Little Lord Tenchi...
Author: Daferge
The characters in this story and the events of all the Tenchi Muyo shows are property of AIC and Pioneer. I have neither created them, nor do I own them.
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Chapter - 02... Home coming...
( Jurai Manor... )
A large, enclosed black carriage pulled up to the front door of the huge manor house...
A small crowd was standing out side the open doors, waiting to get a look at the new young 'lord'...
As the coachman was getting down, the door facing the crowd opened and a young boy hopped down to the ground...
He had refused to wear the fancy wear that had been among his new wardrobe...
For back in Boston what he was wearing was still 'fancy', but a lot more comfortable...
Before any one could react, he bent down and unrolled the carriage's steps as he'd seen the coachman do when they were picked up at the train station...
A figure towards the front of the coach caught his eye and the coachman, a female, stood there smiling at him...
The boy smiled back and shrugged his shoulders...
He had been sitting for forever, first from London on the train and then from the station in the carriage...
The chance to do some thing was just too much...
Every thing that his mother had taught him, when he was younger, told him it was the right thing to do, so he did it...
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Standing back up, he faced the open door and held out his hand...
A gloved hand reached out and took his...
A dark haired young female appeared, she too had chosen more conservative travelling wear...
The boy helped her down the steps with great care...
As she stepped past him, she smiled, leaned over and gave him a small kiss on his cheek...
" humm... "
Having paused, he now looked up to find yet another dark haired female in the doorway...
This one was staring down at him, a slight frown on her face...
Sighing, he reached up, took her hand and with great care helped her down also...
She was too was wearing conservative travelling wear or a slightly different color...
As she stepped past him, she reached over and gave him a gentle tap on the top of his head with her index finger...
He managed to hide a small smile, she had hit him harder, quite often in the past...
Mostly to let him know she was upset with him, but some times just to remind him she was watching...
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The next person to appear was a tall male with just a touch of gray in his dark haired, a small pair of glasses resting on his nose...
In America he'd never worn his glasses in public, but HERE, it seem every one wore them...
His suit was similar to any that one would see on a street in London, on some upper class male...
He smile at the boy and helped himself down...
The boy looked behind him, into the carriage and as he started to say something, the older male spoke up...
" I believe we are keeping every one waiting... "
He gestured towards the crowd at the door...
The boy looked a bit confused, but turned towards the waiting crowd...
At which time the two females took up positions on both sides of him and each took an arm...
He wasn't sure if the two girls had done that to support him or to keep him from making a last minute run for it...
The boy sighed, well, any chance to run was gone now, all he could do was step forward, with the young ladies...
Well, onward and upward?...
Following just behind them, the older male adjusted his glasses and smiled...
And so it begins...
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( Nearby... )
Two sets of eyes had been observing the carriage's arrival from an upstairs window...
The two females were dressed quite differently...
While one was dressed in upper class female attire, the other was wearing male clothing and might almost be mistaken for one, but for her figure...
They watched as the young boy, the young lord, got out and set the steps himself...
Both raised an eyebrow at that...
The boyish looking female was the first to speak ...
" So that's the new young lord... Doesn't look like much... "
They continued to watch as he helped the two young females down from the carriage...
Now THIS was how an English male acted...
After a moment she spoke again...
" Wonder which is the sister and which is the cousin?... "
The girl with the longer hair thought for a moment...
" I'd say the 2nd is the sister... "
The 1st girl, with short hair turned to look at her...
" And why do you say that?... "
The other girl smiled...
" A lord, young or old is suppose to wait for the coachman or a servant to open the door, not do it himself... Not exactly giving a very good 1st impression... Thus the rap on the head... It is some thing an older sibling would do!... "
The other girl smiled...
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" But isn't he well mannered?... "
The two females turned to look at the younger girl at the other window...
She was wearing garb similar to the older, long hair's...
" It shows that he cares and isn't afraid to get his hands dirty... "
She smiled...
The other two turned to look at what was happening below...
" Remember... He's an American so he probably won't act like the average English male... Do give him a chance to adjust before you two begin to 'inspect' him... "
The two older girls looked at the younger one and smiled, there was never a question as to who was the smartest of the three...
The short haired girl looked at the others...
" I know why I'm not down there, but shouldn't you two be there?... "
The older girl answered...
" It was thought that they should be allowed time to get settled in before we appear... They're being introduced to the staff and then shown to their rooms, so they can relax after their trip up from London... The early morning train ride and then the long carriage ride from the station will take it out of you... By the time lunch is ready, so should they... "
The other girls nodded their heads and looked out the window again...
Below the young lord suddenly paused and seem to be looking up at the windows, almost right at them...
The two older girls stepped back from the window and then looked at each other, but the younger one just chuckled...
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( Out front... )
For some reason Tenchi had turned and glanced up at the windows on the second floor...
He thought he had seen some slight movement up there...
Perhaps it was others that were not with the official welcome group...
He smiled, at any rate it probably not some one who was planning on ambushing him, like had happen in Boston or Chicago...
His attention now returned to the female who was approaching them, down the stairs from the pair of large open doors...
She approached between the two rows of females lined up on both sides to greet them...
A little shorted than himself, there was some thing about her that suggested that he trust her...
Perhaps it was all that red hair...
He had once been warned about red headed females, they were said to be the wildest and most dangerous of all the females...
The few he had met tended to stand out because they were smarted than most if not ALL the males around them...
However, there was some thing about her, in her eyes and smile that caused him to trust her...
" Hello... I'm Washu Hakubi and I'm in charge of the household staff... If there's any thing you need feel free to ask... "
Moving closer to Tenchi, she smiled up and she seem to be able to look him right in the eye...
" I like you... You wanna be a guinea pig for my experiments? "
NOW he was starting to get nervous...
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( London... )
The butler opened the door and entered the library of the Earl's London town house...
" Me Lord... Mr. Manchester... "
Stepping aside he let the lawyer enter before leaving, closing the door quietly behind him...
His lordship was sitting behind a large desk studying some papers...
" Ahh... Manchester... And what do you have to report?... "
He gestured to the large padded chair over to one side...
Sitting, the lawyer took time to take a deep breath before speaking...
" As your lordship knows, the young lord and party left for the estate on the early train... Having spent their 1st night in England at the new Savoy hotel... "
He paused...
" It was a good thing that we went to the trouble of booking the suite a whole week ahead of time and then only for the night... It was something of a mad house down there when we arrived to check in... You would have thought the Queen's Diamond Jubilee is tomorrow, instead of two years from now... "
The Earl had to smile...
" You have to bear with them, it's not often that you get to celebrate such a rare jubilee... In the past they usually don't last that long... Her majesty has been like a mother to us all and so we wish to do this right... "
He paused for a moment...
" And besides being the very newest lodgings in London, it also happens to be the very best... And we did want to give the very best impression to our guest... "
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The lawyer nodded his head...
" Has there been any word from the estate?... "
The earl smiled...
" Mrs Hakubi contacted me just before you arrived... On that new 'telephone' device that she was so insistant I get connected to... The one that now has a new line running between London and Liverpool... "
The Earl paused for a moment...
" Had to call in a few favors for that... "
He smiled...
" But it has proved quite helpful with the estate... She is now able to contact me here in London and keep me updated, almost daily... She reports that the new young lord has arrived safely and is settling into his new environment... "
The earl smiled as the lawyer's eyebrow went up...
" That's her way of saying the young boy is getting use to living in the country after city life... All those years as a member of the Royal Science Academy has effected her vocabulary... Sort of like talking to Lord Granville of the Foreign Office... You know that he is speaking the Queen's English, but it still sounds like a foreign language... "
He chuckled...
" She's had little or no trouble communicating with the members of the staff when she first got there... And since reorganizing every thing, the estate has shown greatly improved, both in the staff and the tenant's work output... I understand that some of those tenants who moved away are now inquiring about returning to the estate... Especially some of the young who went to the cities to try and find work... "
The Earl's smile brightened...
" And all this while bringing up those two young daughters of hers... I understand she has even been able to find time to be down in that laboratory that she created in the old dungeon, to continue her research... "
Both men smiled...
The Earl sighed...
" Little wonder her Majesty dropped by for a visit on her way up to Scotland earlier this year... But the staff was able to handle it with very little disruption... "
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Mr. Manchester sighed...
" When word reached me of her visit I must admit I almost panicked... She has been know to deliver bad news personally at times... "
The Earl sighed...
" Yes... It was her Majesty who delivered the word about my oldest... She also arranged for his return later... "
The lawyer nodded his head, he'd been involved with the return of the body, which brought him back to the present...
" I understand that sharks are circling again?... "
The Earl nodded his head...
" As we thought... A secret know to more that one is not a secret long... It seems word of that coal field under that stone-age cave site that Mrs Hakubi's oldest daughter discovered on the estate last year, has gotten out... "
They both sighed...
" I can think of half a dozen lords licking their lips at the chance to gain access to that land and start strip mining it... "
The lawyer sighed...
" And I can name a dozen more who wouldn't give the idea of doing it over your dead body so much as a second thought... "
The Earl chuckled...
" I believe I could name some of them too... "
He paused for a moment to think and then began to smile...
" Perhaps it is time for us to ask for help from the local law... "
The lawyer's eyes widened...
" Tell me you're not planning on asking the Sheriff of Nottingham for help!... You do know who he will send?... "
The Earl just smiled...
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( Jurai Manor... )
While every one else was getting out of the carriage on one side, a dark figure let themselves out on the other side...
Minaho Masaki had her own reasons for entering the manor this way...
One reason was that her full name happen to be Minaho Masaki Jurai, the 1st daughter of Lord and lady Jurai and the young lord's aunt...
Some years before, at her sister's funeral, she and her mother had met the young lord's father...
Her father, the Earl had not cared for her marrying an American...
When their first born was a female, he refused to have any thing more to do with them and stopped communicating with her...
By the time the second child, a boy, came along he had even become estranged with his wife...
Her ladyship had disagreed with him, quite loudly and quietly continued to keep in touch...
They had exchanged condolences and after some thought her mother decided to introduced both of them to him...
It was then that she had suggested that Minaho join his family, as a nanny, to help him watch over the two children...
Until his wife's death in the recent blizzard in New York, he'd never known how much it took to handle a young boy, much less a young girl...
She quickly proved to be a god sent...
Especially when the young female cousin lost her parent and she joined the small family...
Of course, in turn she had kept her mother informed of how her grandchildren were doing...
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However, due to a serious childhood illness, she was unable to have a child of her own...
But some time before she had been married ...
When her husband turned out not to be not all he had appeared to be, he left her...
But not alone, for she had been taking care of his male child from a previous 'wife', now dead...
Minaho had then adopted the child and had been taking care of him...
That is until her mother asked her to go with her to America...
She had left the boy with family members, but kept in touch, even after she agreed to join the Masaki family...
She had been getting and sending letters weekly ever since...
At-least twice a year she managed to get away and visit him for a while, returning with one of those new picture images of them together...
As it was, a number of his female cousins tended to keep him from getting too lonely...
There hadn't been time to visit him while they were in London, but she just might be able to arrange for him to come out to the manor and stay with her...
It would depend on a number of things...
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" I like you... You wanna be a guinea pig for my experiments? "
She smiled, now there was a voice she hadn't heard in a while...
Washu Hakubi, presently in charge of the Juraian household staff and former member of the Royal Science Academy in London...
It seem that the members didn't like the idea of one of the members being 'preggy' ( with child ) and especially not a young female member...
A friend of her husband, Captain Kamidake Jurai, introduced her to his mothe,r who found her skills at organization just what she needed for their country estate...
And so she and her baby girls had became part of the Jurai family...
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Minaho knew that with her father in London with the main staff, only Washu would recognize her...
And she wasn't sure what she should to do next...
But, she was going to have to arrange to see her mother with as few people knowing as possible...
And she knew that she needed Washu's help for that...
She watched as Washu guided the young lord to meet the household staff, his sister and cousin each holding an arm...
No one else seem to notice her...
Except Tenchi's father, her brother-in-law...
Smiling, he gave her a slight nod of his head, the coast seem to be clear...
Minaho sighed and made her way to the old side entrance to the manor...
Once inside she should be able to find and get a chance to talk to Washu...
She'd played hide-and-seek in this manor since she was able to walk...
It was really good to be back...
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( London... )
The old dungeon was the perfect place for discussing dark deeds...
" 'e juss gut werd... De 'ung lurd hzz mod it... "
The figure sitting in the shadows expressed no emotion...
" So the young lord has made it to the family estate!... "
There was mumbling in the shadows...
" Kill 'm... "
The figure chuckled...
" This brat is an unknown, it took us months to manage the other heir's 'death'... "
More mumbling...
" The stakes are high... Too high to have people sniffing around... "
Silence...
" We shall wait and watch... "
A pause and silence...
" For now... "
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( Across town... )
" -you know who he's going to send?... "
But the Earl was smiling...
The Sheriff of Nottingham, was one Minami Kuramitsu, an old childhood friend of the Earl's...
One of the very few left these days...
And his newest officer and favorite aide was his granddaughter, one constable Mihoshi Kuramitsu...
Who had been helpful in solving a number of crimes in her short career...
When she was not helping out at the local tavern that her mother owned in Nottingham...
However, her was also known to have the very worst luck in all of England..
Where she went, disaster just seem to follow along behind her...
Only her cousin, Seina Yamada, seem to have worst luck...
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One day while fishing in a small row boat on the Thames river, he fell asleep and later awoke out in the middle of the English Channel...
A French fishing boat, that happen to be passing by, stopped to pick him up...
But shortly there after he was back in his boat and the crew of the french boat were in another small boat, watching their fishing boat sink...
A little while after that a German fishing boat also stopped to picked them up, but were soon also in a small boat too, as their boat sank...
Finally an English fisherman came along and asked what had happen...
A short while later the English fisherman pulled into Dover harbor, trailing the three smaller boats...
Seina's father, a minor lord of some means, who was well aware of his son's misfortune, made arrangements to replace the two fishing boats...
At the moment, Seina was up in Scotland, on the family estate - 'recovering'...
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To be continued...
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Please feel free to comment and review for any errors...
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