This is one of those "inspiration-strikes-so-write-until-it-fades" fics.
Enjoy, or don't.
******
Giggles and miyas sprinkled themselves over the background of crunching
leaves, as Sasami and Ryo-ohki romped in the autumn forest.
"Over here, Ryo-ohki!"
At the moment, the play was a mix between hide-and-seek and capture the
flag. Ryo-ohki had found a particularly slippery stone, difficult for
either the cabbit or the princess to hold on to.
"Miya! Miya!"
Ryo-ohki was actually doing slightly better. Sasami was still trying to
cup it in her hands, but Ryo-ohki wrapped it in one ear, leaving it
nowhere to go until concentration wavered - usually under the influence
of tickles from Sasami - and the ear unfolded.
They were completely unconcerned about company. The shrine was almost a
full kilometer from the nearest bus stop (much to Tenchi's daily
regret), and that was the closest structure save the house itself. No
one came by unless they wished to visit the shrine, and no visitors were
expected that day.
Which was why the truck barrelling down the dirt path to the shrine was
a complete surprise to the current occupants of said path.
*HOOOOOONK*
"Look out!"
"MIYA!"
"AAAAAAAAAAAA-" *CRUNCHSQUEEEEEEeeek* "-AAAAAAAhuh?"
"...miya?"
Sasami patted herself down, expecting to at least find a bruise but
feeling none. The truck's cab lay in front of and around her, the
sphere of her short-lived force field now imprinted in the wreckage.
Ryo-ohki looked on from the side of the road, having gotten clear of the
truck while Sasami put on her best "deer in headlights" face.
A drip from above prompted Sasami to look up, and see that not all of
those involved were as fortunate. The truck driver had not been wearing
a seat belt, and his trip through the windshield was only checked by the
steering wheel, slightly folded in his grip and now embedded in his
abdomen. His head protruded over the remains of the hood. As Sasami
watched, his face pivoted down - too quickly for a spine to still be
attached - and swung over her, his eyes locked forwards but his gaze
taking in the ground and his other side as gravity turned it into a
pendulumn. One twitching arm snaked over the hood, then fell limp.
Sasami gasped, then choked on the drop of blood that she acciedentally
inhaled. In the few seconds she needed to work it out of her throat,
her higher brain managed to shout through the mental noise of her
emotional shock that she should go get help, so she ran off to do just
that.
******
Ayeka sighed as she held her sobbing sister, and examined the wreck.
The police would be here soon...Earth police, not Galaxy Police who knew
from personal experience about Jurai's power. A simple lie should get
rid of them: while her sister believed she caused the accident, anyone
could see that such was simply not the case, for a collision between a
young girl and a truck would certainly not leave the truck in such a
shape while leaving the girl unharmed. It would ensure justice more
than misunderstandings caused by the truth might: her sister was
entirely not to blame, her own protests not withstanding; the fault lay
entirely on the driver who was travelling too fast to stop in case of
obstacles, and his actions had already reaped their reward.
Tenchi, Nobuyuki, and Katsuhito were searching the truck for clues as to
why it had come this way; Ayeka could tell that, at least for the first
two, it was first and foremost a way to avoid thinking about the
fatality. Their best guess so far was that the driver had made a wrong
turn, and would have turned back and gone on his way once he saw the
shrine and figured out that he was not where he should be.
Kiyone and Mihoshi were methodically examining the accident scene. Some
aspects of being a police officer translated well from Galaxy Police
procedures to earthbound ones, and the detectives figured that the more
hassle they could save the local polices, the less chance of them
launching an extended investigation that might discover the local
residents' true nature.
Sasami had long since degenerated into incoherent bawling. At least her
face and hair no longer had traces of blood. Ayeka had transferred the
red substance to a handtowel, again to allay suspicions. Crying because
you witnessed a death was one thing; doing so while having the dead
person's blood on your skin was something else, at least on first
glance. Besides, it was not seemly for a princess to carry the blood of
the dead in any form, unless it had come from or was destined for one's
own subjects.
Although Ryo-ohki wanted to comfort Sasami, Ayeka had specifically
requested that Washu keep the cabbit away for the moment. The girls
could - and regularly did - pass as human beings, but the cabbit was
obviously not native to this planet. Washu was using the opportunity to
reconstruct a hologram of the event from Ryo-ohki's memory. This was,
after all, the first solid manifestation of Sasami's power that any of
them knew about. Such events were traditionally treasured memories and
recorded if possible; the results of this manifestation made it merely
uncertain whether Sasami's family would want a permanent recording.
******
The full moon lit up the forest, much to Sasami's dismay. In this much
light, there was no denying the tracks in front of her where the truck
had been towed away, or the various metal and liquids which no one had
bothered to pick up yet. She could even tell which were from the
vehicle and which were not, though she wondered if her memory just made
her think the dried blood was an angry red while everything else was
black. Ayeka was sound asleep back at the house; Sasami eyed a nearby
tree branch, wondering if it was high enough to hang herself from so she
would be dead before Ayeka woke up.
"Hey."
Sasami jumped, her heart skipping a beat, then turned around. "Oh.
It's only you, Ryoko."
Ryoko smirked, putting her hands on her hips. "*Only* me? Who were you
expecting, the Angel of Justice?"
Sasami could not meet Ryoko's smiling gaze. "Yeah, well, maybe the
angel wouldn't insist that I didn't kill that man like Ayeka does."
Ryoko knelt, and put a had on Sasami's shoulder. "Ayeka's wrong,
Sasami. You did, and you know it."
Her doubts clouding in an instant, Sasami looked into the pirate's eyes.
"Ryoko?"
"Ayeka...isn't always right, you know. Frankly, I thought it'd be just
a matter of time."
"WHAT?!? Ryoko, I'm not a murderer!"
"I know you're not."
"But..."
"Look. All of us girls who live with Tenchi, we're all powerful. Even
you. With power comes accidents." Ryoko nodded upwards. "Out there,
everyone's a bit tougher, so these accidents aren't nearly as bad. But
down here...they're like ants. No matter how carefully you tread, if
you walk near an active ant colony, you're going to squish a few sooner
or later. Heck, even out there, most people are ants compared to us,
and the people down here just larvae trying to be ants."
"But...but...ants don't have dreams. They don't care about-"
"Sasami, Sasami...you're absolutely right, and I'm not saying you
shouldn't try not to. But it happens. You've got to accept it. The
rest of us have blood on our hands, too, even before we came here."
"How do you know?"
"Well...Ryo-ohki and I, I don't think you have to ask. Kiyone and
Mihoshi have been in the Galaxy Police long enough that they've been in
more than one raid gone wrong, though they probably won't admit it.
Washu...well, when she was making me, I know she had some failed
experiments, and she wasn't always as kind as you've seen her be. In
fact, she once destroyed a whole planet just because..." Ryoko trailed
off as Sasami's face took on a slight tinge of horror. "Never mind.
And Ayeka, well..."
"What about Ayeka?"
Ryoko slowly brought Sasami into a full hug. "I had to give this same
talk to Ayeka, after her first accident. She'll never admit it, but she
was going nuts, thinking she was not fit to live and trying to be bad
enough to convince everyone else to take her out. I literally saved her
life by calming her down, though she's made herself forget it. And you
know what? She's never, EVER, paid me back for that. Ever."
"Ryoko..."
"Shh. She doesn't matter right now. All that matters is, please don't
be like her. Ok, so you killed someone. You're going to kill more
people sooner or later, no matter what. You might feel good about it,
you might not, and you'll probably want to avoid it as much as possible,
but it's still a fact of life for people like you and me. Don't let it
get to you, kid, or you will turn into the psycho I know you're afraid
of becoming."
Fifteen wordless minutes later, Sasami fell asleep in Ryoko's arms.
Hers would be a deep, dreamless sleep that night, almost but not quite
broken by Ayeka's hysterical shouts demanding to know why Ryoko was
tucking Sasami into bed and why Ryoko had ever removed her.