Tenchi Muyou: No Need For A Masquerade Ryouko stretched as she slowly woke up from her wonderful dream about engaging in quite a bit of naughtiness with Tenchi. The futon beneath her was wonderfully soft. She opened her eyes a crack and saw Sasami slumbering peacefully in her own futon a few feet away, smiled, and closed her eyes. "Aye--" she said softly, and panic struck as she heard her voice. Or rather, not her voice. Ayeka's voice. After a few seconds of raw panic, Ryouko reached up to the side of her head, and grasped the length of hair that dangled past her ear. She breathed deeply, bracing herself, before she lifted it up into her field of vision. The eartail was a dark, purplish shade. "Oh, shit," Ryouko said in Ayeka's crisp tones. She rolled out of the futon, and tried to stand swiftly, but the nightgown that Ayeka had been wearing the night before tripped her up and she crashed to the floor. Sasami looked up, blinking the sleep from her eyes as she did. "Neesan?" she inquired. "I'm okay, I'm okay ... uh, g-good morning, Sasami. Sleep well?" "Just fine, thank you," Sasami said slowly as she watched `Ayeka' stand up and walk to the bedroom door ... *much* more clumsily than she normally did. "Ummmm ... are you sure you're okay?" "Never better! Uh ... I gotta go take a -- um, go to the bathroom." She exited quickly. Sasami blinked. Ryouko stumbled down the hallway, trying desperately to get used to the different balance that Ayeka's body had. "AAAAAGGGH!" Ryouko looked up to see herself -- her body, rather -- staring down the hallway at her with an expression of horrific dismay on her face. She noted with a strange detachment that her body was still wearing her blue and green-striped dress, which she'd been wearing when she went to sleep in the den last night. "Ayeka?" Ryouko guessed. "What. Have. You. Done. To. Me?" `Ryouko's' voice came out using Ayeka's usual snobby angry manner. "What did *I* do to you?" Ryouko exclaimed. "Why would I ever let you take my *gorgeous* body and run around with it? This is the sort of thing *you'd* do --" "Gorgeous body? This ... withered thing?" Ayeka hissed at her. "Hah! It is to laugh! You are much more likely to engage in body theft than I -- particularly with what you could do to my reputation --" She broke off suddenly. Ryouko slowly smiled. "You know ... I never even thought of that until now. I wonder what Tenchi will think when I -- or rather, *you* -- start up with the torture tricks. `Call me princess!'" she said in a harsh voice that cracked like a whip. `Ryouko's' face twisted in almost psychotic anger, causing Ryouko to take a step back. "If you lay so much as a finger on Tenchi-sama while in my body I will ... I will ..." `Ryouko' was holding her hand out as though she were holding a swordhilt, and she seemed to be struggling. She finally turned her eyes off Ryouko and gazed at the hand. "How does she do that?" she muttered. "Practice," Ryouko told her saucily. "Well, I'm off to ruin your reputation. I don't think I'll *have* to torture Tenchi ... a bit of frottage will convince him --" "-- that I'm as loose as you are?" Ayeka snapped. "Hey!" And then `Ryouko's' face smiled evilly, and Ryouko swallowed. "Or maybe he'll respond favorably. And you realize what *that* would mean, don't you?" Ryouko let out a deep breath. "Okay ... okay ... let's think about this. Presumably, this doesn't happen on a regular basis." Ayeka nodded. "Tenchi-sama would have told me if it did. Or Yoshou would have." "So it either happened by chance, or someone or something is doing this to us. Now who do we know that could --" "WASHUU," they said simultaneously, and headed for the crab-marked door beneath the stairs. Washuu was silently playing some sort of computer game when they burst in. "Washuu, I demand that you put us back to rights immediately!" Ayeka demanded, her terse anger sounding very odd in Ryouko's sensuous voice. Washuu looked over her shoulder at them, and smiled slightly. "Hello, ladies. Happy Halloween." Ryouko blinked. "Halloween? Washuu, what the f--" "Halloween," Washuu said in a school teacherish tone, "is a holiday originating in Europe. It is customarily marked by wearing unusual costumes and disguises." "What does this have to do with this torment that you have forced upon me?" Ayeka screeched. "For centuries, people have been using costumes to permit them to say things that they normally couldn't say -- due to social pressures, or what have you -- or to come to an understanding of another person, by taking on his or her persona," Washuu explained, unruffled by the glares she was drawing. "Are you telling me that you came up with this crazy stunt in order to make me get along better with *her* --" Ryouko punctuated her question with a head jerk in her body's direction. "-- so that you could steal Tenchi for yourself?" A frustrated look crossed Washuu's face. "NO! That is not why I did it! I did it so you would realize that Tenchi loves you both, and *WHY* he does!" They stared at her, aghast for a moment. Then they exchanged another glare. "Who could love something like *that*?" they spat out as one. Washuu closed her eyes for a moment. "Okay. Forget it. I'll undo it." She turned to the console, and pounded out a short sequence. Ryouko was assailed with a sudden surge of vertigo. When it cleared, she immediately grasped on of her ear tails to confirm that it was cyan-colored, and let out a deep sigh of relief. She teleported back to her usual perch, and settled down to catch up on her sleep. "You ought to be ashamed of yourself, Washuu!" Ayeka rebuked as she headed for the door. "Yes, probably," Washuu said glumly as she left. A moment later, Tenchi walked out of the shadows of the lab, a melancholy look on his face. He gazed at the red-haired scientist seated at the terminal for a few moments before softly saying, "I'm sorry, Tenchi-dono." `Washuu' shook her head once. "It's not your fault, Washuu-chan. It was a stupid plan anyway. I should never have come up with it." "It wasn't stupid," `Tenchi' insisted, walking closer and laying his hands on `Washuu's' shoulders as he did so. "If it were anyone else, they probably would have come to see and appreciate each other's point of view. But --" "But Ryouko and Ayeka are just too different to ever get along, and I'm doomed." `Washuu' let out a deep sigh. "Oh well. Thank you very much for all your help, and for letting me borrow your body like this." HAPPY HALLOWEEN! And Make Sure That The Masks That You Wear Aren't Too Tight. Chris Davies, Advocate for Darkness, Part-Time Champion of Light. "Damn it all, how am I supposed to sit here and wallow in self-pity and disgust with all this racket going on?" -- Yuusaku Godai, Maison Ikkoku. http://www.ualberta.ca/~cdavies/hmpage.html