Once More

Chapter 1-What have I done?

"No! Don't leave me here, Mommy!" Ryoko cried hoarsely, in a futile attempt to be free. "Please come back for me!"

Ryoko sniffed. All anger had been lifted by fear and awful memories. She'd give Washu anything for her to come back. If Washu wanted her to sob into her shoulder while the minute mother would comfort her, she'd do it, as long as she'd be free. The lab resembled the cave, and it was dark, cold, and lonely. No Tenchi was there to cheer her up, brighten her day, or make her see the light. There was no light, no way for her to make an astral body to project outside. Ryoko would give anything just to see another human being, anything to not be all alone to drown in her fears.

"Please, Mommy! I promise to be good! I'll do whatever you say!" This worked sometimes with Kagato. Promise to do whatever they want, and they'll take advantage of that, only costing them a small price of letting her out of the dark and the cold, lifting the pain, whatever. Why wasn't Washu agreeing to this? "Mommy!"

Why couldn't somebody come back for her? She'd been tied up here for so long, and she was beginning to loose all feeling in her legs. The restraints were cold, and squeezed too tightly, and her throat had become dry from screaming and breathing in and out through it, causing it to burn when she swallowed or made a vocal sound.

Please, Mommy? Where are you? Ryoko asked, trying a new approach of using the link. I don't like the dark, it's scary. Please let me out! I'm so lonely!

No answer came from Washu. This wasn't surprising, since Washu hadn't been answering for the past...however long it had been. At least a few hours.

Ryoko sobbed, wanting somebody to come and comfort her. Where was everybody? "Mommy, please don't forget about me!"

A sound. Ryoko's head shot up, trying to figure out what it was.

"Mommy, is that you?" She'd called Washu "mommy" so many times; you'd have begun to think Washu was really Queen Misaki of Jurai, who insisted from her daughters' birth that they only refer to her as "mommy". If they would call her "mother" and in a normal, non-high pitched voice, the queen would begin to grow annoyed, and her facial expressions would definitely show it.

Crackle. It sounded like a crackle. A light! There was a light! Had Washu come back to let her out?

"Oh no." Ryoko whispered as what the new appearance really was dawned on her. The sound and the light had not come from a human, or anything alive. This was so much more deadly, especially as she was powerless to stop it or escape. Even worse, it was coming straight at her.

It was electricity.

A huge surge sunk into the machine, bolts zapping out of every circuit and wire in the entire contraption that held Ryoko captive. The ring became a burning circle, and the restraints started to malfunction, squeezing the arms of the already screaming woman.

The amount of pain Ryoko was in could not be described by words alone. Every nerve in her body was on fire, and what seemed like millions of volts surged through her body. Her hair had caught fire, and the fire licked her eyes, causing her screams to become louder still as her sense of sight was whipped away. The restraints suddenly whipped downwards, and let the woman go, but ripped open two large gashes in her arms. The fire alarms went on, water pouring down on the now useless and broken bunches of metal. Ryoko's hair stopped burning, but then again, she had no hair to burn anymore, as it all had become useless ash. The fire went out, but the smoke stayed, filling up Ryoko's lungs and causing her to cough, every movement on her body becoming a wave of pain. The smoke also would have burned her eyes, if only the fire hadn't blinded her and turned her eyes into a charred mess with no pain sensors.

The woman whimpered on the floor softly, white spots going up where her vision would be. Finding it harder and harder to think clearly, she focused on the floor...and the sound coming nearer and nearer.

A cry of anguish. Anguish, sadness, self-hatred. That's what was coming.

Weeping arms swept up Ryoko, hugging her pain racked, bloody, and burnt body.

"No! Ryoko, don't die! No! I didn't mean to-please!" Kagato? Was that who this was? No, Kagato was a man, and this was a woman's voice...Washu.

Ryoko groaned, feeling her energy slip away. She was dying, maybe an inch away from death. Her senses were going, her thoughts spinning around. Even though she felt tears fall on her burnt flesh and another's arms hug her she could barely feel them as she started to slip away. The killer of thousands, destroyer of planets, and overall demon woman finally brought down by her own grief-stricken mother.

"I love you too much! No...Ryoko..."

hr

Washu couldn't bear to look anyone in the face. She'd just told them the truth as to why Mihoshi had suddenly found a mangled body similar to that of a missing beloved family member on the floor of her lab.

She felt Sasami run into her, sobbing.

"Oh Washu! Why did Ryoko have to..." The young princess sobbed, hiccupping slightly. A small drop of wetness dislodged itself from Washu's eyes, followed soon after by many, many more. Soon both adolescents were sobbing into each other.

The entire family was there, and Washu knew they're reactions. All were sad and shocked.

Sasami finally left Washu as the scientist let go, and she found her way to her older sister.

"It's all my fault...I can't believe it, it just started out as a sick joke. My poor Ryoko, my Little Ryoko. I'm worse than him, making her do all those things. She never wanted to assimilate with Zero, I forced her into it. She probably never would have agreed to a 'check-up' if I hadn't..." Washu stopped blubbering when Tenchi gathered her into his teenage arms.

"It's not your fault, Washu. It really isn't." The small mother just stood there, crying her eyes out into Tenchi's shoulder. He knew what it was like to loose a mother, and he assumed the pain would be similar for a mother to lose their child. Washu had lost two.

Katsuhito, finally regaining composure, stood up, his head bowed in mourning. "We should give Ryoko a proper ceremony. The family burial grounds near the shrine would be perfect, for her to be buried with the family of the boy she loved." The sobbing Washu merely nodded, her arms tight around Tenchi, as if he was the last bit of Ryoko there was.

The next morning, the family was gathered around the grave for Ryoko. They had prayed for her soul to reach peace, and for her to have a happy afterlife compared to her painful mortal life. All were crying, and even Katsuhito shed a single tear for the pirate who he had kept in her fears of the dark, cold, and loneliness for seven centuries.

Ayeka, her arms around Sasami while she looked downward, her eyes overflowing with tears, felt the grief of losing a friend. The princess wished she had been able to see the other side of Ryoko more often, the side that could have been a good friend. Maybe even her best friend, because Ryoko acted as if the princess' title meant nothing. But she was gone, one of the only people to treat Ayeka like a regular person, gone. Her eyes glanced over at Washu, who was still in her child form, crying her heart out into Tenchi once more. She bowed her head, knowing the scientist was perhaps the one who had lost the most out of the woman's passing.

Katsuhito lit some incense, the smell one of Ryoko's favorites. Sasami looked up from Ayeka's sisterly embrace, just in time to see the smoke waft over the grave. Through it, she could almost see a small, bluish form rise out of the ground, but it quickly vanished with the wind. Shaking it off, Sasami prayed with her family for the final time in the ceremony, before all of the members started to slow descent back to the Masaki house.

Sasami still walked with Ayeka, wishing that Ryoko could have died happier.

The gem...

Sasami looked around, realizing no one else had heard the voice.

Tsunami?

The gem was burned with the body...I cannot sense it...I know not of what will happen next.

Sasami nodded. Definitely Tsunami.

But, didn't Tsunami know everything?

Author's Note:

Okay, all you people, here's a Ryoko-centered fic for you. I started writing this a while ago, and I think I completed the second and third chapters also (I just need to find/proofread/upload them), but they're old. So they aren't as good as they would be if I had written them recently (in my opinion). And just so you know, I do not plan on putting romance in this one, this is a no-romance fic. Aeka no Sekai, my other long-term Tenchi project, is something I write because I like the TenchiAeka, and since I can write it even if I have writer's block. This is because my favorite character is Ryoko. Yeah.

Disclaimer: Tenchi Muyo! does not belong to me. It belongs to Masaki Kajishima.