TMiL: "The Operative and the Schoolgirl"

DISCLAIMER: I didn't create the characters. They were created by
the wonderful people at Pioneer/AIC.

EDITOR's NOTE: This story takes place *DURING* Tenchi Muyo in Love,
but in a slightly different universe. There are some scenes from the
movie in this story as a result.

-CHAPTER 1-

      He was cute.
      That was the first thing Tanaka had thought when a young man
 with chestnut brown hair walked into the classroom for the first
 time. His eyes were a pale shade of silver. A ray of sunlight had
 come into the classroom and shone in his eyes, turning the surprisingly
 reflective pupils a soft shade of golden yellow. The effect was
 breathtaking.
      The bus stopped to pick up a few more students, but Tanaka took
 no notice of this, she was too busy contemplating the new student who
 had so intrigued her and had stolen her heart so easily.
      The other students had their own opinions of their new classmate.
      "Spooky." Some said.
      "Creepy." Others agreed.
      "His eyes are weird." One elucidated. "His pupils are slitted."
      "Like an animal's eyes." Another pointed out.
      It was clear that the new student was feeling self-conscious
 about all this talk. He had taken to keeping to himself, sitting quietly,
 not raising his hand in class, even taking lunch in solitude.
      Tanaka could sense deep sadness in him, sadness he tried desparately
 to hide behind a facade of stoicism. Or perhaps he was in shock, she told
 herself.

      But why? She wondered. People just didn't wander around in shock for
 no good reason, did they? So what had happened to him? She thought of 
 asking the teacher, but the regular teacher was out and the new substitute
 seemed to have been picked from the bottom of the barrel. She was fairly
 good, but she got frazzled easily and seemed jittery in the way a bunny in
 a fox's den would be.

      The sound of the bus coming to a stop pulled Tanaka's mind back to the
 present. She stepped off, cheerfully, and made her way into the crowd on
 the school lawn. She could see the young boy in one of the nearby rows and
 she smiled to herself.

      The morning was pretty much the same as always at first, Then
Tanaka remembered that she still had a magazine she had borrowed from
her friend Achika.  Achika... her confidante, and one of the finest
people she had ever known. And, who just happened, Tanaka smiled to
herself, to be in the same homeroom as the young man she'd fallen in
love with.


Lt. Trakal, Galaxy Police
Code name: Operative A