Introductory comments by the author
	Call me mundane, but it's my style.  Those of you having read my
previous two fics will notice my tendency to position the Tenchi cast
within everyday settings.  That everyday quality of the Tenchi
characters I think is their greatest beauty: even though we probably
don't know a little girl with giant blue pigtails or a 20000 year old
mad scientist, we know people as innocent as Tenchi, as complex as
Ryoko, as endearing as Sasami, and as annoying as Ayeka.  It's for this
reason that I write all my stories within an everyday context; heaven
knows there are enough space adventures out there already, even if many
of them are really good ("Ryoko's Love" is a real gem).  
	You'll notice also that I position my stories within
pseudo-Americanized contexts (e.g. the American callers of "WRYKO-100"
and the coffeehouse setting of "No Need for Revelations").  At the risk
of sounding ethnocentric, at the moment I simply don't have the time to
research Japanese society and culture in depth, even though I plan to
eventually.  Rather than to commit a host of embarrassing cultural
mistakes, I situate my stories instead within a more familiar and
recognizable American context with the hopes that the Tenchi flavor
isn't diminished.  
	You'll notice that my stories are, at times, an awful hybridization of
both the OVA and the TV series.  For the most part, I stick with the TV
series, although I would like to keep a few of the OVA elements.  The
troubled mother-daughter relationship between Washu and Ryoko, for
instance, is an element that the TV series unjustifiably left out but
that I hope to re-insert.  As you may have already noticed, Mayuka of
the second Tenchi movie makes appearances (and will probably continue to
do so).  This "best of both worlds" approach is one that will produce
some conflicting moments (note Ryoko's introduction of Washu, inventor
of such things as "dimension oscillating bullets...Mecha-Washu,
horrifically burnt fish, and yours truly" in "WRYKO-100"), but I hope
that we can overlook the discrepancies and allow the two worlds to
co-exist as they may.
	This fanfic is something of a weird prequel to "Radio Ryoko" (note the
radio reference towards the end), which admittedly leaves the ending of
"No Need for Revelations" still up in the air.  Slowly but surely, this
alternate Tenchi universe in which Ryoko is a real person and owns a
radio station, where Sasami has matured into a savvy young girl, where
Nagi is slowly becoming friends with the aforementioned Ryoko, and where
Ayeka's role in Ryoko's troubled past becomes more and more discernibly
evil, is evolving into a storyline of sorts.  My hopes are that I can
construct a storyline which, while lacking the cohesion and vision of
"Ryoko's Love," will nonetheless offer a humorous and satirical, if
somewhat scattered, narrative that asks the question: what would the
Tenchi characters do within an everyday setting?
	On a final note, I ask that would-be authors not plagiarize these or
any other works here on this awesome web site.  Remember how annoying
Kagato is when he claims Washu's creations are his own?  Well, it's
likewise annoying to have our own work copied and passed off as one's
own.  Please be conscientious about this. 
	And, I think we all owe a great debt to Aldrich "GenSao" Bautista for
maintaining this page.  May his tireless efforts continue to bring us
the enjoyment that we have all grown to love so much.
							-Ulises Silva

Now, without further ado...

The Masaki Gene: A Tale About Life, the Universe, and Male Hormones by
U. Silva

	"Oh Tenchi," Ryoko cooed as she hugged a reluctant Tenchi in her arms. 
"I wish every day could be like this.  Every day is a like a carnival,
one I hope will never end.  Don't you feel the same way, my Tenchi?"
	"Miss Ryoko!" Ayeka interjected on schedule.  "Why must you always be
harassing Lord Tenchi with your whiny infantile fantasies?  Can't you
see you're cutting his circulation off?"
	Ryoko looked at Tenchi and suddenly let him go.  Seconds later, she was
on the ground next to him, easing him as he tried to catch his breath
again.
	"Breakfast is ready," a familiar voice rang through the house to the
delight of its hungry constituents.
	"Oh good," Ryoko jubilantly exclaimed.  "C'mon, my Tenchi, let's go see
what Sasami's made for us this morning."
	"What do you think you're doing, Miss Ryoko?"
	Ryoko looked back at her now reddened rival and smirked her usual
smirk.  "Why, I'm taking my sweetheart to breakfast.  What does it look
like I'm doing, you old bag?"
	"WHAT DID YOU CALL ME?"
	"C'mon, breakfast is going to get cold," Sasami announced anew, just in
time to stop the first exchange of fire between Ryoko and Aeka.
	As the group, under an unsteady truce, headed towards the dining area,
Washu's subspace door opened.  Looking at the group and finding the one
she was looking for, she waved her hand holding what appeared to be a
photo album.
	"Oh Tenchi, can I talk to you for a minute?" she asked aloud as the
group looked at her in suspicious silence.
	"Uh, what is it, Washu?" Tenchi asked, half worried about the fact that
Aeka and Ryoko were alone again, half worried about Sasami and what she
would do to them if they let the food get cold again.
	"Well," she began, "I've been looking through the Masaki photo album
here.  I've been meaning to do so ever since the Kain incident but never
really got around to it.  You see, I had always conceived of Nobuyuki as
a pervert throughout his life.  Somehow, I imagined that he had been a
greasy scruffy looking pervert in high school.  When I got to see what
he really looked like back then, I kind of wondered what might have
happened over the course of the past twenty years that changed him from
a nice mild-mannered young man to the pervert of today."
	"Washu, that's not exactly the nicest thing to say about dad, you
know."
	"Hey, it's the truth.  Or have you already forgotten the look on his
face during the swimsuit competition?"
	"She's right," Ryoko chimed in.  "I've seen some seedy people in my
life, but your father has got to be the high priest of perverts.  I can
still remember how he looked the first time he saw me.  I'm telling you,
I could have sworn that through the look in his eyes I saw him
fantasizing about us in every conceivable sexual position."
	"I SAID BREAKFAST IS READY GODDAMIT!" a now not-so-mousy voice bellowed
from the kitchen.
	"Hurry, hurry!" Aeka said, half panicking, as she ran into the dining
area.  "You know what happened last time!"
	Visions of smashed glasses, hurled food, and profuse insults danced
through Tenchi's mind.  "Uh, Washu, I think we'd better get going."
	"No, I think this is more important.  They can go on without us."
	"Why is that Washu?" Tenchi asked, a mammoth sweatdrop falling from his
forehead.
	"Because I need your help in order to determine if there is something
along the lines of a Masaki gene."

	"Okay Tenchi, try to stand still now, okay?"
	Tenchi found himself genuinely worried.  It was bad enough having a mad
scientist working in subspace located in your own home; it was an
entirely different thing to have this said mad scientist performing
experiments on you.  All the same, Tenchi couldn't help but to be
curious himself.  
	"You really think this will work, Washu?" he asked as he stood rigidly
still while Washu continued to punch in figures into her laptop.
	"Trust me, Tenchi," she answered with a sinister grin.  "Remember when
I changed Ryoko and Ayeka into water sprites?  Same technique, only I
don't introduce foreign strands into your DNA resequencing.  I'm simply
accelerating the metabolism of your cells while isolating the pool of
genes that, I think, might include the one gene we're looking for."
	"Which is?"
	"Simple," she continued, her eyes still fixed upon her screen.  "I've
theorized the possible existence of a very unique gene sequence, which I
will refer to as the Masaki gene for now.  My theory is that this gene
alone was the cause of your father's transformation.  If my calculations
are correct, by accelerating your cells' metabolism and consequently
allow you to age instantly, this gene, if present, will be triggered by
your physiological transformation.  Ordinarily, I imagine this thing
would be triggered at around age forty one, so why don't we go ahead and
turn you into a forty two year old?"
	"Uh, Washu," Tenchi asked, sweatdrop in place, "is this process
reversible?"
	"Do you see Ryoko as a water sprite now?"
	"Well, no, but..."
	"Then be quiet.  Here we go."
	With a final push of a button, Washu began the aging sequence.  An aura
of blue light surrounded Tenchi as it, emanating from an unseen source,
began to reconfigure the dynamics of his cell formation.  Within
seconds, his nervous face had settled into a placid stare indicative of
deep rest: the transformation had soothed him into a state of
pseudo-suspended animation.  Washu nodded to herself as the sequence was
proceeding with no problems.  She looked up to see his face and
marveled, indeed, over how calm and tranquil the ordinarily nervous
Tenchi looked.  For a second, as his features slowly began morphing into
aged lines, greyed hair, and tired complexion, she began to suspect that
her theory had been wrong.  He looked like the splitting image of his
father, but he didn't have that characteristic little grin or those
bulging horny eyes about him.  There was no such thing as a Masaki
gene.  Nobuyuki was a pervert, plain and simple.
	And, as quickly as that thought had passed through her mind, Tenchi's
now aged eyes opened suddenly and widely.  Those paying attention might
have sworn that they saw little sparks emanating from his head as if he
were a Frankenstein being animated for the very first time.  As Washu's
laptop indicated that Tenchi's physical age had now been set at forty
two, Tenchi's placid lips began arching themselves in an uncommon, but
all too familiar, grin.  Washu, looking up from her laptop,
face-faulted.
	"Hey, Washu, I feel perfectly normal," Tenchi said in a voice uncannily
like that of his father's.  "What's say we go out for some nice tea now
that your experiment has ended?"
	"Tenchi," Washu fumbled, "what are you thinking right now?"
	Tenchi's grin widened.  "Oh, I'm thinking about you, Little Washu.  I'm
thinking that, since you're 20000 years old, it won't really be illegal
if I, say, show you a good time."  He punctuated his request with a
goofy little giggle.  Oh yes, Washu, thought to herself, we've got a
winner here.
	"Uh, Tenchi," she said, starting to fall back slowly but surely, "I
think my experiment, uh, shows that there is a thing as a Masaki gene. 
Now, uh, how about I turn you back to normal?"
	"In a house like this full of beautiful women," he smiled, "I don't
think so!  C'mon, Washbabe, just one little kiss!"
	"Aaaahhhh!!!" Washu cried out as she ran desperately from a now
sex-crazed Tenchi.  "Get away from me you pervert!"
	"Hehehehe!  You're just playing hard to get, little lady!"
	Washu conjured up a closet door from subspace and locked herself in. 
As the subspace door vanished, Tenchi found himself grasping at thin
air.  Realizing that at least one of his woman would not concede to his
amorous advances, he grinned to himself and headed for the main subspace
exit.  There was plenty more to be had back in the real world.

	"Sasami, Sasami, I'm so sorry!" Ayeka blurted out as she ducked an
incoming teapot.  "It was Ryoko's fault!  She distracted me!"
	"Hey, don't blame it on me, your royal lowness," Ryoko screamed out as
she ran from Sasami's outstretched hands.  "If you weren't such a
busybody, you wouldn't have let the breakfast get cold."
	"You two think it's easy to slave away in the kitchen only to have you
leave your food get cold and then ask me to heat it up for you?!" Sasami
yelled out furiously as she reached for the knife set.  "I can't stand
it!"
	"Sasami, I promise never to..." Ayeka couldn't finish as the first of
several knives were hurled in her direction.  
	"I'm outta here!" Ryoko said as she phased through the kitchen window
and headed for the imagined safety of the Shinto shrine. 
	"Come here," Sasami screamed at her sister, "come here!  I'm going to
cut you up really good for tonight's stew!"
	Ayeka shrieked as she followed Ryoko's example.  Of course, since she
herself couldn't phase, she made a wonderfully loud and rather painful
jump through the glass window.  Even in her pain, she realized that she
had been spared a much worse fate as Sasami's little head poked itself
out the shattered window, her hand wielding a large bread knife.
	"Be late for dinner and you're dead!" she screamed out before
disappearing into the kitchen.  Ayeka sighed in relief.  
	"Oh, I wish she hadn't reached the age of ascension so early," Ayeka
mumbled to herself as she lifted herself off the ground.  Quietly, she
walked around the house to enter the living room without having to go
through the kitchen.  She knew she couldn't go to the shrine, lest she
run into Ryoko and begin hostilities anew.  She figured she could sit
and read for a bit while Sasami's biologically enhanced temper subsided.
	Entering the living room and falling onto one of the sofas, Ayeka
closed her eyes and tried to relax for the briefest of moments.  It was
difficult.  She could still here the muffled banging of pots and a
handful of insults coming from the kitchen area.  Between the racket and
the fear for her life, Ayeka couldn't find the tranquility to be able to
relax.  She sat up, thinking about picking up a book again.
	And that's when she noticed a familiar presence standing at the foot of
the staircase.  
	"Oh, hello Nobuyuki," she offered, wondering what father was doing
wearing Tenchi's work clothes.  "I didn't know you came back from work
already."
	He grinned as he stood, hand in pocket, shoulder on wall, missing only
the cigarette in mouth to make him look like a Tenchi-fied Humphrey
Bogart.  
	Ayeka blushed.  She had never seen Nobuyuki so, what was the word,
interested.
	"Hey, Ayeka," he said slickly, "today's your lucky day."
	"Whatever do you mean, father?"
	"Today's the day that your love for me is finally acknowledged."  Grin
became more pronounced.
	Ayeka gasped as would be expected.  "Father Nobuyuki, I don't know what
you mean!"
	"Oh, I'm not Nobuyuki, sweetbuns," he laughed.  "I'm Tenchi, your dream
beau!  Washu performed a little experiment on me, and now I'm a grown
man who can appreciate your love as well as your loins."
	Ayeka screamed as would also be expected.  "How dare you make up such a
story, Nobuyuki!  Please, leave me alone before I call your son!"
	"Maybe this will convince you," he winked as he pulled out none other
than the Light Hawk Sword.  In a manner that would have made Dark Helmet
proud, he held the blade to his crotch and activated it.  Winking again,
he laughed his horny laugh and moved towards Ayeka.
	"I've got some real power to share with you, Ayeka, if you know what I
mean!"
	Ayeka ran screaming out of the room, her presumed chastity in the
biggest danger imaginable.  
	Tenchi, a bit down that Ayeka had refused his advances, knew that there
was certainly one woman whom would not deny him.  And he had an idea
where she would be.

	For as long as she could remember, Ryoko hated Jurain women.  Not that
she hated each and every one of them on a personal basis.  Rather, she
hated their physiological changes and the psychological effects that
they provoked.  She had been witness to several cases of young Jurain
girls going through their period of ascension, as it was euphemistically
called, and seen the horrible consequences they brought out.  Sasami
certainly had been an extreme case.  Still, she knew it was temporary. 
Perhaps the only case of an extended period of ascension was with her
good old friend Ayeka.
	As Ryoko mused to herself while walking back home, she was alerted to
the sounds of footsteps coming close to hers.  She turned around, hoping
to see Tenchi, and did little to hide the disappointment in seeing
Nobuyuki instead.
	"Oh, hi Nobuyuki," she offered politely.  "Didn't know you were back
from work already."
	"Heheheh," Tenchi giggled characteristically, "I'm not Nobuyuki,
Ryoko."
	"What do you mean," she asked, sweatdrop firmly in place.
	"It's me, Tenchi.  Washu performed an experiment on me and made me into
an older man."
	"I...see."
	"And now, as a more mature man, I can appreciate the love you've always
shown me but that I was too much of a wuss to deal with."
	"Uh, Nobuyuki, okay, that's a cute thing to say, but..."
	"So, why don't we go on that journey you always promised me?"
	Ryoko, stumbling backwards as Tenchi's outstretched hands reached for a
certain protruding part of her anatomy, would have shrieked out if she
had been more Ayeka-ish.  Indeed, she found herself envying Ayeka's
ability to shriek out like a bimbo every time something flew across her
face.  
	"Nobuyuki, don't come any closer," she ordered, the panic in her voice
becoming clearer and clearer.
	"Oh, cmon, snookums, I know you've been wanting this for a long time."
	To Ryoko's shock, Tenchi's hands reached their intended target.  She
gasped in horror.
	"Mmmmm!!" Tenchi said out loud emphatically.  "Squeezy squeezy!!"
	Not the energy bolts that the Jurian defense satellites had surged into
her or the painful blast of Kagato's blade had produced a louder scream
from her than Tenchi's hands playing with her breasts.  Instantly, she
phased herself through the ground, materialized several meters in the
air above them, and flew desperately towards the Masaki home.
	Tenchi was dejected.  How could it be that, in the space of only a few
minutes, the girls' love for him had become total revulsion?  Still, he
was optimistic.  He became even more so as he heard the sounds of two
approaching voices, one docile, one complaining.  He prepared to greet
his daily guests.

	Ryoko made it to the Masaki home, panting and pale from the exertion
and the terror of it all.  If only Tenchi were around, she could ask him
for his help.  Heaven knew her chances with him would be forever
destroyed if she toasted Nobuyuki with her energy bolts.  As she stood
there next to the door, gasping for breath, eyes wide with terror, Ayeka
crawled out of her hiding place inside another closet and looked around
for her assailant.
	"Ryoko," she said hurriedly as she glanced around, "the most horrible
thing has just happened to me!  Oh, why do such things happen to me? 
Nobuyuki....Nobuyuki....flashed....oh, the horror the horror!"
	"Ayeka," Ryoko said between breathes, "he flashed you?  Consider
yourself lucky!"  Instinctively, she cuffed her hands protectively over
her breasts, as if to reassure herself that those horrible Nobuyuki
hands were really off.
	"We've got to do something," she continued.  "Who knows what perverted
exploits he has in mind next."
	"Oh, I can't take this," Ayeka continued to whine, "a Jurain Princess
should not have to be exposed to such indecency!  And to think that his
son is such a saint!"
	Ryoko rolled her eyes.  She knew that Ayeka would sooner rip her own
guts out than to take action.  Looking around for something to use, she
tried desperately to come up with a plan to stop Nobuyuki in his
tracks.  Her thoughts were interrupted by the sound of ear-piercing
shrieking coming from the little path connecting the house with the
shrine.  
	Ryoko and Ayeka looked at each other.  "KIYONE!" they blurted out in
unison.
	Both rushed to the window to see, in fact, Kiyone running wildly, arms
flailing, lungs in full use, as Nobuyuki chased after her with
outstretched hands.  Mihoshi, to her credit, wasn't shrieking but merely
giggling at the scene.
	"Something's definitely wrong," Ryoko mumbled to herself as she watched
Kiyone dexterously climbed a tree.  She could see her reaching for her
pistol or her killer yo-yo, but Kiyone's trembling hands wouldn't let
her get a hold of anything.
	"Oh, why do these things have to happen to me?" Ayeka continued to
whimper.
	For a second, Ryoko thought of grabbing Ayeka, tossing her outdoors,
and yelling out loud "Come and get it!"  But she realized that even
Ayeka didn't deserve that fate, though not by much.  Looking out of the
window again, she noticed Nobuyuki giving up on Kiyone and instead
heading for the Masaki house.  Her eyes widened in terror again.  Could
this be it?
	Fortunately for them, Tenchi headed towards the kitchen, where he was
certain he would find one final candidate.
	Ryoko huddled up against the wall, praying for some sort of
deliverance, no matter what form it took.  As Ayeka continued to whimper
in self-pity, Ryoko again had to fight off the urge to use her as cannon
fodder while the rest of them made a run for the nearest airport. 
Perhaps it was the terror of the situation, but even Ryoko's ethics
seemed to be weakening with each passing second.  Before she realized
it, her hands were only inches away from grabbing her rival.
	And that's when it happened.
	"SO NOW YOU WANT ME TO HEAT UP YOUR GODDAMN FOOD?!"
	WHAM.
	Then silence.  No more goofy giggles or exclamations of squeeziness. 
Just the sound, perhaps, of a single Jurian female panting and breathing
heavy with the excitement of just having let out her day long
frustration with the help of a very heavy frying pan.

	Washu carefully poked her head out of her subspace laboratory.  Fearing
that she would immediately see Tenchi's horny smile beaming at her, she
was relieved to find, instead, Ryoko slapping a still whimpering Ayeka
silly.  
	"Ryoko, what happened?" she asked when she had gotten enough of Ryoko's
attention.
	"Nobuyuki’s ::slap:: unconscious in the ::slap:: kitchen.  He's been
::slap:: molesting every one ::slap:: he's seen ::punch:: today."
	"Ryoko, I'm not sure that's helping."
	"Sure it ::punch:: is!  She's starting ::punch:: to make sense
::punch:: again!"
	Washu went into the kitchen where she did, in fact, find an unconscious
Tenchi laying on the floor.  Sasami was non-chalantly washing dishes.
	"Oh hi, Washu," she offered sweetly as she noticed her coming in. 
"Haven't seen you today."
	"What happened to him?" Washu asked nervously.
	"Oh him?" Sasami repeated, looking down at him. "He had a little
accident, that's all."
	"Mind if I take him with me?"
	Sasami smiled her usual smile.  "Why would I mind, silly?"  She
giggled.
	Washu, brushing away the sweatdrop on her forehead, took hold of
Tenchi's shoulders and dragged him into the living room.
	The sight of Tenchi's unconscious body sent shivers down Ryoko's spine,
enough to make her stop punching Ayeka whom, by now, was lolling in
Ryoko's arms, helplessly drooling all over herself.
	"Seems you overdid it a bit, Ryoko," Washu reprimanded.  "She's stupid
as it is.  Now you're going to turn her into a real idiot."
	"Too late to worry about that," Ryoko muttered, her eyes still fixated
on the form below her.  "Is he.."
	"No, just knocked out.  Sasami's got some strength thanks to her
ascension.  Doesn't help that her cooking ware is also industrial size."
	"At least she's cooled down for a couple of hours.  Ascension catharsis
only lasts that long.  Hopefully she can do Ayeka next."
	"Well, time to end this little experiment," Washu jubilantly exclaimed
as she called forth her laptop.  "I guess it goes without saying that
the Masaki gene does, in fact, exist."
	"Masaki gene?" Ryoko asked, confusion peaking.
	"Oh, I forgot to explain it.  In order to determine whether or not
there was a gene in the Masaki bloodline that turned all Masaki men into
horny perverts at the forty year old mark, I accelerated Tenchi's
physiological growth to duplicate advanced aging and trigger the gene. 
It worked."
	Ryoko's eyes widened.  "You mean....this...is really....TENCHI?!"
	"Um-hmmmm," Washu replied calmly as her fingers raced across her
keyboard.  "The one and only."
	"Then it wasn't Nobuyuki making up some ridiculous story!"
	"Very bright conclusion, Ryoko.  Are you going to write a scientific
paper on it now?"
	"Then that means that Tenchi, as an old man, will be just like his
father?!"
	"Am I, like, speaking English here or something?  Didn't I just say
that the Masaki gene pretty much ensures that scenario?"
	Ryoko flopped down onto the sofa.  In that single instant, her dreams
of a future with Tenchi crumbled beneath the weight of Washu's
deductions.  As she thought of Tenchi, the normal Tenchi, beaming that
innocent smile of his, she suddenly couldn't shake off the horrible
image of an aged Tenchi, hands outstretched and squeezing her
endowment.  It was depressing.
	And yet, in a weird sort of way, oddly refreshing.  Now, she wouldn't
have to dedicate all her efforts towards winning over an oblivious wuss
too wussy to figure out that she loved him with all her being.  Maybe
this would be for the better.  Maybe now she wouldn't have to spend
sleepless nights trying to figure out how she could win him, or at least
make him notice her.  Maybe now she could have a real life.  Maybe now
she could move out of the cluttered Masaki household and move into the
city.  Maybe now she could even pursue that secret wish of hers: to have
her own radio station on the Earth! 
	"And there we go," Washu exclaimed as the sequence was completed. 
Within seconds, the Nobuyuki-like form on the floor had become the
familiar form of Tenchi Masaki.
	"When he comes to, he won't remember a thing," Washu explained.  "Maybe
it's best that we don't tell him about this?"
	Ryoko nodded.  It was best for Tenchi that he not know that he would,
in the future, become a hopelessly horny pervert with little regard for
decency.  
	"How do we explain this to everyone, though?" Ryoko asked as she
pondered the consequences of keeping this entire thing a secret from
them all.  "The last thing we need is for every woman here to go running
into hiding the moment Nobuyuki returns from work."
	"We'll explain it to them as soon as Ayeka regains consciousness and
sense and as soon as Kiyone and Mihoshi gather up the courage to
return.  Sasami's not a problem because her condition leaves gaps in her
memory anyway."
	"I think we'd better go tell Kiyone and Mihoshi ourselves.  They're not
going to come back otherwise."
	"Agreed," Washu nodded.  "If we hurry, we can probably catch them
before they leave the planet."

	By the time Ryoko and Washu returned home, it was already dark.  They
had spent much longer than they had thought over at Miho-Kiyo's place,
thanks to Kiyone's shot nerves and nervous breakdown.  In the end,
however, the matter had been explained, and Kiyone had been put to some
ease.  Washu assured her that, in any case, Tenchi would remain the
sweet innocent boy he was until he was exactly forty two years, four
months, two weeks and six days old.  Leaving behind a still somewhat
nervous Kiyone and a giggling Mihoshi, Ryoko and Washu headed out.
	"Do you think Ayeka's awake yet?" Ryoko asked the miniscule scientist.
	"After the way you beat her, I'd be surprised if she woke up next
week."
	"And Tenchi?"
	"Tenchi's probably up already.  Probably wondering why Ayeka looks so
dead asleep on the sofa drooling over herself, probably wondering what
the big lump on his head is, probably wondering where we are.  Beyond
that, he's probably returned to his normal routing of being plain simple
Tenchi."
	As the two neared the Masaki house, they could discern a figure in the
distance.  It was Nobuyuki who, briefcase in hand, was obviously coming
home from work.  Foregoing the front entrance, he decided to simply
enter straight into the kitchen and join the gang for dinner, as indeed
it was about that time.
	"Washu," Ryoko said, alarm in her voice, "Ayeka's still out, we're not
home, and it's fifteen minutes past dinner time!  Do you suppose..."
	Washu did not need to answer.  Even with the considerable distance
between themselves and the house, they could still clearly discern a
very very angry girl screaming out at the top of her lungs.
	"SON OF A BITCH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"
	WHAM
	"How about some take-out today?" Ryoko asked.
	"I'm buying."

*All characters borrowed from and copywrighted by AIC Pioneer LDC.