**Note**
**This is chapter four of On Pale Wings I Fly.  If you have not
**read chapter one, you are in the wrong place.  Otherwise, all
**the disclaimers and such from chapter one apply here as well.
**
** Also note:  This *is* the last chapter of On Pale Wings I
**Fly.  A sequel, Reflections on a Shattered Glass, is in the
**works.
**-- Krin (krin@hotmail.com)
**/Note**

					 -- four --
					   change

	Ai's whole body tingled.  After the strangely timeless step
through a universe of streaming reds and yellows that brought her
from the campground at Iizuna to wherever she was now it seemed
like the most likely cause.  But as long seconds flowed by the
tingling took on new dimensions.  It was not really her whole
body, she realized, not all at once.  It came and went, surging
through her from one part to another and then fading away.

	"You..."  The voice seemed to be at once all around her and
only inside her head.  It spoke slowly, and though she understood
the word clearly as it was spoken the memory of the voice seemed
to skitter away, avoiding study.

	"You are unknown to us..."  The cadence of the speech was
strange and Ai realized it was not speaking Japanese.  Nor was it
Chinese or English, the other two languages she knew well.  What
language was being spoken or how she understood it, however, were
beyond her.  Trying to think about the words themselves was
strangely difficult, like trying to remember something from long
ago that you had not realized was worth remembering at the time.

	"Who are you?  Unknown, so strange..."

	"I..."  Ai spoke aloud, unsure how else to respond, "I am
Fujihara Ai.  Who are you?  Where are you?"

	Ai looked around herself, only now really taking in where she
was standing.  The voice, coming almost immediately after she
stepped through the portal, had so startled her that she had not
really even realized that she was in a different place.

	The walls were distant.  Or, possibly, Ai reflected, the
strange whiteness surrounding her was some sort of fog and the
walls were invisible within it.  Whatever the case, she stood on a
wide white walkway, featurelessly smooth but not slick.  Above and
below her she could see other walkways running at all angles back
and forth.  She tried to trace one all the way to a wall, but they
always seemed to turn and double back, or curve down and intersect
one another.  None seemed to run very far into the distance and
none seemed ever to end, though she could almost swear she had
traced four of them with her eyes to have them all intersect in
the same spot, though it was obvious that spot was a continuous,
single span.

	Here and there, dotting the walkways, were little islands.
They were about three times the width of the rest of the path and
centered in each was a pond.  And from the ponds rose trees.  She
did not recognize the type of tree, but that was unsurprising.
She thought she could probably tell an oak from a maple, and a
deciduous from a conifer, but beyond that Ai was not one for the
wondrous world of tree identification.

	The strange way that things seemed simultaneously near and
far kept her from really telling how big the trees were.  There
was one up the path from her a little ways, but she could not tell
if that little ways was a few feet, or a hundred yards.

	"Fujihara..."  The voice came again, startling Ai once more.
It had been silent for nearly a minute while she looked around,
and now it spoke with a strangeness that was not present before.
Ai tried to pin it down, but the voice was so foreign she could
not define the emotion.

	"You are not of the House.  Yet you are.. Other.  But you
speak with the voices of  past times.  Explain to us..."

	"I... I don't know what you're talking about.  Who are you?
Where are my friends?  What is this place?"

	"So many questions..."  The voice seemed to chuckle, though
it was really nothing at all like laughter, "So many questions for
one so small in time... We are Jurai, Other...  You are within us
as we are within you...  Your friends, Other?  There are more...
More Others here..."

	Images rushed through Ai's mind, a flood of them coming one
atop the other, but each somehow distinct and separate, a moment
frozen out of time's flow and preserved in crystalline perfection.
Ai saw people, men, women, children, people of all ages walking
the paths.  Hundreds upon hundreds, thousands even, thousands of
people wearing clothing from kimonos to bizarre things of flowing
veils and shining metal.  Within the vast flow she saw her
friends, and her attention seemed to bring them to the forefront.

	"Those..."  the voice intoned, "Those Others are within us...
They are here in the time called Now..."

	"Where?"  Ai asked desperately, she was so confused.  First
everything in the clearing, things she would have sworn a day ago
were impossible, now she was here, wherever here was, talking to a
voice in a language she did not know surrounded by strangely
distant but always close trees.  Ai felt tears forming, her mind
was aswarm with confused emotions.  "I just want Mat. I just want
to go to Mat and go home..."

	"Home?" the voice asked, "You are home, Other...  You are
within Jurai..."

	"Ai!"  Ai turned at Ryouko's voice and saw her friend
staggering toward her, carrying Tenchi in her arms though she
looked on the verge of collapse.  "Ai!  Help me!"

	Ai ran to her, unsure if she covered the distance quickly or
if it took minutes, and put her arms under Tenchi's shoulders to
take some of the weight off of Ryouko.  Tenchi's upper body was
covered in blood and the wound in his chest, somewhat off-center
to the right, sparkled with something like black electricity.

	"Is he..."  Ai couldn't finish the question.

	"No," Ryouko said quickly, "No, he's alive.  I can feel him
in there, but he's slipping away.  We have to get out of here and
find my mother."

	"He will not live..."

	"What?"  Ai asked, looking around, "How can you know that?
Who Are you?!"

	"We are Jurai..." The voice said with infinite patience, "He
will not live in his state...  The darkness draws his life
away..."

	"Then help me!  Help him!  Where are we?!"

	"He will not live through enough of the time called Now to
reach the end of us...  You will have to be our hands, Other..."

	"Who are you talking to Ai?  Is someone here?  Did that thing
follow us?"  Ryouko asked worriedly, looking around.

	"You don't hear it?"  Ai asked, "The voice?  It says Tenchi
won't live unless I do something..."

	"What?"  Ryouko looked doubtful, "Are you okay Ai?  No,
nevermind, I need to get him out of here.  He's slipping..."

	"What do I need to do?"  Ai asked the air, "Show me, I don't
understand..."

	"You do not do, Other... You are Other, we are Jurai... We
do, you are..."


	"Put him down," Ai said, her voice distant and her eyes
looking somewhere past Ryouko's shoulder, "Lay him down on the
path."

	"What?"  Ryouko looked behind her but saw nothing but more of
the pathway and the trees, "We have to get him out..."

	"No," Ai said gently but still very far away, "He cannot live
that long.  Lay him down."

	"No," Ryouko shook her head, "I'm not giving up... I'll find
a way, he has to live, he has to..."  Ryouko started to turn away
but Ai grabbed her shoulder, turning her back to face her.

	"You must trust us, Masaki Ryouko,"  Ai said, staring through
her into the white distance, "If this Other will live you must
trust us and the Other who is our hands."

	"I..." Ryouko trailed off, not sure what she was about to
say.  She did not understand why Ai was acting the way she was,
but she could not seem to care either.

	Ryouko looked down at Tenchi and felt for him through their
bond.  His life was going quickly, being drained away by the dark
energy suffused in the edges of the wound, and it was becoming
harder and harder to find the spark of being deep down within his
unconscious mind.

	He would have been dead long ago, Ryouko knew, if it were not
for the dark energy slowing his body down as it drained away his
life.  She could feel his heart beating very slowly, only three or
four times a minute, and he had taken only one long, ragged,
gurgling breath in the time since she had stepped through the
portal.  But the darkness sucking away at his essence was killing
him as surely as the wounds would have.  Ryouko was letting some
of her own life energy flow out of the gems and into his body,
supplanting the flow through the darkness into subspace with her
own life to preserve what little was left of his.  It was a
careful balance though, if she let too much of her power into him
it would push the darkness away and his body would return to
normal, killing him when his brain ran out of oxygen, and if she
used too little the darkness would smother him entirely.  She
could not hold that razor's edge much longer.

	Ai was right, she realized, there was no way she could get
Tenchi out of this place in time to save him.  Even if Washuu
appeared right then and they went straight to the lab Ryouko was
not sure there would be a way to repair the damage that had
already been done.  If Ai could help him, though Ryouko did not
see how it was possible, she had to let her try.

	"Okay, Ai,"  Ryouko said slowly, lowering Tenchi to the floor
gently, "But if you don't save him..."

	"We will try," Ai said, kneeling over Tenchi.

	"We?"  Ryouko asked, but Ai was no longer paying attention.
Her eyes were closed and she had placed her hands on Tenchi's neck
and chest.  A strange, pale green light was growing around them
and Ryouko felt Jurain energy flowing out of her friend.

	Ryouko watched Ai doing what she would have said was
impossible, but could not find the will to be shocked.  From the
moment Tokimi's servant shot Tenchi she had been unable to feel
anything.  She realized, distantly, that they were on Jurai, in
the sacred hall where the ship trees were grown, and that her
friend Ai was somehow using Jurain power to heal Tenchi, but
feeling his life through their bond, so distant and so dim when it
had always been close and bright, she could not make herself care.
The only thing she cared about was Tenchi.

	The green light intensified and Ai shuddered.  Tenchi gasped
and his eyes fluttered open momentarily, the marks of his
birthright glowing briefly on his forehead.  Then they disappeared
and his eyes shut once more, but he was breathing again, if slowly
and raggedly, and the arcs of dark energy were gone from his
wound.

	"It is done," Ai said, standing, "This Other is not deeply
enough within us for the power needed to revive him, but he is no
longer dying.  There is another, lying along the path.  He will
need healing as well, but he will show you the way to ones who can
help."


	Ai blinked and looked around, down at Tenchi on the path and
at Ryouko gaping at her.

	"Wh.. what happened?  What did I just do?"

	Ryouko did not respond, only knelt beside Tenchi's still form
and stroked his blood-smeared face.

	"I.."  Ai's hand went to her forehead and she shook her head
slowly, her eyes closed, "I don't understand.  They.. they showed
me how, but I don't know what I did."

	Ryouko looked up at her, her eyes full of joyous gratitude,
and said, "You saved him Ai...  His life was going, but you
stopped it.  I don't know how you did it, but you pushed the
darkness out of the wound and healed his body enough that he isn't
bleeding to death.."

	Ai furrowed her brow in confusion, "Darkness?  What?  I..
it's so hard to think..."

	Ryouko stood and wrapped her arms around Ai, crushing her in
an embrace while thanking her again and again for saving her
Tenchi's life.

* * *

	Mataeo looked around at the vast white expanse and yelled,
"Hello?!  Hellooo?!" for possibly the tenth time.  There were no
echoes here, but the walls seemed far enough away that there
should be.

	Mataeo sighed and started walking again.  He did not know how
long it had been since he stepped through the tunnel of reds and
yellows that Washuu had called a portal, but it seemed like hours.
Mataeo had no idea where he was going or even if he was going
anywhere.  For all he knew he was walking in circles, there were
no landmarks besides the trees and they all seemed identical.  He
had briefly considered marking one of them, but somehow the idea
repulsed him.  Somehow he felt as though carving a marker into one
of the trees or breaking off a branch to serve as an arrow would
be deeply wrong.

	"Hello?!"  Mataeo called again, but again there was no
answer.

* * *

	"I'm scared Kiyone," Mihoshi whimpered, "Where are we?"

	"I don't know Mihoshi," Kiyone responded, feeling around in
the darkness, "Washuu said the portal went to Jurai, but it's too
dark in here to see anything.  I think we're sitting on some kind
of carpet..."

	"Maybe there's a way to turn the lights on?"  Mihoshi asked
and Kiyone blinked in the sudden brightness.  Apparently the
lights in this room were voice activated and did not particularly
care about the context of the command.

	"Good job, Mihoshi,"  Kiyone said, standing and reaching down
to help her partner to her feet.  They were in what looked like a
bedroom, definitely Jurain.  The bed was made of what appeared to
be wood-textured fibramic, as was most of the rest of the
furniture.  There were a few holo-still stands scattered across
the desk against one wall and a painting of someone dressed in
traditional Jurain clothing under a tree hung above it.

	"What do you mean Kiyone?"  Mihoshi asked, sounding confused,
"What did I do?"

	"The lights," Kiyone explained, "You triggered them."

	"What lights Kiyone?"  Mihoshi asked, peering intently
around, "Where are you?  It's so dark..."

	"Mihoshi?"  Kiyone asked, waving her hand in front of her
partner's face but getting no response, "Can you see me?"

	"No Kiyone," Mihoshi said, fear creeping into her voice, "I
can feel your hand, but I don't see anything..."

* * *

	Katsuhito opened his eyes slowly, his whole body felt like it
was on fire and the signature of someone channeling quite a bit of
Jurai energy nearby rang in his head.

	As the world came back into focus Katsuhito saw Ai leaning
over him, her eyes unfocused and distant, and Ryouko standing
behind her with Tenchi in her arms.  Katsuhito pushed himself
carefully up on his elbows and looked around, his mind slowing to
a halt as he realized where he was.

	"The Inner Chamber," Katsuhito gasped, "I never thought..."

	"Welcome," Ai said, the cadence of her voice very slow and
somehow slightly off, "Many moments have been gathered since last
you were within us, Yousho."

	"Mi.. Miss Fujihara?"  Katsuhito stuttered.  The way she
spoke seemed very familiar, but he could not seem to remember...

	"She's not Ai, Katsuhito," Ryouko began to explain, "I don't
understand it but-"

	"We are Jurai,"  Ai said in that strange, slow voice,
interrupting Ryouko as though she did not hear her, "We use this
Other as our hands."

	Katsuhito's eyes widened, he knew that rhythm of speech, "But
she.. she is not of the House!  She is not even Jurain!"

	"But the Other is within us.  We leave her to you now, she
has been our hands too much of the time called Now for one so
small in time and so far from our center.  Guide these Others to
the outside of us, Yousho."

	"Are you okay Katsuhito?"  Ryouko asked.  "We have to get
Tenchi out of here and mind help, he's hurt.  Ai helped him, or
the trees helped him, or Someone helped him anyway, but he's still
unconscious and I think he's still bleeding internally.  She said
the trees told her you could lead us out..."

	"Yes," Katsuhito stood slowly, brushing himself off, "It has
been a long time since I was in the Inner Chamber last.  I had
never thought to hear the voice of Jurai again..."

	Katsuhito sighed, "I did not wish to come back here, but
Washuu has sent me back to my past and now I can not avoid it.
Come, the way is not long if you know how to walk it."

	Ai stood slowly and followed them, shaking her head to clear
it.

	"Where are we Mister Masaki?"  Ai asked slowly, her head felt
ready to split in half.

	"This is the Inner Chamber," Katsuhito explained, "It is the
most sacred of all places in the Jurain Empire.  The trees around
us are the mind of Jurai, the children of the goddess Tsunami.
They used you as their hands, as a conduit for their power.  I do
not understand how that could be possible, you are not Jurain."

	"I.."  Ai shook her head again, "I don't know...  They talked
to me, they called me 'Other' and told me I had to be their hands
to save Tenchi...  What's a Jurain?  Who's Tsunami?  How can trees
talk?  What was that thing back in the camp?  Was it really
Tenchi's cousin?"

	Katsuhito sighed, "There is much to be explained.  Ryouko,
tell your friend your story.  It has been a very long time since I
walked the paths of the Inner Chamber and it takes more
concentration that I remembered."

	Ryouko began haltingly, starting with how Tenchi freed her
from the cave and going on to explain how she had fallen in love
with him by watching him grow up, how she had seen the passion and
courage in his tears the day he found out his mother was dying and
lost her heart to him.  As she talked about Tenchi some of the
depression and distance she had felt slipped away.  He was going
to live, she knew, they would find her mother or a doctor or
something and he'd wake up and she would be with him again.

	She explained how Washuu created her and how Kagato stole
control of her, locking her mother away in a crystal aboard her
own ship.  Finally she explained how the rest of the girls
gathered at Tenchi's house and how she had finally won his love,
and about the events that had taken place since.

	When she was done Ai's eyes were wide and she was shaking her
head slowly, apparently unaware of the movement.

	"My god Ryouko," Ai said softly, "When Mat and I decided we
wanted to find out who you and Tenchi were... My god, I had no
idea.  Is it all true?  All of it?  You're some kind of.. I don't
even know what to call it.. and you're thousands of years old?
And Tenchi's grandfather is an alien prince and Aeka and Sasami
are his sisters?  It all sounds like some kind of fairy tale..."

	"It's true, Ai,"  Ryouko sighed, "Every word of it.  You saw
that thing in the camp, can you think of any other way to explain
that?  To explain this place?  The voice you heard?"

	"I.. I guess not.  But it all seems so.. so unbelievable."

	"I'm sorry Ai.  We didn't want to lie to you, but you never
could have believed the truth."  Ryouko bumped her gently with her
hip since both hands were occupied with carrying Tenchi, "Still my
friend?"

	"I.. I.. Yes," Ai said, her resolve firming, "I'm not sure I
can believe all that, but you're my friend Ryouko.  And Tenchi's
my friend and your family, whoever they are, are my friends."

	"We're here," Katsuhito said, the exhaustive concentration he
had been
expending obvious in his voice, "The doors."

	Ai and Ryouko looked up, realizing that sometime while they
were talking they had reached one of the walls.  The path lead up
to a pair of huge wooden doors set into the featureless white
wall.  There were no doorknobs, no latches, no obvious way of
opening them at all.  Just a pair of large metal plates, one on
either door, at about head height.

	Katsuhito walked forward and touched one, closing his eyes
and leaning against the door for support.  He mumbled something
under his breath and the door swung slowly outward to reveal a
long hall beyond floored in wide black tiles and lined with
plants.

	"I.. I have to stay," Ai said, unsure of the words even as
she spoke them, "Mat and Washuu are in here, I have to stay until
they get here to let them out."

	"What?"  Ryouko asked, turning back to her from the doors,
"How can you know that?"

	"I.. I don't know," Ai shook her head, "I just know."

	Katsuhito nodded, saying, "Somehow she became a part of the
tree network for a time.  They told her more than how to heal
Tenchi and myself, apparently."

	"You two go," Ai said, trying to sound confident, "I'll be
okay."

	"Indeed you will," Katsuhito walked over and patted her
shoulder comfortingly, "If there is any place safe in the universe
from the being that attacked us, the Inner Chamber is it.  We will
take Tenchi to the palace hospital.  When you have found Mataeo
and Washuu, bring them to us.  Tell anyone you see, 'lattani.'  It
means hospital in the language spoken here, they will understand."

	Ryouko looked at Katsuhito as he walked past her and out of
the doors.

	"You called her Washuu," Ryouko said questioningly as the
doors swung shut behind them, "Not Miss Washuu."

	"Yes," Katsuhito said distantly, "I suppose I did."

	"Did you-"

	"I do not wish to talk about it Ryouko.  Your mother and I
must have words before I will be able to speak about what happened
today."

	"I-"  Ryouko was interrupted again, this time by a pair of
Jurain royal guardians charging across the hall toward them,
staves swinging at their sides.

	"Malao!" the one on Ryouko's right shouted, "Gonaoi, shikae
he nom!"

	Ryouko tried to remember her Jurain, it had been centuries
since she had any use for it and almost everything from her time
under Kagato's control was hard to remember anyway.  Slowly it
came back to her though, the guards were asking who they were and
what they were doing so close to the Inner Chamber.  *Well,*
Ryouko thought, *Asking is the wrong word really, more like
demanding to know before they kill us...*

	"Remember the vow!" Katsuhito growled suddenly in flawless
Jurain, stepping forward to put himself between Ryouko and the
guardians' staves, "This man is of the House Jurai and in need of
medical attention.  You will take us to the palace hospital, now!"

	"How do we know you speak truly?"  This time it was the
guardian on Ryouko's left who spoke, "You could be thieves or
worse!"

	"By Tsunami," Katsuhito swore in Jurain, "By the first tree
and by the House, I swear on my blood and my heritage.  This man
is of the House and will die without aid, I call the debt of the
tri-fold leaf and demand your service.  Gimana Tsunami we
nakattana!"

	Ryouko did not recognize the language Katsuhito spoke those
last words in, it sounded like Jurain but was not.  The guards
made an intricate symbol in the air before them, bowing their
heads automatically at Tsunami's name.

	"By the debt of the tri-fold leaf, called in the tongue of
the House," they spoke together, "We obey your demand."

	The younger of the two stepped forward and tried to take
Tenchi from Ryouko's arms but she stepped away, shaking her head.

	"Please madam," the guardian said, stepping toward her again,
"You must allow us to carry the prince."

	He did not actually say 'prince,' but Ryouko was not entirely
sure what the word he used meant, something like 'the person of
noble lineage who's designation is not currently known and whom we
wish to avoid offending.'  Jurains had thousands of words for one
another and Ryouko had never met anyone but a Jurain who could
keep them all straight.

	"No," Ryouko said, stepping away again, "I'll carry him."

	"Please," the guardian said, somewhat desperately, "You are
not Jurain and should not be carrying a person of the House..."

	"I am his wife," Ryouko growled, suddenly realizing the truth
of it.  They had not had a ceremony, but he had asked and she
accepted.  As far as Ryouko concerned that was all that was
important.  "I'll damn well carry him if I want to!"

	The guardian bowed and made another complicated symbol in the
air while saying, "Forgive me, oh wife of the man of unknown
lineage.  I did not mean offense and beg that you do not seek to
punish my insolence."

	"I.. er.."  Ryouko looked to Katsuhito for help but he only
quirked an eyebrow at her.  "You.. you're forgiven?"

	The guardian patted his chest twice and turned away, still in
a bow, before saying, "Thank you wife of the man of unknown
lineage.  Now please, come with us."


	Katsuhito fell into step beside Ryouko as they walked between
the rows of plants.

	"His wife?" Katsuhito asked quietly.

	"Yes," Ryouko replied defensively, "He asked me to marry him
last night and I said yes."

	"Ahh." Katsuhito smoothed some of the bloody hair away from
his grandson's eyes and said, "Congratulations Tenchi.  There are
not many women who would face a Jurain royal guardian for the
honor of having their husband's blood smeared all over them."

* * *

	"Awaken Washuu.  Rise and wake, your family awaits you."

	Washuu rubbed her eyes and looked around.  It was dark,
wherever she was, and the sound of gently flowing water was in the
air.  She clambered to her feet and looked to see what she had
been leaning against.

	It was a tree.  A tall, thin tree with only a thin scattering
of leaves on its branches.  As Washuu watched silvery flames ran
along the ridges of its bark and up to the leaves, diffracting
through their crystalline green structure into the air with a
sound like distant bells.

	"Tsunami." Washuu whispered, feeling it would be somehow
wrong to speak above a whisper in this place.

	"Yes," The voice came as though from far away, "What little
of me remains within this tree is here."

	"You.. you're not here?"  Washuu asked slowly.  She was not
sure how she had gotten here, to the very heart of the Inner
Chamber where Tsunami's tree stood, nor was she sure where the
rest of them had gotten to or what Tsunami was talking about.  She
remembered being in the campground, and the portal, but it all
seemed so far away.  Something about the goddess' presence made it
hard to think clearly.

	"I am a goddess Washuu," Tsunami's voice said gently and with
a touch of amusement, "I am everywhere.  But the center of my
being, what was locked within the wood of this tree for many
millennia, is not here any longer, no."

	"Sasami..."

"Yes, Sasami," Tsunami confirmed Washuu's guess, "With her Change
I can escape my prison for a while.  I must still return here, to
my wooden jail, from time to time.  Sasami is not ready for me
yet, but she will be soon."

	"Soon?"  Washuu asked, trying to put everything together.
The portal, the mouth at the Jurai end must not have stabilized
all the way, she realized, it must have been drawn toward the
strongest power source, distributing them along its curve.  Most
of them would probably have wound up in the Inner Chamber, then.
But why had Tsunami spared the attention to awaken her?  And why
was she being so friendly now?  Washuu knew that the goddess
looked on them fondly as Sasami's extended family, but she had not
expected to deal with a being older than creation on such an
intimate basis.  Washuu was tens of millennia old herself, but it
was barely a drop in the bucket to Tsunami's age and she was
overawed by the goddess' presence, even lessened as it was.

	"Yes," Tsunami's voice was soft, but full of something like
hope, "Soon it will be my time and I will walk the worlds again."

	"That thing," Washuu asked, thinking to take advantage of a
rare opportunity, "In the camp, is it truly Tokimi's servant?  Is
she trying to kill Tenchi?  Kill us?"

	"The laws," Tsunami said reverently, "I must abide by the
laws.  I can not answer your questions, Washuu.  To intervene in
the affairs of my sisters, to know my sisters' thoughts, to undo
what my sisters have wrought... I am eternal, but these things I
may not do."

	"Sisters?"  Washuu asked, "There are more than two of you?"

	"Once," Tsunami sighed, her voice growing more distant, "Once
there were three..."

	"Wait!"  Washuu called, "I have more questions!  And how do I
get out of here?!"

	But Tsunami was gone.  The tree remained and the silvery
fires traced up and down its bark in the pulse of the ages, but
Tsunami's attention was elsewhere.

* * *

	Aeka sat down heavily on her bed.  She had found herself in
one of the palace's many corridors after stepping through the
portal and made her way, almost unthinkingly, to her bedroom.

	*I'm back on Jurai,* Aeka thought sadly, *I had not intended
to come back here ever again, but because of Shiko I am back.  And
now I know what my father did, what he is.  How can I talk to him,
remembering that he hit me?  I will never be able to think of him
again without remembering.. remembering what that thing did to
me...*

	Aeka lay back on her bed and stared at the ceiling, trying to
see a way through her problems.  She did not know where the others
had gone when they entered the portal, but since she had been near
the end of the parade through the red disk she assumed they all
arrived safely somewhere in the palace.  She would issue an order
with the guardians to find them soon, but for the moment she only
lay there.  When she gave the order her parents would know she was
back and she would have to face them, face Azusa.

	Aeka sighed and wondered why all this had happened to her,
what she had done to deserve all this pain.

* * *

	"I'm telling you we're officers of Galaxy Police!  Just call
HQ on Dalris and ask for our ID!"

	Kiyone struggled again but still could not break the iron
grip of the guardian holding her arms behind her back.  They had
been caught almost immediately after leaving the bedroom, hoping
to find the others and figure out why Mihoshi had suddenly gone
blind.  The two guardians, they always seemed to travel in pairs,
would only say that they were going to be held under supervision
until their identities could be confirmed.

	"I don't think it's gonna work Kiyone," Mihoshi said sadly,
"They don't wanna listen."

	"Yeah," Kiyone agreed, giving up on her struggles and letting
the silent guardian guide her through the winding corridors of the
royal palace, "But these guys are going to be sorry when Aeka
finds out-"

	Kiyone's chaperone cuffed her on the back of the head to
silence her and said, "You have been warned not to speak the crown
princess' name.  Hold your tongue or it will be removed."

* * *

	"Ai!"  Mataeo yelled when he saw her in the distance, "Hey
Ai!"

	Ai did not respond until he was nearly there, she was leaning
against the doors with her eyes closed and Mataeo thought she must
have gone to sleep.  When she did raise her head and look at him
her eyes were far away, as though she did not even see him
standing there.

	"They're so old," Ai whispered, sounding as though she were
talking mainly to herself.

	"Who?"  Mataeo asked, looking around, "Who's old, Ai?  And
where is everybody?  And what the heck Is this place?  I've been
wandering around in here for hours..."

	Ai shook her head and looked at him, her eyes gradually
coming back into focus.  "Oh, hi Mat.  Come sit down, we have to
wait for Washuu."

	Mataeo sat slowly, looking at his girlfriend with an
expression of concern.

	"Are you okay Ai?  You sound kind of odd..."

	"I'm fine Mat," Ai sighed, "I've just been talking to.. to
someone.  This place is so strange..."

	"What are you talking about Ai?  First there's all that stuff
back at the campground, then I end up here and now you're going
all weird on me too."

	"I'm sorry," Ai smiled and took his hand, "I was confused
too, but Ryouko explained about the campground and they've been
telling me so much about Jurai that I didn't realize how confused
you would still be."

	"Ryouko?"  Mataeo asked, looking around and wondering if he
had somehow overlooked her, "Where is she?  Where'd everybody go?"

	"Ryouko, Tenchi, and Yousho.. I mean Tenchi's grandfather,
went to find the palace hospital.  Washuu's still here in the
Inner Chamber somewhere, and I guess the others are somewhere in
the palace, they can't see that far."

	"Who can't see that far?  What palace?"

	Ai sighed, "I'm sorry Mat.  Let me start at the beginning."

	Mat nodded and Ai took a deep breath, searching for a place
to start in the strange, amazing story she had heard both from
Ryouko and from the trees.  Finally she said, "It all started a
few thousand years ago when Washuu created Ryouko in her lab..."


	When Ai was done Mataeo was left even more doubtful than she
had been.  Space ships made out of trees?  Washuu twenty thousand
years old or more?  But it did explain a lot of things about his
friends, and considering the place he had just spent hours
wandering aimlessly through and the things he had seen in the
campground today Mataeo supposed he could accept it all, at least
until he heard a better explanation.

	"So what else did these trees tell you?"  Mataeo asked.

	Ai sighed and closed her eyes, leaning back against the door.

	"They told me so many things... It's hard to sort them all
out in my head, but I think I can speak Jurain now.  They told me
about how the empire has been around for hundreds of thousands of
years, maybe even millions.  This isn't even their real homeworld,
the seat of the empire has moved at least three times.  Their
culture has collapsed into pre-industrial levels at least four
times, but not since Tsunami gave them the trees.  They have four
languages, but most people only know one.  Members of the royal
families know the House tongue, some scholars know a little of the
old tongue but everyone knows the traditional chants in it, and
they can only speak the language they call 'the voices of past
times' when they talk to the trees.  There are so many rituals and
ceremonies and traditions it's staggering.  Most of them nobody
even remembers the reason for, they're just things that get taught
in their 'etiquette lessons' and everybody knows.  They have this
whole army of guardians who swear by a vow that they don't even
know, it was taken by the first guardians and now they swear to
follow the spirits of their ancestors without knowing why they did
what they
did..."

	Ai shook her head, trying to see through the vast amount of
knowledge the trees had imparted to her, knowing she would forget
almost all of it.

	"There's no parallel for their society anywhere in Earth's
history.  Even the roman empire at its height had nowhere near the
cultural complexity of Jurai, and didn't last as long as the
current Jurain emperor has been alive..."

	"Wow,"  Mataeo sighed and leaned back to rest his head next
to Ai's, "When I told Tenchi I wanted to know his story I didn't
think it would go back thousands of years.  At worst I thought he
would turn out to be yakuza or something, but an alien prince?
God, it's like I woke up today in an anime."

	Ai chuckled and squeezed his hand, "Yeah, but if this were an
anime the trees would have tentacles or something and I'd be
wearing a sailor fuku."

	"I dunno," Mataeo said thoughtfully, "You'd be kind of cute
in one... Ow!  Okay, okay, I was kidding!"

* * *

	"Miss Washuu?"

	Washuu did not look up from the gently gurgling stream by
which she sat.  She, and the stream, were in one of the palace's
many courtyards, this one large enough to have been called a park
on Earth.  After finding Mataeo and Ai she had gone with them to
the royal hospital and seen Ryouko and Tenchi, though Tenchi was
still unconscious and Ryouko refused to leave his bedside until he
woke up.

	Now Mataeo and Ai were off somewhere with Nobuyuki, Ai wanted
to see the Gathering Stone at the palace's western gate and that
was far enough away that it would be hours before they were back.

	"So we're back to that then?"  Washuu asked, still not
looking up as Katsuhito walked nearer.

	"You know how desperately I wished never to return here, Miss
Washuu."

	"Yes."  There was nothing else to say, she knew he would
rather have died than come back to Jurai again.  Washuu did not
understand why Katsuhito was so adamant to stay away from the
world which was once his home, but she knew the depth of his
dedication to his new life.

	"But you sent me back anyway."

	"Yes."

	Katsuhito came and sat down at the other end of the long
stone bench on which Washuu sat, watching the stream flowing
around rocks and tree roots.  It was an art form on Jurai, the
stream.  Jurain gardeners were renowned throughout the galaxy for
their work with stone, wood, and water.  They arranged the rocks
and guided the growth of the roots to cause the water flowing
around and over them to make specific melodies, and the quality of
the work was judged by the clarity and suppleness of the music.

	"Why," Katsuhito asked quietly from his end of the bench,
"Why did you send me back?  Why did you not let me remain on
Earth?  Earth is my home, has been my home for seven hundred
years."

	"I couldn't let you die Katsuhito," Washuu sighed, "Even if
you're an old fool and even if saving you meant you would hate me,
I couldn't let you die for no reason."

	"You know that Tenchi asked Ryouko to marry him?"  Katsuhito
asked, catching Washuu off guard with the sudden shift in
conversation.  No one else could do that, she reflected, Katsuhito
was the only person she had met in ten thousand years who could
surprise her.

	"Yes, she told me when we went to the hospital to see them."

	"By Jurain custom that makes you my sister."

	Washuu chuckled but her heart was not in it, "I'm sorry
Katsuhito.  It must pain you to have another sister who's heart
you must break."

	"Must I?"

	Washuu looked up then, for the voice speaking those last
words was not Katsuhito's.  The man at the other end of the bench
was young, a Jurain noble from his features.  But there, buried in
the lines of his face, was the familiar look of the old man she
had fallen in love with.

	"Katsuhito?"  Washuu asked, staring at the apparition.

	"You've made me return to my past Washuu, a past I had never
intended to visit again.  I do not know what that will mean for
me, but I do not wish to break another sister's heart.  When I
began my new life on Earth I left Jurai behind, tried to forget
the pain that haunted me across the stars.  But to be with you..
that would be a life as different from my life on Earth as Earth
was different from Jurai.  Perhaps it is right that I am here once
more, perhaps it is the demons of my past which would not allow me
to grow close to you and only vanquishing them will give me that
freedom."

	Katsuhito.. no, Washuu realized, Yousho, shook his head
sadly.

	"I do not know if I am ready to love you Washuu.  I wish I
could give you that, but it has been a long time since I loved
another and like Tenchi I fear I have locked away my heart to save
myself pain.  But I will try, if you will allow me.  It is not
many women who would nearly kill the man they love to save his
life."

	When Washuu took his hand he was an old man once more and
they sat together, as old people do, in the park, remembering the
past and wondering at what the future may hold.  And around them
the water sang.

* * *

	Aeka stopped when she heard Funaho's voice around the corner.
She had been on the way to speak with her about her father but had
chosen not to let the guardians announce her.  She was very
uncomfortable about the subject she meant to discuss and, in fact,
that was why she was going to Funaho.  Misaki was her birth
mother, at least as much as anyone had a birth mother on Jurai.
The Earth method of childbearing had probably been practiced on
Jurai at some point, Aeka thought, they had all the.. equipment..
for it anyway.  But for as long as anyone currently alive could
remember parents had had the fetus removed after the first
trimester of pregnancy and allowed to develop in an artificial
womb.  It was much better for the developing baby and much, much
more convenient for the mother.

	In any case, Misaki was the woman with whom Aeka shared her
genetic structure, but somehow she could not imagine talking about
her father's actions with her mother.  Funaho had always been much
more sedate than Misaki and somehow Aeka found the idea of going
to her more comfortable, though still horribly embarrassing and
very painful.

	But it appeared someone was already there.  Aeka stood near
the corner and listened, wonder what in the world she could be
thinking, eavesdropping on her mother, but doing it irregardless.

	"I am sorry I have not come to you before this Mother," said
a male voice.  Aeka stifled a gasp when she recognized it as her
brother's, but without the deepening and slowing it had undergone
in the centuries he spent on earth.  This voice sounded exactly
like the one she remembered Yousho speaking with before he left
Jurai all those years ago.

	"I should have come immediately after Tenchi was safely in
the hospital," the voice from Aeka's past continued, "But the
thought of facing you here, on Jurai, was more than I could bear.
I had never intended to see these halls again."

	"It is understandable, Yousho," Funaho said, confirming
Aeka's suspicions, "I saw how desperately you wished to avoid your
old life during my visits to Earth.  You never once came out to
greet your father or Misaki.  But I still do not understand Why
you so wish to avoid Jurai."

	Yousho sighed and Aeka restrained herself, she wanted to rush
around the corner, to see if her brother had somehow come back
from the forgotten past as he had in her dream, but she also
wanted to hear his answer to Funaho's question.  She had wondered
often why her brother seemed so disinterested in returning to his
home, especially since it would be a trivial matter to have all
the years that his time on Earth seemed to have put on him removed
once more.

	"I chased Ryouko for ten years, Mother," Yousho said slowly,
putting together the story he had never expected to have to tell,
"And in my time away from Jurai I learned much about myself that I
had not known.  When I finally caught up to her in orbit around
the Earth I was no longer sure why I was chasing her.  I had
ascertained that she was not truly the criminal she appeared, that
her actions were mostly, if not entirely, at the orders of some
other being.  But I had chased so long I did not know what else to
do.  I could not just turn her loose, she was still under
someone's control and would only do more damage.  But I could not
destroy her, she was an innocent being, used as someone's tool of
destruction.

	"My first night in orbit around Earth I slept beneath the
branches of my tree and Tsunami came to me in my dreams.  She
explained to me how to take Ryouko's powers without destroying
her, how to seal her away in the hopes that the creature
controlling her would eventually lose interest or die, and how to
use Funaho's power to keep Ryouko alive without her gems in that
time.

	"But the knowledge came at a cost.  Tsunami demanded that I
stay there, on Earth, and act as Ryouko's guardian until such time
as she could be released once more.  I was to give up my life on
Jurai and assume the life of a simple Earthling for as long as was
required.  It was not an order though, she offered me the choice
of doing as she asked or returning to Jurai and leaving Ryouko for
another to deal with.

	"I examined my feelings and found that acting as Ryouko's
caretaker appealed to me.  So I accepted and chased Ryouko to the
surface, crashing into the place Tsunami indicated and using the
cave there as a holding cell for Ryouko once I had taken her gems.

	"And there I remained for seven centuries until Tsunami came
to me again.  She gave me a vision of a glowing samurai, the
warrior I created in the legends I wrote about my arrival on the
Earth.  But in the vision the samurai was not fighting the demon
goddess, he was standing by her side and the darkness fled before
them.  Tsunami did not reveal herself, she only sent me the vision
and gave me a vision of my daughter, Achika, giving birth.

	"So I took little Tenchi, named after the title I had given
the master key in my legends, to the cave when he was a baby.  I
played with him there and in time he gained an affinity for the
place.  As he grew older I spun stories about the demon who lived
within and warned him of the terrible danger of ever entering,
knowing it would only enflame his curiosity.

	"And the rest you know,"  Yousho finished with a sigh.

	*He knew,* Aeka thought in wonder, *All along he knew who
Tenchi would choose, he was pushing him toward it all his life...*

	"Yes," Funaho said after a few moments of silence, "But you
have still not told me why you avoided returning to Jurai.  Why
did you choose to remain on Earth?  Why, after Ryouko was released
from the cave, did you never try to contact us?  And when we
arrived in search of Aeka, why did you continue to wear that
disguise and refuse to see your father?"

	*Disguise?*

	Yousho sighed again and said, "That is an even more difficult
story for me to tell, and starts before the other."

	"Do you want me to not ask then?"  Funaho asked gently, "If
it is too painful for you now I will wait, I have waited these
seven hundred years to know why my son left me, I can wait a few
more."

	"No," Yousho said with quiet resignation, "No, it must be
told eventually and since Washuu has forced me to return to my
past I suppose I may as well tell it now."

	Yousho paused and Aeka thought he may have changed his mind,
but then he went on quietly, "It began, though I did not know it
was beginning, over nine hundred years ago.  When Tsunami offered
me the choice of the knowledge to save Ryouko and stay in exile on
Earth or to return to Jurai it was the events of two centuries
before which made my decision clear.  For during the decade in
which I chased the demon my own demons caught me.

	"Even before Tsunami made me her offer I was considering
never returning home.  I loved Aeka dearly and before leaving to
seek revenge I had every intention of marrying her, but in my
absence I began to wonder if even love was worth returning to
Jurai for.

	"It was Azusa, you see,"  Yousho said, slipping apparently
without realizing into the House tongue, "You know about the
beatings, mother.  I know you know because I could hear you crying
in the next room sometimes when he gave them to me.  You know,
too, the reason for them.  You know that they are demanded by the
lessons of the second Change.  I knew that too, but for me it was
not enough.  All my life I wondered how we could demand such
things of ourselves, how a society based so strongly on love and
companionship as that of Jurai could encourage that parents beat
their children into submission."

	Yousho sighed heavily before continuing, "It was not until my
hundredth year that I learned we did not.  I had never discussed
the matter with anyone, my shame was too great.  That I would have
acted so inappropriately as to deserve my father's cane shamed me
to the core and I wished only to avoid his wrath in the future.
But one day I stumbled upon an ancient index of the lessons of the
second Change, and I discovered the truth.  That lesson, the
lesson of pain, is not given to Jurains.  Not to Jurain citizens,
not even to Jurains of the noble Houses.  It is reserved only for
the most high, for the House Jurai itself.

	"But you know that as well, don't you mother?  You know that
Azusa is the only man in the Jurain empire who has the freedom to
whip his children for insubordinance, the only person in the
entirety of the thousand suns who may freely strike another
without fear of repercussion.  And he used that power.  I do not
mean to say that he enjoyed it, even after all the things that
happened I do not think he ever enjoyed it.  But I think that he
observed the ritual too often.  I think that he allowed it to
twist his mind until he believed that the lesson of pain was the
Only lesson of value, that the cane was the best method for
teaching his children and the darkened room the only instructor of
worth.

	"But even that would not have been enough to keep me away.  I
loved Jurai, I loved the world and the empire and the trees and I
loved my family.  And it was that love that finally pushed me
away."

	Yousho paused again and Aeka wondered if that was the whole
of the story.  That the beatings her father had given her were
enforced by the lessons of the second Change, lessons she would
not learn for years still, was almost too much to consider.
Instead she pushed it to the side, saving it to look at later when
she could be alone and carefully examine her feelings about that.
Now she wanted to know why her brother had left her, why he had
never returned and how love could have kept him away.  She was
tempted to go into the room and ask, and was considering doing it
when Yousho spoke again.

	"He killed him, didn't he?"  Yousho asked, again in the House
tongue and his voice very small and distant, nothing at all like
the proud tones of the Katsuhito she had grown to love nearly as
much as she had her brother.  "He beat Namaeto to death for his
lies, didn't he mother?  There was no accident, was there-"

	Aeka gasped at the sound of Funaho striking Yousho.  She knew
it had happened that way around when Yousho's words stopped
suddenly, and from her mother's quiet sob of grief.

	"I.. I.. I am sorry, Yousho,"  Funaho said slowly, "I did
not.. I did not mean to do that.  It has been eight hundred years
since anyone said that name in my presence."

	When Yousho spoke again it was once more in Jurain and with
the strength of his years, "I am sorry, mother.  But it is true,
isn't it?  Father beat my brother to death, didn't he?"

	*Brother?*  Aeka wondered in a swirl of sudden confusion,
*Namaeto?  But I never had another brother...*

	"Yes,"  Funaho said in quiet grief, her voice wracked with
pain long buried, "Yes, he did.  Na... Your brother lied once too
often.  Azusa had tried to teach him with the lesson of pain
before, but Na.. he would not learn.  His boastful lies continued
and your father's anger grew each time he heard another rumor
started by his son.  Finally when he.. when he heard a rumor that
your brother had.. had.. been with Misaki, Azusa flew into an
uncontrollable rage.  He.. he beat him to death, and he left the
corpse in that room for two days before he allowed it to be
removed.  We.. we told the lie that there had been an accident in
his training and a quiet pronouncement was made that his name be
stricken from the records of the House."

	"Then you understand why I left?" Yousho asked gently.

	"No," Funaho replied eventually, "No, I do not.  It is
horrible, what happened, but you were not your brother.  Na...
He.. he deserved what came to him, it is the way of Jurai that the
emperor enforce the strictest discipline on his own children.
That your brother could not learn that lesson sealed his fate.
But you were a good son to Azusa, you took the lesson of pain so
inoften, and never for the same reasons.  I can understand your
grief, but why did you leave us?"

	Yousho sighed, "If I must explain it you will not understand.
That it is the way of Jurai does not make it Right.  My father
beat his son to death for a lie that was spawned out of rage by a
son for his father for the regular and vicious beatings he was
given.  Were it not for that tradition, if father taught his
children with words like other men of the empire, it would never
have happened.  When I was here I thought as you do, that it was
inevitable and that as the way of Jurai it was just.  But in the
decade I spent alone, wandering the stars in search of Ryouko, I
realized that it was Not right.  Just because a thing is done for
years, even thousands of years, does not make it correct.  Jurai
is a civilization of men and women who live by rules they do not
even understand.  And my brother, Namaeto, who's name you can not
even speak, died
for those rules.  Namaeto was a liar, on Earth they call them
compulsive liars, he lied without thinking.  But I loved him.  He
was my older brother and I looked up to him.  I knew he lied, but
he was strong and he was handsome and he knew more than I did.
When I realized that my father had killed him I knew I could not
return, because I was afraid of what I would do to Azusa if I
did."

* * *

	When Tenchi's eyes opened Ryouko was there.  After carrying
him to the hospital she had left his side only long enough to
change her clothes while the doctors examined him and repaired the
damage to his body.  Since then she had sat by his bedside,
holding his hand and waiting for him to wake up.

	"Ry..."  Tenchi's lips moved to form her name, but he did not
have the strength to say the whole word.

	"Good morning Tenchi,"  Ryouko said with a smile, kissing him
gently on
the forehead.

	"Ho..."

	"Two days,"  Ryouko responded to his only partially voiced
question.

	//Is it dead?//

	"No,"  Ryouko said sadly, "I.. Somehow I summoned the wings
after it hurt you, but even that wasn't enough.  It was rebuilding
itself when we came through mother's portal."

	//You summoned the wings?  How?//

	"I.. I don't know, Tenchi.  Mom doesn't know either, and
Sasami says Tsunami hasn't talked to her since the I did it.  I
can't even remember doing it.  I just remember how much you hurt
when that thing hit you and I remember wanting it dead, destroyed,
gone... Then the next thing I remember was carrying you through
the portal."

	Tenchi shook his head weakly and sent, //I don't know how,
but it makes sense now...//

	"What?"  Ryouko's brow furrowed and she wondered if he were
still sick, he had woken up a few times before and mumbled
incoherently both aloud and over their link, "Are you okay Tenchi?
Do you need some water?  Or should I get a doctor?"

	//No, no, I'm fine.  I.. I had a dream.  It was about a man,
and a tree.  And I understand now.//

	"What?"  Ryouko asked again, beginning to worry he really was
still out of it, "A man and a tree?"

	//Yes, and they flew... I understand now, Ryouko.  I know
what I was doing wrong.  The power.. it's not meant to be used,
not by humans...//

	"Then what good is it?  If you can't use the wings to defend
yourself and your family, why did Tsunami give them to you?"

	//I can, though, Ryouko.  But I've been doing it all wrong...
The power isn't meant to be used by humans, we are their hands.
We are, they do.  It is meant to be given.//

	"I.. I'm going to go get one of the doctors, Tenchi.  You
just lie still, okay?"

	"No,"  Tenchi said, some strength coming into his voice,
"Just.. give me some water, okay honey?"

	Ryouko nodded and handed him a glass, watching worriedly as
he drained it.

	"The dream,"  Tenchi began afterward, "It was about a man who
loved a tree.  And they flew together, singing.  It was..
beautiful.  And now I understand."

	Ryouko shook her head, this was sounding worse and worse but
she could see that telling him he was delirious was not going to
help.

	"What do you understand Tenchi?"

	"I understand how to call them now," he said with a wide
smile, "How to call them and not feel the pain.  But I need
someone's help.  I thought I would have to find a tree, but if you
can call them too it all makes sense..."

	Tenchi pulled his hand out from beneath the blankets of his
bed in the little, faux-wood paneled room of the royal hospital
and reached out to Ryouko.  She could feel him touching the Jurai
power and her concern turned to fear.

	"No, Tenchi.  Don't.  You're too weak."

	"Hold my hand, Ryouko.  Take my hand and be with me."

	"I.."  Ryouko did not know what to do.  Talking was not
stopping him and if she went to get a doctor he might kill himself
with the power in the meantime.  So she took his hand, hoping she
could at least exert some control over his draw of the power, not
that she ever had been able to before.

	"Open yourself, Ryouko.  Let yourself see the beauty of the
stars..."

	"Tenchi?"  Ryouko asked as he closed his eyes, his grip
tightening on her hand and the power flowing through him
increasing swiftly, "What are you doing Tenchi?  What stars?"

	"Close your eyes,"  Tenchi whispered, "Close your eyes my
love and fly with me."

	And then the pain came.  It came in torrents, in waves, in
the fury of a tornado sweeping down on them from a clear sky.
Ryouko's back arched and she worried briefly that the spasms in
her hand would break Tenchi's fingers, but then the pain was too
much and she couldn't worry about anything anymore.

	It was a universe of pain.  It was pain unending, without
beginning or ending or any fluctuation to give it texture.
Ryouko's entire body hurt, her mind hurt, her soul hurt.  And, she
realized ever so distantly, with the tiny part of her mind that
still functioned through the pain, it was not even hers.  She was
feeling Tenchi's pain, feeling only a fraction of what he felt
when he summoned the full power of the wings.

	//Open yourself,// Tenchi's thoughts came to her through the
pain, a voice tiny against the raging chorus of agony, //Spread
your wings, Ryouko...//

	Ryouko gasped, trying to find air to fill her lungs within
the inferno of pain.  In desperation she reached out to the gems,
opening the stops on their power as she dimly remembered having
done in the campground.

	But the pain only intensified.  Ryouko would not have
believed it
possible, if she could believe anything.  What was before an
unending world of agony became absolute.  There was no Ryouko,
there was no Tenchi, there was no Jurai, no world, no universe,
just the pain.  With her last conscious effort Ryouko reached out
through the pain that was more than blinding, was so horribly
intense that she had forgotten she ever even had eyes with which
to see, reached out to Tenchi and wrapped her mind around his.
She clung to him mentally and entwined her essence with his,
hoping that if she was to be in eternal torment to at least be
with her love through it.

	And then it was gone.

	Ryouko tried to open her eyes, but found that she had no
eyelids to open or eyes to expose beneath them.  She had no body,
no existence, she was a mind floating in a vast sea of silvery
light.

	//Tenchi?//

	//I'm here.//

	And he was.  She could feel her arms around him, feel his
arms around her, feel her body pressed against his, but could not
see him.  She realized she could not even feel her own body except
where it touched his, that her entire existence was defined only
by the points of intersection with the existence of Tenchi.

	//Where.. where are we?//

	//Everywhere?  Nowhere?  That place we go when you teleport
us?  The place we go when we die?  I don't know, Ryouko.//

	//I..// Ryouko started to tell him she was scared, but
realized it was not true.  She was confused, but she felt no fear.
Only a blessed peace, so utterly in contrast to the pain that she
could barely believe that that agony had existed.

	//I love you Tenchi.//  It was the only true thing Ryouko
could think of to say.  All the rest of the universe, all the
things she had seen in her thousands of years of life, all the
things she had said and done and the people she had known, they
all seemed like distant dreams lost within the silver light.  Pale
before the fires of the pain.

	//I love you Ryouko.//  And she felt the truth of it.  She
had known he loved her before, had heard him say it and believed
it, but she felt it now.  She felt his love for her as clearly as
she felt his arms around her, and that was as real as anything in
her universe now.

	//What do we do now?//

	//We've spread our wings, Ryouko.  Now.. now, we fly.//

* * *

	"Sasami?"  Aeka tapped gently at her sister's bedroom door
and hoped she would be alone.

	"Come in Aeka," Sasami called to her through the door, "It's
open!"

	Aeka opened the door and stepped through slowly, her mind
thick with the things she had heard.

	"Hi Aeka," Sasami said happily, "I looked all over for you
but nobody knew where you were."

	"I'm sorry," Aeka apologized, "I.. I needed some time alone
to think."

	Sasami nodded sadly, patting the bed in indication for Aeka
to come sit next to her.

	"It's about what he did," Sasami asked after her sister had
taken a seat and settled herself, "Isn't it?"

	Aeka looked sharply at Sasami and asked, "What who did?"

	Sasami shrugged, "Daddy, Shiko, Tokimi's servant.. it's all
the same thing to worry about, isn't it?"

	"How.. how do you know about that Sasami?"

	"Tsunami showed me.  She had to, 'cause we had to show you so
you could remember in time.  I didn't want to, but there wasn't
any other way."

	Aeka's mind reeled.  That she had experienced those things
was awful enough, but that Sasami, poor, sweet, innocent Sasami
had to know them as well...

	"I want to talk to her," Aeka said firmly, "I want to talk to
Tsunami, Sasami.  Can I talk to her?"

	"You already are," Tsunami said, and Aeka realized it was
true.  She had been speaking to her sister, but Tsunami had been
there as well, somewhere.  Now she was speaking to Tsunami and her
sister was there in some strange manner.

	"I do not like the things you are doing to my sister," Aeka
said determinedly, pushing away her awe and the thousands of
traditions and ceremonies beating at her mind to be performed in
the presence of a goddess.  "She is a young girl and does not
deserve to see.. those things."

	"And you deserved to live it, Aeka?"  Tsunami asked, tilting
an eyebrow.

	"I.." Aeka found she had no answer.  She did not believe she
deserved the things that Tokimi's servant had done to her, but she
was less clear about her father.  She had been improper and he had
done what was demanded by tradition.. it was the way of Jurai, she
simply had not understood...

	"No," Aeka said finally, "No, I did not.  The way is wrong, I
did not deserve what he did to me."

	"Good," Tsunami said, patting Aeka's hand comfortingly, "You
begin to nderstand."

	"But," Aeka protested, "You Are Jurai.  How can you disagree
with the lessons of the Changes?"

	"I am not Jurai, Aeka," Tsunami said gently, "I am no more
Jurai than you are Jurai, or than Sasami is Jurai, or little Ryou-
ohki.  I am Tsunami, I am eternal and all things, but Jurai is
Jurai."

	"But the trees..."

	"The trees were here Aeka, the trees have always been here.
When I was locked away in my prison all those millennia ago it was
in the body of a tree.  My presence gave them courage and a voice,
no more."

	"Prison?"  Aeka asked, feeling herself slipping further and
further into confusion.  She had meant to come here and talk to
Sasami about taking the throne in her place, then shifted to an
intent to talk to Tsunami about the things she was doing to
Sasami, but now she was lost in a mire of confused thoughts and
more confused emotions.

	"Yes, Aeka," Tsunami sighed, "That tree was no more by body
than Sasami is.  It was the locus of my attention, and for a very
long time constrained my actions.  Sasami's sacrifice gave me my
freedom and I am a goddess once more."

	"But how.. how could you be locked in a prison if you're a
goddess?  Couldn't you just.." Aeka wiggled her hands, unsure what
goddess did.

	"No, I couldn't just," Tsunami smiled and repeated the
wiggling hand gesture, "But I cannot explain how I came to be
locked away Aeka, it is an affair of my sisters and I and cannot
be discussed with another.  Even you."

	Aeka sighed, "Oh Tsunami, what am I to do?  I came here to
talk to Sasami, to convince her to take my place as first princess
so that I, like my brother, could put myself in exile on Earth.
But it's all so confusing, I love my mothers and, despite
everything, I love father.  And I love this world and my people
and I love the trees... What am I to do?"

	"You must find that answer inside yourself Aeka," Tsunami
said, taking one of Aeka's hands in hers, "Even a goddess can not
give you all of the answers you seek.  If I told you what your
next actions will be you would seek to take others in the hopes of
a better outcome.  If I lie and tell you what will make you take
the actions you would have taken anyway, you will wonder what
would have happened had you done what I said you would do."

	"So instead you tell me nothing and I do what I would have
done anyway, but while wondering if it is what you intended?"

	Tsunami smiled.

	"Do you know my thoughts, Tsunami?"

	"If I wish," Tsunami said quietly, "I may know them.  That is
within my power, now."

	"Is it true?  Is that awful thing true?"

	Tsunami was silent for long moments before answering, "A
thing need not have happened to be true, Aeka."

	"Then.. then you know where I need to go."

	"I know where you wish to go, and I know where you will go."

	"Then will you take me there?"

	"We are already there, Aeka."

	And it was true.

* * *

	Tenchi took the final step across the bridge onto the wide,
round platform and did not look back as the bridge faded out of
existence.  Ryouko was waiting outside, but he could feel her
there, as far away as the other side of his mind.

	"Slave!"  Tenchi shouted into the vast emptiness surrounding
him, "I've come!"

	Tenchi was not sure where the light came from, but like so
many things in this place the light simply had to be accepted as
existing.  It lighted his path as he walked and it lighted the
wide, round platform atop which he stood.  It spread slightly out
from the platform as well, illuminating the still waters
surrounding it without giving any hint as to their depth or what
might lay beneath their surface.

	It was out of the shadows cast by that light that he came.
The darkness flowed and melted and became night given form.

	"Slave?"  It growled in that awful, inhuman voice, "You call
Me slave Masaki?"

	"You have a new face,"  Tenchi commented coolly.

	"Yes," the man now standing before Tenchi, on the opposite
side of the
dais, replied, "Do you like it Masaki?  Do you remember its
lines?"

	Tenchi looked at Tokimi's servant and tried to imagine what
it could be talking about.  The body it now wore was male with
long brown hair flowing down over its shoulders and tied at the
back.  Its face was, he supposed, handsome, with a strong chin and
firm eyes.  But he had never seen it before.

	"I don't know what you're talking about.  I won't let your
lies confuse me anymore, your goal was no more to destroy my
humanity than it was to spy on Washuu."

	"Oh, but you're the one lying now Masaki.  Or do you truly
not remember me?"

	Tenchi shook his head, "I did not come here to talk.  You've
hurt my family for the last time."

	"So you think you can beat me now Masaki?  You're weak,
Masaki.  You've always been weak."

	Tenchi shook his head, trying to dispel the miasma of
confusion that the thing's words seemed to summon.

	//Ready, Ryouko?  Let's get this over with, once and for
all.//

	//Ready when you are love.//

	Tenchi released his grip on the power of Jurai and let it
flood into him, and at the same time opened his link with Ryouko,
giving it all to her.  He did not bother trying to tense for the
pain, he knew from experience that there was no way to prepare
himself for that.  But this time it wasn't there at all, he felt
the torrents of power flowing through him and into Ryouko, but
there was no pain.

	Tenchi felt Ryouko's arms around him, felt her cheek resting
on his shoulder and her breath against his neck though she
remained far away.  And with her presence came the power.  It
flooded back out of Ryouko and into him in a wave of nearly
overwhelming warmth.  Tenchi raised his hand and let the power
flow through it, coalescing in the form of the wings.

	//Kill him Tenchi,// Ryouko sent amidst the stream of energy,
//Rip the bastard's heart out and show it to him.//

	Just as the power reached its peak, the point where the wings
seemed nearly solid without the subtle twist he had learned was
required to cause them to manifest physically as the sword, Tenchi
felt Ryouko opening her gems.  The flood of power doubled,
tripled, there were no words to describe the way it surged into
his body or the way his mind seemed to float on a sea of it.  The
wings shimmered and separated, three becoming six, and the tiny
pinpoints of green flame in Tenchi's eyes flared like suns.

	Tenchi reached out to the wings and drew them back into
himself, twisting the flow of energy to mold them into katanas of
light.

	"Time to die slave,"  Tenchi said calmly, the emotion gone
from his voice as he slid into Moonlit Branches, letting the
second blade curve naturally over his head.

	As Tenchi rushed the being that had once been Shiko he saw
the expression in its eyes.  It was the same emotion it always
held, the same it had worn when it told him what it had done to
Aeka, but Tenchi saw it for what it was now.  It was not hatred or
anger, not malevolence or insanity, it was fear.  Absolute and
total terror.

	But Tenchi was beyond caring now, his emotions swept away in
the flood of power so that the only one left to him was his love.
For Ryouko, for Aeka, for all his family, for the people whom this
thing had wanted to hurt.  And for that it would die.

* * *

	Aeka knelt in the drying pool of blood and, hesitantly,
touched the
battered face of the man from whom it issued.  Somehow she knew it
was the being who had hurt her, the creature who had enslaved
Shiko's body and nearly killed Tenchi.  Aeka could not say how she
knew that, for it looked nothing like Shiko or the horrible
atrocity in the forest now, but she knew.  Knew it as surely as
she had known the way across the vast complex Tokimi inhabited and
known how to trigger the bridge which brought her here.

	And, too, she knew that there was life left in the corpse.
Tenchi would not have know, she knew, if he had he would have
continued until that spark was gone.  Aeka did not see Tenchi's
fight with the creature, as brief as it was, and did not see him
hacking its body nearly to pieces before leaving it, apparently
dead, on the ground.  But like the other things, Aeka knew it had
happened.  And now she knew how to bring that spark of life out of
the depths and awake the being she had longed to destroy.  Aeka
assumed it was a gift from Tsunami, she could find no other
explanation for the knowledge she held.  The goddess must have
known her purpose here and given her the knowledge to complete it.

	"Awaken servant," Aeka said softly, "Rise and wake, I wish to
speak with you."

	The thing's eyes fluttered open and it gasped in pain.

	"What are you?"  Aeka asked, her question a command.

	"I.."  She could see the struggle in its features, though
whether it fought to avoid answering her question, over how to
answer it, or over whether it knew the answer at all, she could
not tell.

	"You are not my brother,"  Aeka said quietly, "I came here
thinking that you were, that you were, somehow, my brother
Namaeto, twisted by what Azusa did to him, but you are not."

	"No," it said, its voice that same horrible stone-on-steel it
had always been.

	"You are not Shiko,"  Aeka continued, "You are no more
Tenchi's cousin than you are my brother."

	"No," it said again.

	"You are not my father, though you used his words when you
beat me.  You are not my lover, though you tried to take the role.
You are not even Tenchi's enemy, are you?"

	"I.. I hate Masaki.  Masaki was weak, he took father's
beatings when I stood up to him... Masaki pushed you away when you
tried to love him, Masaki doubted me though I had changed from my
old ways..."

	"You don't even know what you are, do you?"  Aeka asked, her
voice touched by distant compassion, "You hate an image that isn't
even Tenchi, it's some kind of blending of all the pain and anger
of all the people you have pretended to be."

	"I.." its voice failed again, overcome by confusion.

	"You hate lies because your entire existence is a lie," Aeka
said, the words coming atop the realization, "You do not even know
what you are, you only know the fear of the darkness that is your
home."

	"I.. I am.. I am Tokimi's servant."

	"Yes," Aeka said gently, closing its eyelids, "And your
mistress needs you no longer."

* * *

	The minds of gods are not the minds of men.  The thoughts of
a goddess span aeons and, at the same time, take less time than
the orbit of an electron about its nucleus.  When gods speak to
one another it is in the wind of the stars and the breath of the
atoms, their smiles are in the curve of a comet across a night sky
and their laughter is in the babbling of brooks in the mountains.
The words of the gods are not meant for the minds of mortal men
and are spoken in tongues which no man could hope to learn in a
million lifetimes, in languages old before the stars were born.

	But if gods were to speak in mortal terms, if they were to
gather together as humans would and speak to one another in a
human tongue, if they were to do such a thing then the
conversation of Tsunami and Tokimi may have been this way.


	They stood together in a place beyond time, a void of
unmeasured space that was at once beyond the universe and, at the
same time, Was the universe.  How long they stood together cannot
be said, for there is no time in that place.  Their words came in
sequence for it was convenient that they did, not because it was
important that this word came after that.  They could each, when
they wished, know all that had occurred since the beginning and
all that would occur until the end.  Almost.  All things have
limits, and even the minds of the gods are not all reaching.

	"You are my equal, sister."  Tokimi's voice had the ring of
tradition when she spoke.

	"I am your equal," Tsunami answered.  They did not bow,
though many might think it would have been appropriate.  Gods do
not bow, even to one another.

	"My time fast approaches," Tokimi observed.

	"There is no time here," Tsunami answered, though Tokimi's
meaning was clear.

	"I fear what will occur."

	"You?  You fear change my sister?"

	"Yes," Tokimi sighed, "It is cruel that I should fear that
which I am, but I fear it none the less."

	"It will be her, then?"

	"You would know as well as I."

	"There are others who could fill the role."

	"That one has suffered," Tokimi said, her eyes looking inward
at the stretch of time.

	"Then it will be her?"

	"And our sister," Tokimi asked, ignoring the question, "She
remains Other?"

	"That you speak of her so is answer enough, is it not?"

	"Yes," Tokimi sighed, looking to the distant shadows cast by
a figure who was not there, "Yes, it is."

	"Her time will arrive.  All times do, it is their nature."

	"I miss her, sister," there was infinite sadness in Tokimi's
voice.

	"I also," Tsunami answered with equal emotion, "But we will
be together once more."

	"The time comes that we will walk the worlds again," Tokimi
observed, "It
as been so long, I do not know that I look forward to it."

	"Our wishes are immaterial, sister," Tsunami reminded Tokimi,
"We are our own pawns in this game and our moves were made before
the Beginning."

	Tokimi sighed in answer and looked out across the expanse
that was, at once, all things and no things.

	"Do you remember," Tokimi asked, "Do you remember the
Beginning?"

	"I remember all things, when I choose."

	"Do you remember the song," Tokimi continued, ignoring her
sister's barb, "The song we sang when the stars were new?  Do you
remember it now?"

	"I do."

	"Sing with me, my sister?  Sing with me and let me remember
the time when the universe was young and we had all creation
before us?"

	"We have it still, sister."

	"But we were together, then."

	"We will be again," Tsunami said gently, raising her voice in
song.

	They sang then, together, and their voices were the breath of
the stars and the wind that blows in the space between atoms.
Their chorus was the life and the death of the universe and their
backbeat the pulse of galaxies.  There were no words in the song,
though its meaning held all of creation.  When they came to the
third verse they stopped, and they listened to the silence of the
universe while their sister would have sung her part, were she
there.

	When the time of song was done Tsunami left that place, once
more busy amongst the worlds.  Tokimi had no such tasks, her
duties never ceased for she embodied them entirely.  She was
change, and change was Tokimi.  All things which change, from the
tiniest leaf to the greatest galactic cluster, all things which
move and shift and alter their form, all those things were Tokimi.
It was cruel, she reflected, that she should fear her coming
change, but the fear remained anyway.  In as much as a god can
feel fear.

	Tokimi sang again, then, repeating her own verse of the great
song alone in that place beyond time.  She had been alone for a
very long time indeed and its sting was numbed by familiarity.
Tokimi sang and the stars danced, the universe rolled on and the
quarks spun.  Tokimi's song was the force driving the clockwork of
all creation and she sang sadly alone, there in the place without
time.

* * *

			There is a story, we are told, of the first man
		to see the stars from aboard a ship-tree.  It was in
		the old times, when the old tongue was spoken by man
		and there were those who remembered the voices of times
		past.  In those times Tsunami was young and her tree
		shone with newness.  Her children spread slowly across
		the world and our bonds with them grew.  One man fell
		in love with a tree, and the tree in love with him
		in return, and their children are our ancestors.  That
		man was the first to see the stars from beyond the
		skies, the first to dance the dance of love with the
		trees and the first to be granted their boon.  It is
		said that when his love took him beyond the world in
		her embrace he was frightened, that the depths of
		space were more than he could bear and that he wept
		for the loneliness of what he saw.  But then his beloved
		spread her wings and he saw the beauty of it, he
		soared with her across the sea of suns and his heart
		was light with joy.  It is said that they sang a song
		then, together in the void between worlds.  It is that
		song we sing now, when we feel alone and as if there is
		nothing in the universe to bring joy to our hearts.  We
		sing their song and it reminds us of our heritage, of
		the love that he shared with the tree and of the
		love we share with them now.  Their words were in the
		voices of times past, but we remember their meaning
		still, and we sing.

			The depths are deeply black,
			and the stars give little warmth.
			All things are gone and darkened
			now, beyond my feeble grasp.
			I see the error of my thoughts,
			in thinking all was simple.
			The universe is great and vast,
			more than one heart can bear.
			But in her arms I soar the winds
			of the distant suns.
			In her heart I find myself and
			I fly with her now.
			The depths are deeply black,
			and the stars give little warmth.
			But in my love I find myself and
			on pale wings I fly.

					-- Jurain traditional,
					   lessons of the Second Change.