...and after

--------------------

The trees swayed their branches slightly in the breeze, their leaves rustling together to give a soothing background noise, which made the child there feel completely isolated from everyone else. The mist helped to create the illusion, fading objects more than perhaps ten metres away on all sides into greyness.

The child walked forwards certainly to an outcropping of rocks on the nearby hill. The rocks had once supported the entrance to a deep cave, but now the boulder that had previously been supported over the opening rested in front of it, completely blocking the portal to the inside of the cavern. It was impossible for the child of about nine years old to move the rock, but spurred on by her curiosity, that spot was her favourite place.

Nearby was a small mound of earth, at one end of which a stone stood. The stone stood on its end, chipped and cracked, although it had obviously been a definite shape at some point in the distant past. Markings, too worn and weathered to be read, appeared on the front of the stone, overlooking the mound. The child, although not understanding what this arrangement was for, always felt that she should respect this spot, and so never walked over the mound. She had spent many hours just looking at the markings in the past, trying to decipher their meaning, but that was not why she was here now. After pausing momentarily to look at the stone, which she thought was placed there to honour someone, despite her elders' protestations, she continued to the place she had been for most of the past week.

She had only recently found this spot, after accidentally digging up random patches of ground. Most of the surrounding area was newly dug up, except the mound. But this particular digging, started about a week ago, revealed something. About a quarter of a metre below ground level was an object, apparently buried there years ago. The child, forever curious, had then, over the past several days, tried to unearth this object, in an attempt to discover what it was. She continued her excavation.

The object, as she was slowly revealing it, was about half a metre long and wide, and about twenty centimetres deep. It was made of wood, surprisingly not rotten after so long in the ground as it had apparently been there. Most of it had been revealed, the whole top and most of the sides. She was trying to dig herself a firm hold on it, so she could pull it out of the ground.

"Tenko!" the call resounded through the forest. "Come home now! Dinner is ready!"

That was the child's mother. The child paid no attention to the call, however; she was determined to dig up this object that day. She was reaching down one side of the object, searching for the bottom edge, pushing the dirt out of the way with her fingers. She found it. Excited, she pushed her fingers underneath and tried pulling it out, but it wouldn't come. She dug her hand in further and pulled harder. The object moved. Thrilled that she had finally managed to move it, she pulled even harder, forcing the wooden item slowly out of its burial place. One last pull forced it free, making the child fall backwards and landing on the moist ground.

Immediately she was back up, examining the thing from all directions and wiping some dirt bits off. She tried picking it up, but it was rather heavy. She used all the effort she could muster, and heaved the object up. She dropped it straight down, as she had an idea. She stood the thing on its side and crouched down next to it, hands holding it steady. She wedged her hands underneath the item and hauled it onto her back. Satisfied that she could now carry it home, she stood up unsteadily and slowly made her way back down the hill towards home.

A fluttering of a bird caught the child's attention. She looked to her side to find the cause of the disturbance, and saw a person standing a few metres away. He had seemingly short hair, but with a long thin trail of hair behind him that reached down to his thighs, periodically tied with little white bands. His eyes were dark and kindly, and his face smiled warmly as he looked straight at her.

Caught off guard, the child stared at the person in front of her. Then she suddenly realised she was off balance, and the object she was carrying was slipping. She stumbled and steadied her grip on it, and looked back at the person. But he was gone. A bird in the tree above chirped and ruffled its feathers, trying to keep the cold of the mist out. The child looked around a bit more, before resuming her journey back home.

As she approached her house, she looked out over the nearby lake, strangely devoid of covering mist. She could just make out the opposite banks. But she shrugged and went into her house.

She took her shoes off after putting the object on the ground, and ran into the kitchen. Her meal was laid out on the table there.

"Tenko, what have you been doing?" her mother asked sternly, standing by the oven. "Have you been digging around those rocks again?"

Tenko looked down, and realised for the first time that day that she was covered in dirt. "Sorry, mommy," she said quietly. Her voice became more eager. "But look what I found, mommy! It's a box! Come look!"

"A box?" the mother asked. She turned down the flames on the cooker and followed her daughter into the hallway. Tenko was pointing at the wooden object whilst trying to move it into a better position for her mother to see. "What is that?" the mother asked.

"It's a box, mommy," Tenko replied. "It was buried near that memory stone."

"It's not a memory stone," the mother sighed. "How many times do we have to tell you? Memory stones are only found in certain places, and that isn't one of them. It's just a normal stone."

"But mommy..." Tenko protested.

"But nothing," the mother said firmly. "Now go get washed and changed, then come down and have your dinner. It's getting cold."

"Yes, mommy," Tenko said quietly.

"You can play with that thing you found afterwards."

--------------------

Tenko rushed through her meal, nearly choking on more than a few occasions, so that she could get back to her box as soon as possible. After swallowing the last of her dessert, she got up and rushed back to her box. She went back into the kitchen for a cloth to wipe the dirt off, and started to clean her box.

As she cleaned, carvings became visible. They were mostly intricate etchings of flowers and plants, but on one side was a completely different pattern. It looked like a word.

AYSHETODECEON

Tenko was puzzled at this word. It meant nothing to her. She finished cleaning it and stood back to look at the cleaned product of her work.

The front door opened and a man walked in. He had brown-red eyes and short black hair. He was Tenko's father.

"Daddy, look at what I've found!" Tenko said, pointing at the box.

"Hello, Tenko," her father replied. "My, what is that?"

"It's a box," Tenko said proudly. "I dug it up today and I cleaned it all by myself. It's quite heavy."

Her father crouched down and looked closer at the box. "This is amazing," he said. "You said it was buried in the ground, right? Where?"

"That's right. It was buried near the memory stone, on top of the little hill with the rocks."

"But how did you get it back here all by yourself?" the father asked. "It's very big for someone your size."

"I carried it on my back," Tenko said. "Daddy, what do you think this means?" she asked, pointing at the word on what was apparently the top of the box.

The father looked at it and read the letters. "I don't know, Ten-chan," he said. "Maybe it's in code or something. Why don't you try and work it out?"

"Okay," Tenko smiled, running away to get a piece of paper. She came back with one, and wrote down the word with a pen she was also carrying. She then walked away to the main room to puzzle over it.

Tenko's father looked at the box more closely. "Ayshetodeceon," he mused. "This box must have been buried there for years, but it doesn't look like it's been damaged at all. Any normal box should have rotted long ago."

--------------------

Tenko had been trying to figure out the word for the past half hour. She had tried rearranging the letters to form a different word, but to no avail. She had tried splitting the word up into groups of letters, but that hadn't worked. Frustrated, she looked again at the box, which her father had placed on the table in front of her, trying to see if she had copied it down right.

After looking closely, she noticed some markings burned into the wood between some of the letters. They were barely visible, as the wood itself was very dark, making the slightly darker marks blend into the background.

AYS,HET,ODEC,EON

She split the word into groups of letters as on the box on her piece of paper. After a bit of moving the letters around, she made a work with the first group of letters.

SAY

Excited that she had made a feasible word at last, she used the same method of moving the last letter of the group as it was written out to the front, to form the next word.

THE

Convinced now that this method was working, she worked out the next word.

CODE

The last word was worked out similarly.

NEO

Tenko was puzzled. Neo wasn't a word, none that she knew, at least. Maybe her father knew. "Daddy," she said. "Can you help me?"

Her father, sitting on the other couch and reading a book, looked up at his daughter. "What is it, Tenko?"

"Is this word real?" Tenko asked, pushing the bit of paper towards her father. Her father picked it up and read it.

"I think it is a word, yes," he said. "Looking at what you've done before, I don't see why it shouldn't be that." He paused, trying to remember something. "Oh, yes. I know where I've heard that name before. My grandmother told me stories of an ancestor of hers called Tenchi. She said he was the strongest man in the universe, and had unbelievable powers. Everyone called him a God."

"Do you think that's the code?" Tenko asked. "Neo?"

The box clicked, and a crack appeared around the sides. Tenko and her father looked at it in surprise. Tenko leaned forwards and pushed the top half slightly. It moved a bit, but dropped back down as she let go.

"Open it," her father said, staring at the box. "Open the lid."

Tenko pushed the lid back, opening the box. Inside was a large hard object, a long thin wooden thing with two red gems in it at one end, half a mask and a round white thing with a green recessed area on one side.

Tenko started pulling out the objects carefully and placing them down on the table. The large hard object appeared to be a book, but the two unidentified things weren't recognised. Tenko's father picked up the book carefully and looked at the front cover. Several words in gold type on the dark brown leather bindings appeared, looking perfectly new.

--------------------

The Lives and Times of Tenchi Masaki

Created by Tenchi Neo Masaki

--------------------

Tenko's father opened the book and read the first page. " 'This book is an autobiography of Tenchi Neo Masaki, God and Creator of Everything'," he read. " 'Inside you will find detailed accounts of my lives, and indeed my deaths, up until the point I sealed this book in the box you have found above the cave entrance near to the Masaki Shrine, which was the fourteenth day of the Earthling year 2131.' " The father looked up at Tenko. "This book is nearly two hundred years old!" he said.

"What else does it say, daddy?" Tenko asked.

" 'I dedicate this book to my friends, of which I have many, but especially to my dearest friends and my two wives, Ayeka Juraia and Ryoko Hakubi. Also for Sasami Juraia, younger sister of Ayeka; Mihoshi Kuramitsu, current Marshall of the Galaxy Police; Washu Hakubi, Goddess of the mind and part of Trinity; and Tenchi Aki Masaki, my brother. These people have helped me through life on many occasions, all of which you will find accounted in this book. There have been four main stages of my life, by which I have separated the sagas in this book. These are 'Continuum T', 'Supplement DB', 'Apex AZ' and 'Afterwards'. Please enjoy reading this, and know that this is personally created by me, and as such is the original of this book, from which no copies have been made. It details several key moments of my life that no person remembers, not even in my time. Enjoy.' "

"Does it say what these things are, daddy?" Tenko asked, holding up the wooden object and the round white thing, and gesturing at the half mask.

"No," her father replied, closing the book slowly and putting it down. "I think it would say somewhere in the book, but not where I read."

"Oh," Tenko said. She picked up the mask and tried it on. "Why do you think this is here?"

"I don't know," her father said, staring at the book. "But this book is unbelievable. The book of God."

"So I guess you have something else to read, daddy, ne?" Tenko asked.

"I guess so."

--------------------

Over the next few weeks, Tenko's father read the book of God, simplifying the stories to tell to his daughter, as well as showing her the many amazingly lifelike pictures drawn within, doubtless by Tenchi himself. The pictures were of different people, objects and places, of Tenchi's friends and family, of his home, of the planet Jurai, of the DragonBalls and Radar, of the Master Key Tenchi-ken, and of all the different forms of Tenchi himself, including his Masked Man appearance, all his Saiyan forms and his evolutions.

The box, Tenko's father read, was carved by Tenchi himself, and had contained some of the most treasured objects of the universe. The Dragon Radar, Tenchi-ken, the mask of the Masked Man and God's autobiography were all in there.

The book revealed many secrets and facts about Tenchi's lives. Apparently, in the year 2120, Tenchi's wife Ryoko died, and was buried in front of the cave she had been trapped in for seven hundred years. The inscription on the gravestone read:

'Ryoko Hakubi Masaki

Her life was full and pleasant

After death she remains

To watch over the rest

Her memory remains in

Everyone forever'.

Tenchi's other wife, Ayeka Juraia Masaki, lived for a few more years, but she too died in 2125. Her body was buried on the planet Jurai, as was custom for all royalty. Her and Tenchi's time seated in the Imperial Chairs of the Jurai palace was, as described by everyone else, "beautiful", but was described by Ayeka herself as "dull". Her heart lay with Tenchi, and the adventures they once had. It seemed they were never fully happy with a quiet life after all those things had happened during Tenchi's teenage years, and so they would often disappear to have some fun, where they could shed the burdens of the Jurai Empire and just be themselves.

Mihoshi Kuramitsu died in 2103, quietly in her sleep. She had improved her nature to be less "ditzy", as others called it, through Tenchi's help, and found her final job as Grand Marshall of the Galaxy Police, as her grandfather had been before. She retired several years before she died with her husband Shinji, a very dear friend to her throughout her later life, and they lived the rest of their lives peacefully, having both lived a truly full existence.

Washu Hakubi, being the Goddess of the mind and a member of the Trinity, still lived, holding a permanent prestigious seat at the most respected institute of the Jurai galaxy, where she worked constantly to ensure peace throughout the galaxy and to enforce restrictions on certain technological advancements at her discretion. She never married.

Sasami Juraia outlived her older sister and was offered the Empresses Throne aside Tenchi after Ayeka died, to sit in lieu of her older sister. She refused this, choosing instead to work at her passions and ambitions. She had married one of the new students at the Masaki Institute for Gifted Individuals called Darmeni, and they both lived happily on a remote planet, living their lives as they dreamed.

Tenchi Aki Masaki handed the MAGI over to his best student, Saifer, the son of one of his first students with the same name, in 2075, and settled down on the planet Earth, where he soon met his future wife Megumi. They raised a family, soon joined on the planet by some of Tenchi's offspring, who wanted to escape the strangling lifestyle of Jurai. The descendants of these children eventually produced Tenko.

And as for Tenchi, God, himself...

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Tenchi Neo Masaki was killed in 2136 after a fatal fall off a tall building in Jurai's capital. He had been leaning out of a window near the top of the building, when he was suddenly struck by an incapacitating headache. He had toppled out of the window and crumpled into the street below, almost severing his head as he landed, his neck certainly snapped. There was a crowd of dozens who had seen this. Tenchi was buried alongside Ayeka Masaki in the traditional burial place of the Jurai Royal Family. He had planned to visit Sasami after his walk, during which he had detoured to visit the building, as he usually did every so often, but that trip was one he never made.

--------------------

As Tenko heard the last of the stories, sitting on one of the couches in the main room of the Masaki household near the impact lake, a boy stood nearby in the trees, watching her. His short hair ruffled slightly in the wind, and his thin long trail of hair, running down his back and periodically tied with white bands, blew around him, as his kind brown eyes watched Tenko live her life. The boy, looking in his late teens, smiled, and like the wind, left without a trace.

An angel he was not, and though he did not guard, not interfering in anyone's life at all, he watched. He observed the lives of people continue, begin and end. He was the Watcher.

"It may not be real," the boy said to himself, before vanishing, "but it's nice enough."