Washu's Penitence

For Jordan

Tenchi Muyo! and all its trademark characters belong to Pioneer LDC and
AIC.

Chapter 4: Once in a Lifetime

'It's something unpredictable, but in the end it's right.
I hope you had the time of your life,'
- Green Day

'There's a time for us, somewhere a time for us.
Time together, with time to spare.
Time to love, time to care.
Someday.
Somewhere.
We'll find a new way of living,
We'll find a way of forgiving,'
- Devo

'Time is short.
But Nobuyuki and I will live our lives to the fullest, I swear.
That's all that really matters,'
- Achika

**

"Washu!" everyone said at once.

Washu came to her senses and realized where she had landed. Surprised,
she leapt backwards and almost fell right back into the hollow tube
before the doorway could close itself firmly shut. She looked around at
them all; each of them had gathered 'round her glassy prison in
desperation. They all looked so concerned, especially (to her shock)
Ryoko.

"Wow, Washu!" Mihoshi giggled, running forward and bowing before the
dishevelled scientist. "We were so worried about you! You should've
seen yourself, you looked like you were taking a shower or something,
only not!"

"Washu, you're back!" Kiyone cheered.

"Little Washu!" Tenchi laughed joyfully. "It's great to see
you're okay,"

"Miss Washu, you made it out safely," said Ayeka, clasping her hands
together in excitement.

Washu looked down at herself. For some reason she had retained the adult
form she had found herself inhabiting in the memory Marihito had
simulated for them both, all except for her uniform which had remained
the same as it had been when she'd entered the simulation in the first
place. It was strange to see them all at eye level again, like she had
so few times before. Still, it was a welcome feeling; she felt like
she'd returned home to her own family.

"O' course!" Washu said, placing her hands on her hips and winking
at them all with both eyes. "What'd you expect would happen?"

"I don't know," Tenchi mumbled, rubbing the back of his head with
a sheepish grin. "Usually there's much more of a struggle and we
only just get out safely. you kinda just popped out of there with no
troubles,"

"Yeah, well, it was a piece of cake," Washu smirked, lying to make
it easier on them. "Nothing is a match for my superior intellect, not
even all- powerful evil beings of unknown origin!"

"If that's true," Mihoshi squeaked as she squirmed with a closed
jar of canned peaches. "Could you open this for me? I got so nervous
while we were watching you that I just HAD to get something to eat, and
the darn thing's stuck!"

"Give me that!" Kiyone barked, grabbing the canned peaches. "Uh,
say, these do look nice. hey, Washu, do you think you could.?"

"Uhh," Washu said, taking the can from Kiyone's outstretched paws
and confronting her greatest challenge yet. "Um, hey, uh, heh, Tenchi,
why don't you help her with that? I mean, clearly it's far too
simple a job for me to do on my own. I'm offended that you'd try to
hand off on me such a trivial task, Mihoshi. For shame!"

"Sorry," Mihoshi whimpered as Washu tossed the can to the Juraian
Prince.

"While you take care of that, Tenchi," Washu giggled, watching the
superhumanly strong boy struggle with the can's deviously simple
mechanism. "I have things to do, people to see, enigmas to solve, that
kinda thing. so why don't you all just clear out of my lab and
I'll get to it?"

"Well, I never!" Ayeka blurted as Washu shoved her towards the exit.
"Some thanks this is, Miss Washu! I don't know why I even bothered
to help you out in the first place, when I could be rid of that monster
woman right now!"

"It's all down to my natural feminine magnetism," Washu replied,
as she tried to shove Ayeka out through the portal to her lab. Something
seemed to be blocking the way, and it didn't take her long to figure
out just what it was. There were only two obstacles she could think of
with long blue hair and a big nasty frown on their faces, and one of
those obstacles had dyed their hair a long time ago and gotten a
personality transplant. so it led Washu to only one conclusion.

"Ryoko, get out of the way," Washu said, shoving the princess once
again to emphasize her demand. "I'm way too busy to deal with your
tantrums right now, young lady,"

The others had gathered at the bottom of the steps that led up to the
subspace portal, and now they were cringing from the look on Ryoko's
face. They'd all seen that look before, and it chilled them to their
bones. It meant someone's property was about to get seriously damaged.
As if to confirm their fears, Ryoko snatched the screeching figure of
Ayeka from Washu's arms and tossed her to one side. Everyone ducked to
avoid the blast from the huge yet very delicate devices that she smashed
into, causing a small explosive force. Everyone, that is, except for
Ryoko and Washu themselves.

"See, this is exactly what I'm talking about," Ayeka coughed as
she stepped out of the rubble, her royal garments covered in soot, dust,
and wires. "If I hadn't stepped in and offered my support, this
would never have happened,"

"Miss Ayeka!" said Tenchi as he stumbled over to help the princess,
dropping the canned peaches as he ran (much to Mihoshi's dismay).
"Are you alright?"

"You," Ryoko said, not moving or taking the look from her face.

"Me!" Washu giggled, not feeling the slightest bit intimidated.
"What about ME? Need to talk to ME about something, huh? I'm busy
right now,"

"Too busy to even thank Tenchi, or any of the others, for their help?"
Ryoko asked.

"Oh, is that all?" said Washu, turning to the others who were
looking on timidly from behind a bulkhead, all except for Ayeka and
Tenchi who were tending to one another. "Thanks, guys! Sure appreciate
it. Now can I go, Ryoko?"

"So, you're going somewhere!" Ryoko laughed, pointing an accusing
finger at the genius. "Finally, the truth comes out!"

"Do you have a point to your little speech, Ryoko?" Washu asked. She
began to understand where this was going, and she didn't much like it.
but if it'd get her out of the lab any quicker so that she could go
visit Jerry.

"Everyone, Washu has something to tell you!" Ryoko grinned, shoving
Washu out of the way and leaning over the barrier railing to address the
jittery crowd of clueless bystanders that she lived with.

"Ryoko, don't bring them into this," Washu groaned. She placed a
hand on Ryoko's shoulder. "C'mon, let's go talk about this in
private, it doesn't have to be this way,"

"Shut up, mom!" Ryoko snarled. She turned and glared at Washu with
such a fury that Washu almost fell back into the subspace portal in
surprise. "Maybe YOU like to hide things from your friends, but I
don't!"

"Ryoko," Washu said, wondering what had gotten into the girl.
"What is this about?"

"I'll tell you what it's about!" said Ryoko, hovering above the
ground just so that she could loom over her own mother. "You return
from certain death, fall into my arms, and the first thing you can think
of is HIM!"

". Ryoko?" Washu whispered, narrowing her eyes to check if this
really was her own daughter. "How. how dare you tell me how to-."

"Oh, cut the crap," Ryoko snapped. "I seriously can't believe
that you'd have the nerve to go talk to that fat bastard when I was
nearly killed! Don't I mean anything to you anymore, you old bitch?"

"Ryoko!" Tenchi yelled, starting up the stairs. He stopped halfway
up, as he sensed Ryoko would probably explode on him if he were to get
any closer to their minuscule war zone. "Stop it! Washu didn't do
anything!"

"But she did, Tenchi," said Ryoko, continuing to stare down her own
mother. "You don't know the half of it,"

"If there's anybody who doesn't know the half of it, it's you!"
Washu said. She shivered so much at the prospect of everyone else
learning of her relationship with Jerry; she just wanted to staple
Ryoko's mouth shut so that she couldn't confess her own actions for
her. All at once, she felt awful for envisioning such a thing. "Ryoko.
please."

"Washu has been real busy," Ryoko snickered evilly as she circled
Washu, preying upon her feelings and weaknesses. It was just like Ryoko
to doubly torture someone like this for accidentally hurting her
feelings. Washu wished she could just get through to her, let her know
she just didn't have the time. didn't have the time for her own
daughter. "You guys probably don't know what she's been up to in
her absence, though. She's been rooting around, sniffing out a
suitable mate for her lonely little self,"

"Ryoko, you monster!" Ayeka called out. "If you had any common
decency, you would leave Miss Washu alone right now!"

"Decency," Ryoko said to herself before looking into Washu's eyes
as she then spoke. "I guess that's one thing I inherited from mom
here. I don't have any of that. decency stuff. I'm just like
her. I hurt the ones who deserve to be treated well, and I enjoy it!"

"Ryoko," Tenchi said, wishing he could get close to them. He knew,
though, that Ryoko could potentially destroy this entire laboratory if
given reason enough, and interrupting this moment might have been
catalyst enough to set off a chain reaction in her heart.

"You all wanna know what Washu's been doing?" Ryoko asked,
rhetorically. "Well, I'll tell you, because she sure hasn't been
paying any attention to ME!"

"Ryoko, you ignored m-." Washu began, but realized it was
pointless to try and defend herself when Ryoko kept on talking despite
her interjections.

"No, she hasn't been with me, or with Tenchi, or with any of you!"
Ryoko went on. "She's been hanging out with an older man, some
lecherous pervert who just wants to screw some kids to ease his
tensions!"

"Ryoko!" Tenchi said, louder this time. He wasn't sure if what she
was saying was true, but he didn't like how it must have affecting
Washu to have this broadcast to them all under such ill circumstances.

"Miss Washu. is this true?" Ayeka asked. "How could you let
someone treat you so vulgarly?"

"That's just like you, Ayeka," Washu sighed. "But no, it's not
true,"

"So, you're lying to them now?" Ryoko said.

"No, I'm not!" Washu frowned.

"Then you're saying I am?!" asked Ryoko, taken aback.

"No!" Washu replied. She was clearly shaken by all this, even in her
adult form she looked like a helpless, torn child. "You're just
mistaken. uninformed. That's all! First of all, he's not an older
man. I have about twenty thousand years on him,"

"Not in his mind!" said Ryoko. "He sees you as a little kid, and
he likes what he sees!"

"Ryoko, shut up!" Washu growled. "You're trying to make me lose
my temper, and it's not going to work. Stop trying to make this so
difficult for me! Do you think I want to be put in this position?"

"I don't know," Ryoko said, and with a sly flash of her tongue she
added: "But I think he wants to put you in one,"

"Rggh!" Washu cried, throwing her face into her hands with a splat
of tears and mixed emotions. This day had been too stressful on her, and
she wasn't ready for another crisis like this. "I don't know what
you want from me!!!"

"You wanna talk about being put in positions," said Ryoko. "Well,
here's a position for you, and if you don't like it then choose.
Which do you want? Us, or him?"

"What?!" Washu asked. "You can't make me choose something like
that! You can't make me choose between my beloved friends and the man
I love!"

"Do you love him?" Ryoko asked, though she didn't seem to care
what the answer was going to be. The others, however, were totally
startled by this revelation (all except Mihoshi, who was trying to get
Washu's chronometric regulator to open the jar of canned peaches).

"Yes," Washu said, at long last. "I do,"

"Well then," Ryoko replied with a slight shrug of her shoulders.
"The answers obvious. If you love him, then you'll be more than
willing to sacrifice everything for him, won't you?"

"I." Washu choked on her words. She didn't know what her answer
was supposed to be, nor what she really felt.

"Oh, c'mon, Washu," Ryoko said with a velvety warm tone as she
floated nearer, stroking Washu's chin with a long, condescending
finger. "It's not like there's anything keeping you here. I mean,
who would you even get along with?"

Washu's eyes hovered over Tenchi, and then Sasami, and then finally
over to Ryoko who returned the look with a catlike grin that spread
across her face with a meddlesome malignance.

"Nobody, I suppose," Washu said, for it was what Ryoko wanted to
hear. one of the things she'd always wanted to do was say the words
Ryoko liked to hear. As a mother, it was crucial. But now, in such a
terrible context. it hurt like Hell.

"Bah!" Ryoko snapped. "You didn't even try to pretend you cared
about me, or Tenchi, or any of them! What kind of heartless, cruel,
stupid, nasty-."

"I don't know what you want from me anymore, Ryoko," Washu sighed,
turning away from them all. "I've failed you, I can see that. As a
mother, and as a friend. If we're going to part. I'd prefer we not
be so hateful towards each other,"

"Part?" Ryoko blinked. "You mean.?"

"Ryoko, you gave me a choice," Washu said. "Either I stay, or I
go. right now, it doesn't look like I'm welcome here,"

"Washu, I gave you that choice so you'd have to stay!" said Ryoko.
"Are you telling me you'd really rather spend time with that guy
than with us?"

"Right now that's the only place I have left in the whole world,"
Washu told them all as she surveyed her lab. "You tried to hurt me,
Ryoko, and you succeeded. Maybe now you'll learn that there are some
things you can't punch your way into,"

"Washu!" Ryoko said, thinking this was all one of Washu's
practical jokes. "Just quit it, okay? I'm sorry I yelled and stuff,
you really didn't have to pretend that you'd prefer to be with a guy
like HIM than with your best friends,"

"A guy like him, huh?" Washu asked, raising an eyebrow at the na‹ve
child. "You know, thinking about it, I would prefer to spend time with
a guy who doesn't use my childlike stature to his advantage. Or a guy
that actually respects my feelings and doesn't try to harp on at me
aggressively for each little thing every chance he gets to the detriment
of my inner faith. A noble man who doesn't treat me with indifference,"

"You leave Tenchi out of this!" Ryoko snapped.

"I wasn't talking ab. oh, forget it," Washu sighed. "Ryoko, I
really wish we could've talked about this. but right now, nothing is
further from my mind. You can't try to asphyxiate my love life and
then expect me to love you all the same,"

"I just wish you'd give me a chance," said Ryoko, her ears
drooping dejectedly. "Every time I try to get close to you, you just
push yourself away. I took you to the library, I took you rabbit
hunting, and I even listened to all your stupid lectures. But no, it was
never enough!"

"You did all that stuff, huh?" Washu asked, her brow creased with
forced sympathy. "My, what a strain that must have been. and to
think I never once tried to reach out to you,"

"Yeah, exactly!" said Ryoko, blinded as to what Washu's point was.
"At least you're admitting to it. Now, I'll give you one more
chance, Washu. Stay with us. don't go to him!"

"Ryoko. it's over," Washu said, lowering her head solemnly. They
all watched as Washu started to fade away, no doubt in an act of
teleportation. Tenchi ran up to the top of the stairs and stood beside
Ryoko, whilst the others scrambled forward from behind the bulkhead and
watched from the foot of the staircase. "I'm sorry it had to end
this way, but if you force me to choose between a man who loves me
unconditionally, and my friends. then I'd rather be with someone who
wouldn't force me to choose,"

"Washu!" Tenchi said, reaching forward and instantly jumping back
when he found his hand passed straight through her shoulder. "Washu,
don't leave! We can figure this all out!"

"Miss Washu!" Sasami cried from the bottom of the stairs, along with
Ryo- ohki who miaowed her concerns in unison. "Don't do this, we all
love you, don't go! Please!"

"All of you, huh?" Washu whispered, looking straight into Ryoko's
eyes until all that was left of Washu's physical body were her two
green irises that winked at Ryoko softly as they too faded away. It
suddenly felt very cold and empty in the laboratory.

"Ryoko, how could you do that?!" Sasami wailed, running past them
and out through the subspace portal, no doubt heading to her room. Even
the little cabbit on her head was belting out buckets of tears, leaving
a trail of salty wetness in their wake.

"Ryoko," Tenchi sighed as Ayeka caught up to them.

"Come now, Tenchi," Princess Ayeka said, taking him by the hand.
"We wouldn't want Ryoko to drive you off too, now, would we?"

Ryoko didn't pay any heed to Ayeka's quibbling. She didn't even
notice that the princess had slipped her hand into Tenchi's. That was
all so far from her mind right now, for all she could think of was what
could have become of Washu. Did she really love Jerry that much? Had he
somehow found a way to control her? Was something wrong with Washu?

Or maybe she just didn't love Ryoko. at all.

"Mom," Ryoko said, tears dripping down her face as she watched
Tenchi and Ayeka leave. She'd rarely felt so lost and helpless in her
life. Everything had just crumbled before her very eyes, and she'd
been powerless to stop it. She felt so weak and flawed. She remembered
the words of the simulated Washu, and of the figure she'd seen in the
simulation chamber before she'd been drawn into that world. Maybe he
had been right, maybe Washu really thought all those things but was far
too kind to say them. If only she had said them, then it would have
saved Ryoko the heartache of trying to make her stay when Washu's mind
had already been made up. She wanted to believe that Washu had some
compassion for her, some respect. but instead, there was only
disappointment and regret in her own mother's heart. "Mommy. I'm
sorry."

She was sorry for having ever been born.

"Hey, I think I did it!" Mihoshi giggled triumphantly as she placed
the jar of canned peaches in the centre of the whirring chronometric
regulator. In a flash, the machine came to life and, before Mihoshi knew
it, the jar had been transported forward through time a couple of
million years. "Um. whoops?"

**

Washu looked into the abandoned store window. The glass had been
shattered long ago, and the contents of the store ransacked by anonymous
looters and pilferers, but the store still stood here, its sparse
contents still on display. There was a dusty old counter and an empty
rack where magazines were probably once shelved, and even some old
footprints from days gone by were still left in the now dirt entrenched,
filthy flooring tiles. A torn paper sign on the front door that had once
told the opening hours of the store, now hung limp from the carved and
crushed doorframe. If Washu had been looking at any of that, she would
have seen that it was right about time for the store to open, had there
been anyone around to open it these days.

Instead, she had been looking into the cracked glasswork that dangled
precariously above her head and jutted forwards from the empty display
cases like sharpened stalagmites. Her fuzzy reflection stared back at
her, unblinking. Around the edges, her face appeared deformed as if she
had lost sight of her features and had become a monster of some kind.
This was probably how Ryoko had seen her before she'd left, she
thought. Had she really been that bad of a mother to warrant such a
display of temper from Ryoko in front of all the others? It was so hard
to say. Most of her time as a mother was just a blur in her mind, like
the reflection that now looked back at her, without eyes, nose, or lips
to define her uniqueness. In the glass, her hair was just a solid mass
of red coloration. It didn't have those subtle quirks or crab-like
additions that Washu had painstakingly added in her self-visual designs
when trying to find an appearance that would suit her. It was as if her
personality had been stripped along with whatever had once been on offer
with this store.

She hadn't been able to pluck up the courage to teleport herself
straight to Jerry's house, and had chosen to translocate herself a
mere three blocks away so that she could take her time in getting there.
It was hard to just give up on your daughter and then saunter into the
loving arms of the man you wanted to be with for the rest of your life,
but she had to do it. There was no other choice; in fact, there was no
choice. This hadn't been her own decision. Fate had played its hand
and dealt her a stacked deck. There was no way forward, and the only
thing she could do now was retreat into Jerry's welcome custody. It
was going to be extremely difficult for him. after all, it's not
every day that your only friend shows up looking around twenty years
older claiming to be a scientist from another world. She didn't have
the time or the ability to practise telling him in the simulation, as
that would have probably meant seeing the others again. and going back
home. That was something she could not do.

Turning away from the broken glass, she set off down the road and in the
direction of Jerry's hovel. It was probably going to be the longest
walk she'd ever undertaken. Even longer than the time she'd taken a
ski trip across the frozen seas of the planetoid Urbane-D just so she
could prove a theory to the Urbanoids, and had broken her jet-powered
ski shoes stuck in the ice. She'd had to walk all the way to dry land
just to get to an outpost, for this was long before she had mastered
teleportation. This journey, despite being between two much closer
points, was going to be far greater a mountain to overcome. For
underneath the icy floor, she could hear her daughter, and Tenchi, and
all the rest of them pounding upward to try and get through to her how
much of a fool she'd been. The roads were virtually empty of vehicles,
yet they seemed so dense with thick air particles that kept pushing her
backwards. Maybe it was from that burning pile of tires she'd seen
near Jerry's house, or maybe something was stopping her from going any
further. something within herself.

"Knowing my luck, Jerry'll take one look at me and reject our
friendship," Washu said to herself, kicking a stone off the pavement
and into the road. She wondered if it'd cause an accident if she left
it lying there, but soon her mind covered over those thoughts and
gradually she moved on. "He's way too good for a. a. slut like
me, anyway,"

She'd never called herself a slut before; there'd never been a
reason to. Right now, though, all she could do was defile her image with
insults aimed at herself. Perhaps it was some form of leftover emotional
residue from the heavy-handed feelings of self-hatred that Marihito had
injected into her mind. He'd called her a slut, too. They'd all
called her a slut, eventually. She searched and searched through what
was left of her memory for someone in her past that hadn't ended up
rejecting or disrespecting her for something she had done to them, and
came up blank every time.

Much like the reflection she had seen in the splintered glass, she had
no definition. Her past was a mystery locked behind the walls of
penitence she had built up over the many hundreds of decades. It was
said, she told herself, that as human beings make their choices and act
out their instincts and live their lives, it is their past actions that
define who they truly were. She could not remember her past. did that
mean she had no real essence? The only parts of her life she could
recollect were times of misery, of hardship and woe. It was like waking
from a dream, only to feel it slowly slip away even though you really
want it to stay just for the image it leaves in your heart. She
couldn't even remember if she'd had a romantic dream, or a merciless
nightmare. Her life was a cold, dark emptiness. And she suffered because
of it, her innards rotting away as her spirit crumbled just like that
torn down old store.

If she really had no worldly definition, how would Jerry see her? Would
he see the same bouncy, joyful little girl so full of life as he had
before? Or would he see an old, haggard lady full of scrapped memories
and beaten complacency? After all, maybe this was her true form. Maybe
the lie had been larger than Washu had at first realized, and she had
never been this happy-go-lucky, fiery spirited red-head girl that sprang
into his life. she'd just been an old slut who wanted to bang one
last guy before her life ended in a whimper. It brought tears in her
eyes to know this was how her life was coming to an end: defeated, weak,
and old.

She slumped onto the sidewalk and stared at the sky. Birds flew
overhead, and Washu wondered if she could spy a vulture or carrion bird
that had somehow escaped from the rusty birdcage of her sadness,
bursting featherless through the creaking door and hovering over her
with evil intent as she wasted away by the side of the road. She had
once wished she could fly with them. now, it seemed she would die with
them. Never before had she seen such a vast, cloudless sky. It pressed
close to her lungs and invited her to take her last breath, to donate
the carbon dioxide to the flowers as perhaps the only last act of
kindness she would ever commit. She had pushed away her daughter, she
had pushed away her friend, and she was now going to top it all off by
pushing away Jerry. push him right over the edge.

What was the point in going to see him, anyway? She had already rejected
him before, when she went to save her daughter at a time when Jerry
really, really needed to talk. And what good had that done? Absolutely
none. If anything, it had separated Ryoko and herself even further. If
only she'd stayed to talk to Jerry on the phone. but then Ryoko
might have lost her mind. If only she'd stayed behind with Ryoko and
forgotten Jerry, like Ryoko wanted her to. but then Jerry would be
sad. If only. if only.

"If only life would take it a tiny bit easier on me!" Washu cried,
sitting up and shaking a fist at the heavens. The ground felt moist
beneath her skirt, and it wasn't long before she realized she'd sat
down in a murky puddle of smelly liquid. She groaned and wiped the
stinging tears from her eyes; it was just yet another misfortune life
had dumped in her lap. She continued to address the sky as if someone
were looking down on her from there, as did everyone else she had come
across. including those that didn't who eventually would. "What do
you want from me?! Don't you understand how hard it is to go on when
you keep taking and taking from me as I give and give.? Do you enjoy
torturing me like this? Tell me! What do you want me to do? Why do you
keep taking things I hold dear? You took my only son, my friends, my
memory, and my daughter! The only person you won't take is me. Take
me, come on! I'm right here! Take me!"

She hurriedly stopped ranting at the sky. Partly because she couldn't
build up the energy to do it anymore, but also because some of the
homeless beggars on the other side of the road were grinning at her
every time she said "Take me!" and she didn't want to give them
the wrong idea. Shaking her head, she stood back up and examined the
state of the blue sky. Mid- day, she thought to herself. Things could
only get darker from here on end, and rather than stick around waiting
for daylight to overtake her, she set off again in the direction of
Jerry's house.

It must have been time for everyone to come home from their places of
work, or from school, because Washu could see many cars up ahead. The
traffic was almost as dense as the forest outside the Masaki Shrine. Oh,
the Shrine. even the sweet memories of such a thing that she was still
able to hold on to were gradually slipping from her mind. This time,
however, she wanted them to. They would have to, or she wouldn't have
been able to keep walking. The memories of such a wonderful place that
she'd spent around half a year living in (a period of time that seemed
so minuscule in comparison to the rest of her life, yet held far greater
emotional importance), they would all have to be evicted from her brain
whether they liked it or not. She couldn't possibly leave it all
behind if she could still remember it. their faces, their voices.
and her own daughter. It would all have to go.

Perhaps that was the reason for her severe dose of amnesia. There was a
good possibility, she thought to herself, that she had erased those
memories from her brain with malicious intent. She had probably hurt
more people that had been close to her, so many people that she had been
forced to drive their faces out from the back of her mind and into
oblivion. Yes, that made perfect sense, she thought. After all, she
couldn't even stop herself from hurting Jerry. She'd lied to him
with a purpose, the childish purpose of tender trickery just so he'd
still love her. Still, he was all she had left right now; at least he
hadn't cast her out as the others had. Soon, though. soon he would
learn what a cantankerous bitch she was, and she'd be out on the
street again. Maybe that was her lot in life. Maybe loneliness was her
home.

"Watch it, ya road-hog!" she yelled at the van that passed her by at
an extreme speed. Her mind was too full with pity to hear the muffled
sounds of wailing sirens, and she carried on down the road with her head
down.

Existing in this body was a lie to the world, she told herself. It was
an attempt to confuse and to hide the fact that she wished she could
rewrite her childhood all over again, start over with a clean slate and
correct all the wrongs. She knew it. finally she knew it. She'd been
making excuses her whole life as to why she'd chosen such a ridiculous
form, and she'd really believed them to be true. To think that she'd
genuinely live in the body of a child just to make a point about
grown-up behavior. now that was bull shit. She'd chosen this form as
a punishment, as a curse. A punishment she deserved, and a curse she'd
earned all on her own for being such a crappy human being. Not one
person cropped up from her past to thank her for being such a great
friend; Dr. Clay certainly hadn't just popped by to reminisce about
old times. No, he took Ryoko and replaced her with a robotic clone.
and now even Ryoko hated her. The only person who hadn't come from her
past to remind her of how much they loathed her. was herself. Only
Marihito, who had come back from the distant past to take revenge on
her, had been kind to her, but it had been after Washu had forced
herself to beg before him. Only then did he take pity on her.

"Everybody pities me." she sighed. "Poor pitiful Washu, the
genius who can't even figure out how to work her own life. So I just
destroy everyone else's."

She envisioned Jerry's internal agony on the moment she would reveal
to him that she had been faking innocence all along. It was too much for
her to bear, and she leaned against the wall as she stared straight
ahead to the ancient, litter-paved streets that would not permit her any
closer. The only person who hadn't come from her past to remind her of
how much they loathed her was herself. but even now, she could sense
that past self of hers snapping at her heels. It was going to take away
her courage to even visit Jerry one last time, for she knew in her heart
of hearts that she couldn't tell him. she mustn't tell him. she
wouldn't tell him, for fear of killing him on the spot. He was so
fragile, and she knew it would just destroy him to know she had been a
phoney all this time.

"Oh God," Washu said quietly, pressing her face to the scratchy,
graffiti covered brickwork. "What a terrible act I must commit. what
terrible choices I have before me. If I tell him, our relationship is
destroyed, and he will be even more miserable. If I don't tell him.
I will not be able to retract my lie, and even my own self-punishment
will not nearly be brutal enough to justify the crimes I will have
committed against my love,"

Now it was her own wails that covered up those of the vehicles that had
passed her by in such a hurry.

"Why must I make such a choice?!" she cried to the skies, in case
any passing omnipotent beings were to hear and take pity upon her as
Marihito must have done. "Please, don't make me have to tell him
about myself! It hurts me enough to know how horrible I am on the
inside. it will hurt more if I have to let him hear about it.
it'll hurt us both. Please, take away this responsibility as you have
taken so much from me before! I can't take it. I can't! It's too
much, it's all too much,"

She waited for a response, but did not get one. Instead, due to her
silent suspense, she finally began to hear those urgent noises from the
road up ahead. Slowly, she realized exactly what kind of van it was that
had passed her by with such haste. A shiny one that had been painted
white, with a big blue flashing light on top and red paint on the side
in the shape of a cross.

"An ambulance?" Washu said to herself, squinting at the dense
traffic straight ahead. They all seemed to be hovering around the vague
area of Jerry's house, she noticed. As she looked, she saw many more
blue flashing lights that span around aimlessly as if they were
desperate to see what was going on. Suddenly, Washu felt very nervous
and knew she had to go and see what was happening. She ran quite
briskly, faster than her legs could probably have carried her had she
attempted to go for a longer distance.

Eventually, she came upon what had to be one of the most tragic sights
she'd ever witnessed. The medical officers, who were now setting to
work studying the broken down old house, had actually cleaned up the
whole area. It was eerie to see the place bereft of trash, as Washu had
never seen it like this before. it were as if she were seeing it in a
whole new light, and an empty one at that. Everything seemed so lacking
in some way, the color tone of the woodwork on the perpetually ajar
doorway to Jerry's house appeared much paler, the smell of burning
rubber wasn't quite as thick, and the tree stumps surrounding the
location all preferred to shrink back into the earth rather than stick
out. It was as if something had been taken from the essence of the
place, and this had resulted in the whole section of land becoming ill
with the loss.

"Careful with that," one of the medics said, pointing to a small
group of the uniformed men and women. Washu couldn't quite make out
what they were handling, but they were sure being careful with it.
"Don't want to be dropping him,"

"Him?" Washu murmured under her breath. And then, she saw it.

In the arms of the medical officers and covered in a white sheet (one
that reminded Washu of the white sheets used at the Science Academy to
disguise her entry into the invention contest), Jerry's body was
draped across a modified stretcher and was being carried to the open
doors of the awaiting ambulance. For a moment, Washu felt like running
over to them and telling them to get another stretcher because this one
was clearly too small, and Jerry might fall off and hurt himself. but
then she saw the pool of blood inside the entranceway to the house, and
realized it would have been useless to try and protect him. There was
far too much blood for her liking, and she felt certain that Jerry was
either close to death, or right smack in the middle of it. She watched
as they wheeled him into the back of the ambulance, snapping the wheels
of the stretcher upwards so that it was in its proper shape to slide
neatly inside the vehicle. Jerry's body wobbled. and unlike before,
Washu was not tickled at all by such a movement in his once so cheerful
frame. Washu felt like a child who had just been forced to watch her
mother put away a broken toy, and she turned her head to the sky once
again and begged her ethereal parents to fix Jerry and make everything
better again.

But it was useless, she told herself. Watching the ambulance surge off
into the distance, closely followed by various police cars and the
overly inquisitive eyes of nearby pedestrians, she knew it to be
useless. Prayer would help no longer.

For the Gods had already answered one of her prayers today. the one
where she had prayed not to be forced into making such a terrible
choice.

And truly, she no longer had to make that choice. The Gods had taken him
away, so that he might never have to hear her pitiful admission in her
lifetime.

"I killed him," she said.

**

"Miss Washu.? Gone?" Nobuyuki blinked, completely dumbfounded by
the turn of events (or any turn of events, really). His head snapped
back so abruptly that the glasses nearly fell right off his face.
"Why? W-what happened?"

"I'm not sure," said Tenchi, resting his back against the wall as
he went over in his head what had occurred in the past ten minutes or
so. They could all hear Sasami crying upstairs, even from down here in
the living room. Ayeka was with her, trying to help calm the poor girl
down, but it wasn't much use. Mihoshi and Kiyone were here too, along
with Tenchi's grandfather. Ryoko was nowhere to be found. "It all
happened so fast, I. I don't. I didn't really think she was
going to leave, even when she disappeared. I thought we'd just walk
out and she'd be stood there laughing at us for getting so upset and
worried about her."

"Hmm," Katsuhito pondered the matter at hand to himself, although
never letting anyone hear his thoughts.

"I would never have expected Washu to be the first of you girls to
go," said Nobuyuki, shaking his head and scratching his chin. "I
always thought that if any of you were to up and leave, it'd be Ayeka
or Ryoko. they just seem to make life miserable for each other,"

"Ryoko mentioned something about a guy she was seeing," Kiyone
chimed in. "Does anyone know anything about that?"

"Well, she sees Tenchi every day!" said Mihoshi. "I'm always
goin' down to her lab and finding him all stretched out in his
underwear and she's got all sorts of wires and suction pads attached
to his-."

"Ummm, I'm sure I'm not who she meant, Mihoshi!" Tenchi laughed
uneasily.

"Ryoko sure seemed to know something about it," Kiyone muttered,
frowning at her blonde associate. Mihoshi was sat next to her on the
couch, tossing her control cube about in an attempt to juggle the
delicate device. "But she doesn't seem to be around anywhere,"

"I wonder where she went," Mihoshi said.

"Probably off moping somewhere about what happened," Tenchi sighed.
"I don't think she might have meant some of the stuff she said back
then, but sometimes she just goes too far,"

"She's a pest, alright!" said Ayeka, who had just stepped inside
the room. Her kimono was stained with tears that had no doubt come from
young Sasami's eyes, for Tenchi just couldn't picture Ayeka crying
over Washu's absence (especially if it meant everyone would be down on
Ryoko for quite some time as a result). "Hello again, Lord Tenchi,"

"Miss Ayeka," Tenchi bowed his head in greeting as she stepped over
to him. "Is Sasami feeling any better?"

"Well," Ayeka began, but she was interrupted by the piercing howls
of her own little sister. "Um, does that answer your question?"

"The poor thing must miss Washu terribly already," Katsuhito said,
standing up. "I'll see if I can give her any slight comfort, I'm
sure I can think of something to brighten things up for her,"

"That's okay," Ayeka said as he left. "I already did everything
I could, and nothing seemed to help,"

"Like I said," Katsuhito replied. "I'm sure I can think of
something,"

"What did he mean by that?" frowned Ayeka, shooting a glance at her
brother. "Is he saying I'm no good at making my own sister feel
better?"

"Uhhh. heh-heh," Tenchi shrugged, sweating a little. "I'm sure
he didn't mean a thing! Now, uh, what are we all gonna do about Washu?
We can't just forget about her,"

"And Ryoko, too!" said Mihoshi. "She's missing also, shouldn't
we look for them both?"

"Ryoko is obviously just sulking someplace," Ayeka chuckled
sadistically. "Serves that woman right, she's always causing trouble
for other people, maybe now she knows how it feels to know the grief she
gives us. She'll be back soon enough. crawling on her belly,
grovelling for us to forgive her,"

"Mihoshi and I could search Washu's lab. Washu could just be hiding
out in there, and even if she's not, there's got to be some kind of
machine that locates her exact co-ordinates in there," Kiyone said as
she placed a hand on Mihoshi's shoulder, startling the girl and
causing her to drop the control cube onto the floor where it promptly
changed into a block of cheese.

"Wow, I didn't know it could do that," Mihoshi giggled, licking
her lips and grabbing the control cube.

"Mihoshi, you feeb!" Kiyone snarled, swiping the control cube from
her hands and changing it back. "That's one of the decoy modes, if
you even tried to eat it, it would have exploded in your digestive
system and then reformed!"

"Sorry, I didn't know," Mihoshi whimpered.

"Ugh," Kiyone sighed, handing the control cube to Mihoshi and
getting to her feet. "Look, just come with me and we'll go look for
Washu,"

"Okay, Kiyone!" Mihoshi giggled, following her astute partner
through the subspace portal right outside the living room.

"Is there anything else we could be forgetting, Tenchi?" Ayeka
asked, placing a hand on her prince's arm. "Something we overlooked
that could be important as to her whereabouts?"

"Well, she was in her adult form when she left," said Tenchi.

"I'll go check the baths!" Nobuyuki grinned, stumbling out the
door. "Maybe she just needed to relax,"

"What a bonehead," Tenchi shook his head as he watched his father
leave, the man's nose bleeding profusely at the prospect of catching
Washu unawares in such a situation.

"I will go and check each of the rooms in the house, Lord Tenchi,"
Ayeka told him, smiling ever so slightly. "I just hope we come across
Washu before we do that monster woman,"

"Don't be too hard on Ryoko, Miss Ayeka," Tenchi said. "We all
speak out of turn sometimes, when our emotions run wild and we can't
control them. I think both Washu and Ryoko spoke before they thought
about what they were going to say. Please, Miss Ayeka. if you do find
Ryoko, be kind to her. She thinks she's lost her mom, which is a
feeling I can sympathize with completely. It must be very hard on her,
the last thing we need is both Ryoko and Washu to have left for good,"

"Very well, Lord Tenchi," Ayeka agreed. "If that is what you wish,
I shall treat Ryoko with as much kindness as I would you when you had
lost your mother,"

"Thank you," Tenchi said, looking to the portrait of his mother for
a moment. It still refused to let go of his concentration whenever he
thought of it, but soon his train of thought was cut off by the powerful
silence that filled the Masaki house. Sasami had finally stopped crying.
"Alright! Looks like grandpa did it!"

"Are you saying I couldn't have done it myself, is that it?!"
Ayeka snapped.

"N-n-no, Miss Ayeka, of c-course not!" Tenchi cringed.

"Hmmph," she muttered under her breath and stormed upstairs. Tenchi
hoped she was just going to search the rooms like she had proposed,
rather than denounce Katsuhito for being able to help her sister more
efficiently than she herself could.

"Now, if I were the greatest scientific genius in the universe, where
would I hide?" Tenchi said, looking around the room for anything that
had a genius-like feel to it. "Man, I wish I really were the greatest
scientific genius right now. then I'd have no trouble figuring out
where she was. Oh well, better get cracking, I guess,"

"Tenchi?" a voice came from above him, causing him to stop in his
tracks.

"Wha.? Who's there?" Tenchi asked, looking up. "Ryoko?"

Ryoko's face was barely visibly through the structure of the ceiling.
She must have been listening in on the whole conversation from up there,
between the ceiling and the rooms above. It was a darn good hiding
place, Tenchi smiled to himself. Nobody would have thought to look
there, even if they'd been able to.

"Tenchi," Ryoko repeated, slowly gliding down from her place in the
ceiling and landing right in front of him. She'd lowered her head so
that her spiky fringe covered her eyes; she looked like some kind of
glum ghoul standing before him. He smiled warm-heartedly and leaned
forwards to let her know he was there. "You were right, I didn't
mean. I mean, I didn't want to. I mean."

"I know," Tenchi said. "One thing just sorta led to another and
you found you'd done something you hadn't intended to do in the
first place. why don't we sit down?"

He led her to the couch, for she was too busy mumbling slight apologies
to concentrate on putting one foot in front of the other. There, he sat
down and invited her to do likewise beside him. She rested herself on
the arm of the chair, further from him that he had expected. She usually
liked to get so close.

"I." she started, picking at her shirt and trembling a little.

"Would you like me to try and put into words how I think you must be
feeling? Would that help?" Tenchi asked. There was no response, so he
assumed she didn't mind. "You must feel so lost. For as long as
you've known, Washu's been there in some shape or form ever since
you were created. Even when you were here with me, and she was trapped
on Soja, you had this eternal bond that meant she could keep in constant
contact with you, though you couldn't sense it yourself. Now, because
of a silly mistake you made, she might be gone for good. I lost my
mother when I was young. I never really got close to her. I'm
assuming you didn't get much chance to get to be with her, or know
her. after all, she'd only been with us for less than half a year.
That's far less time than I had with my mom. It must be a great loss.
a mother is a mother, no matter how much she gets on your nerves at
times,"

"All the time," Ryoko sighed.

"Well," Tenchi said. "You must have cared about her in some sense.
or you wouldn't have gotten so upset at her for whatever it was she
was doing. What was she doing, anyway?"

"It doesn't matter," Ryoko said after a brief pause in their
languid conversation. "I just blew up at her. and I really wish I
hadn't,"

"You mean, knowing that she would have reacted the way she did?"
Tenchi asked. "Or because you didn't really mean to in the first
place?"

"Both, I guess," Ryoko sighed. She hadn't made eye contact with
him the whole time. "Tenchi, what's a mom supposed to be, anyway?
Washu. she's so. she's a pain in the neck, I can never tell what
she's really thinking or feeling about me. For all I know, she hates
me! It would sure explain why she had no trouble leaving like that."

"I'm positive she doesn't hate you," said Tenchi. "And I think
you're wrong in your last point, about her having no trouble. From the
looks of things, she had a great deal of it. She didn't sound like she
wanted to go at all,"

"Then why did she?" Ryoko asked, finally looking up and flashing her
pearly white fangs at him. "Tell me that, why'd she leave if she
didn't want to?"

"Maybe. she misunderstood," Tenchi suggested. "You sounded like
you wanted her to go, but clearly you didn't. You tried reverse
psychology, but she saw right through that, being a genius and all. The
fact that you tried to trick her probably made her feel like you
didn't appreciate her, or that you didn't think very much of her
intelligence. or maybe that you didn't love her,"

"Why would she care about that," Ryoko grunted, looking away again.
"She can always tell how I feel, anyhow. We've got that bond, like
you said. At any point in time she can just reach inside my heart and
find out what I'm thinking, why couldn't she just check to see if I
like her or not?"

"Probably because she doesn't want to," Tenchi said, sternly.

"What?" Ryoko blinked. "Now you're confusing me, Tenchi. Does
she want to know if I love her or not.?"

"Oh, I'm sure she wants to know," he replied, nodding his head in
remembrance of his conversation with the little genius a few days back.
"I'm sure it's a question that plagues her mind every day, even
when she's working on some new scientific formula or whatever. But,
you see, there's certain things where you just can't reach into
someone's heart and take from within them. Feelings like love, or
hate, respect and disrespect. as a mother, Washu obviously wouldn't
feel right just inspecting your soul like it were on a slide for her
instruments to pry at. Especially about the way you feel about her,
Ryoko,"

"Hmmph," Ryoko grumbled, her hand was visibly trembling. "She sure
checked out my feelings for you, and reminds me of it all the time.
little runt, I could just. rrghh."

"Well, it's not like you hide those feelings at all," Tenchi smirked.

"Yeah, but. it's still." Ryoko said, trailing off.

"Totally unlike your feelings for her," Tenchi continued. "Even I
can't see how you feel about her. I'm starting to think you love
her, Ryoko, I really am. your actions right now make it more clear to
me. But Washu, she's never seen this from you. You're always yelling
at her, or calling her names, and then the only time you decide to show
true emotion towards her, you choose anger and frustration with how
she's living her life. You have to know that she's confused, she
doesn't know whether she's a good mother or not,"

"She's not," Ryoko said.

"Ryoko," Tenchi frowned. "Stop it,"

"I'm not kidding!" Ryoko span around to face him, her pointed
hairdo flipping across her shoulders like a hood that she'd just
tossed back to reveal her true feelings. "You'd think a genius would
know what I want, wouldn't you? She's never been there for me.
never been there when I'm sad, never! She always left it to you to
comfort me. She's far too lazy to take care of me herself. you're
a better mother to me than she is! If she's such a great mom, where is
she right now?! Huh?"

"Ryoko!" Tenchi said, nearly jumping out of his seat to get her
attention. "Maybe she wants it to be that way for a good reason. Maybe
she wants it to be that way because she knows just how you feel, because
she IS a good mom to you,"

"What're you talking about?!" Ryoko asked, bewildered. "I just
told you she's never there for me! How is that being a good mom?"

"You also said she left it for me to take care of you," Tenchi said
through gritted teeth. "And before that, you said she knew how you
felt about me. Just put two and two together, Ryoko!"

"Uh." Ryoko said, her face going blank for a second. Then, as
slowly as the sun rises, warmth came back to her face and she beamed out
a little toothy smile. Tenchi noticed how very child-like she looked
with that expression painted on her face, like a picture made with tiny
hands dipped in paint which then pressed themselves all over a canvas.
"Tenchi. I never looked at it that way before. You really think
Washu wants you to tend to me because I love you? That it would mean
more to me that way than if she did it herself.?"

"Something like that," Tenchi smiled bashfully.

"Wow," Ryoko sighed to herself. "I never, ever looked at it that
way before. I always thought she was just avoiding me, staying out of my
life. but in actuality, she might have been trying to make my life a
little happier,"

"Washu works in mysterious and goofy ways," Tenchi commented.

"Tenchi," Ryoko floated over to him and put her arms around him. She
felt so delicate in his arms, and he felt her chest pressing close to
his. Her breath was soft against his neck, and he couldn't help but
fall in love with the moment. She was hugging him in appreciation of his
friendship, something quite uncommon for her. Normally she just seemed
to hug him to have their bodies close to one another. "Thank you. You
don't know how much this means to me,"

"Ryoko," Tenchi smiled, patting her on the back and then pulling her
away from himself slightly so that he could see her face. "But
Washu's still missing, you know,"

"Yes. I know," Ryoko replied. "I only wish I had any idea where
she had gone to, then I'd go and plead with her to come back. Or
something a little more dignified, maybe,"

"Well, you probably heard that everyone's looking for her while you
were hiding up there," Tenchi said, motioning upwards with his head.
"By the way, you mentioned something about a guy she was seeing. I
thought maybe she'd be with him, do you have any idea where this guy
lives, or.?"

"No." Ryoko said, looking a little disconcerted. "That guy. I
feel bad about insulting him in front of her now,"

"Why's that?" Tenchi asked.

"That guy. Jerry, he's called," Ryoko said, finally finding it
in herself to say his real name. "At first, I thought he was just some
pervert that wanted to exploit Washu for her innocence and. well,
ultimately hurt her. But now, I know that my feelings about him were
based around my jealousy for the fact that he was getting to spend more
time with her than I was. He was seeing the love I'd waited so long
for her to show to me. That hurt, it made my heart ache so much. I
lashed out because of it, and I must have hit a nerve. That's what
drove her away,"

"I'm sorry," Tenchi said quietly.

"I wish there were something I could do that would erase everything
I'd said back then," she said. "I don't think she'd be able to
forgive me for a single word, though. I know that if she'd said that
stuff about you, I'd hate her with a passion till the day I died,"

"Don't say that," Tenchi told her. "Washu's a very kind
hearted person. I'm sure that she could forgive you, no matter what
you did. I kinda get the feeling she's sadder at herself right now
than she is with you. She's afraid she's made too many mistakes in
her life and now it's coming back to haunt her,"

"Yeah, and I'm one of those mistakes," Ryoko sighed, and started
to float away. "And I haunt her so much that it's driven her away,
screaming and kicking,"

"No, Ryoko," Tenchi said. "I think there's a good reason that
she remembers the past two thousand years far more vividly than she does
the other eighteen. That was the time when you came into her life, you
know. You're the finest chapter in the story of her life, one I'm
sure she loves to read to herself over and over again from her memory
banks,"

"Story." Ryoko mumbled to herself. "Hey, that's it! Thanks,
Tenchi! I've got it!"

"Got what?" Tenchi asked, watching her do cartwheels in the air with
amusement.

"The way I can make up for all those bad things I said!" Ryoko
chuckled. "Oh, thank you! Thank you, Tenchi! Tee-hee! I'm gonna go
be somewhere quiet, don't disturb me, okay? Let everyone else think
I'm still missing,"

"Um, alright," Tenchi said. "But I really think I should-."

"Bye!" Ryoko waved as she faded out, leaving Tenchi alone in the
living room.

". Ah well," Tenchi shrugged, and decided to start looking for
Washu at last. He felt content in the knowledge that he had helped Ryoko
see her mother in a new light, but sadly he knew this wouldn't mean
all that much if Washu wasn't around to see these permutations.

"Ummm, Tenchi?" Mihoshi's voice squeaked as her blonde hair peeped
around the entrance to Washu's subspace laboratory. "What exactly is
it that were we looking for again? I thought we were going after those
canned peaches, but then Kiyone started grumbling about that cheese, and
oh I just got so excited. so, what kind of food are we lookin' for,
anyway?"

"Oh boy," Tenchi sighed.

**

The police station felt like a funeral parlor to Washu. It must have
been because this was going to be the place where the only friend Jerry
had to mourn for him had gathered to pay her respects to him. There
might have been a thousand people there for him, though, as Washu was
mourning enough for an entire galaxy of people. If only Jerry had really
found so many friends in his life, Washu thought to herself. The fact
that he hadn't only succeeded in making her feel even more sadness for
him.

All around her were people that had lined up to get to the front desk,
everyone pushing and shoving impatiently. Washu, however, had simply
taken it step by step, and ironically she had made it to the front desk
before most of the disorderly ones. Perhaps it was just fate's way of
letting her hear the truth about Jerry's untimely demise even faster,
as to make the pain more insufferable. or perhaps it was due to the
fact that she had remained in her adult form. Those cops had really
seemed eager to hear what she had to say, but she knew they just wanted
to "serve" her as best as they possible could in order to win over
her affections. Right now, she would have torn their throats out if she
hadn't been so desperate to hear what had happened to Jerry; her hate
had risen to critical levels. She did not know how long she would be
able to control her anger. Her life seemed pointless, and thus. so did
everyone else's.

"So, you were a. uh, friend. of the deceased?" the cop with the
receding hairline asked her.

His name, as he had told her many times when she had simply called him
by his job description, was Bairei. In spite of that, she continued to
call him officer. If she had been the cheerful soul she used to be, she
might have done it with a big grin on her face too. Bairei, the officer,
had two eyes of completely different colors: one green, and one yellow.
Washu only noticed this because he had a tendency to wink at her more
times in a minute than anyone could possibly do and continue to think of
themselves as smooth operators. He disgusted her. but then, so did
everybody else in the room. The way they just continued to live calmly,
so content in their disassociation with Jerry, wonderful Jerry.
wonderful, lovely Jerry who had never hurt anyone with cruel intent. How
could he be dead? How?!

"Ma'am?" the cop, Bairei, asked her.

"I'm sorry, I wasn't listening to you," Washu stated monotonously.

"What's your name, by the way?" Bairei asked, winking at her once
again.

"It's Washu," she replied, refusing to react in any way.

Originally she had tried to go to the hospital, but Jerry had been moved
from there and into the local morgue. Then, she had demanded to know why
they had taken him to such a place. Such bitter denial of the truth,
that Jerry had been taken from her in such circumstances. it was
hilariously wretched. At the morgue, they had told her to come over
here, for apparently the police had certain details about Jerry's
death and the events surrounding it. Washu had agreed, and had now been
here for the past two hours waiting, and waiting, and waiting for news
about Jerry. She hoped this was all one bad dream, that maybe she'd
still been stuck in the simulation chamber and Marihito was still trying
to wear her soul down to a fine, stubby glint of emotion. Only an idiot
would make such an assumption, a heartless idiot that didn't even know
her friends from her enemies. Did she have any friends? Certainly not
here.

"So, you knew this guy?" Bairei asked her again, pretending to sort
through some detailed files that had no real importance. Washu wondered
if he was trying to look thorough and organized, when he really should
have been working on removing that donut-filled beer belly of his.
"This. uh. Jerry Tanaka, this guy? You knew him? Ma'am?"

"I met him a few times, I guess," Washu said, folding her arms
across her chest so the officers behind and including Bairei would stop
ogling it.

"But you didn't know him very well, is that it?" Bairei said,
raising an eyebrow at her.

"Not really," Washu lied. At least her good looks would do some
good, she told herself. If she'd been a decidedly ugly girl, these
cops might not have given her information about Jerry's death after
she claimed to not know him very well, but the fact that she had larger
than normal breasts and a nice enough figure was, if anything, a way to
get through the door here. Still, it wasn't something she took very
kindly too. "I knew his name, and where he lived, and every now and
then I'd pop around to see how he's doing. but other than that, no,"

"Whereabouts do you live, ma'am?" Bairei asked with a slight smirk.

"You want my address?" Washu frowned. His strategy was hardly the
cunning plan he seemed to think it was, his motives were as apparent as
the beads of sweat on his forehead, of which there were plenty at this
point.

"Sure, sure," Bairei nodded enthusiastically. "Just so, uh, you
know, we can contact you in case we, uh, have any new information
regarding this incident,"

"New information?" Washu asked. She hoped her sudden spurt of
interest wouldn't have given this hormonally driven cop the wrong
idea; all she had for him was disfavorable nonchalance. "I haven't
even been given any information to start with. Do you have any
information?"

"Information, uhhh, let's see, information." Bairei chanted to
himself as he swept through layer upon layer of files and closed drawers
beneath his waist. The word was reiterated as if its usage represented a
bridge of understanding that supported their rickety relationship.
"Information. yeah, here we go. Information!"

"Uh-huh," Washu stared expectantly at him, a blank look on her face.

"So," Bairei nodded. "You really knew nothing about this guy.?
'Cause, well, I don't know if a lady of your, uh, type would wanna
be familiar with this kind of guy, you know. Not really your kind of
guy, I would think,"

"Excuse me?" Washu asked. "What do those papers say about him?
What kind of guy was he?"

"Ah, so you didn't know him," said Bairei. "See, 'cause I was
thinking maybe you were a close friend, or. and now, y'know, it's
pretty obvious you're not,"

"We've already gone over that," Washu sighed. It hurt her to lie
like this, but she really didn't want to be bogged down by their
questions before she got even the slightest bit of info concerning
Jerry's demise. "I didn't know him very well at all. We shared.
maybe an hour of our lives together,"

"Doing what?" Bairei asked.

"Just. talking," Washu replied, watching as one of the officers
beside Bairei took notes down. "You know. hellos and goodbyes.
Mentioning how nice the weather was, that sort of thing,"

"You don't mind if we take this down, do you?" Bairei asked,
motioning to the officer to his left whose pencil was jotting every
little detail of Washu's insignificant and thoroughly dry testimony.
"Some of your, uh, information. may help us with the case,"

"Case?" she asked, noticing his continued use of the word
information like it was a dirty pact they'd coined together. "You
mean, you think I'm some sort of suspect? Because I really don't
know anything about any of this, I didn't see or talk to Jerry on the
day he was killed."

"Whoa, whoa, hold your horses," Bairei smiled and raised his arms at
Washu to cease her anxious defence. "You don't understand. The case
isn't really about his death, it's. uh, a little more detailed
than that, but you'll probably hear about all that later. We just
wanna know how much contact you had with this guy. He didn't. try
anything with you, did he?"

"What's that supposed to mean?" Washu asked. Either this cop was
being over- protective of a potential mate he'd just found, or he
thought he knew something that she didn't.

"You know," said Officer Bairei. "Did he try any sexual advances
on you?"

"No, he did not," Washu started to grow tired of these cryptically
clueless and downright offensive questions. "He wasn't that type of
guy!"

"I thought you said you didn't really know him," Bairei replied.

"Well, he didn't seem like that type of guy," Washu said, shaking
her head. "Look, this is all so stupid. could you just tell me if
you know who killed him and why they would want to do something like
that?"

"Who killed him?" Bairei stifled laughter, which drew Washu ever
closer to her breaking point. "Ma'am, I thought you knew. he
killed himself,"

"What?" Washu blinked in disbelief.

"C'mon, it's pretty obvious," Bairei told her. "Even before we
got any real conclusive evidence to support it, that was our real
theory. Lonely guy, his life's a mess, no real friends. except for,
uh, your fine self, of course. well, just look at where he lived! He
was a real wreck. Even I would've killed myself if I had to live in
his shoes. Or his underwear, for that matter. God, that guy lived like
an animal,"

"Did you find any evidence, though?" Washu asked. Indescribable rage
was building up inside her with every cocky shift of sarcasm in the
officer's voice, she felt the blood rising to her face and knew it was
only a matter of time before she would just explode where she stood.
"I mean. I really don't think he would have killed himself all of
a sudden like that. He'd been living like that for a while, and.
heck, for all we know, he might have been getting happier for some
reason, or perhaps he'd met someone that had started to give him hope.
I don't know, I'm just guessing here, you understand. I just don't
think he would have killed himself without warning,"

"Who would he have warned?" Bairei asked. "You?"

"Maybe," Washu sighed, wishing she'd put herself in a position to
say 'yes'.

"Nah, I doubt it. He never even mentioned a young lady such as
yourself in his diary," Bairei said.

"His diary?" Washu scowled, utter disdain etched on her face.
"You. looked in his diary?! How could you? That's personal stuff
in there!"

"How else do you expect us to find out about him?" Bairei asked,
placing his hands behind his back and raising his head from the
paperwork. He was surprised to see just how frustrated she was becoming.
It was almost a complete transformation from the nice, womanly lady who
had strolled into the station originally. "I mean, it's not like he
lived near anybody in particular who would've been on hand to give us
a detailed description of his life. His diary was right there, so we
took it. He's not gonna be writing in it anymore, what's the big
deal?"

"I still think you should have a little more respect," Washu hissed.

"Baloney," Bairei snorted. "Respect for a sick perverted fuck like
that? Get outta here, I wouldn't use his face as an ashtray.
Disgustin' guy,"

"I. beg your pardon?" asked Washu, nearly in shock. The words had
come out of his mouth so fast that she was still reeling from their
impact even an entire minute after he'd finished talking. "What did
you say he was?"

"A sick perverted fuck, that's right," Bairei waved some papers at
Washu as if their blurred texture would enforce his statement as they
passed by her vision. "I guess you really didn't know him, ma'am,
and for that I am thankful. God knows we don't need sick fucks like
that hanging around with nice women like you,"

"Would you mind explaining yourself?" Washu asked, her eyes darting
this way and that. "I mean, what gives you the right to say those
things about him.?"

"Hey, don't talk about my rights," said Officer Bairei. "He's
the one that raped the rights of every man, woman, and child in this
beautiful country. Especially the children. God, if I had to live with
some of the sick thoughts this guy had, I'd kill myself just like he
did, so help me God. Jesus, I'm tellin' ya. sick fuck,"

"Would you. PLEASE. tell me why you would want to think such
horrible things about him?" Washu demanded, finally removing her arms
from across her chest and reaching forward with a finger as she spoke.
"He never seemed like the kind of man who would be deserving of such a
crude and discourteous description! He seemed so kind and gentle."

"Yeah, they always seem like nice guys," Bairei replied. "At first,"

"They?" Washu mimicked. "They who? What are you talking about? Are
cops always this confusing?"

"Only the handsome ones, honey," the officer to Bairei's left
butted in as he stopped writing things down for a second.

"Hey, shut the fuck up, Torazo, this one's mine," Bairei muttered
to other cop.

"I asked you a question," Washu said.

"Right, right. Yeah," said Officer Bairei, turning his attention
back to her; or more accurately, her chest. "They. you know, the
sick ones. The perverts, the retards, the fuck-ups, guys like this one.
this Jerry character. He's a fuck-up if ever I saw one. Fucked his
life up, and then decided to fuck up other people's,"

"I don't see how his failure in life gives you the right to."
Washu started.

"Hey, it ain't his failure that I got a beef with," Bairei
attempted to explain. "You know, failures, guy's who haven't got a
clue, they're alright. No problem there. If this guy had just failed,
I wouldn't give two shits about him. But no, he had to take it out on
other people, other fine citizens that didn't deserve the treatment he
gave them,"

"What are you talking about?" she asked.

"You never saw this guy with anybody else?" Bairei said, looking
down at the papers again. "He was never with, uh, other people?"

"No, he seemed pretty secluded," Washu replied.

"Yeah, well, that's what you think," Bairei coughed. "This guy,
he was a real ladies man. And not normal women, no, no. He liked those
innocent little flowers that only grew in certain places, so he could
uh. water them, yeah. Heh, that's a funny metaphor I just made,"

"Yeah, good one, Bai," Officer Torazo complimented him.

"Yeah, so anyway," Bairei continued. "This guy. he meets this
lady. Rita, her name is. Can't be you, 'cause you don't look like
she did. He has photos, see. Sick fuck,"

"What kind of photos?" Washu asked, leaning closer.

"You know, photos!" Bairei replied. "Do I have to draw a picture?"

"You mean. dirty ones?" Washu whispered so that nobody could hear.
She didn't want to believe Jerry was capable of being as sick as this
police officer was making him out to be, but he clearly seemed to have
evidence to contradict her own unique view of the man. If Jerry had done
something to Rita to drive her away, something sinister and perverted.
then maybe Washu had never really known him.

"Nah, nah, nothing like that," Bairei snickered. This took Washu
aback, not because he had laughed, but because she had expected a
different answer considering the build up the photos had been given.
"Nah, just. you know, photos. Pictures of them together, holding
hands. Man, it's sick,"

"How is that sick?" Washu asked.

"Well, it's not the holding of the hands that's sick," Bairei
began. "It's the way he treated her after that. Sick, I tell ya,"

"What did he do?" Washu asked, deciding it was better not to trust a
word that came out of this man's mouth until she'd gotten the whole
story. "I mean, if she held hands with him for a photo, I doubt he
could have been all that cruel to her,"

"You would think," Bairei nodded right along with her words. "I
totally agree, you would think so, wouldn't you? But the things he
did, boy oh boy. it makes my skin crawl. Do you know he threatened to
stab her and their future son to death?"

"He did, huh?" Washu asked.

"Sure did!" exclaimed Bairei. "Only, of course, he says in here
that it was some kind of dream that SHE had. But I wouldn't believe a
sicko like this for a second, I mean, he even admits that it must have
been a phoney dream. He's right there, and he made it up himself just
to make it seem okay in his mind that she ran away from him and his sick
thoughts,"

"What else did he do?" asked Washu. "You said he did things.
That's only one thing, and not much of one,"

"Well, he didn't really do anything else to her," Bairei admitted,
confirming in Washu's head that this guy was full of it. "But trust
me, I'm sure he would have if she'd stuck around. Unfortunately, he
found yet another girl to screw around with."

"Oh?" Washu blinked. Jerry had never mentioned another love interest
from his past to her. "What was her name?"

"To be honest with you, ma'am," Bairei said, looking down at some
of the forms Washu had been asked to fill in earlier. "Uh, you say
your name's Washu, right?"

"Yes, why?" Washu asked, her curiosity almost matching her anger and
contempt for the world at this point.

"Oh, no reason," Officer Bairei scratched his brow as he spoke.
"Anyway, to be honest, we don't know her name. We were kinda hoping
you would know, since you say you'd met the guy. But obviously he
wouldn't mention a thing of. uh. such a nature, since you would
have immediately come to us with the information when you'd heard
about it,"

"Heard about what?" Washu asked.

Officer Bairei sighed and put down his papers. Washu could tell he'd
decided to cast aside his flirtatious manner and be totally frank with
her. She gladly accepted his new serious attitude, but still refused to
trust him. He was, after all, an idiot.

"You never saw a little girl around about the premises when you went
to visit him, did you?" he said. "About half your size, with a much
flatter, uh, personality."

"Excuse me?" Washu didn't know what to say. This officer was about
to let her in on how Jerry truly felt about her by reading from his
sacred diary. It nearly drove her to tears thinking that this would be
the way she would find out: from a moronic, sex driven cop who saw Jerry
as some sort of monster. It simply wasn't right. But it was the only
way to discover how Jerry had really seen her in their time together.
and she was willing to take any possibility given to her. Even if it
came from a lecherous fool. "No, I. I don't believe so. Why? What
does his diary say about this?"

"Oh, it's terrible," Officer Bairei said, leaning across the desk
and inviting her to do likewise so that nobody could listen it.
"Really, I mean, the damndest thing. If this guy was still alive and I
found out about what he'd been doing to this girl, I woulda killed him
myself, so help me God,"

". Okay," Washu ground her teeth together to quell her bloodlust.
She refused to lean closer to the officer, for fear that she might take
advantage of their close proximity to one another. and not in the way
he would have liked her to. "And what did he do to her?"

"Fucked up things, that's what," Bairei said in his oh so
informative way. "Keeps me up at night, half the stuff I read in his
diary. God have mercy on that poor girl's soul, if he hasn't warped
her poor little mind for all eternity,"

"Just tell me what the diary says," Washu seethed.

"It's mostly insane drivel," said Officer Bairei. "He goes on
and on for pages and pages at a time about how he loves her, and how he
wants her to be safe, and bull shit like that. Says he wants to be
'close' to her, and you know what that means. It's all so messed
up, talkin' about a child that way. Makes me wanna puke my guts out,
no offence,"

"That doesn't sound so crazy to me," Washu said, looking up to the
ceiling and placing her hands together. Jerry had loved her all this
time, and they'd never had the chance to let each other know. It was
so sad. and all her fault. She had been so na‹ve with him, taking him
for granted and lying to him. If she'd just been truthful from the
start, this would all have been so much easier. Maybe they'd be
holding one another right now. she felt like ending her life right
there on the spot so she could be with him in whatever place lay after
this pitiful mortal existence.

"It doesn't stop there," Bairei interrupted her thoughts. "Like
I said, that was all just insane rambling. The worst parts come after
that, and lemme tell you, if you have a weak stomach or something
you're better off not knowing about it,"

"My stomach is strong enough," Washu said. It was her heart that
felt so weakened.

"Yeah, I can tell," Bairei grinned to himself. "Well. and I'm
being perfectly honest with you here, ma'am. there's a good
portion of the diary that has this guy saying how he cut open this girl,
and that he felt so bad about it afterwards but she told him it was
okay. Now, does this sound like a sane guy to you?"

Washu stared straight into the empty eye sockets of the officer in front
of her. His eyesight must have been so dim that he couldn't analyse a
simple misunderstanding such as that one. Or maybe Jerry had written
about the incident in his diary in such a manner that was easy to
misinterpret. She could imagine him continuing to blame himself for the
small cut she sustained on her knee after she fell down, and how much it
must have nagged at him to the extent that it would have constantly been
in his mind. He must have felt so guilty about it that, from his
perspective, he'd physically cut her open and caused her pain. It had
been such a trivial thing, and in his misery he'd blown it up to
extreme proportions and given these officers the wrong impression; that
he was some kind of maniac that liked to cut up little girls. When, in
actuality, nothing could have been further from the truth. If anything,
Jerry had healed her. reshaped her broken heart and given her a purpose.

"You idiots." Washu said, a solitary tear rolling down her pale
cheek in tribute to the fa‡ade that had been erected to cover Jerry's
lonesome loss of life.

"We were really hoping you'd know something more about this,"
Bairei told her, his hand resting on the back of his neck. "He never
actually mentioned what became of this little girl, and we don't
really have a way of locating her. Apparently he never saw where she
lived, so he must've abducted her from a school ground or something
like that. It sounds to me like he probably cut her to pieces and then
buried the parts of her body outside his house, so we're gonna dig
that all up and hopefully find her remains,"

"You won't find anything," Washu said. Those remains had now
turned to dust in the wake of Jerry's absence from this world, and she
trembled as she began to know the true horrors of humanity. and they
all stood before her, wielding the law and dictating the past at their
own convenience. It didn't matter to them that Jerry had been so
wonderful, that he had been a far greater man than any of them would or
could ever be. The sheer hopelessness of fighting for Jerry overwhelmed
her, and she turned to one side and looked towards the door. Outside,
people were hustling and bustling in an attempt to get places, and Washu
wondered if there was a single man out there who even came close to
being Jerry. She wondered if there even existed a man the likes of which
the police were describing Jerry as; if there was, Jerry certainly
didn't deserve to be compared to him. Washu had loved a man. not one
that was perfect, far from it. Jerry would be the first to admit that.
She had loved a man that had been so detached from the prejudice and
perceptions of the world around him, and it had been surprisingly to his
own benefit, despite the shambles he chose to live inside. In Jerry, she
had found a man of more importance than the very creator of these
hallowed laws that the police were now 'upholding' to their own
interest. He'd been her star of hope.

And these cops were shooting him down, as she was forced to watch.

"Anyway, ma'am," Bairei said, coming to the end of a sentence that
Washu once again hadn't been listening to. "You can certainly count
on us to find this girl, in whatever shape or form she's in,"

"She's probably right under your noses," Washu muttered, turning
back to him.

"Yeah, exactly," Bairei smiled, tapping his watch. "Say, I get off
work in about an hour. and I was wondering if you'd maybe wanna go
get some dinner with me? There's a nice restaurant just around the
corner, we could go there, drink some tea maybe. whaddya say?"

Washu looked him over. In his right hand he was waving a pair of
handcuffs that were hanging from his belt in her direction. A kinky
proposition from an idiot such as him would have made Washu laugh
heartily, had she felt alive anymore. But now, she couldn't even cry.
Her eyes had dried up, there was a drought inside her and it pined for
the clouds of misery to hide her from the all-seeing eyes of the world.

"No, I think I'll just walk home," she replied, starting away.

"You need me to help you?" Bairei asked. "You never know how many
sick fucks like this guy there are out there. Can't be too careful,"

"No," Washu said softly, with little or no strength in her vocal
chords. "I'm sure there's nobody else like him in this world,"

"Ain't that a blessing," Bairei said as she left. "Sick fucks
like that. they're a cancer,"

"Man, what I wouldn't give to bone someone who looked like that,"
Torazo said as he watched her go. "Boy oh boy, she was fine,"

"Yeah," Bairei smiled. "I'd love to eat her out. I mean, eat
out with her. Heh-heh-heh. Anyway, let's get back to work, we have
more sick fucks to sort out,"

"Don't talk about the chief that way, man!"

**

The long, winding road of empty solitude stretched out before Washu's
feet. It stretched so far that she felt sure it would snap in two at any
moment, sending all those tiny little people that lay dispersed upon it
flying into the infinite nothingness; the nothingness that had now
swallowed the world.

It pained her to look upon their faces. They were faces that had never
known Jerry; the real Jerry, not this forged image that the police were
bound to spread among the media so confidently. They would all know that
version of him in time. She despised them for it, every single one of
them. But the one she despised the most was herself.

Certainly, it was one thing to neglect her daughter to the point that
she would try and force her to make a choice between her own flesh and
blood, and the man she loved. And yes indeed, it was another thing to
take all the hopes and dreams of her old friend Marihito and crush them
down to a fine, bitter wine. But to defile the image of Jerry, who she
had loved perhaps more than anyone she had ever known in her entire life
(though this was something of which she could not be certain, for her
life was so clouded with mystery), just because she had the audacity to
let her stupid, ugly little knee get cut open. To make him feel guilty
enough to pour his heart out to the extent that it could no longer pump
oxygen to the rest of his darling, precious body. To have his life end
in such a tragic way, with nobody around to remember him and her own
feelings of love for him still secreted away behind locked doors, to
keep those simple goals of spiritual achievement and genuine fulfilment
from him because of her own petty worries. That was the biggest crime
she could have committed against the world. There had never been anyone
else like him, of that she was certain. And now, thanks to her, he would
be remembered for everything that he wasn't. The world would see his
name and remember a sadistic child murderer and rapist, not the kind
hearted man he really was.

Why did the world have to jump to such gruesome, twisted conclusions?
Why couldn't they read the words he had written and know that this was
a man who didn't let the laws get in the way of their happiness
together? Was it so obscene to want to hold a child you weren't
related to? To risk everything, not just your honor but the very freedom
you'd been given by the society that could just as easily take it
away, all for the love you feel inside your heart. Was the world that
cruel? Was the world the real sadistic murderer of hope and the
perverted raper of innocence?

She could see it all know. Her eyes were open. She had awakened to the
truth about the world, a world that had become so hard and frigid that
it would stop at nothing to destroy those that walk upon it with nothing
but good intentions. Jerry had spoken of monsters, and she had seen
them. They had taken the breath from his lungs and the heart from his
body, and they were putting them on display on billboards across the
country with a nasty conversion added to them, with gilded framework
made especially for the task at hand. They would make him out to be the
monster, so they themselves would be heroes and saviors. They'd torn
the wings from the back of an angel and used them to send themselves
skywards in the public eye. It disgusted her. The entire world disgusted
her at that moment.

But the world wasn't fond of her, either. It hadn't been content to
take away from her the memories she held so dear. No, it had to sap the
love from her, the love she had for life and all things natural and
scientific alike. Once she had worked for this world, working to make it
a better place for all those in it, and how was it repaying her? By
stabbing her in the back, by taking the ones she loved and turning them
into manure to fuel its own needs. All the love she thought she had
given was just being taken from her, bit by bit. Jerry had been just the
same. He'd lost all that love down the toilet, and then he couldn't
take it any more. Executing himself had been his only means of escape.
If only he'd held on a little bit longer, they could have escaped from
this world together.

Slowly she walked down the road, having no idea where she would end up.
No place on this planet interested her, nor on any other planet for that
matter. She had nowhere to go, for everywhere she went there would be
those who would just act as leeches, sucking the life from her. That's
the way it had always been, even at the Academy. They had sucked her
well of knowledge dry just so they could put her name on a plate and
show it off as if she had been their creation. With every step she took,
another year peeled away from her life as her face melted back through
the decades. Eventually she was a young girl again, and she had recoiled
into the body of a twelve-year- old once more. The body that the cops
were probably now searching through the earth around Jerry's house
for. But they would never find it. Not because she hadn't died, she
was as dead to the world as they had assumed, but her body was still
moving about the place, shambling through the shadows with no real
purpose. What purpose could she have anymore? She used to be so intent
on improving the world, now all she wanted to do was be the direct cause
of its demise. The world had drawn from her life the very light that she
held so dearly, now she would do everything in her power to do the same
for it in return. She would struggle as she had done so many times when
she had been attempting to enlighten and enrich the lands she surveyed,
only this time with a far darker purpose. In an attempt to retrieve all
the knowledge and bountiful designs she'd given unto the people of
this universe, she would destroy all that she had created. All the
laughter and the smiles she had given, all the parties she had thrown,
all the inventions and the formulae she had conceived; she would pile
them up as high as the tallest towers on planet Jurai and burn them to
the ground. There would be no remorse. Because, like the world had done
to her, she would have no trouble sending this world into a Dark Age of
misery and primitive thought. It would be long before they could recover
from such a vast loss of knowledge. The sheer possibility of plunging
entire civilizations into as great a sense of loss as she had felt made
her salivate evilly, and before she knew it. her feet had stepped into
a familiar location.

She didn't know how long she had been walking. Days must have passed,
because her legs ached like there was no tomorrow, and the sun was just
rising over the treetops. Before her, the plain old, everyday,
three-storey dream-house of the Masaki family waited for her. It was as
if her lust for vengeance had been leading her by the nose to this place
from her past. Once, she had wanted to live here for the rest of her
life, happy and carefree. Now she would die there, and with her the
hopes of a billion others. It was the only way to take back what the
world had stolen from her. her only son and daughter, her friends, her
memories, her loved ones, and now her very faith in the essence of hope
and life.

Without remorse, she stepped inside.

**

"Miss Washu.!" Ayeka gasped, dropping the plate of food she had
been carrying into the living room. There in the entranceway stood the
red head scientist, as young as she'd always looked. Hurriedly, though
being careful not to trip over her kimono, Ayeka scooted across the
floor to greet the old girl. "Oh, Miss Washu! It's so good to see
you! You haven't been back in days! Oh, please, let me go get the
others! They'll be so glad that you're back, it simply hasn't been
the same without you!"

"Hi," Washu croaked. Her voice sounded cracked and awkward, like she
had been going through great strains of speech in the past few days.

"Oh my, oh my," Ayeka giggled, scurrying away and into the living
room. "Wait 'till the other see you're back, they'll be
positively ecstatic!"

Washu looked around. Everything looked the same, right down to the
portrait of Tenchi's mother than hung from the wall opposite the
living room door. According the calendar, that had been eternally placed
above that cream colored phone that rested on the table to the left of
her, it had been just over two days since she had left this place. Yet
it still looked exactly as she had left it. The stairs still led upwards
to an almost unknown amount of rooms and corridors, and the smell of the
house still had that musty odor that even the copious numbers of air
fresheners that Nobuyuki had installed couldn't eradicate totally. Any
number of things could have caused it, from Ryoko's clumsiness to
Ayeka's rigorous early morning make- up appliance rituals. Before, it
had been a pleasant reminder that Washu was at home here, but now it
just made the place rank with its stench like some alien creature's
nest. This was not her home, and those people coming towards her now
were not her friends; they were strangers, invaders of her world that
needed to be driven away.

"Washu! Wow, we were so worried!" Mihoshi giggled as she came to a
stop beside the entrance to the subspace laboratory. "Umm, heh-heh,
you might not wanna go in there for a while, Kiyone and I made a bit of
a mess when we were lookin' for a way to get you back,"

"You made that mess all on your own, you ignoramus!" Kiyone snarled.

"Little Washu!" Tenchi said, a wide grin set across his face. He
looked happy to see her. Washu knew that this was impossible though,
nobody as wise and gentle as Tenchi could have been glad to have her
around. "Where've you been? We got so worried we called the police,
we didn't know what to do,"

"Haha! Washu!" Sasami danced with merriment around Washu's place
in the front doorway. "Washu's back! Washu's back! Yaaay!"

"Miaow-mia-mia-miaow-miaaa!" Ryo-ohki danced right along with her.

"Hmm," Washu mumbled, noticing how conspicuous Ryoko was by her
absence. "And my daughter is where.?"

"Uh," Kiyone said, ceasing her endless ranting at Mihoshi for just a
second. "We, uh, don't know. She's been gone ever since you went
missing,"

"Washu, this is so great!" Sasami laughed, wrapping her arms around
the genius. "Tell us all where you've been! I bet it was so exciting
and you had lots of adventures and now you're gonna tell us all about
them. It's so good to see you, oh, we love you so much, Washu!"

"Thanks, Sasami," replied Washu, not sounding very grateful for the
embrace. She noticed Tenchi had started to sweat and fidget when she had
mentioned Ryoko. It would seem he knew something that the others
didn't. "But I'm afraid there's really nothing to tell,"

"Miss Washu, are you alright?" Ayeka asked, stepping forward. "Can
we get you anything? You look like you've had a pretty hard time,"

"We didn't know what to think, Washu!" Mihoshi squeaked nervously.
"We thought you weren't gonna come back at all, we thought you might
have been hurt or something, it was just awful, and. oh, it was so
stressful too. But it's great to see you're just fine and dandy!"

They all stared at Washu in silence for a while, expecting her to leap
forward with a little song about friendship, or maybe even a sarcastic
"Ha, I never missed you guys anyway!" to let them know she was
really back to her old self. But she just stood there and looked at some
point in mid-air for a while, until they finally realized. she was
listening to something in the background.

"Oh, I must have left the TV on," Tenchi mumbled as he turned to the
living room doorway. "I'll go switch it off and we can all throw a
big party to celebrate Washu's returning to us,"

"Oooh, with cake and everything?" Mihoshi asked, clasping her hands
together.

"Sure, Mihoshi," Tenchi rolled his eyes.

"Don't turn it off," Washu said, a stern tone in her voice like a
mother would use on her child when the child was on the brink of
breaking one of the many rules the mother had lain down. "Tenchi, I
said no,"

"Huh?" asked Tenchi, turning his head around so that it faced her.
"Little Washu.?"

"Shh," Washu said, placing a finger to her lips.

Confusion settled down around their feet, covering the tips of their
toes and ears like damp spring mist. They didn't know what was wrong
with Washu, but they could hear what she was listening to. The news
reporter on the TV was reading one of the regular reports that had been
broadcast many times that day. This, however, was the first time Washu
had found the time to set aside a moment to pay attention to it.

"In other news," the reporter continued, his voice a rapid stream of
consecutive prose. "Police are investigating a report of a missing
girl named Washu. She appears to be about twelve years old, as depicted
in this image. Her last known whereabouts are at present unknown, but we
have reason to believe that she was last seen with a Jerry Tanaka, a
known rapist and madman. If there are any sightings of little Washu,
please feel free to call this number and ask for the Masaki family.
also, there-."

"So." Washu said, as the reporter went on with his warped
description of Jerry. The words 'rapist', 'insane',
'killer', and 'cruel' were among the many inaccurate adjectives
used to create the image of Jerry as some harsh, bloodthirsty criminal
whose spree of crime the police had successfully put a stop to. Nothing
was mentioned of the fact that the police had found him dead before they
even knew he was a criminal of any sort, or of the fact that he only
ever mentioned a slight cut he'd given to Washu's knee. Apparently,
a strong feeling of regret for even the smallest amount of pain given to
someone was enough to convict someone of rape and battery, if they were
old enough to be the father of the so-called 'victim'. "You all
thought he'd buried me in his back yard too, huh?"

"Washu, we didn't know what to think," Tenchi said. "The police.
they just sort of gave us the picture that this guy had treated a lot of
people badly, and that you were possibly in grave peril. we just."

"You just decided that they knew best, huh?" Washu frowned. "Well,
obviously if someone wears a uniform and waves around some ID, they must
be omniscient and knowledgeable about every damn person on the face of
the planet. Treated people badly. he never treated anyone badly in his
life,"

"Miss Washu." Ayeka said, timidly stepping forward. "We were
actually going to discuss this after we'd celebrated your return, but
now that it's out in the open. did he. do. anything at all?"

"Did he do anything?" Washu asked. "What the Hell does that mean?!"

"I mean, uh, did he touch-." Ayeka began.

"I know what it means!" snapped Washu. "And it sickens me to think
that you'd really go ahead ask me such a question! Who the Hell do you
think you are to ask me such a question?!"

"Ayeka," Tenchi said, trying to get a word in edgeways, but to no avail.

"Miss Washu!" Ayeka replied, standing her ground. "We were merely
concerned for your very wellbeing! For all we knew, he could have done
all sorts of hideous and unspeakable acts to you. you could have been
all alone with that monster! How do you think we felt? We were worried
about you, does that not mean anything to you at all?"

"Ohhh," Washu laughed, diving forward and landing on the table to
her left. She stood above them all and pointed down at them, her legs
split apart so the telephone could go between her feet. "You were
worried, huh? That's a laugh. You know, I wish I could have arrived
back and told you about all the 'hideous and unspeakable acts' that
he'd committed to my pure little body. That'd really make my day.
You wanna know why? Because I know it would disgust each and every one
of you!"

"Washu!" Sasami cried, the sudden spectacle of Washu's far more
irrational than usual behavior was really starting to frighten her. Even
little Ryo- ohki was shivering atop her head, causing Sasami's skull
to shake and quiver along with the cabbit. "What's wrong? I don't
understand. I thought you'd be happy to see us,"

"You never do understand, do you, Sasami," Washu stared down at the
girl. "I guess that's the difference between us. You understand
nothing, and I understand everything. It's my curse. I'm forced to
live in a world I understand, and understanding this world is to hate
every inch of it!"

"Washu!" Sasami cried, falling into Ayeka's arms and whimpering.

"See what you've done now?" said Ayeka, placing a hand across the
back of Sasami's head. Ryo-ohki leapt up onto Tenchi's shoulder and
mewed excitedly into his ear. "There there, Sasami,"

"Oh my," said Mihoshi, ducking behind Kiyone. "Is she mad 'cause
we made a mess in her lab, Kiyone?"

"YOU made the mess!" Kiyone growled.

"Little Washu," Tenchi said, reaching forward with a hand and
inviting her to take it. "Let's go get something to eat, we can talk
about it in private. I'm sure we can figure this thing out together,"

"Urgh!" said Washu, stamping her foot so hard on the table that it
left a chipped dent in the woodwork. With the sudden impact, the
phone's receiver fell off the hook and in the background all they
could hear was the incessant dial-tone from its ear-piece. "Don't
call me Little Washu!"

"Oookay, that was unexpected," said Mihoshi in a state of bewilderment.

"If I hadn't insisted on being treated like I were a child," Washu
placed her head in her hands and sobbed. "I probably wouldn't be in
this mess in the first place. I'm not a child, I'm not! You people.
you were convinced by the authorities that Jerry was a monster, just
because he liked me. Because he LOVED me! We loved each other. and to
him, I wasn't a child! I was just as mature and intelligent as he was,
he considered me an equal. That's more than you guys ever did!"

"Miss Washu," Tenchi said. "We respect you, too. You must know
that."

"Pah! Like Hell!" Washu scoffed. Then, she put on the most
childishly effeminate voice that she could muster in such a state of
depression. "Oh, Little Washu! Won't you come have a party with us?
We were so worried about you, because we know you're no good at
judging people. You obviously fell in love with a horrible person who
would have done you more harm than good, now come with us and eat cake
and have fun, whoopee!"

"Washu," Tenchi sighed. "I don't know what to say. I'm sorry
we judged him. We didn't even know him,"

"That's right, ya didn't!" Washu wagged her finger at them all.
"None of you knew him!"

"I for one am glad that I never knew the man," Princess Ayeka said.
"I don't much care for men that prey on the minds of children, nor
do I appreciate the fact that he's turned you against us,"

"He didn't turn me against you!" said Washu. "You did! All of
you! The whole world! You insist on seeing him in such a false light,
just because it's more comfortable to believe he was a child molester
of some sort than it is to realize that he LOVED me! That's the
disgusting thing here. Not the sexual interest he may or may not have
had in me, but the fact that you, the police, and the entire world would
prefer to believe he was a sicko than a kind man who didn't let my
apparent age get in the way of his feelings! You're the sickos, not
him! It's you."

"I've never been so insulted!" Ayeka fumed. "To think that you
would compare myself and Lord Tenchi, and all your friends, to someone
who would violate your innocence in such putrid ways."

"He never violated me!" Washu laughed weakly, as she dropped from
the table and landed on both feet. She flashed her eyes at Ayeka and
shook her head, her red billowing hair waving back and forth behind her
to enhance the motion. "You see, you all have your minds made up about
him. It doesn't matter to you what my opinion of him was, whether I
loved him with all my heart or not. and I did. You just see what they
want you to see, because it's safer. Because thinking differently and
seeing things clearly is a dirty concept when you live in this world.
Jerry understood this. that's why he's no longer with us, I'll
bet,"

"Exactly!" Ayeka said. "He killed himself! What man in his right
mind would do such a thing?"

"Oh, gee, I don't know," Washu said. She shoved her way through
their little crowd and headed towards her subspace portal. "Maybe
because he knew you'd all react this way and see him as some kind of
beast, and he didn't wanna be seen that way?"

"He should have accepted it!" said Ayeka.

"Why should he?" Washu asked. "Because you want him to? You all
claim to be my friends, but if you were, you would understand. But just
like poor little Sasami, you're all acting like headless chickens,
jumping on everything the media tells you about my dear Jerry. Well, to
be perfectly blunt, I could care less what you guys think anymore,"

"Miss Washu," Tenchi said, grabbing her by the shoulder. "Please.
listen to us. We don't mean you any harm; we're just trying our best
to comprehend what you're going through right now. It's hard, really
hard. You're a genius, you must understand that it would be hard for
us. If we hurt your feelings by judging him, we're sorry. But please
give us another chance,"

"Sasami," said Washu, lifting Tenchi's hand from her shoulder.
"Remember our talk? The one we had in private together?"

"Yes, Washu," Sasami sniffled, looking out from Ayeka's bosom.
"Of course I do. I remember it well, like it was yesterday,"

"Do you remember I told you that if you didn't want to forget your
past, it would always be with you?" Washu asked, never looking back at
them. "That if you wanted it to stay, it would always be close to your
heart?"

"Yes, I do!" Sasami said, wiping her eyes. "Washu, I remember
everything we said. It meant so much to me that you'd talk to me like
that. Washu, I love you!"

"Well," said Washu, very slowly looking around. Then, with a cruel
grin that didn't look like anything they'd ever seen coming from
Washu, she continued to speak with a harsh animosity. "There will come
a time when you'll pray that you could forget this moment, I guarantee
it. But it will be with you for the rest of your life. All the crap you
collect over the years will pile up, while the sweet moments you wish
could stay will simply fade away over time. Such is the way of the
world,"

"Oh, Washu," Sasami cried, falling back into Ayeka's arms.
"Washu, don't. Washu. please don't."

"Miss Washu!" Ayeka snapped. But Washu had already passed through
the doorway into her lab. "Oh, that woman."

"Ayeka," said Sasami, pressing herself closer and closer to her
sister. "Please don't be mad at Washu,"

"I'm not mad," Ayeka sighed. "Don't worry, Sasami. I'm not,"

"Tenchi," said Kiyone, walking up to the prince. "What are we
going to do?"

"We should probably just give her time to cool down," Tenchi
replied. "She'll get over it, eventually. She just needs to be alone
right now. Don't worry, everything'll be fine. If she really held it
against us, she wouldn't have left the doorway to her lab with us,"

As he spoke, the doorway that led to Washu's subspace laboratory
pinged out of existence as if by magic.

"Um," Tenchi blinked. "I'm sure there's a perfectly rational
explanation for what just happened that doesn't involve Washu being
mad at us, heh-heh. I bet it was just an accident or something, she
probably just relocated the door to a more convenient place, that's
all!"

Then, in place of the door appeared a notice that read in Kanji: "I
won't be back. Ever. And I am still mad at you,"

"Oh man," said Tenchi.

"Hey, I have an idea!" Mihoshi exclaimed. "Now say that you
don't think she'll give us all candy, Tenchi!"

"You idiot," Kiyone groaned.

**

Washu's subspace laboratory spanned over an entire solar system, with
numerous planets and countless different machines all working at once
with a purpose. Now, however, she couldn't even remember what that
purpose had been. She had been looking for answers, but now that she had
found one, she wished she'd never tried to look for it in the first
place. It was a cold, cruel world, a world unworthy of her attention. It
was a world that didn't deserve the knowledge she had injected into
its bloodstream like some intelligence-enhancing drug. Its ego had also
grown as she had pumped it full of addictive advancements that most
mortal men could not hope to attain in one lifetime. She, however, had
constructed a network of inspired works of art that could fuel entire
cultures and worlds for many thousands of years. If any one race were to
take the ideas from her lab and exploit them, they would no doubt become
the most advanced culture in the history of the known universe. But she
wasn't going to let that happen very easily. She was going to make it
downright difficult, maybe even impossible.

She stepped across the wreckage that had been left by Mihoshi and Kiyone
after their fruitless search had come to an end, and ignored the faint
rattling of the crab shaped doorbell device that hung above her on the
top of the doorframe. Pressing a few buttons on a mounted computer unit
on the eastern wall belonging to this section of the lab, she erased the
existence of the subspace link between the Masaki house and this
dimension. She also elevated all of the shield systems around each of
the different areas of her lab, which reached near infinite lengths.
Those things could block of any intrusion into this world, especially
from her so-called friends who would no doubt attempt to come and talk
her out of this.

"This is so perfect," she said.

No tears came from her eyes, for she knew that her task was not
necessarily a sad one. It was crucial, and had to be done for the sake
of Jerry, and all the other wonders that the world had swallowed up
never to be seen or heard from again. She decided that if the world were
going to take the wonder from her life, then she would take the wonder
away from the world. Never again would mankind be able to crawl out of
the darkness and into the light of development. She would see to it that
turmoil would engulf entire galaxies and send ignorance ringing through
the cold void of space as it bounced from planet to planet in its never
ending chaotic course. It was so simple and perfect. Mass stupidity on a
scale never before thought possible.

But it was possible. If Washu had learned anything in twenty thousand
years, it was that anything could happen. And more than likely, it
would. More often than not, it tended to have something to do with her,
as well. It only seemed fitting that she would be the one to strip the
galaxies of the information she had once so readily given unto it. She
sat down at her favorite console, and flipped a couple of switches to
boot it up.

"Good morning, Little Washu," the distinctly feminine voice of her
computer echoed through the laboratory. "I am looking forward to
whatever data you may be entering today. The time is ten-."

"Actually, Computer," Washu said, typing faster than a speeding
locomotive. "I won't be entering any data today. I'll be taking
some away,"

"Will you be storing it in an alternate databank?" her computer
asked. "I must remind you that the databanks you designed are far more
efficient than any located outside your laboratory, after all, you are
the greatest scientific genius of th-."

"Shut up," Washu said, turning off the voice. The final syllables of
the computer reverberated from one monolith to another, as it slowly
faded into nothingness. A grin spread itself across Washu's face as she
booted up the detailed records of the Science Academy on her console.
"I've always wanted to do this. I always knew I could, but I never
had the guts to actually go ahead and do it,"

As she watched, the entire screen in front of her filled with glowing
green and red text. To the side of the text, there were images and
diagrams of various scientific projects that were in the works. All
classified information, of course, but she had her own pass and it
wasn't like they were working on anything she couldn't outclass in a
second. So, briskly, she clicked and she clacked on the keyboard, and
slowly she watched the information drain from the Science Academy's
databanks.

"Man, when they say revenge is sweet." Washu said as she began to
breathe heavily. "They don't know the half of it. oh man."

It was sweet, alright. Watching the data from the Science Academy slowly
disappearing from their databanks and moving right into hers, it was
like getting back all that she had lost. and then some. She didn't
stop, and in time, every recorded report and test analysis and spaceship
design, all of it had been taken from the Science Academy's database
and placed inside her own computer. She pictured the looks on their
faces as they'd been forced to watch every last drop of knowledge be
sucked from their bottomless cups that they'd been downing so
greedily. It made her laugh to think that she had once worked there, and
now they were all just cavemen in fancy costumes running around trying
to make things work. Their computers, of course, had lost all ability to
function, since she had even stolen the backup data that enabled the
Academy to run itself automatically. Now, it was just a hunk of metal in
space filled with clueless people. Not one bit of information had been
stored in any other form than the data that Washu had just derived from
their sources so completely. Sure, there were other divisions of the
Academy around the universe. but Washu was just getting started.

Washu typed and she typed, and with every keystroke came new
intellectual plunder. She felt like a real life space pirate, stealing
such huge amounts of scientific research and taking them all for
herself. Even the Galaxy Police's databanks weren't safe from her
clutches, so she downloaded and stole every last criminal record and
flight plan for the past, present, and future of the biggest law
enforcement outfit in the entire world. She went through sector after
sector of every vibrant tributary of knowledge, following each of them
back to their source. And what a prosperous source it was. a source
that every intergalactic space lane led to, eventually. It was Jurai, a
planet that had given her so much grief in the past. The daunting
prospect of such a respected race being on her trail didn't deter her,
and she began to type in a code to delete all the information she had
stolen up this point. After she had wiped away every scientific
advancement known to man, she would then wipe out Jurai's resources
and tools. Never again would there be one race more respected and
revered by the others, the world would become a throbbing mass of
hysteria. Everybody would rule, because nobody would know how to be
better than anyone else. When she had finished typing up her code, the
screen presented her with the choice that would no doubt satiate her
lust for vengeance. It would make up for everything the world had taken
for her. It had to, otherwise nothing meant anything anymore. Soon the
world would know what it was like to forget everything it had learned
over the years, just as she had. Soon, it would know what it was like to
lose everything that was important to those that resided within it.

'Do you really want to delete all information currently held in your
databanks?' the words on the console's screen asked her. 'Yes/No?'

If she clicked yes, then all the information she had just downloaded
from the Galaxy Police Headquarters, the Science Academy, and all the
varied lesser outlets of these organizations, would be deleted from her
databanks for good. There would be no possibility of retrieval, not even
if she wanted to. It wouldn't just be that information, though. The
data she herself had collected over the years would also be destroyed,
along with the structural integrity of this subspace laboratory. And as
the lab collapsed, she would then proceed to do what very few people had
the nerve to even think about trying. She would sweep Jurai off its
throne at the centre of the universe, and then she would take the light
from the stars in the night's sky along with her own life, churning
the cosmos into a cascade of disorder and revolt. She hovered over the
word 'yes', nearly drooling with intense power. She held in her
hands the morbid fate of the whole universe. and all she had to do was
press the enter key.

"Washu?" the voice of Ryoko came from behind her jaded wall of
thought. At first, she thought it was just in her head, and she shrugged
it off and placed a finger on the enter key. But before she could exert
any pressure onto it, the voice came back. "Washu, it's me!"

"What?!" Washu span around on her floating cushion and saw the
forlorn figure of her daughter hovering a short distance away. "How
did you get in here? I thought I closed off all the entrances and raised
all the shields!"

"I'd been waiting in here since you left," Ryoko replied. Her
hands were behind her back, and she had a rather shifty look about her.
"Can I talk to you?"

"Ergh," said Washu. "Make it fast then, damn it. I'm busy right
now,"

"I just wanted to say." Ryoko said, slowly moving towards Washu
without touching the floor. "I-."

"Don't come any closer," Washu warned her. "I'm not in the
mood for another of your anti-Jerry rants, and I'm not sure I'll be
able to control myself if you try to start one with me. Just stay put or
leave, it's for your own safety,"

"Fine, I'll stay put," Ryoko replied. "Look, Washu, I'm not
here to rant to you about Jerry. I just wanted to let you know that I-."

"Hey, you finally used his actual name!" Washu said, sarcastically.
"Wow, you must really have had a change of heart, my dear. Normally
you call him 'that guy', or some other degrading nickname. I wonder
how long it'll be before you go back to calling him a fat freak."

"Washu," Ryoko said.

"Ryoko," Washu scowled and turned back to her console. "I've
already gone into detail with the others concerning my feelings. If you
like, you can go ask Tenchi for the abridged version of my
heart-wrenching speech, seeing as how you weren't around to hear it.
And while you're at it, you can LEAVE ME ALONE!"

"Washu, I really have no idea how to say this," said Ryoko. Washu
heard the flutter of folding paper, and looked into the reflective
surface of her computer screen. It seemed that Ryoko had pulled out a
couple of sheets of paper from behind her back, and was looking over
them quite thoroughly. "I wrote you a story. 'cause. you taught
me about them. Stories, I mean. You taught me what they meant, and the
feelings that go into them. I couldn't think of a way to show you my
feelings other than to write them all down, so. I wrote this for you.
Would you like to read it?"

"No, go away," Washu sighed, pounding a fist down on the top of the
console and pressing her face to the glass. Her voice reached pitches of
desperation and she breathlessly began to cry pitifully. "Please,
Ryoko, I just want to be left alone,"

"Washu, are you okay?" Ryoko asked, starting to hover forward so
that she might aid her mother.

"Just go away!!!" Washu cried.

"Alright," Ryoko said, shuffling the pages in her hands. "You know
what? I'll read it to you,"

"No." Washu whimpered. "Go away. want to be. alone,"

"I don't think for a second that you really mean that," Ryoko
said, sorting through the pages in an attempt to get to the right one.
"Here we are."

"Ryoko, no." said Washu.

"Once upon a time," Ryoko read from the scribbled words on the
papers in front of her. "There lived a man called Jerry. He was nice
and funny. Washu found Jerry and they liked each other. Washu had a
daughter called Ryoko who had blue hair that was also nice. Ryoko had a
tail sometimes. Ryoko was sad because Washu and Jerry were happy
together. Washu loved Jerry. Jerry loved Washu. Jerry died and Washu was
sad. Everybody was sad because Washu was sad because Jerry had died.
Even Ryoko was sad, more sad than most other people. Ryoko was very,
very sad. Her tail was sad, too. Washu was sad. Tenchi and all the
others were so sad. Jerry would have been sad if he were alive.
Everybody in the whole world was sad. Washu said to Ryoko. I love
Jerry. She had never been able to tell Jerry that when he was alive.
This made everybody sad."

"This is the worst story I ever heard!" Washu snarled, jumping from
her place on the cushion and stealing the pages from Ryoko. "Stop
reading it, you idiot! You can't write! You can't do anything!
You're useless!"

"And then." Ryoko said, tears falling from her golden eyes like
rainfall as Washu began to tear to shreds the story that she had worked
on for days. She didn't need to read the final sentences of the story
from a sheet of paper, for she had it embedded in her heart. ".
Ryoko said, I love Jerry too. Because he makes you happy, Washu. And
that's something I've never been able to do, no matter how hard
I've tried,"

Washu stopped her furious shredding of the story Ryoko had just read
aloud and looked down to the scraps of paper at her feet. For an
instant, she felt totally paralysed. She couldn't move or speak; her
heart had been so moved by what Ryoko had just said that actual motion
was an impossibility. Looking at the scraps of paper, she could see
exactly what she had been doing. She was tearing to pieces all she
really loved, all the things that Jerry would have given anything to
hold onto. Success, love, a family, friends. she had tried to sever
her connection with it all. And she knew at that moment that Jerry would
never have approved of her actions. and neither did she. In fact, her
actions up to this point had gone against everything she stood for.
Immediately, she rushed over to the console and clicked on the word
"No". To her relief, the information she had just stolen returned to
its respective sources, and she felt whole again. all thanks to her
own daughter.

"Ryoko," Washu smiled, looking at Ryoko through the corner of her
eye. "You make me very happy indeed,"

"I do.?" Ryoko asked, placing a hand to her chest.

"Yes, you do," Washu switched off the console and turned to Ryoko,
putting her hands on her hips and grinning with pride. "You're my
greatest, most wonderful creation!"

"Really?" Ryoko smiled.

"Well, maybe my second greatest," Washu chuckled. "I did make a
really good toaster once that had much better table manners than you
do,"

"Oh, Washu!" Ryoko snorted, blushing profusely. "You don't know
how much that means to me,"

"What, that I could make toast?" Washu asked. "Well, I guess it is
pretty handy for when you're hungry. see, that's another way it
was better than you. Man, come to think of it, so many of my inventions
are better than you are!"

"You'd better be kidding," Ryoko sidled up next to Washu and sat
down on the floating cushion beside her, taking Washu by surprise.
"Because, you know, if you're not, I'll have to systematically
destroy every invention in this laboratory until I really am the
greatest,"

"You're such a lug, Ryoko," Washu snickered, grabbing Ryoko by the
cheek. "But if it'll save my precious lab, then I'll say it.
You're a far greater creation than any one device inside this entire
solar system of inventions. I'm far more proud of you than I am of
this entire subspace laboratory, nothing even comes close to matching my
love for you,"

"That's more like it," Ryoko smiled, yanking herself out of the
scientist's grip.

"Except for maybe the toaster," Washu mumbled.

"Why you!" Ryoko laughed, grabbing the cushion out from underneath
them both and starting to whack Washu across the head with it softly.
"I'll give you toast, you big fat idiot!"

"Ow, hey, cut it out!" said Washu, laughing right along with Ryoko
as she ducked out of the way. Shielding her face from the cushion's
blows, she grinned with her eyes at Ryoko and winked a couple of times.
"Wanna see one of my other favorite inventions?"

"I'm not hungry, and I don't like toast," Ryoko replied, putting
the cushion back in its place in front of the console.

"No, not that one," Washu smiled to herself, looking towards a
distant tower of mechanical equipment. "A different one. a really
wonderful design, I was reminded of it when I was just looking through
the Science Academy's databanks. I think you'd get a real kick out
of it, little Ryoko. Wanna take a look see?"

"What kind of invention?" Ryoko asked.

**

The grinding of heavy machinery filled the air, and converged with the
hiss of huge amounts of steam to form a solid, almost unbearable noise.
The sound accompanied the shifting apart of two huge metal doors,
adorned with images and engravings of countless tiny Washu figurines
that danced through landscapes that blended with each other to form a
constant flow of intertwining backdrops. The doorway seemed to scrape
the very skyline, and a number of ages seemed to pass as they slowly
retracted into their appropriate positions, leaving a gaping entrance of
sorts in the towering mechanism. Ryoko felt Washu placing a hand on the
small of her back, urging her to move forward into the tower. She
complied, albeit gingerly.

"Washu, what is this thing?" Ryoko asked, after she had stepped into
what seemed to be a portal of oblivion. There was a haze of grey upon
everything except for herself and Washu. The insides of the tower hummed
and vibrated as if the building itself was alive, and it was more than a
little eerie standing within it. Gadgets and gizmos zipped upwards and
down on thick leather vines of luminous cable, their mechanical
exteriors straddling the surface of the tower as they ascended to the
highest limits of the gigantic mechanism. It felt as if a giant,
metallic creature had devoured both Ryoko and Washu whole, and they were
looking up through the throbbing digestive tract of the beast. Across
the very tip of the tower was a convexly curved screen wedged deep into
the darkness. The only parts of the screen Ryoko could actually make out
without squinting were the very edges that were tinted with a blue-green
light as the gadgets below scraped and buzzed at the sides as part of
their dubious task. It was one of the few times Ryoko had actually found
herself marvelling at one of Washu's creations. Maybe she was just
feeling slightly ill or something. "Well, what is it?"

"Oh, you really wanna know, huh?" Washu asked, leaning over a block
of black matter than had risen out of the ground. She was fiddling with
some colored lights on the top of the block, but Ryoko had no idea what
they were for.

"Yes, that's why I asked," Ryoko said, looking over Washu's
shoulders at the colored lights. "What are you doing, playing Simon?"

"Hush, girlie," Washu smirked, placing the palm of her hand across
all of the lights, highlighting the blood vessels in her fingers. All of
a sudden, the screen above them both began to lower and fizzle into
life. It slid so far down that Ryoko felt sure it was about to squash
them, the juices being squeezed from their bodies like they were tiny
grapes. But, fortunately, it stopped about fifteen feet above their
heads.

"Washu, would you mind explaining?" Ryoko asked, growing quite
impatient.

"Only if you call me. Little Washu!" Washu laughed, feeling good
about herself.

"Ugh," Ryoko didn't really share her level of ecstasy. "Fine,
LITTLE Washu. Would you mind letting me on in what this machine does?"

"Alrighty, Ryoko!" said Washu, removing her hand from atop the block
of dark matter. As Ryoko watched, the block once again descended into
the floor and disappeared. "What you're standing in is a sort of
telescope that can we can use to look into other dimensions or to be
more specific, parallel universes,"

"So, you're saying you're going to let me spy on Tenchi with this
thing, when he's taking a bath?" Ryoko asked, her attention suddenly
rising ever so slightly.

"No, you silly girl," Washu frowned. "This machine is to be used
for scientific purposes only. Besides, when Tenchi's in the bath,
I'm the one who uses it,"

"Oh, I-. huh?" Ryoko blinked. "Hey, wait a minute!"

"Anyway, as I was saying," Washu coughed, turning away from Ryoko.
"A parallel universe is a world not dissimilar to our own, it may have
people and places very much akin to the ones you see every day. However,
there will always, in every case, be one or more glaring differences,"

"You mean, you might actually be likeable in one of these parallel
universes?" Ryoko asked.

"Ahem," said Washu. "Most of the time, these differences are the
result of a choice someone has made in their past. Every time a choice
is made, their life splits off into branches. Each of those branches
effects the outcome of their lives, their status and relationships. By
using this device, I can see what our lives would have been like if
I'd made different choices compared to the ones I ended up making.
would you like to watch with me?"

"Hmm," Ryoko contemplated the notion. "So, you're saying there
might be a parallel universe out there with me inside, and I might be
married to Tenchi in it?"

"Well, I have it set to my life patterns," Washu explained.
"It'll only focus on the parallel worlds where I'm a factor, so
that doesn't necessarily mean that we'll get to see you in it every
time. Hey, maybe we'll see one where I'm the one who's married to
Tenchi!"

"Don't bet on it," Ryoko growled. "I'm really starting to go
off this idea,"

"Okay, okay," said Washu. "When we're done looking through all
of my alternate realities, we'll look through yours. That a deal,
little Ryoko?"

"Fine," Ryoko sulked. "But if it shows you doing obscene things
with my Tenchi, I'm looking away,"

"Hey, you never know, it might give you some ideas as to how it's
supposed to be done," Washu grinned.

"Bah! Like I'd need lessons from you!" Ryoko scoffed.

"Let's just get to it, okay?" Washu said.

"Um. get to. what?" Ryoko blushed.

"Not that! The demonstration," Washu said, pressing a few buttons on
a control pad that lowered from the side of the tower walls. "Here
goes."

A tiny pinprick of white light appeared at the far back of the screen,
which now appeared to be more like a lens. The light slowly grew larger
and larger, until Ryoko finally realized that rather than simply growing
bigger, it was coming towards them at an incredible rate. In fact, it
was moving so fast that by the time it had absorbed the entire lens with
its projection, Ryoko hadn't even begun to take in all the information
it was displaying. The lens had been filled with a myriad of
three-dimensional cube-like panels, they were so innumerable that it
would have probably taken a lifetime to look into and take into account
the events being depicted inside them all. Nevertheless, Ryoko and Washu
were indeed able to view the important impressions given to them by the
otherworldly guardians of the differing dimensions.

In one of the holographic cubes, they saw Washu sitting alone at a desk
at the Science Academy, still a professor after all this time. She
appeared to be very lonely, and Washu and Ryoko both got to wondering if
she'd even created Ryoko in the reality they were now seeing. In
another cube, they saw her trapped on Kagato's ship, the Soja. She was
a prisoner, and Ryoko was Kagato's slave. Tenchi had never come to
save Washu, because it seemed Yosho had never chased Ryoko's ship to
planet Earth. They both looked on in horror as Washu was subjected to
the torture Kagato placed upon Ryoko's head, as he commanded her to do
his bidding. Entire planetary systems were wiped out by Ryoko's
incessant, unyielding wrath, and it became quite apparent that Kagato
was well on his way to being the most powerful force in the universe.
They turned their attention to a different cube, and yet another
alternate reality was revealed to them.

In this one, they saw Washu in an apparently much more comfortable state
of mind. She was in the arms of Jerry, the one she loved. Watching this,
Washu felt a little embarrassed having to stand next to her own daughter
while her feelings for him were so on display, but she didn't mind.
She didn't mind at all. It was quite lovely. and Ryoko seemed to
have no problem with it.

That was, of course, until they realized Ryoko was nowhere to be seen in
this reality. Then, it dawned on them; she wasn't in it because she
was still trapped in the simulation chamber. Washu had chosen a
different path, one where she hadn't gone to help Ryoko and had
instead decided to be with Jerry in his time of grave need. In doing so,
Ryoko's mind had been erased, and she had been forced to lose her grip
on reality while trapped in an imaginary world of make-believe. Those
weren't tears of happiness in Washu's eyes, for she was mourning
alongside Jerry for the death of her only daughter. Had Washu told him
about her past? If so, had he understood? Had he been able to tell her
of his true feelings? From such an image, they could not tell. Needless
to say, Washu didn't seem happy anymore, even though she had her arms
around the man she loved.

"Oh my," Ryoko said under her breath. "That's so awful. You
could have been with him and stopped him from killing himself. but you
would have lost me in the process. Washu, I'm so sorry,"

"Don't be," Washu replied. "I made that choice knowing perfectly
well what the repercussions might have been. There's nothing you could
have done to change what I decided. It's not your fault, my Ryoko. If
given the chance. I know I would go back and save you again, even if
it meant losing Jerry,"

"You mean that.?" Ryoko asked, looking down at the scientist. It
wasn't something she'd expected to hear. but somehow, she knew it
to be true before she'd even asked for confirmation. "Washu,
that's."

"Forget about it," Washu shrugged, wiping away a tear before it had
the chance to fall down the side of her face. "I would never have been
truly happy again if I'd let you go like that."

"But Washu, you had a chance to be with him," said Ryoko. "True
love is so hard to come by. I know that you loved him, how can you say
you would gladly give up your own heart, your own soul, just so you
could have me around? I know if I had a choice between saving Tenchi or
saving a pest like me, I'd choose Tenchi."

"Ryoko." Washu replied. She scoured the cubed images for a single,
solitary glimpse of a life where both Jerry and Ryoko would exist at the
same time. She could not find one. "There's something you just
don't understand. To love Jerry, or anybody else, I would need to have
a heart. Losing you would surely break my heart to the extent that it
would never work again,"

"And losing him hasn't?" Ryoko asked.

"No, it hasn't," Washu looked up to Ryoko and smiled through
shining eyes. "If anything, it has resealed all those open wounds I
had in my spirit. Knowing him was a once in a lifetime chance, and I
took it, and I'm damn sure proud I did. Just like I'm proud of all
the other choices I've made, all the other decisions I've taken.
Meeting him. loving him has brought me closer to myself, and to you,
Ryoko. It has made me far more appreciative of the life I have shaped
with my own two hands. He showed me true love, an undying love. to me,
he will always be alive in my heart,"

"Must be real cramped in there," Ryoko replied, looking to Washu's
chest and smiling back at her. "Big guy like him needs space to
breathe,"

"Well, he'll make do," Washu grinned. "Did you want to look at
your alternate realities, Ryoko?"

"You know," Ryoko said, her mind seemed to be somewhere far away,
like they'd landed on some unknown shore that she'd never explored
before. "I don't think I need to see them. I wouldn't want to see
all those versions of me that hadn't met Tenchi. I'm lucky enough as
it is just to know him. Seeing myself without him won't make me
appreciate that anymore than I already do, and if there was a Ryoko out
there that had found Tenchi's heart before I did. well, what'll
that change? Love isn't a race, and I'm happy knowing that somewhere
there's a part of myself that's closer to Tenchi than I am. Thank
you, Washu,"

"Thank me. for what?" Washu asked.

"For understanding me," Ryoko said, crouching down and looking at
her mother eye to eye. "And for continuing to love me in spite of what
I am at times,"

"No problem, Ryoko," Washu replied, and with a giggle she turned off
the giant telescopic machine. The doors behind them opened, enveloping
them both in the near blinding glow of the laboratory. "O' course, I
can hardly expect you to do the same for me. What with me being so
mind-boggling and complex and all,"

"Bah, you're a runt, and you know it," Ryoko snorted as she
floated out through the doorway and into the obscure world of gadgetry.

"Yeah, but I'm adorable," Washu said, watching her daughter go.
When she felt sure Ryoko had gotten out of earshot, she turned her head
skywards and silently thanked the Gods above for their admirably askew
vision of how things should be. They really knew what they were doing.
"Aren't I, Jerry?"

She stepped out of the shadows and began to pick up the torn remains of
Ryoko's story, as she slowly began to glue her life back together
again, piece by piece. The laboratory felt warm and welcoming once more.

**

Silence.

All Kiyone had known was the silence. It was all she could remember.
That and the really uncomfortable itching feeling in her left thigh, but
other than that.

Silence.

It filled the air with its presence, letting her in on the utter
loneliness. It was like the cold, hard elbow of the grim reaper nudging
into her rib cage while the harbinger of doom himself attempted to wink
at her (good luck with that, since you have no eyelids, Mr. Death, sir).

Silence.

The lack of sound was so overwhelmingly loud, it penetrated deep into
her brain cortex and prevented her from being able to think or visualize
how exactly she had gotten into such a dark, dank, and dismal place.

Silence.

A word that held such prominence that it almost seemed to deserve its
own little paragraph all to itself.

Silence.

I said almost.

Kiyone awoke from the sarcastic narration that pounded inside her head
like an arrogant British man struggling to find his muse, and tried to
find the source of the silence. To do such a thing would usually seem
fruitless, but since it was the only thing she knew was a tangible
certainty, it was really all she could do. So she looked for whatever
was causing the silence. and then realized that it truly was
fruitless. Stupid, too.

"Where. am I?" Kiyone asked. She couldn't see. She'd gone
blind! Oh, wait. she had her eyes closed. No, she still couldn't
see. She was immersed in a pitch-black capsule of some sort, rectangular
and box-like. Underneath her back, she could feel soft material. like
a bed. Using her unparalleled deductive powers, she concluded that she
was indeed lying in bed. Except this was no ordinary bed. This she
discovered when she attempted to rise out of it and knocked her head
against the steel covering overhead. "Ow! Damn it, I can't see a
thing. what's going on?"

"Our subject is awake," a muffled voice from outside the capsule
responded to her question. Kiyone wondered who was speaking, and who in
the galaxy their 'subject' could have been. Then, the lid of the
capsule abruptly raised to reveal herself surrounded by scientists
dressed in white and green uniforms, their faces covered with protective
gear. Gradually, it dawned on Kiyone.

"Oh," said Kiyone. "That subject would be me, huh?"

"It can talk!" one of the scientists exclaimed, fainting dead away.

"Of course it can talk, Keiko," another scientist, one that wore
extra special PINK protective gear, told the nerve-wracked member of the
crew. "You'd already deduced that in the report you gave me,
remember?"

"I did?" Keiko the lesser scientist asked, getting up. "Oh, uh,
yeah. my report. The one I did. and not the one I gave to Sawako to
finish for me 'cause it was late,"

"Yeah," said another scientist, the aforementioned Sawako (as it
stated on her nametag). "And not the one I gave to Yasu to finish for
me to give back to you. not that one at all,"

"Wait," Yasu said, pressing a gloved finger to her exposed chin (the
only part of their bodies that could be seen through such ridiculous
outfits). "You gave me Keiko's report? But I gave it to her so she
could do it for me to give to you, Sawako!"

"Oops," Sawako giggled. "But it doesn't matter, 'cause this
isn't even the report we're talking about!"

"Sure isn't!" Keiko laughed, nervously.

"Are you girls quite through?" asked the head scientist, whose name
was apparently Hiromi. "We must address our subject and discover what
secrets it has retained over the many years,"

"Where am I?" Kiyone asked, sitting up in bed. She looked around and
saw they were in a white room. wait, it wasn't entirely white. It
was a very light shade of pink, all over. Even the furniture was pink.
Kiyone looked down at herself. she was wearing pink overalls! "What
the Hell is going on around here? Who the Hell are you people? Why do
you like pink so much?!"

"Do you have a name, oh precious subject?" Hiromi asked. "Or shall
we simply call you One Who Does Not Like Pink Very Much At All.?"

"Eh-heh," said Kiyone, rubbing her eyes. "My name. well, I'm
Detective first-class Kiyone of the Galaxy Police. Speaking of which,
why don't you contact the Galaxy Police and have them come and get me?
You guys are gonna be in big trouble when they find out you've
abducted such a high ranking officer,"

"The. Galaxy Police?" said Hiromi.

"Yeah, does that ring a bell?" Kiyone grunted, scratching at her
pink overalls as if her very skin were allergic to the cutesy color.
"Rulers of law and order in the universe and all that. They probably
have many outposts in this sector, and as soon as they find out about
this, they'll be all over you guys like ugly on an ape!"

"Aww, she hurt Mr. Fuzzles feelings," Keiko whimpered, tending to
one of the test cases to Kiyone's left that happened to be a very
distraught monkey. "There there, you're a handsome ape,"

"I'm afraid we've not heard of this. Galaxy Police, you call
it?" Hiromi asked, leaning forward and loosening the bonds that were
tying Kiyone's feet to the bed. "Here, let me help you. I think
you'll find there's a lot about our world that differs from the one
you come from."

"What are you talking about?" Kiyone frowned, throwing her legs out
from the capsule and getting to her feet. The floor felt surprisingly
warm beneath the soles of her bare feet. "You've never heard of the
Galaxy Police? What are you, some kind of airhead?"

"Why, that is the name of our people!" Hiromi squeaked, clapping her
hands together and placing a small golden star on Kiyone's overalls.
"You are a clever little test subject, aren't you?"

"What?!" Kiyone spluttered, tearing the star from her clothes.
"Look, buddy! I don't know who you girls think you are, but all the
planetary systems in this sector, as well as a great percentage of all
other sectors in the known universe, are under the jurisdiction of the
Galaxy Police! What planet is this, anyway? Answer me!"

"You have come a long way, from unknown lands." Hiromi said,
placing an arm around the slightly disconcerted detective. The two of
them stepped through a sliding doorway that led into a grand hallway
filled with people all bustling this way and that. people who looked
awfully familiar. "You're going to see a lot of strange and
wonderful things in our world. Most of them pink. Isn't that great?"

"Who are you people.?" Kiyone asked, agape. "Tell me, how did I
get here?!"

"Our Goddess, the great and powerful Washu, brought you to us,"
Hiromi explained, leading Kiyone down a corridor that branched off from
the main hallway. The walls of the corridor seemed to twist and fold
like pages of a storybook, curling above their heads in a fanciful
flurry of delicious design. It was like walking through a cake. All
around them, people would stop and greet them politely and cheerful.
and very, very loudly. before stumbling off to their places of work.
Strangely, they were all female. and they all had blonde hair. "Like
She has brought to us so many other things in the past, like the ability
to live in peace and harmony. wearing cute outfits!"

"You people. you all look just like Mihoshi!" Kiyone gasped,
diving against the wall and clinging to it for dear life. She felt very
faint, and veins pulsed in her forehead as she tried to come to terms
with the situation.

"You know Lady Mihoshi?" asked Hiromi, suddenly becoming even more
interested than before. She removed her protective face gear and, sure
enough, she too had the exact likeness of Mihoshi for a face. A hush
went over the entire corridor as blonde haired citizens of this
candy-coated metropolis came to a stop beside them and stared with
wonder through bright blue eyes. "Then you must have come from a time
even further into the past than we had anticipated!"

"What do you mean? What time? What are you talking about?" Kiyone
babbled as she shook her head from side to side, trying to get a hold of
herself.

"Millions of years ago," Hiromi began. "Or was it thousands of
years. oh, I can never remember that part. Anyway, it was a while ago.
certainly more than a few days ago. Because I remember the other day the
sun was shining, but in the Legend the sun hadn't been created yet and
the world was in its infancy, so it couldn't have been recently, now
could it? Ha-ha!"

"Stop talking like Mihoshi!" Kiyone snarled. "Just. tell. me.
what. happened!"

"Oh, I'm sorry," Hiromi bowed. "It was a long time ago, and the
great and lovely Goddess Washu gave our world life. Well, She gave a
world life. but then Lady Mihoshi stumbled into Her grand throne room
and tipped over a bottle of the purest eternal-life giving elixir, and
got it all over her and even inside her clothes! Yuck!"

"Ewww!" the entire crowd of Mihoshi-ites echoed in unison.

"Anyway, this caused Lady Mihoshi to have the ability to give birth to
her very own race of people, created from her own image!" Hiromi said.
"And the great and wise Goddess Washu said. Oh, you airhead, Lady
Mihoshi! And so it is written in the Book of Lore that we, the Airhead
people, are to continue her grand tradition of. of. well, nobody
really reads that book, so we're not quite sure what it is that
we're supposed to be doing. But the pictures in it are pretty!"

"Mmm-hmm!" the other Mihoshi-ites nodded in agreement.

"A planet where Airheads evolved from Mihoshi?!" Kiyone cried,
falling to her knees. "It's a madhouse! A madhouse!"

"Yeah, so anyway," Hiromi beamed. "We received an offering from
the great and splendid Goddess Washu in thanks for our plentiful
sacrifices over the years,"

"We had to sacrifice our hair," whimpered one of the many
Mihoshi-ites who just happened to be bald.

"No pain, no gain, I guess," Kiyone shrugged. "So what did Wash-.
I mean, what did the great Goddess Washu give you guys in return for
your, uh, sacrifices?"

"It was a jar of the most exquisite, most lovely, most delectably soft
peaches in the entire universe!" Hiromi replied. "They say that if
you eat one, it will give you the power to live forever! Such is the
glory of the great and well endowed Goddess Washu!"

"Peaches.?" Kiyone blinked, her mind slowly coming to order.
"Wait a minute. I remember. Mihoshi sent those into the future by
mistake, didn't she!"

"Of course, we haven't actually been able to open the jar yet, so.
none of us have actually been able to give it a try," Hiromi giggled,
sweating a tad. "But, you know. the power of belief, and all that!
That's why we worship the great and adorable Goddess Washu,"

"What does the jar of peaches have to do with me being here?" Kiyone
asked.

"On the surface of this jar," said Hiromi. "We discovered tiny
skin and hair particles; particles which were used to recreate your body
and your brain to the finest detail. Even your memories from up until
that point were duplicated, thanks to the technology given unto us by
the great and available Goddess Washu. Oh, wait, that's the title we
give Her when the masculine God of Sexual Prowess arrives on our planet,
wielding his throbbing sword as we get down on our knees and-."

"Enough!" Kiyone spat, shoving Hiromi aside. "I've got to get
out of here! You people are crazy! Your laws are insane and foolish,
you're a barbaric people. and really, really stupid! I'd try to
set your puny little minds free, but. I really don't want to!
You're kinda annoying, and I don't want to waste my time! Now.
where's the nearest exit?"

"That way, ma'am," the other Mihoshi-ites pointed down another
corridor. "We hope you enjoyed your stay on our planet,"

"Ha! See how easily fooled you all are?" Kiyone laughed, sprinting
off down the corridor. "I wanted you to tell me the way out, and you
did! What a bunch of morons."

"Wow," Keiko said to Sawako as they both watched Kiyone flee. "The
way she reacted, you'd think we were gonna imprison her and give her a
lobotomy or something,"

"Yeah," Sawako replied. "I guess some people just don't like
being made Queen of our world and getting given dozens of muscular
man-slaves to satisfy their every whim. Oh well, guess we'll just have
to wait for another offering from the great and darn sexy Goddess
Washu,"

"Is that one of her many titles? I don't remember hearing it
before," Keiko asked.

"Who said anything about a title?" Sawako blushed and turned to the
window, through which could be seen a gigantic statue of the one and
only Goddess Washu. "I mean, c'mon, I have eyes, don't I?"

"That's creepy, Sawako," Keiko blinked, as they both watched the
tiny figure of Kiyone scurry across the beach outside.

"It's madness, I tell you!" Kiyone screamed, running past
sunbathing Mihoshi-ites who regarded her with mild concern and cheerful
faces. "You're all insane! Stop looking at me!"

"Hey, come and play volleyball with us, lady," a Mihoshi infant
strode up to her and grabbed her by the hand, urging her to come and
join the fun.

"Take your stinking paws off me, you damn dirty Airhead!" Kiyone
scowled.

"Waaaah!" the child began to wail.

Suddenly, the seaside locale began to fill with an entirely new sound. A
familiar sound that reverberated through Kiyone's nightmares
sometimes, a sound she'd never been able to forget since she joined
the Galaxy Police. It was coming closer, and closer. and it was coming
from the skies above. Kiyone looked up, and just past the impossibly
huge statue of Washu, she could just make out the source of the noise
coming right at them.

"Oh no." she said, taking a step back. "It's Mihoshi's
shuttle!"

"Hooray!" the Mihoshi-ites cheered, running to the edge of the
crystal waters and waving at the light in the sky that became ever
larger as the noise grew louder. "Lady Mihoshi is paying us a visit!
Your Ladyship, over here! Come shine your love upon us!"

Kiyone ducked beneath a handy rock as the area filled with burning light
upon the sudden impact of Mihoshi's shuttle. Strangely, however,
Kiyone heard two explosions. One from the crash. and another from
something very large as it fell to the ground afterwards. Unable to
hazard a guess as to what had caused the second eruption of noise and
shock waves, Kiyone dared to take a peek out from behind the safety of
the cumbersome rock.

"My God." she whispered, surveying the carnage. Walking slowly and
without any specific purpose, she shifted across the beach and fell to
her knees in the weakened arms of the distant surf. Plunging a fist into
the wet sand, she cried out to nobody in particular. "You did it.
you finally, really did it. You maniacs! You blew it up! Oh. damn you!
Damn you all to Hell!"

Far above the wreckage of Mihoshi's shuttle, the now headless statue
of the Goddess Washu stood and heard Kiyone's miserable utterances
against humanity. But the most painful thing to look upon, was the head
of the statue that now lay in a heap on the beach itself, its eyes cast
outward to a place Kiyone had long since forgotten. Its spiky hair, like
the grassy fields of lady liberty, pointed to a memory that Kiyone had
lost a long time ago. To witness it was to cry out for her loss.

"Ha!" Washu laughed, witnessing it all from the comfort of her very
own subspace laboratory. "That Kiyone, she gets so emotional over
these things,"

She kicked back and watched the simulation chamber's lights slowly
refocus as it began the program once again, stuffing her face full of
noodles as she prepared to enjoy the show. Washu giggled, watching
Kiyone confront the Mihoshi people all over again, relishing every
hilarious reaction as the cameras within the chamber whirred and
recorded everything Kiyone did. Washu couldn't wait to show this
particular simulation to all her friends in the Masaki residence.

"Still, I guess I feel kinda bad that I had to knock her out and stick
her in the simulation chamber so forcefully. I mean, I could've
drugged her instead!" Washu snorted, spilling some noodles onto the
floor. "Man. it's great to be back to normal again,"

"You maniacs!" Kiyone screamed from within the simulation. "You
blew it up!"

"Yeah, yeah," Washu rolled her eyes. "Get to the part with the
male God and his throbbing sword. I don't even remember putting that
bit in! Woohoo!"

**

A day later at the Masaki house, and things had pretty much gone back to
normal. It was the first day of summer, and already the sky had turned a
dull shade of gold as the sun slowly began to set behind the dense
foliage of the forest. Little dabs of sunlight poked through the
branches, shining into the weary eyes of Princess Ayeka as she stood in
front of the kitchen window preparing supper for everyone.

"That's quite a sunset," she admired, filling the yellow kettle
with steaming hot water as she hummed to herself. In time, she turned
and placed a hand to her mouth so that she might address the others, who
were busy in the living room. "Supper's nearly finished, everyone!
Sasami, could you tell the others that everything's nearly ready?"

"In a minute, Ayeka!" Sasami replied with a wavering smile upon her
face, as she sat glued to the television alongside Mihoshi and a very
disgruntled Kiyone. "Wow, Kiyone, I had no idea you'd been to a
planet full of people who looked just like Mihoshi. How did you get off
it?"

"Let's just say I got a helping hand from Miss Washu," Kiyone
mumbled. She put her head in her hands and wished the images in her head
would go away. "Can we just watch TV in peace and quiet, please? I'd
really rather forget about it,"

"Hey, everybody!" Washu said, emerging from her laboratory.

"Miss Washu!" Sasami and Mihoshi both said.

"Yeah, hi," Kiyone grumbled.

"Why the long face, Kiyone?" Washu grinned. "Are those the thanks
I get for saving you from such a perilous situation?"

"You know, you could have waited until AFTER the masculine God of
Sexual Prowess had endowed me with his spiritual cleansing ritual,"
Kiyone muttered. "That's the kind of peril I signed up for in the
first place,"

"Now now, a rescue is a rescue," Washu nodded. "You were in
trouble, and I saved you, no ifs ands or buts about it. So, who wants to
watch the footage I took?"

"Oooh!" Sasami gasped. "Me, me! I wanna see!"

"Miaow!" said Ryo-ohki.

"You took footage.?" Kiyone asked.

"Yup, but don't worry," Washu said, handing the videotape to an
eager Sasami. "This is the PG-13 version, so Sasami's poor, innocent
eyes won't be forever scarred by that thing you did with Hiromi and
the mango fruit,"

"Hey, I was lonely!" Kiyone snarled. "You'd do the same if you
were stuck on a single gender planet for so long!"

"Oh, you are so right, Kiyone," Washu snickered, winking at the
Galaxy Police officer. "I mean, three hours is SUCH a long time to
wait for that kind of thing,"

"Why you." said Kiyone.

"Kiyone, I had no idea you liked mango fruits so much," Mihoshi
giggled, reaching into the bowl of fruit in front of them. "Wanna try
one of mine?"

"Uh." Kiyone blushed.

"Hmm," Washu stood there, wondering if there was more to their
partnership than met the eye. Kiyone was always complaining about
Mihoshi's lousy record as a detective, yet she never actually tried to
get herself a new, better associate. "Um. yeah, anyway. Has anyone
seen Tenchi? I need to talk to him,"

"Tenchi?" Sasami asked, looking up from the VCR. "I think he's
just outside on the patio,"

"Thanks, Sasami," said Washu, heading outside.

The evening breeze was cool against the side of her face as she stepped
into the lush red glow of fading sunlight and onto the tiled patio,
which glinted faintly below the sunset. She listened to the quiet,
hearing distant animal sounds and the brushing of tree branch against
tree branch like the noise of the deliberate tide as it gradually came
in and washed away the daytime. Already the sun had dipped its head
behind the treetops, but it was still looking over the world
inconspicuously, giving the trees a warm outline of brilliant orange.
Casually, Washu leant back against the wall of the house and playfully
scuffed the ground with one of her feet as she regarded the beauty of
her newfound home. She couldn't believe she'd come so close to
losing it.

"All's well that ends well, huh Tenchi?" she said to the young boy
whose presence she had felt. Sure enough, he was sat far to the right of
her on one of the wooden benches. He had something flat and
square-shaped in his arms, and he was holding it like a loved one.
Inquisitively, Washu sidled over to the bench and sat down on the very
far end from him.

"Little Washu," Tenchi said, smiling over at her. "I was about to
go clean the tombstones, but it was getting dark so I decided against it
for tonight. Looks like you're feeling a lot better now,"

"Yep," Washu replied. "It's amazing how forgiving people can
be."

"Sure is," Tenchi said. "Looks like everything's worked out for
you in the end. I'm sorry about what happened to Jerry, though. He
sounded like a really nice guy,"

"He was," said Washu. They could both see strange movement in the
forest, but neither felt any fear or apprehension towards it. Both of
them knew precisely what it was, and it warmed their hearts to watch it
dance from tree to tree using the powers Washu had so lovingly given to
it. "Ryoko. she was the most forgiving of you all. She forgave me
for so much. I don't know where she got the strength to do something
like that from,"

"Me neither," Tenchi said, looking down at the object in his lap.
"Maybe she got it from you,"

"Heh," Washu laughed, hiding how very flattered she felt. "Little
Sasami forgave me, as well. She's wise beyond her years, that one.
Ayeka, too. You all forgave me."

"You'd do the same for us," Tenchi said.

"Hmm," Washu trailed off. The gap between them seemed to be filled
with things they both wanted to say but couldn't quite sum up the
courage to get out of their systems. Finally, Washu decided to just
start over again. "Like I said. all's well that ends well,"

"I guess so," Tenchi said, his voice lacking certainty. "Until the
next time some otherworldly creature of unknown power comes and takes
one of us. Seems to be our lot in life,"

"Well, you know what they say," Washu chuckled, stretching back and
watching the stars slowly appear overhead. "Rescuing maidens from
subdimensional creatures and evil masterminds helps build character!"

"I had no idea they said that," Tenchi replied, smirking at the
little genius.

"I'm sure they do. somewhere or other," Washu said. "Anyway, I
guess it's only a matter of time before another entity from our past
comes along and kidnaps one of us. Who knows, maybe it'll be someone
from your grandpa's past next!"

"Could be, could be," said Tenchi. "Anything's possible,"

"As a scientist, I feel obliged to argue with that point," Washu
commented. "But since you're so cute, I'll let it slide this time!"

"Heh," Tenchi blushed. They were quiet for a long time, until Tenchi
finally got the guts to say something he'd been thinking throughout
the whole day. "He must have really loved you,"

"I believe he did," Washu said. "It was a shame that he ended up
doing that to himself, though. But in his mind, it was the only way to
keep on loving me without putting me in any danger. Even though he saw
me as an equal to him in every respect, he knew that everyone else would
think of me as just a little girl that he'd decided to act out his
perverse ways upon. He didn't want me to be seen like that by the
world, as some weakling that he'd taken advantage of. It was a shame
he felt so bad about loving me. but I don't think the world was
ready for Washu and Jerry just yet. Not in his lifetime, that's for
sure,"

"The world has to learn that love isn't just confined to a set age
group or race," Tenchi said to her. "That love has no category or
classification system that you can just set it to after a momentary
glance. But from the looks of things, it has a long way to go before it
figures that out,"

"It'll come around," Washu said, knowledgeably. "Someday,"

"I hope you're right," Tenchi said.

"Hope?" Washu spluttered in forced shock. "Remember who you're
talkin' to, Tenchi. I'm the greatest scientific genius in the
universe! You don't have to hope that I'm right. It's a done deal.
Now c'mon, show me a smile,"

"Believe me, I'd like to," Tenchi sighed, staring down at the
object in his hands. "But I'm too transfixed by this portrait of my
mother. I thought it would go away when everything had been resolved,
like it was just a nagging pain I was having about the importance of
motherhood or something. But it's still there, and I can't take my
eyes off it. Is there something wrong with me, Washu? Why do I keep
coming back to it?"

"Here, let me see," Washu said, taking the portrait out of his
trembling arms and examining it closely. "Hmm,"

"What is it? Do you see something?" Tenchi asked, leaning over her
and staring directly at the portrait in her lap.

"Heh-heh-heh," Washu giggled.

"What's so funny?" Tenchi asked. "Do you see something or not,
little Washu?"

"Her uniform," Washu said, pointing to the clothes his mother was
wearing in the portrait.

"What about it?" Tenchi frowned.

"It's on back to front," Washu looked sideways at him and grinned.

"What.?" Tenchi blinked. He couldn't believe it. but that was
it. As soon as he noticed that Washu was right, and that his mother's
uniform was indeed on the wrong way round, his surreal feelings of
complex captivation just faded away and left him with a warm feeling of
comfort in the pit of his stomach. He began to laugh right along with
Washu as they both held the portrait in their hands. "That's it?
Haha! I can't believe it,"

"Makes you wonder what she and Nobuyuki had been up to before this
thing was painted, doesn't it?" said Washu between hearty bouts of
laughter.

"That's so weird," said Tenchi, blushing. "Because I could've
sworn I thought it was going to end up being something really
important,"

"There are very few things more important than the beauty of the human
spirit," Washu said, softly.

"Huh?" said Tenchi. "Washu, what was that?"

"Sometimes in life," Washu began, turning away from him. "The
world gives people disguises that they are forced to wear, whether they
want to or not. They end up hiding behind them for a great many years,
and only someone truly in touch with their human spirit can look past
them and see the good within. Jerry was fat and quiet, but he was one of
the most selfless, caring men I've perhaps ever come across. I could
see it in him, even if he could not. Likewise, he could see inside of me
that which I choose to hide from the world. and from myself. I think
he saw a part of me I thought I'd lost a long time ago, and brought it
back to life within my soul. That is the power of the human spirit,
being able to look right to the source of a human heart. no matter
which way they wear their uniforms,"

"I don't. understand," said Tenchi, delicately taking the
portrait from Washu.

"Sometimes we make decisions, Tenchi," Washu replied, sounding on
the verge of tears. Though her body remained resolute the whole time,
and not once did Tenchi see her quiver or tremble, he could still sense
she was in need of friendly support. "And sometimes decisions are made
for us by the world. Nevertheless, these are the things that shape our
very being. Very often, the disguise is so prominent and bulky that
it's hard to see anything else. The bad choices we've made. they
weigh us down and bring us so close to self-destruction. But the
important thing is not to regret a single moment, Tenchi. Never regret
the choices you've made in your lifetime. I know that I don't,"

"What about Jerry. did he.?" Tenchi swallowed.

"Once, I think he did regret a great deal of his life," Washu
sighed. "But I gave him something he didn't have to regret. He felt
so confident in his true self when he was around me that he was able to
cast off his disguise. but it was too late for him. I do know now that
he had not an ounce of regret in him when he died, just love. His
overpowering love was what killed him, and that was the tragedy of our
relationship. He could not love me even if he wanted to,"

"And do you regret never having told Jerry about your feelings for
him?" Tenchi asked.

"Actually, I think he knew," Washu said. "We both knew, somehow.
And if I were to regret but a second of the time I spent by his side, it
would defile our memory together and take away its meaning. I am
thankful for every moment I spent with him,"

"Still, it must be tough," Tenchi said. "There's so much of your
life that you can't even remember to regret,"

"That doesn't bother me at all," Washu turned to him. She was
smiling, he noticed, even though her voice sounded so filled with
trepidation. Her eyes were a little puffy around the edges, and her lips
were pursed as she spoke. but still she retained that sense of
confidence that was so particularly associated with her voice. "My
life has been like a dream I've long since forgotten about, or a
puzzle that I can't find all the pieces to. Lately, I've been
wondering whether or not it was all one big, long nightmare. or if,
when all the pieces have come into place, the puzzle might be as hideous
as that word 'regret'. But slowly, I'm learning that the best is
yet to come. The dream hasn't ended yet, and I'm still slipping from
one blissful chapter to another, never hesitating to turn the page and
confront those unseen mysteries that lie around the bend,"

"Little Washu," Tenchi smiled at her.

"And although I've never been able to remember the happier times
from my past, as plentiful as they were," Washu said. "I know that
they exist, and it's only a matter of time before they come floating
back to me on a righteous wind of recollection,"

She stared up at the stars. Every constellation winked at her as if in
agreement, and as she watched them twinkle, a strange feeling overcame
her senses and she could remember. she could remember a time when she
had been at her happiest. It filled her with joy to look upon the memory
again, for it had been lost for so long that it felt like she was
experiencing it all over again. Places and people flashed by her sight
as she remembered. she remembered that wonderful moment.

"Why, even now I'm remembering a GREAT time in my life!" Washu
exclaimed, wrapping her arms around herself and taking in the sweet
sensations. Her laughter was like early morning birdsong to Tenchi,
awakening with the world as the moon rose lazily above them. "Oh,
Tenchi, wait 'till you hear this! It was about eighteen thousand years
ago, and I was. oh, I know! I'm gonna go get us some soda so we can
drink it while you hear about what happened to me all those years ago.
You're really going to love it, don't go anywhere, okay?"

"Alright," Tenchi nodded, scooting back on the bench in anticipation
as he watched Washu re-enter the house.

"Miss Washu," Ayeka said as Washu came into the kitchen. Nobuyuki,
Sasami, Kiyone, and Mihoshi were all there waiting for supper to be
served, as was little Ryo-ohki. "Could you do something for me?"

"Sorry, Ayeka," Washu smirked, reaching into the fridge and pulling
out two cans of soda. "I may be the greatest scientific genius in the
universe and all, but even I can't make your cooking taste nice,"

"Not that!" Ayeka stamped her foot, trying to silence the laughter
that now filled the room. "I need you to go and get Lord Tenchi and
that monster woman you call a daughter, and let them know that supper is
ready,"

"No problem," Washu bowed and then left. Heading through the living
room, she started off towards the patio doors, but was caught in
mid-step by the sound of voices outside. She pressed her ear close to
one of the windows and listened closely to them. It was Ryoko and
Tenchi, and through the darkness she could see them both sat side by
side on the bench that Washu had just previously been occupying with the
Juraian prince.

"Isn't the night sky beautiful, Tenchiiii?" Ryoko giggled,
wrapping an arm around the boy and squeezing his shoulders tightly. She
sounded slightly tipsy and, in confirmation of her suspicions, Washu saw
that she was holding a half-full sak‚ bowl in her free hand.
"Heh-heh, makes me feel all. romantic! Don't you feel romantic
too, Tenchi?"

"I feel something," Tenchi grumbled.

"You do?" Ryoko blinked, looking down at his crotch. "How're you
doing that when your hands are both by your sides, then?"

"That's not what I meant," Tenchi sighed.

"The stars are so pretty!" Ryoko said, taking another swig of sak‚.
"You know, Washu told me a story about the stars. No, wait. that's
not it. Yeah, I remember now, it was about the moon! She told me. that
you can see the shadow of some kinda rabbit on the surface of the moon
pounding rice. because. uh. I guess I wasn't really listening to
her when she told it,"

"That's an old Japanese legend," Tenchi said. "About the deity
Taishakuten coming to Earth as an old man and testing the love and
compassion of three animals in a world filled with hatred. Taishakuten
lay down on a road and pretended to be weary and starving from his long
journey, and begged the monkey, the fox, and the rabbit to give him
food. The fox and the monkey had no trouble, but the rabbit was so small
and weak that hunters and children would try to take pleasure in
bullying such a timid creature. The rabbit came back with nothing, but
asked the old man to make a small fire and continue to wait for him,"

"Uh-huh," Ryoko yawned, resting her head on Tenchi's shoulder.

"The fox and the monkey stood proudly by the old man," Tenchi said.
"Calling the rabbit useless because he hadn't been able to fetch
anything. Moments later the rabbit did indeed return, again with nothing
to offer the old man. So he jumped into the fire and, in an act of
self-sacrifice, made himself food for the old man. Taishakuten was
impressed and touched by such an act, and proclaimed that the rabbit
should be ascended to the moon, so that the humans would remember his
selfless act forever,"

"Tenchi." Ryoko sighed happily. "When you tell stories, it's
so much easier to listen and understand them than it is with Washu,"

"I guess," Tenchi blushed.

"That crazy girl," Washu whispered, smiling as she watched through
maternal eyes. She wouldn't have disturbed their moment for the world.
After all, it was better to create fresh memories of love than to recall
a time when love existed in a place that no longer held true to this
day. Instead, she turned around. and bumped straight into Ayeka.

"Did you tell them to come inside?" Ayeka asked.

"Uh. they're kinda. busy," Washu shrugged, knowing that Ayeka
was the kind of person to disturb such a memory before it had even been
set in stone. "So, why don't I help you serve the food and we can
all just-."

"That woman," Ayeka hissed, throwing open the patio doors. "Excuse
me! Ryoko, Lord Tenchi! Supper is ready, if you must know!"

"Piss off, Ayeka," Ryoko growled, scowling at the princess.
"Tenchi is enjoying himself alone with me,"

"Is this true, Lord Tenchi?" Ayeka asked, folding her arms in
disapproval as Washu listened in from behind her.

"Uh. well." Tenchi said, precariously. He clearly didn't want
to get the girls fighting this late at night, as that would have meant
the entire household would have to stay awake cleaning up through most
of the morning.

"Of course it is!" Ryoko frowned, wrapping her arm around Tenchi's
neck in a painful manner and placing the sak‚ bowl to his mouth. "We
were just drinking sak‚ together, until you rudely interrupted us! Now
go away,"

"Ryoko!" Tenchi sighed, removing his head from between her arms
after much struggling. "I don't want any sak‚,"

"You don't.?" Ryoko whimpered, her tail sagging beneath the
bench as she looked at him through tear-filled eyes. "Tenchi.!"

"An excellent choice if I may say so, Lord Tenchi," said Ayeka
smugly, as she turned and headed back to the kitchen. "After all, you
would only live to regret it if you stayed up all night drinking sak‚
with such a despicable character,"

"Huh?" Tenchi said.

"Why you. you bitch!" Ryoko snarled, as she began to levitate
after the girl. Before she could pursue the princess, however, Tenchi
grabbed a hold of her tail, stopping her in mid-air and pulling her back
down onto the bench beside him.

"Ryoko," Tenchi said, quietly.

"Tenchi, why do you always see her side?" Ryoko demanded, placing
her hand on her chest and blubbering like an infant. "She only does it
to hurt me, and then you always. you. you always."

"As I was saying," said Tenchi, taking the sak‚ bowl from Ryoko's
shivering hand. "I would love to drink some sak‚ with you,"

"You would.?!" Ryoko gasped, happily.

"But only a little," Tenchi smiled, taking a sip from the bowl.

"Oh, Tenchi! Tenchi!" Ryoko laughed, giving the man she loved a big
hug. "I'll never forget this moment,"

"Me either, Ryoko," Tenchi said, looking over Ryoko's shoulder at
Washu, who was watching from the shadows, and smiling at her. "Me
either,"

Washu scurried back into the house to remove herself from their private
memories, and across the living room she skipped daintily until finally
she landed inside the kitchen, wherein the others all feasted on the
less-than- appetizing meal that Ayeka had prepared. She opened the
refrigerator and placed the two unopened cans of soda back on their
special little shelf, laughing ever so slightly as the cold air from
within nibbled at her fingertips.

"I watched the weather report," Kiyone said through mouthfuls of
food. "It looks like it's going to be another hot summer day
tomorrow,"

"What about your weather guessing machines, Miss Washu?" Sasami
asked, halfway through feeding Ryo-ohki her share of the supper from
under the table. "I'm sure they'll be far more accurate, what do
they say?"

"Oh," said Washu, closing the fridge door and turning to them all.
She hadn't checked her weather instruments in weeks. "I'm sure
it's going to be beautiful,"

There, stuck to the refrigerator door like a school test result she'd
been exceedingly proud of, was the story Ryoko had written for her.
completely intact and as clumsily written as it ever had been. Washu
smiled and placed a hand across it, reading those final words one more
time before she sat down to eat with the others.

"I'm really looking forward to it," she said.

**

The End

(Same as it ever was)