The TENCHI Chronicles Chapter 1 - A Necessary Step or: What if Tenchi had a spine? A Tenchi Muyo fanfiction by Michael "Brazil" Borgwardt (brazzy {at} gmail {dot} com) Tenchi Muyo! Ryo-ohki and its characters are copyrighted by AIC/Pioneer, I don't have any right to do this but I did it anyway. The rights to this story, however, are mine. This is my first attempt at writing fanfiction. Actually it's my first attempt at fiction, I just hope it works out well. I've recently gotten into fanfiction and now I decided to do something against the serious lack of TM fanfics. The idea for this story derived from discussions on the Tenchi ML and r.a.a.m. Some people claimed that Tenchi's passive behaviour is in fact the best thing he can do under the given circumstances, and I disagreed vehemently. Of course this means I have to provide alternatives. Since many people find the obvious step (choose Ryoko. Yes, I'm a pro-Ryokist) hard to accept, I had to look a bit further, and here's the result. Rather ironic, isn't it? I start out saying that I don't like Tenchi and end up writing a first-person narrative from his POV. Actually, there's one short paragraph where I leave the first person POV briefly. I did notice the breach of style, but that passage is just too good to remove it... So I put it into [square brackets]. if you are a nitpicker, don't read the paragraph in square brackets! Enough drivel, here's the story: ----------------------------------- I felt that I was slowly drifting out of slumberland and into the waking world, and I hated that feeling. Sleep meant peace, and that commodidiy had been becoming more and more difficult to come by in the last months. Nightmares? I never had any, probably because my waking time was bad enough already. Of course now it was too late and I knew it. No amount of analyzing would enable me to sleep again now, it was actually achieving the opposite. I sighed and gave up, opened my eyes and noticed that several things were not quite right. For starters, Ryoko wasn't there. It recently had become a habit of hers to spend the nights in my room, floating above my bed and scaring the daylights out of me when I woke up. What did she think, that I was a baby that couldn't even sleep on its own? Needless to say, my protests hadn't made the least bit of an impression on her. Or had they? She wasn't here today, maybe she was actually beginning to listen to what I said. But her absence wasn't the only unusual thing. It was also way too dark. I looked at the window. No, as always the shutters were not completely closed. I peeked through the gap. It was still pretty dark outside. A look at my alarm clock confirmed that it was a lot earlier than my usual rising time, still 5.22am. Then I noticed the quiet. No Sasami preparing breakfast and calling at my father if he could please get her something from the pantry, no Aeka and Ryoko starting a fight about an imaginary offense. It was wonderful. I had an idea. I got up and looked at the calendar. Sunrise was still twenty minutes away. I had enough time to wash and get dressed and then watch the sun rise over the lake. It would be beautiful. While quickly going through my morning routine, I once again thought about the mess I had gotten into, about Ryoko and Aeka, about Tsunami and Kagato, and about the Juraian royal family. The hope that I could ever again lead a normal, peaceful life was starting to appear increasingly futile. I might as well give it up. Stop it! I scolded myself. No wonder you can't find peace if you can't get your problems out of your mind even when there is a moment of calm. I finished dressing and went downstairs. Still enough time left, no need to hurry, not on such a perfect morning. ----------------------------------- As I went through the living room, I discovered why Ryoko hadn't been in my room. She was sleeping on the couch, an almost empty bottle of sake on the floor. I went over and looked at her. She lay there in a semi-fetal position, hugging a pillow. I marvelled at how cute she was and the look of innocence and defenselessness on her face. How could this lovely girl be the same person who spent half of her time trying to seduce me and the other half fighting escalating battles with Aeka? Not wanting to wake her up and witness the change firsthand, I went outside. It was even more beautiful than I had expected, with the birds singing, tendrils of morning mist rising from the lake and the brightening eastern sky announcing the approach of sunrise. I took a deep breath of the slightly chilly morning air, streched my arms and yawned comfortably, for once at peace with myself and the world. "Good morning, Tenchi-sama!" announced a pleasant and calm voice that nevertheless set my nerves on edge and immediately cut short my feelings of harmony. Aeka. But I would not allow anything or anyone to interfere with my enjoyment of this morning, I quickly resolved. "Good morning Aeka-san" I replied and sat down on the bench, as far away from her as I could without being too obvious about it, and looked straight ahead at the lake. "It is a beautiful morning, isn't it, Tenchi-sama?" asked she and I knew that I had no chance at all of avoiding a conversation with her, one that would invariably contain lots of hints at our kinship, our shared Juraian blood and the general beauty of planet Jurai. Hint, hint. Nudge, nudge. "Hai, sou desu. Uhm, do you often come here to watch the sun rise?" "Every morning, actually. If I can. It is traditionally part of the education of princes and princesses on Jurai to have them rise early enough in the morning to greet the sun goddess and thank her for making the trees and plants grow and give life to everything that breathes." "That... is a nice custom." "It helps me to feel a bit at home here, even though I'm so far away from Jurai. Even if it's not the same sun, the familiar ritual evokes many pleasant memories." There was an uncomfortable pause. I tried to think of something to say, but couldn't come up with anything. Fortunately, Aeka continued: "I miss Jurai, but I'm also a bit frightened by the though of how much it must have changed in the 700 years that Sasami-chan and I spent in hibernation. And if I went there, I fear that my father would not let me go again. And then I could not see you again, Tenchi-sama." Ugh, here she goes, I thought to myself. Then my heart skipped a beat as I suddenly felt her against my arm. While we were talking, Aeka had covered the distance between us, and with her last words leaned against me. When I looked at her, she quickly looked away, blushing intensively. I wondered how much of it was for real and how much was show. You could never tell with Aeka. She looked at me again and moved in for the kill. "Jurai is very beautiful, especially the area around the royal palace. you should see the royal gardens at dawn, they are so beautiful. I have yet to see anything that could match them. Especially the... Oh, look Tenchi-sama! Here she comes, the sun! Excuse me." She stood up, walked a few steps towards the lake and began a complicated ritual, that involved slow, graceful gestures, kneeling down and standing up several times while she was softly singing a simple yet melodious song in a tongue that I didn't understand. I sighed and silently thanked the sun goddess too, for saving me from Aeka's advances. Though hers weren't as... embarassing as Ryoko's, they were just as unsettling in their own way. Aeka *did* look very peaceful as she went through her ritual, but I knew exactly that she would come back at me as soon as she was done. There was just no way that I could get these two girls to stay away from me for any amount of time unless... I had been thinking about it for some weeks now. Although the prospect of actually doing it frightened me pretty badly, I had not been able to come up with a more promising idea. The situation had been steadily getting worse. Something definitely needed to be done about it before things got ugly. And even if the best solution still was going to get me into a lot of trouble, I really should not let it stop me. Tenchi Masaki, what kind of man are you that you're positively terrified to take a clearly necessary step? I knew the answer, of course, but it wasn't exactly helpful. As I watched Aeka, I realized that this might be the best chance I would ever get to put my plan into action. We were alone, no-one would interrupt us and Aeka was in a singularly peaceful mood. Yes. Now or never, I decided with grim determination and waited for Aeka to finish. She stopped, turned around to look at me and was about to say something when I interrupted her. "Please sit down, Aeka-san. There is something I have to tell you." She complied, looking at me curiously. "What is it, Tenchi-sama?" "I have thought about this a lot, and I have been trying to tell you for some time now, but there never was an occasion until now. I also was a bit afraid, but now I can't delay it any more." A look at Aeka's face where the sun had just risen for the second time today made me stop. Oh no, she was jumping to conclusions, and most certainly not to the correct ones! [Aeka's mind reeled with overjoyed anticipation. He was finally going to tell her, to admit his eternal love for her! It hadn't been affection for that demon woman that had kept him away from her, he had only been too shy, just like herself! But now those barriers had been broken, and their boundless love would bloom in... ] I had to act quickly now, before she gained enough composure to pull a Ryoko, or I wouldn't anymore be able to say my lines. "Aeka-san, you have to realize that I do not love you, not in the way that you seem to think that I do." ----------------------------------- Aeka's face was a mask of absolute shock. "Tenchi-sama! That... can't be !!" "Yes it can. Aeka-san, I do like you very much and I don't want to hurt you. But you have never asked me about *my* feelings and yet you have taken my love for granted. And your constant fighting with Ryoko-san is not..." With every word I spoke Aeka looked hurt more badly. I couldn't take it anymore and looked down, that's why I didn't spot the change immediately and was surprised by a cry of rage. When I looked up again, Aeka's pretty face was a grimace of pure fury. Through clenced teeth she hissed: "So it is that demon who has turned your heart against me, probably with the help of that lunatic mother of hers! But I'll teach them a lesson they won't forget!" As she was about to turn around and storm into the house, I caught her by the shoulder. "Stop! This has nothing to do with Ryoko-san!" That, at least, got through to her and she stopped, looking confused. "But you said..." "Me feelings for her are the same as for you. I like you both as friends but I am not ready for the kind of relationship you want, and neither are you, I think." "But I *love* you, Tenchi-sama!" "I do not doubt that you have strong feelings for me. But love means to really care for the other one, to value his needs and opinions as much as your own. You don't have to defeat Ryoko to win my love, but you *do* have to change your attitude a lot! I am not a prize to be won, Aeka-san." Her expression suddenly brighted up. "That means if I change my behaviour, you will love me?" "I would certainly appreciate it. But there still is Ryoko-san. She loves me too, and I don't want to hurt her." Again she looked as If she was about to cry. "So you *do* care more about her than about me!" "No. I will tell her the same things that I'm now telling you. As I said, I like you both very much, but if I chose one of you, the other one would be hurt terribly, and I simply can't do that. I guess if I were really in love, that wouldn't matter to me, so it seems that I'm not. It is rather difficult to love someone who assumes to know all about your feelings without ever asking you." Now the tears started to come. "Please... excuse me, Tenchi-sama. I will... think about what... you said." Sobbing, she bowed and ran into the house. As I watched her, I really hated myself for what I had done. No matter how often I told myself that it had been necessary and that the truth was better for herself as well as for me, it couldn't change the fact that I had hurt a person who loved me, and hurt her very badly. And was about to do it again. There was no going back now, I *had* to tell Ryoko the same. I shuddered at the thought of how *she* would take it. Somehow, fighting Kagato seemed like child's play when compared to the challenges brought about by living with two girls who are in love with you. I went inside the house. ----------------------------------- That's it for now, guys. Please DO tell me how you liked it. You can reach me at: brazzy {at} gmail {dot} com (And don't hold back with criticism, I really can take it. I want to improve, so I need to have my mistakes pointed out. Including spelling, grammar and expression mistakes, since English is not my native language.) Thanks go to all the people who gave me C&C: Ryan, Zack and the rest of the FFML, Sarah and Federico. Since their practically unanimous reaction was "Write a continuation!", that's what I'll do, when and if I find the time... This and future works of me can be found at: http://fanfiction.brazils-animeland.de EOF