PM Productions Presents
A Phillip Masters Fanfic
Pale Glow
Warning: Darkfic

     "He's dead."
     "That's impossible."
     "I asure you, it's not.  He was very much mortal."
     "B... but... he can't die."
     "Ryouko, I know how much this hurts you, but he's dead.  There's
nothing I can do to change that."
     Ryouko grabbed Washu by the collar and lifted her from the floor.
"What do you mean?  Aren't you the 'greatest scientist in the Universe'?
Why can't you bring him back?"
     The red hared woman closed her eyes.  "I am powerful, but I am not
a god... I have limitations set by the standards of the Universe.
Sometimes I may bend those rules... but they cannot be broken."
     Ryouko slowly put her down.  She smiled, a soft and rare glance
into Washu the mother.  "I know how much he meant to you, Ryouko, and if
there were anything I could do I would do it in an instant.  However,
there is nothing... his time ended... it will be the same with you and I
someday."  She hugged her daughter.  
     Ryouko considered letting it all go, the pain and the anguish.  Let
her mother do the job she neglected for two thousand years.  Yet, she
found she could not do it.  Something held back the tears and the
screams.  Something locked up the emotion she herself denied for so
long.
     That's when she realized.  She adored Tenchi not because of his
charm, nor his looks, nor even his heart.  She adored Tenchi because she
loved him.  Because she felt for him... for anyone at all.  Kagato
removed her want for emotion long ago, and she had assumed it would be
gone forever.  Yet, when she first saw the young boy who would play in
front of the cave she knew... knew it was not entirely disected.
     She had watched him grow up.  She was with him when he laughed and
when he cried.  She found herself feeling along side of him,
experiencing what he was from the inside.  Never before had she seen the
Universe the way he could.  She became addicted to it... she wanted to
be able to do it herself.  She wanted him to show her.
     Washu looked up as Ryouko flew from her arms.  She watched with
sarrow as her daughter phased though the lab wall.  A single tear fell
from her eye.  "Goodbye, my Ryouko."
     Ryouko flew upward, tearing through the Earth's atmosphere.  She
broke free and launched herself into deep space with all her remaining
energy.  She watched impassively as the planets shot by her.  The Solar
System fell behind and she finally slowed.
     Tenchi was gone, she had no illusions to that fact.  However, she
still wanted him to show her... thus she would simply have to join him.
She could still see his laughing face, from almost a baby, to a fully
grown man.  The face changed, even the laugh changed, but the feelings
stayed the same.  It was the feeling she wanted.
     Ryouko hunched over and concentrated.  Her tears froze against her
eyelids...
     "Miyaa!"
     She gasped and ceased her actions.  She straightened out and stared
at the massive starship hovering nearby.  "Ryo-ohki, leave me... I want
this."
     The ship persisted, "Miyaa!"
     "Ryo-ohki... I will do this," she glared at the living machine,
"leave now!"
     The ship moved slightly closer, "Miya."
     Ryouko blinked, knocking the pain from her eyes in small
crystalline shards, "Y... you want to... join me?"
     "Miya..."
     Ryouko closed her eyes and bowed her head.  She could feel the pain
in Ryo-ohki.  She knew her pet loved Tenchi just as much as herself.
She knew the craft couldn't survive without either of them.  "Very well,
Ryo-ohki..."
     The ship glided over to her and engulfed her form.  Like thousands
of times before she stood in the center of the vessel, but this time it
would be her last.  She concentrated anew and keeled over in pain.  The
control crystals around her began to glow and unearthly green.  Then
they slowly began to draw inward toward her.
     Deep inside of Ryouko her substance was moving.  The mass which
made up her form was slowly polarizing.  In a supreme show of will
power, one of the mass' shattered.  Its parts came together as Einstein
turned in his grave. 
     Ryo-ohki let a final soft miya as she watched Ryouko absorbed by
white light.  Her control crystals moved inward completely, becoming one
with the intense ball of plasma.  
     The controlled detonation spread outward from its epicenter.
Brilliant light gushed forth, leaving nothing in its wake.  
     The illumination would travel for millions of years across the vast
expanse of space.  Billions of worlds would feel it, countless races
would see it.  Some would call it a sign from god, others a dying star.
Yet, no one would know the truth... the pain behind the pale glow in the
sky.
END
Don't know why I decided to do a dark fanfic all the sudden.  I suppose
I've always thought it would be neat for the OVA Ryouko to commit
suicide this way... it's been stuck in my head for a while.  Send
comments if you like, I'm listening.
Thanks for reading,
PMasters (4-12-98)      

"I'm only holding back the rain.  So many raindrops, so many pains.  I
want to find my train someday.  As seasons go past the station." - Tokyo
Babylon OVA 1
/ E-mail at:  PhilMasters@webtv.net /
Web page pending use of a computer!
"...has anyone ever used something alive for a coat of arms?" - The
Sailor Who Fell From Grace With The Sea (Mishima Yukio, 1965) / 
"You see, what you call a cat, we use as armor." - Londs (El-Hazard,
1994)