"You were having a nightmare, Sasami-chan," explained Ryoko. "It sounded
pretty bad."

"Yeah, it was really scary," said Sasami, rubbing her eyes. "I'm sorry I
woke you up."

"That's OK. Actually, it was Ryo-ohki who woke me up. She was really
worried about you."

"Miya!" agreed Ryo-ohki, rubbing her head against Sasami's face.

Sasami giggled. "Thanks, Ryo-ohki."

Ryoko straightened out the quilt over the princess. "Are you OK to go
back to sleep?"

"I think so. I only have bad dreams like this every once in a while. I've
never had more than one in the same night."

"What was it about?"

Sasami thought for a moment. "I was in some strange place I've never been
to before. Tenchi's jiichan was hurt, and there was somebody trying to
take away Achika, and I tried to stop them. Then they hit me, and that's
when I woke up."

"Take away Achika? You mean Tenchi's mom?"

"Uh-huh. That's weird, though. Didn't she die when Tenchi was really
little?"

"It's just a dream, Sasami-chan. Don't worry." Ryoko proceeded to tuck
the princess in again. "I'm right here. If anybody tries to hurt you,
they'll have to get past me and Ryo-ohki first. Right, Ryo-ohki?"

Ryo-ohki sat down on the pillow next to Sasami's head and looked fiercely
around the room as if daring someone to come challenge her. "Miya!"

Sasami smiled and closed her eyes. "Thank you. I'll go back to sleep."

Ryoko sat back down on her futon, folded her hands over her knees, and
rested her chin on them. After a while, she could tell that Sasami had
fallen asleep again. She looked over at the princess, then back at the
wall, and thought.

There were other things tying her to Earth, besides Tenchi, she realized.
Not as strongly, but still with enough force that she couldn't simply
leave them behind if they were in danger. And not just individual people,
either. The place and the feelings that went with it were also things she
had grown to cherish over the months since she'd invited herself there to
stay. All of it rolled together put emotions behind what had, before,
been nothing but a meaningless word to Ryoko.

"Home."

It felt warm, comforting, peaceful...

Terrifying.

Ryoko had been on the run from Nagi almost from the outset of her career,
and over the years of fight and flight, she'd learned that her survival
depended on there being nothing to prevent her from escaping at a
moment's notice. It wasn't a conscious decision, for the most part. It
was instinct borne of coming of age with death seemingly always at her
heels. It was a cruel lesson reinforced every time she heard of someone
whose head Nagi had taken.

Always be ready to run. Always.

She remembered something from a movie that she, Aeka, Mihoshi, and Kiyone
had gone to see with Tenchi on his birthday, a few weeks before. Besides
Tenchi's fearful resistance to her trying to get close to him in the
darkened theater, Aeka's furious reaction when Ryoko had phased through
the seats and sat down in Tenchi's lap, and Mihoshi spilling a large
bucket of popcorn all over Kiyone, Ryoko recalled some advice spoken in
the movie by one criminal to another.

"Have no attachments. Allow nothing to be in your life that you cannot
walk out on in thirty seconds flat if you spot the heat around the
corner."

The words summed up Ryoko's unconscious philosophy prior to coming to
Earth, almost exactly. It was strange, hearing explicitly stated what
she'd always known yet had never been fully aware of.

She had many attachments now, things she *couldn't* walk out on when Nagi
showed up, not in thirty seconds, not ever.

And if she couldn't walk away, she had to be able to fight. There was no
other way, even if she'd wanted to avoid it, which she didn't.

She had to be able to defeat Nagi. To do that, she had to be able to spar
with Katsuhito. She had to. And that was all there was to it.

Why did Tenchi have to be so... *impossible*???

How could she convince him?

What would she do, if she couldn't?

She'd meant what she'd told Katsuhito: that she'd do what it took to
protect Tenchi, even if it meant him getting angry with her. But given
the chance, she much preferred *not* being yelled at. If he remained
stubborn, she could still go behind his back anyway.

Ryoko sat and thought some more about how she could sway Tenchi. She
needed to do it when he was in a mood to listen. And she needed to do it
soon.

It would be dawn soon. That would be her first chance. And maybe it would
be the right time. She would have to forgo her usual method of waking him
up. If she did that, and then asked him, he might think she was trying to
persuade him with sex. Best to go lie in the bed, let him wake up next to
her, and talk with him about it then, when they were alone together and
everything was calm and quiet.

Ryoko nodded. That's what she'd do. She floated up out of the bed and
passed through the structure of the house onto the roof, where she sat
down.

A pale glow lit the eastern horizon. Dawn was just breaking. Quickly
Ryoko swooped back down into the girls' bedroom.

Aeka wasn't there yet.

She flew out through the door and down the hall, stopping in front of
Tenchi's bedroom door and the two Juraian guardians flanking it.

"Ohayo, Ryoko," they said.

"Ohayo," answered Ryoko. "Has Aeka come out of Tenchi's room yet this
morning?"

"No, she hasn't," said Azaka.

Ryoko frowned and sat down against the wall to wait. As the minutes
crawled by, she grew more and more impatient.

"What's keeping her so long?" she grumbled out loud, after a while.

"Perhaps morning wood, as you said yesterday," suggested Kamidake.

Ryoko glared at the guardian as if about to smash it into kindling.

"I was only joking," Kamidake said nervously.

A few more minutes passed. "Damn it, when's she going to come out?"
wondered Ryoko out loud. "How late is she going to be this time, anyway?"

"Late?" asked Azaka.

Ryoko looked up. "How long has it been since dawn?"

"It is fifteen minutes, forty-three seconds since local sunrise,
according to Terran reckoning," said the guardian.

"She's got five more minutes," said Ryoko. "And that's it. I'm not
waiting all morning."

"I'll inform you when the specified time has elapsed," said Azaka.

Ryoko cracked her knuckles and waited, very impatient and very, very
annoyed.

"It is now exactly twenty minutes, forty-three seconds since local
sunrise," Azaka informed her finally.

With a tense inhalation of breath, Ryoko floated upright and towards the
door.

She stopped and hesitated for just a moment, listening very carefully. It
relieved her, just a little, to hear no sounds coming from the other
side. Still, she knew she definitely wouldn't like what she'd see when
she went through. She briefly considered going away and coming back
later. Decided against it, she floated into Tenchi's bedroom and looked
down at the bed in front of her.

Aeka, dressed in a white satin nightgown, lay next to Tenchi, her head
resting on his shoulder and one arm stretched across his bare chest. The
quilt was pulled up just past Tenchi's waist. Beams of nearly-horizontal
sunlight slanted down onto the bed, bathing it and it's occupants in a
soft, warm glow.

Ryoko frowned angrily as she floated closer, stifling a growl. Aeka
hadn't even woken up yet! There she was, sleeping next to Tenchi, a full
twenty minutes into Ryoko's allotted time. The princess had absolutely no
right to be there, in Tenchi's bed, pressed close to him like that. That
was where Ryoko was supposed to be, now. The tranquility of the whole
scene irked the pirate even further. It was the perfect setting to sooth
and cajole Tenchi into letting her practice against his grandfather. Yet,
in only a few minutes, the alarm clock would sound, and Tenchi would have
to start getting ready to go to school.

Stopping in front of the bed, she glared down at the princess. For just a
moment Ryoko's hands formed into fists, but she swiftly caught herself
and tore her eyes away, knowing that she had to stop looking at Aeka and
Tenchi together if she were to have any hope at all of calming down. She
found herself staring at a small shiny object on Tenchi's desk, and a
second later she recognized it: the daruma doll Tenchi had finished
painting, two mornings ago, when Ryoko had brought breakfast up to him.

"You paint in the first eye when you make a wish. Then, when the wish
comes true, you do the second one."

"So, what did you wish for?"

"For you two to stop fighting."

She remembered watching him, the careful, patient attention to each
stroke of the brush speaking of the importance he placed on what he had
wished for.

Ryoko focused all of her thoughts on Tenchi's words, on his desire for
friendship -- or at least peace -- between the two girls. Her breathing
slowed, a little, and her hand gradually unclenched. Silently, Ryoko
promised both herself and Tenchi that she wouldn't do any of the things
she longed to do to Aeka, such as prying her loose from him and tossing
her through the window.

Satisfied that she was finally in control of herself, Ryoko turned around
and leaned down, doing her utmost to see the princess out of context, to
separate her from the bed and the other person in it, and to not think
about what Aeka had almost-certainly been doing with him scant hours
before. She reached out and put her hand on Aeka's shoulder.

"Hey, princess, wake up!" whispered Ryoko, shaking her as gently as she
could.

Aeka continued sleeping.

Ryoko shook her a little harder. "I said, wake up!"

In response, Aeka shifted in her sleep, drawing herself closer to Tenchi.
The hand lying on his chest moved a few inches up his side to tighten her
embrace.

Closing her eyes and gritting her teeth, Ryoko counted to ten, took a
deep breath, and opened her eyes again. She tapped the princess on the
shoulder several times, then shook her some more. "Aeka, wake up, will
you?"

Aeka's head slid down from Tenchi's shoulder onto his chest. He stirred
just a bit, but didn't awaken.

Balling her fists in frustration, Ryoko glanced at the alarm clock, then
back to the bed. She scowled at the sleeping princess, scarcely able to
contain her anger. What little patience she possessed had worn almost
totally away. Desperately she tried to think of a way, *any* way, to make
Aeka leave quickly and without disturbing Tenchi. Even if Ryoko managed
to awaken her, the first thing the princess would likely do is move
around or say something, waking him up in the process.

The clock advanced another minute just as Ryoko looked at it again. Her
gaze returned to the bed. Aeka had slipped just a little further onto
Tenchi, and one of his arms now curled slightly around her waist. A
tremor of anger shook Ryoko's body as she watched in every-growing
rancor.

*DAMMIT!!! If I could just pick her up and TAKE her out of here...!!!*

She halted and stood completely still, blinked twice, and considered
those thoughts.

It would work. She could just pick up Aeka, dematerializing her in the
process so as not to disturb Tenchi, and deposit her back in the girls'
bedroom. It would look really, really bad if either Tenchi or Aeka woke
up in the middle of it, and the princess would be absolutely furious
afterwards, but it would work. Besides that, it was only fair. It was
Ryoko's day, after all. That was their agreement. Thankful that she'd
found a way to solve the problem, Ryoko quickly bent down towards the bed
to pull the princess out of it.

Then she stopped, staring at Tenchi's peacefully-dreaming face looking up
at her. Ryoko stared at him for a few seconds, then glanced at her own
over-eagerly-extended arms, then at Aeka, then back to Tenchi. She sighed
and nodded. "Alright, Tenchi," she said very softly, as if he'd spoken to
her. "Alright. I won't do anything bad to her."

Ryoko dematerialized, floating under the bed and up through Tenchi. She
gently slipped her arms under Aeka's and lifted her up, phasing the
princess out through the covers and Tenchi's arm around her waist. No
longer held up by solid matter, the arm dropped onto the mattress. Ryoko
looked back and tensed nervously.

Tenchi didn't wake up.

Ryoko let out her breath, relieved, only to freeze again a moment later
as Aeka smiled and embraced her. "Ohayo, Ten-chan," the princess said,
planting a warm kiss on Ryoko's lips. The pirate's eyes bugged out, and
it was all she could to do not to fling Aeka away instantly. She jerked
her head to one side, breaking the kiss and spluttering in disgust.

Aeka's eyes opened, then widened in horror at the sight of her beloved
inexplicably transformed in her arms. "Whaa...?!?!?!"

"Shhhhh!!!" hissed Ryoko angrily. "You'll wake him up!"

"RYOKO, WHAT ARE YOU...?!"

In desperation, Ryoko clamped her hand over Aeka's mouth to silence her.
"Be *quiet*, I said! You'll wake up Tenchi!"

Aeka squirmed and frantically tried to free herself. Ryoko hung onto her,
determined not to let her go, and the two girls continued struggling in
mid-air. Images flashed into Aeka's mind of what had happened in the
baths almost exactly a week before. The frightening memories gave the
princess an added burst of strength. She tore herself out of Ryoko's
grasp and landed on the ground in a heap next to the bed, looking up at
the pirate with fear, confusion, and anger in her face. She waited and
prepared to defend herself when Ryoko sprang on her again.

Then she noticed that Ryoko wasn't looking at her, but was instead
nervously watching the bed. Tenchi rolled over and stretched out on the
bed, but seemed to remain asleep. Ryoko wiped her brow and exhaled, and
Aeka began to wonder if things might not be all that they appeared.

"Alright, you're awake now," said Ryoko, turning to face her. "So get
going."

Remembering what she'd done right after waking up, Aeka grimaced and drew
the back of her hand across her mouth. "What exactly were you...?" she
started to ask.

"Shhhh!" ordered Ryoko, putting a finger in front her lips. She nodded
towards the bed.

Aeka lowered her voice, deciding that Ryoko apparently didn't intend
anything violent. Not for the moment, at least. She stood up and faced
her. "What were you doing?"

"Taking you to your room. You're almost half an hour late."

"What?!"

"You were late. It's my morning. I needed to get you out of here,
somehow," explained Ryoko, quickly growing impatient.

"'Get me out of here?'" asked Aeka slowly, a dangerous note of anger
entering her voice.

"I was a hell of a lot nicer about it than I had to be," said Ryoko. "I
was going to put you on your futon in the other room. That's all. Now,"
she pointed at the door and frowned, "make yourself scarce."

"You were just going to drag me out of Ten-chan's bed, is that it?"
demanded the princess.

"I wasn't 'dragging' you. And we had a deal, or have you forgotten that?"
Ryoko countered.

"Our agreement did not include you abducting me whenever you got
impatient!" Aeka said, now visibly angry. "If I don't rise quickly enough
for your taste, we can discuss it afterwards and resolve the matter."

Ryoko's frown deepened to a scowl. "I'm not going to wait around while
you sleep in!" She pointed at the door once more. "For the last time: get
going!"

Aeka stood there, staring at her and slowly shaking her head as she
thought of what had transpired between Tenchi and Ryoko recently. He'd
shown new boldness in his love for her and spent a whole extra morning
with her -- not to mention the portion of the afternoon he'd spent making
love to her in this very bedroom, on Aeka's day. And yet, even after
Tenchi had shown so much affection to her, Ryoko still wasn't satisfied,
and jealously hoarded every moment with him.

"What are you waiting for?" demanded Ryoko harshly.

"After everything you've done with Ten-chan these past two days, all the
time you've had with him, you won't even allow me the small satisfaction
of waking up next to him?" asked Aeka, her voice shaking slightly. "Not
even that? You'll just snatch me from his side, and when that fails, push
me out the door? Is that it?"

It occurred to Ryoko that taking Aeka out of the bed might not have been
such a good idea, if it made the princess so upset that she wouldn't
leave. "Look, Aeka..."

"No! I'm tired of being reasonable. I'm through worrying about seeming
petty. And I've had far more than I can stand of trying to think the best
of you and to believe that your motives aren't what they appear," said
Aeka, barely keeping her quaking voice down. "I've tried my utmost to get
along, and all it's gotten me is walked on like a tatami!"

Ryoko clenched her fists and rapidly floated forward a few inches, then
stopped, catching herself. She hovered there motionless, silently
seething.

No, it had definitely *not* been a good idea, she decided. She really 
didn't care how upset the princess chose to get, as long as she did it
somewhere else, but Ryoko was realizing that Tenchi was going to be
almost as mad, if he found out. And the way things were progressing, he'd
find out for sure, the moment he saw Aeka's face at the breakfast table
and asked her what was bothering her.

"I *mean* it, Ryoko!" Tenchi had said angrily. "You better not have tied
her up again or something so she won't get in your way!"

Those weren't words she wanted to have to hear from him again. Ryoko
summoned up every last scrap of reasonableness she had from her rather-
sparse reserve. "We can talk about this later. OK?" she offered. "You can
yell at me all you like, down in the bath. If you can start making some
sense, maybe I'll even listen to you. But right now I need to be with
him, and you're *really* starting to get on my nerves."

"I'm not going to let myself be brushed aside *again*," said the princess
firmly. "I'm staying."

"WHAT?!?!?!"

Startled awake by the loud sound, Tenchi began to slowly open his eyes.

Aeka folded her arms across her chest while. "I said, I'm staying."

"Now wait just a minute! We agreed about this!" insisted Ryoko.

"We agreed that we would share him equally, not that I would have to live
in your shadow and content myself with whatever I chanced to receive,"
said Aeka. "Now if you don't mind, I'd like some privacy."

"We had a deal!"

Tenchi blinked, accustoming his eyes to the sunlight for a moment. He was
dimly aware that there was an argument going on and that, as had almost
always been the case for several months, the dispute centered on him.

"You didn't seem to care much about it yesterday, when he came home and
carried you upstairs," countered Aeka, her voice trembling as she pointed
a finger. "After that, I think this is only fair."

"Dammit, I told you...!"

"What if I'd chosen to enforce *my* right to him, yesterday? What would
you have done if I'd come in while he was making love to you, reminded
you of our agreement, and dragged you out of his arms to take your
place?" the princess demanded. "I doubt the house would still be
standing!"

Aeka's words grabbed hold of Tenchi's mind and jolted it to full
wakefulness. 

*She knew about that? Is that what she was so upset about last night, why
she was going to leave? I KNEW there had to be more to it than just the
picture!*

He was about to say something to try to stop the argument when Ryoko
spoke, her voice menacingly harsh. Tenchi cringed and remained silent.

"I've just about had it with your high-and-mighty 'dragged me out of his
arms' crap!" said the pirate, baring her fangs. "It's *nothing* compared
to what you tried to do to me the day Kiyone showed up!"

"What are you talking about?!"

"Forgot about that, princess?" asked Ryoko. "I haven't. Azaka? Kamidake?
'I'm just helping the police?' Sound familiar now?" she demanded
bitterly.

Vivid memories of what he'd said and how he'd felt that day filled
Tenchi's mind even as he desperately tried to block them out. He didn't
want to think about this, not again, but he did anyway. He remembered
waving to Ryoko, cheerfully telling her that he'd write to her while she
was in jail, and feeling immensely relieved that he was finally going to
be rid of her.

"That wasn't going to be for a few minutes," continued Ryoko, the volume
of her shaking voice rising with her anger. "That was going to be
forever! *FOREVER*!!! I was never going to see him again, and he didn't
even care yet!"

Tenchi grit his teeth on hearing Ryoko express her feelings about that
day, knowing how much his words and actions must have hurt her, and how
little that had bothered him at the time. Remembering it made him want to
go back to that moment and beat his old self into unconsciousness. Full
of shame, he stealthily inched the quilt up over his head. He couldn't
face Ryoko just then, if she chanced to notice that he was awake. He
simply couldn't.

"So don't start whining about me taking you back to the other room, you
stuck-up little bitch!!!" the pirate finished, her face livid.

"Then don't you complain to me about what happens when your crimes catch
up to you!" the princess countered in full fury. "It was only what you
deserved! And after what you did yesterday, I wish...!!"

"I TOLD YOU ALREADY, I DIDN'T DO ANYTHING!!" shouted Ryoko. "Tenchi did!!
It was his idea!! Deal with it!!"

"That is precisely what I'm doing now!!" Aeka shot back. "That's what I
did all evening long! And if you think I'm going to suffer what I've
suffered and then let you kick me around besides, you're mistaken!! I'm
staying!!"

Tenchi winced. That *was* what had prompted Aeka to want to leave. And
the girls must have been arguing about this before, maybe even since the
previous afternoon.

"If you're not out of here in about ten seconds, I AM going to kick you
around!!"

Aeka's eyes narrowed. "You're quite welcome to try!"

Realizing that fight was probably about to start, Tenchi cringed.

"Maybe if you'd come down off your damn throne and *talked* to me about
yesterday, I'd have let it pass this morning, but right now I wish I'd
just taken you out over the lake and dropped you in!" She floated up and
towards Aeka. "Now, this is my time to be with Tenchi. Alone. And I'm not
going to have you..."

Ryoko stopped in mid-sentence, her eyes focused on something just behind
the princess. The pirate's stare remained fixed on whatever it was for
many moments before she met Aeka's gaze again, the sudden hurt in her
face swiftly giving way to anger. Ryoko's eyes narrowed. "I see what you
mean, about 'doing your utmost to get along,'" she said, her voice
breaking under the strain of barely-enforced calm.

"What?" asked Aeka, puzzled. She glanced behind her to see what had
caught Ryoko's attention.

Lying face-down next to the bed was a picture. Ryoko glanced behind her
to certain spot on the wall and confirmed her immediate suspicion: the
portrait of her and Tenchi that she'd hung on the wall the previous day
had been taken from its place and tossed onto the floor. Aeka picked it
up and looked at it curiously, unable to recall how it had gotten there,
while Ryoko, remembering something she'd seen but hadn't taken notice of,
floated back towards the nightstand and reached down next to the alarm
clock. Her hand came up holding Aeka's whip.

Aeka frowned, recognizing it at once but now even more confused. "How did
that get here?" she slowly asked herself out loud.

Ryoko stared at it, remembering how it had been used the previous
Saturday. Words Aeka had spoken that day returned to the pirate's mind,
about the princess' attempt to drive Tenchi's love for Ryoko out of him
with pain.

"If a man that she feels strongly for dishonors himself, a woman of Jurai
is expected to correct him, to make him see his error."

Instantly she realized what must have happened. Aeka, angered by Tenchi's
actions on coming home, had punished him by forcing him to take the
picture down, threatening him with the lash if he didn't comply. Or maybe
there had been more than threats. Half of her hoped that Tenchi had
capitulated immediately, that he hadn't given the princess an excuse to
use the whip on him. The other half wished that he'd defied Aeka and
endured as much pain as he could possibly take. Ryoko's breathing grew
more and more rapid as she eyed the weapon in her hand. She closed her
eyes and clenched her fists, floating a foot above the ground as rage
swirled inside her.

"You bitch," she said in a slow, trembling voice. "You bitch."

"Excuse me?" replied Aeka, instantly standing straighter and facing her
adversary.

Ryoko's hand shook violently as she held the whip in front of her for a
moment. Then she flung it onto the floor next to the door and opened her
eyes, her face a mask of sheer fury.

Aeka's jaw dropped for a moment. Then her own expression filled with
anger to equal Ryoko's. "How *DARE* you show such disrespect! That was my
mother's, and her mother's, and hers!"

Tenchi blinked, confused for a moment before he remembered something Aeka
had said to him before.

"It has been handed down from mother to eldest daughter since the
beginning of Jurai's royal line," the princess had told him. "Perhaps
before. It has been a sign of the power of the women of our house since
antiquity."

*Her whip? But who brought that... WAIT A MINUTE, I DID!*

He pushed the quilt down and sat up. The girls faced each other, the
tension between them obviously near the breaking point. "Ano..." he said
hesitantly.

Utterly focused on each other, neither of the women noticed him.

"I... DON'T... CARE...!" growled Ryoko, flexing her fingers and moving
slowly closer to Aeka. 

Aeka glanced down at the picture she was holding, then contemptuously
hurled it against the wall.

Ryoko's eyes darted towards the point of impact and back to the princess.
She surged forward and stopped less than a foot in front of her. "GET...
OUT...! NOW!!"

"Ano..." repeated Tenchi, in vain.

"No!" answered Aeka adamantly. "I'm not going to be pushed around, any
longer!"

"I SAID, GET OUT!" Ryoko snarled, her fangs gleaming white as she did.

Tenchi swallowed fearfully. "Ano..."

Aeka planted her feet and stood her ground. "NO!"

Sparks began to fly between the two, flaring brighter with each passing
second. Acting on reflexes learned over the course of months, Tenchi did
what he always did whenever a fight started: he cowered and hid, hoping
not to get caught in the crossfire. He slowly pulled the quilt completely
over his head again and waited for the room to explode around him.

Ryoko roughly grabbed Aeka's arm and pulled her towards the door,
preparing to eject her bodily from the room. Outraged, Aeka drew back her
free arm and slapped Ryoko across the face as hard as she could. Ryoko
stepped back, then with a snarl hurled herself at Aeka fist-first, only
to receive a painful shock when she struck the princess' newly-activated
force-field. Stifling a cry, with her remaining momentum Ryoko vaulted
over her and stopped above the bed, where she turned and crouched in mid-
air gathering energy in her hands.

Aeka quickly turned around as well. Seeing the pirate's preparations to
attack, she went on the offensive. Small force-field logs surrounded
Ryoko, who teleported away a split-second before the air above the bed
filled with jagged bolts of violently-arcing electricity. The windows
next to the bed shattered and exploded outward in a storm of broken
glass. Underneath the quilt, Tenchi cringed, flattened himself against
the mattress even further, and prayed.

With a shimmer, Ryoko reappeared between the bed and the door and
unleashed the blast she'd been preparing. Aeka frantically dodged. The
beam of searing orange energy sizzled just past her and detonated with a
deafening roar when it slammed into Tenchi's desk, showering the room
with burning wood and paper and molten chunks of CDs. Ryoko cursed and
cut loose with a hail of bolts, but by then Aeka had surrounded herself
with her forcefield once more, and Ryoko's attacks simply ricocheted off
it in all directions. Deflected splashes of glowing plasma punched
through the walls and blew the door into the hall in a cloud of
smoldering splinters. Refusing to give up, the pirate floated up over the
nightstand, formed a massive energy ball in her hands, and hurled it at
Aeka. It burst against the forcefield just like the others, half-blinding
Ryoko for a moment in the hot backlash.

Seizing the chance, Aeka charged. She closed the distance as she gathered
the power of her forcefield and focused it in her fist. Ryoko saw her
coming just in time and flipped backwards through the wall. Unable to
check her swing, the princess smashed the nightstand and everything on it
to unrecognizable fragments. Tenchi squirmed to the other side of the bed
as fast as he could, but all that followed was ominous silence.

Horrifying thoughts sprang in his mind of what one of the girls might
have just done to the other, and then it dawned on him that this fight
was quieter than all the previous ones had been. Before, there had been a
sort of playful animosity involved. Taunts and insults had flown just as
readily as blows. But this time not a word had passed since the fighting
began. This time, they really seemed to mean it.

Slowly, Tenchi overcame his fear and peeked out from under the quilt.
Thin wisps of smoke floated through the air, and the tang of ozone filled
his nostrils. Pulverized debris covered the floor. Here and there, small
tongues of flame licked the walls. Aeka stood a meter or so away from the
bed. From what Tenchi could see she wasn't hurt, and from her stance she
didn't seem to think the fight was over yet, so that probably meant that
Ryoko wasn't hurt too badly, either.

Aeka balanced on the balls of her feet, ready to dodge, as she looked
warily about the room. Ryoko was nowhere to be seen. Aeka's eyes swept
all around her as she fought the impulse to put her back against a wall
for safety. Against Ryoko, that would offer no protection. The best place
was the center of the room. The smoke stung her eyes and made them water,
and she did her best to ignore it as she continued to stand ready.

Tenchi watched hopefully. Maybe Ryoko had given up for the moment. Maybe
the fight was over. Maybe...

Aeka caught sight of a flash of orange light above her and jumped out of
the way as Ryoko plummeted down through the ceiling, her energy blade
whirling towards the princess in a deadly blazing arc. The sword singed
one of Aeka's ponytails before cutting a meter-long gash through the
floorboards. Ryoko spun around and swung her weapon again, but it
shattered against Aeka's freshly-reactivated forcefield, slamming the
pirate back towards the door.

Shaking her head for a moment to throw off the effects of the painful
shock, Ryoko gathered energy in her hands for yet another attack. The
orange glow burned brighter and brighter until Aeka's forcefield logs
appeared around Ryoko and the pirate teleported away to avoid being
electrocuted. She rematerialized just outside the doorway and swung her
arms forward to hurl the bolt.

"Azaka! Kamidake!" snapped Aeka.

The guardians on either side of the doorway enclosed Ryoko in their
spherical forcefield just as she hurled her energy blast. The doorway
vanished in a thunderous explosion not quite loud enough to drown out the
pirate's scream of pain.

Tenchi's blood ran cold and he frantically scrambled out of the bed, only
to slip and fall onto the floor. Aeka remained focused on the doorway as
the smoke cleared, revealing Ryoko on all fours, her clothing shredded in
numerous places and blood trickling from a cut above her eye. Both
guardians lay knocked over on either side of her. She coughed and wiped
the soot from her face, then summoned her sword and charged in a rage.

Tenchi got to his feet and interposed himself between the two girls as
swiftly as he could. "STOP IT!!!!!!!!!!! STOP IT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"

Ryoko halted in her tracks. Both she and Aeka stared at Tenchi,
remembering his presence for the first time since the fight had begun.
Wide eyed, Tenchi looked them up and down, trying to tell if they'd been
hurt. Ryoko definitely seemed to have gotten the worst of it, but she
appeared much more angry than injured. Aeka looked more or less
unscathed. He breathed a sigh of immense relief that neither of the girls
had suffered serious harm. They were safe. Both of them, safe. The fear
that had gripped him, the terrible worry that something would happen to
them, quickly vanished, and a wave of anger surged in to take its place.

"How could you do this?!" he demanded. "I thought all this was going to
over now! I trusted you two!" The sound of betrayal in Tenchi's voice
grew with its volume. "I *trusted* you!"

A slight twinge of guilt washed over each girl's face before both of them
averted their eyes.

"You could have hurt each other! *Really* hurt each other! And what if
somebody had been outside the door when you blasted it?" he asked
angrily, turning his now-downright-wrathful gaze on Ryoko. "What if
Sasami-chan had been out there? Or my dad, or jiichan? They don't have
powers to protect them. You could have killed them! Didn't you stop to
think about that before you starting blowing things up? And what if you'd
hit *me*? What would you do, start fighting over who gets to bury the
body?"

Both of the girls quickly turned to face him again, now looking deeply
hurt.

"Ten-chan..." said Aeka.

"Tenchi..." began Ryoko.

Tenchi ignored them and continued on, his voice rising almost to a shout
as he surveyed the smoking ruin that had been his bedroom only minutes
before. "What about my room? Where am I going to sleep tonight, huh?
There's no *way* I'm going to be able to fix this today! It'll take me
most of a week, at least! Don't you realize how much work you just made
for me? Don't you care how much time I'm going to have to waste repairing
all the damage you've done?"

More guilt crept into Ryoko and Aeka's expressions.

"And you've blown up almost everything I own! All my music, all my books!
All my schoolwork, too!" Tenchi grit his teeth. "My history paper is
*gone* now, and I spent almost two weeks on it! This is worse than
anything you two have ever done before! Ever!"

Aeka and Ryoko hung their heads.

"And I trusted you! I thought you'd grown up a little, and stopped acting
like a couple of little kids fighting over me like I'm a toy or
something! You were supposed to be getting along now!"

"Get along? With *her*?" responded Aeka angrily. "Don't be ridiculous!"

"Not if Her Highness thinks she doesn't have to keep her word!" snapped
Ryoko.

Aeka turned and glared at the pirate. "I've kept mine far better than you
have yours!"

"I'm not the one who threw our agreement out the window this morning!"
Ryoko shouted back.

"I was merely making you obey the spirit of it!" answered the princess.

"What agreement?" asked Tenchi.

"You just think you can change it whenever you feel like it!"

"We never agreed that you could just grab me and drag me away from him!"

"And we never said that you could just *decide* to stay!"

"I decided to stop allowing myself to be humiliated by you!"

"You think being humiliated means someone not kissing your butt fast
enough!"

"WHAT AGREEMENT?!" shouted Tenchi.

"The one we made on Saturday," answered Ryoko. "The one Her Highness is
backing out on."

"I wasn't backing out on it! All I wanted was a little fairness! You've
had so much more time with him, the way he's been doting on you, and that
still hasn't satisfied you!"

Tenchi blinked. "Huh? What do you mean, doting?"

Aeka turned and stared at him in disbelief for a moment. "What do I
*mean*? You stayed home with her on Tuesday, didn't you?"

"She was *upset*, Ae-chan!" answered Tenchi. "I can't believe you're
still getting jealous over things like that. I thought you were to the
point where you'd be more understanding and less petty!" 

"Petty?" bridled the princess, as Ryoko started to grin.

"I was just trying to make her feel better, alright?" said Tenchi,
sounding very annoyed.

"Oh, I see! So that's why you were rutting in the bath like a pair of
minks?"

Ryoko's grin vanished as Tenchi stared, puzzled, at the princess. "How do
you know about that?"

"I *SAW* IT!" yelled Aeka. "I WAS THERE! 'I liked that, Ryoko. Let's do
it again sometime!' Wasn't that what you said? But I suppose I'm just
being petty, aren't I?!"

Tenchi winced, remembering that he had indeed spoken those words.
Suddenly he also recalled how distracted Ryoko had seemed at the time.
"You knew about this, didn't you?" he said, his face a deepening scowl as
he turned to face her.

Ryoko flinched and quickly looked away, unable to meet his eyes.

"I asked you, and you said she wasn't there!" shouted Tenchi.

The pirate closed her eyes.

"I can't believe you lied to me about that!!" he shouted even louder.

Clenching her fists, Ryoko bowed her head and started to tremble
slightly.

"What am I saying?!" continued Tenchi. "Of course I should expect it!
You've been tricking me ever since you showed up!!!"

Full of fury, Ryoko threw herself at Aeka, and Tenchi barely managed to
interpose himself again. He held onto her as she tried to squirm out of
his grasp and get her hands on the princess, and Ryoko had just enough
presence of mind not to exert her strength and hurt him in the process of
struggling to break free. "YOU BITCH!!! YOU SAID YOU WOULDN'T TELL
HIM!!!"

Tenchi was almost surprised enough to lose his grip. "WHAT?!?!" He
somehow managed to retain his hold on Ryoko while he turned around to
look at Aeka. "You both *agreed* to lie to me?!?!"

Aeka's expression became contrite for a moment. "I didn't say anything
because I didn't want to seem jealous and..." she said, raising her face
and becoming angry again, "...and *petty*!"

"Ha! What do you mean, 'seem'?!" shot Ryoko.

"What else have you two been doing behind my back?!" he demanded,
glancing from one to the other.

"Behind *your* back?" asked Aeka, incredulous. "What about what you did
in the bath?! And what about what you did yesterday?! What about what you
did when you arrived home?!"

"That's none of your damn business!" snarled Ryoko.

"Well?!" demanded Aeka, staring at Tenchi and ignoring the pirate.

"That just *happened*, Ae-chan! I was just trying to be less... less..."
Tenchi paused, desperately searching for a word to describe his behavior
that wasn't *too* terribly insulting to himself. "Less timid," he finally
decided.

"You never had to be forward with her -- she's always thrown herself at
you! But I needed you to do that with me!" she said, hurt creeping into
her voice. "I *needed* that, Ten-chan. All that time, I needed it..."

Ryoko smirked. "Maybe Tenchi prefers someone who doesn't hold back," she
said.

Aeka's face blushed burning scarlet. She rushed forward in livid rage,
and suddenly the girls were striking at each other around Tenchi until he
pushed them apart again.

"You're both impossible!" he shouted. "How long are you going to keep on
doing this?! STOP IT!!!!"

Both girls momentarily backed down, glaring at each with hostility
simmering in their eyes.

"How am I ever going to trust you again, after you *both* lied to me
about getting along?"

"Tenchi! That's not fair!"

"You asked the impossible of us, Ten-chan!"

"It's not fair that I ask you not to kill each other?" countered Tenchi.

"I tried, dammit! I really did!" insisted Ryoko.

"And so did I!" added the princess.

"If you'd tried any harder, you'd have blown up the whole house!" said
Tenchi, gesturing at the devastation around him.

"Ten-chan, that's completely..."

"I've gone out of my way to..."

"I don't want to hear this anymore!" shouted Tenchi.

"There are some things I just can't *do*, Tenchi!" said Ryoko. "Not even
for you!"

"You could as easily ask me to move mountains with my bare hands!" said
Aeka.

"What's so impossible about acting halfway decent towards each other?!"
Tenchi demanded.

"I'VE *TRIED*, TEN-CHAN!"

"I DID MY BEST!"

"WELL IT OBVIOUSLY WASN'T GOOD ENOUGH!"

"Excuse me," said Washuu.

"WHAT DO YOU EXPECT OF ME?"

"I EXPECT YOU TO LIVE TOGETHER WITHOUT TRYING TO KILL EACH OTHER!"

"Tenchi, that's crazy! Can't you see that?!"

"That's probably the only thing I'll agree with her about, Ten-chan."

"How do you know it's crazy if you don't even give it a chance?!"

"BUT I *DID*!!!"

Washuu cleared her throat. "Excuse me."

"NO, YOU DIDN'T!!!"

"Excuse me!" said Washuu, for the third time. Suddenly noticing the
scientist's presence, Tenchi, Ryoko, and Aeka stopped their argument and
looked down at her.

"Maybe you haven't noticed, but the walls are on fire," Washuu pointed
out.

Tenchi and the girls looked around and saw that, indeed, the flames
ignited by Ryoko's energy blasts had spread and grown larger. He
immediately turned to run out of the room -- to douse his room with the
garden hose, or call the fire department, he hadn't decided yet -- but
Washuu grabbed him by his boxers and prevented his departure. Using
Tenchi's underwear like a leash, Washuu stepped out into the hall,
motioning with her free hand for Ryoko and Aeka to follow.

"WASHUU, LET GO OF ME!!!" screamed Tenchi. "I'VE GOT TO PUT THE FIRE OUT
BEFORE IT SPREADS!!!"

"Hold on just a second," Washuu replied calmly. She let go of Tenchi's
shorts and her fingers danced over the translucent keyboard that suddenly
appeared beneath her hands. The sound of rapidly-pounding footsteps could
be heard coming up the staircase as a shimmering force-field filled the
doorway to Tenchi's bedroom. The flames swiftly flickered and died, just
as Nobuyuki reached the top of the stairs, wet, winded, and dressed in a
white bathrobe.

"What... was all that... noise I heard?" huffed Mr. Masaki, as he tried
to catch his breath.

"Aeka and Ryoko had one of their little fights," answered Washuu.

"Oh, was that all?" asked Nobuyuki, relieved. "Wow. It's been, what, a
whole week since they've done that?" He turned and smiled at the girls.
"You two are really making a lot of progress!"

"DAD!! THEY NEARLY KILLED EACH OTHER, THEY NEARLY KILLED *ME*, AND THEY
DESTROYED MY ROOM AND EVERYTHING IN IT!!"

"Calm down, Tenchi. As long as nobody got hurt, that's the important
thing."

"BUT THEY ALMOST BURNED OUR ENTIRE HOUSE DOWN!!!"

"You don't need to worry about that, the fire's out," assured Washuu.
"I've removed all of the oxygen from the bedroom. All we have to do now
is wait for the hot spots to cool down."

Tenchi sighed with relief, then frowned again. "Thanks, Washuu. I'm glad
*somebody* around here can do something useful instead of just
demolishing things," he grumbled.

Washuu's glance darted over to Ryoko and Aeka just in time to see them
visibly wince. A brow arching over one of the scientist's green eyes was
the only change in her expression as her little finger tapped a key on
the console. A loud "CLANG!" reverberated through the air a fraction of a
second later.

Tenchi held his skull and contorted his face in pain as he bent his neck
under the weight of the large, open-mouthed toad statuette sitting on top
of his head. "OWWWWW!! Alright, alright, thanks, Washuu-*chan*. Is that
better?"

Noting something out of the corner of her eye, Washuu turned towards the
stairs. "Ah, Sasami-chan. Ohayo. You're just in time," she said, as the
princess came into view, wrapped in a pink towel.

"Ohayo," replied Sasami. "So this is where everyone is. I went and got
Kiyone and Mihoshi, and we've been down in the bath waiting for you."
Then she looked around at signs of combat -- the debris blasted into the
hall, the guardians tumbled on the ground, and Ryoko's wounds -- and
frowned sternly. "You've been fighting again, haven't you?"

Washuu smiled. "Don't worry. Everything's going to be alright, Sasami-
chan. And nobody got seriously hurt."

"But what about Azaka and Kamidake?" said the princess, rushing over to
the fallen guardians. "Are you OK?" she asked them.

"We're fine, Sasami-hime," said Azaka. "We thought it would be better if
we stayed quiet."

"We didn't want to get involved in the argument," said Kamidake.

Hearing the guardians' voices, Ryoko glared at them suspiciously. She
backed away an inch or so as they floated upright and took their places
on either side of the remains of the doorway.

"Take Ryoko and your sister down to the bath so they can get cleaned up,"
Washuu said to Sasami. "You and Kiyone and Mihoshi can keep an eye on
them, right?"

Sasami nodded and looked at the two older girls expectantly, but neither
of them budged. "I'm not leaving until I've had my say," insisted Aeka.
"And I'm certainly not going to simply walk off after someone accuses me
of oath-breaking. Such things matter," she shot a sideways glare at
Ryoko, "...to *me*, at least."

"Could have fooled me," returned the pirate.

Aeka grit her teeth and continued. "And furthermore, I'm not going to let
you tell me that I haven't tried to make peace with her, when I know that
I *have* tried! You've no right to say that to me, Ten-chan, no right at
all!"

Ryoko tried to think of another incisive barb to set into the princess,
but this time she couldn't seem to find one. Aeka's words expressed many
of her own sentiments too well for her to argue with them.

"I love you, Ten-chan," finished the princess, slowly shaking her head
"but there are limits."

Tenchi stared mutely at her, the toad statue still perched precariously
atop his head, while she waited for a reply. Receiving none, Aeka turned
on her heel and strode down the stairs. The rest of the group stared as
well, except for Washuu, who reached over and tapped Sasami on the
shoulder. After a moment, the princess nodded, took hold of Ryoko's hand,
and tried to drag the rather-distracted pirate after Aeka.

Her mind on the here and now once more, Ryoko looked over at Tenchi. She
was about to float up next to him and start pleading for forgiveness, but
stopped, the statue on Tenchi's head reminding her of what he'd said just
before Washuu had dropped it on him. She thought, too, of the words Aeka
had just spoken. She didn't like following Aeka's lead, but...

"That goes for me, too, Tenchi," she said. Then she headed down the
stairs, floating in the air alongside Sasami.

Tenchi slowly set down the statue and rubbed his skull as he stared,
wide-eyed, after Ryoko. This was a totally new experience, and he had
absolutely no idea what to think. Both of them were angry, at *him*?
After what they'd just done?

Once the girls had vanished from view, Nobuyuki put his hand on his son's
shoulder. "Now, Tenchi, can you tell me what happened here?" he asked.

"There's... there's some stuff that I didn't know about that they've been
arguing about, and they started fighting about it this morning," Tenchi
replied.

Nobuyuki tightened his bathrobe and sat down with his back against the
wall. "Oh? Like what?"

"Don't you have to be at work soon?" asked Tenchi.

"They can get by without me looking over their shoulders for a few
hours," Nobuyuki answered.

"And I have to start getting ready for school."

"Don't worry about that. And stop making excuses."

Tenchi sighed in resignation and sat down next to his father. Washuu took
her seat on the opposite site of Tenchi from Nobuyuki. "Well... one of
the things was my staying home with Ryoko the other day. I'd said some
things that upset her, and I wanted to make it up to her, that's all. But
I guess it made Ae-chan really jealous."

"Even after you explained to her why you stayed home?"

"I, uh, didn't explain it to her," he replied guiltily. "I just never
thought about it." 

Nobuyuki shook his head. "You really should have told her, son. They're
jealous enough of each other without you making it worse."

"Yeah," sighed Tenchi again, thinking. "I wonder if that's part of what
made her want to leave last night," he said in a quiet voice.

"Leave?" asked Nobuyuki, his eyes widening. "Are you sure?"

Tenchi nodded. Remembering Aeka's grief the previous evening immediately
cooled his anger towards her. "She said that I'd..." He stopped. "I'd
rather not talk about it, dad. It's private. Alright?"

Washuu smiled and remained silent as Nobuyuki reached over to Tenchi and
put his arm around him. "Tenchi, have I ever told you how I've felt about
Ryoko and Aeka fighting over you?"

"No, but I can guess," replied Tenchi, a little puzzled at the change in
subject. "I'm really sorry about all the damage they've caused."

"Well, I haven't exactly *liked* that, but it isn't so bad," chuckled
Nobuyuki. "No, I've been proud. Proud that there are two beautiful young
ladies who think my son's so important that they're willing to blow the
house up over him. They care more about you than anything, Tenchi, but
you can still lose them, if you take them for granted. You have to
remember that."

"Believe me, dad, I was thinking about that a lot last night," said
Tenchi, looking at the floor.

Nobuyuki nodded. "Did you manage to change her mind?"

"Yeah. Only barely," said Tenchi. "We didn't talk about it much,
afterward, though. She fell asleep pretty quick." He closed his eyes and
hung his head. "I think it was from all that crying."

Nobuyuki's face pulled into a frown, and for a moment he was silent.
"Tenchi, you're going to make it up to her."

"I know, dad. I know."

"Don't brush it off like that," said Nobuyuki sternly -- the sternest
that Tenchi had heard him in a long, long time. "No son of mine is going
to go around making the women who love him cry themselves to sleep at
night. Understand?"

Tenchi nodded.

"Alright," said Nobuyuki. "Now, what else were they upset about this
morning?"

For a few moments, Tenchi ran over the details of the argument he'd had
with the girls after their fight. "I think part of it had to do with
something that happened later that day, when I stayed home with Ryoko,"
he said.

"Oh? What?" asked Nobuyuki.

"Well... after breakfast," Tenchi began, sweating nervously, "Ryoko and I
went to take a bath." He swallowed. "Together. Things sort of, well...
*happened* after that..."

Nobuyuki's face lit up. "That's my boy! The ladies always love a little
daring and spontaneity!"

Tenchi cringed and blushed, embarrassed by his father's reaction and
feeling very uncomfortable discussing the subject with him. "I wouldn't
exactly say I was daring or spontaneous," he said. "But... I guess Ae-
chan walked in and saw us." Tenchi's voice flared with anger. "And Ryoko
lied to me about it! She didn't just not tell me -- I *asked* her if Ae-
chan was there, and she said 'no'!"

Washuu shook her head. "You're a fairly bright young man, Tenchi, but
you'd make a terrible scientist. You know why?" 

Tenchi bridled slightly at the insult. "Why?"

"All you care about are surface phenomena. You almost never search deeper
for the underlying causes of things," explained Washuu. "Let's look at
this logically. To start with, why'd you ask Ryoko if Aeka was there?"

"She said she had to go talk to her."

"Any idea what about?"

"I don't know. Something about making sure she and Ae-chan didn't fight."

"Fight about what?"

"Me, of course. It's always about me." He thought for a second. "She
probably wanted to calm Ae-chan down about finding us in the bath."

"I see," said Washuu. "Well, if she got up and left you, I guess at least
that means she's not hanging onto you like she used to."

Tenchi shook his head. "No, no. She's does that, same as always.
Sometimes worse, even. Every single minute she doesn't spend with me
upsets her. You remember yesterday morning, right, dad?" he asked,
thinking of the look on Ryoko's face as she'd watched him walk away to
school.

Nobuyuki nodded. "She must have thought talking to Aeka was pretty
important."

"Oh. I hadn't thought of that," said Tenchi, hanging his head. "I guess
she really was trying hard to keep the peace," he added quietly, mostly
to himself. Then he frowned again. "But her lying about it only made it
worse! If I'd known what had happened, *I* would have gone and apologized
to Ae-chan. That would have fixed things. They wouldn't have still been
mad at each other and fighting about it this morning!"

"And if Ryoko had told you that Aeka had seen you, would you have been
upset?" asked Washuu.

"Of course I would have been upset!" replied Tenchi angrily. "Don't you
realize how much is must have hurt Ae-chan to see that? I *told* Ryoko
someone might walk in on us, but she kept at me until I gave in!"

"Do you think that's what she expected?"

"Yeah, I suppose."

"So, you're mad at Ryoko because she tried to solve the problem herself,
instead of risking you getting angry with her?"

"You're making it sound like everything is my fault!" snapped Tenchi.

"Tenchi, this is something you should have realized by now," said
Nobuyuki. "Part of being in love with someone is caring about what they
think of you. When they're mad at you, it *hurts*. And these girls may be
tough in most ways, but when it comes to how you feel about them, they're
more fragile than anyone I've ever seen. Way more than your mom was with
me. Not that we had many arguments," he added wistfully, his eyes taking
on a faraway look. "It wouldn't have done me any good. She was never the
type to back down when she knew she was right."

"Ryoko and Aeka didn't exactly back down this morning. They were just as
mad at me as they were at each other."

"Well, maybe that's not such a bad thing. I don't want the three of you
to fight, and I don't want the girls to hurt each other. But it's not
right for them to be scared of you, Tenchi."

Tenchi turned and looked at his father. "Scared of me?"

"Well, maybe not scared of you, exactly. Scared of what you can do."

Washuu nodded. "You're dad's right. When it comes to the girls, you have
a lot of power, and you're very careless with it sometimes."

"You make it sound like I'm Ryoko, going around blasting things," Tenchi
said defensively.

"That's not far from the truth," replied Washuu. "Because even if you had
an energy sword like hers, she and Aeka wouldn't be half as afraid of
what you might do to them with it as they would be of the way you might
look at them or speak to them."

An image formed in Tenchi's mind of the conversation he'd had with Ryoko
on Tuesday, when she'd come in to get lunch for herself and Aeka.
"Tenchi," she'd asked, in a quiet, hesitant voice, slowly and fearfully
raising her eyes to look at him, "what if, sometimes -- just once in a
while, I mean -- it doesn't turn out... well, completely, totally...
*perfect*?"

"You need to be more careful than you've been," said Washuu.

Tenchi nodded, becoming somewhat lost in his thoughts. Ryoko had seemed
so worried then. She really had been afraid of him becoming angry with
her, if she failed to smooth things over. And she'd spent most of that
day, the day he'd stayed home to be with her, out by Ryuu-oh with Aeka.
She'd put a lot more effort into it than he'd given her credit for, he
realized.

"You need to remember that very small actions on your part can have
devastating effects, if you don't watch what you're doing," Washuu
continued.

"Yeah. I know, I know," said Tenchi, wondering why Aeka hadn't come to
him and told him about what she'd seen. She had to have known that he'd
feel terrible about it and do his best to comfort her. Didn't she? But
instead she'd let Ryoko try to do that, instead. Aeka, too, had tried,
tried hard, to make things work.

"And you need to pay closer attention to things," the scientist added,
reaching into a subspace hole that appeared in front of her and producing
a gleaming black sphere, which she handed to Tenchi. "Here you go."

"Thanks. What is it?" asked Tenchi, as the orb began to emit a low hum.

Washuu smiled. "It's a nova bomb. It's used for blowing up planets."

Tenchi and Nobuyuki immediately broke out in a sweat, and Tenchi almost
gave in to his initial reflex to hurl the ball away from him.

"Now, be careful. The triggering mechanism is very sensitive," warned
Washuu in a sweet, nonchalant voice. "Jostle it too hard and anyone on
Mars will have a nice, unobstructed view of Venus."

The two men stared, frozen in perspiration-drenched terror, at the bomb
sitting in Tenchi's trembling hands.

"That's a pretty heavy responsibility, having that much power in your
hands, isn't it?" asked Washuu.

Tenchi gulped and gave a slow, careful nod. "Hai," he whispered.

"No need to be scared of it, Tenchi," Washuu assured him. "It's perfectly
safe, just as long as you keep your mind on what it is you're holding,
and treat it properly."

Barely daring to breathe, Tenchi kept his eyes riveted on the sphere
resting in his palm.

Without warning, Washuu deftly snatched the orb from Tenchi's grasp and
tossed it up in the air, then caught it. Tenchi and Nobuyuki screamed and
grabbed each other, waiting for the world to explode. Smiling, Washuu
dropped the sphere into a subspace pocket that appeared in an instant and
vanished just as suddenly.

"Of course, to make a nova bomb explode, first you need to put some
antimatter into it," said Washuu.

After a few minutes, once he and Tenchi had regained their power of
speech, Nobuyuki stood up. "I need to call your school and tell them you
won't be coming in today," he said. "And I have to go into town to get
the lumber and paint for the repairs. Now, once the girls are done with
their bath, you're going to have a talk with them. Right?"

Tenchi nodded. "Yeah."

"I'll make sure he does," said Washuu. "Besides, I think I might want to
discuss this a bit more with him."

"No more... bombs?" asked Tenchi, swallowing nervously. "OK?"

Washuu chuckled. "I told you, it wasn't armed. Can't you take a harmless
little joke?"

"Heh heh heh. Tenchi always was the serious type," laughed Nobuyuki,
walking down the stairs.

"Mmm-hmm. Like his mother," Washuu agreed quietly.

Overhearing her words, Tenchi looked quizzically at the scientist. "How
would you know about my mom?" he asked.

Washuu froze and remained completely silent for a moment or so. "Don't
change the subject," she said finally. "Now, learned anything from our
talk so far?"

"Well... it sounds like you're trying to tell me that what happened this
morning is all my fault," said Tenchi quietly. "Right? That doesn't
really seem fair."

"I wasn't saying that it's *all* your fault. But it's more your fault
than you seemed to think."

Tenchi nodded. "Yeah. Alright. Some of the things they were upset at each
other about, were things that I did. I just wish they'd gotten mad at me,
instead of fighting each other." He sighed, thinking back to the battle
that had taken place in his bedroom. "I thought they were going to get
hurt, maybe even killed, Washuu. Now that I think about it, that's why I
was yelling at them, mostly. I mean, I was mad about all the damage they
did. And I'm still mad. But I more than anything I was angry about what
might have happened to them."

Washuu smiled and patted his hand, choosing to ignore his failure to use
her preferred form of address. "I know. That's why it was such a small
statue," she said.

"So what do I do now?"

"You're asking for my advice?"

"You were going to give it to me anyway, right?"

"It'll be a lot more helpful if you really want it," replied Washuu. "Do
you?"

Tenchi nodded again. "But we agreed, no more 'blow-up-the-world' stuff,
OK?"

"Just as long as I got the point across, and it made you understand a
little of how the girls feel."

"How they feel? What do you mean?"

Washuu looked at him very seriously. "Because you're their world, Tenchi.
Remember that. OK?"

Tenchi sat and considered that for a moment. "You're right. But that's a
lot of pressure to have to live with," he said. "Have any advice on
that?"

"First I think you should fill me in on how all this happened," said
Washuu. "Even a genius needs data to make her analyses."

"Where should I start?"

"Start with whatever initiated the change in the situation between the
three of you."

"Well... the first thing I noticed happened last Tuesday morning," said
Tenchi. "Ryoko snuck into my room before I woke up, and then she..." He
stopped, an intense red blush covering his face. "Umm, I don't have to
tell you all of the, you know, details... do I?" he asked, feeling
incredibly embarrassed.

Washuu grinned fiendishly. Tenchi's eyes widened and he began to sweat
before her expression softened into a smile. "I can read between the
lines just fine. Go ahead."

"While Ryoko was, uh, in my bed, Ae-chan showed up, and then..."

Downstairs, Aeka shut the door behind her as she entered the bath. She
nodded and returned Kiyone and Mihoshi's greetings, more out of reflex
than anything else, before she undressed and sat down next to them. An
uncomfortable silence fell as the princess started soaping up.

"So, how's your morning going?" asked Mihoshi cheerfully.

Aeka frowned. "Foully," she grumbled, as she continued washing herself.

"Oh. Well, um, sorry I asked." Mihoshi began singing as she shampooed her 
thick mane of blond hair. "Where did you go? Wait a minute, Mr. Criminal,
if you hide, I can't arrest you...!"

Gently scrubbing her arms, Aeka critically eyed a few red blotches
starting to form -- flash burns from a near-miss by one of Ryoko's energy
bolts. Her eyes narrowed. Hopefully, there wouldn't be any permanent
marks to mar her prized milk-white complexion and for Tenchi to notice,
but if there were...

"It's a Police Magic!" continued Mihoshi gaily. "If you wanna see me..."

If there were, Aeka vowed, she'd shave the pirate bald.

"...you can whistle... whenever... you..." Mihoshi's voice faltered and
stopped as she stared at Aeka's angry face. "Ummmm... was I bothering
you?"

Aeka blinked and returned her thoughts to her immediate surroundings.
"No, no. I didn't mean to give that impression."

Mihoshi smiled. "Oh, OK. Say, Kiyone, aren't you going to tell Aeka about
the message from her uncle?"

"My uncle?" asked Aeka, turning to face Kiyone, who looked very
embarrassed.

Kiyone put her face in her hands. "Mi-ho-shi!" she growled slowly. "I was
going to tell her later. Can't you see she's in a really bad mood right
now?"

Aeka sighed. "Whatever the message is, I'd best hear it now before you
have to leave for work," she said. "And I'm sorry for being rude. It's
nothing to do with you, I'm upset with someone..."

The door hissed faintly against its frame as it slid open.

"...else," finished Aeka, gritting her teeth and glaring as Ryoko walked
in with a stack of towels in her arms. Ryoko stopped and directed an
equally-rancorous stare at the princess, and the two stood facing each
other down, a thread of almost-palpable malice crackling in the air
between them.

"Ohayo, Ryoko!" called Mihoshi. "Wow, what happened to your clothes? You
look like Sasami ran you through the food processor!"

Ryoko turned her threatening gaze on Mihoshi, who suddenly looked much
less cheerful.

"I, um, guess you're in a bad mood, too, huh?" said Mihoshi meekly,
before she resumed shampooing her hair.

Discarding the torn remnants of her clothes in a heap, Ryoko sat down and
examined her injuries. Bruises covered much of her body, though they were
fading quickly as her regenerative abilities took hold. She filled a bath
pail with warm water and doused herself with it, then picked up a nearby
bottle of liquid soap and began lathering up her arms while she sat in
sullen silence.

As Ryoko started washing, Sasami alternately watched her and Aeka,
wondering what she could do to help reverse whatever damage had been
done. She looked over at the pirate and her heart sank a bit. It wasn't
right for Ryoko to be sitting all by herself, but the princess could
sense that it would only make things worse to try to drag her over by the
others. Still, Sasami didn't want to appear to take sides by sitting with
either her sister or Ryoko. She picked a spot about halfway between the
two, then sat down and started to wash distractedly, every now and then
casting a concerned glance at Aeka or Ryoko.

Aeka took her wary eyes off the pirate and turned to Kiyone. "So, what
was this about a communique?" she asked in a low, guarded voice.

"Your uncle, Torakami-dono, was rather anxious for me to put him in touch
with you," explained Kiyone.

Mihoshi nodded. "I'll say he was. He was really mad at Kiyone when she
told him she wouldn't let him talk to you."

Kiyone frowned at her partner. "That's not Aeka's problem, OK, Mihoshi?"

"No, it is," insisted Aeka, doing her best to put aside the morning's
previous events and deal with the matter at hand. "I really do appreciate
your helping me get some peace and privacy, without my family calling
every day to ask when I'll be home. Thank you," she added, glancing over
at Mihoshi. "Thank you both."

"You're welcome," replied Kiyone, smiling. Mihoshi nodded in agreement.

"Knowing my uncle, he probably threatened to file a complaint with your
superiors."

Kiyone grimaced. "Well..." She sighed and nodded. "Yes."

"He has no excuse to speak to you in that fashion," said Aeka, frowning
as she shook her head. "Ever since Aunt Shikibu died, he's been like
this. I wish mother would hurry up and arrange a second marriage. Men can
be so insufferable when they have no one to guide and correct them. He's
worse than father is, sometimes." She sighed. "Please accept my apologies
for my uncle's behavior. He doesn't mean you any harm personally, but
he's been a warrior all his life, and anyone who stands in his way he
treats like an enemy on the battlefield. If he's caused your careers any
damage, I'll see to it that it's undone."

"Thanks," said Kiyone. "Anyway, he says that he and your cousin send
their love. And he says she's started collecting art, and wants you to
get her some pieces from Terra."

"Ah. I see," said Aeka, dwelling for a moment on fond memories of her
younger cousin. "Yes, that would make a wonderful gift. But I've always
understood that removing cultural relics from planets without spaceflight
was restricted. Do you suppose you could handle the permits for me?"

"I'm already taking care of it. Your uncle said he doesn't want anything
delaying your arrival for the Startika celebration," said Kiyone.

Aeka's eyes widened. "S-startika?"

"Uh-huh. He said something about you officiating."

"Yes," said Aeka, slowly nodding to herself. "Of course. It was expected
that I'd have chosen a suitor by now, and that I would make the
announcement during the festival."

Mihoshi's face lit up. "Does this mean that me and Kiyone get to be
bridesmaids?" she asked excitedly. "Does it?"

A wave of pain flashed over Aeka's face as she sought the words for a
reply. Seeing her expression and thinking she knew its cause, Mihoshi
calmed down. She looked at her hands and wrung them nervously as she,
too, struggled to properly phrase what she had to say. 

"Um, Aeka," she said hesitantly, "you don't have to worry about me trying
to ruin your wedding or something because I'm upset at not getting him,
OK? I wouldn't do that. No matter what, you're still my friends, and I
want you to be happy." She paused for a moment, then continued. "Anyway,
I'm over him. Sort of. Mostly. And I... I promise I won't... screw up,
either. So, can we be your bridesmaids? Me and Kiyone?"

Aeka stared at her, totally at a loss for words.

"Besides, I can't think of anyone better than Kiyone to handle your
bachelorette party. Remember the one we had for Yuko last year?" she
asked, glancing at her partner.

Kiyone nodded. The look on Aeka's face confirmed suspicions that had
grown steadily over months of fending off inquiries from the Juraian
royals. She really wished Mihoshi would shut up and stop torturing the
princess, but Mihoshi was so well-meaning and earnest that Kiyone
couldn't muster up enough harshness to deal with her partner's ignorance
in the usual manner.

Mihoshi clasped her hands. "Please?"

Aeka's eyes moved to Kiyone and noted her expression of helpless
sympathy, then returned to Mihoshi, who sat holding herself still
awaiting an answer. Finally managing to think of a response, Aeka nodded
and forced a smile. "I wouldn't dream of having it otherwise," she said.
"Ten-chan and I will not be wed without both of you there as maids of
honor. You have my word..."

Mihoshi's face lit up like a sunrise, and she was just about to jump up
and shout with joy but stopped as Aeka continued speaking.

"...but keep it a secret. Ne?" said the princess. "No formal plans have
been made as yet."

"Oh, sure, Aeka!" agreed Mihoshi, her head bobbing. "You can count on
me."

"Thank you."

"You're welcome!" Mihoshi replied cheerfully. She poured a bath pail full
of warm water of her head to rinse out the shampoo, then went to get a
towel to start drying off. Seeing her withdraw, Aeka closed her eyes and
breathed a sigh of relief.

"Aeka?" said Kiyone.

The princess opened her eyes. "Yes?"

"I'm sorry."

"It's not your fault, Kiyone."

"I know. But I'm still sorry."

"Thank you," said Aeka.

"When are you going to have to leave?" asked Kiyone.

"I don't know. There's still a while yet before Startika, and the faster
the ship they can spare, the later it will come. That's a firm limit. But
they'll want me to return sooner. The pressure will grow, as the festival
nears."

Kiyone thought for a few seconds. "Aeka, I'll stall them for as long as
possible. I'll give you and Tenchi every last second together that I can.
Just promise me one thing."

"What's that?" asked Aeka.

"Promise me you won't waste any of it," said Kiyone. "I'm buying you time
so you can be with Tenchi, not so you can fight with Ryoko. OK?"

Aeka frowned. "Kiyone, I appreciate what you've done for me, truly I do,
but what happened this morning wasn't my fault!"

Kiyone sighed. "I wasn't there, so I don't know. I'm not trying to accuse
you of anything. I'm just saying this as a friend, Aeka -- make the most
of the time you've got."

"I'll give it some thought," answered Aeka quietly.

"Alright. I'll see you later -- Mihoshi and I need to get to work, and
we're running late."

Aeka nodded, looked down at the tiles, and began to contemplate Kiyone's
advice as the officer dried herself off, got dressed, and departed with
Mihoshi, leaving the bath to Ryoko and the princesses.

On the other side of the bath, Ryoko squeezed her bottle of soap again,
and found that she'd emptied it. She looked around her for a replacement,
found none, then noticed the bottles Mihoshi and Kiyone had left sitting
near Aeka. She shook her head. Obviously, she couldn't go over and get
it. Then she frowned.

*Well, why the hell not? What am I, afraid of her?*

Aeka scrambled frantically into a defensive crouch an instant after Ryoko
phased into the air a scant meter away. The two watched each other for a
long, tense moment before Ryoko slowly floated down, and their eyes
remained locked as the pirate's feet touched the floor. Even more slowly,
Ryoko crouched, then suddenly snatched up the soap bottle. Aeka nearly
jumped out of her skin, but her expression was even more hostile once she
recovered. The two glared at each other for a while. Finally, deciding
that going back to her original spot would make Aeka think she'd
frightened her off, Ryoko sat down and resumed washing.

Sasami's face brightened with hope. Aeka and Ryoko were still obviously
angry, but at least they were sitting together, and she could try to find
a way to begin to repair the damage. She waited for a minute or so, then
quietly got up and sat back down behind them. Noticing Sasami's arrival,
both of the older girls relaxed ever-so-slightly, though they still shot
occasional malicious glances at each other while they bathed.

Eventually, Sasami ventured to break the uncomfortable silence.

"Is it OK if I ask you something?" she asked, trying not to sound too
timid. 

Ryoko and Aeka frowned but didn't answer, so Sasami decided to press on. 

"Why are you fighting again?" the young princess asked.

The frowns deepened but no reply was made.

"I thought you promised not to do this anymore," said Sasami. "Except
when you were yelling at each other yesterday afternoon, everything
seemed to be alright. So, why?"

"Because your sister's a lying little bitch," said Ryoko, glancing over
at Aeka. An angry look passed over the elder princess' face but she
managed to restrain herself.

"Sasami, I think you'd best leave," Aeka said. "You're much too young to
be exposed to the kind of language favored by gutter trash."

Behind her, Sasami stood up, her hands clenched into little fists at her
side as she glared furiously down at the two older girls. Then she picked
up a bath pail, filled it with cold water, came up behind Aeka and Ryoko,
and splashed the entire contents on them. Both of them shrieked and
wheeled around, shivering and furious. "S-S-S-SASAMI!!!"

The young princess looked down at them, her face stern and full of
intense disapproval. Ryoko and Aeka each curbed the reflexive impulse to
strike back, knowing that they couldn't -- and didn't want to -- deal
with Sasami the way they dealt with each other. What was more, an angry
Sasami was something they were quite unaccustomed to dealing with. Slowly
they turned around as their flash of anger subsided, shivering from the
chill dousing they'd received. It only took a minute or so before Ryoko
couldn't stand it anymore and hurriedly slid into the warm bath with a
relieved sigh. Aeka grit her chattering teeth and managed to suppress the
urge to emulate the pirate for a while, then gave in and joined her.
Finally, after another brief pause, Sasami moved over next to the bath,
sat down, and waited.

"Do you really like fighting better than being friends?" asked Sasami,
after a while. "I've liked the way things have been since you started
being nicer to each other. It made me happy to see that, instead of you
being mean all the time. Tenchi loves both of you. You don't have to
fight. And if you don't have to, why should you?"

Sasami lowered herself into the water next to them. "Remember when we
were here last Sunday? How Ryoko pretended she was going to dive into the
water and splash us, and you didn't yell at her like you always did
before when she played jokes? You were happy then, both of you. I could
tell. We were together, having fun, the way I wanted it to be. It was
almost like Ryoko was our sister."

"Sasami, don't be *absurd*," growled Aeka through clenched teeth.

"I'm not," insisted Sasami. "We all sleep in the same room now, all three
of us, except when one of you's with Tenchi." She looked at Aeka. "You
even said it was a good idea, when I asked you. And now you both tell me
bedtime stories, and tuck me in at night, and help me go back to sleep
when I have bad dreams. Then at breakfast on Sunday, you asked Ryoko to
go shopping with you. And on Monday, you said you liked her poem. You've
never said nice things like that to her before, and you've never, *ever*
wanted her to go someplace with you. And Ryoko is helping us with the
housework now. She even helped me wash dishes Monday night, while you
were sitting with Tenchi, and she didn't get mad or anything."

Ryoko sighed in annoyance. "Sasami, are you going to tell us about every
single second that we haven't killed each other since Saturday
afternoon?"

Sasami frowned, then nodded. "Yes, I am," she said firmly. "And if you
don't listen to me, all you're going to eat is instant ramen from now
on."

Aeka and Ryoko looked at her nervously for a moment, then resigned
themselves to the inevitable. Satisfied, Sasami continued.

"And when you asked her to, Aeka told Azaka and Kamidake to guard
Tenchi's bedroom, so his father wouldn't come in and take pictures of
you. You were friends enough with her to ask her, and she was friends
enough with you to say yes. That's a really big favor of her to do that,
Ryoko."

Ryoko flexed her hands, remembering the explosion of less an hour before.
"Yeah, some favor," she muttered.

"But it is!" said Sasami. "Those are her guardians, Ryoko. They're very
important servants of the royal family of Jurai. They're supposed to
protect us, and this is the first time they've guarded anyone but me and
Aeka since she was born."

Aeka looked curiously at her sister. "Who told you that, Sasami?"

"They did. I asked them Tuesday afternoon. And that was when you were out
by Ryuu-oh, talking. You were there for hours and hours, and I didn't
hear you fighting or anything. Ryoko even came and got lunch for you.
Remember?"

"There are things about that that you're not old enough to understand
yet, Sasami," said Aeka testily.

"I'm not too little to know that Tenchi wouldn't have let you come to
school with him yesterday, if you'd still been fighting," countered
Sasami, becoming slightly angry in turn. "He'd have been afraid you'd
blow it up or something. But when he saw you were being friends, he knew
it was OK for you to go with him. Is fighting better than being with
Tenchi?" She put her arms across her chest. "I think you're both being
silly."

Aeka and Ryoko looked down at the water and said nothing.

"And there's the necklace you got for her, Aeka," said Sasami. She turned
to the pirate. "I thought that after she gave you such a pretty gift,
you'd get her one, too, Ryoko, instead of fighting with her."

Ryoko turned and stared, puzzled, at the young princess. "What are you
talking about, Sasami? What necklace?"

Sasami blinked. "The one she bought for you at the mall, Tuesday morning.
I was going to ask you why you haven't been wearing it. Don't you like
it?"

Aeka closed her eyes. "I don't want to discuss this, Sasami," she said,
an angry edge to her voice.

"But why not?" asked Sasami. "You wouldn't have gotten her a present if
you weren't trying to be friends. And you were smiling when you were
buying it. I saw you."

"I said I don't want to discuss it!" snapped Aeka.

"Well, I *do*!" answered Sasami angrily. "You were smiling. You were
doing something nice for Ryoko, and it made *you* feel nice, and that's
what being friends is. Why don't you want it to be like that?"

Ryoko frowned and shook her head. "I don't care about any damn necklace,
Sasami. We haven't been fighting because we made an agreement about it,
that's all. Except that some people," she turned and glared at Aeka,
"think that if they're royalty, they don't have to keep promises they
make to 'gutter trash,'" she said sarcastically. "Right, your highness?"

"I've told you, I'm not going to tolerate having my honesty impugned,"
said Aeka through clenched teeth. "I keep my word, no matter whom I give
it to. Even the likes of you."

"Oh, really?" scoffed Ryoko. "Care to explain what you pulled back in
Tenchi's bedroom, then?"

"As soon as you explain yesterday afternoon," Aeka shot back.

"I'm not talking about what day belongs to who anymore," Ryoko said, her
voice rising. "You said you weren't going to use that damned whip of
yours on Tenchi. You swore it, princess. And then you went ahead and did
it anyway. Isn't that how you always say *I* am?" Ryoko laughed grimly.
Then the mirth died and she glared at Aeka. "I thought maybe I'd started
to understand you a little. I knew you'd be mad at him for yesterday, but
I didn't think you'd hurt him for it." The light gleamed on sharp fangs
as Ryoko's lips pulled back in an angry snarl. "How many times did you
have to hit him with it, before he lied and told you he was sorry?" Ryoko
leaned a little closer. "Well?"

"I haven't the slightest idea what you're talking about," answered Aeka.

"Then what was your whip doing there?" demanded Ryoko.

"Tenchi brought it," said Sasami.

Both girls turned and stared at her in shock. "WHAT???"

Sasami nodded and looked at Aeka. "He came downstairs last night and
asked me where it was. He said he'd done something to make you cry but he
didn't know what, and he wanted to show you that he was sorry. So I went
and got it for him, and he took it back to the room with him."

"I... I fell asleep while he was downstairs, Sasami," said Aeka, her
voice suddenly very far away. "He only said he was going to get some
tea."

"That's what he was doing, but then he asked me about the whip," said
Sasami. "He looked really scared about it, too."

Ryoko's eyes widened as she quickly looked away without replying, and
Aeka made no answer either as she contemplated this discovery. Tenchi had
intended to offer her the whip, fully expecting that she would use it on
him? It wasn't a decision made in ignorance of the consequences -- Tenchi
knew perfectly well the pain each lash would inflict, for he'd
experienced nine of them on Saturday. She thought back and remembered the
harsh snap as she wielded it on him, the grunt of pain that escaped him
each time it bit into him, the red lines criss-crossed over his back, and
she shuddered. She shuddered again as she recalled the angry, accusing
words he'd hurled at her once she'd stopped. But this was light years
away from that. On his own initiative, Tenchi had intended to submit
himself to painful correction, without even knowing what it was he'd done
wrong.

She closed her eyes and smiled a little sadly, wishing that she'd managed
to stay awake just a while longer the previous night. Next to her, Ryoko
stared downward, her face red from embarrassment at finding out her
accusation had been false. While the tension had already been high due to
Aeka's refusal to leave, Ryoko finding the whip had been what had pushed
things over the edge. If she hadn't jumped to conclusions, Ryoko knew,
the battle might not have happened. Tenchi's room wouldn't have been
demolished, he wouldn't have found out about Aeka having seen them in the
bath, he wouldn't have seen her fail to keep the peace with the princess
as he'd asked, and he wouldn't have gotten angry and yelled at her. What
was more, Aeka was never going to let her hear the end of this, and there
wasn't anything Ryoko could think of to say in defense.

As the pirate had anticipated, Aeka finally came out of her blissful
reverie and glared at Ryoko. "There, you see? I *do* keep my oaths," she
said in haughty, righteous indignation. "To think of having my honesty
questioned by the likes of you! The very idea! So now Ten-chan's
bedchamber is destroyed, and he's angry at me, thanks to your ridiculous
delusions! I do hope you're satisfied with all of the havoc you've
managed to cause. As usual."

Ryoko hung her head. Sasami looked at her and her face immediately
saddened in sympathy. "Aeka..." the young princess began to protest.

"Well?" demanded Aeka. "Do you have something to say, perhaps, Ryoko? Or 
do you only care to speak when you've some malicious falsehood about me 
that you'd like to tell?"

"Aeka..." said Sasami again, as Ryoko sank a little lower in the water.

"Surely you have *something* to say in your defense, Ryoko? Something
which would justify what you did? Something which would explain why you
saw my whip there and simply assumed that I must have broken my word? I'm
sure that Ten-chan will be interested to hear it."

Ryoko jerked her head around and leaned over, nose to nose with the
princess. Aeka flinched at the pirates suddenly-threatening posture but
stood her ground. 

"And what was I supposed to think, huh?" demanded Ryoko. "After what you
pulled last Saturday, of course that's what I thought!"

"I've apologized for that already," said Aeka evenly. "Was my apology
accepted, or wasn't it?"

"It was, but you don't forget something like that, Aeka. Believe me, you
don't," Ryoko growled. "Maybe if somebody tried to make Tenchi swear
never to love *you* again, you'd understand a little better!"

Aeka glared back at her but didn't reply.

"So when I see your whip next to the bed, after you kept going on and on
about how pissed you were that he took me upstairs yesterday afternoon,
yeah, I'm going to think you decided to do just what you did before when
you got mad at him being with me! Seeing that damn thing of yours doesn't
exactly bring back lots of happy memories. Understand, princess?" Ryoko
leaned even further forward. "Understand?!"

"I'm sorry, Ryoko," said Sasami quietly.

Ryoko blinked and looked over at her. "Huh?"

Sasami meekly hung her head. "I thought it was sweet of Tenchi to want to
do that. I didn't know it would hurt your feelings. If I knew it would, I
would have told you about it last night, so you wouldn't worry. All I
wanted was for Tenchi to make oneesama feel better." She glanced up at
Aeka for just a moment before looking down again. "And I'm sorry if I
helped make Ryoko mad at you, oneesama. I didn't mean to."

Both older girls stared at Sasami as the younger princess got out of the
bath.

"I really liked the way it was, for a little while," said Sasami, her
voice full of sadness. "It was the nicest its been since we've all been
living here." She sighed, closing her downcast eyes. "I'm sorry," she
said once more, then picked up her clothes and exited. Once the door was
shut behind her, Sasami sniffled and wiped away the tears gathering in
her eyes.

Suddenly, Sasami turned her head on hearing the sound of something smack
hard against the front door. A moment later Ryo-ohki phased through it
and scrambled as fast as she could towards the princess, skidding to a
halt at her feet. The cabbit looked up at Sasami, a look of urgent
concern in her eyes, and miya'd.

"Ohayo, Ryo-ohki," said Sasami, trying her best to be cheerful. "Why are
you in such a hurry?"

Ryo-ohki leapt into the princess' arms and started purring as she rubbed
her head against Sasami's chin. Sasami giggled at the ticklish sensation
and petted the cabbit affectionately, heading off to the kitchen in the
hopes that Aeka and Ryoko's argument might be more easily reconciled over
their favorite breakfast dishes.

Back in the bath, Ryoko sighed, opened her eyes, and glanced stealthily
at Aeka. The princess had a thoughtful yet guilty expression on her face 
-- much like the one Ryoko saw on her own, reflected in the water.
Feeling herself being watched, Aeka turned towards Ryoko. They stared at
each other for a few seconds before quickly looking away and resuming
their silent, very similar thoughts.

Each of them knew very well the efforts she'd made, how hard it had been,
the many battles she'd fought against herself -- and quite a few times,
won -- to do what Tenchi had wanted. Being reminded of those things
stirred a certain sense of pride in each of those victories, each one a
gift for him wrested from herself with great difficulty and sometimes
even pain. And for him to dismiss all of them because of one failure,
however dramatic and disastrous a failure, hurt.

But beyond that, each girl was beginning to grudgingly remember that the
other had also done her part, won her own victories, beyond the ones
Sasami had directly reminded them of. Ryoko's thoughts began with what
she'd seen and heard in Ryo-ohki's memories of Tuesday morning.

"DON'T YOU UNDERSTAND THAT I DON'T WANT TO BE REMINDED OF *HER* RIGHT
NOW?!?!" Aeka had screamed at the cabbit. "LEAVE ME *ALONE*, YOU STUPID
THING!!!!"

Then the princess had burst into tears, obviously terribly hurt from
having had to actually see Tenchi with Ryoko. The pirate definitely knew
how *that* must have felt. And yet, once the girls had talked about it,
Aeka had kept it a secret. She hadn't tried to use it to gain sympathy
from him, or make him angry at Ryoko. It wasn't until the midst of their
argument that morning that Aeka had said anything, and even then she'd
blamed Tenchi for it.

For her part, Aeka's thoughts dwelt on words Ryoko had spoken later that
day, after she'd ended the princess' silent brooding depression with a
toss into the lake.

"At least you're not acting like you're going to... kill yourself or
something," Ryoko had said. And even now, thinking back on it, Aeka was
struck by the fact that Ryoko had seemed truly worried, had actually
seemed to *care* that the princess might do such a thing, and had forgone
time with Tenchi in order to prevent it.