DISCLAIMER:

This story is based off of the Tenchi Muyo! anime series, produced
by AIC and released by Pioneer Anime America.  All characters
from said series are the property of such.  The characters Hikaru
Moriyata, and any Argelians (which will be discussed in a later
chapter) are the product of the imagination of Dennis Carr, and
belong to same.

The persons and many events in this fanfic are fictitious.  Any
resemblance to any person, living or dead, or any event other
than what has obviously happened, is a coincidence.

Any military or police procedure outlined throughout the fic does
not necessarily depict any real life procedure or scenario.  Any
similarity to real life procedure/scenarios is, again,
coincidental.

Tenchi Muyo: Unfinished Business

A fanfic by Dennis Carr and Karmin St. Jean

Chapter 1:3 - Attitudes and Alchemy and static electricity

September 1, 1998 at 04:02 PDT

Hikaru's bedroom

*click*

"o/~I am yours, you are mine, you are what you-"

*SLAM!* *groan....*

---

04:12 PDT

*click*

"o/~A gathering of angels, appeared above my he-"

*SLAM*

*mumble....*

---

04:22 PDT

*click*

"o/~To throw away this mask, now everyone can see-"

*SLAM*

*mumblemumblemoan...*

---

04:32 PDT

*click*

The radio opened up with the sound of a 12-string guitar playing
a distinctive pattern, filtered through what sounded like an AM
radio, shortly to be accompanied by a single acoustic guitar
solo.

"I'm awake already!"

Hikaru crawled out of bed, brushed off the usual fatigue
accompanied by waking up, and got ready for his usual shower, as
he listened to the lyrics coming from the radio.

"o/~ So, so you think you can tell, heaven from hell...."

"Man, *Wish You Were Here* is *not* a song to wake up to," he
groaned, as he walked into his bathroom and turned on the water.

---

04:45 PDT
Masaki condo

Sasami awoke, as usual, just before sunrise.  While outside
observers would consider the extremely rapid recovery of jet-lag
(or rather, the complete failure of lag to exist) rather
peculiar, one had to keep two things in mind.

One, Juraians were strange like that.

Two, well, the name Washuu should mean something here.  She had
drugged the lot of them shortly after Hikaru went to bed.

She pulled herself out of her bed, yawned, blinked a few times,
and made her way out of the bedroom, and opened a door across the
hallway quietly.  Two steps in through the door, she realized it
was Tenchi's bedroom, and found Ryoko hovering in the usual
location.

Both startled each other, and Ryoko almost reflexively made to
form an energy sword - however upon seeing who it was, grinned
apologetically.

*Bathroom?* Sasami mouthed.

Ryoko signed with one index finger pointing up, and then pointing
to her right.  Sasami then smiled wanely, closed the door
quietly, and made her way into the facilities.

Ryoko smiled as she relaxed.  *Things are going to be fairly
normal around here*, she thought as a second Ryoko appeared in
the room, and abruptly vanished.

---

05:00 PDT

Hikaru's condo, on the balcony

The sounds were different, but it didn't matter that much.

The largest difference that Ryoko noticed was the sound of
passing cars on the two major streets and the freeway that they
were near, which was overridden by the sound of a passing train
about once every half hour.  Other than that, the usual sounds of
crickets, broken by the occasional screech of an owl, could be
heard.  It was certainly not unpleasant, just different.
Besides, if she really missed the shrine, she could always
teleport back. But why waste the energy?

---

Hikaru had finished preparing his coffee, and upon seeing Ryoko
sitting at his balcony table, paused.  After considering options,
he removed a second coffee cup from the dishwasher, filled it,
placed both cups in his left hand, picked up a small container of
coffee additives in his right hand, and carried it out to the
balcony.

"You know," he said as he opened the door with his foot,
"breaking and entering is a serious offense in these parts."

"So what are you going to arrest me for?" she quipped, smiling
teasingly.

"Nothing."  He put the cups down on the table and sat down.  "For
one thing, you didn't break and enter.  I would've heard you, so
I imagine you teleported or flew over.  Second, what would I tell
the guys? Some woman just appeared on my balcony?"  He paused for
a moment, smiling.  "They'd pull my badge and commit me in
fifteen seconds."

Ryoko picked up the green ceramic mug, and examined the steaming
black liquid.  Sake being her normal beverage of choice, she had
no idea what to make of it - and yet it was a customary morning
beverage throughout the universe.  On one hand, she tended to avoid
putting anything in her body that was the same color as asphalt;
on the other hand, well, as they say, when on Jurai, do as the
Juraians.

So, she didn't.  She brought the cup to her nose, and took a
brief sniff, analyzing the aroma; it was like sniffing a
combination of steam and woodsmoke, with a note of blueberry
and overtones of freshly turned dirt.  She rather liked it, and
sniffed a second time - this time, a little deeper and longer
than the first.

Hikaru looked over, and watched with some amusement as the pirate
unwittingly looked and acted like she was advertising for a
coffee company - her eyes were closed, and he could see a
serene smile on her face behind the mug as she inhaled the fumes
the coffee was giving off.

He grinned.  "Um, Ryoko, you're supposed to drink it.  You know,
with your mouth?"  He took a nonchalant sip of his own.

Ryoko opened her eyes, a now perturbed look adorning her face,
and then took a sip of her coffee - and swallowed almost
immediately as the bitter flavor of it assaulted her uninitiated
tongue.

"You know, this would taste *much* better if it were sweet."

Hikaru gestured to the pint carton of half-and-half and the
plastic container of sugar sitting on the table.  She went for
these, adding about five spoons of the sweetener and enough cream
to cause the cup to nearly overflow.  After carefully stirring
and making a bit of a mess, she sipped again - this time, finding
the flavor much more tolerable.

"After you get used to the flavor," he commented, "I *think* it
tastes good without additives."  He sat back, facing east once
again, and wiping his brow.  It was unusually hot for this early,
and considering the region, dreadfully humid.  It was something
one would be more likely to find in southern Florida, or perhaps
southern Japan - but not here in the Los Angeles basin.

"So Ryoko, what is this thing you and Aeka have about Tenchi?"

She stopped, grasping for her answer.  There wasn't really
anything between herself and Aeka except animosity, and it was
getting very tiring.  "Nothing really, I just found him first."

"And?"

"And...well, she thinks he's hers, and he's really mine-"

"And you bitterly fight over this to the point where it is
destructive."

She was now visibly upset.  "And what about it?"

"Well, you cooked the living room of your condo," he said,
turning towards her again, still holding the same expression of
calm.  "I'm not upset about it, as it was repaired - but I noted
something repairing some damage when I was in there last night,
along with a couple of burn marks on the wall.  I know what both
you and Aeka can do."  He turned again towards the canyon.  "How
did you find Tenchi, anyway?"

"Long story."  She took another careful draw of her coffee.

Hikaru checked his watch.  "We have...oh, an hour."

After she spent roughly thirty minutes of reviewing how she
first encountered Tenchi, he finally commented.  "And you love
him."

"Yes."

"And you would do anything for him."

"Yes."

"Fight?"

"Yes."

"Kill?"

"Yes."

"Die?"

"Yes."

"Leave him alone and give him space?"

"Ye- Hey, that one's not fair."

"Isn't it?"  He finished off his coffee and placed the cup back
on the table.  "Ryoko, I've had three romantic relationships
since I landed on Earth.  The first two were broken off by the
other half, but the last one was broken off by me.  She was
perfect except in one way - she would give me no room.  She had
to be with me constantly."

"And this was a problem?"

"Um, basically, yeah.  She was getting in the way of my work.
She always had to be on the phone with me.  It got to the point
where I actually had to file a restraining order against her."

"Wha?"

"Legal document that states that the individual named therein
cannot come within a certain distance of the plaintiff."  He
sighed.  "That was about a year ago.  Monica has since been
committed into the local sanitarium, and it is unknown as to
whether she will be released."

Hikaru gave her a moment to digest this, and then continued.
"It's not that I'm happy about it, she's in there because she
tried to kill herself a number of times.  But it got to a matter
of priority.  I would've jumped in front of a truck to save her,
but it got to a point where she had almost completely taken over
my life, and I couldn't have that."

She finished hearing him out, and teleported to the front of him.
"And your point is?"

At this moment, if Hikaru had any coffee in his mouth, it
would've been all over the front of Ryoko.  However, since this
was not the case (being that his cup was empty), he simply went
bug-eyed for a split second.

"I was not expecting that," he said, now very shaken.  "Anyway,
the point is that eventually Tenchi will come to a point where he
will have to put his own priorities first.  And if you and Aeka
keep fighting over him like you do, you'll both lose him.  All I
ask is that you think about it before it's too late."

Ryoko now looked at him, very angry - and it showed.  "Look, I
don't care what you have to say about it - Tenchi is *mine*, and
there is no way in HELL that little royal bitch of yours is
getting her hands on him!"  With that, she disappeared, muttering
something that one could only imagine to be foul language in a
foreign tongue.

The officer, meanwhile, remained where he was sitting, as the sun
rose once again, simultaneously obscured and magnified by the
haze.

*I can only hope she's right.*

---

07:00 PDT
Masaki Condominium

It was almost like he hadn't left home - things were completely
normal for Tenchi.  The problem, however, lied in that it wasn't
what your average 20-year-old exchange student from Japan would
consider normal.

As usual, he woke up with Ryoko hovering near his bed, complete
with the usual cheshire-cat grin, which illicited a yelp from
him.  Now being fully awake (mostly by adrenaline shock), he
proceeded to the bathroom to take care of his morning routine.

Part way through, this would, as usual, involve Ryoko poking her
face through the wall as he took care of his business, resulting
in a firm request to not *do that*, please.  Ryoko would then
kneel in front of the bathroom door, scratching the door in a
rather cat-like fashion and sorrowfully muttering his name over
and over again. At this point, Aeka would walk out of her
bedroom, commenting on how uncivilized this looked, which would
result in a brief argument. Sometimes there were explosions, and
sometimes there weren't - and this morning, there weren't.

After all this happened, everybody would filter over to the kitchen,
where breakfast would be ready, prepared by the seemingly
tireless Sasami. The meal normally went without interruption,
save for the acidic glares across the table between Aeka and
Ryoko, and the occasional inane comment from Mihoshi, which was
complemented by a disgusted look or a simple rolling of the eyes
from Kiyone.

This morning was just a little different though.  At precisely
07:13, they heard a sound that was, up to that point, completely
foreign to them come from their landlord's apartment.

"SCREEEEEEEEEEEEE-AWWWWWWW-UUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU!!!!!!!!"

At that second, everybody dropped their chopsticks in complete
horror, Mihoshi spat rice across the table (which by some odd bit
of luck didn't land on anybody), and Ryoohki fell off the table
with a surprised "Miyaaaaaa!", carrot following - which landed on
her head with a thud.

---

Moriyata, now clad in kilt, removed his mouth from the mouthpiece
of the bagpipes, made another adjustment to the backmost drone,
and blew into the pipes again.  This time, it was right - and
just in time, he realized, as he heard a car horn, followed by a
brief sounding of a police siren.

"Oh man, I'm late."

Having everything on him, he collected the drones into such a
position that they wouldn't bump into anything, decompressing the
bag in the process (which resulted in an eerie howling noise),
and ran out the door, passing a very surprised group of alien
women (one of which was stroking a cabbit who was obviously in
need of an ice pack) and Japanese student, greeting them with a
very hurried "Hi, guys, can't talk, gotta go, bye," and ran down
the stairs to the parking lot, with everybody staring at him,
completely shocked.

There was a moment of silence, which Mihoshi broke. "Um,
Aeka?"

"Yes?"

"Was he ever into wearing, ah, um...."

"Skirts?"

"Yeah."

She thought a moment, and then an amused smile crossed her face.

"Not that I know of."

---

14:00 PST

The funeral had gone as normal - only quicker, and this pleased
the entire Brea Police bagpipe brigade - all three of them -
being that they were all wearing kilts, which only added to their
discomfort.

At the funeral, the reason why things were so expedient was
determined.  McCormick was Jewish, and Jews tended to bury their
dead very quickly and just be done with it.  It was not out of
callousness, but it was just, well, why keep them around?

There was, as usual, a reception thereafter, to which none of his
family showed up.  To summarize, it was short, sweet, and rather
weird, having a Rabbi giving the final rites or whatever they
called it in Judaism, and then playing a dirge on the pipes as
the pallbearers brought the casket in.

And now, with this bizarre and damn hot funeral out of the way,
he was dreadfully exhausted.  It wasn't the energy required for
the bagpipes that did him in, it was the heat.  Weather was
*never* like this in the regions of Jurai he had lived in, and as
far as he could recall, had never been like this in California,
except for maybe the year prior.  Only this was worse.

After passing through the large garage, he noticed out of the
corner of his eye an abrupt flash off of the eastern horizon,
which nearly matched where a storm front appeared.

(He would later learn that this particular lightning strike
touched off a fire in the city of Yucaipa, and would also be
treated to a rather spectacular electrical storm at that time,
which would touch off another fire in nearby Carbon Canyon.)

As he trudged up the stairs, Aeka met him with an odd smile.
"So, Hikaru, since when were you into crossdressing?"

"Huh?"

She indicated the kilt, and then it hit him - this wasn't typical
for *any* of these people, with the remotely possible exception
of Tenchi.  "Oh, the kilt.  It's not crossdressing."  He unlocked
the door to his home.

"It's a skirt," she said, following him inside as he opened the
door.

"No, a kilt."

"Well, a rose by any other name, right?"

"Fine, but this particular flavor is something that men wear."

"Oh, please, I've never seen this anywhere in Japan!"

"You don't get out much, do you?" he said, smiling in such a way
that indicated that he wasn't very serious about what he was
saying.

"What?!  I've-! You-! Ah-!" She stopped, and then a grin slowly
crawled across her face as she started to laugh joyously.  Hikaru
in turn hugged her, and began laughing himself as she returned
the embrace.

After a moment, he spoke.  "It's good to see you again."

She nodded in reply, and looked up at him.  "What, seven hundred
years?"

"Yeah, about that."

"And now you wear dresses, hmm?" she said, a very silly grin on
her face.

"No!  It's a kilt, it's men's clothing!"

"Prove it."

"Fine!"  He dug through his bookshelf, extracted a book on
Scotland, and turned to a page somewhere in the middle.  "There."

The text she couldn't read, being it was in English, however she
immediately recognized the style of clothing - various men,
wearing a kilt, with pictures dating back from the 14th century.
"Well, I still think you look very...charming in that."

"Well, they're quite comfortable, as long as it's not like it is
outside now."

"And what's this thing you were carrying?" she asked, indicating
the mutant woodwind.

"Bagpipes," he said, picking them up. "Nothing quite like them
anywhere in the universe except this planet.  Played wrong, it
sounds more or less like holding a cat on its back, and biting
the tail."  He inflated, and demonstrated this by tuning the
pipes, the dischord of which obviously horrified Aeka.  "Played
right, it's actually quite beautiful."  With that, he closed the
second drone, and broke into Amazing Grace as to demonstrate.

Ryoko, meanwhile, had been watching the whole exchange through
the wall.

---

Somewhere in Yorba Linda, just off the 7th Tee for the city's
private golf course, roughly three miles from where they were
standing, a certain sheltie started howling mournfully.

---

When he finished, Aeka was just staring.  What she had just
heard was simply...indescribeable.  She thought she liked it, but
still, words could not describe what she had heard.

As he hung up the pipes, she said, "Um, that was...good, I
think."

Ryoko chose that exact moment to walk in through the still
open door.  "Well, princess, seeing as you're busy with skirt-boy
here, I'll go and take Tenchi--!"

"Oh ho ho, no you won't"

"Oh, and why not?" she returned, euphoric grin plastered on her
face. "Look at you two, you're perfect for each other! The way you're
holding each other, just like two lovers-"

"And what's that supposed to mean, demon?!"  She immediately
charged up her logs, focusing all of her attention on the pirate
and stomping to the door.

Hikaru facefaulted, and quickly walked over to his desk where the
energy dissipator was, removed it from the charger block, and
just as Ryoko started to charge up, activated it and threw it
between them in one motion, and stepped into the kitchen.  As the
device landed, it's status light came on, and a field formed
around it and the two women, which they didn't see anyway as
their fight instincts had narrowed their field of vision.

And then Aeka fired - and nothing happened.  Well, almost
nothing.  Just as she fired, both her logs and Ryoko's energy
sword immediately vanished with a light *whoosh*, and at that
instant, both of them watched each other in complete surprise as
all of the hair on their respective heads suddenly became charged
with static electricity, causing each hair strand to separate
itself from its neighbor.

Within two seconds, both of them looked like very surprised and
somewhat horrified human bottlebrushes.

Hikaru came out after a moment, and stopped and stared.  *Oh,
man, and I don't have my camera!*  He walked over to the two,
resisting the urge to laugh, and collected the device, closing
it.

"The ah, next time you" *snxx!* "fight, please don't do it"
*snxx!* "in my home, okay?"  He replaced the device on the
charger and went to his bedroom, still audibly trying not to
crack up.

Aeka and Ryoko looked in his direction with undignified glares,
and walked out, into their condo, closing the doors behind them,
and being very careful to not get their hair entangled with each
others as they mumbled obscenities.

Hikaru, meanwhile, made sure they had walked out, ran to his
bedroom, and collapsed in epileptic fits of laughter.

As they walked in, Mihoshi looked away from the TV, which was
showing a Japanese drama of some sort on a local foreign language
channel - and began laughing herself at what looked vaguely like
two *very* angry cats that had just been in a dryer.  A glare
from Ryoko, however, stopped that very quick, and at that point,
Tenchi, Kiyone, Washuu and Sasami saw what had happened.

Washuu was the only one to comment.  "You tried to fight in
Hikaru's living room, didn't you?"

They both went into their respective rooms to try to do something
about their hair, collecting particles of the textured ceiling in
it as it brushed up onto all sides of the hallway, and
slamming the doors on their way in.

Washuu thought about modifying the output on that, and then
thought better of it.  She expected Strange Things to happen, but
the sight of Aeka and Ryoko with all of their hair standing on
end was hilariously unexpected.  Completely forgetting that she
had overlooked that minute detail, she doubled over in hysterics.

"I'm a genius!"

---!

Author's note:

For the (horribly?) uninformed, the songs at the beginning of
this chapter were Suite Judy Blue Eyes by Crosby Stills Nash and
Young, Come Sail Away by Styx, Mr. Roboto by Styx, and Wish You
Were Here by Pink Floyd. The mix is peculiar to LA radio station
KLOS on any given Tuesday - it's a programming bit called "Two
for Tuesday". I guess the name would be self-explanatory. ^_^
-Dennis