DISCLAIMER:

This story is based off of the Tenchi Muyo! anime series,
produced by AIC and released by Pioneer Anime America.  All
characters from said series are the property of such.  The
characters Hikaru Moriyata, and any Argelians (which will be
discussed in a later chapter) are the product of the imagination
of Dennis Carr, and belong to same.  The character Trakal,
insofar as he is developed, is the intellectual property of
Karmin St. Jean.

The persons and many events in this fanfic are fictitious.  Any
resemblance to any person, living or dead, or any event other
than what has obviously happened, is a coincidence.

Any military or police procedure outlined throughout the fic does
not necessarily depict any real life procedure or scenario.  Any
similarity to real life procedure/scenarios is, again,
coincidental.



Tenchi Muyo: Unfinished Business

A fanfic by Dennis Carr and Karmin St. Jean

Interlude:  Dreamscape


It is a universally accepted fact that everybody dreams.  Even
you, the reader of this story, have dreams.  Granted, you may not
remember them, but it is generally accepted.  Even if the
research that states that we have dreams by pointing out the
increased brain activity during certain cycles of sleep still
can't actually get into your head and *show* what's going on -
you're dreaming.

Of course, we are keeping in mind that 56% of all statistics are
made up on the spot.

At this particular point, Trakal is still having the occasional
nightmare....

---

"I'll get you," he gasped, "if it's the last thing I do!"

Kain merely laughed, as he sent tendrils of himself through the
now broken body of the draalthi.

As Trakal died, he noticed what felt almost like anti-energy
weaving through his body, tearing apart his organs, wrapping
itself around his nerves and squeezing, causing neural short
circuits through his entire body, and as he screamed one last
time in anger at Kain, he felt one tendril in particular that
wove up around - no, *through* - his cerebral cortex--.

---

Trakal awoke with an anguished cry and sat up, the first thing he
saw being the red glow of the digital alarm clock stating it was
4:30, and realizing that it was only a dream, tiredly fell back
down, and after a moment of deciding that there would be no more
sleep for the night, crawled out of the bed - but not before
gently touching the face of his wife, who somehow managed to
sleep through his scream.

The dream he awoke to was not recurring, thankfully, but he had
similar dreams - the occurances thereunto pertaining being *very*
infrequent.  In the two years that he'd been married, it had only
happened four times, and all of them were different - one was
where he was pulled back with his wife, a draalthi, who was
herself an operative; one was where Kain was, shall we say,
significantly more perverse, and instead of killing him, anally
raped him; and a couple of others, the nature of which he didn't
remember - or for that matter, didn't really care to.

One rather bizarre dream he specifically recalled involved him
having children that were born in 1970, after he'd been pulled
back by the Kain incident, having been drugged and forced into
intercourse with a woman that "rescued" him from a nice yet
senile veterinarian's office, and discovering that he had two
motherless young adult children waiting for him in the time that
he was *supposed* to be in.

And for the first - nay, the second - time in his hitherto short
life, he wondered if this were an alternate universe.

Maybe he was supposed to have been torn apart by Kain, or
otherwise injured.

Maybe, just maybe, this would only happen in an alternate
universe, if at all, he decided, as he quietly walked down the
stairs, and recalled something he heard two years prior that
ultimately stopped him from attacking Kain alone after he was
thrown back in time.

*It won't be an acceptable loss to Tanaka.*

As he made his way into the kitchen, removed a bottle of juice
from the fridge, and started some rice to cooking, he grudgingly
figured that he was *probably* indebted to Ryoko for saying that.

*The key word here,* he thought, *is grudgingly.*

Over the past two years, he had learned to tolerate and respect
the woman.  Maybe not necessarily *like*, but there was
definitely tolerance and respect for her, with maybe a hint of
fear.  If it came to sparring, she was quite a formidable
opponent, and yet the only one she seemed willing to actually
fight was Aeka.

And on top of that, said fights were easily describeable as cat
fights, since the fights were over what they both considered
"theirs" - Tenchi.

Trakal smiled a little as he recalled the fights, and decided he
didn't miss the "game" he made of counting off the explosions.

And as he poured a glass of juice, he decided that it was very
pleasant around the house without the bickering.