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	This is part two of a speculative fabrication about the events that brought the Tenchi Muyo - Ryoohki 
characters together in episode one of the OAV series.  To this writer's mind, part one of "The Trials of 
Tsunami" hewed fairly closely to hints and statements given in the actual series, creating no new characters 
or territory not seen elsewhere in the Tenchi creations.  This experimental version of part two drives deep 
into unexplored territory, in an attempt to bring together the puzzling separate clues, into a consistent story 
of how and why the characters might have arrived on the scene in the first OAV series.

					 The Trials of Tsunami
                                                Part II

	Princess Aeka released her pent up breath.  Only on seeing the intense, star-flecked darkness of 
deep space materialize before her did she realize that she had been holding her breath.
"Azaka, Kamidake, any sign of pursuit?"  
"Iie", the negative reply came.  
Aeka wondered to herself, how quickly her father would appear, turning the ever so compliant 
guardians to her capture.
	"Ojosama, do not worry.  There will be no pursuit. The old man would not dare try to hold the 
Tsunami tree again."
	Aeka looked dubiously at her baby sister.  The child had spoken in a flat, almost oracular manner.  
The older girl was just beginning to realize that she was now responsible, among other things, for this little 
one beside her; a little girl with an unusual and unfathomable relationship to the original Space-tree.  Oh, 
bother!  How could she possible give attention to this child, while her beloved Yosho was yet to be found?  
Sasami would only be underfoot, for the unknowable time it would take to find him.
	"Ask the trees for yourself", Sasami demanded in an impertinent, saucy child tone, turning her 
little face away.
	Aeka teetered on the brink of lashing anger for a moment, then recovered her dignity.  Unfocusing 
her eyes, she felt warmth under her wooden tiara, felt the placid, timeless communion of her tree.  It was, 
Ryu-oh assured her, exactly as Sasami had said:  Azusa would not dare to pursue them as long as he so 
much as imagined that the Tsunami tree might be with her.  Now, Ryu-oh insisted, she could better 
communicate the difficult material facts of her search in words, through the intermediary of the wooden 
guardians.
	Her eyes snapped open, "Very well, open links to GP Intelligence; use Imperial codes.  I know 
you have access."  
Her gaze hardened as the wooden ones began temporizing..."but Lady Aeka, only the Council..." 
and "Er, uh, Princess, you are not..."  
"I am Crown Princess. In my father's absence, I am your Lord:  Meirei desu !(That is, 'That's an 
order!')...Conduct a data search for all reports of combative incidents or battle energies detected since 
Yosho's departure, order them in time and space, see if you can detect a pattern leading away from the 
home world.  Report to me at once when you find anything."
	"Yoi!"
	Aeka felt a tentative tugging on her robes, looked down.  It was her little sister.  "Oneesama, will 
you play with me?"  
The older girl looked around; I guess it doesn't matter, she sighed to herself.  "Very well.  I will 
show you where you can be while I look for our brother.  There, you will be able to see that tree of yours."  
She took Sasami's hand and turned to the great tree trunk that thrust upward behind the bridge of the ship 
Ryu-oh.  This was the tree that was the living soul of Aeka's ship.  As soon as she turned an opening 
yawned in the bole, and Aeka stepped briskly in, drawing her sister with her.  Sasami giggled and gasped 
her joy as they lapsed into free-fall, blurry wood rushing by in the darkness.  Moments later they popped 
out of an opening similar to the one they had entered, Aeka lurching gracelessly, Sasami bouncing in a 
sprightly manner.
	Behind them was the bole of the tree, around them a sunlit garden-park with wooden promenades, 
actually the bare deck in that part of Ryu-oh.  In the background one could hear the small creature sounds 
of a Juraian woodland.  A person could almost imagine that they were back home on planet Jurai, if they 
didn't examine the sky too closely.  Behind the holographic daytime sky, this was a ship's hold, only a few 
hectares in extent, one of several snug little appendages to Ryu-oh's hyper-dimensional trunk, and 
connected to the outer universe only through her.
	Sasami scurried back and forth in a haphazard wide circle around the trunk, gasping and 
exclaiming at first one little find, then another, little pieces of Jurai woodlands.  Coming back to take her 
sister's hand and pull her along, Sasami exclaimed "Oneesama, this is wonderful!  Thank you for bringing 
me along."  
"I, er, wouldn't have considered leaving without you", actually she was thinking more like 'Would 
never have gotten away without Tsunami's help'.  Sasami sat her sister down next to a colorful and fragrant 
bed of wildflowers.  
"Oneesama, I know; let's play a game of Shogi."
	"Alright", Aeka frowned, unfocusing her eyes, and a wooden gameboard appeared between them.
"Never mind the pieces",  Sasami interjected in her thoughts, "I have some here."  Sasami brought 
out a pouch from her robe and began laying out the wooden tiles.  Aeka sighed to herself, as usual her baby 
sister was annoyingly ready and cheerful, and would quickly demonstrate her exceptional acuity with the 
game that Lady Funaho had brought to Jurai from her home world.  No ordinary little girl, not quite nine, 
could have mastered this game well enough to overcome a more mature near adult like Aeka.
	As they played, the normally shy Juraian woodland creatures had gathered as if to watch.  A small 
white rodent-like creature had climbed on Sasami's shoulder as if to share her triumph.  Within a dozen 
moves, Sasami had demonstrated her talent and Aeka was sadly contemplating her mounting losses; the 
tiles lined up neatly beside the board, as in those days captured pieces were not returned to play.  So it was 
much to her relief that a display screen suddenly appeared, and Kamidake's voice announced, "Aeka-hime, 
we have discovered the pattern you requested.  Do you want us to display the results now?" 
"Iie, I will be right up to the bridge."  
"Oneesama!  Why?  Stay here for a while and let our servants do their jobs".
	"Sasami, you stay here and enjoy your new playground.  You'll just have to understand, your big 
sister has other things on her mind".
	"Oh, I do understand, oneesama", Sasami muttered sadly as her sister vanished into Ryo-oh's 
trunk.
	Aeka assiduously studied the diagrams that had been prepared for her.  The trail was clear: At least 
three separate battles had occurred between a lone Juraian battleship, surely Yosho's ship Funaho, and a 
strangely spikey alien craft that emitted animalistic howlings into the communications bands as it tried to 
go to ground on three separate worlds.  Feared throughout the local galaxy, those howlings were the mark 
of the sentient pirate-ship Ryo-ohki, the Demoness Ryoko's partner in crime.  Further, similar battle 
energies had been detected in deep space, between the stars, at least a dozen times.  The later parts of the 
trail bent directly away from Human space, into a region marked only with one word, "warugi".
	"Azaka, what more do we know about this region?"  
"Nothing, Princess.  Only that the entire sector is permeated with a psychic energy hostile to 
humans, a force that even contradicts Jurai energy.  Expeditions that have gone in anyway have never 
returned."  
"Hmph, never mind, if they went there, so will I.  Is there a most likely destination?"  
"Yes, Princess.  The last battle energies detected were about six weeks ago near an isolated G5 
type star in the center of the hostile energy region."  
"We will proceed at once to that location."  
"But, Princess...."  
"Nothing in our galaxy can challenge a ship of Jurai"...  Except for Ryo-ohki, thought the wooden 
cyborg, and we're not in our galaxy.  
"Meirei desu!"
	Meanwhile, a lonely Princess Sasami, having carefully put away her game pieces, started 
wandering around her little world, carefully examining every plant, animal, and rock she came across.  Her 
thoughts started drifting, and soon she was in that half real state where she could meet her secret 
companion and protector, Tsunami. It was no surprise to the younger Princess when her secret lady walked 
up and put her arms around her.  Tsunami bent to her and whispered for her to come.  Together they went 
into Funaho's trunk, emerging onto a two meter square of polished wood, standing out of deep, clear water.  
Around them was a vast dark blue lake, with blocks and platforms floating in space above.  The circular 
platforms each had a small tree growing, and glowing downward with an intense blue light into the water, 
sort of an idealized dream of the lowest level of the Jurai tree nursery; or perhaps the nursery was a 
realization of this dream in the ordinary world.  Above their heads was a dimensionless dark void.
	"Where are we, Tsunami?" 
"This is the heart of the heart of your ship, the Tsunami ship.  I guess you would call it the 
bridge."  
"Are we still inside Ryu-oh?" 
"Perhaps, and yet you might say she is inside of us.  The meaning of inside and outside is not 
manifest in our reality.  I do not mean to confuse you with a riddle, my other self.  Each of these trees is the 
manifestation in this dimension of a tree that still honors me: Ryu-oh is one." 
"Are you free?" 
"Yes, Princess.  The Tsunami ship is free to take us where ever we desire."
	Sasami sat down and dangled her bare feet into the soothing water.  "Oneesama is very unhappy"
"Yes, it is not good for humans to be alone; especially not to grow up alone."  
"But oneesama was never left unattended?"  
"There are many ways of being alone.  As crown princess, your sister was has always been 
surrounded by people who could not get too close.  This situation has wounded her deeply, especially after 
your brother left."
	"Sasami, Ohime-sama."  
"Yes, Tsunami"  
"I must find a way for you to finish growing up around other humans.  The circumstances now are 
not good for you or for your sister.  I need time to learn, perhaps to create, what is needed"  
"I am sorry to be a burden"  
"Not so!  Please believe, it is not possible for me to deceive you, since you and I are one.  If I were 
to use time-freeze, you would not have to experience the time it will take to mend your sister's obsession, 
or to find us a place to grow together.  There is just one problem, I sense it will take a very long time.  Do 
you mind if you are dropped into an unknown future?  That your mother and father will miss you for a very 
long time?"  
"Heiki desu, Misaki and Funaho understood, or they would not have helped us to run away.  I am 
sorry father does not understand."  
"Ah, yes.  It is not good about your father, but that cannot be helped."
	 The internal rhythms of Ryu-oh were attuned to time at Jurai's royal palace, and the holographic 
image of Jurai's day was deepening to a purple and gold sunset as the Crown Princess stood pouring over 
charts and projections on the ship's bridge.  Soon, hovering automata were reminding Aeka of her bedtime.  
She reluctantly retreated, dropping through Ryo-oh's trunk onto the main level, a convincing replica of a 
gentle upland valley, over a hundred hectares in extent.  A hundred meters from the great trunk was a vast 
open gazebo sort of sleeping quarters, fashioned by Ryu-oh according to Aeka's tastes.  On a grand bed, the 
princess sat combing her hair and watching Yosho's final message, as she would a thousand times again.
	As Yosho's image faded, Aeka sensed another presence growing.  She relaxed her eyes and 
concentrated on her Jurai power, "Yes, Tsunami?" 
"Ojosama, what you are planning is very dangerous.  You must not challenge the power in that 
place." 
"But it is the last place we know that oniisan has been."  
"But Princess, there is no trace of Funaho there since the battle, I'm sure he is gone from there."
"There is no other clue, I must investigate."  
"I shall keep your sister safe in any case.  She has agreed to time freeze, 'till we find a home.  
Once again, please do not risk Ryu-oh in a confrontation with this power, your brother is gone and so is 
Funaho, if it was otherwise I would tell you."  
"Thank you very much, she is such a burden.  Now tell me truly, Tsunami, do you know where my 
brother and his ship are?"  
"Iie"  
"Very well then, I must find out, so we shall enter this star system secretly.  I shall personally 
investigate."  
"As you wish, Princess"
	Meanwhile, Sasami had fallen asleep in the arms of her other self.  Tsunami placed the sleeping 
body of her own Princess within the trunk of the Tsunami tree. With a moment's thought, she had Ryu-oh 
seal and time-freeze the botanical garden deck that Aeka had set aside for her little sister.  Tsunami looked 
at those unfamiliar human arms with which she had just cradled her own humanity, "I t was not a lie, was 
it?  I have a good idea where Funaho has gone, it is unlikely Yosho is anywhere else; but I do not know 
this, do I?.  As soon as I can pacify this unhappy one, I must go speak to them, but for now, it is not safe to 
leave Aeka alone."
	The next morning, as Aeka awoke, Ryu-oh was placing herself ten light-minutes above a pole of 
the hostile star.  She remained hidden in sub-space, surveying the unknown system through an opening less 
than a meter across.  The fourth world of the system was the familiar swirl of blue and white; a world of 
water and free oxygen, a world of life like our own.  As Ryu-oh focused on that world, and through her, 
Aeka, the trees could sense the psychic flow, antithesis of their own Juraian power.  
In chorus, Ryu-oh and Tsunami spoke clearly within Aeka's mind, "Princess, we must not go 
there".  
"Yamete!", Aeka shouted aloud.  Authority, power flowed from her tiara, overwhelming Ryu-oh, 
and walling off Tsunami.  A prisoner again, Tsunami struggled against her own regret at having 
encouraged Ryu-oh to hand such power over their own kind over to the unstable princess.  There was no 
question, as long as Aeka asserted her authority, Ryu-oh must obey.
	Aeka moved her ship in over the pole of the unknown world.  Two things were evident; first, the 
world was inhabited by a technological culture, and second, even after six weeks, battle energy was still 
dissipating from a kilometers long scar in the tropical jungles of the largest continent.  Quickly 
synchronizing her position over the battle scar, Aeka prepared.  Not being completely out of her mind, the 
princess had no intention of exposing the ship; but being nearly so, she plunged ahead without attempting 
to discover the nature of it's inhabitants, or the nature of that malific force which so terrified the Jurai trees.
	With scarcely a thought of plan, Aeka transformed herself into her warrior condition.  Confident in 
the supremacy of Jurai power, she smiled at the thought that the quilt-padded pattern of medieval battle-
dress concealed the greatest power and protection in her galaxy.  By sheer will she overcame the reluctance 
of her terrified ship, forcing her to form a landing crystal around the princess.  Within minutes the princess 
was plunging through an alien stratosphere, into the jungles of a world that frightened the most powerful 
ship in the known universe.
 	With a solid thump the three meter tall landing crystal imbedded itself in the barren soil of the 
scarred jungle.  Aeka stepped through the side of the crystal into thick, humid tropical air.  One concern 
quickly evaporated, the air was breathable without any alteration at all.  In fact the whole environment was 
remarkably similar to that of the human home worlds.  She heard a rustling at the edge of the underbrush, 
some twenty meters away, and glimpsed brown fur, a small mammal scurrying away.  Relaxing, the 
Princess allowed her shields to thin.  Judging by the familiar looking trees, and the presence of a mammal, 
one might conclude that this world was biologically connected to the human worlds of her own galaxy.
	As she released her shields completely and knelt to examine the seared earth, Aeka heard steps 
and looked up.  On the run, a file of creatures was closing on her.  They were about two meters tall, 
bipedal, with long, tapering tails.  The bulging, big-eyed cranium, with evident intelligence, belied the 
overall lizard-like aspect of the body, and the long, blunt snout with it's rows of backward hooked teeth 
that shouted carnivore. All four limbs of the creatures were gifted with impressive claws and spurs.  Three 
of the creatures surrounded Aeka and began to close in.
	Aeka's mind reached inside to draw upon the Jurai energy.  It was out of reach, shrinking to a 
point within, and vanishing in a pressing inward rush of negation.  Spectral bands of psychic energy spun 
around her, and she found herself bound as if by tight ropes.  To her horror, one of the creatures squared off 
to her and thrust it's snout to her face, sniffing.  She tried to draw back as a thin, forked tongue slithered 
over her lips, and withdrew, it's owner's own lips curling in evident distaste.  A razor sharp claw reached 
out with a delicate touch, and started pealing away the sturdy synthetic fabrics of her battle dress like the 
rind of some tropical fruit.  A rising tide of horror drowned her consciousness, and she was barely aware of 
the shriek that ripped from her throat as darkness overcame her.
	She came to consciousness, her nakedness pressed against cool, polished stone, reminding her of 
the easily sanitized flooring commonly found in Juraian hygiene facilities.  She was in an irregularly 
polished, almost cave-like cell, not much more than three meters on a side, lit to normal human standards 
for an interior.  Slowly drawing herself up, she found that beyond being cold and stiff where she had lain 
against the floor, each part of her body was intact.  Even her tiara remained attached, even though she could 
detect no vestige of Jurai power.  The lizard creatures had doubtless decided it was an implant, as it might 
well be considered; a living bonded link to her faithful tree, Ryu-oh.  Looking up across the room, she saw 
another girl, near her own age, also naked, with a vast, wild and spiky shock of pale blue hair.  The other 
girl looked taller, with more pronounced womanly body shape than the princess, was sitting, her back 
against the wall.  In the corner to her left a small steady cascade of water poured down a series of basins 
and out through a ten centimeter hole in the floor.
	"Oi!  I was afraid you had died, stranger.  Welcome to Warugi hell."  
"I am Aeka, first princess of Jurai, you will....er...", get a grip, Aeka told herself, you are a naked 
prisoner, "You may call me Princess.  And just who are you?" 
"Jurai, eh?  Er, um, mmm,  Michiko, a humble servitor."  
"Hmm", the girl was a little to cheery for a proper prisoner.  Aeka struggled to her feet and walked 
around to one side of 'Michiko', looking carefully. In every detail, her body was perfectly female.  The 
Princess could almost envy the feline sensuality of it, given emphasis by her rare, but not unheard of, 
vertical pupiled cat eyes; caramel yellow, almost golden in the dim light of the cell.  "You look human 
enough."  
"That's what our captors seem to think", Michiko responded, nodding toward the far wall.  Aeka 
looked up and gasped, her hands moving instinctively to protect breast and elsewhere.  The far wall was 
transparent, and behind it milled a number of her lizardly captors, in various sizes.
	"What is that?"  
"It should be easy enough for you to figure out.  This is a zoo."  Michiko stuck out her tongue and 
made some rude noises at their audience.  
"That is impossible.  We are humans, overlords of the galaxy.  Those, those are animals!"  
"Heh hey, Princess, you and I are the first of our kind they have ever seen, though they seem to 
already have some ideas about, er...humans."  
Aeka slumped against the wall next to the other girl.  "Tell me, Michiko, how do you know?  Are 
you guessing?"  
"No, Princess, I am slightly telepathic."  
The Princess stiffened slightly, "Tell me, then, are you not human?"  
"I don't know."  
"How can you possibly not know?", a suspicion flitted across Aeka's mind, "Just how long have 
you been here?"  
Michiko frowned for a moment, "About three galactic standard months."  Visible relief crossed 
Aeka's features as she took that in. "I was created to serve my master, trained by his machines, all to serve 
him.  He found me unsatisfactory, and about three months ago he just dumped me here."  Michiko burst 
into tears and started bawling like a lost child.
	Aeka put an arm around her fellow captive, "Tell me, was this master human?"  
Michiko shifted, rubbing slightly against the Princess, glancing sidelong.  Was there a hint of a 
smile? "I don't know.  He looked like us, but bigger, more muscular; no softness or roundness here", 
Michiko gestured to her breasts.  
"Uh-huh, sounds like a man".  
"But his appearance was costume.  Remember, I am a bit telepathic; my master was not what he 
appeared."  
"Did he have a name?"  
"No, he just called himself Lord, and Shadow; and that's what he was."
	At this point a natural body pressure overtook Aeka's attention.  She began looking around 
piteously, helplessly.  Michiko stopped crying and with both telepathic and womanly intuition indicated the 
drain-hole. 
"That is all there is."  
Aeka decided gloomily that the humiliation was unlikely to kill her.  The girl who called herself 
Michiko offered helpfully, "In a couple of hours it will be dark for the night."  What she didn't tell the 
Princess was what those exquisitely sensitive and large-pupiled cat-eyes revealed to her; they would remain 
under infra-red illumination at all times.
	Aeka managed what was necessary, and retreated to the other back corner, curled up in a blue funk 
until well after the gradual darkness had closed in.  "Michiko, how do you endure it?"  
"Endure?  There is nothing else."  
"Have you truly never known another human being?"  
"Eh?  I have seen a few, when my Lord forced me to...no...I have never been in a place with one, 
met, talked to..."  
"You must have been very lonely"  
"I never knew I was lonely till now"  
"Do you know about men and women?  Forgive my rudeness for asking"  
"Oh, I know about such things.  My Lord had me instructed about human culture, customs, 
mannerisms, biology.  I just never thought it had anything to do with me until now.  These Warugi, they 
seem to think I am human, you seem to think so, too.  My Lord always told me that he had made me; that 
would not be human, would it?"
	"Throughout the human worlds we have a law, if your DNA is derived from humans, and you are 
sentient, then you may claim all the rights of a human being.  No one has a right to enslave you, to deprive 
you of life and liberty.  Every scientist, every ethicist in the galaxy would agree; what your so-called Lord 
has done is unacceptable, even if it was true: which I doubt."  
"Ah-ha!  Aren't your servants slaves, Jurai Princess?  You see, I was taught somewhat about your 
culture." 
"Certainly not!  We treat our servants well, and they are free to leave at any time", Aeka paled in 
the darkness as she remember the fate of unfortunate servants who displeased her father, in particular a pair 
now standing encased in living wood on her own bridge.  There was quiet in the darkness for a long time
Aeka woke at the first filtered gray light of the approaching day. "Michiko, they will feed us 
soon?", serious hunger was beginning to rumble in her delicate abdomen.  Somehow it did not surprise her 
that Michiko seemed wide awake and attentive.  
"Certainly, my Princess.  There will be unfertilized turtle eggs,  and some sort of starchy vegetable 
mash.  It is close enough to human requirements."  
"Turtle eggs?  How do they turn out?"  
"He-he, you mean, are they?  How are they cooked?  Not at all, they are quite raw...haw, haw",  
Michiko guffawed.  
"Please, don't laugh at me.", the Princess responded with surprising and intense hurt.  "How could 
they serve up something akin to their own species to an alien, and why?"  
"They hardly consider turtles their own kind, even though they are egg layers.  You've eaten 
monkey, haven't you? As for us, they consider us as mammals."
"Egg layers?  It seems sure these life forms are related to those on all the Human worlds.  I 
thought sentience and egg-laying were incompatible?  And how could mammals fail to triumph?"
"Heh?  Your training seems to have skimped on xeno-biology, Princess.  The idea that live birth is 
a prerequisite of sentience is a prejudice of the Human world biomes.  The molluscoids of Thallassia five 
are sentient; try fitting that into your human-centric biology.  As for the natural supremacy of mammals, 
something usually has to happen, such as disaster or climate change, before established species to be 
displaced; and of course the rise of sentience changes everything.  As for this world, mammals were long 
ago exterminated. "  
"Oh, how so?  I'm sure I saw one in the jungle right after I landed, a little brown furry thing with 
long, pink lined ears."  
"Really?", Michiko seemed excited by this, and paced back and forth.  "Nothing like that on this 
planet!  It must be!"  
"It must be what?"; but Michiko was spared by the arrival of breakfast.
One of their lizard captors slid a tray through the transparent front wall. On the tray were two fist 
sized heaps resembling mashed-potatoes, and six small eggs.  Michiko snatched up one of the eggs with a 
grin.  Baring her fang-like canines, she cocked her head to one side and punctured one end.  Putting a finger 
over the hole, she punctured the other end, and with considerable gusto sucked out the contents in a single 
gulp.  "Come on, Princess, eat up; you could afford to put on a little meat.  You are too skin and bones to 
be toothsome", Michiko giggled. 
"Michiko!  Oo...ugh.  How could you?"  Michiko was taken aback by the vehemence of the 
Princess's response.  
"Hey, I didn't mean anything by it; just wanted to liven things up."  Aeka grinned in response, but 
sulked for quite a while anyway, before finally consuming two of the eggs and about half of one of the 
'mashed potatoes'.  She finally had to concede to herself that Michiko's gusto was more than just bravado; 
the food was reasonably edible, and very welcomed by her body.
Quite a while later, out of the blue, the princess spoke again.  "So, tell me, how do these creatures 
figure that we should be eating raw eggs?"  
"Well, there is some sort of connection between the origin of humans and of these creatures.  
According to my Lord, you have a common biological origin, but they are much older, by millions of years.  
Some sort of catastrophe overtook their home world, leading to their replacement by mammals, and 
eventually humans.  Only a small portion of their kind managed to escape to this world.  To them, 
mammals are a bogey from the ancient past; wicked, clever little beasts that sneaked into nests at night to 
steal eggs and devour them, to fuel your fiendish high metabolisms.  Ka...my Lord has a very low opinion 
of humans, but he always seemed curious about your origins.  He felt that humans and the lifeforms that 
accompany them have a common origin, and were somehow spread about the galaxy.  According to him, 
no one has ever found the home world."
"What he says is true.  Scientists have searched throughout the human worlds, and all of them are 
recent colonies, with only legends of a time when they were brought across the void of space by their gods.  
My own people tell of a time when Tsunami, the Ship of the Beginning, brought them out of darkness and 
into the paradise of Jurai.  The Tsunami I know is the oldest of the space-trees, the oldest of their kind, who 
form our living ships.  Perhaps it is true that she is the original."  Perhaps she remembers, Aeka considered 
silently, and why Sasami?
"Tsunami!", Michiko stood up and leaned forcefully toward the princess, "Tell me, what do you 
know of Tsunami?"  
"Uh, Michiko, I'm sorry I've said too much.  I could ask the same, seeing as it's a Jurai matter.  
Just what do you know of Tsunami?"  The two girls stared silently for a while, until apathy dulled the edge 
of the exchange.
A second meal was pretty much near the close of day.  Michiko told Aeka that she had just 
finished eating when their captors had deposited the princess in her cell.  As their somewhat spare meal 
settled, Michiko rekindled conversation.  "So, Princess.  Just how did you come to be captured?"
 "Well, my home world was attacked by the infamous space-pirates Ryoko and Ryo-ohki.  The 
attack was savage, random, brutal.  There seemed to be no reason behind it.  I can't imagine what they 
thought they could gain by all that destruction.  For some reason, my father the Emperor held back the 
Tsunami ship, locked safely away.  The devastation was terrible, but my older brother Yosho finally put the 
fiends to flight.  He is young, but very brave, and the best fighter in the human worlds, man to man; or man 
to devil, as the case may be.  Anyway, he took out after them and never returned, and what am I to do?  He 
is my betrothed, my beloved; I simply cannot go on without him".  At this point the Princess broke down in 
deep sobs, and had to pause.
"Your brother, eh?  I don't have much experience with this, but don't humans have a pretty strong 
incest taboo, in general?  By the way, exactly what do these fiends, these space-pirates;  Ryoko and Ryo-
ohki, look like, and where do they come from?  I think I may have heard of them"
"Ryo-ohki is a living, sentient star-ship, somewhat like our Jurai ships, but it is evidently based on 
an animal lifeform rather than a plant.  What sort cannot be guessed, as the ship-form is formed of tough 
silicate bio-composite spikes about fifty meters long and ten thick joined into a thistle-seed like shape.  It 
rages through the heavens seizing and rending ships, terrorizing everyone by jamming all communications 
with animal like howls.  It has been speculated that in it's normal form, the Ryo-ohki might be the mate of 
the Demoness Ryoko."  Aeka paused here, because Michiko seemed to be suffering some sort of fit or 
choking episode.  Once Michiko had recovered, Aeka resumed her dissertation.  "Ryoko is a devil, with 
glowing green eyes and half a dozen bright green horns sprouting from her head.  Her skin is red, but she is 
said to have the form of a beautiful woman.  She laughs fiendishly as she slaughters the innocent and 
gathers loot for the nefarious Kagato.  Say, Kagato can mean shadow, among other things. I wonder if your 
"Shadow" lord could be Kagato?"
"I don't know, Princess.  My Lord had a lot of different servants coming and going, but none quite 
like you describe.  Still, he had artifacts from all over the known universe, many of them with laser or 
plasma burns, and some of them quite fresh."
"Hmm, it is quite possible that your Shadow Lord is Kagato.  He is, of course, the most wanted 
and feared criminal in the known universe, and a bio-ethics violation would mean nothing to him.  As for 
Ryo-ohki and Ryoko, they have been monitored carefully by galactic authorities, who have judged them 
both to be human-level sentient, and therefore criminally responsible for their actions.  They are galaxy-
wide class-A criminals, wanted for hundreds of acts of piracy and murder.  For some reason, the Holy-
council has gotten the idea that Ryoko is under Kagato's mind-control, and may not be fully responsible for 
her actions, but if she has taken away my beloved, I personally shall never forgive her."
Michiko looked down at her hands.  For the first time Aeka noticed dull red stones about a 
centimeter across embedded in Michiko's wrists.  In a husky voice, Michiko muttered "Those are harsh 
words, even from a princess of the Pirate Empire"
"Whatever acts of piracy may have been committed in the name of Jurai are in the distant past.  
Now, the nobility and purity of Jurai's blood has stood the test of time.  Given the limited gene pool 
involved, it is natural that consanguineous marriage has been invoked, under the strictest scientific 
supervision of course, to ensure eugenic soundness.  As far as it goes, Oniisama is actually my half brother, 
with considerable diversity of origin.  His mother from an obscure colony called 'Earth', number zero-
three-one-five.  My union with Yosho will preserve and promote only the finest qualities of our genetic 
heritage: Besides, I do love him so."
Ever so have human 'nobility' arrogated their privileges.  Can it be that the Crown Princess of 
Jurai doesn't know how her empire is fed? Kagato repeated many times to me; "Why should the secret and 
power of Tsunami be kept only for that one privileged clan?"  All this, and much more, went through the 
mind of the girl who called herself Michiko, but she kept these thoughts silent. Instead, she turned the focus 
to her strange new feelings of humanity.  "Tell me, dear Princess.  You, of all human females, are endowed 
with great power and authority.  How can you submit to the biological imperatives of a mere man?  Let him 
perform this, and that biological function upon your body?
"Oh, you don't understand.  First of all, there would be little point in submitting to a man that was 
weaker than myself.  Yosho is a superior specimen in every way, and far greater in the Jurai power than 
myself. Second, there is love.  Love between a man and a woman softens the submission, makes the man 
gentle, and makes us women willing.  Third, the secret no one admits; we women are tougher. We are the 
survivors, because we have to be for the next generation to be born.  Men need our hidden toughness and 
discipline, whether they know it or not."
To be born... The thought echoed in Michiko's being, but she kept much of her reflection quiet, 
having seen Aeka's capricious reactions. By means of that silence, over the following days, 'Michiko' 
learned almost more than she could bear of the heart of that lonely princess.  Michiko yearned to reach out 
and touch this sister in loneliness, but she could not.  Michiko understood all too well that between who she 
was, and who Aeka was, a gulf wider than the cosmos yawned.
To Michiko, a week seemed but a moment.  To Aeka, it must have seemed an eternity, that they 
were imprisoned together.  Early one morning, as the visible illumination rose, lending vague shape to the 
darkness of the cell, the two girls heard a distant, faint feral sound rising.  The two looked toward one 
another in the darkness.  Under the here-to-fore inert tiara that their captors had found harmless but 
inseparable from Aeka, a light glowed, reflecting off her skull and through her fair skin.  The stones 
imbedded in the other girl's wrists turned transparent, and began to glow a deep red.  The girl stood upright 
and began floating upward; suddenly she was clad in a form-fitting red body tight.
"Oh, no!  You are Ryoko!  How could you...you lied to me!"
"Yes, Princess", the revealed demoness laughed broadly down at the stunned Princess.  "But I 
only lied because you would not have accepted me.  I want you to know one thing; no matter what you 
believe, I have never willfully killed any living being.  I would never willingly kill"
Within a rising crescendo of animal howling and random explosions, Aeka felt the surge of Jurai 
power rushing forth from the core of her being.  The protective shell of a Jurai energy shield snapped into 
being around her.  Sensing her renewed power, the Princess hurled herself fist-first at the hovering 
demoness.
Aeka's flight stopped abruptly, and the violently recoiling energy split the stone cell open above, 
to reveal the sky.  Above them three distinctive ships stood in line; elegantly curved and bowed Ryu-oh, 
elongated bony looking Tsunami, and between them the terrible spiky form of Ryo-ohki.  In the distance 
the metallic glint of native manufactured ships was revealed as the three alien craft hurled laser and plasma 
energy at them.  A couple of meters in front of her,  a laughing, vivacious Ryoko was hurling plasma bolts 
as mighty as those of her companion ship, as if she were playing a game, and ignoring the Princess as if she 
were of no account.
"Monster, demon, devil spawn.  How could I have ever thought you could be human?."
Ryoko paused and looked down at the Princess, with deep hurt in her eyes.  "You have your life, 
you have your freedom.  I do not serve Kagato willingly, and he would punish me for not capturing you. I 
have done nothing to your brother; remember those truths, Ojosama.  Sayoonara"
A fading peal of laughter seemed to mock Aeka as the demoness vanished before her.  Overhead, 
the Ryo-ohki hurled upward, away from her companions, fading from sight within seconds, leaving the 
entire landscape echoing with her signature cry of triumph.
"Miiiwowww"
The Princess reached out with her Jurai power.  Seconds later she was standing, still naked, on the 
bridge of the Ryu-oh.  "Azaka!  Kamidake!"
"Yoi"
"Why have you allowed those felons to escape?  Answer me!"
"Ojosama, without the aid of the Ryo-ohki, we would not have had the power to free you.  
Tsunami negotiated her assistance."
"The sovereign power of Jurai cannot be bound by a pact with criminals.  After them at once!"
"We have no way of tracking the Ryo-ohki"
"Plot a course on her last known vector, and proceed in that direction at once."
"Yoi"
In the cool of Ryu-oh's bridge, Aeka was gradually becoming aware of her nakedness, and 
remembering that at the core, the wooden cyborgs were really men.  With acute embarrassment, the 
Princess willed her ship to teleport her to her quarters.

To be continued.

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



There are several basic puzzles in the first OAV series that drive this unlikely meeting.  It is clear 
from episodes two and three that Aeka and Ryoko have some history, and that Ryoko has considerable 
private knowledge with Aeka.  Aeka states, in fact that they have met before.  Yet we are assured by 
several sources that the OAV continuity Ryoko had no social contact with humans prior to her captivity.  It 
is clear that in any conflict between the two girls prior to her captivity, the hyper-aggressive Ryoko with all 
three gems would have overwhelmed the naïve Juraian Princess.
A second basic puzzle is that in the flashback scenes, Sasami and Aeka appear to be separated by 
about ten years in age, yet the externally stated ages of nine and twenty-three respectively seem consistent 
with a number of details in the episodes.  It is facile and IMHO meaningless to suggest that these 
inconsistencies are just because it's a cartoon.  Aeka seems to indicate in episodes 2&3 that she pursued 
both Yosho and Ryoko for a number of years, and yet Sasami talks and acts (based on the assumption that 
she is really a nine year old child), as if she has been alone with Aeka and away from her parents only a 
matter of days or weeks.
Now let me give a litany of minor puzzles:  How did Ryoko end up fighting Yosho on his 
mother's native world?  Where did Ryoko get her OAV 6 first sight reaction to Tsunami, which is more 
sophisticated than Kagato's?  Why did Yosho go to a great deal of trouble to capture, rather than kill 
Ryoko?  How did Ryoko find out about Aeka's relationship to Yosho?	What put the idea that she might be 
able to be human into Ryoko's head?  Why would Aeka be baiting Ryoko from the beginning of the OAV's 
that she "always thought Ryoko a monster"?
Kagato's rather bolshivik and self-serving rationalizations for his villainous pursuit of Tsunami 
and the Juraian royals would doubtless have reflected in his indoctrination of his slave-warrior Ryoko.
Let me conclude this exposition of my rationales by more or less apologizing for my personal bias 
in favor of Ryoko, and by reminding that I am a native speaker of English.  The interspersal  of Japanese 
salutations in the dialog is not meant to suggest some sort of pidgin speech, but rather as a reminder that 
though I am writing in English, the Tenchi Muyo characters are Japanese in speech, custom and thought.

Greg Matteson 9/4/97