It started simply enough - I came home from school.
The longish walk along the forest path was often restful. A small
side effect of having the house moved right next to Grandfather's
shrine, of course, but I always did love the air.
Then the stairs. I sigh.
It always seemed like this, days and weeks passing by as though
nothing was out of the ordinary, then seminars of violence and chaos
that always seemed to be held in the area of the lake. That's to
speak nothing of the weirdo-alien convention that took residence
already.
I opened the door, and he crashed into me.
"Who in the - ?" I blurted out, before he took me aside, a little
ways away.
"Scram," he whispered hotly, "the gig's up. It's my time now."
"Pardon?" I wrested myself from his grubby paws, and gave him an
intent scan. He looked like a run-of-the-mill guy, and looked,
well, nothing like me.
"The 'gig' is up?" I echoed.
"Yup." The tossed me two bags, full of my stuff, I assumed. "I'm
the new guy."
"What? The new guy? Look, fella, I just came from school, and if
you don't mind, I'd really like to get into my house to rest -"
"That's the whole point, buddy." He set his eyes to my gaze. "I'm
the new Tenchi."
"What?" I gaped. "What?" I gaped again.
"Yeah, yeah, well, the higher-ups wanted me to tell you, 'great job,
got the point across, hope you do well, whatever you do', so on, so
forth."
"Oh." My voice was loud in my ears. "Did they?"
"Yeah," and here he softened, "look, I've seen your work, and it's
really working, and," he smiled, "I hope I can make it work, too."
"Can I-?" I stopped, unsure. I stared at my bags, stared at Tenchi
who I was, sometime ago. "Can I... err... say goodbye? To them?"
"They're not here, yet," he whispered, obviously relishing the idea
of meeting each of them, one by one.
The gears clicked into place. "They're starting over?"
"Uh-huh," he nodded.
"So, err, do I need to give anything back?" The whole idea of
leaving warred terribly with the idea of not being recognized as
anything more than a useless artifact from a past life.
"No, no. Y'see, that's the great part. You get to keep
everything: the Light Hawk Wings, the Master Key, the Power Gems."
The way he said this made me think that the offer was better - and
that I should be rushing off to the grand new life.
"Oh. OK." I stepped forward and took my bags. I turned away
from the house, now so different from before, how couldn't I
notice? It slanted more, slightly ominous.
His hand clapped my shoulder. How hard could it be, really, being
me? All you needed to do was mind your own business, react to the
latest male menace, and welcome any and all female aliens to the
house. A perfect deal, really - and the girls really weren't bad,
all of them, including Mihoshi.
All of them.
"It's Ryoko, isn't it?" I whispered.
He stopped in his tracks. Then he shook his head and caught up.
The horizon looked beckoning.
"What do I do now?"
"Well, you could always do what we've all been doing. You could
write fanfics."
-- -- -- -- --
Switch
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