Credits: Tenchi Muyo!/No Need For Tenchi is a product of Pioneer/AIC. As such, I'm getting no compensation for writing this fiction other than my own enjoyment, because the thought of getting sued is rather unpleasant. Mr. Long T. Tran for his "Tenchi Muyo: Ryoko's Love Prologue" His fiction can be found at GenSao's excellent Tenchi Muyo Fan Fiction Page: http://www.tmffa.com/ Disclaimer: All characters *I* have created are purely a work of fiction. Any resemblance to persons living or dead is pure coincidence. Anyone who thinks otherwise is probably just itching for a fight. Also, please do not try and distribute this story in some lame attempt to make a buck; it would be bad karma to say the least. Email appreciated! Send comments to Michael McAvoy (mmcavoy@ejourney.com) The completed "No Need For Sasami" Cycle 1 can be found at: http://members.nbci.com/mmcavoy/ Tenchi Muyo! "No Need For Sasami" Cycle 2 He who knows the enemy and himself Will never in a hundred battles be at risk; He who does not know the enemy but knows himself Will sometimes win and sometimes lose; He who knows neither the enemy nor himself Will be at risk in every battle. -- Sun-Tzu Chapter 2 The Domain of Darkness [A few days after the battle with the Demon of Darkness, Yazuha] There was something wonderful going on and Ryoko was having a difficult time pining down exactly what it was. Was it the summer breeze, she wondered? Standing high up on one of the remote mountain peaks, far above the Masaki residence, Ryoko paused to savor the sensation. There was the heat of the day in the breeze, but the humidity was unseasonably tolerable. Perched delicately on the edge of a great cliff, the wind pushed her hair backwards, exposing her neck and giving tingling sensation, albeit a pleasant one. Below her vista, the tops of countless trees beckoned, their leaves moving back in forth in the wind like the fins of carp in a clear pool. No, it was not just enjoying a breeze, Ryoko finally decided. Not to say the space pirate had not been a complete hedonist in her lifetime and prone to enjoying sensation, far from it. However, Ryoko's experiences had always tended towards the direct, forceful, and blunt. Absolutely out of control, actually. So, the notion of stopping and taking pause to enjoy a little hot wind on her face was just shy of ludicrous to her. "It's not like I'm 'refined' or something like the princess," she mused out loud. "I'm not the poet type like Yosho, either. I'm not like that at all, really." Even as she said it, her conviction was lacking. Ryoko was not as good as putting her feelings into eloquence as Yosho, nor did she give public exhibitions on refinement like Ayeka was prone to doing, but did that mean Ryoko was a philistine just because she did not wear her feelings on her sleeve or in some artistic fashion for all to see? It was as if the world in general was geared to some mass cathartic outpouring, and those not willing to share their problems (or listen to others whine about something) were 'troubled' or 'out of touch with their feelings' or some other nonsense like that. Of course, it probably never occurred to those people who spilled out their life story at the drop of a hat that they might be the ones who needed some serious help. Ryoko knew all the same that it was her desire to remain private about her life and past with most people to such a Spartan degree that probably turned folks off. Taken a step further with a healthy dose of enthusiastic banter and sarcasm, there was little wonder why uptight, repressed, screeching princesses from Jurai... 'There I go again,' she chided herself, annoyed. 'Why do I fixate so much on what that princess thinks of me?' Yes, Ryoko was quite aware that things in her life might go a bit smoother if she just let people in more often than she did. The truth being, of course, there was only one person she wanted to open up to, only one person she really wanted to let in. Not that *he* had ever clued in to Ryoko's needs in that fashion... well, not until recently, she admitted. That notion felt wonderful to Ryoko, but frightening at the same time. Ryoko closed her eyes and tried to push those thoughts away for a moment. It felt very good, that sensation of stillness high on the mountaintop. A trifle warm perhaps, but good. Ryoko thought about what type she really was. The first thing that crowded into her mind from the doubting peanut gallery of her inner self was that she was probably not Tenchi's type. Ryoko growled at herself in irritation. It was hard enough dealing with her emotions without letting the insecurities run amuck. Once upon a time, she was fairly certain that she could get Tenchi by more or less bullying him. That, of course, had eventually evolved into an almost desperate coercion on her part, trying with fruitless attempts to be kind and thoughtful to him in her heavy handed fashion. Upon reluctant reflection, Ryoko was able to admit her attempts had more or less bothered Tenchi than anything else. The pirate frowned again. This was going nowhere, plus it was rapidly ruining her good mood. "What's my type?" she asked again. Raising her arms almost gracefully out to her sides, the sleeves of her shirt caught the wind and billowed. Letting her weight move forward, Ryoko pirouetted off the edge of the cliff and let gravity take hold. 'This is my type,' she thought as the sensation of falling wrapped her entire body. Plummeting down the shear face of the mountainside, she arched her spine and let her head fall backwards. The motion brought her arms around so they were pointing towards the base of the cliff, which was approaching at a frightful rate. Ryoko's eyes were half closed in a dreamy relaxation. 'Speed is my type,' she noted, pulling out level only a few feet above the base of the mountain. Shooting across the ground so quickly that an observer would only have seen a cyan colored blur from her hair, Ryoko headed straight for a thick stand of cedars that marked the timberline. The forest was so thick a squirrel could hop from branch to branch all the way down the rest of the mountainside to the Masaki residence without ever putting its feet on the ground. The dangers of entering such a dense area of tree trunks at about eighty miles an hour never even crossed Ryoko's mind. A pair of very traumatized rabbits dashed for cover as the pirate buzzed their floppy ears. The forest was quite cooler than the mountainside, the heat of the day unable to penetrate the canopy. Using her natural abilities and senses without much thought, Ryoko let the trees slide past with inches to spare. 'Danger is my type,' she mused again. 'So what are all these other thoughts in my head?' Spinning in midair as she continued down the forested mountainside, in her mind's eye Ryoko knew she was coming up on a small meadow clearing. Reaching that clearing, she pulled a ninety-degree turn straight up into the air, just like a rocket. Letting gravity slow her forward momentum, Ryoko grinned in feral delight at the momentary sensation of weightlessness as she hung in that tenuous place where the forces of gravity were no longer present. Ryoko hugged herself as she was pulled back towards Earth. Whatever was going on in her head, it felt very good. Too good, in fact, not to be sharing with someone. The pirate swooped back into the forest, making a mental call to Ryo-ohki for a sighting of her impending target. Getting a mental affirmative from the cabbit, Ryoko skipped and streaked straight for the residence, honing in on her destination. Breaking out of the forest, she crested the eaves of the Masaki shrine, dropped down to mere inches above the courtyard, and sailed right out over the great staircase that lead further down the mountain. Surely, anyone coming up the stairs would have had their heads removed from their shoulders had they been in the way. Floating up above and approaching the house below, Ryoko spied her target, just where Ryo-ohki had indicated, sitting on a large stone by the lakeshore. Never pausing once to think, which was, to the casual observer, the truest aspect of the pirate's 'type', she headed straight for the lone figure, who was gazing somewhere out on the surface of the water. From inside the Masaki residence, Princess Ayeka looked up from her book, certain she had heard a noise. It almost sounded like an exclamation of surprise, but she was not positive. She waited a moment more, but there were no other cries, explosions, balls of fire, or anything else that would normally motivate the princess to be alarmed. She calmly went back to her reading. Outside, skimming over the surface of the lake, Princess Sasami was rapidly getting over her initial shock of being scooped up without warning by Ryoko. Grasped around the waste by the pirate, the princess's hair streamed behind her like a pair of pennants. The rush of wind in her face made her blink hard, tears forming in the corners of her eyes and forcing her to squint. "Care to go for a ride?" Ryoko asked over the rushing wind. "Ryoko!" Sasami complained. "You scared me!" "You wanna stop?" Sasami put a hand to her eyes to shield herself from the wind, and in the process spied Ryo-ohki off to her side. The little cabbit was easily keeping up with the pirate and was doing aerobatics with an expression of joy plastered on its fuzzy features. The princess relaxed just a little and decided to let herself be carried. To indicate her willingness to continue, Sasami stretched her arms out like a plane and stiffened her back, facing forward into the wind. "All right!" Ryoko smiled, pulling up from the lake as they neared the far shore. Sailing up over the trees, the trio cruised through the air for several minutes, doing flips and loops and a dozen other stunts that would have sent Sasami's sister into fits had she been aware. In a more daring moment, Ryoko gave the princess a split-second warning before letting go in mid-air, spinning, and letting a wide- eyed Sasami land square on her back. Sasami grabbed a hold tightly, breathless and her heart speeding ahead somewhere into the next week. By then, Ryoko figured the princess could use a break. Actually, she had not really been paying attention, assuming Sasami must be having a totally fearless time just like herself, but an insistent Ryo-ohki was telling her otherwise. "Hey, kiddo!" she called back. "You ready to head back down to the ground?" "S-sure!" Sasami replied. "Oh, wait! Let's go fly by Tenchi!" Ryoko did not exactly need prodding, and changed course more gently this time, in consideration of her passenger. Cruising up over some meadows, the pair headed right for the carrot fields, with an enthused Ryo-ohki still in tow. Tenchi Masaki was busy doing what seemed to be his destiny in life, planting and tending carrots. Well, one of his destinies, of course. There was also the 'most powerful member of the House of Jurai' destiny, the 'Washu's guinea pig' destiny, the 'human bungy-cord pulled between Ryoko and Ayeka' destiny, etc. Wiping his brow from the heat, Tenchi stopped and ran his hand over the contours of the wooden hoe handle he was working with. Knowing its every nook and cranny, Tenchi could have picked that hoe out of an entire group even if blindfolded. It was nice when things were calm enough to note the little details like imperfections in a piece of wood. He idly wondered just how long this current span of peace and quiet would last before the next disaster turned his life upside down--- At which point Tenchi felt a powerful gust of air rush by his body. Pulled right up off his feet by the force of air vacuum, he landed backwards in the soft dirt, facing up into the sky. 'That's what I get for asking,' he remorsed philosophically. "Tenchi!" called Sasami's worried voice from up in the sky. "Are you okay?" Tenchi spotted the princess and the pirate hovering about twenty feet up in the air above him. Sasami was sitting on Ryoko's back with the poise of an equestrian. He blinked a few times and twitched a hand in the affirmative. "Sure, I'm fine," he replied. Sasami let out one of her over-exaggerated sighs of relief. "I'm glad," she said. Picking himself up out of the dirt, Tenchi dusted himself off and reached for the hoe he had dropped. Looking back up in the air, he saw Ryoko and Sasami had pulled to the edge of the field and were now sitting on a lower branch of a massive old oak tree, watching him. Shrugging to himself, he went back to the task at hand, providing for the galaxy's hungriest, fuzzy eared, carrot disposal unit. Moments later, it occurred to Tenchi that Ryoko had not made any attempt to apologize for his falling down. In fact, she had not even looked terribly guilty with her trademark expression of 'oh damn, I did something to upset Tenchi again.' "Huh. That was odd," he said, returning to the carrots. * * * 'How weird,' thought Ryoko, perched comfortably in a nook of the old oak tree. What the space pirate was referring to was the realization that at no time after knocking Tenchi over had she considered apologizing to him. Normally, Ryoko would have been fawning all over the young man, desperate for some kind of affirmation that he was not mad at him. This time, however, she had not even been worried about it. In fact, she had observed Tenchi lying on the ground much like a scientist would have been looking at some unknown object in a microscope, trying to puzzle out its mysteries. Like mother, like daughter, perhaps? Ryoko considered Tenchi again from her vantage. He was toiling away in the field, working to provide carrots for Ryo- ohki. At any previous time, Tenchi would have been obviously uncomfortable with Ryoko watching him, which was why she frequently spied on Tenchi. Now, he did not seem to mind at all. Again, there was another little piece of intangible evidence that something nebulous had changed in the past few days. Continuing to watch Tenchi work, it occurred to Ryoko that you could just as easily and cheaply buy bushels of carrots in town, especially since Washu could forge any currency necessary to pay for them. It said something about Tenchi that he put all this effort into keeping the cabbit happy, which indirectly helped keep Sasami happy. At the thought of the young princess, Ryoko looked down where Sasami had fallen asleep. Precariously positioned on the large limb with Ryoko, Sasami's head was in the pirate's lap, fast asleep from the earlier excitement of flying. Ryoko quietly stroked the princess's hair, smoothing out the strands that had run wild from the blowing wind. A curious thought strayed into the cyan haired woman's mind; she realized that Sasami was someone else besides Tenchi that she wanted to share her past and worries with. Ryoko blinked a few times at the notion of how much she trusted and wanted the young princess to be a confidant. "Maybe when you're older," she whispered to the snoozing Sasami, thinking there were things about her life the princess was best not burdened with for a while, yet. Ryoko was glad Sasami was able to have a restful moment. In the past several days since the battle with the demon, Yazuha, the princess had been coping with the experience as best she could. Even though Washu had assured them that an infant Mayuka was on the way, the imagery of the young woman dying in front of the princess had left its mark. Nights were currently the toughest for Sasami, and she refused to sleep alone under any circumstances. Then again, being cut off from Tsunami probably had something to do with Sasami's mood as well. The princess had confessed while in the Domain of Darkness she was completely cut off from Tsunami for the first time ever. That emptiness in her soul, and the fact Tsunami had done nothing to protect the princess, would be enough to shake anyone's faith. Ryoko could understand that. Having her own link severed from Ryo-ohki a time or two had been rather unsettling. Not that dealing with Yazuha in any fashion had not been unsettling in itself. "How someone could get warped like that," she murmured. Wondering what could produce something so evil and malicious as Yazuha, Ryoko tilted her head against the old tree and rested it there, feeling the bark against her temple. To descend into so much hatred and destruction, was it really that far of a distance to fall into darkness? The terrible and haunting image of Yazuha in her final moments, twisted and full of despair, revisited the pirate for the hundredth time. Imagine, the darkness in love with the light. Her last words chilled Ryoko. That Yazuha was fully aware of the utter rejection she would face from Yosho for the rest of eternity was so evident in demon's final, bitter complaint. It could just have easily of been Ryoko saying those words, could it not? Ryoko wondered if she would go back to a life of destruction, even without Kagato's control. Would she abandon herself to anger and hopelessness if Tenchi rejected her so utterly? She winced from the memory of Tenchi's stinging slap, feeling it as if it had just happened. A drawn and unhappy expression washed over her face as the notion to wallow in self-pity over Tenchi grew. The longer Ryoko stayed at the Masaki residence, the more fragile her emotions became. Alone in the vastness of space, her defenses were strong and thick out of necessity. Be it the endless solitude, or the constant knowledge that she was a slave to a madman, those walls were the only thing that made life worth living. Hell, Yosho sealing her in the cave may have been a solitary imprisonment, but at least she was able to have seven hundred-odd years of relative freedom and peace... Yosho had called that place the Domain of Darkness. Ryoko wondered just what the Tree of Darkness was, anyway. Was it the exact opposite of the Tree of Light? And did that mean Yazuha was Tsunami's dark counterpart? And if Yazuha was capable of discovering love and compassion, if only for a small moment, was Tsunami equally as capable of hatred and indifference? Ryoko shuddered at the thought, disturbing Sasami's nap just a bit. It looked to the pirate that the princess's sleep was not as peaceful as she would have liked it to be. Ryoko guessed whole Yazuha ordeal had affected them all in ways that would not be going away anytime soon. Funny, she thought, looking back out over the carrot field where Tenchi was working. It had taken Yazuha's scheming and interference with Mayuka to force Ryoko's complete emotional breakdown in front of Tenchi. In the space of a day, all those carefully crafted walls Ryoko had spent a couple thousand years building had been toppled, leaving her a collapsed bundle at Tenchi's feet. Completely open and honest for the first time in her life, really. And Tenchi had stayed with her. Something had to be done, Ryoko decided with a sigh and resolve. She could no longer allow the situation to continue as it had for so long. Tenchi would have to express his feelings one way or the other for Ryoko, and soon. Somehow, she could sense that some strange breakthrough had been made with the earthling, but the time was fleeting. The moment was there, but the moment would not stay. If Ryoko was to finally take advantage of the destiny she so badly wanted, she would need to do something dramatic, bold, and yet non-threatening with Tenchi. It would have to be away from the residence, though. It did not take a rocket scientist to acknowledge that there were too many distractions for Tenchi here. To get him, Ryoko would need his undivided attention, and that meant getting away somewhere with him voluntarily. Ryoko would need help, but thinking of a rocket scientist reminded her that if it was help she needed, having one's own mother in her corner was probably the best place to start. The pirate became momentarily melancholy, however... To reach her goal, there would be no way of saving Ayeka from pain. Why that should bother Ryoko, though, was a complete mystery. * * * Join the Jurai Royal Navy and see the galaxy. Lieutenant Kithow squinted in the pale orange sunlight that streamed onto the balcony. High above sharp cliffs that plumeted to a crystal green sea, the balcony provided a tremendous view of a world that was breathtaking. Certainly, a part of the galaxy worth seeing, she thought to herself. Though the setting sun on the ocean was brilliant, it provided little warmth compared with the heat behind the lieutenant's back. All around a wind blew smoldering embers out over the sea. Turning away from the ocean, Kithow watched as a graceful castle, hewn from the very cliff walls, burned steadily. Her royal military cloak was blown backwards, whipping around her from a sudden heated gust. There were already several singes to her battle uniform, some that even threatened to burn down to her skin. Kithow wondered passively at how a castle made from the very rock of the ocean cliffs could burn so hotly. The interior furniture and cloth, gathered from generations upon generations of descendents from a noble family was a substantial fuel source for the flames, but the ferocity of the blaze defied logic. The lieutenant knew what really raged inside the burning spires, however. The anger and seething rage of a royal emperor, expressed through a terrifying gesture of the power of Jurai, was causing the magnitude of this fire. Reports from some of her subordinates were coming in about some of the rock walls sagging like warm butter. The beginnings of a panic were rising in her troops, and who could blame them at that moment? Kithow maintained an outward calm indifference she did not feel for the sake of her men. It was deathly hot inside that castle, and the young woman's neck showed the heat, like severe sunburn. At that moment, Kithow wished for the protection of a scarf, or even hair longer than her military short cropped locks. Deep within the burning castle, there were several loud explosions followed by shuddering vibrations. "The power generators have gone," she said blandly to those around her on the balcony. "Anyone deep within this place is most certainly dead." Kithow looked away from the castle to the stone floor of the balcony. Crumpled in a small heap was a boy roughly the age of ten turns. Dressed in richly spun clothes worth more than the lieutenant's yearly pay, the boy breathed quietly, stunned from a blow to his temple. "Are all of our forces away?" she asked no one in particular. One of her group stepped forward and saluted nervously. There were smudge marks streaked with sweat on his rough looking face. "Yes, sir," her subordinate replied with uncharacteristic worry in his voice. "Commanders report boarding the royal battleships with all hands accounted for." Kithow raised her eyes and looked at her men on the balcony. They were all dirty with soot, some haggered and mentally shocked. The one thing missing on their clothes was the stain of blood. Jurai energy weapons cauterized wounds instantly with a clinical cleanliness. They did not do much for the smell of burning flesh, though, and even less for the final screams of those before their execution. It was those screams she saw on the faces of her men right then, amongst the dirt and soot on their skin and uniforms. Some of them probably would not recover emotionally. Would she recover, she pondered with a sagging spirit? Some aggrivating part of her said she probably would. This kind of vengence and genocide was not like anything Kithow had experienced before, but how did one counter the wishes of the emperor? No one had the power, and to break faith with him was to ensure misery and retribution with the troops' families and loved ones back on Jurai. Kithow had murdered this day, torn apart the lives of numerous families, servants, and other innocents. She had watched the royal troops under her command do even more, but it did not matter. What did these people really matter in the face of protecting her own parents and sisters back on Jurai? Once you made that rationalization, it was only a small step towards another level of horror. That level would be coming soon enough. "Lieutenant!" called one of her men as the smoke and heat flowed thickly over the balcony. "The emperor!" As Kithow looked upwards towards where the soldier was pointing, the rest of her men stood sharply at attention. Through the haze of embers, the lieutenant spied her emperor on a parapet high above, another figure held up roughly by the neck. The young woman savagely pushed down any protests from her conscious and reached for the little boy on the ground. Waking slightly as he was picked up, the boy groaned a bit and rolled his half open eyes. "I'm sorry, child," Kithow simply said. "You do not deserve this, but neither would my own family should I disobey his will." With that, Kithow released the last bit of caring or emotion she still had left and threw the boy over the balcony ledge. * * * There was a terrible scream from the battered and destroyed man that Emperor Asuza grasped by the neck. Watching one of his soldiers toss a small child to the rocks and ocean hundreds of feet below, he narrowed his eyes and smiled. Ignoring the smoke and flames around him, the emperor stood within the protection of the power of Jurai, which flowed thickly through his body. "It would seem, Jan, that I have lost the bet," he observed with malice. "Indeed, your son can not fly after all. And what a pity, for I was certain that he would be highly motivated to grow a pair of wings." The man identified as Jan sobbed noisily as Azusa sneered at him. "Then again," he continued mercilessly, "none of your family has proven able to do much more than die today. Not very encouraging to the future of your lineage, is it?" "Y-you bastard," Jan coughed, sobbing. "You monster!" The emperor laughed harshly, tightened his grip around the man's neck to prevent him from speaking further. "What did you expect?" he barked. "Did you think being a noble house of Jurai would protect you? Did you think being such a remote world in my empire would save you from attempting autonomy from my rule?" With growing irritation, the emperor flung the noble backward in the flames. Howling at thrashing for a moment, Jan was quickly overcome by the heat and smoke that seared his lungs. Within a minute, he was well beyond this world, his flesh cooking in the flames. "Do not despair, my most noble Jan," Azusa mocked. "You will have a lineage after all. That lineage will be the fear the other noble families will take from your miserable fate. It will serve me better than any of your wretched house ever have." Caught up in a red and blue energy, the emperor removed himself through the power of Jurai from the parapet and back to his royal battleship. Flames moved forward and swept through the area where he had been standing. As far as the emperor was concerned, the house of Jan was no more. * * * In a putrid and stifling realm of darkness, a great tree rose up from an oily body of water. Green, glowing branches draped over the sickly water, the tree stood on a small island where nothing else grew. In that subterranean otherworld, the only light was from the tree itself, a pale green glow that cast deep shadows on the surrounding walls that rose up around it. The heavy air was deathly still and silent. For the first time in ages, the tree was alone and without a being to channel its energy through. At the tree's base, a figure lay sprawled, lifeless and broken. A serene expression on the figure's face, there was a savage gash burned into its side from an energy weapon of tremendous power. There was almost a sigh as the branches of the tree swayed a bit in consternation. Nature abhorred a vacancy, and right there was one that needed filling. It was time for the Tree of Darkness to locate a new ally, a new vessel to channel through. * * * In no place in the universe were there true absolutes. There were seemingly insurmountable probabilities to contend with, but even the almost impossible event happened every now and again. What some might attribute to a miracle from some higher power was, more often than not, just the rare, highly improbable chance of an event happening that otherwise should not. Worlds exploded leaving a single infant to escape, spaceships crashed on moons leaving a lone perfect cell to be cloned into a whole being again, and inventors of edible clothing became wealthy. All highly improbable events that had happened at one time or another across the unimaginable span of time, despite the odds. The same was for the small boy that lay just above the crashing waves of a mighty ocean. His body shattered beyond repair on the rocks, a spark of life still remained after a fall of several hundred feet. Sea foam landed on and around the boy, the white of the bubbles mixing with the red blood that flowed down the sides of the boulders. Ashes and embers floated down from the sky as well, black snowflakes occasionally glowing with a dim fire. It was an improbable event, but nevertheless with a fixed ending. The boy had survived a terrible fall, but Death was upon him. There was no pain and hardly any conscious whatsoever in him. There was only a small spark of life that was ebbing away as surely as the tide below. Yet, Nature abhorred a vacancy. The time was coincidentally perfect, and the small boy had a hidden potential that would serve well. To that small spark of life still within the child, a proposal was offered and a deal struck. The alternatives quite simple to the mind of a little boy: life or death. He chose life. An erie green energy surrounded the dying child, as green as the foamy ocean. Growing brilliantly in the misty air, the boy soon disappeared from sight, leaving behind only blood stained rocks and sea foam. The boy had chosen life, but the details and consequences of the deal would take many years to unravel. Nevertheless, the Tree of Darkness had a new tool to sharpen. * * * Coming up in Chapter 3: Sasami, Nathaniel, and Mayuka adjust to their new roles on Jurai as political factions position themselves for sedition. Comments and Criticisms Welcome. Send comments to Mike McAvoy (mmcavoy@ejourney.com) http://www.angelfire.com/va3/shenandoah/ Last updated October 15, 2001.