"Have mercy upon me, O Lord; for I am weak: O Lord, heal me; for my bones are
vexed.
-PSALM 6:2

BGlanders presents...

The Gentle Sound of Thunder

Chapter 5:  Through Ryoko's Eyes...

*****

Pain.

That was the first thing I ever felt.  Searing, white-hot pain.  The pain of a
billion stars crying out.  I felt a thousand knives going into every crevice
of my body.  I could feel my skin exploding, twisting, melting.  I felt every
atom in me start to fuse, to meld.  I felt my very essence being thrown at a
hurricane's pace into togetherness.  

I felt myself being born.

When babies are born, it's a slow, graduial process that lasts for nine
blissful months.  In nine months, one frail human child can be born.

In nine minutes, I was born.

That's one of the things about being a highly evolved being, you have senses
and thoughts the moment you are born.  I didn't know what the word birth
meant, but I knew that I was going through it.  I knew what pain was, but I
couldn't put a name to it, since I didn't know what words were.  I knew fear,
but couldn't call it by name because I didn't know what screaming was.

For five thousand years after that, I was alone, alone with daddy.  That's
what he made me call him.  I didn't know that he wasn't my father, so I didn't
question it.  For 500 years he tried to teach me, to mold me into what he
wanted, a perfect killing machine.  For long hours we'd practice in the
Souja's training room, bobbing and weaving past one another's attacks.
Expanding and experimenting with what I had, what he had given me.

No, what Washu had given me.

I remember the first time he showed me other people.  We were on the bridge of
the Souja looking out over a planet.  I knew what a planet was of course, but
I never knew that there were things like him and me on them.  Lots of them,
and that they were called 'people'.  I didn't know that they each had thoughts
and feelings, goals and ambitions in their lives.  I didn't know any of this,
until he showed me.

"Ryoko, look at that.  Tell me, what is it called?"

He pointed out the window at a green orb floating in space.

"It's a planet."

"It's a planet, what?"

I sighed.

"It's a planet, daddy."

He patted me on the back, a little lower than I would have felt comfortable
with.  "Very good, Ryoko.  It's a planet.  And do you know what lives on a
planet?"

"No, what daddy?"

He waved his hand over a control panel and instantly a thousand screens
appeared out of nowhere.  On them I saw people.  Millions of people.  Young
people, old people, people with babies, brothers, sisters, families.  I saw a
family for the first time in my life.  I saw them together, I saw their love
for one another.  I saw so many families, so many people.

Then he held his hand over a button that I had never noticed before.  "Pay
close attention Ryoko, today I teach you about life."  With a press of a
button, I suddenly felt all of the Souja's energies being focused into one
source, one focal point.  I realized all too late what he was about to do.
With that feeling of fear in my stomach, that feeling that I had felt too many
times to just brush aside anymore, I turned to the screen, feeling very
helpless, feeling alone.

The orb exploded in a flash of dazzling colors.  The shock rocked the mighty
ship even with its incredible shields up.  I turned my head away, tears
streaming down my face.  I turned to him, to Kagato for some kind of support,
some sign, anything.  

His eyes were glued to the screen.  They had that gleam in them.  I had grown
to fear that gleam more than anything I had ever known.  I saw the gleam when
he felt like hurting, when he was feeling particularly brutal during a
practice and keep beating me even after I'd fallen to the floor of the
training room.  I saw that gleam every time he entered my quarters late at
night and..

And..

Then he started to laugh.  That icy, cold laugh that just cuts through you
like a freezing blade.  That laugh that just drains all the courage and
strength out of your body.  He looked at the floating debris and countless
bodies drifting in the inky blackness and laughed until I had to cover my ears
to make him stop.

Suddenly I felt him grab my wrist.  I looked up at him, tears streaming down
my face.  I looked into his hate-filled eyes and felt all the muscles in my
stomach knot up at once.  "Do you know why I did that, Ryoko?  I did that
because I could, that's why.  I have power, therefore I use it.  If someone
else doesn't have power, then they shouldn't be allowed to suffer.  Remember
Ryoko, we must always crush those beneath us to survive.  Do you understand?"

"Ye..yes.."

He tightened his grip and got closer to my face.  Now he was screaming.

"DO YOU UNDERSTAND, RYOKO?"

"Yes!  Yes daddy..I..I understand!"

Then he hit me with the back of his hand.  I fell to the deck of the ship
sobbing my eyes out and begging him to just stop, to just leave me alone.  I
just wanted to go back to my room, take Ryo-Ohki in my arms, curl up on my cot
and just cry.  Cry for all those people who up until five minutes ago I didn't
even know existed.  I wanted to cry for all the others I knew that he had hurt
for no other reason than to feel powerful.  I wanted to cry for me, because I
knew why he had made me watch him.  He was preparing me for killing.  I knew
that over the years he had been creating the ultimate weapon, and that weapon
was me.

Then I heard my door slide open and Ryo-Ohki hissing.  I heard him stride
across the steel floor to my cold cot and toss Ryo-Ohki off into a corner.  I
felt him grab me and spin me around till I was on my back.  I felt him pin me
with that iron strong grip of his, felt his hot breath on my cheek as I tried
to turn away from him.  At first I would always try to fight him off, to try
and make him stop, but it was no use.  He'd just keep fighting me until I just
shut everything down.  I'd just go limp, my mind would go blank.  I'd just let
him enter me, let him set the rythym.  I'd lie there and let my mind go deep,
deep down into an ocean of calm.  A sea of deep, safe, calm blue.  I'd stay
there and not even feel it when he would enter me.  I wouldn't hear him start
to grunt or feel the pounding of his hips on me increase.  I would just float
in my sea of blue.  My sea of calm.  That's where I always felt safest.

Afterwards he would just get up and leave.  Every once in awhile, he'd pat me
on the shoulder and then just..just walk off.  I didn't really know it was
wrong.  I had my gut instinct, that voice that screams that this shouldn't be
happening and that no it's not okay it's wrong Ryoko it's wrong it's wrong why
did he do that WHY DID HE DO THAT?

Then he showed me the box.

The box was what he used to control me.  With it, he said he could make me
kill just like he had done, only better.  He said that I would kill more than
he ever though possible and that I'd keep doing it until he told me to stop.
I told him he was full of shit and that I would never kill for him no matter
what kind of box he had.

Then he pushed a putton on the box.

I remember every scream, every crying child, every innocent person that I had
run through.  I remember with crystal clarity every single face that begged
for me not to slay them.  I remember a sea of the dead and rivers of blood
flowing because my hand had caused it to be so.  

Then came Jurai.

My mission was simple, get Tsunami.  All I had to do was go to the palace and
bring back a tree.

Oh yeah, I also had to kill as many people as I possibly could.

It was all going so well, I had managed to only do some major properity damage
and saly only a couple of citizens before Yosho came.  I still remember him
standing before me with the Master Key in his hand.  His eyes were so filled
with hate and rage, but there was something more.  Somewhere in them I saw
something that Kagato had never even known.

I saw honor.

We danced across the galaxy until he finally brought me down.  I remember that
he had found and opening, that he had fired off a lucky shot

No he hadn't I had let him

Oh all right, maybe I had let him hit me.  I was tired.  I was tired of all
the killing, all the fighting.  I just wanted it all to stop.  I wanted to
just sink into my world of blue and just stay there forever.

Well, I got my wish.

We fought.  We danced.  We destroyed the countryside.  I had never felt so
free, so alive.  Then.. then he found another opening, another weakness in my
attack.  I felt him plunge his sword into my neck.  I felt the beam of energy
go right through my being, then..

Then I felt the jewels that had given me my power for countless years suddenly
leave my body.  I suddenly felt stripped of everything that I was.  Every iota
of strength that I had just seemed to tricke down that shaft of blue energy.
It just kept draining until..

Until..

Then I started to sink into my world of blue again.  Only this time, my world
of blue was surrounded my another.  Yosho was trapping me, imprisioning me
inside a cave.  He was locking me away like some kind of old tool that no one
had a use for anymore, that no one cared for.


For 700 years, I was trapped there, trapped in that cave.  I had no air, no
food, but I really didn't need any.  I could go on forever without sustanance.
I draw what I need from the energies around me.  Luckily there was enough
spirtual energy in the surrounding forests to give me the strength to carry
on.  For awhile, I was happy.  I was finally free from Kagato, free from
everyone.  Then..

Then I saw Tenchi.

I could wander in discorperal form around the outskirts of the cave, and there
I first saw this little boy wandering around, trying to get inside the rusty
old gate that stood in the caves mouth.  I watched him as he grew older, as he
grew wiser, more mature.  I watched as the boy grew into a young man, filled
with energy and life.  I saw all this, and as I watched, I felt something I
had never felt before start to stir inside my breast.

I started to feel love.

***

Blue.  Deep, calm blue.  All around me is this ocean of never ending peace.
I'm floating, drifting in perpetual bliss.  I am..  I am..

Where was I?

I remebered something about a fight.  A fight?  Aeka I think, no, wait, was it
Aeka?  I wasn't sure.  I tried to focus and found that I couldn't.  I tried to
concentrate on everything that had happened.  Something about a fight, a
challenege.. something..

"I'm stopping you before you do something we'll all regret."

A voice.  Tenchi?  Tenchi was..was.. what was he doing?  I remembered a fight,
a test..

Oh my God.

That bitch.  That little bitch!  I remember!  I remember everything now!  I
remembered the challenge made in the onsen, the kimono, the sheer absurdity of
it all.  I thought it was a joke, some boast made in a moment of anger, but
no..

We had actually done it.

I remembered fighting, remembered dancing.  I remembered my sword going into
her side, feeling the blade cut through soft flesh just as it had so many
times in the past.  I rememberd that I was about to end it all.  I was about
to disband my saber and just walk away, but then, then..

Then it had all gone straight to hell.

I remembered Tenchi getting between us.  I remembered him taking her side,
taking that little slut's side over mine!  He wouldn't listen, oh why didn't
you listen to me Tenchi?  Why did you have to come between us and say..

Why did you say that you loved her?

No!  That is not what he said!  He said, he said..

"Right now, all I know is that someone I care about is about to die, and I
can't let that happen."

Of course.  What else would he say?  After all, it's Tenchi.  He's not really
a Jurain, he's an earthling.  He doesn't know about the Jenna-Hotaru.  He
doesn't know the magnitiude of what he was doing, he couldn't.  And I..I
didn't even realize it at the time.  I just remebered the feeling of my heart
being torn open.  I remembered feeling all the muscles in my stomach tighten
up again just like they did when Kagato

when Daddy

would look at me back on the Souja.  I remembered the sheer dispair and
torment that my soul suddenly fell into at that moment.  I remembered that
right then, there was only one thing that I could think of to do.

I took a breath..

Goodbye Tenchi

I took another breath...

Goodbye Sasami

I lunged at Tenchi and gave him an opening.  Years of Jurain training had made
him react almost automaticly.  Suddenly I saw Yosho stabbing me in the throat.
I saw my life running down that blade.  I felt myself just sinking back into
that world of blue...

And Aeka..

She had known!  She knew that Tenchi didn't know what the hell was going on!
She knew that he would act as he had the minute I struck her!  The minute
she..

The minute she gave me an opening.

She knew.  She had known from the beginning.  And now, now she was going to
pay.  I swore by everything that I knew, everything that I held dear that I
would have my vengance.  I swore by my love for Tenchi that I would destroy
that miserable slut with my bare hands.  I could almost feel her blood running
thorugh my fingers, over my hands, over..over..

Over everything.

I suddenly realized that I was covered with something.  Thias wasn't my world
of blue.  This wasn't Aeka's blood.  This was something else, something
forgin.  Something that I didn't like at all.  I tried to move and found I
couldn't.  I tried to scream but my lungs filled with liquid blackness.  I
suddenly felt like Kagato was back and that this was for not comming back.  He
was going to keep me in here for days and days and then he'd take me and pin
me down and and and

And that's when I let loose with a force bolt.

The tank around me shattered as I screamed loud enough to break a human's ear
drumbs.  I fell to my knees hacking up a thick, black liquid that ran down my
body in greasy streaks.  When I was done coughing I started to cry.  I
couldn't help it.  I just let all the toughness in me flow out and away in
little streams like that black bile.  I curled up into a little ball,
shivering uncontroably and crying.

Then I felt something warm, soft and dry wrap around me.  I felt a conforting
hand on my shoulder and then a presence at my side.  I heard a female voice
that I knew all too well saying, "There, there little one.  Mommy's here now.
Just let it all out."  I leaned into her then and cried for what felt like
years.  She just held me tight and rocked slowly back and forth while she
hummed a lullaby from long ago.  Finally, I stopped crying, but I didn't get
up until ten minutes later.

Finally I spoke.  I still felt drained, so it came out like a whisper.  "What
happened?"

"You were dreaming about the past."

"No, I meant before that.  What happened to me?"

She stopepd rocking me but still kept her ar around me.  "You and Aeka did
something very stupid.  You commited the Jenna-Hotaru, then you commited
seppuku."  I jumped up, my energy already forming in my hands.  

"That bitch!  I'll kill her!  She knew what she was doing, damnit!"  

"Ryoko.."

SHE KNEW!  She knew that Tenchi would be forced to take her side!  She knew
what I'd do!  Ohh, whe I get my hands on her..!"

"Ryoko.."

"All this, all for Tenchi's love!  Ha!  As if he could ever truly love someone
after doing something like that!  He must have realized what she was doing, he
had to!  She forced him to attack me, damnit I know it!  Ohh, I'll kill her!
I'll tear her limbs off one by one!  I'll rip her heart out and shove it down
her fucking throat..!"

"Ryoko she's dead."

Those three words struck me like a freight train.  Dead?  No, that was wrong.
She couldn't be dead.  There was no wayshe could be dead, I hadn't had time to
kill her yet.  She was alive and Washu was wrong.  Yeah, that was it.  Washu
was always stuck here in her lab, she didn't know what was going on.  No, Aeka
wasn't dead, she couldn't be.

"What do you mean she's dead?  How?  How could she be dead?"

Washu came over to me then with a look on her face that I had hardly ever seen
before.  Grief.  She was almost crying, andprobaly would have, but she knew
that someone had ton remain strong, and that it had to be her.

"She killed herself when she realized what had happened.  After you died and
Tenchi left, she broke down.  Her mind, it just up and snapped, that's all.
By the time we found her by the lake, she had already bled to death."

I just stumbled back until I fell on my butt and let all of what Washu said
sink in.  I tried to analyze everything that she had said over and over again,
but I couldn't comprehend what was going on.  Aeka, dead?  Tenchi, gone?  No.
Aeka couldn't be dead.  Tenchi couldn't be gone.  It was a mistake, that's
all, a mistake!

"It's no mistake, Ryoko.  It all happened, and it's no mistake.  I'm sorry,
but it's true.  I wish to God that it wasn't, but it is."

"How long have I been out?"

"About 12 hours, give or take.  I had the Guardians bring you here when you
were run through.  I figured that I could get you fixed up and then everything
would be okay, then when I was almost done, Yosho walked in and told me...
about Aeka and Tenchi.  I made him bring the body here.  I tried to save her
but she was to far gone...  I'm sorry Ryoko."

Sorry?  SORRY?  That bitch tried to kill me!  She tried to get Tenchi to turn
against me1  She tried to knock me out of the picture completly!  Sorry?
Sorry that my hated enemy had perished by her hand?  Sorry that the one source
of frustration in my life was finally gone?

My enemy?

The woman that had sat up with me late at night and drank with me until
neither one of us could see straight?

The woman who would go with me into town and do karioki bars with me until we
were thrown out, all the while laughing our asses off?

The woman who had been there, even after the most vicious of our fights?  

She was gone.  My greatist enemy.  My greatist...friend.  My friend was dead.
And Tenchi...

"What do you mean Tenchi's gone?  How can he be gone?  He didn't just up and
leave, did he?"

Washu suddenly held out a piece of paper with Tenchi's handwriting scrawled
across it.  I reached out, my hand trembling in anticipation of what I would
read.  I started to feel tears welling up behind my eyes as I started to read
his note to us all.

***

Dear Family,

I don't know what has happened, and I don't know why it has, but I feel that
it was some how my fault.  I can't shake the feeling that there was something
more that I could've done to prevent what happened.  Maybe if I had listened
to Sasami, or maybe if I had tried to come between them earlier on, I don't
know.  All I do know is that I can't be here as long as I'm not sure of
myself.  I don't know where I'll be going, but I only ask that you don't try
and find me.  I need to start over and try to find some answers, but those
answers don't include any of you.  Please don't take this the wrong way, I
love all of you.  Dad, Grandpa, Sasami, Washu, Aeka, all of you. You are, and
always will be my family.  You will always be the ones that are nearist to my
heart, but now, a great hole has appeared in my soul and I need to try and
fill it, alone.  Someday, if and when I come to terms with what has happened,
I'll return, but until then, I only ask that you let me do this by myself.

I love you all, and I know that I'll never forget the bond that we all shared.

Love,

Tenchi

***

I just kept reading the letter over and over again.  I couldn't belive it.  He
was gone.  He was gone forever and I couldn't get him back.  He had left
because of something that wasn't his fault, something that could have been
avoided all together.  Hell, I wasn't even hurt anymore!  I was fine now..

No I wasn't.

He had hurt me.  He ran me through with his sword without even thinking twice.
He had tried to kill me!  No, no it was self-defense.  That's what it was.  He
didn't know what he was doing.  He had no idea that by galactic tradition he
was rejecting my love and taking her as a bride by taking her place in battle.
He had no idea that I had purposly thrown myself into him.  Hel, I had been
trying to end it all, hadn't I?

Hand't I?

I'm Ryoko.  I'm one of the toughest creatures in the galaxy.  I've been shot,
beaten, stabbed, burned, impaled, decapatated, ra..

I'd been hurt a LOT.

I knew that there was nothing Tenchi could do that could kill me.  Hell, I
practically have to be atomized for that to happen.  So why did I suddenly
throw myself at him?  Why did I let him run me thorugh?  I know I can't die,
but I can certainly feel pain just as much as the next person.  I can feel
when my flesh is cut and burned, when my throat is impaled by a beam of white-
hot light.  I know that even though I'd be immobilized, I'd still be alive.
Besides, Washu was here to put the pieces back together again.  That's me,
Humpty-Ryoko.  All the King's soldiers and all the King's Trees couldn't lay a
finger on little old me, with the exception of his son, that is.  So why had I
done it?

To see, of course.

To see if he would actually take her side.  To see if he would just try to
stop me or try to kill me.  To stt what my life really meant to him.  Maybe
that was another reason he left, maybe he wasn't sure why he hadn't just tried
to knock me to the side.  Maybe..

Maybe..

There were a thousand things that could have happened, a thousand things that
could have changed.  This however, is what did happen.  

I walked out of the lab, only half-consiously morphing my clothes to my body.
I looked around the household for signs of life, and saw Yosho on the couch
with Sasami crying in her lap. He just loked at me with tears streamming down
his cheeks.  He was trying to play the stalwart grandfather for Sasami, trying
to be a pillar for her to cry on, but he was starting to crack.  I looked from
him to the windows and watched the rain run down the glass panels in little
streams and vertical rivers.  I heard it pattering on the roof of the house.
The roof, where Aeka and I had sat on night and gotten so drunk I had thought
she was going to fall off.  I saw the couch where we had all sat and watched
our galactic soaps.  I looked to the darkened kitchen and saw where we had
eaten countless times, side by side.

I went over to Yosho and sat beside him.  Washu came over then, and took
Sasami by the hand.

"Come with me little one, we need to talk."

She was reluctant, but Washu insisted and eventually won out.  Sasami gave
Yosho one last hug and slowly followed Washu into her lab.  I turned to Yosho
then and saw something I had never seen before.  For as long as I had known
him, he had been a pillar of strength, a tower of reason and honor.  But
sitting there, looking into his eyes, I saw..

I saw fear.

I saw lonliness.

I saw a little boy that had forgotten what it was like to be afraid.

I took his hand in mine and told him that everything was going to be okay,
that it was all right.  He leaned on my shoulder and just started crying.
Yosho, of all people!  I put my arm around him and started rocking him back
and forth, whispering that it was all right, to just let it all out.  Then I
found myself singing the lullaby that Washu had sung for me back in the lab.
I didn't know why, but it just felt like it was what I was supossed to be
doing.  And more importiantly, it felt...it felt right.

He didn't stop for a long time, but when he did, he sat up, righted his
glasses and quietly said, "Thank you."

Later I found myself up on the roof.  I just curled up into a ball and stared
up into the pouring rain.  It was only water, but every drop felt like a
dagger cutting into me, going right into my soul.  I didn't know why, I just
felt like it was my fault somehow.  Maybe for accepting the challenge, maybe
for not seeing in time, maybe

Maybe for being born.

I just looked up into the sky.  An endless grey expanse from which the knives
just kept falling.  The rain fell, hit my fave, mixed with my tears and just
rolled away.  

I knew that it was time.

Overhead, I heard thunder.

*****

Author's tip:  When writing, try to get some sleep.  I apologize for the
pleathers of spelling mistakes, but right now I can't even focus on the screen
I kid you not.  

Only two more chapters to go!

Thank you to a whole lotta folks for the helpful ideas and C&C!

Tenchi&Co. belong to AiC and Pioneer.

All C&C should go to BGlanders@aol.com