Disclaimer:  I don't own Tenchi, nor do I own any of its affiliates. Pioneer
does.  I wish I owned Tenchi.  Then my stories would be on the air instead
of
posted on this site…but anyways, I do own my characters and my story
ideas,
so don't take them without permission (if you ask me I just might let you).
So don't sue me because I have no money, blah blah blah.

Author's note: You may think that some of the characters are being portrayed
incorrectly in my story, so send me flames about it if it will make you feel
better.  But I don't really care either way, because it's my story and I'll
do whatever I dang well please!  Oh, and there may be some adult humor in
this, depending on my mood.  :P  Keepin' it short, thanks, and enjoy!

Tenchi Mystique, Chapter Three

Areah fidgeted uncomfortably in her seat.  The two of them had been silent
the whole trip, and they were nearing Tenchi's school.  She was thankful for
his silence, for fear of some perverted remark coming from his mouth, but
the
silence only meant there was sound to come.

She shifted in her seat to gaze out the window as the scenery passed her by
in smudges of color.  "Tenchi," she thought, and sighed quietly to herself.

"Well, here we are," Noboyouki stated, pulling up in front of a large stone
building.

"Thank you, Noboyouki," she replied, staring up at the huge building as she
stepped gracefully out of the car.  He watched her as she shut the door and
proceeded along the sidewalk leading up to the front steps before speeding
away.

"The front office is probably right in front of the school," she thought
aloud, surveying the landscape.  "If not, then the people who designed this
place were pretty stupid."

Her heels clicked daintily as she hopped up the few stone steps and pulled
open the door.  Honestly, she didn't know what to expect.  She had never
been
to a school on earth before, and she was used to the vast, luxurious
hallways
of Jurai's schools.  The sound of her heels clicking on the tile floor
echoed
off the walls of the corridor as she walked down the main passageway.

As she walked past the main office, a young woman working as the secretary
poked her head out the door after her.  "Excuse me, miss?" she asked, and
Areah turned around to stare quizzically at her.  "Can I help you with
something?"

"Yeah, I was looking for the main office," Areah replied.

"Well, this is the main office," the woman replied, smiling gently.

Areah smiled graciously and walked I through the doorway as the woman
retracted back inside.  "I would like to sign up for tenth grade," Areah
stated, coming to stand on the other side of the secretary's desk.

"Alright, just fill this out and give it back to me when you're done," the
secretary replied, handing her a clipboard over the counter.

"Thank you, uh-" she started, pausing to squint at the woman's nametag.
"-Dorothy."

The secretary smiled and nodded her head.  Areah turned around and took a
seat at a nearby chair, crossing her legs and resting the clipboard on one
knee.  She pulled a pen from the top of the clipboard and began to examine
the form.  Suddenly she thought of something.  "Excuse me, but how soon can
I
get into my classes?" she asked, looking up at the secretary.

"Well, depending on the counselors, it could take anywhere from one day to a
couple of weeks," Dorothy replied.

Areah frowned, but said "Thank you" anyway and returned to her form.  She
was
determined to get in before that.

The first question on the sheet was her name, age, and parent or guardians'
names.  She put the pen to her lips thoughtfully before scrawling "Areah
Tharis," figuring it would be safe to put her real name since no one on
earth
knew who she was anyway, "age 15," and put down Katsuhito and Noboyouki
Masaki as her guardians.

"Dorothy?" she asked, disturbing the secretary from her computer again.
"Can
you tell me what classes Tenchi Masaki has?"

Dorothy looked at her strangely for a moment before returning to her
computer
database and accessing the files on Tenchi Masaki.  "Well, he has Algebra 2
first period, PE second period, woodshop third period, English fourth
period,
History fifth period, and chemistry sixth period."

"Thank you," Areah replied, smiling at Dorothy's patience.  She turned back
to the form again and filled in the same exact schedule for her classes.

For her birthday, she couldn't possibly fill in her real birthday, because
they'd think she was insane, so instead she did the math and put down April
22, 1986.  The rest of the sheet was simple for her.  When she was done, she
stood up and handed the clipboard back to Dorothy with a thankful smile.

"I'm just going to go run a few errands," Areah explained.  "I'll be back in
about an hour to, uh, check out some of the classes."

She smiled, turned, and was out the door before Dorothy could ask any more
questions.  Breathing a sigh of relief, she headed out the door and ducked
behind a garbage can to dematerialize.  In a flash, she was materialized
again
at the nearest accessible computer, which just happened to be at the city
library.

Sighing at the inconvenience of her position, she slid into a chair at the
nearest computer and stared at the screen.  A search program using the
district of libraries was already pulled up on the screen, which irritated
her even
more.  Skillfully, she hacked into the computer's main database and pulled
up
a program from the school's computer, downloaded through the phone wire.

He fingers flew to the keys, and she was soon in the mainframe of the
school's list of classes.  She paused for a moment, remembering what classes
Dorothy had told her that Tenchi had, before pulling up a blank schedule.
She entered her personal information at the top and then entered her desired
classes into the class schedule portion.

When she was all done, she saved the changes to the school's database and
returned the screen to its original search program, without even breaking a
sweat.  "That was too easy," she thought cockily, standing up and
stretching.
 In a moment she was back in front of the school, opening the doors again.

"Hello," Areah said cheerily as she walked into the main office.  Dorothy
looked up from her computer and smiled.

"Took longer than you'd expected?" Dorothy asked.  Areah, surprised, glanced
at the clock to see that it had taken her an hour and a half.

"I must be getting rusty," she thought irritably.  "I thought that database
was awfully easy to crack."  She looked back at Dorothy with a nervous
smile.

"Yeah, I guess it did," she replied.  "What can I say?  The crowds were
surprisingly horrendous."

Dorothy smiled sympathetically and turned back to her computer monitor.  A
look of surprise flooded across her face, and she glanced from the screen
Areah, back to the screen again.  "Wow, I guess our counselors are getting
quicker than I thought," Dorothy exclaimed, peering out at Areah from behind
her thin rimmed glasses.  "If you hang on for just a moment I'll have your
schedule printed out for you, and you can enter your classes today."

Areah feigned great surprise and strode over to the desk.  "Are you sure
that's my schedule?" she asked, peering over the counter as she tried to get
a better look at the screen.

"Yes, as long as you're Areah Tharis," Dorothy replied, looking back at the
computer monitor again.

Areah nodded her head.  "Well then, here's your schedule," Dorothy told her,
handing her a small slip of yellowish paper.  "It's third period right now,
which means…woodshop, room D101.  It's just down the hallway to your
left."

"Thank you," Areah replied with a smile.  When she left, Dorothy was still
shaking her head in disbelief.

Areah peered around the corner of the D hallway before taking her first step
down it.  She inspected the numeration on each door as she continued down
the
hallway, stopping at number 101.  Holding her schedule tightly in her
hand, she pressed her face against the tiny window in the center of the
door.

Inside, the entirely male class was working individually at their places
along
a long wooden bench.  There were different shaped wooden structures spread
out along a table nearby, some more advanced than others, some still
unfinished.

She didn't wait for anyone to see her.  Instead, she just walked right in,
high heels, mini skirt and all.  Smiling, she handed the teacher her
schedule
without waiting for an introduction.  All around the room, the sounds of
saws
and other woodworking tools ceased.

The teacher was a tall, burly young man, who looked to only be in his early
twenties.  He had short, straight brown hair slicked down with hair gel and
flipping up a bit at the front.  His soft brown eyes, so similar to
Tenchi's,
scanned her schedule before looking back at her with a smile.

"So, you're Areah?" he asked.  She nodded.  "It's good to see a young woman
in woodshop for once."

For some reason, Areah got the sneaking suspicion that her pioneering
woodshop for young women wasn't the reason he was happy for her presence.
Still, she smiled graciously.  "I'm glad to be here.  I love working with
tools."

All around the room, jaws dropped.  Areah turned to inspect her fellow
classmates, and smiled devilishly when she spotted Tenchi.  The moment he
recognized her, he dropped the tool he was holding on his toe.  He held his
injured foot, hopping up and down in pain.

"Areah?!" he cried, ceasing his pained hopping.

"You two know each other?" the teacher asked, looking rather surprised, with
an air of disappointment.

"Well, um, uh," Tenchi stuttered, an explanation ceasing to present itself.

"I'm friends with his grandfather, Katsuhito, and I came to stay with him
for
the rest of the school year," Areah cut in, turning to the teacher.

He smiled, thankful for a logical explanation.  "Well, it's good to have you
with us.  My name is Mr. Ishimi, but you can call me James," he added,
shaking her hand firmly.

The students gaped silently, and from somewhere in the room someone said,
"but you always make us call you Mr. Ishimi."  They were quickly silenced by
a prompt death glare from James.

"You can call me anything you want," he said, turning back to Areah and
smiling.  There was a moment of silence before he returned to the present.
"Well, since you two already know each other, why don't you go take a seat
next to Tenchi.  He'll explain what we're doing."

"Thank you," Areah replied, nodding and going to stand by Tenchi.  She could
feel the other guys' eyes on her as she passed by, but she ignored them.

"Hi Tenchi," she said quietly as she took a seat next to him.

"What are you doing here?" Tenchi demanded, replacing the tool he was using
on the workbench.

"I told you I was going to come with you to school, Tenchi," she replied
cheerily.  "Here I am."

"You're not supposed to be here," he growled back, fiddling absent-mindedly
with his creation.

"Tenchi, I wanted us to be together," she replied innocently, her eyes
getting big.

"And how did we end up with the exact same schedule?" he growled under his
breath.

"Coincidence, I guess," she replied, smiling broadly.

"Oh, what did you do?" he asked, turning to her.

"Tenchi, I'm hurt," she replied innocently, her eyes getting shaky.  "How
could I do anything to change my schedule?  I thought you'd be happy we
could
be together now, all day."

"Areah," Tenchi complained.

"You don't want to be with me, Tenchi?" she asked, drawing back, her hand to
her heart protectively.

Before Tenchi could say anything else, she began to cry.  "Oh, come on now,
Areah, don't cry," he pleaded, pulling off his gloves and taking her hand in
his.

Almost immediately, her crying ceased.  She just stared in shock at the way
he held her hand ever so gently.  "Tenchi," she said quietly, her face
flushing.

Realizing what he had just done, Tenchi quickly withdrew his hand, though
his
cheeks had been painted a brand new shade of red.  Waking up to the fact
that
practically everyone else in the classroom was staring at them, Tenchi
glanced around the room nervously.

"Well, what are you waiting for?" Tenchi demanded rather loudly.  "Get back
to your projects.  This isn't a sitcom."

The other students moaned and complained for a few minutes before falling
back into their routine, sawing and grinding and smoothing.  James handed
Areah a pair of gloves and work goggles and started her on her way into the
project.

"We're working on a small structure of your personal choice and own design,"
James told her.  "But since you just joined the class, I think it's only
fair
to start you out at something a little easier."

"I think I can manage," Areah replied, smiling confidently.

James considered it for a moment, then nodded.  "Alright, let's see what you
can do."

He gave her a stack of wood pieces and a tool belt.  Immediately, she set to
work, and it wasn't long before it became perfectly clear what she was
building.  Tenchi groaned, though it was inaudible over the buzzing of the
saws.  "Why, it's a perfect model of a shrine," James exclaimed, holding up
her 75% complete creation.  "And it bears and uncanny resemblance to the
Masaki shrine."

Areah smiled proudly.  She always had been good with tools.  "All it needs
are the finishing touches," she commented.  "A little sanding and a nice
paint job will really bring it to its full potential."

"You're incredible," James exclaimed, taken aback by her talent for
woodworking.  "You've done what most students couldn't do all year in just
your first day."

"I try," she replied modestly, though she was smiling broadly.

"I look forward to our next class together, Areah," James told her, just as
the bell rang.  She smiled and waved over her shoulder as she ran out the
door after Tenchi.

So, looks like Areah's going to survive her first day.  But the day's not
over till it's over.  She still has three more periods to go, and we all
know
how much can go on in that period of time.  Stay tuned to find out what
happens next time on Tenchi Mystique, Chapter Four: "English, History, and
Chemistry."  Until then, ja ne~
  Angel