Chapter 1: Bloody Fans and Pink Locks Tenchi walked up the long stairs, his books under one crooked shoulder, his small rat-tail flailing in the air behind his head. And then came Ryoko. She hugged onto him, she was wearing a yellow and navy dress, usually worn inside the house on a lazy day, a grin on her cheery face. "Oh Ryoko..." He moaned. He rolled his eyes, still walking up the stairs lazily, she was still floating so it was no weight to carry. "Teeenchi, I've been thinking about you all day!" She said sweetly in his ear, her long spiked sea green hair blowing in the wind, cherry blossoms' peddles hitting them in the eye and getting in both their hair. Tenchi noticed she smelled different, as she leaned up against him, something warm and sweet...vanilla! "Have you been cooking with Sasami?" He asked. Ryoko shook her head. "Nu-uh. Why?" "I don't know, just this wonderful smell..." "OH, that's my new perfume...Tenchi, you like?" She hovered in front him. Tenchi smiled. Ryoko held his books as he folded his arms behind his head and gazed up at the sky. "It's great, Ryoko. Very sweet." Ryoko, with books held to her breast with her elbows, clapped. "Oh yay!" She said smiling. She then hovered along Tenchi as he walked up the long step-way to the Misaki house-hold. Aeka was in the bath, drinking tea. She did'nt want sake, it was'nt one of those times. She coughed, for a moment, then went back to drinking tea. The sky was a light blue....and she had a tooth ache. She brushed regularly and every thing, but her back tooth hurt terribly! She was going slowly insane, thanks to the a little tooth set in her jaw that was throbing. And the tooth probably had to be pulled, and she hated Earth's dentists and, and and...She sighed deeply, settiling back in the water, cuping the cup of tea in her petite hands. Then she heard Tenchi and Ryoko come in. "Ryoko, where's Aeka?" "Oh you don't need to know!" She sounded out. Aeka burned all over, her eyes narrowed towards the paper door that went to the mini-hall towards the sitting room. Aeka was tempted to get up out of the hot water and run in there, pulling the demon moster off Tenchi and wringing her neck. She still stayed there, frozen, in the hot water, with steaming tea in her hands. Aeka blinked twice, reached for a towel and got up in what seemed a single motion. She began to walk around on the wooden floors towards the paper walls, now putting on a light voilet robe she had reached for out of a cubby under a bench. Now she was standing at the wall. She squinted. "Forget it." she said, and was walking back to the water. "My tooth hurts too much to bother." Her accent deep in this sentence. Ryo-Ohki ran up to Tenchi and meowed. Tenchi laughed. "Oh, you want a carrot?" He asked, he then lifted up the little ball of fluff and strolled to the kitchen to get the little cute kitten-bunny cross over a carrot. Washuu strolled out of the labrotory, something she rarely did, with her arms folded behind her head, just as Ryoko went to follow Tenchi. "Little-Ryoko." Washuu began, her voice a pitch over the usual tone. Ryoko shifted her gaze over at the pink-haired goddess. "Yes Washuu?" asked Ryoko. Ryoko was in too good of a mood for her to spoil it. "I have found a very interesting way of making your special abulities more powerful!" "Huh? How?" "Well, you have to carry these special paper fans around and--" "Well where's the fans?!" She asked. Tenchi came back, Ryo-ohki was no longer in his arms. "She's pigging out on carrots." Washuu smiled at him. "Hi Tenchi." She waved. "Hi Little-Washuu!" He said waving back. Washuu had that same full-faced grin. "So, you plan on going to the garden today?" She asked. Tenchi nodded. "I sure am, where's Sasami, by the way?" "Oh, she's visiting Yugi." Ryoko looked back and forth at the two. "Where's the fans, Washuu?" She asked. Washuu laughed. "Come to my lab, daughter." "I am not your daughter!" She protested one last time, hovering after Washuu through the lab door. Tenchi shrugged and walked out to the carrot patch. Sasami sat down on a bench beside Yugi's tomb. "Well I made a great breakfast, and every thing went pretty smoothly this morning...except for the fact that Mihoshi could'nt find her boots so she could go out protecting the galaxy, and she triped over Kiyone looking for them, and Kiyone got mad and the two were so upset, and Mihoshi could'nt stop crying...it was so silly really, when you look at it now. Then Tenchi went to get his books, but Aeka and Ryoko were fighting near by and almost blasted him. It was really funny--" She giggled. "You should have seen the look on his face--" She then looked down. "But I'm glad he's okay. So all of them sat down and had breakfast, grandfather refused to eat, he went straight to the temple to meditate, and Naboyuki went straight to work...what a workaholic! Anyways, after they were gone, it was just me, Aeka, Ryoko, and Ryo-ohki. Ryo-ohki took a long nap, then she and I watched cartoons until lunch time, Ryoko hung around the baths, I think she was drinking again, and Aeka just sat at the table reading some new book Tenchi brought her from the liabrary. Well after lunch, which I prepared, I went outside and caught butterflies and let them go, and picked some flowers, and Ryo-ohki ran around with me. Ryoko hung around with me too. I don't know what Aeka did. She was'nt around. And then, after a while, Tenchi came home, and here I am! So, I guess your day was just a long nap, huh, Yugi?" Sasami sighed, then one of the bulbs in the upper left corner of the room went out. "Oh no!" She went up thanks to a step ladder and unscrewed it, then went back down and got another bulb out of a box in the corner. She looked over at Yugi's face in the shadowed tomb. Her poor friend, she had suffered so much. Sasami replaced the light gently, then let go quickly so that the heat would'nt touch her fragile fingers. Sasami got down and sat in her chair, looking at her friend. What happens when Yugi gets up from her nap? Will Yugi get married to some Earth guy and be happy like Sasami plans to do? Will Yugi have lots of pretty babies and grow old like a normal person? Will she, will she, will she...? Sasami clutched her hands together and held them to her chin. If only she knew! Tenchi raked at the Earth with his hoe. It was getting a bit dark, but he still worked at the dirt for Ryo-ohki needed carrots. Then Ryoko flew from the dark abyss that was a storm cloud out of the east horizon, two metal tipped paper fans in each hand. Her entire body was entombed in a glowing red firey light, her eyes full of blood, she began to cry and screech. Tenchi whirled his head around towards her, his hoe ready like a weapon. "What the--!?" he asked. Ryoko began to scream a message: "Get out of the way! Now!" She screamed. Tenchi ducked as she hissed over his head. "Ryoko, what's wrong?!" He asked. She whized by him again making his coat fly violently off his body. "I can't control by body!" She screamed. Tenchi blinked. "Why not?" He asked, running after the fast flying demon. She looked down at him. "The fans." She squealed, then was off like a bullet. Tenchi was confused, then he thought for a moment, now squatting on the ground, his breathing harsh. The fans, what fans? He asked himself. Ryoko hissed across the sky 100 miles per hour, her hair smacking her face and stinging her eyes. She was crying and her eyes had droplets of blood from the dirt and things that had hit them. Her mouth had ungodly things within them from her communications with Tenchi, and she felt as if she could just die. She could'nt let go of the fans! What was next? Washuu was sitting on her hovering pillow, a holo-computer with small pink crabs as icons in front of her, she was very desturbed...and very much in her work. "How could I do this?" She asked. A small mini-radio played "When Dove's Cry" By Prince over in the corner of her lab. It had been playing on replay on a CD for a while now, she was getting sick of it. Her green eyes shifted from one mini-screen to another on the monitor. Her fingers typed furiously on the keyboard. "I'm so sorry daughter." She said. "Daughter, I'll try to stop them" Tenchi, after getting his breath back, ran after Ryoko and her odd fans. "Ryoko!" He shouted, in hopes she had gained her sanity, or what ever, back now. Ryoko came flying back in a dazziling aray of orange and pink fire cracker like flames. "Ahhhh!" She screamed. "Ryoko, no!" Tenchi screamed. Ryoko screamed some incomprehendible message to Tenchi then swooped towards him. Washuu watching on her large monitor with large green eyes gulped. "That's not good." She whispered hoarsely. On the monitor it displayed what had happened to Tenchi after Ryoko had swooped in after him. Washuu ran up to the monitor and it automatically popped out a keyboard. She typed in some things and finally a microphone attached to a tube came from the ceiling. In front of the hovering Ryoko came a holo-monitor with Washuu's image and a voice. "Ryoko, how'd that happen?!?" Ryoko was shocked herself, but then the fans dragged her off some where. Washuu's monitor was determined to follow. "I don't know Washuuuuuuu---!" Ryoko screeched, large tears running from her eyes. Washuu gulped again. Ryoko was off again. Washuu then bleeped out the monitor so she could go back to finding a cure to the effects of the fans, and she had to drag in the body of Tenchi... Tenchi's body lay motionless on a cold metal table in a darker part of Washuu's lab. He was completely naked except a white cloth over the part from his upper hips to his mid-thighs. His face was getting a sunken look and all of his skin was discolored. He did'nt look very alive. Acutally, he was'nt alive. Washuu did'nt have the technology to bring him alive. So, it was time to dress him, and bury him. Washuu had figured out why the fans did'nt work, a very strong bug from one of her university enemies had been sent into the fan's circuts. Washuu quickly built a strong anti-bug droid to go and de-bug the fans, then to take them out of Ryoko's hands. The droid had to be very fast and strong...anyways it was just another big science ordeal...that Washuu did'nt care about bragging about right now. She was now standing over Tenchi's dead body. "Oh God..." She wispered. "It's all my fault..." She hissed to no one else but herself. Then a voice from behind her says: "No, it's not." Washuu gasps and turns around. It was Ryoko, hovering behind her. "Ryoko..." Washuu began, putting a hand on her daughter's shoulder. "It was'nt your fault either, don't start that, because you had no choice, I made those disfuctional fans..." "No, I did the dirty deed, Washuu, it's my fault Tenchi's not here." "No, no, it's my fault, I made the fans..." "Oh Washuu, no---" Ryoko began to tear up. Washuu turned to her. "Oh Ryoko!" Washuu said and held the sobbing Ryoko in her arms, this time, Washuu had transformed herself in her adult form. Washuu began brushing back Ryoko's hair. "It's okay, Little-Ryoko..." Ryoko kept crying, not caring about her image, just the fact that Tenchi was gone and that she was alone...or atleast left with, the girls. Aeka held a scarf that once belonged to Tenchi in two tender hands. She looked at it with a half smile, and her eyes full of sweetness yet sadness, as if she did'nt want to cry, as if she was trying to force herself to be happy. "You know--" She spoke, as if she truely thought she was talking to Tenchi. "It does'nt feel like your dead..." She ran her thumb over the softness of the scarf."Not at all, it's not possible.." She looks up at the ceiling "It's like, you've gone to the store for some herbs Sasami needs for dinner, and you'll be back any minute now--" Aeka pressed the scarf to her chest. "Any minute now..." She bites her bottom lips and lays down on her futon, a light wind playing with the leaves outside her window. She could almost swear she hears Tenchi call out her name. She gets up, still holding the scarf and runs to the window, slinging it open. "Lord Tenchi?" She asks, her eyebrows upwards in confusion, her head weaving back and fourth looking for her would-be bow. "Tenchi--?" She asks one more time. "...Aeka..." She turns. "Oh, it's just you." She replys. There in the door way is Kiyone, her sea blue eyes kind, her arms folded. "Come on, dinner's ready." She says, thumbing towards the hallway. Aeka looks down at the floor, the scarf still in one hand. "I'm not all that hungry right now..." Kiyone shrugs and walks back down the hall way. Aeka sits back down on the floor near her pillow. Aeka stairs up at the ceiling for the remainder of that hour, thinking of all the fond memories she had with Tenchi. Sasami was in the "Cave of the Demon", crying her eyes out. "Come baaaaaaaaaaack!" She cried. She sniffled and wiped the tears away for a moment just the let new ones come through. She was now leaning up against a large rock near the drop you go into to get into Ryoko's tomb. Ryo-ohki was mewing over and over in protest to the crying, trying to cheer up Sasami. Sasami began to hyperventilate and spasam as her tears flowed, the little cabbit began to worry. Was this what happened when humans died? Every one gets sick? "Meooooow." The cabbit protested. She then rubbed up on Sasami. "O-oh Ry-Ryo-ohki, it-it's okay!" Sasami said, scooping up the cabbit as she sniffled and tried to catch her breath. Sasami snuggled her face into Ryo-ohki's fur. "Sorry." She whispered in the kitten's ear. "Tenchi's off on a trip and he's having fun with lots of other people on the same trip..." The cabbit meowed in question. "I don't know when he'll be back, Ryo-ohki, maybe never..." Yosho walked out on the porch of the shrine, there was his mother, the queen. "Yosho, we should bury the boy, the Jurain way." Yosho bowed his head. "Yes." Yosho said solemnly. Yosho was in his young man form, his hair black, his fore head carrying a jewel of Jurai. A single tear crawled around the edge of his acheing left eye, then slid down his cheek. "Oh, Yosho..." The woman in front of him was worried. "I hav'nt seen you this upset since--" "Since Achika." He said his voice shakey with a bit of rasp in it. "Come, let's prepare for the ceramony..." Yosho spoke, then the two began the long walk down the steps towards the house. A Week Later... Ryoko held her breath for what seemed like hours though it was only about a minute. Washuu held her hand, like a mother holding her small child's hand before crossing the street. Ryoko's other hand was over her own mouth, hopeing that the dizziness would go away. She had gotten sick ealier today, she did'nt know what that was about, Washuu explained it was probably a side effect of the fans. Aeka stood between Yosho and her father. She closed her eyes and zoned out as far as possible. She did'nt want to beleive Tenchi was dead, she did'nt want to see his dead body in the glass Jurain cascket, she did'nt want to beleive any of it. Yosho wraped his arm around her shoulders and squeezed her hard. He was in his older form but she knew this was her brother, her loving brother, hugging her and careing for her. Her father ran his hand down her hair as she sniffled and held back her tears. Not only did her love die, but so did a part of her. Sasami was with her mother, her mother was on the other side of the king. They were hugging each other. Ryo-ohki was on Sasami's shoulder meowing, confused. She still had that infant intelligance. She still thought Tenchi was on a trip. Mihoshi was sobbing loudly on Kiyone's shoulder on the low legged couch near Tenchi's cascket. Kiyone patted her shoulder and tried to coo her to a calm state. Naboyuki was weeping in his own hands, being comforted by Yosho's mother, they both were on the other side of the cascket. Azaka and Kamedake were inside near the door, watching it in case anything happened. A Jurian priest then stood up from the shadows of the sitting room, and stood in the middle of the cascket. He had a long white robe and draped sheet-like cloth over his head and the sides of his face, showing only his mouth and eyes. He said a long winded prayer in some foreign laungage, a book open in his hand, bowed, then said one foreign word, and closed the book. Only Aeka, Yosho, Sasami, and the Queens and King understood what he said. "Let us take the body out to the lake..." The man said. It was by the ancient custom to bury royality deep in the nearest family lake. The see-through glass cascket was now sinking to the middle of the lake's bottom. They had put metal weights on it. Every one was on the shore of the lake watching it slowly drift downwards. Every one was thinking the same thing. This is'nt happening. Then it began to rain. Aeka sat on her futon brushing out her hair. Her tooth still hurt but she could'nt feel it that much. She knew Tenchi was dead but she could'nt cry any more. Her long purple hair was draped out on the futon cusion, her crown and clips were on the floor by the futon. There was a knock at the door. "Yes, come in." Aeka replyed. Ryoko phased through the door. "Ryoko?" Aeka asked. Ryoko bowed her head, her eyes were shadowed from tears and her face was heavy from the sickness. "Hey Aeka..." She hovered over to her futon, but sat down on Sasami's. "It's been a rough day for every one...I'm not good at condolencies, but I thought you'd want to talk to somebody." Ryoko put her hand over her mouth as if holding back something then held her head high. Aeka smiled. "Thank you, Miss Ryoko. Your very kind. I see your still sick?" "Yeah....I'll be alright though." Ryoko gave a queezy smile. Aeka sighed. "I can't feel anything....am I odd for this?" "No. I don't know you, because it's your own personality, but, Aeka, it's just your reaction..." "I just feel I should morn more." "It does'nt matter how much, we all morn in our own way..." Aeka nodded letting the words sink in. "Oh Ryoko..." Aeka's eyes glittered with tears. Ryoko put her hands on Aeka's shoulders. "If you want a shoulder to cry on, you can have mine." She said, her dark golden eyes glowing with warmth. Tears sprang from Ryoko's eyes silently as Aeka shoved herself into Ryoko's chest. "There there..." Ryoko whispered. Ryoko patted Aeka's back and the two sat there, entangled in a morning mass for Tenchi's love for hours. Washuu took the sake from it's cup, her light green eyes glowing behind their closed lids. She was a bit tipsy, she admited to herself, but not enough for any one's concern. A dark tunnel opened in mid-air next to her head and then out popped a screen. "Greatest Genius in the Universe, Little-Washuu?" It asked, there was a face on it very familiar. "Yes?" She asked, not looking up, only down at the liquid before her. "I'm sorry to disturb, but did you destroy the "Pyi Pyi" Virus that took over most of our electronic area and some of yours just a few days ago?" "Yes I did, now go away." "What's troubiling you?" "It's family matters, now go away." "Right, good day, ma'am." And the screen bleeped away in a swirl of black liquid-like mist. Washuu stared at the far off tank facing her. It was filled with dark blue water and gorgeous fish from all over the cosmos swam through it. What was this house with out Tenchi? Thought Washuu. When you broke down that pillar. Sure, he once went to Tokyo, and left them temporarily, but they knew he'd come back, and they could VISIT, now they could'nt. And that was the point, was'n it? They could never see him again. He was far far away forever. Would they split up, would they get depressed, would they....they. Like the group would turn into one giant thing as a whole. Their all different people for God's sake! Washuu laid her pink-haired head on the metal hovering table in the large echoing room. She was tired now. Some where half across space, Nagi the bounty hunter sat at the local bar, eating thin salted chips and drinking on something she could'nt pronounce. Her soft purple spiked hair tumbled down across her shrouded shoulders. Then a white cabbit came running into the bar, looking up to her. "Meow, meow meow!" He said, his large eyes full of determination. Nagi gave him a soft look. "Oh alright, let's go to Earth, Ken-ohki." She got up and threw fifteen Jurain gold coins at the bartender. The man caught them in a jar with swift percision. The two headed out the door swiftly, off to Earth. To be Continued--- Real SOON!