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 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.

Spandex is a trademark of the Dow Chemical corporation.  Or
Xerox.  Or DuPont.  Or 3M.  Or Beatrice.  I don't know. -Dennis

No ducks were harmed in the writing of this fanfic. -Trakal

Tenchi Muyo: Unfinished Business

A fanfic by Dennis Carr and Karmin St. Jean


 
Chapter 1:6 - Burst

October 26, 1998 at 15:00 PST

As usual for California, it was not your typical sunny day.  In
fact, it was rather cloudy outside, and strangely enough, rain was
predicted. But this was typical for California this time of year,
and none of the locals were *really* expecting rain, since the area
weather forecasters were rarely dead on target.

There were, however, the first of the usual seasonal easterly winds
coming in over the week prior, and this made for interesting
weather. Damn hot and dry.

At this moment, though, he would not need to battle them.  It was
the end of the shift - time to return the bike to the garage, pick
up his own car, and drive back to his home, with Mihoshi and Kiyone
in tow.

After this, he had an appointment to keep - and he only remembered
after he picked up the inseparable pair....

---

21:00 PST

Satsuki Japanese Restaurant (aka Mike's)
Orange, CA

"No, man, I'm serious, they pick the best of the best of the best
for this job."  J put down his cup of tea.

Opposite the man in black, Hikaru, now reeking of the five bottles
of sake that were near him, took a draw on a glass of water, and
looked at the local.  "Lemmetellyasomethin, J.  The Juraian Royal
Guard unit is drafted from the Juraian Noyal Ravy." He picked up a
piece of salmon sushi, ate it, and continued. "The guard is trained
in a one year course, half of which don't make it. In otherwords,
they die.  You gotta spend fourty-eight hours in a space suit,
sitting in space.  Part of your training, at the end, is to get
tanked worse than I am now, and perform an appendectomy.  And I did
just that."

Another bite - this time the end of a spicy tuna roll - and he
finished. "You humans are all the same, you don't think outside of
your own little atmosphere."  And a draw on the water, and he placed
his glass down a little too hard. "Lemmetellya, don't go telling me
about how you're all the best -"

*thunk!* the glass hit the table again.

"- of the best -"

*thunk!*

"- of the best.  I mean, hell, J, I should be dead, if I were you
with all that sake, but if I were you, who would be me?"

J grinned at the joke.  Sure, he was putting him down, but as K had
told him before he retired, you can't rationalize with a drunken
bastard.  "Man, Moriyata, better let me drive you home."

"Inneed.  Yo, Mike, pleck cheese, er, ah, cheek plez, er, ah, oh
fuck it."

An older Japanese woman arrived at the table with the check.
"Hikaru-san, you're not drinking as much tonight?  Is something the
matter?"

"Nah, just gotta be on my tose for tomorrow, Noriko.  Gotta
girlfriend, but she's got the temper of a dragon, and she has this
thing for her roommate, and so does her roommate."

"Nani?"

"Good, you're convoosed, that means your paying attention."  He
handed her a hundred.  "Keep the change, I can afford it.  I gotta
go home."  One last slug on the water - most of which wound up going
out of a "hole in his lip", so to speak - and the two walked out the
door.

"Hikaru, if you had one more shot of that stuff, I'd be pouring you
into a bucket and carrying you home."

"Guess my tolerance is down.  But, that just means I gotta build it
back up!"  He let out an enourmous laugh and climed into the Ford
POS look-a-like that he was picked up in - and promptly melted in
the passenger seat and opened the window.

And yelled at nobody in particular.

"I'M MAD AS HELL, AND I CAN'T TAKE IT ANYMORE!"

"Hey, um, I hate to touch an open nerve, if you will, but is there
something you want to talk about?"

"Yeah, man, my tenants.  Two of them always fighting over one of
them, one's an eccentric scientist, and all but two of the women are
completely insane."  He tried to slouch, but couldn't due to the
seatbelt.  "Man, it's taxing."

"All of them from off planet?"

"All but one," he said, still slurring a little bit, but sobering up
noticeably.  "He grew up in Japan, but he's one eighth Juraian.
Despite the anomaliesh among them, they seem to be holding up well."

"And you're still drunk.  Sure that's not the alcohol talking?"

"Yeah, pretty sure.  It metabolizes quickly.  I'll be dry in an
hour"

A Seven-Eleven came into view, and the Mib agent made a right turn
on that street after crossing a set of rails.  "Yeah, but I really
think you should lay off of that shit."

"How do you think I've been able to remove appendixes from people
under the influence of this?"  He looked at the rookie.  "You learn
not only to control yourself under its influence, but you learn how
to make your body get rid of it in a hurry."  He then twitched and
grimaced, as a familiar pain developed in his groin. "Speaking of
which, could you speed up a bit?"

J stole a glance over at the passenger seat, the contents of which
was obviously in need of a trip to a bathroom.  "You're hopeless,
you know that?"

"Oh, doan get me shtarted."

They finally pulled into the driveway, and Hikaru opened the door
and made a beeline for his front door, to be met by yet another
argument - "Excuse me, I'll be right back!" - and promptly ran into
his bedroom and the connected bathroom, closing the door.

The two parties arguing, however, stopped only to make one
determination.

"I didn't think he could hold that much liquor."

"He's drunk me under the table."

"Oh, and a princess of a royal court can get floored?"

"And what is that supposed to mean?!"

The bickering, of course, continued like this for some time, until
Hikaru came out - just in time to see J staring in disbelief at the
two women as Aeka charged up.

"Um, J, come here and stand on this side of the wall."

"What?"

"Just do it."

He complied without further urging, as the dissipator was dispatched
and Hikaru joined him and counted off.

"Sree."

Multiple balls of light coalesced into one quickly, and Ryoko formed
her sword.

"Two."

Aeka glared at her adversary, and the logs came in closer.

"One."

Ryoko reared back with the sword.

"Mark."

*Fwoosh!* *Crackle!*

After two more seconds, Hikaru spoke again. "OK, it should be
shafe."

The two men stepped out of the kitchen, to be treated to the sight
of the now frizzed pair, Ryoko mouthing something about only wanting
a bottle of sake, Aeka fuming on her way back to the other unit,
Hikaru thumbing in the general direction of the kitchen as he
followed Aeka out, and J now collapsed in fits of unbelievable
laughter on the sofa.

As Ryoko walked out of the kitchen and cast a glare at the still
rolling J, she noticed the dissipator on the floor, picked it up
to examine it, and immediately knew whose idea it was.

---

"Aeka, this argument wasn't even over Tenchi.  So," he said, now
leaning on the balcony, carefully not hitting a bonsai tree,
"this better be really good, whatever it is."

"Listen, this ordeal between her and I is our business.  Besides,
don't you think you're a little, ah, sloshed to-"

"I am not so drunk that I can't tell when you have a personal
problem against her."

Aeka was livid.  "Why are you being so defensive for a
criminal?!"

"*Criminal*?  The statute on her lapsed a few years ago!"

Aeka took a deep breath, and calmed down considerably.  Maybe,
just maybe, he would see things her way this time.  "Since I met
Tenchi several years ago, I'd concluded that he was the crown
prince of Jurai - the remaining survivor of Yosho.  Since Yosho
is far too old for me what with having been away from Jurai for
so long, Tenchi Masaki is the only logical conclusion.  Further,
since I've met him, Ryoko has made it a point to go out of her
way and interfere with his preparations for the court.  She is
*convinced* that she owns him, and it's my duty to defend him."

"From what?"  Hikaru pulled himself from the balcony railing and
began pacing.  "It seems he can hold his own pretty well, if you
ask me."

Aeka huffed, still not looking at her guard.  "And after she took
Yosho-"

"Oh, so *that's* what this is about," he said, holding his
position behind her.  "She took something from you, so you have
to go and hurt her.  Seems you've found yourself a white whale to
hunt."

At that instant, Aeka froze, a white flame of anger slowly
appearing in her eyes as she turned to face Hikaru.  "I beg your
pardon?!"

"Oh, come on, you know *damn* well what I'm talking about!"

"No member of the court is motivated for personal revenge!"

"So what do you call this then?"

"Justifiable retribution."

"For what?"

"Laying waste to our planet!"

"Oh, for crying out loud, it was Kagato that used her for that!"

"And what difference does that make?"

"It wasn't her fault!  For crying out loud, Aeka, you have to
stop this now!"

"NO!"  At that second, she let out a massive force bolt that, had
Hikaru not moved, would've gone straight through him, leaving a
hole where his lungs otherwise would've been.  Instead, it hit
the bonsai tree on the end of the balcony, annihilating all but a
small part of it, which found its way to the railing where its
container had once been.

What wasn't seen was that the remaining energy that had not been
used to destroy the tree was mysteriously "pulled" towards a
nearby electrical outlet, only to be sent to ground.

"That woman has caused me pain for *seven hundred years*," she
said quietly and deliberately, after a moment of stunned silence,
"and I will make her *pay* for what she's done."

After another moment of silence, broken only after a moment by a
neighbor wondering what the bright flash was, Hikaru walked back
over to where the bonsai used to be, and picked up its still
smoldering remains and helt it for Aeka to see.  "It seems, Ahab,
that you broke your little tree."

He then walked back inside, muttering something about needing a
long, hot shower, leaving Aeka fuming on the balcony.

---

About the same time this happened, another transaction was taking
place as Ryoko made her way into sort of a sub-dimension, what
stored a certain lab, and approached her red-haired mother.

*Oh, mother,* she thought.

*Why, is that my *daughter* I am sensing?*  Washu turned from her
terminal, smiling gleefully.

Ryoko rolled her eyes in response.  *I would like you to tell me
one thing.*

*Hmm?*

She held out the dissipator.  *What's this?*

*An energy dissipator.  And judging by your hair,* she thought,
handing a brush to her, *it seems you two have been in yet
another fight.*  She casually glanced back at her terminal, the
RTA on the screen again.  "And now, it seems that our landlord
and Aeka are having it out on the balcony."

"Well, this could be interesti-"

"Nonono, don't go out there and interfere.  It'll only make it
worse.  Anyway, what else?"

"Um, what's the deal with this thing?"

Washu took it from her.  "I'm protecting you guys from being
evicted.  Here in this part of this planet, these things called
homeowners associations exist, primarily to keep riff-raff out of
neighborhoods.  In any case, the one in this complex would've
likely forced Hikaru to evict us had the property kept being
destroyed, so to work around that, I designed this to basically
dissipate the energy output of you and Aeka whenever you fight.  I
believe I heard him use the term 'gestapo' to describe them at one
point."

"But why the *hell* can't you keep it from frizzing my hair?!"

"Physics dictates that you cannot destroy energy.  Besides," she
said, smiling once again, "it's so much fun to watch the output
have its way!"  She then placed the device on a nearby floating
table, and turned back towards her monitor as it started beeping
wildly - and was suddenly horrified. "Aeka's charging up.  I
gotta do something now."  She immediately began manipulating her
terminal as she mumbled to herself.  "Um, field, where's a
ground, there-!" and was cut off as a spike was indicated on her
monitor by a separate meter.

"If anything," she said, settling down, "the neighbors will have
seen a bright flash, more or less resembling that of a camera."
*Ryoko?*

*Hmm?*

*Try to watch your step around her, OK?*

Ryoko paused, considering that.  *You know,* she thought, looking
at her mother with a hint of concern, *that could be easier
said than done.*

"Exactly what I'm afraid of."

As Ryoko exited, Washu sat back down, took a good look at the
device, and grabbed a tool as she sighed.

"Alright, you, it's time for some maintenance here."

---

22:30 PST

Hikaru's Bathroom

If anybody had walked in to his bathroom, they would've been hard
pressed to see any of the details.  There was no ventilation,
save for an exhaust fan, which was not turned on at the moment,
as to preserve heat and make his exit from the shower a bit more
comfortable.  Maybe he was spoiled, but he didn't care.  It would
be easy to adjust to old survival tactics if necessary.

A slight *thump* punctuated the cut off of the water supply from
the shower, and the door opened, revealing a blurred single arm
reaching for a towel.  Shortly after this, Hikaru stepped from
the shower, the towel being held to his head as he dried his hair
and made his way to the power switches as to turn on the fan.

Just before this could happen, however, the door opened,
revealing a red and green blur, and letting in 71 degree air,
instantly creating "rain" in the bathroom and revealing the
scientist, who was smiling madly, and the cop, who was completely
naked for just a moment as he covered himself with his towel.

"Hikarusamaaaaaa!"

"Washu, unless this rock is about to explode, could you *please*
not use this door in the future!?"

"Sorry, but I had to get this back to you."  She gave him the
disspator, and he knotted his towel around his waist to examine.

"How did you get your hands on this?"

"Actually, Ryoko picked it up. She was rather upset that we were
using this, but I think she understands that we all need a place
to live while we're here - the operative term here being *I
think*.  Anyway, I replaced its battery and gave it a good tune
up.  General maintenance, and all that.  You should be a little
more careful with this thing, it's fragile!"

"With all the abuse this thing gets, I'm surprised that it's not
completely destroyed."

Washu suddenly changed tracks, and looked over the still dripping
officer.  "And with your build, how many hearts have you
destroyed, hmm?"

"Um, right."

At this moment, his towel slipped, revealing his body to Washu
just briefly as he retrieved the towel and dropped the
dissipator, covering himself in a hurry, leaving him blushing
madly as Washu walked back through the door, a mischievous grin
plastered on her face.

---

October 27, 1998 at 16:00 PST
Hikaru's condo

Tenchi realized he was becoming a bit shellshocked.  Not only did
he make it a habit to carry his sword around, people regarded him
as a bit off for doing so - and he didn't care.  Granted, to the
average gaijin -

*No, wait, I'm gaijin here.*

- to the average American, rather, the hilt was to be carried
around by Tenchi and handled by no one else, as sort of a good
luck charm (the Japanese were so superstitious!), but even so, he
was no less shellshocked.

And it all happened after Ryoko saw a series of movies about a
pink panther, who was neither pink nor a feline - just some
clumsy boob of a french detective.  It seemed Ryoko had become
somewhat, shall we say, inspired by these movies, and now felt it
was her obligation to pounce on Tenchi, in the same way that
Closeau's housemate would, to keep him up to par on his sword
skills.  And Aeka, naturally, despised this, since she was, after
all, attacking a member of the royal court.

And so, he cautiously walked into his condo, doffed his shoes,
looked around, placed his book bag near the end table, grabbed a
floppy disk and a textbook on architecture, donned a pair of
sandals, walked out of the condo into his landlord's, right hand
on sword hilt and left carrying book and floppy, and walked to
the middle of the living room, turned around abruptly, and
energized his sword at -

- nothing.  Much to the bemusement of Hikaru, who was planted in
front of a terminal, presumably reading some electronic mail.

And then Tenchi felt a tap on his shoulder, prompting him to look
around, and finding Ryoko clad in her black and red battle suit,
hovering in the same way that bricks don't, grinning something
silly and bringing her visibly weakened sword down at Tenchi, who
reflexively blocked it, going right in for an attack on his
self-declared adversary and throwing book and floppy at random -
somehow landing both on the sofa.

Ryoko's attitude seemed to be only one thing - let's play!  If only,
however, her method of "play" wasn't so, well, violent. Granted, her
sword wouldn't cut through butter in its current state, but
nonetheless she treated it as the real thing, marking Tenchi,
calculating where the obstacles were, and bringing her sword around,
prompting Hikaru to duck as it went through where the top of his
head was, and only to have its owner continue responding to a
message without skipping a beat.

Yes, the outside observer would consider this completely insane. But
then, consider the group we're discussing.

Tenchi, in turn, blocked the attack, and made for one of his own,
going for her left leg.  A brief flick of Ryoko's wrist would block
this, as the hilt *cum* blade of her weapon came down to parry.

And then Tenchi noticed something - every time she attacked, the
pupils of her eyes would narrow.  Despite the added flexibility the
spandex-like body suit gave her, thus aiding her fight physically,
she could not maintain a poker face to save her life.  He could not
believe this!  Six years, and he finally figured it out!  He
suddenly found himself actually enjoying this particular sparring
match and then letting the sword take over.

The match continued more or less like this for two minutes, while
Mihoshi absently walked in through the front door, munching on some
popcorn while not paying attention to the melee that probably
would've decapitated her had it been an actual fight.  (Instead, it
would only leave a glowing line where it passed through.)

"Hikaru, I have the report for eleven eighty four."  She sat a ream
of paper on the desk.

Hikaru, in turn, stared at the report.  "Mihoshi, isn't that just
supposed to be a" - Hikaru paused here long enough to duck, a nearby
sword missing him by inches - "beer run?"  Just for added effect, he
dropped an Orbital CD into the drive, changed to a track on it that
he felt would suit the mood, and let it play.

"Well, yeah, but it *is* illegal to" *duck* "do that, and you know
that these are people who aren't old enough to buy beer so they feel
it's" *duck* "necessary to run out with it, I mean, the owner of
this convenience store was" *duck* "very angry, and besides, I know
where the perp" *duck* "lives."

Hikaru stopped typing.  "You" *duck* "figured him out?"

"Mm-hm.  He's just around the corner, off of 5851 Mariposa."

He couldn't believe it.  They'd been tracking this guy for months,
and she just figures him out all of a sudden.  "I suppose we should
issue an arrest warrant" *duck* "*watch the terminal please*
tomorrow."

"They already booked him.  Ignakowski couldn't" *duck* "believe it,
he'd been looking for him-"

"-I know, for nine months.  I don't know if you're going to get
promoted or fired for that one."

"Well, he collided with" *duck* "Kiyone, and that's how we found
him."

He should have known.

At that moment, Kiyone walked in, holding an ice pack to her left
eye, followed by Washu, who noticed something different about the
carpet, and then followed by Aeka, who watched in horror as Ryoko
pinned him to the ground and held her sword at his neck, and
assuming the worst as she brought up a field.

Without skipping a beat, four hands reached for the charger block,
Washu's making it first, and dispatched the ED between Aeka and
Ryoko.  It promptly opened up, the logs disappeared, and the only
thing to happen at that point was Ryoko looking at Aeka.  For a
moment, she didn't even realize that her sword was gone.

"You were going to kill him," she said slowly.

"Aeka, this sword couldn't cut through - what the - where is it?"
She stood up, wondering what happened, and found that she
couldn't even solidify any energy whatsoever, as she watched it
snake through the carpet, along a wire, and into an electrical
outlet.

"Ah, completely useless, are we?"  Aeka charged up - or attempted
to - and found that she herself was unable to do anything.

"Um, Aeka -"

"Tenchi, stay out of this."

He opened his mouth again, and paused, realizing that attempting
to talk logic into her was useless.  Thusly realizing this, he
moved quietly over to the computer desk, catching the
conversation back there.

"Hikaru, why did you embed chicken wire into the carpet?"

"I like my computer, Washu.  It's grounded into that outlet by
the door."

The five of them watched the ensuing battle from behind the
table, which wasn't much, except for attempts at working around
the dissipation field, which had been expanded to encompass the
room, and watching their attempts not do anything but find their
way to ground in the form of electrostatic discharge.  What did
find its way to its intended victim did little damage, and the
end result was indirectly increased fighting stamina for both
Ryoko and Aeka, mostly fueled by rage and self preservation.

Meanwhile, the discussion by the wooden computer desk took a turn
towards a more...leisurely tone, in a more or less roundtable
style, starting with Tenchi asking: "So, what are we going to do
for dinner after they tire themselves out?"

"I don't know," Kiyone replied.  "What do you want to do?"

"We could go out for sushi," Hikaru suggested.

"It's Monday," Washu quipped.  "They're closed."

"Oh yeah."

Mihoshi then looked up.  "Hey, has anybody noticed that Mike's is
located next door to a tropical fish store?"

At this point, everybody looked at Mihoshi, exchanged perplexed
glances with everybody else, and looked at Mihoshi again, with
Tenchi being the first to reply.  "You're right," he said, an odd
grin on his face, "I've always been wondering where he got his
tuna."

Hikaru at this point was resisting the urge to laugh.  "Um,
Tenchi, I don't think that's really tuna."

"Ooh, another excuse to look inside him!"

"Oh boy."

"Well, would they really sell that kind of fish?"

"Dunno, but I've seen one sell sharks once."

And then the ED alarm went off.  "ED is flat," Hikaru announced.
"Kitchen, now."  As everybody shuffled off, several cylindrical
objects formed around Ryoko, and Ryoko's sword in turn once again
formed itself, this time with one more force bolt in her left
hand.

One of the advantages to having a destructive interference
generator on the property was that one could not hear anything
going on outside of the range of the field.  Unfortunately, one
of the *dis*advantages was that nobody could hear, making it
difficult for people who should know what is going on to know the
goings on where they were going.  So it was such that Sasami had
casually walked into her landlord's home to announce one thing.

"Dinner's-!"

She didn't manage to announce it.  As soon as the first sound
left her lips, Hikaru looked at her, took in the situation, and
sprinted across his living room, pinning Sasami against the wall,
placing one hand on the back of her head as to prevent having it
bump against the wall on impact - all within one second.

And then there was the explosion, as sword connected with logs
connected with force bolt, which somehow managed to miss the
general area of the living room that contained the amateur radio
equipment and computers, and a violent, pained scream that
pierced above the din of the cataclysmic energy release.

When the smoke cleared, what could be seen was a lot of fire
damage, twentyleven repair drones appearing out of nowhere, and a
severely burned Juraian guard positioned in such a way where it
would appear two cascades of singed light blue hair were coming
out from under his arms.  If one outruled the third degree burns
covering the back of Hikaru Moriyata, it would be confusing as to
whether this were an incriminating circumstance, or something that
just looked insanely silly.

He held this position for about thirty seconds, and then peeled
himself off of the wall, wincing as he tried to move, his clothing
sticking to the burns, and took one step towards the hallway before
he faltered.

"Um, Washu, could you help me a bit?"

She came out, which he could see - but his vision was beginning
to fail him, as the entire group stared at the resulting
disaster.  Mihoshi dropped a glass, which shattered, prompting a
spare repair unit to clean up the mess and reassemble the
drinking container.

Aeka and Ryoko, meanwhile, surveyed their now damaged property
manager, completely at a loss for words, and Sasami, now scared
out of her mind, simply stared at her sister.

Hikaru then groaned, fell to his left knee, found himself growing
increasingly dizzy, and then simply collapsed face down on the
floor.  His last thought before he passed out was something about
how comfortable the carpet was on the parts of his body that
weren't burned, and was that Washu running....

"Dammit," Washu muttered, "I'm a scientist, not a paramedic.
Tenchi, help me here."

It was almost surprising, then, that Tenchi had immediately
complied, either ignorant or not caring that he was about to
carry him into the lab with her.  *Maybe she has a sense of
ethics after all,* he thought, as he grabbed him by the ankles
while Washu grabbed him by the shoulders, both being very
careful not to touch the charred flesh, and hauled the
unconscious man into another dimension, as everyone else walked
out the other way, into their home, leaving Ryoko and Aeka
staring at where three people would otherwise have disappeared
into nowhere.

And then Ryoko spoke only four words.  "I hope you're satisfied,"
she said, as she turned on her heel for effect, floated up, and
vanished.

Aeka couldn't do anything but stare at the wall where the door
was, tears now slowly running down her face.  *Tsunami, I almost
killed him.*  She then realized something else - she almost
killed her sister.

She noticed the book shelf a moment after simply standing there
doing nothing, and recalled a book she had read a while back.
Some of the books on his shelf were written in Japanese, some in
English, some in Juraian.  None in any particular order that she
could see, just lumped in languages.

Aeka located the Juraian section, found mostly tactical manuals,
continued to the Japanese section, and found one she thought she
recognized.

MOBY DICK

She pulled out the book - a translated version printed up on a
computer and mounted in a five-inch three-ring binder - and
opened to about the sixth page, where the first chapter started
with little ado.

"Watashi wa Ishimaeru."

*Interesting opening for a novel,* she decided, as she thumbed
the page, and walked out, avoiding everybody else in her
displaced home as she made her way to the bedroom she shared with
Sasami, entered the closet, pulled a small lamp in with her, and
closed the door.