003 Beta 0.6.5

Somewhat Damaged

By Sir Eval Sweetwater

Anthology One

Episode Two

The Becoming

Canto Three

Bathwater

There is something strange about waking up early in the morning after years of sleeping in. The quietness is quite pronounced, not of the outside, nature never sleeps; shifts but never sleeps. No, the quietness is within the household. It was much liking to what she believed happened long before a play was to take place. The stage is empty and all of the actors—actresses are yet to present themselves. Be it such, there would be no reason for lights for there is no drama to be played out just yet.

Oh, god! On with the show! What is taking so long! Who is at fault for the leading actress to have arrived early? Certainly not her! Oh heavens, no! She didn't plan to be in such a state. She was forced, most certainly she was! By a force which has not materialized. And now, what could she do with the extra time allotted? Nothing too noisy but what a bore, is there anything she could do inside the house that will not disturb everyone else? How does Sasami do it! She's ways up by 5:30—two hours from now and manages to do so much without waking up everyone else.

Well, there is one thing she needed to address. The nightmare that woke her had caused quite the sweat bath. Even with fresh clothes she felt unclean, her clammy body and damp hair just felt so filthy, "I need a bath!"

She was surprised how unwearied she was for sleeping only for three hours. Comparable to three cups of strong tea, she thought. Then, again, she was a bit woozy, and gravity seems a bit less relative, too.

"Boy, I guess this is how Mihoshi must feel." Out of her room with a fresh set of clothes in her arms she walked the dark hall quietly, not to wake the others. Her motor skill weren't at their peak. That strange medicine she took had several miserable side effects, but better than feeling the full effects of this human virus she was currently fighting, "Ugh! It has been such a horrible week."

---

"Washu, what is wrong with me. I feel terrible." Blue with sickness she laid in a traditional bed in a room Washu made just to treat her.

"You caught the flu, specifically, a T7 strain, from Tenchi, he has it too. I'm surprise. Only the two of you are infected." Washu appeared wearing a nurse's uniform and sat down next to Ayeka.

"What does that mean?"

"Well," grinning, "T7 variant can only be transmitted through bodily fluids."

"What are you implying?"

"I'm saying that maybe you two shouldn't have done what you two did Friday."

"Ah, we—didn't do anything!" Ayeka became flush at the thought.

"Is that so?"

"Really, Washu, mind our privacy. And for the record we didn't do anything."

"Lies! I have a high-definition video of the incident on my main computer!"

"You have a what?" Jumping from the bed and grabbing Washu by the collar.

Resisting Ayeka's threatening posture, "A video of you two, it's kind of cute, I have to admit."

"Oh, my! That's impossi—ble?" The holographic screen pops out and a video starts playing. The camera is focused on a red-faced Ayeka.

"Oh, my, Tenchi please don't. You don't have to!"

"Hah! See!" Washu points at the screen.

"Don't worry, you're going to like it."

What if Ryoko finds us! She'll kill us! You know how she is.

"It's okay, I think she will understand."

"I don't think she would."

"Don't worry about it. Enjoy it!

"I don't know."

"Here, suck on this."

Ayeka turns to Washu in utter annoyance, "Wa-washu?"

"Oh, my! Very tasty!"

"Washu!"

"Oh, I'm sorry! Kind of spilled a little bit on your blouse" The camera zoom out to where clearly Tenchi and Ayeka are seen sharing a single milkshake.

"WASHU!"

Washu happily turns to meet a very angry Ayeka, "Yeah?"

"Do you have to make everything an innuendo? We were out shopping and Tenchi suggested we go to the SnackShack for shakes. We spent our money quickly—they were awfully expensive and we could only afford one and they charged us for the straw, too!"

Washu gives her trademark evil laugh and then turns to the console where she picks up a brownish clear bottle and gives it to Ayeka, "Here, it's medicine, without this, you'll probably die. Juraians have a short history with the flu compared to human, so—take it."

---

"That Washu!" Ayeka was getting a headache. It was becoming more difficult to walk, and now she had to go down the stairs. "Ugh!" She lost her balance momentarily; thankfully, she managed to support herself on the wooden rail. Unfortunately, the rail snapped slightly and made quite loud noise.

"I have to be more care, and not wake up anyone." Especially, Sasami, sure she's an early bird, but she has a tendency to be a little grumpy if her circadian clock is disturbed even slightly. Predictability: "Ayeka! Why you'd wake me up!" and "I need my baby rest!"

Mid-stairs she stopped. A smile grew on her face, a tad blush, "but you're not a baby anymore, you're a young lady, Sasami." She said to herself.

Ayeka sometimes felt like—well, like a mother, the pain of it, and, admittedly, the fulfillment of the experience. If there was one chore she didn't mind doing, no matter how tedious, was making sure her little sister was okay. Even if she didn't like showing it.

"Ayeka, my mouth's dry! I need water."

"Ayeka, can we go see the carnival?"

"Ayeka, I fell. It hurts!"

"Ayeka! Please stop mommy and daddy from fighting!"

"Ayeka! Ayeka! Help! I think I started a fire in the kitchen!"

"Ayeka! Ayeka! Ayeka!"

She sighed, "You know, sometimes, I don't know if I'm ready for Sasami to grow up." She closed her eyes. Hopefully, maturity will not corrupt her sister as did—well, that's not important. No, Sasami is Sasami; she will always be who she is.

"Will she?"

"Huh?" She opened her eyes and looked around; she didn't notice it until now but it was dreadfully dark. She could not see the top of the stairs or the bottom; she repressed her thoughts of things that bump in the night but…

"Will she be, who she is?"

Was her mind playing tricks? She could have sworn she heard someone speaking.

"Ryoko? Are you down there?" She whispered. No one answered but the still of the night.

She quickly went down the rest of the steps and to the nearest light source. In the rush of thing she stumbled on an object and face-plated on the wooden floor.

"Aw!" Her head as throbbing from the pain, "I should be more careful." She sighed, "If only I had some light!"

And wouldn't you know it! The lights in the kitchen turned on!

"Wa-washu? Ryoko? Everyone there?" She got up from the floor in the living room and headed towards the kitchen. There was nothing to be scared of—right? Washu has this place secure. Isn't that what she said?

A small shrivel ran down her spine has she saw no one in the kitchen. "Creepy, but who could have turned the lights on?"

"A ghost?"

"Nah, I don't believe in such childish…" She froze solid in her spot. This time she was definite she heard someone—something inside the house.

She turned around and stared into the darkened living room. "W-who there! I'm not afraid of you!" No one responded, she was completely alone in her situation. "Is my mind playing tricks?"

She listened carefully for a few seconds but there was no significant noise to suggest anyone was downstairs.

"I'm going insane, aren't I." She sighted again, mornings just weren't her 'thing'.

After a few moments, she regained her composure; this was not the way a princess should behave. Then again, out of the one-hundred something governments on Earth, none she could claim any position. She was a princess without a kingdom, no, not here at least.

She looked at her surrounds again and after a second of scanning the area she homed in on the refrigerator. "Well, since I'm in the kitchen, I better see what we need for today's big celebration."

It was Sasami's 13th birthday! Add 700, though, can you really count the time she was in space inactive? Besides, she thought to herself jokily, where is she going to find all the flour she'll need to make a cake big enough to fit seven-hundred and thirteen candles?

"We're going to need some butter and eggs." According to Juraian tradition, at age thirteen a girl turns into a woman. Ayeka didn't have any trouble with the concept; it was just that Sasami was still her baby sister. Then again…

---

A Month Ago

It was early in the day, five past six; the earliest Ayeka has ever woken up after some serious partying (mass consumption of sake). And the first blurry thing she saw was that of her sister next to her futon.

"Wow, you're awake, I thought I was going to have to wait another hour." Sasami said as she repositioned herself next to her sister.

"Sasami, what is it? Your sister has a bit of a headache right now and..."

"Oh, Ayeka!" She clasped her hands.

"Huh? Oh my, what is it my Sasami?" Ayeka lifted herself carefully up to avoid increasing the strength of the headache.

"Well…" Sasami's face got beet red, "Um, I—I'm…"

"Sasami, what's wrong." Ayeka seriously tried to pay attention but that feeling of throwing up was coming. "Your big sister is here; please tell what it the matter?"

"I'm…" She leaned towards her sister and whispered, "I'm bleeding."

Ayeka forced her eyes towards Sasami; that feeling of sickness had just about passed.

"Better get that treated," She viewed her sister more carefully and grabbed one of her sister's arms and examined it, "Where you'd cut yourself?"

A sweat drop formed in the back of Sasami's head, "Are you serious?"

"Of course, I'm serious…" She drunkenly stared at her sister for a few seconds when it hit, "Oh, my! You don't mean to say!"

"Say what?"

"You're bleeding!"

"That's what I just said!"

---

"She's blossoming but I hope our bond won't wither." She shook off the thought, "I'll go shopping after I take a bath."

---

Outside the Onsen

Through the trees, under the shrub, half-submerged in mud and organic material there lay a ghost, a phantom of the moment, only there specifically as fate desired.

While they say the mountains are inhabited by demons, monsters who hunger for the flesh of their next feast; there are bigger threats that consume more than what is there. Devouring their prey from a distance. Feasting on the reflected radiance of its prey onto which holds truth. As long as the integrity is genuine, the fill is plenty. For even the smallest nibble, there is enough to sustain and grow.

And what better subsistence is as expansive as truth? Truth is all-consuming; every morsel it slobbers down, every slice of delicate insight fattens it and makes it more savory to the hunter which he himself needs to feed. Nourishing not only soul but the mind, and naturally, the body will as the mind commands.

No, there is no other such substance so rich and fulfilling. And yet, how easily spoiled it becomes! Soured by vice, discolored by improper handling, ruined by cross contamination—even while preserving the article one must be quite careful not too over salt it and dehydrate the substance into jerky, while it has its delights, loses a degree of favor.

To truly have a decent meal, the hunter must carefully select the best parts. And that involves a lot of waiting, but at last, the hunter need not wait another minute, here comes breakfast!

---

Ayeka walked down the path to the onsen which hovered over that lake. It was dark, but Washu had installed luminescent devices on the sides of the path, they were not very bright and did not light up the area very well but after last month's energy bill, they could live with this.

It takes a while to reach the onsen, which presented a problem. So much time alone in the dark can work up the mind. Ayeka began to notice the movements in the forest on the sides of the path. Every now and then, she could hear the faint noise of nocturnal animals as they traverse the land just meters away.

"They won't harm me." Or would they? Who knows? There could be wild and hungry wolves, big and furry bears, or even colossal and slimy hecklegawables! The list is expansive and just as frightening.

"Oh, my." She increased her pace.

---

"Hmm, getting a little scared there princess?" It's quite amusing to see such a prominent person of such power to be so afraid of little more than her own mental interpretations of environmental stimuli. How can these beings be so spooked over things that simply aren't there? Stupid life forms. Truly, a species well deserving of extinction. Too long have these carbon-life forms evolved, and yet more remains for such a pathetic species. When will they force themselves to adapt, instead of trying to control their environment? If never, they truly will be no more then animals.

The "ghost" adjusted his scope on his rifle-like device. He took steady aim and tracked his target.

"Come into view. Little closer." She was only meters away, "A little more." Through the scope he could visibly see her face; he could clearly see her wide-opened eyes and their ruby hue. "Crimson." The ghost focused in on her eyes, whose objects of unique color and grain. Even in the darkness he could see the pattern of the irises' with his superb vision, rays of amber, bourbon, rose, cherry, burgundy spread circularly from her pupils as if they were twin suns very close to setting on the horizon. Yes, very so, copper splinters exiguously imbedded in the irises reflected the low transmittance of the rifle scope sensor so as to cause slightly visible halos around the irises, imitating the appearance of close-by stars on the night-vision scope.

"Those eyes," the ghost peered calmly through the scope, "those eyes, come to me."

Finally, when she was within range, he tensed himself and put his finger to the trigger. "Princess, it's time."

A shot echoed through the forest valley.

---

Small vibrations. An echo of floating particles shaking violently electrified the—space around. Up and down her exposed skin she felt the increased charge of the atoms. Seeping through her appendages—slowly channeling the energetic, animated molecules deeper through her veins. Farther, farther the vibrations reach inside, inundating every fiber of her body with its soothing, manifesting warmth.

Slowly it spread, till every inch of her existence was infected with it. So evenly accommodated the fire within her that she felt so melted, dissolved into a liquefied mass of truly—nothing. A mist, maybe, flowing through the void that has become her reality. So spaced, so quiet, so completely lost in a sea of nothing. Nothing.

What has happened? Why? Why—is everything—nothing? Is this it? Is this the end? Is this what death feels like? Nothing? After everything—nothing?

"I feel as though am fading. As though my mind is disintegrating. Feel—am no longer an entity."

"Goodbye."

"No! What can't be! Who's to say what death really is? This is no purgatory! Am I alive!"

"And you are."

Particles crashing, colliding in a harmony of fluctuating, pulsing rhythmic ripples ripped through her numb mind. Perceiving, what she made out, a soft whisper in the void. Of someone else, in the desolate expanse.

"And you are, Ayeka, you are."

To respond? How to respond? She was diluted beyond stable organs.

"You will find, Ayeka, someone, who—even with such a degree of difference, so similar in position and destiny like yourself as to be so completely opposite to you."

Numb. In such a deserted state, void of light, void of everything. She felt nothing. Nothing but that voice, a voice of a gentle, and young soul.

"Corrupt you he may, corrupt you he may not. Life isn't about good and evil."

Particles clashingat a greater pace, in tunedwith the waves of sound, the sound of that voice.

"Ayeka!"

The voice vibrated through her, bring with it energy—and with energy matter. The sharper the vibration the more she felt, and more she became.

"Ayeka!"

She felt, she became, she was again.

Ayeka awoke to find herself bathed and prepped and confused.
0.6.5
Note: Version 0.6.5 up obviously. Yeah, I know, it's been months since I have updated and I know that I haven't been able to come up with a new canto (chapter). But well, enjoy 0.6.5; the completed version will arrive when I feel like it.

Next Update will be 0.9.5, yes that means it's almost done, just the "bath" scene is left.