Shadows Under Starlight
                              
                          Chapter 5
                              
                          "Bazaar"

By Adam Christopher Leigh
Distributed by Tempest Creations

A Crossover of Epic Proportions

***

     Kyri held the limp body of Gomo, now bleeding profusely
from the gut, and stared down into his beady eyes set far
into his chubby face.  She wondered how anyone could ever
trust such a disgusting man, he hardly even got ten yards
away from her before she caught up and killed him.

     Oh well, she thought.  It just made my job easier and
quicker, now I have to find this Kazuki kid.  Uther said he
wanted him alive, but that doesn't mean I can't play a bit
with him first.

     She chuckled as she shimmered and disappeared from the
bloody back alley.

                             ***

     "Quite amazing."

     "Why thanks," said Shayla.

     Leon chuckled as he pushed through the crowd in the
night marketplace.  "You're beautiful too, babe," he said.
"But I was referring to the stars."

     "Yeah," Tenchi chimed.  "But there sure is an awful lot
of them.  Much more than in my world."

     "Mine too," said Leon.  "Different constellations too.
I don't remember that bat shaped one."

     "Interested in astrology, young man?" came a weathered
voice.  Leon glanced around between Shayla and Tenchi before
looking down at the rather short, stout looking man beside
him.  He was dressed in a beige robes and had several gold
chains hanging from his neck.  As he spoke his eyebrows
would move up and down riding the wave of his voice.  "Well,
are you?"

     "Huh?" Leon said, flabbergasted, and pulled off his
sunglasses to better examine the man.

     "Speak up," quickly supplied the man.  "Can barely hear
you over all the racket."

     "Who *are* you?" Shayla said, putting her arms on her
hips, bumping them into a few people who were gazing at the
vegetable stand behind her.

     The man adjusted his chains and looked up at Shayla.
"I am the Great Diviner Valney, and you, my dear, are the
priestess Shayla."

     Tenchi gasped and Leon raised an eyebrow at the old man
beside him.  "And how the hell do you know that?" yelled
Shayla.

     "Awoh!" squawked Valney and stepped back a step, the
crowd behind him merely moving to the side without even
facing him.  "No need to be alarmed, I merely heard your
companions speak of it."  He wove his fingers together and
turned his head to peer at Shayla out of the corner of his
eye.  "So tell me, what are you a priestess of?"

     "None of your business, old man," Shayla supplied,
crossing her arms now.

     "Fair enough," said Valney and turned to Tenchi.  "And
you, Tenchi, are you a pupil of the stars?"

     "Uhh," Tenchi hesitated, placing a hand behind his
head.  "I don't know, I never thought about it."

     "Well, you should, my dear boy.  The stars have
infinite knowledge and have existed for all time.  In no two
places are they exactly the same for they are eternally in
motion."  A smile spread across the old man's lips as he
addressed all three of the travelers.  "Perhaps there is a
question you wish to ask the stars, a knowledge you wish to
extirpate from them.  Perhaps ... perhaps you are lost.  The
stars always know the way home, maybe you should ask them
the way."

     "We'll be fine without your help, you old coot," Shayla
snorted.

     "As you say," Valney replied.  "Then I shall leave.
Although I welcome you to come see the Ceremony of Lights in
seven days, it's at the village of Prun near where I live.
If you ever change your mind about the stars, you can find
me atop the Fairfather Mountain.  It's a bit of a hike, but
nothing compared to your Mount Muldoon."

     "What?" Shayla said, her eyes going wide and staring at
the place where the man had been standing only to find him
gone.  "Where'd he go?"

     Tenchi shook his head, "I dunno, he was here a second
ago..."

     "Strange," Leon commented and replaced his sunglasses.

     "Strange?" Shayla said, incredulously.  "That's all you
have to say?  I thought magic didn't exist in your world."

     "It doesn't," said Leon as he continued pushing through
the marketplace.  "But I'd hardly call that magic, I've seen
that trick a few times myself.  Distract you with one hand,
disappear with the other."

     "What about what that guy knew?" continued Shayla as
she followed Leon through the crowd.  "How could he have
known about Mount Muldoon? It's on El-Hazard!"

     "Maybe he saw it in the stars," said Leon with a smile.
"You're cute when you're angry, you know that, babe?"

     Shayla's fist glowed with fire.  "Don't try me, Leon."
He chuckled in response.  "What's so funny?" she asked
through gritted teeth.

     "You remind me a lot of someone from my world," he said
then looked serious.  "I thought she was with me when the
reactor blew, I wonder how she is."

                             ***

     "Come on out," Kyri almost taunted.  "I won't hurt you,
I promise. I just need to take you to see someone."

     The moonlight wasn't providing much light to the back
alley behind the marketplace and her target had scrambled
away into one of the long shadows.  Internally cursing she
called out again, "Kazuki!  You're only making this harder
on yourself, just come out and we'll have a nice walk to see
Uther."  She listened carefully then abandoned the sweet
talk.  "Get out here you little brat! I don't want to have
to carry your burning carcass back through the caves."

     "...behave....fir...ot..."

     "What?" Kyri asked as the mumbling filled the alley.
She could feel the magical energies gathering around her in
response to the chanting.  Glancing around, her attention
was caught by the pair of glowing yellow eyes ones in one of
the shadows.

     "There you are!" she yelled as she dashed towards the
glowing almonds, mere moments before they flashed white and
erupted.  Only two steps into her dash, she was struck by a
bolt of fire that lapped at her on all sides and surrounded
her like a cocoon.  She writhed in pain for what seemed like
eternity, then, when she thought she would die, the shroud
of flames shattered like a hammer to a shell and she
collapsed to the ground in a smoldering heap.

     Gasping for breath, she barely caught Kazuki in the
corner of her eye, running out of the alley and into the
marketplace.

                             ***

     "You know, that's the sixth person to stare at me like
that," Shayla said angrily.  "All these other people are
dressed strangely, why do they choose us to look at?"

     "We probably look the strangest," Tenchi explained.
"Maybe we should try to get new clothes."

     "No way," Leon said, grasping the ends of his blazer.
"I'm not trading my street duds for any robe or any pair of
spandex leggings."

     "I'm sure you'll look all the more fetching in them,"
Shayla bantered.

     "Yeah, right, me and the tooth fairy," he replied.

     "Sure, we'll get you a nice cape too, then you can
dress up as--ugh!"  Shayla stumbled forward into Tenchi,
knocking him into a stand of grapefruit... or something that
looked like grapefruit at least.  Tenchi, Shayla, the
grapefruit, and the boy who had bumped into Shayla all came
crashing to the ground causing most of the surrounding
merchants and customers to look.

     "Ugh," Tenchi said, wiping the remains of the fruit
that had fell on him off of his face.  "Bleh, what is this?
It tastes like raw onion."

     "I'm sorry," the boy replied as he scrambled to his
feet, not even bothering to brush off the yellow remains of
the soft fruit off of him.  He slipped once on the juice
that had gathered on the floor but continued clambering
away.

     "Hey, wait!" Leon said as the kid ran off into the
crowd.

     "GRRR!" growled Shayla as she got to her feet.  "Where
is he? I'll kill him!"

     "That was him!" Tenchi said, sitting up and pointing
after the boy.  "The kid! The one who was in the room when
we woke up."

     "Well, then don't sit there, lets got after him!"
Shayla said, reaching over to grab Tenchi's arm.  "Come on!"
She yanked him to his feet and ran into the crowd after the
kid followed shortly after by Leon.

     "Waitwaitwait," Tenchi yelled.  "Stop pulling me!"

     "Come on, we have no time to loose!"

     "Aaakk."

                             ***

     Kazuki panted as he turned from the marketplace into
another side alley.  He hoped he'd lost that woman in the
commotion, she was definitely bad.  He could see the strange
aura of dark magic around her, almost as if she'd been
infused with blackness.  It was a scary sight to see such
energies come from one person.

     He'd been used to see the magical inclination of
people, from the very small forces that almost everyone had,
to the blatant magical channels that sorceresses and
warlocks had.  It was an instant way of telling the ethics
of the people he'd met and was one of the reasons why he
stuck with Gomo despite his crime related career.  He'd had
a dim purple aura, one that showed his ineptness in magic
but a somewhat good nature even if his values were skewed.

     Kazuki wondered what happened to Gomo, why he didn't
show up again after taking the book from Kazuki.  If that
woman had come to kill him, maybe she went after Gomo, and
he didn't have the power that Kazuki had.  When he was
curled up in that corner, afraid for his life, he found the
words to cast the spell to stop the woman.  But Gomo
wouldn't have that, he would be defenseless, he wouldn't be
able to stand up to the woman.

     He put his hand to his forehead and felt something warm
and oozing out, he immediately pulled his hand down and
looked at it, expecting to see blood.  Instead, a yellow
paste covered his hands and probably his head, most likely
from that collision he had with those gypsies in the
marketplace.  He wiped his hands on his pants and rubbed his
forehead with his arm.

     "There you are!" came a voice suddenly and Kazuki found
himself lifted off the ground and being walked deeper into
the alley.  He couldn't see who was holding him but
suspected it was the woman again, so he thrashed about until
something inside of him said it was useless and alternate
tactics were needed.

     His hands began to glow.

                             ***

     "Hey, calm down, we're not going to do anything,"
Tenchi tried to reason with the boy who simply refused to
struggle.  "We just need to talk to you, calm down!"

     "Slap him ... around," Shayla murmured through half
open eyes.

     "Shayla," Tenchi said accusingly.

     "Are you okay?" Leon said as he held her up in his
arms.  "That kid's quite a powerhouse."

     Shayla rubbed her stomach, trying to ease the pain
away.  "I'll be okay," she managed to say.  "Damn kid..."

     "You probably scared him out of his mind," said Leon.
"Picking him up like wasn't the best idea."

     "I .. ugh, wanted to make sure he wouldn't get away."

     "Instead you let him fire some bolt at you at point
blank range."

     "He didn't go anywhere, *did* he?"

     Leon sighed as Shayla pushed herself out of his grasp
and struggle to her feet on her own.  Leon continued to
watch with amusement, deciding to put his shades away again.

     "It's just us," Tenchi continued to say to the boy.
"Do you remember us?  We met in that apartment."

     "Who...who..." the young man repeated.

     "My name's Tenchi," he motioned to the others in the
alley.  "This is Shayla and Leon.  What's your name?"

     "Kazuki," he replied quickly.  "I'm sorry," he added.

     "You like to say that," Leon said, walking over to the
two while holding up Shayla, despite her insistence that he
stop.  "What are you sorry for?"

     "I -- I didn't mean it," Kazuki said.  "I was just
curious about the book, I didn't mean to do anything, I'm
sorry, I'm sorry."

     "Stop apologizing," said Leon.  "No reason so much
apology should be necessary."

     "Are you the one who brought us here?" Tenchi asked.

     "I think ... yes, I think I am."

     "Can you send us back?"

     "I don't know... I don't know how I brought you here, I
can't send you back by myself.  I can't do anything..."

     "Stop whining," Shayla said.  "How'd you bring us here
and we'll figure out how to get out."

     Kazuki looked down at the ground and breathed a few
times before speaking.  "I--"

     The bolt of energy that erupted in the center of the
alley cut him off.

                             ***

     Kazuki felt the pain in his arm most of all, he
supposed it was nearest to whatever exploded that caused him
to momentarily black out.  When he opened his eyes again, he
saw *her*, the woman who was chasing him, standing over him
with a grin on her face.  Her clothing was ripped and burned
in areas but seemed only slightly injured by the spell
Kazuki'd cast before.

     He moved to get up but his arm collapsed beneath him
when he put pressure on it.  He raised his arm to look at it
and felt the pain in his elbow and the black marks across
his forearm.  It was worse than he thought, then the woman
above him grabbed it and he felt even worse pain.

     She wrenched his arms behind him and lifted him to his
feet.  "No tricky spell casting, boy, now come with me
peacefully and I won't hurt you more."

     Kazuki sighed and drooped his head.  The woman's black
aura was all around him, truncating his vision with a black
outline.  Not only was it unsettling to look at but it felt
awful, crawling all over his skin like some virus.  He only
wished for the experience to end quickly.

     "I don't know who you are," a voice said in the alley
and the woman moved Kazuki around so that she could face it.
Kazuki's vision settled on the three people who had just
been talking to him, the redhead in the front with her
finger pointed at the woman, and the two men to either side
of her.  "But no one interrupts a conversation with Shayla-
Shayla."  She looked across at the woman and Kazuki saw her
aura flare up.  It was a deep blue and extended a good
distance away from her body, blending with the dimmer auras
of the two men beside her.  "Release the boy and I won't
have to hurt you."

     "I don't think so," the woman replied.  Kazuki wondered
if she could see the aura of the red headed woman and
dismissed the idea.  If she could see the aura, she would
know it was much more powerful than her own and would never
challenge a fight. "Get out of my way and I won't have to
*kill* you."

     "You asked for it," Shayla said, reaching down to her
leg where a small leather pouch suddenly snapped open.  She
pulled out a metal device and with a slight of hand that
Kazuki couldn't follow, single handily attached it to her
wrist.  The device had a metal ring on top which she hooked
her fingers in and pulled, extending a fine wire between the
loop and her wrist.

     Her eyes went wide and she grinned evilly as she pulled
the loop, causing the gems on her outfit to glow a light
reddish color.  The further she pulled the rope, brighter
the gems got and Kazuki watched intensely as her aura
increased to at least twice as big.  She leaped into the
air, becoming a ball of flame, and dived towards the woman
and Kazuki.

     The woman seemed to hesitate for a second before tossed
Kazuki aside and raising her arms between her and Shayla.
When Kazuki looked back after landing against one of the
alley walls, Shayla and the woman were locked in a magical
grapple as the energy field of one of them tried to
penetrate into the other's.  Kazuki glanced back to see what
her friends were doing and saw that some of the blue aura
had stayed behind.

     Kazuki blinked as what he saw registered in his mind.
The two men were also suddenly generating a large aura of
blue light, much larger than the initial one they had when
the battle first started.  The younger man, Tenchi was his
name, looked to the other and shrugged.

                             ***

     "Shouldn't we do something?" Tenchi asked Leon.

     "I think we should let her handle this one," Leon said
smoothly, as he did always.  "She seems to be more than
capable of dealing with the situation."

     As if to prove his point, the woman's barrier shimmered
for a second and Shayla took this opportunity to swing at
the woman, knocking her back a few feet.  She landed
slightly off balance and struggle for a moment before
regaining her posture.  She looked up at Shayla, who'd
relocated to stand beside Leon and Tenchi, with venomous
look.

     "Care to try your hand again?" Shayla said placing a
hand on her side and pointing with her other hand.  "If I
were you I'd think about escaping while you still can."

     "Hardly," scoffed the woman.

     "Who are you anyway, and what do you want with Kazuki?"
Tenchi said confidently.

     "My name's Kyri," replied the woman.  "And my business
with the boy is none of yours."  She took a step back to
brace herself as she flung her hands in front of her,
emitting a thin beam of yellow light that gained in size as
it got farther from her.  "Die!"

     Shayla moved to guard but she was pushed aside suddenly
as Tenchi jumped in front of her, holding his hands in front
of him.  Shayla watched in horror as she tried to move back
to stop the beam then froze as the blue beam of light grew
from Tenchi's hands.  It formed a glowing beam that
shattered the yellow bolt of light into a million shards
before dissipating.

     When the maelstrom of light subsided, Tenchi rose his
sword into defense position and stared across it at Kyri.
"I'm ready, bring it on."

     The woman's eyes narrowed and she looked between Tenchi
and Kazuki, who had been slowly moving towards the group
during the battle and was nearly among them.  She
straightened herself and folded her arms in front of her.
"Very well, not today then," she said as the dust around her
feet began to swirl around her.  "You'll be seeing me
again."

     "We'll be waiting," Tenchi said as dust cleared away
and Kyri was gone.

                             ***

     Leon stretched out on the bed again, just like he'd
been when they all had arrived in this crazy medieval world.
With his shades on, he could hardly see anything at night,
but it was part of the cool and suave look he needed to
maintain in this place.  "So you need the book, huh?" he
asked, trying to keep track of all the supernatural elements
of this trip.

     "I guess so," Kazuki explained, standing in the middle
of the room and looking to Leon on the bed beside him.  "The
Grimoire definitely has something to do with you being here,
but I don't know how much is because of the Eye of .. uh,
whatever."

     "God."

     "What?"

     Shayla looked over from the window, past the candle
burning on the shoddy night table in front of her, at
Kazuki.  "The Eye of God is what it is called," she said.
"And even if Makoto was able to correctly synchronize with
it, it was never meant for sending people to other
dimensions, it's just a side effect.  If anything, the Eye
merely made it possible for us to be summoned by you."

     "The book summoned you, I only opened it."

     "Whatever."

     "Please," Tenchi interjected. "These are just details.
We obviously need to find someone who's more knowledgeable
in the area of magic.  Do you know anyone who could help us,
Kazuki?"

     "Only about three or four hundred," he replied with a
shake of his head.  "But *would* they help you is the big
part.  I'll do what I can since it's probably my fault you
came here, but I'm just an amateur at magic.  All the really
experienced mages have the reputation of being really ...
uh, self-centered."

     "What do you mean?" Leon asked, sitting up.  "That
we'll have to buy services?"

     "Yes."

     "But we don't have any money," Tenchi said.  "At least
none that's good for this world."

     "I'm pretty good at thievery," Kazuki added.  "But up
until the Grimoire it's been really small time stuff.  I
don't know if I could get what we'd need."

     "Uhh, maybe we should find a way to get money without
stealing," Tenchi nervously added.  "Perhaps like a trade or
something.  We do something for a wizard and they help us
with our problem."

     "Okay, then we have to find a mage to help us who's
also willing to accept a trade."

     "What about that strange old guy?" said Leon.  "What
was his name, Valerie? Victor? Venice?"

     "Valney?" asked Kazuki.  "He is strange, and he lives
on top of Fairfather mountain which is at least two days
travel from here.  How do you know about him?"

     "We met him in the marketplace a few hours ago.  He
offered to answer our questions, why don't we take him up on
that offer."

     "You MET him?" Kazuki said, surprised.  "He never
leaves Fairfather mountain.  Why did he come all the way
here?"

     "He seemed to know about us," said Tenchi.  "Despite
the fact that he said otherwise.  Maybe he knows how to get
us home, he did mention something about being lost."

     "In that case, we must go."

     "Why?" asked Shayla.

     "Well, uh, he's not the most magnificent magician,"
Kazuki explained.  "But he knows a lot, he's one of the wise
men of the age you know.  He never lies, but he's good at
saying just the right thing so it can be taken in two ways.
If he offers information, you'd be wise to take it since he
wouldn't have offered it unless it was important."

     "I guess we go to the mountain then," Tenchi said
rubbing the back of his head.

     "First thing tomorrow morning," Leon said laying back
down on the bed.  "Probably isn't best to be traveling at
night, so we'll stay here until then."

     "Why do you get the bed?" said Shayla.

     Leon lifted his glasses and looked over at the fire
hared woman.  "Privilege of leadership, babe," he said.

     "And who made you the leader?"

     "I'm the one with the highest rank.  See any Captain's
around here?"

     "You're the only one WITH a rank!"

     "Coincidence, baby."

     "And another thing."

     "What?" Leon said, replacing his glasses.

     Her fist flared with fire to make sure Leon could see
it through his tinted lenses.  "STOP CALLING ME BABY!"

                             ***

     "Failure from such a prominent warrior," Uther said
from his shadow shrouded throne.  "I expected more from
you."

     "I merely post-phoned my task to deliver this
information to you, my lord," Kyri said, kneeling atop the
dais.  "I did not mean to imply that I wouldn't complete the
task you set for me.  I will go back and retrieve the Kazuki
boy, but at least killed the rotund one."

     "Insignificant," Uther announced.  "If you hadn't
killed him, he would have stumbled into his own death, the
boy actually has power, and you failed to bring him."

     "The interfering magic users I spoke of were not
mentioned in my assignment, my lord.  I was ill prepared to
deal with them."

     "You'd best be ready for the next time, I won't have
you returning without the boy again.  Dismissed."

     Kyri's eyes widened and she stood stiffly, turned
around, and exited the Grand Hall.  When she was a
sufficient distance away, she slammed her fist into the
wall.  "Shayla-Shayla," she muttered.  "Next time we meet,
you die."

                       -End Chapter 5-

Author's Notes:

     You're probably getting a little frustrated with all
these new characters, but it shouldn't get any worse than
this for a few parts.  They're all supporting cast though,
don't wrack your brain too much thinking about them.  Still
wondering where Priss, Makoto, and Ryouko are?  So am I...

     `El-Hazard: The Magnificent World' was created by
Hiroki Hayashi and Ryoe Tsukimura and is copyright c1995 by
AIC and Pioneer Entertainment (USA/JP) L.P.  "Bubblegum
Crisis" was created by Suzuki Toshimichi and is c1987 by
A.I.C., Inc. & Youmex, Inc. Licensed to AnimEigo by Youmex,
Inc. for English Translation, Dubbing, and manufacturing.
"Tenchi Muyou! Ryo-ohki" was created by Masaki Kajishima and
is Copyright by AIC, Pioneer Entertainment LDC, INC., and
the Tenchi Muyou Committee.  Manufactured for, distributed,
and dubbed by Pioneer Entertainment (USA) L.P.  While this
story contains characters and situations from this anime and
used without permission, this work is c1999 Adam Leigh.  Not
for sale or trade.  All Rights Reserved.

Adam Christopher Leigh
Omicron@sprynet.com
http://dogbert.simplenet.com/Tempest