner.
Tenchi Muyo: Sanctuary and Asylum
-Verse Nine-
Charity (Part 3)
"Because you see---I understand the will to evil.
The will to evil is like an iron in a forge---There is only one way to shape it (on right).
With a ^conscience^ which is the ^fire^!"
-Trevor Goodchild
(Character on animated series "Aeon Flux")
***
The dinning room managed to relocate itself around Yosho's bed before long, yet after short Washu was already trying to excuse them all for the sake of his rest and her concentration. Each eager distractions lingered, unsatisfied with their tastes of whatever was re-nourishing their finest age.
Though his voice had still been as withered as the rest of him, he'd spoken more through shared comforting and comforted glances. Only after asking about Ryoko did the vibration waver.
"I'm sure she's around somewhere," authority cleared her throat, "she's been just as worried as the rest of us, but she shows it by...being extra watchful."
Yosho nodded, keeping his eyes closed.
"Okay, all of you, this is your last warning: remove yourselves or be removed."
Arms crossed, stare leveled, she cut the visitors down and out one by one.
When Tenchi had finally and hesitantly closed the door behind him, Washu let her breath out and her shoulders down. She turned to offer Yosho an affectionate smile, but he was already asleep. Taking as much care as ever to be silent, she moved a chair to his bedside and admired her new watch.
The voices outside gradually dissipated while the monitors and Yosho's breathing became more pronounced, hypnotic, if she thought she could have brought herself to focus. Peaceful if she could bring herself out of the new war.
It wasn't long before she was clutching her skull and breathing with far less tranquility than her patient. She eventually turned the back of the chair into a chin rest, imagining Yosho's recovery and all it would require, imagining Yosho's sickness and all it might explain. In thinking so much about timing she was able to forget about time.
When everything finally felt sufficiently revaluated and rehearsed, she rose from her post. Ignoring whatever quarantine she might have forgotten anyway, Washu leaned over and kissed Yosho's forehead. With a timid, almost resistant expression, she craned her head upward and smoothed the patient's hair.
Quiet as it might have been, Tenchi's bedroom door echoed down through the ceiling.
***
*It was a dream.
Tenchi lifted the sheets and squeezed his temples. His head felt rather like a grinding engine, running on fumes into the ground.
*You're a fool Tenchi, no one could have slept through that.
The mattress was hard as he pressed his head through the pillow.
*But no one could have lived through that.
The ceiling was blank above him, demanding. The blankets were sealing him in, but his jaw still quivered out a tear.
*He'll be back.
Breathing deep dried his lips and breathing desperately cracked them.
*He said 'some time' to think about it.
*What was it about being 'correct' and 'honest', and then...then about 'helping me' and 'destroying him'?
Tenchi gradually moved to his side and to a ball small enough to fit in a large crib.
*'Some time'...is that a day, a year? How much is his concept of time deranged by---by
His sheets parted with all the grace of a cheap tarp as he sat up and hauled his legs over the side. Tight fists pressed in to stabilize his head through each breath of memory. The fight raged on, seeking revelation out beyond blue and white, swords and pits.
*I've got to---got to remember that his power gets more intense not just by staying in that place, but by driving people-
Tenchi clenched his face inward to the bone, pulling it through his fists and between his forearms.
*Damn him! DAMN HIM-DAMN HIM-DAMN HIM!
A breath captured and a stare leveled, he swallowed and blinked darkly.
*No Tenchi. You can't start giving up now---not when it looks like ^he^ may be doing the same.
*But it must another trick.
*But if it is then boiling my brain over it is exactly what he wants.
*But then what am I going to do? What the hell am I going to do?!
His hair felt greasy, then the rest of him did, but he needed to make sure his skull was still hard between his hands.
All the thoughts he'd thrown out at himself and the cold would have to amount to something soon. With Mihoshi back and his grandfather beginning to improve Seita must be either annoyed or pleased with his plans, but obviously not done.
Tenchi tried to plan till it hurt, then continued in hopes that pain could still inspire. Eventually a new fear crept in, spreading through his lumbering whirlpool like a cloud of soured milk. Unlike the burning vibration of his earlier musings, gears began to move more like titanic pumps, slow and eerie, back and forth. It felt like it should be building, but it stayed perpetual. He heard his breathing match what sounded like the swelling obsession needed for some arduous task or guilty pleasure. Like a less practical and more experienced thinker, he began to think about his thoughts.
Seeing the shadow of lost control could be almost fascinating; he almost wished that Seita would wait another year or ten.
*I really can't do this. Even if he truly wants to give me a chance to destroy him, how am I supposed to do...how am I supposed to know anything?
Elbows on knees began to lose hold of Tenchi's head. Little by little, it sank, ready to hide back under the sheets like a frightened boy, or simply bounce and roll along the floor till it reached a safe hiding corner.
*Please. Please don't make me fight this alone.
The silent request vibrated his spine like a whisper in his throat. For a moment, giving up had dulled his thoughts like a long gulp of warm sake. Chaos wasn't completely quiet inside him, but at least it was incoherent. He didn't have time to wonder if the knock on his door snapped him out of it at the right time.
Tenchi looked at the handle with a flash of terror; the light raps like footsteps and heartbeats and unsheathed blades and any second now the end would walk through the door. He forced himself not to give into the rising laugh.
*Only---only ^he^ would---would knock at...at 3:30 in the morning then wait to see me turn white when I open it and see his latest nightmare.
Whoever was knocking knew he could hear them and continued waiting. So close to laughing, so horribly close but, ready to bite through his own jaw, he would not go without one last fight.
*I---^I^---was the one who invited him.
He stood on stronger sticks and thought better about the wood lump by his pillow.
"Tenchi?" Washu's voice was calmer than any second batch of knocks
He lost hold of his breath, dropping, twisting his face.
"Are you awake, Tenchi?"
Apparently she hadn't heard him, and seconds after answering again he hoped she wouldn't again. His voice was dead but so was the rest of the house.
"Who is it?"
Hesitation defined silence for a few seconds before Tenchi's uncertain hopes were given a clear answer.
"It's me, Tenchi." Washu was serious, not friendly like he might expect of an imposter, an average one.
Carrying all things in consideration, it took Tenchi a while to reach his door and a little longer to open it. Under different circumstances he might have laughed at having to raise his head to meet the originally, and still unusually taller scientist. Under different circumstances she might have made a joke instead of taking out both sides of an obvious question.
"Would he have knocked, Tenchi?" She crossed her arms; stern mentors could be the most sympathetic. Tenchi lowered his eyes again.
"Maybe."
Uncharacteristic to her, and thus unlike any impersonation of her, she opened the door the rest of the way and walked past him. Tenchi watched her in slightly sobering surprise, and checked for jealous onlookers as a force of habit before closing the door.
Washu pulled his desk chair up to the bed to sit him back down. He obliged, distracted enough to be dignified in his sleeping shorts without crossing his legs or covering them with the sheets. Another force of habit kept his eyes above chest level.
"Having trouble sleeping?" Tenchi asked weakly, knowing he didn't need to add 'too'.
Washu looked down at her hands. She felt him waiting for her to crack her knuckles or tent her fingers. She crossed her arms.
"Are ^your^ nightmares all about the same thing?"
Tenchi's eyes widened at how matter-of-fact she could be, not at all wondering why he wasn't used to it.
"W-What?!"
"Tenchi, I doubt I'm the only one who's noticed the state of peoples' eyes around here. No one's rested well since---a long time.
"But you in particular look like you need more than the extra you got today. It's understandable, of course. I've had to help almost everyone else in the house, myself included."
She bent her head and fingered a rattle in her pocket.
"Would you like some help?" She began in an even tone, strangely confessional for someone asking questions. Though he knew his silence would further incriminate him, Tenchi couldn't seem to move.
"You're pushing yourself too hard, and you can take it from a genius; it's not always a good idea."
He kept his ears open for the comforting humor in her voice, though he didn't expect to find it. Instantly weary and lusty at the prospect of finding a little undisturbed sleep in a little pill, he gulped. Before he could show tentative disinterest, she changed, or perhaps eased into a different subject and a softer tone.
"It's kind of strange, don't you think?"
"What is?" Tenchi felt dull asking such a question, and duller for asking it so nervously. He let his head drop before Washu could raise hers.
"Today, of course. Isn't it strange that Mihoshi should come back, and that on the same day Yosho should start making such a dramatic recovery?"
Bewilderment sounded out of place in the voice of intimidating reason, and he merely waited for it to change.
"I mean, in a way it's odd that she even came back at all."
She must have been preparing to see his shock, but all he could manage to bring his head up with was appalled confusion. Washu wasn't finished watching her hands.
"Technically, he pulled a kind of 'bullfighter' move on her. He obviously knew where she would come out on the other end so I still don't understand why he didn't just send her out the few light years it would have taken to strand her permanently, I've little doubt he could have done it."
Washu absently massaged her palms to get at the increased tension in her voice.
"Heh, it probably wouldn't have been that much harder to just send her into an asteroid field, or into even into a ^star^---but he didn't." She seemed to sigh while Tenchi held half his breath.
"And why, ^why^ would he put Yosho on death's door if he wasn't going to keep him knocking?"
Washu turned her head lower to the side, thinking to herself for Tenchi to hear.
"^All on the same day---Mihoshi and Yosho both come back to us on the same day^."
Tenchi's own nerves were envying Washu's hand massage and he was almost ready to demand what she was getting at. Another part of him was still ready to strike at her, just to make sure. He felt his fist clench on his lap. The feeling elevated then dissipated with the extended silence, so extended that he was relieved, for a moment, when she spoke again.
"So, what did he say to you?"
She was ready to see his shock this time, almost timely enough to ignite the fist he'd nearly disarmed. It didn't occur to him how many people he might wake with as loud a question as he wanted to respond with, but his face must have said enough.
"You're not half as good at hiding it as everyone else was."
Tenchi gulped, eyes burning his hands as they ate at his knees.
"^I---it-^"
"I dare you."
Her voice may as well have yanked him up by the hair, and her eyes may as well have pined him to the wall.
"Say it, Tenchi. Tell me it was 'just a dream'. I'll knock you out right here."
Already intimidated eyes fell to stare at the shaking fist she held ready for him, raising again only when it relaxed or exhausted back into her lap.
"There's something I think you should know. After seeing you today, I wanted to tell you before I finally told anyone else."
She met his eyes, deadly serious to desperately uncertain.
"Tenchi, Yosho---your grandfather doesn't remember being poisoned anymore; all he remembers is facing Seita in his office, then imprisoning him."
Tenchi tried to keep his hands from hugging into himself, and might have been able to do it with more time between the steps of Washu's presentation.
"He asked where the sword was," Washu added to the strain of his uncertainty before finally dropping her eyes to accept her own.
"It just doesn't fit Tenchi. When," she swallowed time, "he kept saying that Seita had poisoned him he said it so---so---^weakly^. It was like he'd already accepted defeat. It wasn't like him at all, that's why I thought, that's why I ^still think^ that it was some kind of hypnotic suggestion. And now-"
Tenchi almost cringed to hear her let out a breath not unlike the ones he'd been making before she knocked.
"Now he thinks his sickness is the result of the exhaustion of trapping Seita in the sword, he-" she lowered her voice to an anxious whisper, "^he thinks he's still in there^!"
"I'm just lucky that everyone had the tact not to bring anything up. But now---now I can't help but think that you must know something new, that Seita either ^has^ gone, or is just working up something even more-"
Tenchi watched her clutch the sides of her skull, only more violently that he had. He wanted to do the same, but still couldn't move very well. Her mumbling was almost a mewling whimper.
"^Please, I have to know^."
It slipped out, automatic and lifeless.
"He said he'd give me time to think about it."
Tenchi took his turn to wait for her shocked expression, but realized soon enough that she'd been exercising the special kind of patience and manipulation most scientists and all mothers were allowed to use. She looked to the side of his bed and spoke calmly again.
"And this was last night."
"Yes." Tenchi did his best to sound in control of himself, if not, if perhaps never the situation.
"So what are you thinking about?"
Tenchi hesitated and Washu pinned him to the wall again, if a little more gently this time.
"What did he ^say^, Tenchi? It sounds like he made you some kind of offer, and---if it's anything like what he offered my daughter-"
Finally enough to make him rise, Tenchi was on his feet looking down at Washu in enough time to have given or taken a testing punch and perhaps another. He still considered it as he flexed his fingers at his sides.
"^Are you saying I would even consider-^" Tenchi almost hissed.
"No, of course not I-" Washu remained calm, and never raised her eyes.
Forgetting that a snap, a break, will have a collapse in the wake of its energy, Tenchi bounced a little as he fell back to sitting, then slouching on his bed. He found Washu's gaze and blinked rapidly, nearly losing his voice with the strain needed to keep it.
"What does it matter," Tenchi waited without expecting Washu to flinch, "sometimes I wonder if maybe ignoring him is the only way to make all of--- ^this^ just-"
Some kind of will softened Washu and placed her hand on Tenchi's knee as he let his head fall with bitter yet watered down apathy.
"It's an idea I've actually given some serious consideration, along with the theory that ^I'm^ just loosing my mind." A quick exhale was hardly a laugh.
"I've also considered that Seita is actually an ectoplasmic projection of psychokinetic schizophrenia."
She was more than ready to catch Tenchi's eyebrow as he meekly lifted one in new, thus distracted confusion. Her smile softened further.
"That any one of our messed up heads could have actually 'created' him."
Tenchi calmed, but couldn't smile again as she couldn't shield him anymore.
"So far though, I'm beginning to think he might soon be more like Tsunami than Kagato."
Tenchi listened as she started to breathe again, not as obsessively as he had been earlier, he thanked the stars, but she was clearly just as desperate for answers. He knew speaking on his next-first instinct would offer little comfort, he only hoped it wouldn't be worse than another stretch of silence.
"I think so too," he began after a few throat relaxing exercises, "I tried to kill him last night but...it wasn't like the first time."
Washu's eyes filled in the rest and made it easier to continue.
"All of us remember that---that draining feeling whenever we got close to one of those portals, but, last night-"
"He's become more powerful, hasn't he?"
Washu semi-interrupted, semi-extended his break, perhaps intentional, perhaps futile; Tenchi dug in deeper to stay upright, but only had to whisper harsher to go on.
"It---it was like he almost ^was^ that place, just like Tsunami feels like she ^is^ the power in the lighthawk wings. I could barely even move, it's all still illusion I know, but---but they're ^right inside my head^."
Tenchi breathed and tried to make his hands stop shaking for a moment, never bothering to see how Washu was taking the news.
"So, I guess you can imagine how confused I was---still am, after what he told me."
He listened to the chair squeak as Washu leaned forward, but his voice still needed too much strength to lift his head.
"You know how he likes to speak in riddles and all, so you can understand if I can't remember everything exactly."
Resting long enough to fall back, to rest his head and shoulder to the wall and beg more encouragement from his interrogator. The distance was further reflected in his voice.
"He said that I was 'correct enough' about him being evil, and that he'd have to help me to make himself more vulnerable. It was something like: 'If you let me ^help^ you, it will present a real opportunity to ^destroy^ me.'"
Tenchi dropped the burden and clutched his head again, though more gently.
"Then he left. I'm not sure how much of 'some time' he'll take to come back."
Waiting for Washu's response was trial enough. When he heard her stand he weakly tried to fight off images of the potentially disastrous reactions she could have, telling the family being the worst so far.
"Considering how much he can change in one day, it's unlikely that he'll give you more than that, if that." Washu's even, and almost relaxed voice interrupted Tenchi's decline like a roadblock. He looked up, watching her rise to pace behind the chair.
"But what should-"
"Listen to me Tenchi, if he really does become stronger by---by driving people out of their minds, then something like this could be the end of all of us"
Tenchi watched her separation from her subject in horror and awe.
"However, one thing I am quite sure of," she clenched her arms professionally, "no matter what else he may be, he ^is^ insane."
A spark of her hatred ignited enough of Tenchi emotions to burn each other out, but he ignored the heat easily as she continued.
"Most importantly, this means that he is more likely to make mistakes."
She stopped pacing and faced out the window for a moment. A step towards it and she turned around to show Tenchi an authority he couldn't help but compare to the aforementioned unspeakable.
"Tenchi, there might even be a chance that, whether or not his offer his true, that ^he^ believes it is. You don't have to be around long to know that the most narcissistic psychopaths almost always have at least one bout of consuming self-hatred."
It looked like Washu was chewing on her tongue, but Tenchi couldn't be sure anymore than he could stop his own hands from gripping his knees again.
"I'm not sure how he proposes to 'help you', but...I think you should let him try."
For a moment, Tenchi considered pounding out his ears.
*She's serious!
"But how?" He managed to squeeze out.
"This may finally be the time to give him what he wants." Washu set her steps slow and thoughtful toward the door.
It felt impossible to hear past how much more encouraging it might have sounded with some life behind it.
Washu's oblivious whisper probably wasn't, but it emptied Tenchi just the same.
"^Maybe that's why he left room to give Mihoshi and Yosho back to us^?"
She stopped with her hand on the door and spoke clearly again after easing it open.
"As a peace offering."
*Wait!
A scream too loud to emerge from his throat must have echoed across the stars. Washu stopped and turned to face him. Her expression and tone offered no comfort but the lighter side of chance.
"Tenchi, if he really is trying to make this more of a fair fight, then you can't afford---^we^ can't afford to decline."
Never the passive type, but never the same, Washu left Tenchi alone to accept, through the distance it had to travel, a new idea to hold and carry him.
Even if she'd been an illusion, she'd been right enough.
***
Always the Death's Head.
Always the Body of Life.
So they thought and thus they were. Two sisters remembered enough to be considered everything, and remembered more still. Missing their center just as they had always missed each other from the sides, but rarely braving the chance to rejoin or separate further.
Thus, a mutual gesture should have rung out through their expansive territories like a clashing of glamour-iron spheres. There should have been great inverting side-sentience, cart wheeling off in all directions. Everything should have noticed, but if anything did, it had enough respect to doubt. Surely the two parties concerned knew the time and space to share.
How else as just as before: naturally. Communication is inevitable, even between estranged family members who, in knowing too much, are often uncertainly delayed.
*I'm glad you've chosen to speak, sister.
*I know you share the choice---sister.
*I would that you begin.
*Yes, you would.
...
*Very well. I assume you want an apology.
*I should not want, just as you should not assume.
*And neither of us should waste...so let us agree again not to compete.
*Yes.
*---Our common enemy is still more important
*Yes.
*He could still consume us.
*Yes.
*But he is still affected by us.
*Only on our existence, no longer on our actions.
*---Yes.
*Yet, I have already done more than I should.
*Do not regret.
*Yes.
*---Still, you knew, didn't you?
...
*Do not waste our time, sister.
*Yes, I knew...I knew, but I did not understand.
*Then, do you now?
*I know that he is experiencing great fear and pain.
*Good.
*Inevitable perhaps, but never certain.
*Would you hear my proposal then?
*Of course.
*He craves power, but power can only come from action. We must do
nothing more, and even less while he is now in doubt.
*You can still impress me, sister.
*Of course.
*It is decided then, we will mutually ignore our shared enemy.
*Agreed.
*...
*Sister?
*Yes?
*I sent him to you, do you oppose me now?
*I cannot.
...
*I nearly allowed him to us, do you oppose me still?
I must.
***
Washu's footsteps sounded light even in the complete silence, and Tenchi wondered if she had not reverted back to her younger form after leaving him. He looked back down at his pillow and remembered the rattle in her pocket, making a crooked frown for a bad joke.
*Maybe I should have taken her up on her offer.
Back in bed, with his arms adding to the pillow, he bounced the half thought off the ceiling till it came back in a full memory.
*I wonder how'd I'd see him if I used Ryoko's tactic.
A few of his few sake memories warmed his throat till optimistic nostalgia froze and grated against a lump. For all she'd done not to look at him it was no easier not to picture her.
*Ryoko.
*If Washu's right---there won't be anything left of him.
The creeping vision trembled heavy under the weight of such buried yellow and such thick red.
*No.
He finally managed to pull a copper shroud over so much once feral, now fevered gold, but forgot to anticipate echoes of submitting accusations. Pinching his sinus helped to fight down the remaining sensations of her, her violence.
*I guess I've gotten pretty good at not thinking about the girls--- for their sakes.
If the victory was empty at least it was considerate; he remembered Washu not wanting to laugh or to forget how. She'd always been good at the impossible, but that was her and he was himself, turning on his side and unconsciously curling into himself. His room looked the same around the chair, still the same as he pushed the chair around.
Only the back moved, the support rotating then trading with the adjustments. In front of his chest rather than his face, his room looked the same around the chair, still the same as he reached out to do precious nothing with it again, still the same as the room changed.
A white marble floating in the center or a pinprick on his eye, he shivered under his blankets for it and went dizzy behind his eyelids. Waiting for it to get worse made it no better, how could facing it be any worse?
If the portal had remained unchanged---what, Tenchi glared, could be keeping him, keeping his tunnel a keyhole?
The point of emptiness mocked him from the center of his room, threatening to change nothing. He hauled up hours of bokken blisters, binding book weeks, and moments of peace wrought out of his last moments. His triumphs would give him strength if he would only take them. No ordinary earth boy blinked slow and breathed deep one last time before fighting back the giving up leaking from this hole in his world.
Unchanged, the portal accepted his challenge, lingering little but impossible, then fantastic, and at last possible to resist.
Like the first sign of color through a whitening stain, he held fast to it. The disorientation had leveled and was still lower under this first strike of his will.
Time forgotten soon after being discarded, Tenchi fought back till he'd uncurled then sat up on his bed. The captured ground was stronger beneath him, and he could afford to lean forward and scowl back at the white.
*I'm doing it!
He could not, but would believe that he was standing up, then not even supporting himself on the chair.
*I'm resisting!
His fists weren't shaking yet, so he clenched them tighter, stronger. His first step toward the intruder's first offering replaced the will he'd spent just to face it. Now he could not, but he would believe that he was taking steps to starring down this emptying eye.
*I will not fear.
His body felt carved upon the next step.
*I will not doubt.
Sealed upon the next.
*I can beat this.
Lighter.
*Show yourself, I'm ready.
Lighter.
*Show me.
Tenchi reached out to it, and tried to bring the hand into focus, and failed. Still he could see how lose his fingers were, then he could feel the droop in his jaw.
*Tell me. How can it be?
Effortless upon the next step.
*I have to know---I have to know everything.
His fingers loosened even more to be just a little closer.
*I have to hold it.
Compelled, helpless on the next step.
*I---can't stop.
The air was gentle and easy around his body as it moved without him.
*No.
The air dried his quivering lips and wet his cheek with a tear.
*It's too late.
He remembered the traveling moments, but couldn't imagine what it would feel like when the next step touched him to the path.
The softly surrounding terror devoured him and spat him out in a rush, a flashing dilation. Tenchi's hand came into focus as it trembled before Seita's chest.
Looking up, like remaining vertical, like remaining conscious, was mixed-blessedly automatic.
Vivid blues lined in clever black reached out from the melting hallow of perfectly unnatural blonde. Hail gentle seduction, prepare to strangle in its lesson.
"Fear and fascination---will surrender their bodies-"
Tenchi lowered his hand and Seita raised both of his.
"Only to see eye to eye."
Wine tipped fingers were soft and graceful up his neck, around his jaw and cheeks. Tenchi locked eyes, small and threatened and awed by so much gorgeous malice.
"And eye to eye."
Seita's little daggers taunted down the back of his neck. Tenchi fought the stare, terrified and hating so much vanity quickly melting into so much misery.
"And eye to eye."
Lifting at their leisure, both hands folded behind him to tilt his head forward. The oblivion portals crushed into threatening eyes, crushing heaven and earth.
Tenchi remembered The Ghost of Madness, shying back from cruel megalomania, retreating from the invulnerable unspeakable with every speaking step it took toward him.
"The sparks of consciousness that strike up and out of instinct have yet to offer anything but questions," Seita wetted the dying elegance in his throat with a dainty swallow, "and centering moments that offer not but a will to dull the universe with their brilliance."
Another step forward and back, Tenchi began to waver before the oracle statue.
"Anything but questions, and spreading moments that have yet to donate more than 'believing'...believing they only answer what is asked of them."
The chair rolled a little as he backed into it and he let himself sink without a thought, teeth clattering, clenching bitter, grinding petty between being shorter still and not giving the guest a place to sit.
Seita closed his eyes, filling himself, as he would, with a breath too deep for his frame. The hairs on Tenchi's body all tried to leap out during the smooth exhale, but he would not grip his arms, would not clench his fists, would not waste what little he had on anything beyond meeting those eyes when they returned.
And they returned victorious with a voice to prove it, confirming at last that apathy truly could make confidence obsolete.
"I am sick-from, and tired-of questions, Tenchi. But before I hear your judgment I have one more explanation." Head pulled back, half-grin smug up, shoulders balancing a clever angle, and everything was a dandy perfect regression to Seita's dandy perfect self.
"That is...if you want to hear it."
Blinking the last specks of detachment, Tenchi turned in his chair and nonchalantly reached the sword out from under his pillow. Acceptance examined it with limply weighing hands, small under the torrent of memories all inspiring more vengeance than he could ignore or approach. He retraced, felt his chest ready to collapse before it breached the first layer of the peaceful moment before something beyond him stepped in to save him.
*...for the second time.
"^Yes^."
Tenchi could barely feel the vibration, but never doubted that Seita could. Lifting his head was impossible, but explanations would not begin without an audience. Realization almost smiled in him then as he looked up and recognized his sixth guest's first disguise. Thus recognition of the unaffected voice almost softened him, almost convinced him that the eyes had changed to match.
"I am surrendering now because I was never in the war. If I have made any permanent impressions---I have made them on impermanent surfaces."
The old demon's last hiss wanted nothing more than to be alive for its end. Standing tallest, Seita turned perpendicular to his canvas to let the paint dry.
Feeling himself lose color, Tenchi only looked back down at the sword, at Jurai, at the gems.
"Do you need anything else to make your decision?"
The hilt felt real and sturdy, if useless as he closed his hand and eyes around it. He hoped his own voice would sound as unencumbered as he hoped it would exorcise selfishness.
"No one wants to ask Sasami what happened that night."
He waited for the pitiful and vengeful pangs to call him out as naive to the last, but they only exhausted themselves. Nothing left but whimpers for comfort.
Nothingness responded with a whisper of doubt, defiantly taking a bitter taste of its own medicine.
"Facades have always drawn me, Tenchi, but I never cared much for telling lies. If you need a third vote of confidence; may you do with it what you will."
Tenchi looked up at the profile and looked for the hole in his nemesis's unstoppable yet now uninspired shroud.
Eyes folded and breath hushed, Seita didn't need to check his audience's attention.
"Tsunami...showed me something. Clear and transient as life and water; I was achieving, embodying my glory."
Seita threw his eyes open like deadly rotting claws.
"But I had exhausted my perception, and turned from oblivion's banner--- into oblivion's mace."
Silent, still, and ever the time-slow-killer; Tenchi waited then readied then tensed again twice over.
"If it does not end here," one graceful hand gestured down at the floor.
"Then it will end here," Seita held a temptation plate up to the window, a saucer-sized oblivion portal rotating in all directions above it.
Tenchi tilted the sword, watching moonlight swirl typhoons of fear and pity in the gems. Unhurried and unencumbered, he turned slow to lay the sword on his pillow, and turned back slower to rise from the chair. Still perpendicular, but with even postures, calmed spite gave spiteful surrender an audience.
"What do I have to do?"
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Standard Procedure: Present all arguments and appeals in a clear and orderly manner.
^Tenchi Muyo: Sanctuary and Asylum^
-Verse Nine is Charity-
-Part 1-
"This is what happens when a great deal of intelligence is invested in ignorance, when the need for illusion is deep."
"I could also say that those who cannot obey themselves must be commended."
-Trevor Goodchild (Character on animated series "Aeon Flux")
***
Slippery squish. Washu applied the crème to her pale and puffy wrist, too impatient to savor any relief beyond its foul odor. She wiped the excess on a nearby rag and flexed each neglected finger, watching critically for a vein to pop out, a digit to start moving on its own, or any other excuse to begin another rant at the juvenile, if not altogether childish doctors they had on this planet.
"You can step up here now, Sasami." The newly medicated doctor invited calmly.
Without lifting her eyes from the floor, the Second Princess took half a step forward, then looked up the length of arm holding protectively to her shoulder. She watched Aeka withdraw in hesitant embarrassment, recognized someone not watching so as not to be seen, and looked back down at the floor without resuming her approach.
"I told you guys already, I'm fine."
"Please Sasami, let Miss Washu make sure." Soft answered small.
"It's certainly not much, and it won't be half of what my lab used to be for a while, but it's still better than anything this planet's doctors can offer." Washu thought aloud while making some minor adjustments to the reclined chair and its surrounding displays of lighted switches and wired wires. The heavy ones looked mostly sturdy on their extension angles, and the thin tips to flexible anchors were at least secure if at worst sharp
One of them must have smuggled the matching head and wristbands to the examiner's third hand while she gently was adjusting Sasami's position by the jaw. Attaching the blackly uncomfortable gear took greater care if less concern. Washu walked back over to the control station with focus unflinching till something stiff and purple tickled the corner of her eye.
"This might take a while, Aeka."
Washu dictated to some buttons and almost finished inscribing the next letter to them till she noticed the lack of response. Looking up from the controls after a minute, she read the anxiety freezing all but Aeka's eyes beneath her bangs. A sigh and a few steps later Washu returned with a modest office chair to match her own.
"You can have a seat if you like."
Aeka blinked and blinked faster then accepted the seat with a short bow and a mumbled thanks.
***
Tenchi nearly slammed the screen door behind him, panting into his shirt as he wiped his face with it to even out the distribution of grime. Long strides brought the kitchen to him but the plunging ice in the water jug was just slowing things down. After nearly chocking on emergency relief he poured himself another and caught sight of the note on the fridge as he wiped his mouth. Removing the paper sharply and catching the magnet, then dropping the magnet, then replacing the magnet, he read what looked like Sasami's very legible and very girlish letters letting him know that she and Aeka would be in Washu's lab if he needed anything. With more effort than he would have liked he got the paper back under the magnet without spilling his water.
It took a few seconds before he asked himself why the note still needed to be there if he'd already read it. He shook his head at himself, set his water on the counter and reached for the note. The feeling stopped him a few inches from the magnet and ground his teeth closer to glass. If intuition was an uneasy bond between a thought and a feeling then, since this particular dose affected him much more like the latter, he'd naturally have to fight it with the former.
*Stop it Tenchi. If he wanted to keep them from you he'd do something a little more drastic than a fake note on the refrigerator. Just call him out like you always do and move on.
Tenchi half frowned, semi scowled, and most bit his tongue to burn holes in the note. When nothing flinched he took a fighting breath to share through the every limb till the whole throat was wet and cool.
"Is that all you-"
Even the strong silent type of threat forgot not to interrupt sometimes, but at least tension could be in near-perfect harmony when it was consuming. Crystal tones accepted ice as it settled in Tenchi's glass. He almost turned to give it the first blow, quickly looking back at the message, unchanged. Swallowing another mass of hopeless panic, the note and everything else around him became real again.
His breathing evened as he carried his water to the water closet. Halfway across the living room a faint maybe no sound stopped and crouched him slightly and ready to drop his water. Round two came quicker this time, always spreading senses open in a slightly larger circling net. Even as he considered the option he considered he might be trying to hard, but he still thought he felt a gust of heat from the nearest rafter. He swallowed and called out clearly.
"Ryoko?"
More of the same nothing answered.
"Ryoko, are you there?"
More of the same nothing repeated itself incessantly.
Tenchi relaxed again and continued on, gathering up his net as he went.
Ryoko phased her head out from inside the rafter and listened to Tenchi turn on the bathroom sink. She floated out and back up onto her usual spot, looking at nothing without enjoying it at all. This continued long enough for everything between Tenchi entering his room and starting the shower. Each action brought a different picture to mind and the same expression to her face. When the sounds started to blend together, she finally blinked long and heavy.
Her right hand was open beneath her when she could see again. The picture of her and Tenchi had been traced over with a darker pencil. Some hair-thin lines stuck out around a few curves in the drawing, begging to no avail for correction. Forgetting how to enjoy it was one thing, risking it changing accidentally was another. She closed her eyes again and consumed her face with a miniscule strain, cupping a butterfly as closely as she could without crushing it. Resting knuckles to forehead by nodding up into them, support and practice for keeping sobs quiet.
***
The control station was a good ten feet from where Sasami sat, eyes closed and jaw calmed to escape the shower of bright lights and harsh buzzes. Turning off the sounds required focus and no room to pick anything out from the range of royalty and genius.
Precious skin, even handfuls would only massage no matter how much they wanted to wring, and every accidental scratch to her wrist or knuckles tried to compensate.
"Thank you again, Miss Washu."
For being smaller again, Washu's hands needed the rest of her attention to make up the difference.
Aeka continued politely no matter how much she wanted to clear her throat first.
"For working so hard on---this."
"Exactly, what ^else^ would I be working on?" Condescending simplicity examined chaos readings and made microcosm adjustments. At least it didn't expect formalities. At worst it didn't have as much patience. Aeka was fully transfixed on her sister, it was obvious even through Washu's side- glance, into her side glare, and around again to dead emerald weight.
"And I said just 'Washu' will do."
Easy enough to have been heard over the machines; even if facing them again, more than possible for a princess in thought to continue rather than respond, and now forgivable with a diplomat's rule to focus anxiety into urgency.
"Miss Washu?"
The remaining mechanical functions didn't require as much focus, or force as Washu gave them while tightening her jaw that Aeka didn't require a response.
"Please for---please forgive me. As her elder sister I should never have let it come to this."
What control was rapidly being lost from Aeka's words; they were rapidly piled on to the rot gathering around Washu's eyes.
"I---I should not have even let it begin." A delicate hand trying to make it start over, Aeka breathed broken through her already trembling palm. Maybe a royal secret how she continued to enunciate.
"^I failed her. He might have---oh Tsunamiforgiveme^!"
She bent further into her hand and twirled away from the examination. A few near-expertly muffled sobs later and the instructor looked up to see through Sasami and speak through Aeka.
"Are you done?"
The machines bobbed about Sasami head with a series of projected tones and blinking lights that made withdrawn little eyes flinch even smaller. Undaunted, her sister managed to spread a newfound silence that made the slow movements to behold Washu's profile as loud as Washu's work, and Washu's voice penetrate in thick needles, frozen past sterilizing.
"It's very 'noble' and all, but you know as well as I do that he didn't just pick this home by chance. He would have had his way with us one way or the other."
Aeka's head began to hang as limp as her hands as all rigidity was being taxed by her eyes.
"It's rather predictable and quite pointless for you to blame yourself."
Washu sat back stiffly into the office chair that had previously only made the controls too far away. She barely crossed her hands and barely parted her feet to rotate directly into Aeka's face.
"Though it is somewhat 'novel' to see such displays of frailty from you...when Tenchi isn't around." Teases and accusations seem like sides of the same senseless coin when folded up into bitter criticism.
The first signals of Aeka's replacement of her most insulted moment were racing and clenching through her face quickly, but Washu had already begun the lesson on how to truly except blame, speaking to the First Princess through the machines again. First step through last step; it was all about denying your own right of emotional release.
"In any case, ^I^ was the first one to---witness. The unnamable danger should have been clear to me even before that, but I guess I became too confident in my equipment."
Aeka bit a tiny piece of her lip in Sasami's direction, then sealed everything together. She turned her wall, her retaliation toward Washu's guarded profile. She anticipated the moment the genius could know her own medicine cut with royal vengeance; the wait was short but the mix was inverted by the time Washu turned and reflected up into this blackened expression.
"I agree."
The fraction of Washu's surprise made the fraction of Aeka's sneer the same and better.
"Maybe it's not like me to open up for anyone other than Sasami or Tenchi." Even princesses couldn't look violent suspicion down into a person so well, regardless of height. "But it's ^definitely^ not like you to truly admit a fault."
Washu stood from her chair, grinding something horrid in the back of her throat and speaking it almost clean through barred teeth.
"Do we know each other so well then?"
By the lights and hums of well-researched science well-bred intuition looked ready to bring terror and revelation colliding. Not at all like patience, Aeka's stiff posture demanded an answer. Nothing but determination, Washu's angled pose would have the answer or nothing. Molten amethyst and emerald poured hatred into each other, searching the worlds between the noxious steam for traces of synthetic sapphire.
The last of the automatic functions begin to wind down. Sasami's eyes relax tentatively but she does not stir. It takes masterfully hidden effort for her not to be noticed as Washu and Aeka rage to the point of collapse, to the exact point of collapse, to the exactly matched moment. Frightened enough by this search they'd begun, the first signs of tears were almost petrifying till they were seen as reflections. Charge broken, both women watch a tear roll down the others' cheek, breathing sharply at how red and alive the flesh looked through the water trail.
Washu turned away and crossed her arms painfully tight while Aeka again breathed into her hand.
It would be time to comprehensively analyze the results soon, but Washu was just as concerned with who would be the first to, hopefully, acknowledge the presence of shared guilt. If the thought wasn't echoed as the emotions were mirrored, then it rang out loud enough for two.
*How could we have done that?
"At least it seems we were wise not to tell him about Tsunami." Aeka demanded a recovery as best as a beggar could.
Watching over Sasami rather than looking though her, Washu spoke for rationality as best a near-nerve-wreck could. It was hard not to sound when the answer burned her throat like no honesty is painless.
"I only wonder if it was wise for her to reveal herself."
"What?" The hush of air ate at Washu's neck.
"We're acting like Tsunami scared him away, hoping it with all our lives. But, apparently," Washu swallowed hard and deadened, "no one really believes it."
"Perhaps." Exhaustion gave Aeka's voice a clearer shine of the acceptance it couldn't carry.
"It's just that, from what you all told me, Sasami didn't describe him as 'afraid'."
Nothing left of the procedure but to noisily retract the instruments and display the cumulated data. Listening to Aeka's breathing grow faint and slow, Washu was ready to forget postponing doubt around Sasami.
"Is---is he-" Aeka needed, frail for the world to see if only to have a single need granted. The question might truly exhaust her, just as it might take long enough in asking for Sasami to hear. Washu chanced prediction almost like compassion.
"Go ahead and ask Aeka, there's no more room for criticism here and--- and no longer any point in worrying about flattery elsewhere."
Aeka must have believed in force more than most diplomats, but surely believed in catching hesitations of guard.
"Is he ^mortal^?"
"Are you almost done, Washu?" Sasami snapped up both their attentions with a pitifully polite request. "I'm getting kind of sore."
"Yes, Sasami." Washu answered promptly, with the convincing ease of an uncertain parent. "You can go now."
Getting off the chair with more eagerness than her tensed body was ready for, she wavered a little before bowing to the both of them and walking quickly past, keeping her eyes hidden. Washu watched Aeka watch her sister as they followed not very close behind.
"Sasami."
The name halted before the couch and turned, hiding her eyes again.
Washu forced a smile anyway.
"It shouldn't take long to analyze the results, try to stay hydrated and don't stay still for too long," the smile couldn't be forced much longer and the good humor would hardly be touched, "w-why don't you go play with Ryo-ohki."
For a moment the world could see Sasami's lashes fluttering confusion before she bowed out and dashed off calling for her friend.
Aeka breathed deep through the departure, readying her own with slightly less guarded eyes.
"Lady Aeka."
"Y-Y-Yes M---Washu."
Washu grinned to Aeka's side hopefully just enough to be grateful for the princess's attention.
"Your question is valid, and I can answer it with some confidence, probably more than I could if I had the option of using my lab."
Washu blinked slowly into her breath, trying to ignore Aeka's and softening her delivery.
"I'm not sure if the answer will reassure you, heh," Washu couldn't let irony die, but didn't really want to laugh any more, "but it would probably entertain him."
"It was almost certain after Ryoko---after we found your brother. I had to probe them both for more specifics, which probably didn't help matters much."
Aeka looked over, disappointed that Washu's head was focused down.
Science's hypothetical distance continued.
"But the prominent theme remains."
Procedure demanded she look forward, but couldn't force her to look up.
"It's 'ambition', the stuff of grudges and obsessions. Only those bitterly aware of their inevitable end seek, not only to rise, but also to leave something behind. There's always room for miscalculation in this kind of thing, but if someone had all the time they wanted they wouldn't have savored, or created sensations the way he did."
Washu began turning back into her lab, closing it behind her as she finished.
"Simply put; based on what I've witnessed, and what I've learned, he shows all the signs of still ^pursuing^ immortality."
***
Tenchi sipped his stew and nursed the giggle Sasami had given him earlier; if it took an embarrassing gurgle in his stomach to produce then he would gladly pay up. The thick slur of rich meat and sweet vegetables tasted even better for being served late. There was a joke about too many cooks in the kitchen pulling at his collar, but the silent consensus was perpetuating itself again. He looked over to each place at the table for some good humor or even some bad manners to reassure him that the tension was imaginary and not delusional. All he noticed, again, were two empty seats.
"Could someone please pass the bread?"
At times these nearly lifeless requests made him wish that Aeka would just reach across the table like a toddler, maybe even knock over something. Some interruptions of sound only made silence more prominent.
*I hate this.
The ice had melted in the water pitcher already so when Washu poured it only cleaned the instrument when it could have tuned it.
*I hate this. I hate this. I hate this!
*I want to stand naked on the roof and call him out till I go hoarse. I want to hold up his head so no one in this family ever has to doubt their own eyes again.
He chewed a lingering piece of gristle mercilessly. A few lines of anger grew on his face, his suppressed imagination reaching out like a starving child.
*This is where he would spy on my thoughts and whisper in my ear that they'd have to doubt what they hear, and smell, and feel and-
No one noticed as he slurped the rest of the broth from his bowl, and only Sasami responded when he rose with a sincere, if uninspired compliment. Standing there for a while, a businessman who's just forgotten his speech, or the one person in the group who actually thought there would be ^dancing^ at the dance, Tenchi retired to rinse out his dish. A few clinks of ceramic later and he returned with a fresh bowl and spoon.
"I'm gonna go see if grandpa's awake yet." He informed any who were listening, expecting none to show it.
***
Tenchi eased the door open and, catching his hand before the potentially blinding light switch, stepped inside.
"Grandpa?" The whisper was needlessly quieter than the door hinges.
Yosho was breathing, clearly asleep or entranced with his own discomfort. Each half long enough to be considered a snore if it weren't flattened thin, clenching and withering again in his chest cage. First to be banished from Tenchi's mind and the room was a reanimated skeleton and his acute asthma, followed by a formless mutation suffocating under the weight of his own fat. After he set down the soup in the usual place, and after he cursed his imagination again, he let out a louder whisper.
"^Grandpa? Grandpa, are you awake^?"
The rest of the family was clearing the dinner table, quiet through the wall and stabbing through Tenchi's ears.
"This stew is really good." Plain volume and empty tone made their offer.
Sickly breaths grew louder then grew iron nails, dragging along stone, concrete, sheet metal, his skull. A lowering pendulum, each wasting sound swinging heavier onto Tenchi's shoulders, a flood of memories to mock his uncertainty, and a parade of futile plans left a wake of clenched and throbbing cells.
"Grandfather. Grandfather, please wake up." Spoke up the extra calm that always precedes a shout.
Not this time. Yosho was not hearing or was not responding and either way he was not changing his breath. Tenchi swallowed louder than his whispers and exited, leaving a crack open in the door, adjusting it with delicate precision, and inverting the gesture into a frustrated march toward the back door.
"Lord Tenchi? Where are you going?" Aeka asked from the couch, turning uncomfortably with concern.
Half way open, Tenchi looked at the small plastic screen handle and out into the night. Door gripped tighter, voice more detached, he defied the draft.
"I need some air. If you turn in before I get back, then goodnight."
Steady footsteps faded out into the field.
"Goodnight." Aeka hung her head quietly for a moment, looked back toward the screen, and then looked up to the rafter opposite the one Ryoko usually slept on. Barely noting her rival's switched place, completely enthralled that a lost vagrant could sit and look at nothing with such disinterest.
***
He'd worry about grass-stain and grass-itch tomorrow, if he stopped running or even changed his course he'd have to release his energy some other way. For now the cool night air provided enough support for this mad dash.
The dusty path scraped and slapped and almost slipped beneath him, his arms did half a pinwheel before returning to contribute momentum. The dry burn of pulsing breath shredded itself through clenched teeth till he dropped jaw fall for a feral grunt. He wanted to savor the salted gashes in his lungs and the salted slug in his mouth.
Funaho's branches swayed gently, unafraid that the charging brute might plow into her.
Tenchi slowed himself just in time to stay out of the small pond surrounding the long-rooted Jurain tree. Glad enough to be concerned with regaining his breath rather than anything else, he bent, clutched-kneed and clenched-eyed, to the abysmal face looking up at him from the shallow water. No wind louder than his slowly descending gasps as he tried to replace the memory of one voice with another. He would think of tranquilizing Goddess's reassurance, make it drown smug and sinister monologues. Back when it was still enough, determination had already told him it would only be a matter of time before he heard her real voice.
"Alright," he exhaled with enough force to settle his lungs, "where are you?"
He looked the trunk up and down for some inspiration on how to initiate quick contact. Thinking aloud sometimes helped him solve a problem.
"I know Aeka said Jurain nobles have a special code for when they want to pray to you. But all I can remember is---is something about 'from the sea back to the earth' or something like that."
Tenchi gulped and stared up through Funaho's lush branches, the brilliant stars above them, and into the cold black glass to reflect his darkening frown.
"^Tsunami^!" He called out his opponent and appealed to his mistress. "Tsunami, I know you can hear me! Where are you?! I don't have time to learn any damn Jurain mumbo jumbo!" Tenchi calmed and stretched his lungs again.
"Please Tsunami," tears clenched back in his fists, "please speak to me. I...I need you."
Not even a rustle in the tree or a ripple on its reflection. Deeper breaths carried Tenchi to his knees, and he ignored the pebbles and twigs that were usually absent when he kneeled at the shrine. He spoke again with as much reverence as his budding misery would allow.
"Tsunami, hear my prayer. By my birth and my life I beg you, speak to me, save me and my family the way---the way you did before."
A breeze of dust scuff, then a gust of leaf-clatter. As Tenchi forced images of Sasami's future self into his mind, there seemed less left to clog a draining apathy. Anger fought back and fought in.
"Show yourself! I know you can hear me from this tree, wherever you are!" He glared at the pieces of paper hanging from various branches. They swayed in the starlight, suddenly pale as a crumpled letter to The Seasonal Gift Giver in a parents wastebasket.
"Is ^this^ how it is?! Save us once, then ^abandon^ us? What kind of a Goddess are you, huh? I've never asked you, ^or^ Sasami for anything before, but right now I don't care if you're busy or trying to teach me a lesson or whatever! I want-"
It didn't feel as good to yell as he'd hoped, but grabbing his throat with a silencing pain had to have been reflex. At least it didn't feel as bad as staying silent.
This lapse of thought whetted anger for the moment before a thin beam of omni-colored light fell from the branches to his forehead. One lapse deserved; he realized nothing was relief and even less was vindication. The stars and the moon swallowed themselves and left him in the familiar glow of Tsunami's chambers. Numb struck sympathy only with frozen.
The Goddess stood as far from him as Funaho had been, aglow amidst the smooth geometry of ivory green steppingstones and crystal waters. Tenchi had remembered this place a number of times but had never envisioned himself on his knees. At the moment it didn't feel like enough and he wondered what fainting might feel like.
"Welcome Tenchi, it is good to see you."
Her voice enveloped him in silk sheets and warm water, the glimpse of peace he'd achieved when meditating in Hetmu's ship now echoing eternity. To be able to half shut a gapping jaw now felt almost empowering.
"Please rise Tenchi, we have no need for formalities here."
The air above the stepping-stones rippled and glistened on the water, partially obscuring the reflection of a sleeping Sasami. Never left by her smile, never let go from her softening eyes, Tenchi was loath to find the part of himself fighting brutally for freedom. It cursed whatever lack of strength and direction had taken his running legs, pounding the ground incoherently, then insignificantly as he realized he'd tilted his own neck to keep touch with her the whole time. Now she was standing over him, close to him, bending down and lifting him by the shoulders, steadying him even as her very hands begged a collapse.
"Tsu-^Tsunami^." He gulped his whisper down in an invigorating mist.
"I am speaking to you now through Funaho, we are not truly inside of myself, but I thought it would help you to see me like this again."
She let him go, and again simply being able to stand upright slivered him some more confidence. He would not wring his hands, or cross his arms. His fists were almost tight enough to tremble under the next wave of Jurai's Life.
"I am here now Tenchi, do not be afraid."
Tenchi struggled to close his eyes so that lowering his head might be easier. It was.
"Please let me help you, if I can." This thread of uncertainty might have only been for his sake, he thought, but in any case it brought his sails back up to the storm.
"^Tsunami, when Sasami...when Seita...what happened^?" His timid whisper sounded louder than it felt.
Some of the brightness faded from Tsunami's face, and Tenchi felt guilt bend in his stomach like an iron ball. Though, rather than pass it along, he felt himself split his nails and grind his teeth into it.
"I'm not sure if I can give you the answers you want." She hesitated around sympathy's improvement.
Tenchi's response came in a stutter of almost morbid humility and a choke of rising tears.
"I---I'm sorry Tsunami. I just can't figure out why you would-"
"I can understand your confusion, Tenchi."
The ball cracked and cut him, stinging his shoulders back and his eyes tight. His tongue flattened against the roof of his mouth violently enough to tear his jaw up into itself, and he spoke in a disintegrating rasp.
"All this time---where ^were^ you?!"
Tenchi savored Tsunami's surprise for the moment he imagined it was there, then froze, shrinking his insides back to see only a kind of stoic acceptance guarding her serenity. He'd already accepted humiliation, but was not yet dead enough to overlook the real change. The shoulders sinking under the part of her brow and the pout of her lips; it was all too subtle to have been restrained.
Tiny tapings into his throat were ready to say something with too little breath to hear and mouth hung too wide to read. It didn't occur to him that Tsunami might not hear even if he couldn't hear himself.
"^I-I-I---for-give---me.^"
Tsunami blinked slow and reopened her eyes kindly, though still too honest and remembering for recreating life as they could have before.
"Do not apologize Tenchi, I should not have hesitated to try to answer you."
The Goddess blinked again and the prince almost thought he saw her fight not to leave her eyes on the ground for a time.
"It is only that---Seita asked me the same thing.
So well aware of every cell in his body, Tenchi felt the opening, the engulfing of his eyes all too well. He waited to know each of the subtle details involved in cutting his own legs out from beneath him, he waited longer, not even swaying yet. So very ready to surrender every memory of himself, so long as it would halt the full absorption of the Goddess's answer. All of it so much like waiting for nothing in the presence of immortal certainty.
*Seita---doubted her, ^accused^ her, just as he does with everything else.
*And now---now I've done the same thing.
As much as it had pounded the ground to escape her, the same feeling scratched for his hands to plunge them down to grovel at the base of light. Again it grew distant, exhausted in the face of all strength he remembered, from all the strength he'd exerted, from all the support he'd lost in the name of separating his name from that nameless infection.
"Did you...did you destroy him?"
She blinked slowly, catching and holding tight to his renewed, if last-standing tone of life. Her hand reached towards his chest as she already drew in his eyes.
"It is not my place to destroy life. I give my children power to defend themselves, and each other."
The touch returned him, released him in two quick tear lines and a spinning light washing clean through his stagnant blood. It was almost enough not to notice the most fearful tone a savior could convey: even amidst the gentile feminine ethers of her voice, many auroras shimmered black with regret.
"I can only directly intervene when Jurain blood as a whole is threatened, or when great protectors need me."
Tenchi could breath easier, but couldn't accept; but couldn't shake his head.
"But, but you helped me when Kagato was-"
"Yes Tenchi, but you are to be a great protector of Jurai, and of your own people as well. That is why you are able to wield the lighthawk wings so. I have taken great care in watching over your development."
"^What!?^"
"Do not think on terms like 'destiny' if they do not comfort you, just know that you are neither alone, nor insignificant in your struggles."
Tenderness numbed what it could not dissolve in Tenchi's features.
"I had not intended on revealing this to you till much later, yet my only hope is that this does not change the compassionate nature that makes you so ideal."
She managed a small and relatively mundane smile, giving Tenchi room to avert his eyes.
"Then what about Seita," hateful terror turned into a serious matter, "How can I fight him when you're the only one who can even-"
He looked back up at her, pleading everything into her to see she could embrace more.
"Could he be listening to us now?"
He watched Tsunami's lips flutter lightly and he tried to follow her eyes as they searched the ceiling of her chamber, falling back to his with a soft, human, almost enticing grin.
"If he is, then he is, and even if this," she shrugged with another smile, "is just another of his tricks, it doesn't change what you know."
"But what do I-"
Tsunami giggled into her hand, almost teasing.
"He wants to be someone's mentor---but you'd make an awful apprentice."
Her smile invited for the sweet moment before it demanded his own, turning the world upside down to drop him like snow globe flakes onto fresh warm sheets. The laughs might have only been sobs to begin with, but they were surely sobs soon enough. Tsunami felt so very natural as she hugged him to her shoulder
"Shhh, Tenchi. I accept the blame for not thinking him dangerous, you and your family have all had to be stronger than anyone should."
"But---But I can't---I don't know how to-"
Tsunami began to back away, gently leaving Tenchi to his own sway of now relaxed tears.
"Be comforted Tenchi, I was able to drive him away by doing little more than speaking."
The chambers began to darken as Tsunami began receding back towards the center, smiling warmly into Tenchi's panic.
"But what about my grandfather?!" Desperation resurrected half of itself in a drawling shout. "And what has happened to Mihoshi?!"
"The lives of your family are in their own hands, and in yours. My place is to aid, not to govern."
She continued floating backwards, head down, arms crossed beneath her robes. The room darkened till nothing was alight but its visitor.
"Please! Wait! What if he comes back for Sasami again?!"
Simple blackness drew back into the moon shade beneath Funaho.
The ground was crushing into his knees again, then cutting into his hands as he tried to propel himself up to his feet.
"Tsunami!"
The cry extended past the stars then dissipated into Funaho's branches. Anxious breaths began to drive him, but an answer surrounded his sense, cooling the blood in his boiled lungs.
*Remember Tenchi, Sasami and I are one. As a protector I must protect myself.
"But what do I do?!" He spun in a semi circle
*Be brave Tenchi, and kind as you've always been. And hold tight to your love for your family.
"But I...but he-" His pleading voice sank, taking the rest of him back down with it.
*Rest now. I will always do all that I can, and you are more capable than you know.
He repeated her name into his limp hands, the timid sound like the chilling breezes at his back. The effort it was taking to simply approach forgetting his physical body was hardly enough to even keep his teeth from chattering. The last look at Funaho echoed with Tsunami's voice, but was only sparsely pocked with Seita's eyes. It was enough to give him a moment's encouragement and the first push back toward his home. Wishing he'd been careful what'd he'd wished for, every step reminded him that he really was too exhausted to think on difficult things.
***
A few toes peaked out from beneath the sheets. One shuffle and a groan later they were joined by half a kneecap. The extra pillow elevated Tenchi's head almost enough to help his neck and just enough to dangle open his jaw to snore over any shivers.
It would take a sound like this one to stir the prince, newer than Washu's humming deterrent to any would-be bunkers, but easy and classic as memories of pre-digital ticks. Like a self-replicating line it fell in one after another, denting sleep little by little by now it was almost destroyed. They'd dodged the drone of snores and continued through the barrage of last resort snorts and coughs. The misplaced ambiance persisted till it finally struck the biggest whisper onto the smallest drum.
Tenchi awoke so slowly he almost felt the guilty pleasure of an overslept weekend, but the light and the day were wrong. Snuggling back into himself, inverting his morning stretch into a reluctant fetus, he welcomed the darkness his tightly closed eyes offered. No such luck; the sound was still there, a soft whisper marching too close to his ear.
The groan that makes every dedicated alarm clock fear for its life; Tenchi's mind did a stumbling dance with itself through the fog.
*Who left the faucet dripping in my room?
*No, wait.
*Is there a leak in the roof?
*But it's not raining.
Exasperated, Tenchi sat up quickly then remembered to open his eyes. The room was submerged in dark water, so he rubbed his eyelids down to the sinus. On the next inspection he could properly distinguish that he'd awoken where he'd fallen asleep. No faucet, no puddle swelling on the floor, just divided rectangles of moonlight.
It must have been car light after all, he thought, as it gradually scanned over dirty clothes and unmemorable homework. He followed its path, waiting for it to thin and dissipate, wondering why it seemed more like a spotlight till it stopped at the base of a curtain, no a dress, no a robe. In any case it was black, and in this case it was Seita's.
The scream left its skin before it left Tenchi's throat, clawing its way back down into his guts, leaving the skin to drift out in a sallow gasp.
The garment clung to the impossibly shrunken and manipulated diameter of his waist, some sharply triangular corset for clay doves with no bones almost didn't leave enough cover for hands to fold behind. Drinking the hour in to a wine glass, the shoulder padding spilled out into his slender chest and swallowed his long neck. Hair drawn back and black as the rest, it gleamed a little in the redirected light, but not nearly so brilliantly as tonight's face.
Molten ivory for blood, it never rippled or even wavered amid the petrified fury strangling itself around every direction of Seita's eyes. His lips were only a wood carving, and a bitterly lifeless on at that. Smoke darkened electric blue, this grass stain and road rash streaked horizontally through the air before his waist, extending from one hip to two meters past the other. Wide as duct tape, it stretched with the same abrasive call mingling with a slow slide of fresh blade over old music string.
Another one half as long and wide grew to the same right before his eyes.
Another one half as long as that would have been barely enough to seal his lips and fill one ear.
Tenchi could feel himself age through the stillness that followed and the seemingly random places on these latest accessories that melted their color and dripped it on to the floor.
It happened three times before Tenchi could estimate the intervals to a minute; the lines retreated into Seita the way swords would, never an effect to his petrifying glare even as they impaled his already frail- looking waist, cheeks, and skull.
It happened two and a half more times before Tenchi realized the lines were appearing in the same relative position to Seita's body every time he levitated forward.
And he levitated forward, still a statue, motionless, a doll.
There was only the length of the lowest line between them now, and Tenchi managed to drop his petrified back against the wall, thumping his head, doing nothing to breath more than a few times for every small advancement.
Seita's face didn't change, if his eyes had grown slightly more narrowed at the sudden movement it could have been an accident or an illusion of the closer proximity. Yet, normally after he moved into his lines for a dripping minute, they dissipated to reappear in position, this time they stopped solid for the same interval, and another.
Someone puckered lips very tightly and sucked the air very forcefully out of Tenchi's ears. The painfully retracted whistle spread a paneling of the blue scratches over him and his bed. None of them gave off more than air for the senses and none of them wavered as Seita advanced through them.
Blue-violent emptiness still holding Tenchi by the heart, he was still rational enough to notice that Seita had stopped in the center of the spread when each of the lines before and behind him began retreating, collecting inside him.
Again: three horizontal lines and Seita within arms reach.
None of these blue ribbon stains lost their rigid balance as they curved around to form a dome cage on the bed.
The white skin could have would have been less terrifying had it been lined or lipped, shadowed with some of the harlot reds or dandy violets, even a sneering turquoise. Blue intensity standing alone amid the shadow engulfing white wasn't what he was never ready for but had at least expected.
The glare could have would have been less debilitating had it spurred forth a sinister chuckle, or a megalomaniacal roar, even a sinister velvet tail fresh for the quotation collection. Locking eyes with an apparent mute clenched his own throat shut, backing whirlwinds up into his already bursting skull.
*Smile.
*Where's that haughty grin, damn you!
*^SMILE^!
*I can do this but you have to smile---please-please tell me you're going to smile.
Soft shuffle. Tenchi reached for the sword hilt beneath his pillows.
***
In on of the hallways dividing to connect Jurai's great palace two women kept and matched step in a way the standing-watching guards were never likely to understand. Just the same and against better judgment, a few grabbed at their own piece of the conversation.
"You had the dream again, didn't you sister?"
"I'm sorry if I woke you." Funaho answered, taking a moment to build a small portion of her voice.
"It is alright, I was already awake, and our husband sleeps like a log, as always." Misaki made a timid offer of humor.
"Yes," Funaho lowered her head from cool to cold, "so long as 'the emperor' is not disturbed."
"Please do not speak of our husband in such a way, it is his place to be stubborn sometimes."
Funaho did not respond. Misaki looked over at her sadly, then back at the path they shared.
"He knows that change is inevitable, but it is his duty to make sure that Jurai is prepared to welcome it."
Tired of the cold, Funaho's voice simply darkened.
"He has willingly alienated his own son and grandson, he has neglected to tell us the depth of his plans, and he has done nothing to soften the lie so many of the people idolize. He is working for Jurai's future by covering his mistakes."
Misaki stopped walking, reflexively scanning to make doubly sure there were no longer any curious guards in the hall. She waited almost incredulously long for her fellow queen to do the same.
"How---^How can you say such a thing^?"
"Isn't it true?" Funaho answered in a plain halt and turn of the machine.
The queens stared at each other, slowly exchanging their pain and compassion through silent and nearly weeping eyes.
"Sister-" Misaki approached with open arms, embracing Funaho gently enough to release even a reserve as strong as hers. Obsidian fell against turquoise, tears mingled on blushing crème. Misaki pressed her lips against her partner's forehead, shushing and smoothing compacted emotions.
"Forgive me Lady Misaki, the dreams...I know they are not empty." Funaho fought through smaller sobs, slightly encouraged. "And they have only worsened, something is wrong, something terrible has happened on earth these strict limitations on communication cannot be helping."
"There now sister," Misaki cooed, "are you ready then to tell me about your dreams."
Funaho sniffed and stepped away, managing an attempted chuckle for how devious a negotiator her sister could be. She calmed herself and spoke with almost enough strength to bring her eyes up.
"I dream of an emptiness. A terrible, twisting emptiness."
"Go on." Misaki supported after a pause.
"It. It is not just an idea; I have seen it, a silent and colorless hole opening up over my son and his grandson and all their family. It seems as if it will draw them in like a great vacuum, but it simply displays itself, draining their wills like some---some ^insane star^!"
Misaki did not respond, when Funaho was finally able to lift her own head she saw her sister staring at the floor, pale and muted.
"Yes, I know it is strange and unsettling, but I've dreamt of it almost every night for months now."
No reply.
"Please Misaki, say something."
"Sister," the second queen raised her eyes with fearful seriousness, "in your dreams, is there ever a being---a-a---accompanying this emptiness?"
Funaho's eyes widened, but her voice faltered and she nodded weakly. Misaki continued.
"Is he...rather like a tyrant, a tyrant and an artist?"
Both queens commanded each other's lack of color.
Misaki assumed Funaho's movement to be another nod, and closed her eyes tightly till she heard the lighter queen pounding forward with uncharacteristically heavy steps. The off-world queen's hand was shockingly strong as it jerked her eyes open and began pulling the rest.
"Come sister, we must wake the emperor."
***
Blue light blazed above Tenchi's head after passing through Seita's throat, the sword barely held steady enough for another strike.
Seita hadn't moved, didn't become more colorful, and wasn't smiling.
But he spoke, sinister velvet through and through and thoroughly soft enough to soften up. Tenchi could remember predict and relax enough to focus his grip again, however, strategy was overlapped and interrupted during the interpretation.
*Did he just ask 'What am I?'
The former guest had returned his countenance as perfectly as something that couldn't speak, but Tenchi still ground his teeth and narrowed his eyes for a potential repeat offense.
"W-W-What did you say?"
Tenchi could taste how foul his breath was from bedding before brushing. It seemed appropriate for this tone he must have dug out of a rotting wound. This line of thought almost stole from the anticipation of forcing, he hatefully prayed, Seita to act more like himself.
A little softer, quieter maybe, but no condescent or even impatience, sinister velvet restated the question.
"I want you---to tell me---what you think I am?"
A few lingering arm tremors made the light hum as Tenchi, in a nervous ritual, positioned the tip beneath Seita's chin.
"What kind of stupid question is that?" He almost spat at the still unmoved figure, "My grandfather-"
Neck tendons pulsed as Tenchi felt bastions of softer emotion melting down into the rest of his rage. "I don't know what you did to him, and I don't even care 'why' anymore!"
The sword was shaking a little more and Seita was the same.
"I don't know if it takes Tsunami's power to scare some sense into you, but you won't have anything more to do with my home till you kill me."
The shaking stopped and the sword doubled in width and radiance. For the sake of his family, Tenchi tried to keep unstoppable rage hushed without sounding like his opponent.
"Well come on then! You ^twisted^-^coward^! Whatever it takes I will-"
Seita closed his eyes gently, and Tenchi prepared to feel his teeth crumble against each other as he pulled back to make what he hoped was an imprisoning thrust to stop the universe.
The blue of oblivion returned thus the blue of Jurai retreated, falling from Tenchi's hands like a bird breaking against a window.
Once wooden, now ice lips moved with sensual enunciation, drawing in the whole of perception like a moth to an electrified light. Every memory of sensation crushed and melted itself into a needle pointed toward a single ambition; nothing existed beyond The Ghost of Madness, Hell existed within nothing. Still no painted smile, but no memory of believing it would matter as Tenchi at once remembered the portals and experienced them being chewed up like a fist of decadent grapes. Seita was only leaving his mouth open so that the juice could drip and smack as he reinvented the post- immortal rasp.
"^You---are NOTHING!^
"But you will tell me---^WHAT^---you think I am."
High and wide shoulders sighed a little for the first clear breath, and perception returned to Tenchi and itself, causing the former to fall back to the wall again, limp and almost pale enough to compliment what he accepted now as his executioner.
"^Evil^."
It was petrified rabbit's breath, but it was quick and alive enough. Seita took it like a mannequin while Tenchi's motion was limited to simply angling his head slightly closer to the wall, though unsurprisingly unable to break the gaze.
Head lowered, blink lengthened, and someone got their smile. Half- sided, and perhaps uncertain, it was to be remembered even if it remained in black and white.
"I see."
Unfeeling creativity saw its way to a genuine imitation of acceptance amid the lingering realities of the subjective. He saw as Seita would, brilliantly, curiously, and covertly starved for opposition. The scholar's seductive textures of voices would take care of the rest as he stepped back, leaving one foot forward to strike out bare and pale amid the night and the black. He angled his own head to the side and swung a glance upward.
"You are more than honest, and correct enough," he breathed a little break and smiled a little more, "yet, just as your ^honest^ vanity would destroy me; my ^correct^ vanity will not allow me to destroy myself."
The bow took Seita directly to Tenchi's eye level and dissipated the blue bars connecting him to the bed.
"But you don't have power---honest ^or^ correct enough to destroy me, so I must trust that I am correct and give you an honest chance."
Tenchi's eyes widened impossibly, but Seita didn't seem interested in savoring the asphyxia between anger, fear, and confusion. With fluid and unforeseen balance he turned on his heels while still bent, straightening a little more and mumbling loudly with each step.
"^And so we must give...truth and honesty...the violation...the revelation...my truth for his honesty...my honesty for his truth...^"
"What---What are you talking about?" Tenchi's mind leaked out of his throat in a thin steam, almost throwing his hands up when Seita whirled around with tense features.
"'Evil', Tenchi. You have made your choice, honest as possible and thus correct as necessary."
A deep breath and a long step put him back in position.
"And so: if my success must come from the failure of others'---then my failure must come from another's success."
Slow but even, human and obsessive for metal against stone, Seita spoke down to Tenchi like the first person he'd seen in eons.
"You must see; I must injure myself to give you a fighting chance, and I can only injure myself by truly ^helping^ you. There is little doubt so it is more than correct if not at all honest.
His hands flung forward from their cage behind him, fingers growing long and clutching tensely. Tenchi clenched first for the movement, but drained again in a sub-sound gasp as he felt a sliver of the unnamable mouthful he'd nearly die to forget.
Seita looked down at the exaggerations with mouth pulled to the side in disappointment, watching them shrink back to proportion with a nervous gulp and a cooling whisper.
"I know of an elusive problem, a question that wails for justice at the pit of you."
Straight and tall again, he tried to breathe deep to speak calm. Unaware or uninterested that sheer blue intensity was about to make his audience burst.
"It would be a small trouble for me to show you the answer Tenchi, but a tremendous consequence. We would be on even and honest footing and, most importantly, you would have a chance to---'repay me' for my services."
Tenchi tried to speak but only made a tiny choking sound. Seita closed his eyes, folded his arms carefully, and dropped his head.
"By the content it is an easy decision, but by the context...I'll give you some time to consider." He lifted his head to the skylight, starring beyond his reflection.
Tenchi could hear the own short inhale, and helplessly endured a confusion choke his former guest easily ignored.
"If you let me help you, it will present an opportunity to destroy me."
Directly stated up then plainly stared down to Tenchi's wavering position, Seita took a step back into an oblivion blink. The following dizzy chills curled the young man into himself, his exhaustion, and incoherent dreams.
***
^Tenchi Muyo: Sanctuary and Asylum^
-Verse Nine is Charity-
-Part 2-
Age before beauty depart. Age before beauty abstain.
Only a word a touch is asked---to give back incentive withstanding.
Only the gift the moment is needed---for selflessness so very demanding.
Age before beauty implore. Age before beauty remain.
-ZJS
***
The morning hurried its goodbyes and left Tenchi in the care of the afternoon. Dimly aware of the film in his mouth and the crust in his eyes, he smeared his hand down the length of his face.
The painful blur of daylight and the tempting recall of his bed would have to be overcome. Shuffling under a pained groan, pulling his head down by the back of his neck; squinting in any direction didn't encourage much of an outlook. Each heavy and uncertain step echoed out the bare-foot slap against the wood floor. He hoped he was steering toward the kitchen, and away from the aftershocks of unmentionable dreams and worse if he didn't keep convincing himself otherwise.
Another good yawn and a few more stretches; make it up the hall, past the couch, and the pile of blonde curls, and he'd be just fine.
"Good morning, Tenchi."
Gentle acknowledgement, that always helped.
"Guh mornin Mee-ho-sheee."
Tenchi held his hips and bent back, his yawn locking first his jaw, then the rest of him as he gaped over at someone glancing over.
"Mi-Mihoshi!"
He whirled and flung himself back against the wall before slouching anxiously forward, Mihoshi winced and face the living room again lowered her head, eventually rising from her seat to turn and give him a small bow.
"Hi Tenchi, did you sleep well?" She twisted her clenched hands. "Sorry for coming in without your permission."
"Wh-wh-what! Mihoshi, when did you get here?" Still waking bits of paranoia rattled and quieted his enthusiasm.
"I-I. Sorry, Tenchi," she hung her head again, "I landed here pretty early this morning. Your father said you were sleeping really hard, so I told him to just let you wake up on your." Looking up at his still bewildered expression, she lowered her head again to start another meek apology.
"Landed here? But, Mihoshi, how-"
Aeka emerged from the kitchen, softening the air with tender diplomacy.
"She actually managed to set her ship down quite well, sorry to have had breakfast without you, but you did seem to need the rest." Tenchi breathed another step closer to consciousness and relaxed at the effective guise of peace. Mihoshi had already prepared her blush in the short time before he looked back.
"Uh, yeah, I tried to land Yukinojo as quietly as possible. He's safely under the lake now. If...if that's okay?"
"Of course it's okay Mihoshi! My Gods," Tenchi reassured her enthusiastically, circling the couch and circling Mihoshi in his arms. After the initial surprise she returned the embrace with the same humble and almost timid courtesy.
Aeka held her breath, then slowly engorged it. Tenchi moved away from the officer, but kept hold of her shoulders. The sound of him elaborating on 'their' worry and 'their' relief gradually melted into a drone as Aeka continued towards calm, yet in the context of emotional reflex she looked for her rival.
Resting her chin on the table behind her wrists, Ryoko just stared at them. By the distribution of color and weight she actually looked less alive than Tenchi had moments earlier, though, Aeka thought, this had become almost commonplace.
*She looks like she could use another 700 years.
Aeka's thoughts surprised her: to have almost said something predictably insulting but to have come to the observation with mostly pity. She frowned and returned to surer ground.
*This perpetual intoxication isn't helping anyone.
Hearing Tenchi babble on into many double questions prompted a tactful interruption.
"Lord Tenchi," she called out loud and sweet, but cleared her throat apologetically just the same.
"Lord Tenchi, Sasami and I will have lunch on the table very soon, why don't we all sit down and have some tea before we ask any questions.
"Oh," Tenchi blinked dumbly, "sorry Mihoshi." Head lowering thoughtfully for a zombie, his mumbles matched his pose. "Yeah, lets have some lunch, I'm starving."
Mihoshi returned his smile and repaid Aeka with a thankful look. The moment she noticed Ryoko's almost trancelike stare flowing over her and Tenchi, she looked down again.
"Good 'afternoon' Tenchi," Sasami smiled a gentle tease, "did you sleep well."
Tenchi looked down as he rubbed the back of his neck, but did not include the usual nervous laughter.
"Uh, yeah, thanks for letting me rest up guys. Still, I wish I could have greeted Mihoshi when she got here." He noticed her increased blush beginning to pale and simply stared as long thoughts swirled around wide ideas.
*Am I the only one surprised to see her safe?
Before predictions could flood in, he let his eyes fall on Ryoko.
She looked as exhausted as he'd felt the previous night. Her eyes running on stale fumes as they drug themselves over various areas of the house, all the while managing to avoid him. They made contact for a moment before Washu sat down at the table, still in her adult form and humorless face.
"Tenchi, I take it you've welcomed Mihoshi back already."
She didn't even go for a sleep joke.
"Uh, yeah, sort of." He concentrated on cooling his tea.
Aeka and Sasami brought in the sandwiches, distributing them in even silence. Everyone was served and seated, and remained too aware of the issues at hand to speak. Hunger pains twisted him, but he could barely bring himself to look at his food.
"So Mihoshi," Washu began seriously, "do want to fill Tenchi in, or would you like me to."
Mihoshi, shied away from the scientist's gaze, but offered a few short, shy, and thankful glances to the princesses. She spoke timidly again, calming meekness continuing to overshadow any resemblance of her unfocused whine.
"Thank you, Miss Washu. You'd probably do a better job at telling the story than I would."
Washu lowered her head, cleared her throat, but looked up with slight surprise when Mihoshi continued.
"But that's okay, I'll tell him the best I can, maybe I'll do a better job this time." She looked up a smile for Tenchi before quickly retreating back into her tea smiled, and quickly looked back at her tea.
The new relative maturity continued deeper and Tenchi noticed a slightly more subdued but no less overt curiosity round the table.
"If you don't feel like talking about it now, it's okay." Beginner's tact offered.
"No Tenchi," she sipped her tea, dismissing his support almost defensively, "waiting wont help anything. I-I think we all need to know what happens around here."
"Okay, Mihoshi. What," Tenchi still swallowed despite himself, "what happened?"
One breath and a slight constriction of limbs was all it took to get the officer started on her emotionally steady, if even sedated report.
"The last time I saw you guys was before I took," she clenched her jaw for a quick moment, "before I took Seita on another patrol with me."
Tenchi leaned forward for support as Mihoshi's head drooped a little more, but to his surprise, her voice became even more focused.
"I liked him, it had been a while...since I'd decided it would be better for Tenchi and me to just be friends.
"It was kind of nice to think someone might come along who might like me back, I guess. Everyone was probably pretty happy with the idea, but-but I really don't blame anyone for what happened."
An agonizingly though blessedly short moment passed for Tenchi too keep himself from gauging the other's reactions to this previously unmentioned decision.
It surprised Tenchi that she was able to say it all before pausing for a breath, or any other intermission. He considered that the other women of the house had already had an experience with him before Mihoshi's absence; but the significance of this was interrupted before it could tighten its hold.
"I---I tried to show him that I liked him. Just, sort of, made the first move." Her voice finally started to soften on dying batteries.
Everyone watched the top of her head for the first few shakes of a breakdown. Aeka already tightened her throat in a vain attempt to halt the first tears rising in her eyes. She fought every terrible moment from the now long past projection of her sisters fall to the all too recent day of her brother's. She pushed against the day they'd tried to share, to describe each of their sessions.
*Lord Tenchi cried then, almost as much as Ryoko or myself. Surly if Mihoshi can contain herself through this a second time then these details she left out the first time must have been less traumatic.
A few locks curled down on the detective's forehead, but she raised her eyes back up again just enough for the princess to see stillness.
*Or---or something far worse! She's acting almost as withdrawn as Sasami did after-
Aeka moved to look at Sasami like a rusted but anxious machine.
*Sasami! I kept her away this morning but I forgot---I can't let her-
A hasty command stumbled around handicapped in the dark of Aeka's throat, swallowed and nearly forgotten as Mihoshi spoke again.
"He got angry. I thought he was going to-" Mihoshi silently chewed or choked on something in her monotone, "but the next thing I knew, Yukinojo was flying into one of his portals, and-and I guess I blacked out. When I woke up he---just---smiled."
Aeka almost sighed in relief, Mihoshi had told essentially the same story Sasami heard from her sister, save the detail of what had made Seita angry in the first place. The rest should fall in shortly. Small comfort, but comfort just the same.
"I sent out a hale signal, but apparently we were out of range of any GP vessels or stations. It was pretty scary," Mihoshi admitted modestly, "but I just asked Yukinojo to go in the opposite direction we were going before."
She raised her head and forced a weak smile for everyone to see. A single tear made a path down the right side of her face.
"In just a few hours or so we were back inside GP patrolled space, and a cruiser came out to take us back to the nearest station. When I finally had to explain to them how I got out there I said my engines malfunctioned, or something like that, but then the lieutenant said that I was farther away from my sector than my ship could ever go without refueling at least nine times."
Mihoshi lowered her eyes again.
"So I made up another story about getting too close to a strange worm hole and I guess they figured it sounded like something I would do.
"Soon as I got the chance I tried to contact you guys, but," she swallowed, "by that time Washu's machines were already off-line."
The story seemed to end as Mihoshi finally picked up her tea and nearly drained it. Everyone waited till the saucer settled before waiting again for Tenchi's response, then waiting again.
Tenchi merely guarded his tea, stone silent. Washu looked over at him with a measure of professionally distant concern then turned back to Mihoshi.
"I'm sorry Mihoshi, I didn't think anything I could easily do would help."
"It's okay Washu, I'm just glad we're all together again."
They both managed to miss eye contact with each other while speaking in the same tone of hollow reassurance.
"Me too." Sasami's second quickly raised everyone's attention for the few moments before it was stolen by a lethargic shuffling noise at Ryoko's corner of the table.
"^Oh C'mon^---can't you just tell us what really happened?"
The deadpan slur could have come from Ryoko's posture, being curled and curdled into her folded arms. Aeka almost expected to hear a peeling sound as her rival lifted her head up to stare at Mihoshi with rusted eyes and waterlogged mouth.
"What-what do you mean." Mihoshi's childlike shyness returned with added passivity.
Ryoko chuckled, definitely not amused and maybe sinister.
"You know Mihoshi, we haven't even told you ^our^ parts of the story yet, but we know there's more to what happened than him just 'getting angry'."
Aeka moved her sympathy to anger to fear to anger from Mihoshi to Ryoko to Sasami to Ryoko. She stood up with palms set into the table and shouted.
"Ryoko! Stop this at once, I'll not have you acting like this to Mihoshi," her glare wavered by sharpened, "or in the presence of Sasami!"
"^Oh ghuive it a resht prinsesh^," the slur darkened again, "she's not a child and neither is Sasami anymore. And our 'detective' just said," a limp finger propped up on an unsteady elbow dangled in Mihoshi's direction, "that 'we all need to know what goes on around here'."
Aeka's nails made a few pained notches in the table. Ryoko just rolled her eyes from the ever-reddening royalty to the withdrawing police presence.
"So tell us Mihoshi, what did he really ^do^? What special treatment did you get, huh?"
Ryoko began rising, but her head still wobbled and she was having a hard time straightening her arms into support beams.
"Out with it Mihoshi! We know he wouldn't waste the opportunity of having you all alone, so you might as well tell us because here's something ^you^ didn't know: we still don't even know what he was going to do with Sasami! All we know is that it took that damned ^Tsunami^ just to scare him away!"
Between the intoxicated rant interwoven with words shouted for emphasis, Aeka began to shake while Tenchi and Washu both kept their heads low. The scene changed little even as Ryoko's voice lowered to a throaty and almost sultry interrogation.
Tenchi and Washu kept their heads low during the intoxicated barrage, while Aeka began shaking to her very frame.
"Was it ^that^ bad? Did he do something even ^worse^, did he actually ^touch you^, did he-"
"Stop it! You horrid, drunken, MONSTER!"
Everyone at the table recoiled took the cue to jerk their heads up for a better recoil, Aeka simply continued more controlled but no softer.
"How can you even include yourself in such serious matters when the few wits you have are swimming in sake?! You disgusting...dispic---not a single-" Aeka's lecture broke into frustrated incoherence and was thus easily interrupted.
"Drunk, am I? Well 'your highness' maybe I'm not drunk enough, hm? Ever think of that? Do I have to remind you me remind you that---^I can only see through his tricks when I'm drunk^! Maybe I'll need a few more just to make sure he's not sitting right in the damn kitchen!" She swung an arm in the general direction and knocked her tea to the floor.
Everybody stared, horror-pity, inside-out.
"Maybe," she began again even more darkly with a looser finger directed at Mihoshi, "he's sitting right here, impersonating Mihoshi with ^his^ version of what happened to her!"
"Ryoko!" Aeka couldn't work enough anger into her shock.
"Or maybe it's ^you^ princess, hm, I'm sure he would have loved to put on your clothes and ^water down my drinks^!"
"^Your^ drinks?! You steal your sake from that poor grocer down the road!" Aeka bellowed.
"HA! How would you know that if you couldn't see ' everything'?!" The scalding foam behind her fangs kept her movements unsteady, but she managed to rise and meet Aeka's eyes.
"Mr. Misaki surly wouldn't be able to pay for all you've drank since-"
"Since when, Aeka!? Since this ^thing^ decided to make our lives a living hell?! Oh, you're right of course; it wouldn't have to be Mihoshi or you! 'It could be anyone'! All he'd have to do is make a quick switch, he could be Tenchi, or Washu, or Tenchi's ^dad^ even! For all we know the whole thing with Tsunami was another trick, and he's impersonating sweet little Sasami till he gets the chance to kill us all!"
Ryoko had to look around the aurora tips of her index finger at Sasami, but could see clearly through the haze of old rice and fresh salt that the younger princess had just been given devastating news by a callous criminal. The wide and watery pink jewels drained the anger from Ryoko's face and pulled her back down in a disheveled heap.
Her arms curled into each other on the tabletop to receive her weighted head.
"For all you know, for all ^I^ know...it could be me."
Air froze for the half-minute it took Sasami to rise from her seat and scurry over to Ryoko's side, wrapping her hands tenderly around the mass of chaotic hair and trembling shoulders.
"It's okay Ryoko," Sasami pitifully tried to churn her own distress into comfort, "it's okay, we know you're only trying to help."
Everyone stared at the freshly inverted spectacle, each envying Ryoko's release and coveting Sasami's comfort in their own way, save Mihoshi, who sunk her head a bit deeper for the epilogue.
"He said that even though he preferred making ^other^ people...do things, it was even better when someone made a false accusation, that it would always have a bad ending that way."
Mihoshi looked up, the sobs in her voice held back by some fog or metal wall.
"He said that 'the strongest pull towards the of heart of oblivion was ^doubt^'. I think that he doesn't care how upset we get, so long as we stop trusting-"
Aeka looked over in disbelief. The capture echo of Seita's tone; it seemed like they were all going through the same misery she and Washu had barely endured earlier. At the roots of her all was a desire to hold Sasami and hide within Tsunami, to bring everyone together in a massive embrace to shut this blinding wake.
She only hung her head, ashamed for her own lack of control.
"Listen everybody." Washu spoke evenly, beginning with a calm sip of tea. "We have to stop ^blaming^, and we have to stop ^doubting^. Maybe Mihoshi's right about what he's really after, and until I can get my lab running again we have to keep our heads on straight."
By the time everyone, including Ryoko, had given their attention, Washu was already moving to clear her place.
"Besides, there's still a good chance that Tsunami did more than scare him away for the moment. All this paranoia just makes things worse, so today lets try to relax and be glad that everyone's safe."
She rose and looked towards Nobuyuki's room, lowering her head again and whispering just loud enough for Tenchi to overhear.
"Almost everyone."
Silent but fighting to be anti-solemn, each of them helped to clear the table.
Tenchi began a late start on the field as Washu would stop on her lab. The rest of the girls got an early start on their television immersion.
***
The pick swung heavy and loud into the dry ground, singing against a rock more sharply than needed to cut out Aeka's soft announcement from a safe distance.
"Dinner will be ready very soon, Lord Tenchi."
She breathed for another try but relaxed it to watch him a little while longer. A warmed smile eased up her face.
"Don't you look handsome and strong today, Lord Tenchi." Aeka said in a sure whisper, smiling brighter as he continued obliviously.
"Oh, and so modest too."
Flattery weighted a hand to make sure the giggle got nowhere. She cleared her throat and smoother her kimono, proper once more for a second before an empting sigh. With the last dimple of light gone from her face again the wasteland would resume, her feet now as grounded as the rest of her.
Tenchi set the tool down and reached for his water bottle. Aeka waited till he put the cap back on before approaching.
"Lord Tenchi, Dinner will be ready soon." She thought she'd said it too loudly by the way he turned.
"Oh, it's you Aeka, you almost startled me there." Tenchi exhaled.
"I-I-I'm sorry, Lord Tenchi." Aeka bowed nervously.
"It's okay. I was just finishing up here, anyway." He grabbed the pick in one hand and his water in the other and walked towards her, face down or lower.
"Are you-" She began as he reached her shadow.
"Yes?" He asked politely, but continued his trek towards the house. Aeka forcefully picked up her feet.
"Are you---Are you all-right, Lord Tenchi?"
She watched her limited view of his face soften and lower further, instantly cursing herself for not asking instead 'how are you'.
"I'm well enough, Aeka." He answered softly without taking his eyes off the trail. "How are you?"
"Me?" She answered nervously. "I, well-" she lowered her gaze but soon felt Tenchi's eyes on her and had to confirm her suspicion.
It must have been pained concern, but his eyes were even softer than the subtle edges of the approaching evening. Aeka turned away with a helpless blush.
"Are you sleeping any better?"
"M---Maybe, a little."
"I'm glad to hear it."
Aeka bit a tiny portion of her lip.
*He's dwelling on something new, I can hear it in his voice.
A surprisingly cold breeze washed over them, and she rubbed the shiver from her arms while forcefully swallowing the rest.
*But, no. I can't take any more drama, not after this afternoon.
"The autumn is coming early," Tenchi stated plainly, almost to himself, "we had a hot but short summer, usually that means we'll have a long winter."
"I see."
*No. No! We can't talk about the weather now. But, if we start talking about 'him' again then...
"We've got a nice sunset to walk home to tonight." Tenchi looked up with a hopeful smile, urging Aeka to follow.
"Yes." The background glowing forward around him, she felt it cooling some emotions and tempting others to the surface.
"I'm worried Tenchi." She almost blurted out with a serious clenching of her hands.
Tenchi was silent and almost unaffected for a moment.
"About, Seita?"
Aeka gritted her teeth, and breathed slowly.
"No, I still refuse to give him the satisfaction, but I'm worried about everybody else."
"I see."
"No Lord Tenchi, I don't think you do. I'm worried the most about you." Formality submitted a strand or ten to urgency. "You're still the strongest out of all of us, but I doubt we'll be able to function as well if you don't show it."
Tenchi's eyes regressed or sought out the sunset.
"You know how much I---I care for you, Lord Tenchi, but I can't help feeling sometimes that you don't want to confront the situation."
"What about Ryoko?"
Tone, promptness, and content almost struck her over in three directions, leaving a lightning whisper at the pyramid's eye.
"^What^?"
"Ryoko, she's still a better fighter than me, and if I gave her all her gems back she'd probably be just as strong."
"T-Tenchi!" Aeka stopped walking and stared at him. He stopped and turned an almost defeated expression onto her. But this only delayed Aeka argument for a harsh moment.
"You know as well as anyone that we can't fight him like that! Washu was right, the only way we'll have a chance is if we stay confident. Besides-"
Aeka lost her breath and hung her head, slowly easing it towards the house, "I don't think we can rely much on Ryoko."
She noticed Tenchi's confusion from the corner of her eye. Without looking up, she turned back and paid tribute to confession.
"She's been keeping herself intoxicated for months now Lord Tenchi, this-" she bit her lip a little more, "this whole ordeal seems to have only made her more unstable. I know it's not really my place to judge her, but I can't help it. I was-" she forced her head up, "I was rather hoping ^you^ might talk to her."
"Me?"
Aeka nodded down at his apprehension.
"If she'll listen to anyone, she'll listen to you."
He stood in silence for almost a minute, then hefted his tools and headed towards the house again. Aeka blinked in confusion and hurried after him.
"I'm glad to hear you're concerned about Ryoko, but I don't think she wants to talk to me anymore than-" Tenchi trailed off to anyone else and let Aeka find the other paths.
"I see." She whispered loudly enough for him to easily guess at her response.
"I'm sorry Aeka, but I don't think there's much more I can do, when-"
Aeka felt her heart jump at the sudden weight she heard in Tenchi's throat.
"When I went up to help grandpa, Ryoko had been the last to see Seita. It was like---like she didn't even know I was there." Tenchi swallowed, and Aeka's lips began to quiver and clench.
They treaded on silence, mulled over the concept, and bore into their reactions.
"I don't think Seita's gone, Aeka, and I'm not---not sure what he's after next, but, whatever it is he-"
"Please, Lord Tenchi, please don't speak like this," Aeka begged pitifully, wrapping her hands around his elbow and upper arm, thrusting her forehead into his shoulder.
"I can't bare to hear you sound so---so ^surrendered^!"
Tenchi adjusted himself thoughtlessly to the extra weight, fighting down anything that tried to rise up on his breaths. He looked down at her, softening under her storm, and cut himself to keep walking.
Stopping at a loss at the tool shed, his thoughts fell prey to the scavenging and parasitic emotions invited in by neglect. Wisdom armored and hollowed itself with cynical apathy, only to retreat from a princess's grasp.
"'Surrendering'---'awakening', they sound like the same things sometimes."
***
Square squeak. Washu eased the door open, keeping her head low and breathing through her mouth as naturally as possible. There was still enough light outside to see him by; at least there would be when she finally opened the blinds. The floor creaked beneath her taller body and she almost wished her smaller feet back.
Dusk light entered in handsome pinstripes across the sickly bundle in Nobuyuki's bed. Washu braved a nasal inhale and wasn't awarded but was at least reassured. The state of the art air fresheners she'd hid and hung and adhered throughout the room were working nicely. She could still smell the inevitable of course, sharp and draining beneath the sterile waterfalls and engineered blossoms but ^beneath^ them nonetheless. Her tall shadow progressed over him. Gentle movements must be non-threatening and realistic; no false fears or hopes should either of them be awake or dreaming.
"Hello?" Knowing better than to waste her time with whispers, and knowing him too well to resist tenderness, Washu sounded as strained as she was.
"Yosho?"
Scans shifted, watching over him then frowning down at the crude machine she'd needed to settle for. It monitored for any change and thus far seemed bored with tracing simply lighted numbers across her multi-darkened face. It was a small but still far too significant concern that she'd been avoiding the mirrors ever since her decision not to waste power on her child form, outside the lab at least. Only recently had she considered without shying back that it was no longer subconscious, or singularly motivated. Correct and right enough, she'd thought into herself, there wasn't any room in her mind for maturity or vanity. Thinking this into herself again, she turned away from the machines and back to her friend.
"I know we already told you that Mihoshi came back, but no one bothered to ask when you thought you'd be ready to see her." Smoothly, though not yet ready for softly, she cleared her throat in further preparation or procrastination.
"She---she seems to be okay. I examined her of course, and physiologically she checks out normal." Washu looked away from his face and let her eyes fall and rise with his chest, whispering to herself for him to hear.
"Just like Sasami."
A tiny rasp in Yosho's breathing cracked a whip in Washu's ears, and she swiftly turned towards the source. It repeated then dissipated. She'd heard it before, a few times like this, and a few times during her work amongst other patients dying of degenerative diseases. She'd been trained expensively not to think on it.
"Try to savor the food a little longer than usual tonight, Mihoshi's helping and I'm sure she'd like to hear that you enjoyed it." Washu managed to sound tender if frightened as she sat down with her back to his knees, letting her hand spread over his chest.
"^Do you think you could do that, hm^?" She caressed her whisper into his emaciated sternum.
Something small and plastic dropped in the kitchen, and she half-smiled to hear the homey sound of Mihoshi's apologetic whine.
"^If not for Mihoshi, then at least for me^?" She lowered her cheek onto his chest, hands rested above her head, hoping the sheets felt even cooler and softer to him.
"Please." She smoothed the sheets in a quiet and clear whimper.
"^Please^." Sobs clutched into the very fibers as her whimper broke into a sob.
She'd taught herself expensively, during the last few instances such as this, to carefully rest against him rather than on him. It was almost as good as holding him, she thought into herself. He had started to get delirious between the new nausea-suppressing sedative, false encouragement that less and less of the concoction was keeping him asleep longer. The coma would punctuate itself any day now, but she told herself it would not divide her resilient joke: if anyone was going to kill him it would be her.
"C'mon you old fart, you know it's not your time yet! Don't leave me here with these kids! I---I need to have you here---with me!" The humor and desperation melted together, leaving her with an almost whiny voice, further slurred against Yosho's chest.
The sobbing continued unaffected, throwing in a few good chokes and a sniffle for good measure. Tired and sore should have made it easier for her to rise to give him more air, but the urge to hold their bodies even closer prevailed. A few more sobs and she began to feel dizziness and a light tickle against the back of her head. The tickle turned into a comforting sensation, like a thin hand smoothing wild hair.
---
Aeka watched Tenchi's back, his shoulders low even after he'd deposited the heavy pick in a wheel-barrel. She looked at the tools, knowing that they should not be left outside to rust. Before kindly reminding him of this, it occurred to her that Tenchi might not have his grandfather's discipline for much longer.
Thoughts corroded as they clashed together. Swallowing them, and crushing them in her fists, she calmed herself against another explosion. To her surprise, Tenchi noticed that she hadn't followed him after he broke away.
"Aeka?" He began to turn curiously.
"Y-Yes Lord Tenchi?" She collected and propelled herself just in time to catch his glance mid-turn.
"I'm---I'm sor-"
"Please don't. No more apologies. Can't we, for just one evening?"
Aeka knew she was looking up at him with large and unsteady eyes. Wanting to be stronger but not wanting to turn away, she could only wait for his reaction.
Tenchi walked passed her and onto the nearby back porch, offering small consolation as he passively held the door open for her.
"I'll try."
A breath later she was able to hurry in with her chin up and eyes hopeful. But she quickly turned to watch Tenchi close the door behind him. But she quickly turned back at the sound of racing steps and a blur of red hair.
Aeka held her breath for Washu to crash into Mihoshi, but she skidded to a halt moments before a quadruple zeppelin collision. The detective and the princess both winced just the same.
"Washu?" Tenchi's voiced confusion echoed Aeka's as both their eyes followed what could still only be made out as a ruby fireball woman blasting her way into the sick room, arms laden with packaged snacks.
Mihoshi and Sasami in the kitchen, Tenchi and Aeka in the back doorway, and Nobuyuki in the living room, their confused glances all interwoven. The sound of Washu's muffled voice, engaged in what sounded like excited conversation, firmly unified and dominated their attention. Thankfully, Washu was kind enough to emerge again from the room a few minutes later and before they forgot to breathe again. Science herself was strangely winded.
"^He...sayshe'sfamished^!
"What!" The equivalent of everyone responded.
"Yosho...I think he's finally snapping out of it!" An adult Washu with such a manic smile would normally be terrifying, and indeed some of the family remained a little pale.
"Are you sure?" Tenchi gulped as he strode over to where Washu was leaning against the couch for support.
Certainty lowered her head and wetted her throat. A low chuckle shook her hair like a rabid beast preparing to attack from beneath the brush. Tenchi felt something inside him cringe and whimper at her response but barely had time to put his hands up before she grabbed him by the collar and pulled his face in to be devoured by an oversized smile.
"Am I sure?! Am I sure?! I'm The Greatest Genius in the Universe! Of course I'm sure!"
No one could do more than stare as Washu enveloped Tenchi's head in her chest to better feel the vibrations of mad-scientist laugher.
***
Standard Disclaimer:
I thank all the owners of the Tenchi characters who have chosen not to sue me for suggesting some alternative uses for them.
Standard Advertisement:
I thank all the readers who have perused my other submissions and favorite authors.
Standard Procedure:
Present all arguments and appeals in a clear and orderly manner.
Tenchi Muyo: Sanctuary and Asylum
-Verse Nine-
Charity (Part 3)
"Because you see---I understand the will to evil.
The will to evil is like an iron in a forge---There is only one way to shape it (on right).
With a ^conscience^ which is the ^fire^!"
-Trevor Goodchild
(Character on animated series "Aeon Flux")
***
The dinning room managed to relocate itself around Yosho's bed before long, yet after short Washu was already trying to excuse them all for the sake of his rest and her concentration. Each eager distractions lingered, unsatisfied with their tastes of whatever was re-nourishing their finest age.
Though his voice had still been as withered as the rest of him, he'd spoken more through shared comforting and comforted glances. Only after asking about Ryoko did the vibration waver.
"I'm sure she's around somewhere," authority cleared her throat, "she's been just as worried as the rest of us, but she shows it by...being extra watchful."
Yosho nodded, keeping his eyes closed.
"Okay, all of you, this is your last warning: remove yourselves or be removed."
Arms crossed, stare leveled, she cut the visitors down and out one by one.
When Tenchi had finally and hesitantly closed the door behind him, Washu let her breath out and her shoulders down. She turned to offer Yosho an affectionate smile, but he was already asleep. Taking as much care as ever to be silent, she moved a chair to his bedside and admired her new watch.
The voices outside gradually dissipated while the monitors and Yosho's breathing became more pronounced, hypnotic, if she thought she could have brought herself to focus. Peaceful if she could bring herself out of the new war.
It wasn't long before she was clutching her skull and breathing with far less tranquility than her patient. She eventually turned the back of the chair into a chin rest, imagining Yosho's recovery and all it would require, imagining Yosho's sickness and all it might explain. In thinking so much about timing she was able to forget about time.
When everything finally felt sufficiently revaluated and rehearsed, she rose from her post. Ignoring whatever quarantine she might have forgotten anyway, Washu leaned over and kissed Yosho's forehead. With a timid, almost resistant expression, she craned her head upward and smoothed the patient's hair.
Quiet as it might have been, Tenchi's bedroom door echoed down through the ceiling.
***
*It was a dream.
Tenchi lifted the sheets and squeezed his temples. His head felt rather like a grinding engine, running on fumes into the ground.
*You're a fool Tenchi, no one could have slept through that.
The mattress was hard as he pressed his head through the pillow.
*But no one could have lived through that.
The ceiling was blank above him, demanding. The blankets were sealing him in, but his jaw still quivered out a tear.
*He'll be back.
Breathing deep dried his lips and breathing desperately cracked them.
*He said 'some time' to think about it.
*What was it about being 'correct' and 'honest', and then...then about 'helping me' and 'destroying him'?
Tenchi gradually moved to his side and to a ball small enough to fit in a large crib.
*'Some time'...is that a day, a year? How much is his concept of time deranged by---by
His sheets parted with all the grace of a cheap tarp as he sat up and hauled his legs over the side. Tight fists pressed in to stabilize his head through each breath of memory. The fight raged on, seeking revelation out beyond blue and white, swords and pits.
*I've got to---got to remember that his power gets more intense not just by staying in that place, but by driving people-
Tenchi clenched his face inward to the bone, pulling it through his fists and between his forearms.
*Damn him! DAMN HIM-DAMN HIM-DAMN HIM!
A breath captured and a stare leveled, he swallowed and blinked darkly.
*No Tenchi. You can't start giving up now---not when it looks like ^he^ may be doing the same.
*But it must another trick.
*But if it is then boiling my brain over it is exactly what he wants.
*But then what am I going to do? What the hell am I going to do?!
His hair felt greasy, then the rest of him did, but he needed to make sure his skull was still hard between his hands.
All the thoughts he'd thrown out at himself and the cold would have to amount to something soon. With Mihoshi back and his grandfather beginning to improve Seita must be either annoyed or pleased with his plans, but obviously not done.
Tenchi tried to plan till it hurt, then continued in hopes that pain could still inspire. Eventually a new fear crept in, spreading through his lumbering whirlpool like a cloud of soured milk. Unlike the burning vibration of his earlier musings, gears began to move more like titanic pumps, slow and eerie, back and forth. It felt like it should be building, but it stayed perpetual. He heard his breathing match what sounded like the swelling obsession needed for some arduous task or guilty pleasure. Like a less practical and more experienced thinker, he began to think about his thoughts.
Seeing the shadow of lost control could be almost fascinating; he almost wished that Seita would wait another year or ten.
*I really can't do this. Even if he truly wants to give me a chance to destroy him, how am I supposed to do...how am I supposed to know anything?
Elbows on knees began to lose hold of Tenchi's head. Little by little, it sank, ready to hide back under the sheets like a frightened boy, or simply bounce and roll along the floor till it reached a safe hiding corner.
*Please. Please don't make me fight this alone.
The silent request vibrated his spine like a whisper in his throat. For a moment, giving up had dulled his thoughts like a long gulp of warm sake. Chaos wasn't completely quiet inside him, but at least it was incoherent. He didn't have time to wonder if the knock on his door snapped him out of it at the right time.
Tenchi looked at the handle with a flash of terror; the light raps like footsteps and heartbeats and unsheathed blades and any second now the end would walk through the door. He forced himself not to give into the rising laugh.
*Only---only ^he^ would---would knock at...at 3:30 in the morning then wait to see me turn white when I open it and see his latest nightmare.
Whoever was knocking knew he could hear them and continued waiting. So close to laughing, so horribly close but, ready to bite through his own jaw, he would not go without one last fight.
*I---^I^---was the one who invited him.
He stood on stronger sticks and thought better about the wood lump by his pillow.
"Tenchi?" Washu's voice was calmer than any second batch of knocks
He lost hold of his breath, dropping, twisting his face.
"Are you awake, Tenchi?"
Apparently she hadn't heard him, and seconds after answering again he hoped she wouldn't again. His voice was dead but so was the rest of the house.
"Who is it?"
Hesitation defined silence for a few seconds before Tenchi's uncertain hopes were given a clear answer.
"It's me, Tenchi." Washu was serious, not friendly like he might expect of an imposter, an average one.
Carrying all things in consideration, it took Tenchi a while to reach his door and a little longer to open it. Under different circumstances he might have laughed at having to raise his head to meet the originally, and still unusually taller scientist. Under different circumstances she might have made a joke instead of taking out both sides of an obvious question.
"Would he have knocked, Tenchi?" She crossed her arms; stern mentors could be the most sympathetic. Tenchi lowered his eyes again.
"Maybe."
Uncharacteristic to her, and thus unlike any impersonation of her, she opened the door the rest of the way and walked past him. Tenchi watched her in slightly sobering surprise, and checked for jealous onlookers as a force of habit before closing the door.
Washu pulled his desk chair up to the bed to sit him back down. He obliged, distracted enough to be dignified in his sleeping shorts without crossing his legs or covering them with the sheets. Another force of habit kept his eyes above chest level.
"Having trouble sleeping?" Tenchi asked weakly, knowing he didn't need to add 'too'.
Washu looked down at her hands. She felt him waiting for her to crack her knuckles or tent her fingers. She crossed her arms.
"Are ^your^ nightmares all about the same thing?"
Tenchi's eyes widened at how matter-of-fact she could be, not at all wondering why he wasn't used to it.
"W-What?!"
"Tenchi, I doubt I'm the only one who's noticed the state of peoples' eyes around here. No one's rested well since---a long time.
"But you in particular look like you need more than the extra you got today. It's understandable, of course. I've had to help almost everyone else in the house, myself included."
She bent her head and fingered a rattle in her pocket.
"Would you like some help?" She began in an even tone, strangely confessional for someone asking questions. Though he knew his silence would further incriminate him, Tenchi couldn't seem to move.
"You're pushing yourself too hard, and you can take it from a genius; it's not always a good idea."
He kept his ears open for the comforting humor in her voice, though he didn't expect to find it. Instantly weary and lusty at the prospect of finding a little undisturbed sleep in a little pill, he gulped. Before he could show tentative disinterest, she changed, or perhaps eased into a different subject and a softer tone.
"It's kind of strange, don't you think?"
"What is?" Tenchi felt dull asking such a question, and duller for asking it so nervously. He let his head drop before Washu could raise hers.
"Today, of course. Isn't it strange that Mihoshi should come back, and that on the same day Yosho should start making such a dramatic recovery?"
Bewilderment sounded out of place in the voice of intimidating reason, and he merely waited for it to change.
"I mean, in a way it's odd that she even came back at all."
She must have been preparing to see his shock, but all he could manage to bring his head up with was appalled confusion. Washu wasn't finished watching her hands.
"Technically, he pulled a kind of 'bullfighter' move on her. He obviously knew where she would come out on the other end so I still don't understand why he didn't just send her out the few light years it would have taken to strand her permanently, I've little doubt he could have done it."
Washu absently massaged her palms to get at the increased tension in her voice.
"Heh, it probably wouldn't have been that much harder to just send her into an asteroid field, or into even into a ^star^---but he didn't." She seemed to sigh while Tenchi held half his breath.
"And why, ^why^ would he put Yosho on death's door if he wasn't going to keep him knocking?"
Washu turned her head lower to the side, thinking to herself for Tenchi to hear.
"^All on the same day---Mihoshi and Yosho both come back to us on the same day^."
Tenchi's own nerves were envying Washu's hand massage and he was almost ready to demand what she was getting at. Another part of him was still ready to strike at her, just to make sure. He felt his fist clench on his lap. The feeling elevated then dissipated with the extended silence, so extended that he was relieved, for a moment, when she spoke again.
"So, what did he say to you?"
She was ready to see his shock this time, almost timely enough to ignite the fist he'd nearly disarmed. It didn't occur to him how many people he might wake with as loud a question as he wanted to respond with, but his face must have said enough.
"You're not half as good at hiding it as everyone else was."
Tenchi gulped, eyes burning his hands as they ate at his knees.
"^I---it-^"
"I dare you."
Her voice may as well have yanked him up by the hair, and her eyes may as well have pined him to the wall.
"Say it, Tenchi. Tell me it was 'just a dream'. I'll knock you out right here."
Already intimidated eyes fell to stare at the shaking fist she held ready for him, raising again only when it relaxed or exhausted back into her lap.
"There's something I think you should know. After seeing you today, I wanted to tell you before I finally told anyone else."
She met his eyes, deadly serious to desperately uncertain.
"Tenchi, Yosho---your grandfather doesn't remember being poisoned anymore; all he remembers is facing Seita in his office, then imprisoning him."
Tenchi tried to keep his hands from hugging into himself, and might have been able to do it with more time between the steps of Washu's presentation.
"He asked where the sword was," Washu added to the strain of his uncertainty before finally dropping her eyes to accept her own.
"It just doesn't fit Tenchi. When," she swallowed time, "he kept saying that Seita had poisoned him he said it so---so---^weakly^. It was like he'd already accepted defeat. It wasn't like him at all, that's why I thought, that's why I ^still think^ that it was some kind of hypnotic suggestion. And now-"
Tenchi almost cringed to hear her let out a breath not unlike the ones he'd been making before she knocked.
"Now he thinks his sickness is the result of the exhaustion of trapping Seita in the sword, he-" she lowered her voice to an anxious whisper, "^he thinks he's still in there^!"
"I'm just lucky that everyone had the tact not to bring anything up. But now---now I can't help but think that you must know something new, that Seita either ^has^ gone, or is just working up something even more-"
Tenchi watched her clutch the sides of her skull, only more violently that he had. He wanted to do the same, but still couldn't move very well. Her mumbling was almost a mewling whimper.
"^Please, I have to know^."
It slipped out, automatic and lifeless.
"He said he'd give me time to think about it."
Tenchi took his turn to wait for her shocked expression, but realized soon enough that she'd been exercising the special kind of patience and manipulation most scientists and all mothers were allowed to use. She looked to the side of his bed and spoke calmly again.
"And this was last night."
"Yes." Tenchi did his best to sound in control of himself, if not, if perhaps never the situation.
"So what are you thinking about?"
Tenchi hesitated and Washu pinned him to the wall again, if a little more gently this time.
"What did he ^say^, Tenchi? It sounds like he made you some kind of offer, and---if it's anything like what he offered my daughter-"
Finally enough to make him rise, Tenchi was on his feet looking down at Washu in enough time to have given or taken a testing punch and perhaps another. He still considered it as he flexed his fingers at his sides.
"^Are you saying I would even consider-^" Tenchi almost hissed.
"No, of course not I-" Washu remained calm, and never raised her eyes.
Forgetting that a snap, a break, will have a collapse in the wake of its energy, Tenchi bounced a little as he fell back to sitting, then slouching on his bed. He found Washu's gaze and blinked rapidly, nearly losing his voice with the strain needed to keep it.
"What does it matter," Tenchi waited without expecting Washu to flinch, "sometimes I wonder if maybe ignoring him is the only way to make all of--- ^this^ just-"
Some kind of will softened Washu and placed her hand on Tenchi's knee as he let his head fall with bitter yet watered down apathy.
"It's an idea I've actually given some serious consideration, along with the theory that ^I'm^ just loosing my mind." A quick exhale was hardly a laugh.
"I've also considered that Seita is actually an ectoplasmic projection of psychokinetic schizophrenia."
She was more than ready to catch Tenchi's eyebrow as he meekly lifted one in new, thus distracted confusion. Her smile softened further.
"That any one of our messed up heads could have actually 'created' him."
Tenchi calmed, but couldn't smile again as she couldn't shield him anymore.
"So far though, I'm beginning to think he might soon be more like Tsunami than Kagato."
Tenchi listened as she started to breathe again, not as obsessively as he had been earlier, he thanked the stars, but she was clearly just as desperate for answers. He knew speaking on his next-first instinct would offer little comfort, he only hoped it wouldn't be worse than another stretch of silence.
"I think so too," he began after a few throat relaxing exercises, "I tried to kill him last night but...it wasn't like the first time."
Washu's eyes filled in the rest and made it easier to continue.
"All of us remember that---that draining feeling whenever we got close to one of those portals, but, last night-"
"He's become more powerful, hasn't he?"
Washu semi-interrupted, semi-extended his break, perhaps intentional, perhaps futile; Tenchi dug in deeper to stay upright, but only had to whisper harsher to go on.
"It---it was like he almost ^was^ that place, just like Tsunami feels like she ^is^ the power in the lighthawk wings. I could barely even move, it's all still illusion I know, but---but they're ^right inside my head^."
Tenchi breathed and tried to make his hands stop shaking for a moment, never bothering to see how Washu was taking the news.
"So, I guess you can imagine how confused I was---still am, after what he told me."
He listened to the chair squeak as Washu leaned forward, but his voice still needed too much strength to lift his head.
"You know how he likes to speak in riddles and all, so you can understand if I can't remember everything exactly."
Resting long enough to fall back, to rest his head and shoulder to the wall and beg more encouragement from his interrogator. The distance was further reflected in his voice.
"He said that I was 'correct enough' about him being evil, and that he'd have to help me to make himself more vulnerable. It was something like: 'If you let me ^help^ you, it will present a real opportunity to ^destroy^ me.'"
Tenchi dropped the burden and clutched his head again, though more gently.
"Then he left. I'm not sure how much of 'some time' he'll take to come back."
Waiting for Washu's response was trial enough. When he heard her stand he weakly tried to fight off images of the potentially disastrous reactions she could have, telling the family being the worst so far.
"Considering how much he can change in one day, it's unlikely that he'll give you more than that, if that." Washu's even, and almost relaxed voice interrupted Tenchi's decline like a roadblock. He looked up, watching her rise to pace behind the chair.
"But what should-"
"Listen to me Tenchi, if he really does become stronger by---by driving people out of their minds, then something like this could be the end of all of us"
Tenchi watched her separation from her subject in horror and awe.
"However, one thing I am quite sure of," she clenched her arms professionally, "no matter what else he may be, he ^is^ insane."
A spark of her hatred ignited enough of Tenchi emotions to burn each other out, but he ignored the heat easily as she continued.
"Most importantly, this means that he is more likely to make mistakes."
She stopped pacing and faced out the window for a moment. A step towards it and she turned around to show Tenchi an authority he couldn't help but compare to the aforementioned unspeakable.
"Tenchi, there might even be a chance that, whether or not his offer his true, that ^he^ believes it is. You don't have to be around long to know that the most narcissistic psychopaths almost always have at least one bout of consuming self-hatred."
It looked like Washu was chewing on her tongue, but Tenchi couldn't be sure anymore than he could stop his own hands from gripping his knees again.
"I'm not sure how he proposes to 'help you', but...I think you should let him try."
For a moment, Tenchi considered pounding out his ears.
*She's serious!
"But how?" He managed to squeeze out.
"This may finally be the time to give him what he wants." Washu set her steps slow and thoughtful toward the door.
It felt impossible to hear past how much more encouraging it might have sounded with some life behind it.
Washu's oblivious whisper probably wasn't, but it emptied Tenchi just the same.
"^Maybe that's why he left room to give Mihoshi and Yosho back to us^?"
She stopped with her hand on the door and spoke clearly again after easing it open.
"As a peace offering."
*Wait!
A scream too loud to emerge from his throat must have echoed across the stars. Washu stopped and turned to face him. Her expression and tone offered no comfort but the lighter side of chance.
"Tenchi, if he really is trying to make this more of a fair fight, then you can't afford---^we^ can't afford to decline."
Never the passive type, but never the same, Washu left Tenchi alone to accept, through the distance it had to travel, a new idea to hold and carry him.
Even if she'd been an illusion, she'd been right enough.
***
Always the Death's Head.
Always the Body of Life.
So they thought and thus they were. Two sisters remembered enough to be considered everything, and remembered more still. Missing their center just as they had always missed each other from the sides, but rarely braving the chance to rejoin or separate further.
Thus, a mutual gesture should have rung out through their expansive territories like a clashing of glamour-iron spheres. There should have been great inverting side-sentience, cart wheeling off in all directions. Everything should have noticed, but if anything did, it had enough respect to doubt. Surely the two parties concerned knew the time and space to share.
How else as just as before: naturally. Communication is inevitable, even between estranged family members who, in knowing too much, are often uncertainly delayed.
*I'm glad you've chosen to speak, sister.
*I know you share the choice---sister.
*I would that you begin.
*Yes, you would.
...
*Very well. I assume you want an apology.
*I should not want, just as you should not assume.
*And neither of us should waste...so let us agree again not to compete.
*Yes.
*---Our common enemy is still more important
*Yes.
*He could still consume us.
*Yes.
*But he is still affected by us.
*Only on our existence, no longer on our actions.
*---Yes.
*Yet, I have already done more than I should.
*Do not regret.
*Yes.
*---Still, you knew, didn't you?
...
*Do not waste our time, sister.
*Yes, I knew...I knew, but I did not understand.
*Then, do you now?
*I know that he is experiencing great fear and pain.
*Good.
*Inevitable perhaps, but never certain.
*Would you hear my proposal then?
*Of course.
*He craves power, but power can only come from action. We must do
nothing more, and even less while he is now in doubt.
*You can still impress me, sister.
*Of course.
*It is decided then, we will mutually ignore our shared enemy.
*Agreed.
*...
*Sister?
*Yes?
*I sent him to you, do you oppose me now?
*I cannot.
...
*I nearly allowed him to us, do you oppose me still?
I must.
***
Washu's footsteps sounded light even in the complete silence, and Tenchi wondered if she had not reverted back to her younger form after leaving him. He looked back down at his pillow and remembered the rattle in her pocket, making a crooked frown for a bad joke.
*Maybe I should have taken her up on her offer.
Back in bed, with his arms adding to the pillow, he bounced the half thought off the ceiling till it came back in a full memory.
*I wonder how'd I'd see him if I used Ryoko's tactic.
A few of his few sake memories warmed his throat till optimistic nostalgia froze and grated against a lump. For all she'd done not to look at him it was no easier not to picture her.
*Ryoko.
*If Washu's right---there won't be anything left of him.
The creeping vision trembled heavy under the weight of such buried yellow and such thick red.
*No.
He finally managed to pull a copper shroud over so much once feral, now fevered gold, but forgot to anticipate echoes of submitting accusations. Pinching his sinus helped to fight down the remaining sensations of her, her violence.
*I guess I've gotten pretty good at not thinking about the girls--- for their sakes.
If the victory was empty at least it was considerate; he remembered Washu not wanting to laugh or to forget how. She'd always been good at the impossible, but that was her and he was himself, turning on his side and unconsciously curling into himself. His room looked the same around the chair, still the same as he pushed the chair around.
Only the back moved, the support rotating then trading with the adjustments. In front of his chest rather than his face, his room looked the same around the chair, still the same as he reached out to do precious nothing with it again, still the same as the room changed.
A white marble floating in the center or a pinprick on his eye, he shivered under his blankets for it and went dizzy behind his eyelids. Waiting for it to get worse made it no better, how could facing it be any worse?
If the portal had remained unchanged---what, Tenchi glared, could be keeping him, keeping his tunnel a keyhole?
The point of emptiness mocked him from the center of his room, threatening to change nothing. He hauled up hours of bokken blisters, binding book weeks, and moments of peace wrought out of his last moments. His triumphs would give him strength if he would only take them. No ordinary earth boy blinked slow and breathed deep one last time before fighting back the giving up leaking from this hole in his world.
Unchanged, the portal accepted his challenge, lingering little but impossible, then fantastic, and at last possible to resist.
Like the first sign of color through a whitening stain, he held fast to it. The disorientation had leveled and was still lower under this first strike of his will.
Time forgotten soon after being discarded, Tenchi fought back till he'd uncurled then sat up on his bed. The captured ground was stronger beneath him, and he could afford to lean forward and scowl back at the white.
*I'm doing it!
He could not, but would believe that he was standing up, then not even supporting himself on the chair.
*I'm resisting!
His fists weren't shaking yet, so he clenched them tighter, stronger. His first step toward the intruder's first offering replaced the will he'd spent just to face it. Now he could not, but he would believe that he was taking steps to starring down this emptying eye.
*I will not fear.
His body felt carved upon the next step.
*I will not doubt.
Sealed upon the next.
*I can beat this.
Lighter.
*Show yourself, I'm ready.
Lighter.
*Show me.
Tenchi reached out to it, and tried to bring the hand into focus, and failed. Still he could see how lose his fingers were, then he could feel the droop in his jaw.
*Tell me. How can it be?
Effortless upon the next step.
*I have to know---I have to know everything.
His fingers loosened even more to be just a little closer.
*I have to hold it.
Compelled, helpless on the next step.
*I---can't stop.
The air was gentle and easy around his body as it moved without him.
*No.
The air dried his quivering lips and wet his cheek with a tear.
*It's too late.
He remembered the traveling moments, but couldn't imagine what it would feel like when the next step touched him to the path.
The softly surrounding terror devoured him and spat him out in a rush, a flashing dilation. Tenchi's hand came into focus as it trembled before Seita's chest.
Looking up, like remaining vertical, like remaining conscious, was mixed-blessedly automatic.
Vivid blues lined in clever black reached out from the melting hallow of perfectly unnatural blonde. Hail gentle seduction, prepare to strangle in its lesson.
"Fear and fascination---will surrender their bodies-"
Tenchi lowered his hand and Seita raised both of his.
"Only to see eye to eye."
Wine tipped fingers were soft and graceful up his neck, around his jaw and cheeks. Tenchi locked eyes, small and threatened and awed by so much gorgeous malice.
"And eye to eye."
Seita's little daggers taunted down the back of his neck. Tenchi fought the stare, terrified and hating so much vanity quickly melting into so much misery.
"And eye to eye."
Lifting at their leisure, both hands folded behind him to tilt his head forward. The oblivion portals crushed into threatening eyes, crushing heaven and earth.
Tenchi remembered The Ghost of Madness, shying back from cruel megalomania, retreating from the invulnerable unspeakable with every speaking step it took toward him.
"The sparks of consciousness that strike up and out of instinct have yet to offer anything but questions," Seita wetted the dying elegance in his throat with a dainty swallow, "and centering moments that offer not but a will to dull the universe with their brilliance."
Another step forward and back, Tenchi began to waver before the oracle statue.
"Anything but questions, and spreading moments that have yet to donate more than 'believing'...believing they only answer what is asked of them."
The chair rolled a little as he backed into it and he let himself sink without a thought, teeth clattering, clenching bitter, grinding petty between being shorter still and not giving the guest a place to sit.
Seita closed his eyes, filling himself, as he would, with a breath too deep for his frame. The hairs on Tenchi's body all tried to leap out during the smooth exhale, but he would not grip his arms, would not clench his fists, would not waste what little he had on anything beyond meeting those eyes when they returned.
And they returned victorious with a voice to prove it, confirming at last that apathy truly could make confidence obsolete.
"I am sick-from, and tired-of questions, Tenchi. But before I hear your judgment I have one more explanation." Head pulled back, half-grin smug up, shoulders balancing a clever angle, and everything was a dandy perfect regression to Seita's dandy perfect self.
"That is...if you want to hear it."
Blinking the last specks of detachment, Tenchi turned in his chair and nonchalantly reached the sword out from under his pillow. Acceptance examined it with limply weighing hands, small under the torrent of memories all inspiring more vengeance than he could ignore or approach. He retraced, felt his chest ready to collapse before it breached the first layer of the peaceful moment before something beyond him stepped in to save him.
*...for the second time.
"^Yes^."
Tenchi could barely feel the vibration, but never doubted that Seita could. Lifting his head was impossible, but explanations would not begin without an audience. Realization almost smiled in him then as he looked up and recognized his sixth guest's first disguise. Thus recognition of the unaffected voice almost softened him, almost convinced him that the eyes had changed to match.
"I am surrendering now because I was never in the war. If I have made any permanent impressions---I have made them on impermanent surfaces."
The old demon's last hiss wanted nothing more than to be alive for its end. Standing tallest, Seita turned perpendicular to his canvas to let the paint dry.
Feeling himself lose color, Tenchi only looked back down at the sword, at Jurai, at the gems.
"Do you need anything else to make your decision?"
The hilt felt real and sturdy, if useless as he closed his hand and eyes around it. He hoped his own voice would sound as unencumbered as he hoped it would exorcise selfishness.
"No one wants to ask Sasami what happened that night."
He waited for the pitiful and vengeful pangs to call him out as naive to the last, but they only exhausted themselves. Nothing left but whimpers for comfort.
Nothingness responded with a whisper of doubt, defiantly taking a bitter taste of its own medicine.
"Facades have always drawn me, Tenchi, but I never cared much for telling lies. If you need a third vote of confidence; may you do with it what you will."
Tenchi looked up at the profile and looked for the hole in his nemesis's unstoppable yet now uninspired shroud.
Eyes folded and breath hushed, Seita didn't need to check his audience's attention.
"Tsunami...showed me something. Clear and transient as life and water; I was achieving, embodying my glory."
Seita threw his eyes open like deadly rotting claws.
"But I had exhausted my perception, and turned from oblivion's banner--- into oblivion's mace."
Silent, still, and ever the time-slow-killer; Tenchi waited then readied then tensed again twice over.
"If it does not end here," one graceful hand gestured down at the floor.
"Then it will end here," Seita held a temptation plate up to the window, a saucer-sized oblivion portal rotating in all directions above it.
Tenchi tilted the sword, watching moonlight swirl typhoons of fear and pity in the gems. Unhurried and unencumbered, he turned slow to lay the sword on his pillow, and turned back slower to rise from the chair. Still perpendicular, but with even postures, calmed spite gave spiteful surrender an audience.
"What do I have to do?"
