Please don't kill me for this one folks.. my muse made me do it.. see the
explanation at the end of this..

Cost of Honor

By Kain The Seeker ( kaintskr@aol.com )

----
CMA Disclaimer:
[ indicates journal entry]
-indicates thoughts-
----

[Sometimes it suprises me just how much I have changed, and other times it's
not the change that suprises me bu the span in which it has taken to change so
much. Three centuries. Only three. Yosho spent seven watching me as I slept in
my tomb, then stood by for twenty years as Ayeka and I fought for Tenchi. He
spent five years waiting for me to return to Earth after I left Jurai.

Then he spent three centuries pounding a code into my head, one that I not
only needed but had spent all the time since Tenchi intruded into my sleep
looking for. 

Still, I look up at the stars as my child sleeps some nights and wonder what
the hell happened the other me? The one that reveled in the carnage Kagato set
me to.

I don't miss her, I just wonder what happened to her.

Now, I must the same madness that my old master suffered from and wonder if I
can stand in the way of such carnage with my honor intact.

Honor. Yosho, what did you do to me? No, what did I learn from you? 

The answer is already there. Honor. Now to pay the cost of for his lessons. ]

-From the journals of Ryoko Misaki, empress in exile.
----

It was once said that the halfling child on the throne of Jurai would spell
the end of the empire. Not prophecy but simple bigotry as first Yoshi and then
his grandchild Tenchi came into the position of First Prince.

Now with the capital city of Jurai in flames and the entire empire on the
brink of civil war, Ryoko wondered if it hadn't been a prophecy after all. She
shook her head, the picture of an Earth city came to mind as she wandered
through the carnage of the palace.

Rome, with it's ruler cheerfully playing away, as it burned. Another of the
many things that she had learned from Yosho in the time she had spent with
him. She knew more about Earth than any other living being on the planet, with
the exception of Yosho. She had taught it as well, venturing out of the Shrine
for a decade or so to teach or study in a new identity. She blamed the
academic habits she had picked up on her mother.

Now, Ryoko had returned again to Jurai. This time on a journey of vengence,
not the happy homecoming that she did when her voluntary exile grated on her
and the need to see loved ones became too much.

Everywhere she looked she saw the carnage that she had so feared made real. A
servant dead at his post, or a minor noble killed in manner that made her
hardened stomach twist and churn. With each such scene her rage burned higher
and higher. -This will end tonight.-

It was when she entered the family quarters that she truly thought she would
be sick. Ayeka Misaki, her cowife and the closest thing she had to a sister,
dead in ways that nearly broke her fragile hold on her temper. -No! I won't
lose it! That isn't the way to face him!-

"Ryo! Where are you demon!" She screamed as she eased her co-wife's eyes shut.
"Are you afraid to face me?!"

"Of course not, what do I need to fear of a knight of the realm?" Came the
voice behind her, silky and dignified. She would have never believed it's
owner capable of such depravity. "But I think that you had better curb your
tone, I am after all the Emperor of Jurai."

"Not while my husband lives, Monster!" She said as she turned, only to freeze
in place as the features finally made sense. "No.." she whispered in shock.

"Oh, but it is.." Ryo said as he stepped into the light. He lacked the height
and bulk, but the slender man had the eyes and features of her enemy. The one
being that Ryoko had truly feared beyond reason. "Surely you didn't think that
a mere welp would have killed me so easily?"

"You can't be, you.. you died decades before Ryo was born." Ryoko stammered as
she summoned her sword to her hand, the plasma field blinking into place with
a thought. "This cannot be."

"Oh, but it is. Did you ever check Empress Ayeka's DNA after she had been in
my tender care. No. You assumed that I would have just gone blindly into
oblivion with no possible contigencies." Ryoko closed her eyes as Ryo laughed
maniacally. -I was a fool! I knew what he was possible of and never thought to
have Washuu check..-

"Now, 'Aunt',"  Ryo Misaki, son of Tenchi and Ayeka , gestured grandly as he
circled around her. "shall we continue the fight that we started three hundred
and twenty years ago, before the whelp stepped in?"

"Yes," Ryoko growled as she circled around her foe, falling into the familiar
forms that she had learned under Yosho. "It's way overdue, Kagato!"
----
Tales of the battle between the Empress and her insane nephew would later
become the stuff of legends. The Jurai would tell of how the Empress,
distraught over the death of her sister Ayeka and near madness over her dying
husband,  fought like a thousand furies against the superior power of a Jurai
Emperor.

Others would cite that it was the fear of falling under the control the madman
Kagato again that drove her to new levels of power.

Still others would think aloud that maybe, in the days prior to the conflict,
she sought out her mother and asked for more power. In anticipation of a fight
that she knew she could not otherwise win.

All were good reasons and reasonable possiblities, but they were wrong. But
who could blame them? After all, the two combatants were the only ones that
could tell the truth of the matter.
---

Agony  like nothing she had felt in a thousand years burned through her guts
as  Ryo/Kagato slammed the Tenchi-Ken into her with a laugh.

"Oh, I have so dreamed about this day," He whispered to her, "it was the
thought that kept me warm as I wormed my way into primacy. It was this picture
that I showed Ryo as I burned him out of his own mind. He screamed so well as
I took his body and soul from him." Ryoko looked at Kagato and wept for the
young warrior that had once been, before teleporting to the other side of the
room.

The landing wasn't one of her best, she noted as she fell to one knee. Kagato
laughed as he batted aside her bolts one by one with appaling ease.

"I think you are about ready to die aren't you Ryoko?"

"Come and get me!" She said as she stood and summoned her sword to her. Only
to freeze in shock as he banished it with a gesture. -What?! That's not
possible!-

"Oh, Ryoko! I helped make you, did you really think that your powers could
stand against me?" Kagato laughed as she looked as her hand, feeling betrayed
by her birthrite. "You're nothing to me, nothing you can do will surprise me!
And I have surpassed you!" He lifted the Tenchi-ken up and stepped forward
slowly, savoring the fact that she was now his to do as he willed.

Ryoko reached within, clawing for the crimson power that had always been hers.
And finding nothing there. -Please!- She pleaded silently as Kagato stalked
towards her. -It can't end like this. He can't win!-
In that moment of panic and fear, she felt something within awake.

Not the sure strength of her gems, this wasn't the firey red power within that
she was used to. It was a soft gosamer feeling of connection with everything.
She looked up at Kagato, not hearing his taunts as he raised the blade for the
killing blow.

She was listening to other sounds, seeing sights that she had never realized
where there. In her new vision a shape formed in front of her. One that she
recognized. In disbelief she reached for it.

Kagato brought the blade down savoring the moment totally. His enemies fear
vanished as she reached up towards the falling blade and grasped something
unseen between them. In an explosion of light she brought it into being and
blocked the cut of the Tenchi-ken with practiced ease.

He fell back in disbelief as Ryoko pulled herself up by shear willpower. "No,
It's can't be. You can't possible do this."

"Oh, I think it's very possible don't you?" Ryoko said with a feline smile as
she brought her weapon to bear. 

"It's not for you! I'm the one that was supposed to have the power, not you!"
He screamed as he lashed out with a flurry of attacks only to have each
blocked by force screens that appeared just before he could hit her. Feelings
of d�j� vu rose unbidden as he lashed out with yet more blows as he retreated.
"I was supposed to have the Wings of the Light Hawk!"

"You want it?" Ryoko said as she summoned the wings into a familiar
configuration and collected all the energy of her foes attacks into one small
ball. "Take it!" she screamed as she channeled it all back at him.

The scream was short and cut off, but Ryoko knew she would hear it forever, as
she watched the body of her lost step son vanish under the assault of all the
massed energies she had released.

Standing there, looking over the ruins, Ryoko would have wept if all her tears
weren't already gone. 
---

Ryoko stood, in unneed restraints, as the council looked at her. They knew
part of what happened. Ryo Misaki, the Emperor, had gone mad and killed all
those he had encountered using his powers. Ryoko had faced him and in a duel
of powers killed him.

The facts that he was Kagato reborn or that she had used the Wings of the
Light Hawk were known by her, Tenchi and the Heir. Tenchi would never tell a
soul about that. He had died the night before from his injuries. Ryoko had
been there in the last hours, and told him everything.

He had forgiven her, and they had time to say goodbye before his passing.
Ryoko knew her tears would come later, if her punishment allowed her time to
morn.

Now, she awaited the ruling of the Heir for the crime of regicide.

The council parted as the Heir entered and motioned for them to sit. A
document was passed forward to the steward. He unfurled it and read for a
second before reading it to all that was assembled.

"The Heir, having reviewed all the facts and considered the situation in
depth, as well as observing the request of Emperor Tenchi, has decided that
leniency in this case is merited. The accused, Ryoko Misaki Empress of Jurai,
is guilty of regicide by her own admission. But she'll not be executed for
that crime, being as the victim was a Regicide as well.

Instead she will be stripped of titles, and rank and exiled from the
boundaries of the empire. Never to return. So has spoken the Heir, Lady Aya
Misaki daughter of the line of Tenchi and Ryoko."
----

Ryoko looked out the portal as the ship retreated further from Jurai. -I've
only seen it from orbit a dozen or so times, but I will miss it.-

"Lady Ryoko?" she looked to the small noble who was the captain of the ship.
"Where do you wish to go?"

Ryoko looked back to the portal, her hand rubbing over the gift she had been
given by a courier before her departure. "Earth." She said quietly, "Kagi,
please see that I am not disturbed till we arrive."

"As her ladyship wishes." He said as he withdrew with a bow.

Ryoko pulled the package out and looked at it for moments before pulling the
paper off of it. The Tenchi-ken sat in her hand, it's silent gossamer power
pulsing in her mind. She opened the note and read the few lines quietly to
herself.

"For the Guardian of Jurai's honor," her voice broke as she read her only
child's writing for the last time, "Ryoko Misaki." She finally broke down and
wept at her loss.
----

[Honor. Something I never really knew till I came to Jurai that first time. It
was honor and outrage that drove Yosho to chase me across the stars in a hunt
that would end on Earth. In that moment of anger with the Tenchi-ken buried in
my throat, his honor forced him on another path.

One that had him waiting a thousand years for the final out come. He had seen
all that was to come; Tenchi's birth, my reawakening, Kagato, all of it. In
that instant, he saw all possible outcomes, and knew the path to take.

I am not sure if I could have done what he did in that instant that he saw the
next thousand years, so many different paths to choose from, but I understand
why he did.

For Honor. No matter the cost.

Which is why I came back, to tend the shrine and teach the arts that he taught
me, and look up at the stars at night wondering about a child I will never
again see. For the path I walk is one I saw in that moment when I struck down
the reborn monster Kagato. I knew the cost of the Light Hawk Wings. To live in
honor was part, and I accepted it.

For in Honor, rests the salvation of all that Jurai, and Tenchi, stood for.

I think it's worth the cost.]

>From the journals of Ryoko Misaki, empress in exile.
----

Despite all the different tales that would be told of her in the years after
her exile, Ryoko was always addressed by the highest of titles on Juria.
_Kitin ip'Jurai_. The Honor of Jurai. It is said that the Empress Aya wept as
she banished her own mother from Jurai, but still insisted that all her
decendent learn the code of honor at her hand on distant Earth.


Fin
----

Notes/Disclaimers/Cover my Ass explanations: Don't ask me where this came
from. (Or if you do, ask my muse.) The only excuse that I can offers is that I
ran out of stuff to rad while going on Xmas leave. If you saw a 20ish looking
guy in glasses in LAX, San Diego or Atlanta airport typing away, if might have
been me working on this very disclaimer.

As for Ryoko being so OOC, it's the way I saw her in the opening scene.. Her
holding not her usual plasma blade, but the very essence of Jurai. The Light
Hawk blade, and then I was listening to some of my favorite MP3s, which
include Highlander tracks (done by yours truly). The rest sort of clicked and
the rest as they say.. is history.

My muse, being the domineering and tormenting wench that I love her for being,
has popped a few ideas for the story line growing from one short fict to a
full series. I figure that is why there is so little mention of the other
characters.

Ayeaka's body was her sole appearance in this, and as for Tsunami/Sassami
there is no mention and Tenchi is almost as bad. What with him dying off
screen so to speak. But if I do follow through with this, I have a lot of time
to play with. 300 years to plot the near destruction of an empire that has
lasted for thousands of years (I can hear the muse smaking her lips at the
idea, I swear) and then there is the stories that could be written after this
one. Aya rebuilding the ruin that her half-brother made of the empire. The
gradual disentergration of Ryo from within by Kagato could be another (I know
I heard something there!) The mind goes on and on. (Must be something in
airports, she's a kinky little muse I guess, but who am I to complain?)

Anyway, if this goes anyfurther it will be because I have gottten some sort of
imput from you. The readers. I might not do anything with it despite your
pleas (since I think some of my proofreaders will throttle me when they get
this little story) but I will enjoy reading what you think, so long as it's
constructive. Flames will be ignored, and authors of such will be mocked by
me.