Tenchi Muyo! And its respective characters are the property of AIC and
Pioneer.  I do not own them, so please don’t sue me.  Come to think of it,
no one really CAN sue me, as I have not even used one character from the
series yet (well, unless you count Kain, but the Tenchi development team
swiped him from biblical mythology… so HA!)

One note:  I use a number of Japanese words in this story.  For those of you
who aren’t as proficient in Nihongo, here’s a short list of definitions:
Miko:  a supplementary shrine priestess.
Shimenawa:  A rope made of rice paper.  Used to mark a place or object as
sacred.  They often have gohei (folded chains of paper) hanging from them.
Chihaya:  a long-sleeved top worn by miko
Hibakama:  A pair of wide-legged, crimson trousers also worn by miko.
Yukata:  A light, informal cotton kimono.
Torii:  A gateway arch, used to mark a place as sacred.  Those famous red
gates scattered all over Japan are torii.
Megami:  The Japanese word for ‘goddess’.  I just used it because I got
tired of saying goddess over and over again.
         I’ve taken these definitions from “The Anime Companion” by Gilles
Poitras.
  An excellent encyclopedia on ‘what’s Japanese in Japanese anime’.  I
highly recommend it.  You can find out more at Gilles’ sight:
http://www.sirius.com/~cowpunk/
        Additionally, I derived some of this story from the Japanese legends
of
Amaterasu and Susanoo, as well as the Izanagi/Izanami creation myth.
Reading up on them will help you understand the background of the tale a
little more.
Anyway, on with the show….

UNTIL ALL THE STARS ARE DUST (Part 3)
                By John Meszaros

…And the years went on.  Yukito never returned from her rescue mission,
though mercifully her body was not found among the many corpses that
littered the shattered household.
Hinaha was found and adopted by a gentle old priestess who had once known
Yukito.  The priestess raised Hinaha as kindly as a real mother would, and
the young girl quickly grew to love her.
When Hinaha showed signs of impending womanhood, the old priestess took her
to train as a miko at a shrine to Tsunami, the royal goddess of House Jurai.
In time Hinaha grew to be a young woman, strong in stamina, quick in
intelligence and dexterous in limb.   To all outward appearances, Hinaha led
a happy, contented life at the shrine.  She laughed, she cried, she hated,
she loved.  She displayed all the emotions normal for a healthy woman.
Yet always there lay just beneath the surface those terrible memories:
Memories of kind-hearted Mito dangling like a dry leaf from that hideous
blot of shadow.  Memories of people screaming and running in animal fear.
Memories of her own stark terror as she hid in the cold, dark woods.  Hinaha
remembered it all.
Hinaha also remembered her mother- how brave she had been!  How strongly she
had weathered the turbulent storms that fate forever threw at mother and
child.  How beautiful had her voice been as she had eloquently recited
poetry to her captivated, wide-eyed daughter. How light had been her touch
as she’d picked the soft yellow river-flowers and delicately set them in a
finely painted arrangement vase.  How tenderly she had held Hinaha in her
arms.
How warm she had been.
Hinaha laughed, and Hinaha shared joy. But always Hinaha remembered….

        The wheel shall turn,
        The waters shall convene
        The threads are woven
        The swords are crossed

        We weave about the labyrinth,
        We are blind to one another
        Yet in time, once more….
        We meet.
                        - A poem by Aganoto, a philosopher-
poet of the
early Onizano era

        The waterfall was cool and crisp as it ran over Hinaha’s skin.
Feverishly, she scrubbed at her long, lilac hair, as though trying to
cleanse herself of some poison.  The water immediately about her body was
stained crimson with blood.  Not her own blood, but that of the others who
had been cut down in the slaughter.
        It was so cold.
        As she washed, Hinaha sobbed.  Thick tears welled up at the corners
of her
ruby eyes.
        It had come back! After so many long years, the blackness had
finally
returned.  As before, it had come at night, the majority of the shrine’s
occupants had been asleep.  With the same malignant ferocity, the monster
had begun its butchery, first tearing through the walls of the guest
quarters.  It had slain most of the pilgrims quartered within before the
alarm had at last been raised.  As the shrine awoke, the massacre only
seemed to get worse.   Torches flashed and people screamed all over the
courtyard, creating a macabre dance of sound and shadows along the
cobblestones- a dance led by a whirling, looming horror with a body black as
death and a maw red as blood.   In a matter of minutes it was over.
Everyone lay dead.
        Everyone that is, except Hinaha.
        She had escaped the carnage when a tile roof, torn free by the
marauding
shadow, had collapsed upon her, knocking her out cold.  When she awoke,
she’d found herself alone, the only survivor for a second time.
        The blood of those who had died all around her was spattered thick
on
Hinaha’s skin- tainting her, smothering her, staining her with the stench of
death.  Only the water of the sacred pool could help her, for it washed away
the blood and left the girl clean and beautiful again.
But… could it really clean away all the contamination?  Could this pristine
spring, which had been blessed by high priest Unahi himself, truly rescue
Hinaha from the nightmares that had plagued her for so many years?  Could it
free her from the sight of her dearly loved friends, now splayed across the
courtyard?  Could it reach in and wash away her horrible guilt that she
alone had survived the massacres twice?
Hinaha drew her knees up to her chin and clasped her hands in front of them.
  The water ran swift on her naked back.  The tears came thicker and faster.
  Her throat was raw from screaming.
        “ Mother…Father…Unahi…Mito…Sezuji…Machiko…why?”
        She looked up and saw the Great Tree of the shrine, a rice paper
shimenawa
wrapped about its middle.  This tree contained the kami who was supposed to
watch over the people and keep them safe from harm.
        Anger welled in Hinaha’s heart.  Acid flames of rage burned in her
ruby
eyes.
Rising to her feet, she seized a rock from the bottom of the pool and flung
it with all her strength at the tree.
        “ Damn you!” she screamed, “ Why…why did you let them die?  Why was
I left
alive again?  Why did I have to witness the death of everyone I love for a
second time! Damn you!”
        Hinaha snatched up another rock and hurled it with a terrifying
viciousness
at the tree.  The momentum of her throw sent the girl spinning on the
slippery stones of the pool’s bottom, and she would have landed hard on her
backside had she not caught herself with an agile move learned from
childhood.
        “Damn you…damn you…damn you…” she whispered softly over and over
again, her
voice hiccupping with soft sobs.  Her eyes drilled black, poisonous holes
into the sacred house of the kami who had betrayed her.
        At last the fiery rage began to dim in Hinaha’s heart.  Having
cleaned away
most of the blood, she stepped slowly but gingerly out of the pool and
reached down to retrieve her clothes.  She winced as she saw that the blood
had soaked her white silk chihaya, and   left her hibakama a deeper shade of
crimson than it had previously been.
        Not wishing to put on the soiled garments, she instead stood up and
walked
nude towards the nearby storage shed, which would likely hold a few extra
acolytes’ clothes.
        In the gold and lacquer halls of the Juraian emperor’s palace, there
is a
very precise definition for feminine beauty.  The most striking, attractive
women were supposed to be thin, reed-like things with few curves to fill the
folds of their billowy kimonos.  Hinaha was nothing like the imperial women.
  Heavy-breasted and thick-waisted was she, with the wide, graceful hips of
a dancer and a smooth, yet subtly muscular acrobat’s back that rippled when
she walked.  Her lilac hair was long, reaching almost to her waist, and very
thick.  The entire length of these tresses was perfectly straight, save for
the tips where the hairs curved slightly like the feathers of a bird’s back,
so that they could more easily shed water.
Reaching the shed, Hinaha pulled open the door and began to search for a
clean garment among the various boxes and bags.  Pulling a rough cotton
yukata out of a basket, she slipped it on and, finding no belt, tied it with
a rope from one of the grain sacks.
Hinaha stepped back outside into the waxing orange light of the coming dawn.
  The world was neither wholly in night, nor wholly in day.
Dawn is a time like autumn, when the world is not alive in summer; yet not
dead in winter. The dawn is also a place like the beach, where there is
neither sea nor land.  Like both of these, dawn was a place and a time of
transition.  And it was at transitions that the spirit world grew closer to
the world of nature and of men….
A tingle crept down the tiny hairs on Hinaha’s neck; she could feel a
presence in the air.  It was an insubstantial thing, like wind or the heat
of a hidden fire, flowing there, just beyond her perception.
Hinaha’s eyes drifted over the ruined grounds of the shrine.  The great
stone torii at the far end had toppled, seemingly ripped right out of the
living earth. Beyond it, the ancient willow trees that lined the stairway
down the hill still stood, though many of their branches had been sundered
and thrown about.  In the courtyard, the paper lanterns still burned in the
boughs of the great tree.  At the other side of the square, Hinaha could
just make out the red-painted shrine-building itself.  The offering table
had been pulled out of the inside and now lay strewn on the steps.  Flung
here and there all along the blood-stained cobbles, there lay the-
NO! Hinaha couldn’t look at that!  All her friends….!  Her breathing became
rapid, her heart fluttered like a trapped bird!   Her eyesight spun
violently.  Grabbing her stomach, she fell to her knees and vomited.
The stones were so terribly cold below her knees.
Hinaha jerked her head around wildly, desperate for something to take her
eyes off the grisly scene.  There, near the top of the doorframe, there was
a large green cricket.   Hinaha examined it with a slow, careful eye.
Ever since she was a little girl, she’d loved to watch the insects playing
in the rice fields.  How wonderful and intricate they were, with their
multi-faceted eyes and labyrinthine wings.  They were like tiny, living
gems.
This insect was no different.  Its shell was vibrant yellow-green and shaped
like a miniature leaf.  As she watched, its slim antennae rotated about on
its forehead in tiny turrets.
Putting her hand on the door, Hinaha leaned against it and slowly let her
breathing return to normal.  She was tired, so very tired; the terror of the
previous night had sapped nearly all her energy, and that last act of
vomiting made her dizzy.
She couldn’t sleep! What if the monster came back!?  But…but she was so
weary…
Her mind battled back and forth for a few moments, unsure whether to sleep
and risk a surprise attack, or to remain awake and be weakened beyond any
ability to defend herself.  Finally, Hinaha’s desire for sleep won out.
Turning around, she stepped a few paces into the shed and collapsed upon a
pile of bedrolls, her long hair spraying over her face in an elegant fan.
“ So…cold.” she murmured as sleep overtook her.

Hinaha awoke suddenly at the sound of something in the courtyard.  Her ruby
eyes snapped open and darted about.  She held her breath and pricked up her
ears, straining to hear.  There it was again:  a soft, repetitive noise…
like someone crying.
Hesitantly the young woman arose from her impromptu bed and tiptoed towards
the door.  Yes, it was crying- the low, sniffing sobs of a child.
Hinaha peered around the corner and saw a little girl sitting beneath the
Great Tree.
The girl’s hair was blue, the same shade as a summer’s sky, and tied back in
two long, arcing ponytails.  She was clad in a pale green kimono, fastened
around the waist with a red silken belt.  Her face was cradled on her knees,
which were drawn up to her chest.  Upon the child’s forehead was a small
green triangle, divided in half down the middle.
At the sight of this girl, Hinaha’s heart filled with a mixture of both joy-
for there was at least one other survivor- and of sorrow-for the child was
now an orphan.
The purple-haired miko crossed the courtyard, careful not to look at the
bodies that lay all about, and stooped down next to the little figure.
“  Hello.” She said as softly as she could.
The blue-haired girl started and looked up, revealing a wide pair of pale
pink eyes and a row of freckles along her nose.  She leapt to her feet and
began to back away.
“ No, don’t worry,” Hinaha implored, “ I won’t harm you.  Please… come
back.”
With slow, tentative steps, the girl began to edge back towards the miko.
Her tiny chest quivered with the aftershocks that follow a long, hard cry.
“ That’s it… “ said Hinaha, mimicking the inviting smile her mother had
always used.
Carefully, the girl sat down before the priestess, folding her legs
underneath her small body.
“  Hi, my name’s Hinaha, what’s yours?” said the miko.
“  I’m,” the girl began hesitantly,” I…uhm….oh.”  Her eyes shivered and she
burst into tears once more.
Hinaha reached out and placed a comforting arm around the girl’s tiny
shoulders, “ there…there, don’t cry.  It’s safe now.”
“ No…” the child said,” you don’t understand. I…I’m sorry.  So sorry! This-
all of this-it’s MY fault.”
“  No, don’t say that,” said Hinaha warmly,” a gentle thing like you would
never do this.  It’s not you’re fault.”
        The girl looked up at Hinaha.  Her expression had changed
drastically.  Her
features were calm and composed, with a dim sort of sadness.  Her eyes,
though they still appeared to be the same, were not those of a child, but
seemed to have a look of impossible, ancient intelligence to them.
        “ Yes it is, I’m afraid,” her voice had changed too.  It was deeper,
like
that of a fully-grown woman, and soft like a mother’s,” I did not kill these
people, but I may as well have.  For it was I who brought their murderer.”
        Hinaha’s eyes grew wide.
        “  I was careless when I first entered the Middle Realm of the Reed
Plains.
  As I crossed the River that lies between the world of gods and the world
of mortals, I let the hem of my dress trail in the water.  That thing- that
putrid effluence- it clung to my garment and rode with me unseen to Jurai,
where it was trapped… for a while at least.”
“  Wha…what was?” asked Hinaha, quite overwhelmed.
        “  The blackness… the Nothing.  It was not truly alive in its
original
form, only an elemental thing, like water or stone.  It was the aborted
first child of them- the August Mother and Father who created this and all
other worlds.  The blackness was their first attempt at conception, and it
went horribly wrong.  Instead of a bright, wondrous being, they begat a
hideous monster- a leech child, though to even called it ‘child’ would give
it a semblance of life.”
        The cerulean-haired girl finished and hung her head.
        “  But…but who are you,” asked Hinaha,” how can you know such
things?”
        The strange child looked up again.  Her body was enveloped for a
moment in
a brilliant nimbus of shimmering motes.  When the light cleared, there stood
not a little girl, but a woman clad in thick white robes.  She looked like
she might perhaps be an older incarnation of the child.
“ I am she,” the woman began, “ who rules, along with my two sisters, the
entire universe.  I am she who is the sun.  I am she who, in my arrogant and
feisty youth, hid myself in a cave after my impetuous, red-haired sister
insulted my weaving-chamber by throwing in an animal carcass. And I am she
who was eventually drawn out by curiosity over the erotic dance of a
green-haired she-devil.
        “I am known by thousands of names on thousands of worlds.  But to
you, I am
called Tsunami.”
        “ Tsu…na…mi.” breathed Hinaha, “ you are Tsunami, the soul of
Jurai…?”
        “ Yes.”
        It was a ludicrous idea, impossible!  How could this woman be the
mighty
goddess?  Yet there was something in the way the woman looked, some small,
indefinable wisp of divine magic, which told Hinaha that she spoke the
truth.
        And as Hinaha realized this, the rage surged up once more in her
heart.  A
cloud of red passed before her eyes.
“ You…you monster! You did NOTHING to save them!” she screamed,” Where was
your divine might when that thing slaughtered the others!  Where was your
power all the other times, when It tore apart the countryside!  Where were
you when It orphaned children, when It widowed women!  Where were you when
it caused pain and fear and grief!  Where were you when It took my MOTHER!”
        Tsunami shrank back, hiding her face behind one hand in shame.
        “  What good are gods,” Hinaha spat, “ when they can’t even protect
their
own people!”
        “  Yes… you’re right…” said the goddess.  Now both hands covered her
face,
“ I…I’m sorry.”
        “ But there’s nothing I can do,” Tsunami burst, raising her pleading
hands”
I am a kami.  Though I embody nature, though I rule the universe… I can
never touch it!”  The megami’s eyes were rimmed with red.
        “  What mean you,” pressed the lilac-haired miko in a voice tinged
with
acid,” how is a kami who is also a goddess barred from her people?”
        “  The Middle Realm of the Reed Plains is a place of material
existence.  I
and my kind are of spiritual existence.  Only a few of us, such as my
red-haired sister, or the court of Olympus, can interact freely with our
creation.  I am sorry.”
        “  Sorry, sorry, SORRY,” Hinaha mocked.  Her teeth shown white in a
snarl.
        “ What good do all your ‘sorry’s do for Mito, and Unahi, and my
MOTHER!”
Hinaha spat the last part.
        Hinaha’s outrage flared up like a fountain of flame, so that it was
in
danger of burning her from within.  This woman, this goddess- she had done
it!  She had brought the death and the suffering to Jurai!  She was as
loathsome and despicable a monster as the blackness!
        Hinaha’s spirit filled with a raw, passionate emotion that bit deep
to the
very core of her heart:  hate.  She hated this atrocious goddess!  She hated
the demon the goddess had brought from the other side!  She hated the
cruelty of fate, which had tortured her for so long!  She hated…she
hated…she hated-
  -Suddenly, Hinaha’s anger broke.  Like glass, it shattered, decomposing to
a pile of stale dust that left a bitter taste in the back of her throat.
In its place, there rose a new emotion.  It was inviting and strong, and
wonderfully warm…  It was compassion.  For, at that moment, when her rage
was rising out of control, Hinaha had seen into the depths of her very soul.
  Down to the dark place where few people ever go, the subconscious core
that makes up all living beings. In that space, she had seen It.  The
blackness.
And Hinaha had had an enlightenment.
She’d witnessed the monster’s true form…  And the truth was that It was
formed out of everyone!  It was the collective dark at the heart of every
soul, the distilled evil that led men and women to do wicked things: to
hurt, to steal, to take joy in other’s pain, and to bring war.
The stuff of which the blackness was composed could never be destroyed, for
this malevolence was a necessary part to all beings.  It was the shadow cast
by the light, as inseparable from the outer being as the earth was from the
sky.
But the blackness Itself was a concentration of this evil.  It did not
belong in the world, no more than a being of pure good belonged.  It was an
aberration to nature.
And this child at Hinaha’s feet, this beautiful, innocent child- who was
also a goddess- she had to bear the burden of knowing that she had brought
It to this world.  What a terrible thing to bear.
Tsunami, once more a girl of perhaps twelve, had resumed her position
beneath the Great Tree.  Looking down, Hinaha saw the girl with the eyes her
mother, Yukito, must have had.  With this maternal sight, Hinaha could read
deep into Tsunami’s soul and see her for what she truly was.  Though Tsunami
had lived for untold ages, she was still, in essence, a little girl.  The
megami had woven the entire universe, yet she was as fragile as a flower on
the autumn wind.  She lacked experience with the material world, having
lived so long in her heavenly court.  To see her people murdered in such a
horrendous manner caused Tsunami so much pain.  So much pain…
In a way, Hinaha was stronger than this little goddess, for she had seen so
much mortal sorrow and survived.
  Hinaha smiled tenderly.  Bending down, she picked the child-goddess up in
her arms.  The blue-haired lass gasped and tried to squirm away, wanting
nothing more than to hide her face in shame.  But Hinaha held on and hugged
her the way Yukito had once done to a little, purple-haired girl.  Slowly,
Tsunami put her own arms around the miko’s neck; her small face once more
alight with the mind of a goddess.  Here, in this desolate courtyard, where
an unstoppable engine of death had left so much pain, these two girls, one
mortal, one divine, shared a moment of warmth.
Neither of them said anything for what was perhaps an eternity.  To speak
would have shattered the power of that one single scene.
At last, Hinaha set the blue-haired girl down, and whispered, “ Is there
nothing that can be done?  Could you not, perhaps, join with me, like in the
tales of old? Then you would have a material body.”
Tsunami smiled sadly, “ I have thought of that.  But my being is promised to
another.  My divine sight allows me to see far ahead along the Great Wheel,
deep into the mists of time yet-to-come. I know that this girl who’s form I
take now will be born many thousands of years in the future.  The
green-haired she-devil who lured me from the cave will attack Jurai, and
this girl will fall almost to her death in the ensuing chaos.  It will be
only by my intervention that she will live.  I shall join with her, and we
two shall become one.  I will need her body, and she will need my power, for
we will someday have to face my Dark Sister, who is the mightiest of we
three goddesses.”
The megami’s eyes flashed for a moment, then she smiled, “ but it seems I
have acquired a bit of my red-haired sister’s creative spark, for I have
thought of a possibility.”
“Yes…”urged Hinaha.
“  Though I cannot join my spiritual body with you, I can give you the
essence which connects me to Jurai.
“As a goddess, I exist on many realms of the spirit, except for the Middle
Realm of the Reed Plains. As a kami, I am also linked with the soul of
Jurai.  Though I am not one of the lesser kami, who can interact with your
world, I can bequeath my Juraian essence to you.”
“Thus you will be a part of myself… not in totality as this girl will be.
You, my dearest Hinaha, will become the soul of Jurai.  You will be able to
protect the world from the blackness’ ravages.”
Hinaha’s mind spun at this prospect.  This was like something out of the
mists of legend!  But it felt right, almost fitting.  She had already
survived the blackness’ attacks twice; perhaps those were omens for this
day?  Yes, she would do it.
The miko did not need to voice her acceptance; Tsunami could read it in her
face.
The cerulean-tressed goddess reached out her palms, transforming into her
woman form.  Hinaha clasped the proffered hands silently.  The hands felt
warm and soft.
She closed her eyes as a radiance emanated out of Tsunami’s body.  There was
a prickling on Hinaha’s skin, as though a thousand tiny butterflies were
alighting upon her.
So much warmth...
Tears of joy welled up in Hinaha’s eyes.  Thick, luminescent tears that
sparkled silver like the moonlight….

        (End part 3)

Well, how’d you like it? ^_^  I’m hoping to get a bit of an epic going here.
  Please, PLEASE, if you read this, and it has any… ANY affect on you,
e-mail me and tell me what you think.  Even if you only want to say you
hated my story and think I’m an absolute imbecile.  Just give me a bit of
feedback
Send comments, complaints, helpful hints, etc to: avomvrorskek@hotmail.com