......................... goodbye and hello a tenchi muyo spamfic nikholas mayhem f. toledo ......................... Ayeka stood quietly in the center of the massive machine, her face calm through years of etiquette training, yet there was a hint of sadness in her eyes. "I'll ask you one last time, Ayeka..." Washuu said from the safety of her control room. "Are you sure you want to do this?" Ayeka sighed. How many times has she had to explain this? It had been so hard to break the news to Kiyone and even harder to Sasami. Washuu had only nodded, as if she had already known that this was going to happen. She had given up on trying to explain the situation to Mihoshi, although she did understand what was important: That she was leaving them... for good. "You know that this is the right thing to do..." Ayeka replied, as if trying to convince herself. "Out of all of us, I'm the one who's at the losing end if Tenchi decides to marry someone else..." She almost broke down at this point, but she bit back her tears and tried to smile. "This is the only way that I won't end up as an old maid. After all, it's very bad for the Royal family of Jurai to end up as an unwedded spinster." "Ayeka..." Sasami whimpered, "please don't leave us..." Ryo-Oki echoed her sentiments. "It's time..." Washuu whispered, and Ayeka closed her eyes, and waited for the insane roar of the massive generators, the rapid spin of the passenger module, and the feeling of disembodiment when the machine reached critical, sending her back to--- "WAIT!" Someone's voice rang out over the sub-space lab. Ayeka opened her eyes slowly and gazed at the old worn spectacled face of Tenchi's grandfather. "Ayeka..." he puffed, as if he had run all the way from his shrine. "I heard from Kiyone... You really don't have to do this..." "Grandfather..." she found herself saying. It was odd, they used to be part of the same generation way back when on Jurai, before all this had happened. He seemed more like a grandfather to her more than anything else now. Space travel really did have this weird effect on age differences and all that. "Yosho... I..." "No..." For the first time in a long while, Tenchi's grandfather seemed not-calm. "Don't say Yosho... Just call me grandfather or at least Katsuhito and forget all about this... Tenchi likes you, and I've already passed on your engagement to me to him. You don't have to do this..." "I can't do that..." Akeya looked away. She really did want to say here, to stay with Tenchi. But the path was clear to her. There were only a few questions she had to ask to be sure. "Tell me, why haven't you told us about Tenchi's grandmother?" He couldn't answer. "Why don't you tell us why Tenchi's half-Juraian?" Ayeka pressed on. "Isn't he supposed to be only one-fourth Jurai? Isn't Achika the one who's half-blood? Tell me, Yosho, who was your wife?" He didn't answer. Tears began to trickle down her cheeks. "Why didn't you tell us?" she sobbed. "Why didn't you tell me?" "That's because I want you to live your life..." Yosho replied, his voice suddenly calm, full of knowledge. Ayeka stared back in surprise. Yosho continued. "I wanted you to live your life, to have all the fun adventures you will have told me, all of it. Do you think that if I told you from the start that Tenchi was your grandchild, you would have stayed instead of going home immediately?" "Yes, but..." she stammered. Yosho answered, as if he knew her question (that's because he did). "That's why I never told you or anyone about you (the older you who went back). A lot of things would have changed, and you wouldn't have been happy as you are, as you were, as you would have been..." "Then why did you try to stop me?" "That's because I wanted you to know, that before you left, that you aren't doing this just because you thought that you'll never get Tenchi." He stroked her tender cheek, just like in his past, and in her future. "I want you to know that you are doing this because he loved you enough to make you his grandmother, and that you loved me enough to chase me halfway across the galaxy, and that you loved all of us to give everything up to go back in time just to set things right." Ayeka was so overwhelmed that she couldn't say anything. Yoshio took her in his arms and let her sob quietly on his shoulder. "Goodbye..." she whispered. "Don't say goodbye," he replied, stepping back. "You'll be seeing me again..." "Well..." she said as the machine began to whine. "Goodbye and hello..." "Yes... That's what you said you said..." And the time machine began to spin, faster and faster, crackling with temporal energies, and then with a flash that filled the lab, Ayeka was gone, and everything had happened just as it had, cause nothing had changed. Sasami began to cry and he reached down and lifted her up, letting her cry on his shoulder that not so long ago her sister cried on. His glasses were frosted over as he gazed into the empty chair and into his memories. "Hello and goodbye again, Ayeka..." ...... mayhem 030699 ...... addenum: this spamfic has been in my hard disk for a year now and, in the light of the revelation of who exactly Tenchi's grandmother is in the third movie which came out summer 2000 (more or less), has become outmoded. still it is a good story concept, and a way to explain the strange Yosho-Ayeka relationship in the 1st OAV series and to avoid Ayeka's impending loss of Tenchi since it seems that Pioneer's developing a stronger Tenchi-Ryoko matchup lately. c&c's welcome and will be paid for by a transdimensional kumquat with anti-lock break systems... ------ mayhem 061100 ------ ------------------------------------------------------------------------- The Nikholas F. 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