This work is derived from Characters and Situations that are Copyright and/or Trademark AIC, and Pioneer 
LDCA, all commercial use of this material requires permission of the original copyright holders.

	Notes for readers:  I have chosen to render certain salutations and exclamations in Japanese for atmosphere 
and fidelity.  The presumptive language and culture of the characters is Japanese, and certain  forms of address and 
expression do not translate readily:
	“Denka” means something like “Lord of the Palace”, not quite “Majesty”
	“Oneesama” means “respected older sister”, no real English equivalent.
	“Imoto” means “my younger sister”, no real English equivalent.
	“Hai” is a highly respectful and snappy “Yes Sir!”
	“Tasukete” simply means “help me”
	“Wakarimashita” means “understood”
	“Hime”, originally ‘daughter of the Sun’, is the broadest term for  “Princess”, meaning any female of the 
royal bloodline.

	The ideas projected in this work are strictly the product of the imagination of the author, inevitably 
reflecting his mind, and should in no way be taken to reflect on the originals from which they are derived. 

			The Trials of Tsunami, Part One

	There had been a great battle in the skies of Jurai.  The very halls of Their Lordships had been assaulted.  
Maids and scullions returning on furlough from Azusa’s palace told of fire and destruction from above.  A demon 
from the stars, eyes ablaze with an unnatural blood lust, had wandered the palace halls, putting Jurai’s finest to 
flight, and demanding the surrender of Tsunami.  Imagine that, demanding Tsunami, the ship of The Beginning, 
which had brought the folk of Jurai out of terror and darkness into this world of light and life.  Finally young Yosho, 
the scion of Jurai’s throne by that alien Lady Funaho, had confronted the demon and forced her to flee.  Now it was 
said that Yosho, beloved of the people, defender of the throne, hated by many of the nobility for his alien blood, had 
vanished; gone in pursuit of that she-demon, Ryoko, said to have the form of a young maiden.
	Azusa sat brooding on a troubled throne.  He turned to his chamberlain, “Summon my family at once”.  
“Denka!”
	Within minutes they were assembled to the right of his majesty’s throne;  first wife, placid, dark-eyed 
Funaho;  second wife, mercurial Misaki, with her shocking bright blue hair;  eldest daughter, sulky, purple haired 
Aeka, her eyes puffy from crying;  the toddler Sasami, with her mother’s blue hair, and bright red-orange eyes.
	“I have summoned you for a reason.  You all know that Yosho has gone of in pursuit of that infernal wench 
Ryoko.  I have received a communication from him, indicating that there may be problems with his getting back 
here...it is not clear,”, the Emperor passed a hand in front of his eyes.  His children were too close to being psychic.  
They mustn’t know that the headstrong bastard had no intention of coming back to the ugly petty rivalries that had 
grown like toadstools at the foot of his throne. “Oh no, Yosho, you must come back!”,  Aeka exclaimed.  “Aeka!”, 
the Emperor’s voice barked, “I did not give you permission to speak”.  Aeka stiffened and bowed, silent, tears 
splashing on the polished hardwood beneath her feet.  Misaki pulled out her crying towel from an inner pocket and 
was gnawing on a corner of it. 
	“Aeka, pending the return of the prince, you are Crown Princess.  Your training will begin immediately 
when you are dismissed.  If you sulk or lag in your studies I will punish you personally, understood?”  “Hai!”, the 
Princess responded,  in her best court manner, raising her eyes in forbidden manner to gaze into her father’s.  
“Sasami will continue in training as High Priestess.  The Peers will never allow me to keep the succession that deep, 
and marriage would lead to unthinkable complications”, he peered sadly at his younger daughter, causing her to hide 
behind her nanny’s leg, peeking around it.  Azusa’s eyes narrowed.
	“Aeka! Dismissed.  Funaho, Misaki, Sasami remain.  I want the court cleared and sealed now!  That 
includes you, Chamberlain.”  Sasami’s nanny stood confused, looking back and forth between the Emperor and the 
half dozen receding courtiers.  Her duty was to stay with the child at all times, but never to meddle in the affairs of 
her betters.  Azusa sensed her quandary,  “Miss, bring me my child”.  That cleared the matter up for her,  keep her 
mind on her duty, ignore the proceedings.  She picked up the passively resisting child and, bowing, set her firmly at 
the Emperor’s feet.
	Azusa kneeled down to his daughter.  Wetting his thumb he rubbed it on Sasami’s forehead, confirming his 
first fear.  The little one had not been playing with makeup; the marking was real, which meant that ordinary people 
would be unable to see it.  A shocking suspicion grew in his mind.  “Nanny, at what moment was this child out of 
your sight?”
	“Why? We are never apart, my Lord”, the nanny was trembling with fear,”j...j...just for a moment, m’Lord, 
during the attack, we were separated, by the press of the crowd, but she hid in the Royal Nursery, with the seedlings.  
No place could be safer, and she wasn’t out of my sight for five minutes.  No one else was in there, I swear it!”  The 
nanny was now in mortal fear, if something was wrong with the princess...she had no place to turn.
	Azusa put his thumb back on Sasami’s forehead and muttered a few secret words of power.  A glow 
appeared, Sasami started squirming in her nanny’s hands, and shrieked “Tsunami, tasukete!”  The glow flared bright 
as the sun, and went out.  A very angry Azusa tucked his now wailing daughter under one arm and strode out 
through obedient opening doors, wives and nanny in tow.  As he made his way to the seedling nursery, crowds of 
courtiers stayed well back, perhaps a hundred meters, knowing that he had ordered the court sealed.  The guards in 
place at the ornately carved nursery doors bowed deeply as the doors opened and the royal entourage swept in.  The 
Emperor went strait to a particular transport pad, and teleported, vanishing.  The rest of the group followed, one by 
one.
	In the deep gloom at the bottom of the womblike nursery chamber, the others, who had never been down 
here, looked up in wonder at the thousands of levitating pads above, each with it’s Royal Tree sapling at some 
particular stage of growth, each contributing to the deep shade below.  The nursery was a pocket universe, utterly 
shielded from anything outside.  Jurai’s very sun could turn nova, and it would not affect the seedlings.
	The Emperor raised his hands and shouted:  “Show yourself, wretched creature!  Tsunami, I am talking to 
you.  Damn you.  I know you’ve stolen my daughter’s shape, how dare you?”
	What looked to be a tall and elegant young lady in the attire of a Jurai High Priestess appeared in front of 
Azusa.  With her blue hair, she could have been taken for a younger sister to Misaki.  He noted the double forehead 
markings of a second wife, his guts knotting at the implications.  “Now that you are able, who have always been my 
partner and equal, you summon me like one of your lackeys?  For thousands of years, I, who brought you and your 
people out of darkness, and into this world, have quietly supported you, never questioning your methods.  Now I 
have sacrificed everything, and become your daughter, and you are angry.”
	“In case you haven’t noticed, I can hold you here”, Azusa held up a hand, and the very fabric of space in 
the nursery chamber seemed to flicker.
	“I came here because we agreed that I could not risk confronting The Soja, knowing who she holds hostage 
within.  So now I am in just that way to be your prisoner?”
	Azusa glanced up at the ten meters of tree looming behind, hardly the largest tree in the nursery.  It was 
hard to believe that she was eldest, mother of them all.  Most of the Royal Trees grew far larger in mere decades.  
“So these last months you have sat in this gloom, weaving plots to become one of us, to seize the kingdom we have 
built?  We have laws, now, and even I am bound by those laws.  ‘No one may plot to bring about an assimilation’.  
And now you have assimilated my own flesh and blood.”
	“Plotted?  I am barely now able to summon the meaning of this word.  Your flesh?  How not?  The royalty, 
the nobility have been selected for millennia, from among those who are able to talk to trees.  The bonds between us, 
the Royal Trees and the Juraian Royal family, have come to be written in your blood, engraved in the molecules of 
your heredity.  Only members of the royal family have a sufficient bond, in general, to make assimilation possible.  I 
have been a tree for over nineteen thousand years”, she hesitated, ”I do not know how I came to be such, but I truly 
had no desire to be anything else; and now?”  The human figure of Tsunami looked down at the now sleeping 
toddler at Azusa’s feet, “....I am nothing other than that child who sleeps at your feet.  A child who’s future you 
thought you had already planned out.  A lifetime of service in the temples of Jurai, so that no one could plot 
advantage by marriage.  Have you asked her about your plans for her long life?”
	“Well, you’ve taken care of that, haven’t you?  No Juraian noble in his right mind would marry an 
assimilated being.  This entire matter must be kept a family secret, not even Aeka can know, unless she comes to 
ascend the throne.”  Now calmed, Azusa looked around.  Realizing that the nanny was still present, he reached for 
the Tenchi sword, remembered it was gone, along with his son Yosho.  So he summoned an energy dagger from his 
Jurai power, and would have slit the almost comotosely pliant young lady’s throat.
	“You mustn’t hurt nanny!”, the voice of Tsunami sounded remarkably like that of little Sasami.  Then her 
adult voice returned.  “Please, that is not necessary.  I can make it sure that she understands nothing, repeats 
nothing.”  Tsunami  advanced and pressed her forehead against that of the servant.
	“be that as it may, she is now a ward of the house of Jurai.  Her family will be told that she has died, she 
shall never again set foot outside the palace.  Nor shall you ever leave this chamber, Tsunami”.
	“You cannot mean this.  When Sasami and I become one mind, she will surely hate you for it.”  Tsunami 
watched Azusa pick up the child and start walking away.  “I invoke the right of any subject of Jurai:  Judgement by 
the Holy Council of Jurai”.  Azusa stiffened, but kept walking.
	None the less, two weeks later Azusa, his wives, the Royal High Priest,  Azusa’s two most trusted Barons, 
and a single trusted temple scribe assembled at the bottom of the nursery chamber.  The scribe spoke, “All present 
hear the words, the Holy Council of Planet Jurai is now in session, before it the matter of Tsunami, a Royal Tree of 
Jurai, accused of assimilation.  She has demanded Council judgement.  All members of the Council are aware of the 
facts, which the accused admits.  Appeal is denied.  The condemned is subject to the sovereign will of our Emperor, 
Azusa.  The matter is closed.” 
	The assembled people began to turn away.  “Hold it.  The condemned have a right to address the Council”, 
the Councilors paused,  the human figure of Tsunami materialized in front of them.  “You say I am guilty of 
assimilation.  Let me tell you how it was.  On the day when Ryoko attacked, the tree Tsunami was sequestered here, 
to avoid fatal confrontation with the ship Soja, which is holding hostage a personage the Crown is unwilling to 
sacrifice.  During the attack I....mmm, that is...the child Sasami, found her way into this Nursery, leaving the doors 
ajar.  She was walking on an upper gallery when a wounded Ship of Jurai crashed into the building, the concussion 
being transmitted through the open doors caused her to loose her footing and fall to the floor you now stand on.  She 
was fatally wounded, her blood calling out to me, crying for help.  What did you want me to do, stand here and 
watch her die?
	I did not want this, I did not plot it, I did not desire it.  It has been very peaceful for me, these nineteen 
millennia, being a tree, and a mother of trees.  To save your child I have sacrificed beyond your knowledge, giving 
up my very being, my very self to your wayward offspring.  Now that I know her, I would not have had it otherwise, 
it is a wonderful person that I have become.  If all humans were so fine, this would be a far happier world, I’m sure.
	You say I am to be punished.  Remember this, I am not a part of Sasami, I have not devoured Sasami, I 
have not plotted against her or coveted her human body.  I am Sasami, and to punish me is to punish Sasami, to 
condemn me is to condemn Sasami.  It is forbidden by your holy laws to forcibly divide a sentient mind.  Azusa may 
hold me here against my will, with your collusion, but you must either surrender the child entirely to me, or allow 
her free access at all times.”
	The members of the Council muttered among themselves, Azusa looking increasingly resigned, knowing he 
has been out maneuvered.  Finally the High Priest spoke aloud, “Sasami may have unimpeded access to the Tree 
Tsunami at all times.  This is the law, let it be so written.  However, it is in the interest of the Juraian State that the 
Tree Tsunami be kept sequestered indefinitely, and all hint of the nature of Princess Sasami’s fate be kept secret 
unto death.  It shall be entered into the registry that for reasons of State, an early selection has been made, and the 
Tree Tsunami has elected to be the Ship of her Holiness, the Royal High Priestess Sasami, Princess of Jurai.  
Questions will be raised, but the pairing of Holy Ship and Holy Princess is an obvious maneuver of State. “
	So it came to pass, that Tsunami remained for years in the darkness at the bottom of the nursery, but the 
Princess Sasami came daily to nap at the foot of her beloved tree, resting from the tedious training of a young High 
Priestess Elect,  and none of the guards could guess why.  Gradually, Tsunami learned to think like the human 
princess she was, in short, she learned the real meaning of the verb “to plot”.
	It is hard to unravel, this tangled web of consciousness, but in the normal course, Sasami would never meet 
Tsunami, for you see, they were in fact the same person.  Sasami would sleep, and dream of her secret friend, her 
secret protector Tsunami.  Sasami would sit leaning against the trunk of her tree, mulling over the day’s lessons and 
experiences, allowing the ancient wisdom of the tree to filter through it all.  Between a gifted child and a wise tree, 
Tsunami learned much of human nature.  In those certain surreal moments when a child might day-dream or role-
play, inventing a secret companion, when no one else was around to perturb the suspension of her disbelief, Sasami 
was able to call to her secret companion, and Tsunami would materialize.  In those brief times, uncomprehending of 
the truly extraordinary nature of the phenomenon, Sasami would have conversations with her other self, even touch 
her.  Yes, being now a creature of the higher dimensions, Sasami could actually touch that astral body of her other 
self, the self that was bonded with an ancient tree.
	Over the following several years, Sasami quickly grew from a toddler to a preternaturally mature youngling 
of her kind.  On many a hot summer evening, coming from her cooking lessons reeking of foods and seasonings, in 
the private darkness at the bottom of the Nursery Sasami would strip off her clothes and bathe in the cool placid 
pools, unknowing that she was bathing in the secret Juraian water of life, filtered through the essence of a hundred 
saplings, which would trade on the black markets of the Galaxy at the rate of a year’s wages for a worker to the 
centi-liter.  Occasionally, in a sufficiently dreamy state, Tsunami was able to materialize and share with her the 
luxuriant bathing..  On one occasion, curled naked in her older self’s lap, arms around Tsunami’s neck, Sasami 
actually spoke to herself, face to face.
	“Dona, yesterday I tried again to talk to Oneesama, about what happened to me.  Why am I unable to 
explain it to her?” “Because,  my very self, you don’t know yourself, your fears are unfounded.  I wish you could 
believe, you really are Sasami.” “But I was dying?” “Yes” “Hurt real bad?” “Yes” “You came to me? I remember 
that.” “Yes” “To save me, you made me a part of you?” “The matter is otherwise., I am a part of you” “Oh, 
Tsunami, I don’t understand”  For a while, Sasami lay quiet against the warmth, feeling the rise and fall of 
Tsunami’s breathing,  listening to that steady heartbeat, the astral body being in every essence and detail a reflection 
of physical reality.  “I want to cook, sew, and do calligraphy for real people”  “The gods are as real as you want 
them to be” “I don’t think the priests believe.  They want me to cook, to sew, to keep house for someone they don’t 
really think is there at all.  I don’t think the real gods care if we cook a fine meal, or make fine clothes for them, and 
then burn it all up the next morning and start again.  If I chant the ancient chants, I want to know what I’m saying.  If 
I knew a god, I would want to talk to them like I talk to you.  You know what, Tsunami?  I think you are closer to 
the gods than that old man they call a high priest.” Tsunami took on the look of someone who was trying to 
remember something, and couldn’t.  Sasami was quiet for a while.
	“Tsunami-dona,  why are you always down here?”  “Eeh?”  “Papa is always angry when I ask him about 
you, he won’t say a word.  Tsunami, are you a prisoner?  Is this a dungeon?”  “Your father is a very stern man.  
What I did to save you is very much forbidden.  Yes, I am in prison, forbidden to leave here.”  “You are a space-
ship, like the other Royal Trees, when they become grown up?”  “Yes”  “How very cruel.  You should be able to fly 
among the stars like the others.  What good is it being a space ship if you can’t go out into space?  It’s like being a 
cook with no one to eat your cooking, useless.  Tomorrow is Oneesama’s  twentieth birthday, and she will come 
here to stand for selection.   Someday a tree will select her, and then she will have a ship of her own.  Do you 
suppose she will be selected tomorrow?”  “Seldom is a candidate strong enough to be selected in the first year, but 
your sister is very strong in the Jurai energy, almost as strong as you were, before, and I know a strong sapling that 
is attracted to her.  Hmm...Sasami-hime, how would you like to run away from home with your big sister?”  “Eeh?”
	It had been a magnificent coming of age for Princess Aeka, with a shocking conclusion.  Indeed, the 
Princess had been selected by the strongest and oldest unmated tree in the nursery, a tree that had long stood aloof 
from the selection process, till people had started calling her “Tsunami’s shadow”.  Now her name was Ryu-oh, not 
a very imaginative name, but better than Yosho’s rather tacky choice of his mother’s name, Funaho.  After the 
selection, Ryu-oh had given Aeka a curious curved piece of herself, and guided the unskilled hands of the Princess 
as if they were of one mind, to carve an unusual key; a light and elegant little wooden tiara, which Aeka now wore 
on her forehead, under her neatly trimmed glossy purple bangs, night and day, even in her sleep, and which served 
to conceal the activity of her link with her tree.
	The shocking result was this, the first time Ryu-oh formed a ship, for Princess Aeka’s maiden flight, she 
had bolted from the skies of Jurai.  The Emperor himself had gone in pursuit, returning with Princess and Sapling in 
tow, and revealing for the first time that he now had the means to usurp control of any Ship of Jurai, a power 
previously thought to be exclusively Tsunami’s.  For six weeks the Princess had languished in a barren but clean 
cell, until Azusa finally seemed to relent.  As it turned out, the Emperor had installed the famed Guardians of Jurai,  
Azaka and Kamidake, on the bridge of Ryu-oh, and given them full control of the ship.  Aeka was forced to control 
her ship through the intermediary of these wooden looking biotech cyborgs, who in turn were subject to the Emperor 
Azusa’s master control.  After each carefully supervised flight, Ryu-oh was returned to the nursery, where Aeka 
could only commune with her directly in her tree form.  There seemed no question of Aeka bolting now.
	Aeka knew that it was a brief matter of time before she would be dispatched on the first of a series of 
voyages to seek a groom amongst the Galaxy’s aristocracy, something the Princess wanted no part of.  As the day of 
the first departure approached, she would return from each day’s grueling lessons under escort, to sulk and weep, 
sleepless, until the next day’s classes began before dawn.  One evening, after a particularly grueling day of lessons 
in etiquette, she stopped by the nursery to commiserate with her captive tree.  From far below, Sasami heard the 
commotion as her older sister was escorted in.  Stepping to a teleport pad, Sasami materialized next to the entering 
party.
	“Oneesama”  “Sasami-sama, what do you want?”  “Could you please come with me for a moment to meet 
my Tsunami?”  “Why?”  “Just please....”  “OK, for just a moment, no more”
	The escorts and guards looked at each other and shrugged.  Everyone knew their orders, the little Princess’s 
contact with her pet tree was not to be interfered with under any circumstances.  They watched, unconcerned, as the 
two princesses vanished into the depths of the Nursery.
	“Now, what is this about, Sasami-imoto?”  Sasami stood on the polished wooden round in front of her tree, 
and Aeka could see the glowing inverted reflection of  a tall young Juraian woman stretching downward from her 
little sister’s feet.  Aeka knew that this was the astral projection of the link between Sasami and her tree.  The older 
princess’s forehead glowed brightly under the tiara, even feeling a bit warm to her.  The two princesses must have 
stood silently facing one another in the dim depths for at least  ten minutes.  Finally Aeka seemed to awaken, “Hai, 
Tsunami-sama.  Wakarimashita!”, she bowed and departed.
	From that day onward, a burden seemed to lift from both the Princesses.  Azusa was pleased that his 
daughters finally seemed to have reconciled with their respective fates, and the two girls seemed to be enjoying a lot 
of their limited time together, before the coming separation.  As a result, when the day came, and everyone was 
assembled to see Princess Aeka off, the Emperor was surprised to notice that Sasami was absent from the assembly.  
He made inquiries.  “Denka, the little princess was seen going down to her tree.  She said it made her sad, she didn’t 
want to watch her sister leave”  “Well, I want her to watch, send someone to fetch her”  “Hai!”
	The sapling Ryu-oh was escorted out of the Nursery and levitated herself a hundred meters into the air, 
where her Ship form seemed to rapidly grow around her, actually emerging from storage in a sub-space pocket.  She 
then teleported Aeka and the farewell party onto her bridge, where they made their final good-byes.  An impatient 
Azusa was next to last to return to ground, leaving only her birth mother Misaki alone with the Princess.  During her 
characteristically smothering goodbye hug, Misaki whispered , “Aeka-chan, take care of yourself, obey the 
instructions I’ve left with your automata, and take care of your little sister for me.”  “Eeh? You know?  Father will 
hurt you, maybe have you killed.  I must stop.”  “Nonsense, Funaho-oneesama and myself, we have ways of taking 
care of ourselves.  Men just sometimes don’t understand what a girl needs.  Now go, with our blessing”
	Meanwhile, on the ground, Azusa was confronted with a groveling guard, who was facedown on the plank 
walkway in front of the Nursery.  “Denka, forgive me, but the Tsunami Tree is missing, and so is the Princess 
Sasami.  There is no way they could have left without my knowing.  Punish me quickly, m’lord”  A suspicion 
rapidly bloomed into certainty in the Emperor’s mind, but it was too late, already the gaudy spectacle of a sub-space 
hole was fading from the sky above, as Misaki materialized beside him.  Ryu-oh was gone, and with her,  so it 
would seem to him,  a large portion of Azusa’s soul.

			To be continued...
Text Copyright 1997, Gregory W. Matteson <matteson@jps.net>
Characters Copyright and/or Trademark AIC and Pioneer LDCA