'K, I'll admit it; this whole five review thing was pretty dumb… . I'm giving that policy the boot, and I'll just update every couple of days or so. XD

Anyway, I wanted to thank all of the lovely, lovely reviews I've gotten! You all frequently make my day. -

My unofficial disclaimer: Sorry in advance for any OOC-ness, liberties taken with the original plot, and/or contrivance/clichés. Also, I'm sorry if the particular pairing in here isn't your cup of tea. This is where things start to heat up, so I'm pretty darn sure at least one person is gonna cry, "Gah, Out-of-Character-ness, Out-of-Character-ness!"

-Sweat drop-

Well, without further ado, I present to you: Chapter Three!

-3-

Hey now, I don't appreciate being spoken to like that! The great Juraian tree rebuked in a voice that sounded inexorably similar to a male version of Mihoshi by some cruel twist of fate. A look somewhere between disbelief and horror crossed Kiyone's face, and she fell back on her rear end in astonishment.

"Wh—what?" The terrified officer cried out frantically. "You're a tree! Trees don't talk!"

The seemingly oblivious tree ignored her comment and continued, Actually, I take that back. I appreciate anybody speaking to me at all!

Kiyone stood up, staggered towards the tree, and placed a hand on its bark to steady her wobbly legs. After taking a few deep breaths and muttering a mantra that sounded suspiciously like a rapid repetition of the words, "I'm not crazy," the hysterical police officer relaxed considerably. "This is probably just a hallucination induced by stress," she explained convincingly to herself.

Kiyone jumped back a few feet in shock as the tree spoke inside of her head once more, Um, are you all right? You seem…a little crazy, to put it bluntly…

"I am not crazy!" She screamed back at it, before amending, "I happen to have arguments with trees all the time, thank you very much!" For a second, she vaguely wondered if there was a sturdy axe or chainsaw in the near vicinity. After the vision of her standing victorious over the fallen tree while cackling maniacally passed from her mind, she asked with a slightly confused expression on her face, "Just out of curiosity, how am I talking to you?"

Well, I really don't know, to tell you the truth, the tree answered apologetically. Though you aren't the first, by any means. That old man used to come down to talk to me all the time, and that somewhat disturbing girl with the purple hair comes for a chat every once in a while.

Kiyone nodded to signify her understanding, and then she dimly wondered if the tree had eyes.

It really is great to talk to someone new, you know, the tree continued conversationally. It does get rather lonely out here…all by myself…with no one else to talk to.

The now apprehensive policewoman began to back away slowly while muttering, "I bet, you freakin' psycho tree." She cried out in shock as someone tapped her on the shoulder, and nearly blew Tenchi's head off with her gun as she rounded on him with a terrified expression.

Tenchi stumbled back in shock and nearly fell into the pond before catching his balance by waving his arms around frantically. The hapless boy let out a relieved sigh and remarked, "Wow, for a second there, I thought I was going to end up headless and drenched."

"Tenchi," Kiyone stammered while holstering her weapon, "I, I'm really sorry about that!"

He waved her off and replied, "Nah, don't worry about it. I was just coming out here to get some peace and quiet. Who were you talking to, by the way?"

"Ah, nobody, nobody at all!" Kiyone giggled nervously while struggling to not stare at the tree behind her.

Tenchi nodded, and asked in an effort to break the silence that had quickly descended upon them, "Hey, why have you been coming to this old tree so much recently?"

"Well," the policewoman began while pointedly glaring up at the tree, "it used to relax me." Tenchi blinked in bewilderment as the normally composed woman lowered one of her eyelids with a finger and stuck her tongue out at the tree.

Another awkward silence fell upon them after that, and the teal-haired woman tried to start a conversation by teasing, "Peace and quiet, eh? Don't you mean an escape from the two ticking time bombs—aptly named Ayeka and Ryoko—that have the tendency to explode whenever you're in their vicinity?"

Tenchi sighed and looked away, and Kiyone realized she had said the wrong thing. She quickly apologized, "Oh, Tenchi, I'm sorry. I know it has to drive you nuts." Kiyone shook her head, angry with herself for her tactlessness. She looked away also and remarked softly, "And here I am always dumping my problems on you."

"That's not true!" Tenchi responded quickly. "I want to help you in any way possible! It's just my whole situation is so…" At a loss for words, he threw his arms up in the air and sighed in frustration.

"C'mon," Kiyone persuaded as she sat down and patted the ground next to her, "it's your turn to vent." She gave him an encouraging smile, and he flopped down next to her resignedly.

"Well," he began wearily, "you wouldn't believe how much time I've spent juggling back and forth between the two of them. I've kept them waiting for so long…and I've been trying to force myself to come to a decision."

Tenchi paused for a moment and looked at Kiyone, who gave him a sympathetic smile; a smile that also held a bit of sadness and nervousness within it. He blinked in confusion at this before sighing and pressing on, "And after all this time…I, well, I…I don't think I love either of them." The woman next to him gasped at this, and he stopped for a moment before continuing doggedly, "I know, I know; I'm being horribly selfish! It's just that I—yes, I know this sounds nuts—don't think Ayeka or Ryoko love me either. I feel like I'm more of a…I don't know, more of a prize to be won in that crazy game of theirs."

"I'm so sorry you feel that way," Kiyone interjected compassionately. She placed a hand on his shoulder sympathetically and was slightly surprised when he grabbed it with his own hand.

Well, here goes nothing, Tenchi thought grimly to himself. He turned to face her completely, and began with a determined air, "I think I'd prefer to be with someone who was much more reliable and dependable, quite honestly. Someone who wouldn't fly off the handle with the drop of a pen." Kiyone nodded slowly, slightly confused and almost hopeful at his firmness. "Kiyone, I think I'd like to be with someone like—"

The aggravating sound of Kiyone's Galaxy Police signal watch blared to life rudely, completely throwing them both off guard and effectively interrupting Tenchi.

"Oh, crap! Sorry, Tenchi, but it looks like we're gonna have to cut our conversation short," Kiyone apologized lightly while crying like a little girl on the inside, "but we can continue this later, 'k?" Tenchi numbly nodded and dropped his head in exasperation as Kiyone stood up abruptly.

Without another word, they quickly made their way back to the house, and the teal-haired woman began to call out for Mihoshi with growing irritation. "Damn it, where the hell is Mihoshi?" Tenchi waved his hands as if trying to put out a growing flame that was burning beneath Kiyone, and beads of sweat appeared on his head while he thought, So much for not flying off the handle...

The policewoman was about to begin another round of screaming when the door to the lab swung open suddenly. An infuriated Washu stomped out and came to a halt in front of Kiyone, who suddenly felt apprehension bubble up inside of her.

Both of the pint-sized professor's arms were crossed behind her back, and her foot was tapping rapidly while a vein throbbed on her temple. "Kiyone," she forced out with excruciating slowness through gritted teeth, "I think I've made it painfully obvious that I want your partner to stay out of my lab." Without further ado, Washu whipped one of her hands from behind her back, revealing a miniscule Mihoshi that she held by the collar of her shirt with her pointer finger and thumb.

"Hi, Kiyone!" The pipsqueak blonde called out in a high-pitched voice while she giggled nervously and scratched the back of her head. She couldn't have been more than six-inches tall.

Immediately, Tenchi and Kiyone felt their lower jaws fall to the floor, but the incensed officer recovered quickly. "Mihoshi," she growled dangerously. Kiyone began to clench and unclench her fists slowly as fleeting visions of crushing the idiotic blonde with her bare hands crossed through her mind. The now-terrified Mihoshi began to hug Washu's finger fiercely as she began to wail.

Kiyone quickly amended her mumbling mantra from something that sounded oddly like, "It would be so easy, so very easy," to "Think of your career, think of your career." After practicing a few breathing exercises, she promptly turned on her heel and began to walk out the door, calling after her with surprising calmness, "Alright, I'm gonna have to answer the call we got on my own. If it's not too much of an inconvenience, could you please fix Mihoshi, Washu?"

The beleaguered scientist turned on her heel as well and stamped back to her lab while muttering dark and unintelligible things. She held the suddenly chipper Mihoshi in the palm of her hand, and it seemed like her fingers shook and tightened a little, as if she contemplated squishing the nuisance who managed to stumble through all of security measures protecting her lab from the outside world. After all, Washu thought vehemently, it would save me a whole lot of cleaning up…

Tenchi frantically looked back and forth from Kiyone and Washu, who had both left him standing there. He sighed with exasperation and mumbled, "Women." After a moment, he ran outside after the quickly retreating Kiyone. "Hey, wait a minute!" He called while raising an arm after her. "Why don't I just come along with you, huh?"

Kiyone stopped in her tracks and turned to stare at Tenchi with a confused expression. "Why would you want to do that, Tenchi? It'll be really boring," she replied before adding with an irritated sigh, "Probably just another busted reactor or something stupid like that."

"Well I, uh, would really like to go," he stumbled lamely while poking his two pointer fingers together. "Uh, please?"

Kiyone scratched her cheek and looked at him as a mix of hope, bewilderment, and fear crossed her features before replying, "But it's against protocol…" However, she had the tremendously bad luck to get Tenchi's rarely used kicked-puppy face, and her resolve faltered as a sweat drop grew on her forehead.

"Please?" The secretly scheming boy implored pathetically while his puppy dog eyes were trained on Kiyone with maximum force.

——————

Later on, after Kiyone's prediction of being forced to fix a busted reactor came to pass, the exhausted police officer sprawled out on one of the seats in the Yagami's bridge. Her half-lidded eyes stared absentmindedly at the vast space spread out before them, and then she glanced over at Tenchi, who was twiddling his thumbs anxiously. What the heck is his problem? She thought dimly, but the thought quickly passed from her mind as dreams of warm baths and drowning Mihoshi took its place.

"Good, it shouldn't take us too much longer to get back," Kiyone muttered contentedly. She then stood up and began to head for the door while remarking without turning, "Excuse me for a sec, Tenchi. I just have to get out of these nasty clothes." Then she added as an afterthought while standing in the doorframe, "Though I s'pose it wouldn't be a complete day for me if I didn't end up drenched in oil or some other putrid substance. Surprisingly, it wasn't Mihoshi who spilled something on me for once! What a shocker." She laughed humorlessly while shaking her head before stopping as the door behind her slid back open.

Kiyone turned to see a grim-faced Tenchi with a determined look in his eyes. She blinked with bewilderment and began to say, "Tenchi, what are you—?" However, her question was effectively interrupted as the young man wrapped his arms around her and firmly kissed her on the lips. The teal-haired woman was caught completely off-guard, and her arms flailed wildly in surprise.

"Tenchi!" She cried out in astonishment while gasping for breath once they had parted. "W—what was that for?"

He efficiently interrupted her once more when he gently placed a finger on her lips to quiet her. "Kiyone," he murmured softly while staring intently in her eyes, "you're compassionate, intelligent, and beautiful. These past couple of months, as I came to the realization that I didn't love either Ayeka or Ryoko, my feelings for you grew. I'm sorry if this seems so sudden."

Tenchi stopped and began to search her face while waiting for a reply. "B, but, Tenchi," Kiyone stuttered, aghast. He grimaced and looked away, internally bashing himself over the head with the Common Sense stick for his forwardness and stupidity.

Kiyone turned his head with her hands and stammered as her cheeks grew increasingly pinker, "It's uh…It's not like I, um…don't uh…feel the same way." Realizing how amazingly unintelligible she sounded, she took a deep breath and began anew, "Look, Tenchi; you don't want to be with someone like me! I mean, c'mon, I've buried my emotions for thirteen flipping years under mountains of pointless responsibilities, pretending that it was perfectly normal to just have a work life and no, uh …love life." She finished lamely as embarrassment welled up inside of her.

Kiyone noticed that she still had Tenchi's face in her hands and quickly withdrew them while turning away. She began to scratch her cheek fretfully and continued, "Besides, I'm like five years older than you, and I'm constantly leaving for space without any warning when I get a call!" Then she added as an afterthought, "Plus, I'm not suicidal…"

Tenchi, who had been silent for all of Kiyone's rambling, copied her and turned her head with his hands. "Look, how about I save us a lot of time and trouble by saying that I don't care about any of those things, any of them." He stared into her hopeful eyes and pressed on, "And we could uh…keep it low-key for a while, y'know? Trust me, unlike what popular opinion may suggest, I am definitely no debonair suitor. I'm new to this all too." He flushed and grinned embarrassingly at his confession.

"But, I don't think I could really hold up against the competition, y'know what I mean?" Kiyone said with a shudder as images of a cackling Ayeka and Ryoko standing triumphantly over her grave came to mind.

Tenchi frowned as similar thoughts passed through his head and replied, "Well, I know it's utterly ridiculous how I've been stringing them along for so long now, and it's just about time that I admit that the feeling isn't mutual with either of them. Look, how 'bout I break the news by the end of the week? And until then, we can just be really discreet about it…" Beads of sweat appeared on his head and he asked, "Does that make me sound like a complete coward?"

Kiyone shook her head quickly in response, and a relieved grin broke out on her face. "Not at all," she murmured before placing the light kiss on his lips that she had been dreaming of for so long.

——————

"Where have you two been?" Ryoko growled suspiciously as she floated towards Kiyone and Tenchi, who had just entered the house.

Sasami looked up from the couch where everybody was sitting and piped in, "Yeah, you both missed dinner!" As an afterthought, she muttered indignantly under her breath, "And a pretty darn good one too, if I say so myself…"

Mihoshi, who had thankfully been returned to her proper height, exclaimed, "Kiyone, I've missed you!" The blonde jumped up from the couch and proceeded to squeeze the life out of Kiyone once more. At least she doesn't have a second head or anything, Kiyone mused resignedly. One incessantly chattering head is bad enough…

"Yes, what have you been up to, Tenchi?" Ayeka questioned while struggling to keep her demure composure and not throttle Ryoko, who had latched on to Tenchi's back and was nuzzling her head against his shoulder.

Tenchi flushed and began to laugh nervously. He placed a hand behind his head and stammered, "Well, Yagami…and uh, busted reactor…and, y'know. This and that…"

Smooth, Tenchi, Kiyone thought while rolling her eyes. That was very smooth. Then she too began to giggle uneasily as multiple sets of eyes rested on her, including two sets that seemed to be contemplating various methods of torture.