Coincidence/Fate

The room was so silent that one could hear a pin drop just inches from the ground. The energy within the room changed subtly, as all the ladies and Tenchi found themselves wondering just who was knocking on the door. Did this person know they were in there? Were they being watched? No one was quite sure, so quiet was how they remained.

The silence stretched for what seemed like hours when the creak of the sliding front door invaded their ears. Ayeka, Ryoko, and Kiyone all jumped to different areas of the room assuming defensive postures, Kiyone with her gun trained, Ayeka with her force field (which also engulfed Sasami), and Ryoko with an energy blade. They all listened as the steps of the intruder neared the living room.

"Grandfather?" Tenchi said softly, prompting all the women to relax ever so slightly. Clearly, Tenchi knew this man and-as he came further into the room and became engulfed in the sunlight they all were bathed in-the women confirmed that it was an older gentleman who was approaching them. He moved quietly and calmly, with no hint of malice about him.

Washu raised her eyebrows slightly, thinking to herself, 'this is a man of great power.'

Katsuhito Masaki stopped and quietly surveyed the room. Slowly, his eye roved and lingered upon each face in the room while the silence stretched on like an endless shadow.

After what seemed like an eternity, Katsuhito spoke, saying, "I see that my senses have not failed me in my old age. Indeed, we have been visited by outsiders, and not just any outsiders. Two Juraians, two Galaxy Police officers, one demon, and one famous mad scientist."

Everyone in the room stayed silent in their shocked and waited for Katsuhito to continue. Katsuhito, for his part, took his dear sweet time addressing the room. After all, when one was as old as he, time could seem to move far too quickly. It was always a good thing to let things settle and move at a more leisurely pace, occasionally.

"As evidence by your silence, I am sure you are shocked by my knowledge of your identity," Katsuhito said in a quiet voice, "but, please be sure that I come to bring no harm to any of you."

"Tenchi," said the elder Masaki, "There is...much to explain to you. There is much more to the old Masaki Shrine legends than even Ryoko here. I only wish I had been able to tell you before we were visited by our...relatives." Here he nodded deferentially to Ayeka and Sasami, whose eyes widened in wonder. Was this man a Juraian? That made no sense, he looked so old and Juraians never looked that old. What had happened to him that made him lose his useful appearance?

Katsuhito continued, "I am going to ask what you are all doing here soon, but I want to clear up some things first. The Masaki family has a second surname, one that we shed long ago in an effort to blend into our earthly surroundings. That name is: Jurai. The surname given to all members of the Jurai royal family."

"Tenchi, we are descended from royalty, and these two girls are our distant cousins. All the families have two names, this was done to help the line of succession stay clear. Certain branch families, like the Masai or Katar, were not permitted to be rulers of the empire. Knowledge of that surname prevented usurpers from taking the thrown easily. If an emperor or empress seemed suspect, a simple search in the family tree would clear up any questions in that regard."

"We Masaki are one of the families that were in the line of succession and that is why-" Katsuhito stopped speaking as Tenchi made an inarticulate noise of rage and confusion.

"Grandpa! When were planning on telling me all of this?! Royalty!? Space empires!? I'm just a regular earthling, what has any of this to do with me," Tenchi practically shouted. "When was it on your daily agenda to inform me of our blood heritage? I'm not even human!"

"Tench! Sit down and shut up," Katsuhito yelled over his grandson. "That will all be explained in time. What I need right now is for you to listen."

Tenchi reluctantly obeyed, sitting right on the spot in the living room fuming. In truth, he was not angry at the revelation, he had long ago realized that perhaps there was more to him than even his own eye appraised. He was, after all, the Masaki who broke the chain of senseless violence on Ryoko. He was made of stuff that had not been heard of in his family.

However, this did not excuse his grandfather, because this was the second instance of his springing a surprise about their family heritage to him, and he had a suspicion that this particular bit of information was not likely to have been told were it not for these strange (now alien) women appearing on Earth. Tenchi could not say why he had that feeling, but he had always trusted his intuition. This was not over and he would pry the truth out of his grandfather, if he had to.

Taking a deep breath, Katsuhito continued his explanation, "It's true that the Masaki Jurai were in one of the two families allowed to take the throne (a thing determined by who had the eldest son at the time), but that did not last very long."

"The status quo changed when the Masaki were, in our opinion, cheated out of the throne several times, prompting a coup by our ancestors," Tenchi's grandfather continued, "Well, an attempted coup. They were not successful and driven from the planet. They wanted space through a few generations before stumbling upon Earth. You see, the original Juraian ships, while powerful in their offensive capabilities, were not yet equipped with faster than light technology. The trek had to take generations."

He went on, "In any case, we decided to stay on Earth, occasionally taking human wives and keeping the traditions of Jurai, in a modified way. Ryoko only came into the picture after the Masaki Jurai, now just the Masaki, came to Earth."

"She appeared suddenly, with glowing eyes and unparalleled power. Only Juraians would have been able to stop her conquering this world, which they did. How our...disgusting...practice of using Ryoko for sport and tests of manhood came about, I don't know. That gives me no excuse for continuing it, but I am thankful that someone in our lineage did have the courage to end it. Ryoko, I hope that you can forgive me and forgive our family for what we have done to you."

Ryoko's eye glistened slightly as she turned to look at Tenchi. She was still so very grateful for what he had done. Internally, she felt the pang of anger and despair that she had carried for so many years in that cave. She had been able to push the memories from her mind in her waking hours, though they often came unbidden in her sleep. Now, however, the memories of her countless defeats flooded her mind's eye. She closed her eyes in pain and let the old man continue his story.

"So, we are both relatives and refugees to you two nobles of Jurai. We are of Royal blood. I can only tell who you are by the energy you give off. When Masaki's come of age, they are usually taught to sense energy, an ability they could already do subconsciously. In fact, it usually remains subconscious, even after training, because the Jurai almost never come to our world."

"Tenchi, you are human, but only in part. The rest of you is Juraian," Katsuhito further explained, "As Masaki grow older, increasingly of the world we once belonged to is revealed, thus I know of the Galaxy Police and Miss Washu here. Though, I thought that you had been imprisoned for creating weapons of mass destruction."

The question hung in the air as Washu responded cheerily, "Why, yes! That is the case, but I escaped after 20 year and have been on the run ever since. I had a mission, you see."

There seemed to be some sort of hidden implication in her response, but Katsuhito chose not to pursue it, at the moment.

"Now, Tenchi, to answer your other concerns: I have struggled for a while on whether or not to continue the passing down of the Juraian traditions through you. I had enough trouble just dealing with the darker aspects of our Masaki lineage. That we were royalty seemed of little consequence. I'm not sure if I ever would have brought it up. Now, I regret that I did not bring it up sooner. I'm sure it is a lot to take."

Tenchi said nothing, but his anger was abated somewhat. He was a naturally empathetic person and saw that he would not know what to do as the head of the family either. There seemed to be so much to it. His heated demeanor changed to reflect his new perspective.

There was another long pause that was then broken by Katsuhito clapping his hands together once and saying, "Now, ladies, I have to know why you are here. Something must be up. I want to help any way that I can."

After another pause, Kiyone spoke for the first time, "Well, that was quite informative. GP had no idea that there were any Juraians in this sector of space. This makes matters of jurisdiction a bit more difficult, but you must be told the truth."

"These two," Kiyone continued while point directly at Ayeka and Sasami, "These two women are wanted for aiding in the slaughter of the nearly the entire Jurai royal family. The GP is working with the new emperor to subdue them and their accomplices."

Ayeka, bristling with indignation, shouted "we did no such thing. WE are the victims here. You would know that if you knew anything about your job. We just lost our entire family and your accusations are baseless. Have you no brains nor compassion?!"

Sasami grabbed her elder sister's arm quietly and Ayeka, surprised, reigned her anger in. In a soft voice Sasami said, "Officer, I ask that you please, at least, reserve judgement on us until you have all of the facts. This is hard enough without being accused of a bloody coup we had no part in."

The sincerity of Sasami's request stopped Kiyone cold. It was so plaintive, so pure. Kiyone had trouble holding on to her suspicions. After all, why had these two "cold blooded killers" murdered these two officers. They have a great opportunity to do so many times since the crash."

That, thought Kiyone, is not the behavior of most criminals. At the very least, she mused, they would have made a break for it by now. They seem to be worn down and beaten. Could the younger princess be telling the truth?

Normally quite stubborn, once fixated on a case, Kiyone actually decided to back down for once. "You know what, princess? I think I will do just that. There have been issues within the Galaxy Police, and I do not wish to commit an injustice towards possible innocents. You are innocent until proven guilty."

Mihoshi watched the entire exchange silently, and she now smiled inwardly. For a while now, actually since they got the case, she was suspicious of the order to hunt down these beautiful princesses. Everything she had heard about the pair previously, being a Kurimitsu and privy to such information, did not jibe well with the image she was presented with by her superiors unless the girls had went insane, and that seemed doubtful by her current observations. Mihoshi made a mental note to let Kiyone now how she had been feeling and her agreement with the choice that Kiyone had just made.

Shortly thereafter, every eye in the place turned toward Washu and Ryoko. The latter squirmed slightly under the sudden scrutiny while Washu seemed to revel in it. With a cocky glint in her eye Washu said, "I've already revealed that I'm an escaped prisoner, and I would advise my two officers of the law here that trying to take me back into custody would be foolish. Furthermore, the statute of limitations should be kicking in shortly, that makes me a free woman essentially."

Having diverted all attention to herself she continued saying, "I was wrongfully accused anyhow, by whom I am still trying to find out. Either way, I'm only here because my search for (she nods toward Ryoko) lead me here. I am starting to think that this was more than a chance occurrence. I'm looking forward to seeing things unfold."

Katsuhito took all of this in and nodded to himself. "There seems to be only one expedient, we need to get to Jurai and quickly."

The Best Laid Plans

Back on Jurai, Kagato paced in the royal study. Back and forth he went, contemplating what he had just been sent by the Galaxy Police. His long white hair flowed behind him, whipping to and fro.

His agitation was clear to his second in command, Yugi, a short blonde Juraian with an air of superiority that was easily backed up by her incredible power. She could conjure creatures of all shapes and sizes that were subject to her every whim. She was not terribly old, by Juraian standards, and enjoyed thinking of her creatures as her play things. Indeed, Yugi had remained a kid of sorts by will, purposely slowing the maturing of her body. What else she was capable of was unclear, but just those abilities alone made Kagato consider her invaluable.

"Kagato, stopped your pacing. The coup went exactly as planned and our mole in the Galaxy Police planted the proper trail. They also intercepted the video that was taken of officers Mihoshi and Kiyone's crash landing on Earth. They haven't sent any probes yet, but it isn't likely they survived. Why are you so worried?" Yugi said in her silky voice.

Kagato stopped pacing long enough to give Yugi a meaningful glare as he said, "I am not worried, but I am concerned. We do not know for sure if the princesses perished, nor the state of those two officers. Who knows what could happen if they do survive. A coup is not successful until the ruler has been on longer than a few months. All possible threats must be squashed. Then, and only then, can I be content not to worry."

Yugi smiled one of her coy smiles and said in a pacifying voice, "Alright, alright. Shall I take a ship and small crew out to check for you?" Her eyes glistened with the question and she bit her lip slightly in anticipation of a possible fight. How she loved to fight, especially her fellow Juraians, who perceived her as a freak of nature.

Yugi never knew her parents, she did not even know if she had parents per se. She just knew her powers were unusual for a Juraian and had gotten her banished. Yugi spent many years imprisoned in a stasis chamber that the Jurai royal family shot off into space. How she hated that place, how she hated the dark. It was so dark and cold.

Kagato regarded her for a moment, and she unconsciously sucked in her breath. Kagato approached her and rested one hand on her shoulder. "No, Yugi. I do not want that just yet. However, you should contact the bounty hunter Nagi; I have a hunch that she will greatly enjoy the chase, if my hunch is correct."