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. Spandex is a trademark of the Dow Chemical corporation. Or Xerox. Or DuPont. Or 3M. Or Beatrice. I don't know. -Dennis No ducks were harmed in the writing of this fanfic. -Trakal Tenchi Muyo: Unfinished Business A fanfic by Dennis Carr and Karmin St. Jean Chapter 1:6 - Burst October 26, 1998 at 15:00 PST As usual for California, it was not your typical sunny day. In fact, it was rather cloudy outside, and strangely enough, rain was predicted. But this was typical for California this time of year, and none of the locals were *really* expecting rain, since the area weather forecasters were rarely dead on target. There were, however, the first of the usual seasonal easterly winds coming in over the week prior, and this made for interesting weather. Damn hot and dry. At this moment, though, he would not need to battle them. It was the end of the shift - time to return the bike to the garage, pick up his own car, and drive back to his home, with Mihoshi and Kiyone in tow. After this, he had an appointment to keep - and he only remembered after he picked up the inseparable pair.... --- 21:00 PST Satsuki Japanese Restaurant (aka Mike's) Orange, CA "No, man, I'm serious, they pick the best of the best of the best for this job." J put down his cup of tea. Opposite the man in black, Hikaru, now reeking of the five bottles of sake that were near him, took a draw on a glass of water, and looked at the local. "Lemmetellyasomethin, J. The Juraian Royal Guard unit is drafted from the Juraian Noyal Ravy." He picked up a piece of salmon sushi, ate it, and continued. "The guard is trained in a one year course, half of which don't make it. In otherwords, they die. You gotta spend fourty-eight hours in a space suit, sitting in space. Part of your training, at the end, is to get tanked worse than I am now, and perform an appendectomy. And I did just that." Another bite - this time the end of a spicy tuna roll - and he finished. "You humans are all the same, you don't think outside of your own little atmosphere." And a draw on the water, and he placed his glass down a little too hard. "Lemmetellya, don't go telling me about how you're all the best -" *thunk!* the glass hit the table again. "- of the best -" *thunk!* "- of the best. I mean, hell, J, I should be dead, if I were you with all that sake, but if I were you, who would be me?" J grinned at the joke. Sure, he was putting him down, but as K had told him before he retired, you can't rationalize with a drunken bastard. "Man, Moriyata, better let me drive you home." "Inneed. Yo, Mike, pleck cheese, er, ah, cheek plez, er, ah, oh fuck it." An older Japanese woman arrived at the table with the check. "Hikaru-san, you're not drinking as much tonight? Is something the matter?" "Nah, just gotta be on my tose for tomorrow, Noriko. Gotta girlfriend, but she's got the temper of a dragon, and she has this thing for her roommate, and so does her roommate." "Nani?" "Good, you're convoosed, that means your paying attention." He handed her a hundred. "Keep the change, I can afford it. I gotta go home." One last slug on the water - most of which wound up going out of a "hole in his lip", so to speak - and the two walked out the door. "Hikaru, if you had one more shot of that stuff, I'd be pouring you into a bucket and carrying you home." "Guess my tolerance is down. But, that just means I gotta build it back up!" He let out an enourmous laugh and climed into the Ford POS look-a-like that he was picked up in - and promptly melted in the passenger seat and opened the window. And yelled at nobody in particular. "I'M MAD AS HELL, AND I CAN'T TAKE IT ANYMORE!" "Hey, um, I hate to touch an open nerve, if you will, but is there something you want to talk about?" "Yeah, man, my tenants. Two of them always fighting over one of them, one's an eccentric scientist, and all but two of the women are completely insane." He tried to slouch, but couldn't due to the seatbelt. "Man, it's taxing." "All of them from off planet?" "All but one," he said, still slurring a little bit, but sobering up noticeably. "He grew up in Japan, but he's one eighth Juraian. Despite the anomaliesh among them, they seem to be holding up well." "And you're still drunk. Sure that's not the alcohol talking?" "Yeah, pretty sure. It metabolizes quickly. I'll be dry in an hour" A Seven-Eleven came into view, and the Mib agent made a right turn on that street after crossing a set of rails. "Yeah, but I really think you should lay off of that shit." "How do you think I've been able to remove appendixes from people under the influence of this?" He looked at the rookie. "You learn not only to control yourself under its influence, but you learn how to make your body get rid of it in a hurry." He then twitched and grimaced, as a familiar pain developed in his groin. "Speaking of which, could you speed up a bit?" J stole a glance over at the passenger seat, the contents of which was obviously in need of a trip to a bathroom. "You're hopeless, you know that?" "Oh, doan get me shtarted." They finally pulled into the driveway, and Hikaru opened the door and made a beeline for his front door, to be met by yet another argument - "Excuse me, I'll be right back!" - and promptly ran into his bedroom and the connected bathroom, closing the door. The two parties arguing, however, stopped only to make one determination. "I didn't think he could hold that much liquor." "He's drunk me under the table." "Oh, and a princess of a royal court can get floored?" "And what is that supposed to mean?!" The bickering, of course, continued like this for some time, until Hikaru came out - just in time to see J staring in disbelief at the two women as Aeka charged up. "Um, J, come here and stand on this side of the wall." "What?" "Just do it." He complied without further urging, as the dissipator was dispatched and Hikaru joined him and counted off. "Sree." Multiple balls of light coalesced into one quickly, and Ryoko formed her sword. "Two." Aeka glared at her adversary, and the logs came in closer. "One." Ryoko reared back with the sword. "Mark." *Fwoosh!* *Crackle!* After two more seconds, Hikaru spoke again. "OK, it should be shafe." The two men stepped out of the kitchen, to be treated to the sight of the now frizzed pair, Ryoko mouthing something about only wanting a bottle of sake, Aeka fuming on her way back to the other unit, Hikaru thumbing in the general direction of the kitchen as he followed Aeka out, and J now collapsed in fits of unbelievable laughter on the sofa. As Ryoko walked out of the kitchen and cast a glare at the still rolling J, she noticed the dissipator on the floor, picked it up to examine it, and immediately knew whose idea it was. --- "Aeka, this argument wasn't even over Tenchi. So," he said, now leaning on the balcony, carefully not hitting a bonsai tree, "this better be really good, whatever it is." "Listen, this ordeal between her and I is our business. Besides, don't you think you're a little, ah, sloshed to-" "I am not so drunk that I can't tell when you have a personal problem against her." Aeka was livid. "Why are you being so defensive for a criminal?!" "*Criminal*? The statute on her lapsed a few years ago!" Aeka took a deep breath, and calmed down considerably. Maybe, just maybe, he would see things her way this time. "Since I met Tenchi several years ago, I'd concluded that he was the crown prince of Jurai - the remaining survivor of Yosho. Since Yosho is far too old for me what with having been away from Jurai for so long, Tenchi Masaki is the only logical conclusion. Further, since I've met him, Ryoko has made it a point to go out of her way and interfere with his preparations for the court. She is *convinced* that she owns him, and it's my duty to defend him." "From what?" Hikaru pulled himself from the balcony railing and began pacing. "It seems he can hold his own pretty well, if you ask me." Aeka huffed, still not looking at her guard. "And after she took Yosho-" "Oh, so *that's* what this is about," he said, holding his position behind her. "She took something from you, so you have to go and hurt her. Seems you've found yourself a white whale to hunt." At that instant, Aeka froze, a white flame of anger slowly appearing in her eyes as she turned to face Hikaru. "I beg your pardon?!" "Oh, come on, you know *damn* well what I'm talking about!" "No member of the court is motivated for personal revenge!" "So what do you call this then?" "Justifiable retribution." "For what?" "Laying waste to our planet!" "Oh, for crying out loud, it was Kagato that used her for that!" "And what difference does that make?" "It wasn't her fault! For crying out loud, Aeka, you have to stop this now!" "NO!" At that second, she let out a massive force bolt that, had Hikaru not moved, would've gone straight through him, leaving a hole where his lungs otherwise would've been. Instead, it hit the bonsai tree on the end of the balcony, annihilating all but a small part of it, which found its way to the railing where its container had once been. What wasn't seen was that the remaining energy that had not been used to destroy the tree was mysteriously "pulled" towards a nearby electrical outlet, only to be sent to ground. "That woman has caused me pain for *seven hundred years*," she said quietly and deliberately, after a moment of stunned silence, "and I will make her *pay* for what she's done." After another moment of silence, broken only after a moment by a neighbor wondering what the bright flash was, Hikaru walked back over to where the bonsai used to be, and picked up its still smoldering remains and helt it for Aeka to see. "It seems, Ahab, that you broke your little tree." He then walked back inside, muttering something about needing a long, hot shower, leaving Aeka fuming on the balcony. --- About the same time this happened, another transaction was taking place as Ryoko made her way into sort of a sub-dimension, what stored a certain lab, and approached her red-haired mother. *Oh, mother,* she thought. *Why, is that my *daughter* I am sensing?* Washu turned from her terminal, smiling gleefully. Ryoko rolled her eyes in response. *I would like you to tell me one thing.* *Hmm?* She held out the dissipator. *What's this?* *An energy dissipator. And judging by your hair,* she thought, handing a brush to her, *it seems you two have been in yet another fight.* She casually glanced back at her terminal, the RTA on the screen again. "And now, it seems that our landlord and Aeka are having it out on the balcony." "Well, this could be interesti-" "Nonono, don't go out there and interfere. It'll only make it worse. Anyway, what else?" "Um, what's the deal with this thing?" Washu took it from her. "I'm protecting you guys from being evicted. Here in this part of this planet, these things called homeowners associations exist, primarily to keep riff-raff out of neighborhoods. In any case, the one in this complex would've likely forced Hikaru to evict us had the property kept being destroyed, so to work around that, I designed this to basically dissipate the energy output of you and Aeka whenever you fight. I believe I heard him use the term 'gestapo' to describe them at one point." "But why the *hell* can't you keep it from frizzing my hair?!" "Physics dictates that you cannot destroy energy. Besides," she said, smiling once again, "it's so much fun to watch the output have its way!" She then placed the device on a nearby floating table, and turned back towards her monitor as it started beeping wildly - and was suddenly horrified. "Aeka's charging up. I gotta do something now." She immediately began manipulating her terminal as she mumbled to herself. "Um, field, where's a ground, there-!" and was cut off as a spike was indicated on her monitor by a separate meter. "If anything," she said, settling down, "the neighbors will have seen a bright flash, more or less resembling that of a camera." *Ryoko?* *Hmm?* *Try to watch your step around her, OK?* Ryoko paused, considering that. *You know,* she thought, looking at her mother with a hint of concern, *that could be easier said than done.* "Exactly what I'm afraid of." As Ryoko exited, Washu sat back down, took a good look at the device, and grabbed a tool as she sighed. "Alright, you, it's time for some maintenance here." --- 22:30 PST Hikaru's Bathroom If anybody had walked in to his bathroom, they would've been hard pressed to see any of the details. There was no ventilation, save for an exhaust fan, which was not turned on at the moment, as to preserve heat and make his exit from the shower a bit more comfortable. Maybe he was spoiled, but he didn't care. It would be easy to adjust to old survival tactics if necessary. A slight *thump* punctuated the cut off of the water supply from the shower, and the door opened, revealing a blurred single arm reaching for a towel. Shortly after this, Hikaru stepped from the shower, the towel being held to his head as he dried his hair and made his way to the power switches as to turn on the fan. Just before this could happen, however, the door opened, revealing a red and green blur, and letting in 71 degree air, instantly creating "rain" in the bathroom and revealing the scientist, who was smiling madly, and the cop, who was completely naked for just a moment as he covered himself with his towel. "Hikarusamaaaaaa!" "Washu, unless this rock is about to explode, could you *please* not use this door in the future!?" "Sorry, but I had to get this back to you." She gave him the disspator, and he knotted his towel around his waist to examine. "How did you get your hands on this?" "Actually, Ryoko picked it up. She was rather upset that we were using this, but I think she understands that we all need a place to live while we're here - the operative term here being *I think*. Anyway, I replaced its battery and gave it a good tune up. General maintenance, and all that. You should be a little more careful with this thing, it's fragile!" "With all the abuse this thing gets, I'm surprised that it's not completely destroyed." Washu suddenly changed tracks, and looked over the still dripping officer. "And with your build, how many hearts have you destroyed, hmm?" "Um, right." At this moment, his towel slipped, revealing his body to Washu just briefly as he retrieved the towel and dropped the dissipator, covering himself in a hurry, leaving him blushing madly as Washu walked back through the door, a mischievous grin plastered on her face. --- October 27, 1998 at 16:00 PST Hikaru's condo Tenchi realized he was becoming a bit shellshocked. Not only did he make it a habit to carry his sword around, people regarded him as a bit off for doing so - and he didn't care. Granted, to the average gaijin - *No, wait, I'm gaijin here.* - to the average American, rather, the hilt was to be carried around by Tenchi and handled by no one else, as sort of a good luck charm (the Japanese were so superstitious!), but even so, he was no less shellshocked. And it all happened after Ryoko saw a series of movies about a pink panther, who was neither pink nor a feline - just some clumsy boob of a french detective. It seemed Ryoko had become somewhat, shall we say, inspired by these movies, and now felt it was her obligation to pounce on Tenchi, in the same way that Closeau's housemate would, to keep him up to par on his sword skills. And Aeka, naturally, despised this, since she was, after all, attacking a member of the royal court. And so, he cautiously walked into his condo, doffed his shoes, looked around, placed his book bag near the end table, grabbed a floppy disk and a textbook on architecture, donned a pair of sandals, walked out of the condo into his landlord's, right hand on sword hilt and left carrying book and floppy, and walked to the middle of the living room, turned around abruptly, and energized his sword at - - nothing. Much to the bemusement of Hikaru, who was planted in front of a terminal, presumably reading some electronic mail. And then Tenchi felt a tap on his shoulder, prompting him to look around, and finding Ryoko clad in her black and red battle suit, hovering in the same way that bricks don't, grinning something silly and bringing her visibly weakened sword down at Tenchi, who reflexively blocked it, going right in for an attack on his self-declared adversary and throwing book and floppy at random - somehow landing both on the sofa. Ryoko's attitude seemed to be only one thing - let's play! If only, however, her method of "play" wasn't so, well, violent. Granted, her sword wouldn't cut through butter in its current state, but nonetheless she treated it as the real thing, marking Tenchi, calculating where the obstacles were, and bringing her sword around, prompting Hikaru to duck as it went through where the top of his head was, and only to have its owner continue responding to a message without skipping a beat. Yes, the outside observer would consider this completely insane. But then, consider the group we're discussing. Tenchi, in turn, blocked the attack, and made for one of his own, going for her left leg. A brief flick of Ryoko's wrist would block this, as the hilt *cum* blade of her weapon came down to parry. And then Tenchi noticed something - every time she attacked, the pupils of her eyes would narrow. Despite the added flexibility the spandex-like body suit gave her, thus aiding her fight physically, she could not maintain a poker face to save her life. He could not believe this! Six years, and he finally figured it out! He suddenly found himself actually enjoying this particular sparring match and then letting the sword take over. The match continued more or less like this for two minutes, while Mihoshi absently walked in through the front door, munching on some popcorn while not paying attention to the melee that probably would've decapitated her had it been an actual fight. (Instead, it would only leave a glowing line where it passed through.) "Hikaru, I have the report for eleven eighty four." She sat a ream of paper on the desk. Hikaru, in turn, stared at the report. "Mihoshi, isn't that just supposed to be a" - Hikaru paused here long enough to duck, a nearby sword missing him by inches - "beer run?" Just for added effect, he dropped an Orbital CD into the drive, changed to a track on it that he felt would suit the mood, and let it play. "Well, yeah, but it *is* illegal to" *duck* "do that, and you know that these are people who aren't old enough to buy beer so they feel it's" *duck* "necessary to run out with it, I mean, the owner of this convenience store was" *duck* "very angry, and besides, I know where the perp" *duck* "lives." Hikaru stopped typing. "You" *duck* "figured him out?" "Mm-hm. He's just around the corner, off of 5851 Mariposa." He couldn't believe it. They'd been tracking this guy for months, and she just figures him out all of a sudden. "I suppose we should issue an arrest warrant" *duck* "*watch the terminal please* tomorrow." "They already booked him. Ignakowski couldn't" *duck* "believe it, he'd been looking for him-" "-I know, for nine months. I don't know if you're going to get promoted or fired for that one." "Well, he collided with" *duck* "Kiyone, and that's how we found him." He should have known. At that moment, Kiyone walked in, holding an ice pack to her left eye, followed by Washu, who noticed something different about the carpet, and then followed by Aeka, who watched in horror as Ryoko pinned him to the ground and held her sword at his neck, and assuming the worst as she brought up a field. Without skipping a beat, four hands reached for the charger block, Washu's making it first, and dispatched the ED between Aeka and Ryoko. It promptly opened up, the logs disappeared, and the only thing to happen at that point was Ryoko looking at Aeka. For a moment, she didn't even realize that her sword was gone. "You were going to kill him," she said slowly. "Aeka, this sword couldn't cut through - what the - where is it?" She stood up, wondering what happened, and found that she couldn't even solidify any energy whatsoever, as she watched it snake through the carpet, along a wire, and into an electrical outlet. "Ah, completely useless, are we?" Aeka charged up - or attempted to - and found that she herself was unable to do anything. "Um, Aeka -" "Tenchi, stay out of this." He opened his mouth again, and paused, realizing that attempting to talk logic into her was useless. Thusly realizing this, he moved quietly over to the computer desk, catching the conversation back there. "Hikaru, why did you embed chicken wire into the carpet?" "I like my computer, Washu. It's grounded into that outlet by the door." The five of them watched the ensuing battle from behind the table, which wasn't much, except for attempts at working around the dissipation field, which had been expanded to encompass the room, and watching their attempts not do anything but find their way to ground in the form of electrostatic discharge. What did find its way to its intended victim did little damage, and the end result was indirectly increased fighting stamina for both Ryoko and Aeka, mostly fueled by rage and self preservation. Meanwhile, the discussion by the wooden computer desk took a turn towards a more...leisurely tone, in a more or less roundtable style, starting with Tenchi asking: "So, what are we going to do for dinner after they tire themselves out?" "I don't know," Kiyone replied. "What do you want to do?" "We could go out for sushi," Hikaru suggested. "It's Monday," Washu quipped. "They're closed." "Oh yeah." Mihoshi then looked up. "Hey, has anybody noticed that Mike's is located next door to a tropical fish store?" At this point, everybody looked at Mihoshi, exchanged perplexed glances with everybody else, and looked at Mihoshi again, with Tenchi being the first to reply. "You're right," he said, an odd grin on his face, "I've always been wondering where he got his tuna." Hikaru at this point was resisting the urge to laugh. "Um, Tenchi, I don't think that's really tuna." "Ooh, another excuse to look inside him!" "Oh boy." "Well, would they really sell that kind of fish?" "Dunno, but I've seen one sell sharks once." And then the ED alarm went off. "ED is flat," Hikaru announced. "Kitchen, now." As everybody shuffled off, several cylindrical objects formed around Ryoko, and Ryoko's sword in turn once again formed itself, this time with one more force bolt in her left hand. One of the advantages to having a destructive interference generator on the property was that one could not hear anything going on outside of the range of the field. Unfortunately, one of the *dis*advantages was that nobody could hear, making it difficult for people who should know what is going on to know the goings on where they were going. So it was such that Sasami had casually walked into her landlord's home to announce one thing. "Dinner's-!" She didn't manage to announce it. As soon as the first sound left her lips, Hikaru looked at her, took in the situation, and sprinted across his living room, pinning Sasami against the wall, placing one hand on the back of her head as to prevent having it bump against the wall on impact - all within one second. And then there was the explosion, as sword connected with logs connected with force bolt, which somehow managed to miss the general area of the living room that contained the amateur radio equipment and computers, and a violent, pained scream that pierced above the din of the cataclysmic energy release. When the smoke cleared, what could be seen was a lot of fire damage, twentyleven repair drones appearing out of nowhere, and a severely burned Juraian guard positioned in such a way where it would appear two cascades of singed light blue hair were coming out from under his arms. If one outruled the third degree burns covering the back of Hikaru Moriyata, it would be confusing as to whether this were an incriminating circumstance, or something that just looked insanely silly. He held this position for about thirty seconds, and then peeled himself off of the wall, wincing as he tried to move, his clothing sticking to the burns, and took one step towards the hallway before he faltered. "Um, Washu, could you help me a bit?" She came out, which he could see - but his vision was beginning to fail him, as the entire group stared at the resulting disaster. Mihoshi dropped a glass, which shattered, prompting a spare repair unit to clean up the mess and reassemble the drinking container. Aeka and Ryoko, meanwhile, surveyed their now damaged property manager, completely at a loss for words, and Sasami, now scared out of her mind, simply stared at her sister. Hikaru then groaned, fell to his left knee, found himself growing increasingly dizzy, and then simply collapsed face down on the floor. His last thought before he passed out was something about how comfortable the carpet was on the parts of his body that weren't burned, and was that Washu running.... "Dammit," Washu muttered, "I'm a scientist, not a paramedic. Tenchi, help me here." It was almost surprising, then, that Tenchi had immediately complied, either ignorant or not caring that he was about to carry him into the lab with her. *Maybe she has a sense of ethics after all,* he thought, as he grabbed him by the ankles while Washu grabbed him by the shoulders, both being very careful not to touch the charred flesh, and hauled the unconscious man into another dimension, as everyone else walked out the other way, into their home, leaving Ryoko and Aeka staring at where three people would otherwise have disappeared into nowhere. And then Ryoko spoke only four words. "I hope you're satisfied," she said, as she turned on her heel for effect, floated up, and vanished. Aeka couldn't do anything but stare at the wall where the door was, tears now slowly running down her face. *Tsunami, I almost killed him.* She then realized something else - she almost killed her sister. She noticed the book shelf a moment after simply standing there doing nothing, and recalled a book she had read a while back. Some of the books on his shelf were written in Japanese, some in English, some in Juraian. None in any particular order that she could see, just lumped in languages. Aeka located the Juraian section, found mostly tactical manuals, continued to the Japanese section, and found one she thought she recognized. MOBY DICK She pulled out the book - a translated version printed up on a computer and mounted in a five-inch three-ring binder - and opened to about the sixth page, where the first chapter started with little ado. "Watashi wa Ishimaeru." *Interesting opening for a novel,* she decided, as she thumbed the page, and walked out, avoiding everybody else in her displaced home as she made her way to the bedroom she shared with Sasami, entered the closet, pulled a small lamp in with her, and closed the door.