Killed by Kindness (tentative title) a story by Dot --- Doesn't really matter what continuity this is, but I guess this'd be taking place some time after the "Manatsu no Eve" OVA. --- Three-fourths of an inch of reinforced glass. That was the only thing that separated Tenchi from the women that surrounded his sickbed. All of them would have been more than happy to remove this obstruction that prevented them from touching Tenchi, but all of them also knew that this would spell certain death for the comatose teen. Ryouko raised a trembling hand to the glass. "Tenchi..." she whispered, her voice breaking. No one else said a word, but there was not a dry eye among the ladies, and even Washuu had great difficulty in maintaining her calm demeanor. 'Kagato, Kain, Yuzuha...Tenchi battled them all and won.' Washuu bit back a bitter laugh. 'But now, he's losing to some invisible pathogen...' By the time Washuu realized that Tenchi's "little flu" was something much, much worse, Tenchi's immune system had already declared all-out war against the alien invaders, and was doing even more damage than the virus itself. Tenchi had pulled through the worst of it only by his Jurian heritage and incredible endurance, but the effort had left him in his current state, a mere husk of his former self. Washuu had to pretend for the others' sake that Tenchi had more than a ghost of a chance to survive, but she herself knew that at any moment Tenchi's overburdened body could just succumb to the continuing assault of the illness. Ayeka's reaction to the news had been typical. "It was you, wasn't it?" she screeched, pointing an accusatory finger at Ryouko. "You infected Lord Tenchi with one of your germs, didn't you, you mummified space pirate!" "Who are you calling a mummy?" Ryouko shot back angrily. "You're just jealous I've been living on the same planet as Tenchi for a hell of lot longer than you have! And who knows what kind of diseases you royal brats might be carrying?" The two would have leveled the house--and probably the rest of Japan, too--if Washuu had not stepped in and reminded them that _any_ of them could have been the guilty party. "Let's not start pointing fingers here. Remember, only a handful of Earthlings have ever left orbit, and the only places they explored were dead places through a spacesuit. Tenchi's come in contact with more aliens than probably all human beings past, present, or maybe even future. You, me, Ayeka, Sasami, Mihoshi, Kiyone, Mayuka...none of us are innocent. I still haven't tracked down what's responsible yet--maybe we _all_ gave something to him." Following this line of logic, everyone agreed that it'd be best for Tenchi to be placed in the clean room that Washuu had built for him. To be perfectly honest, though, the room wasn't the pristine bubble that the others imagined it to be; there actually had to be a certain level of "dirt" in the room, or else Tenchi would never be able to return to normal society, for he would lose nearly all immunity to the various illnesses he was exposed to on a daily basis. The prognosis looked grim, but Washuu had to hope. That was the only thing they had to hold onto, because the ugly truth was before them day after day. Sasami had taken this the hardest. During the first few days of Tenchi's plight she had practically camped out by Tsunami, praying day and night, sometimes even foregoing meals and sleep to do so. The only way Ayeka finally got the girl to eat was to remind her that Tenchi would never want her to worry herself sick. Still, Sasami didn't look so upbeat any more, and she was often heard crying in her room when she thought everyone else was asleep. "Tenchi...I'm so sorry...I wish I could do something...anything..." Yosho never said a word, neither good nor bad, but Washuu could tell that he was just as worried as the rest of them. He tried his best to maintain a semblance of normality, but he could only do so much. Without Tenchi, the house seemed so much more empty and quiet. "Now, now, ladies...it doesn't become you to be moping about like this." Mihoshi, as always, was absolutely certain that Tenchi would turn out to be just fine. Washuu wasn't sure whether Mihoshi was being stupid or stubborn, but it was Mihoshi who really kept everyone from complete despair. Her optimism was a rare bright spot in the dark atmosphere of the Masaki household. "You'll see! Someday we'll look back at all of this and laugh at how silly we were with Tenchi!" Mayuka was still too young to understand what was going on, but she could tell that something was deeply affecting the adults around her. Most of the time, she stayed silent and wide-eyed, watching everyone attempt to pretend nothing was wrong. But, being a kid, Mayuka would ask questions that sometimes not even Washuu could answer. It made coping all the more difficult. "What's the matter with Daddy? Why is he sleeping all the time? When is he going to feel better? Why is everybody so sad?" Nobiyuki took over Tenchi's former duties of gathering the carrots and sweeping the temple grounds. Amazingly, he was still enviously healthy. Perhaps it was because none of the females let him within twenty feet of them, or perhaps it was Achika's doing, but Nobiyuki never even suffered so much as a sniffle. Knowing that he would be resented for his apparent good fortune, Nobiyuki rarely showed his face in the house, only sneaking into Washuu's lab at night to "talk" to his son. Not that Tenchi could really hear him through that glass, but Nobiyuki probably did it more for his own benefit anyway. "Dammit, boy, you'd better get well soon, or you'll break a lot of people's hearts...you're the only thing I have left from Achika...please, Tenchi, be strong..." As for Washuu herself, it felt as if she had not had a decent's night sleep for centuries. More often than not she would be sitting in front of her computer and drinking from a mug of coffee that was so strong she might as well have been eating the beans straight off the bush they grew from. The only thing she got from these sessions, though, were dark circles under her eyes and pages and pages of mostly useless printouts. The cause of Tenchi's symptoms still continued to elude her, as well as a cure. She had even tried analyzing one of Nobiyuki's blood samples, but that turned up nothing unusual. 'At least now I don't need to worry about Tenchi infecting anyone else,' Washuu thought, not without some sadness. 'The infection agents probably can only survive in someone of Jurai descent...' she fought the urge to laugh again at the irony. 'The same thing that saved Tenchi from dead may also be the same thing that got him sick in the first place.' All coherent thought fled from Washuu's mind when Tenchi's eyes fluttered open. Everyone else also nearly immeadiately pressed against the glass, crying out Tenchi's name. *Hi,* Tenchi mouthed, smiling. *Sorry, I've worried you...* 'He's beaten such incredible odds to just open his eyes, but the first thing he thinks about is us...' Washuu's face suddenly felt uncomfortably warm. "See?" Mihoshi said triumphantly. "I told you he'd be okay!" --- Dunno where to go from here. Stupid me got distracted, and idea ran away from me. (Come back! ;_;) --- -"Dot" Dot-Chan on #fanfic at bachman.newberry.edu (FFIRC Chatroom) Proud member of CAPOW (Creative Anime Prose Original Writing) http://www.fortunecity.com/westwood/italian/70 http://members.xoom.com/dotchan (mirror) "Gendou's greatest desire was to be bitten in half by Unit 01?!?" (A friend, after watching EoE)