Tenchi Muyo Fan Fiction ❯ Concubine Chronicles ❯ Dreams Rarely End Well ( Chapter 1 )

'…' Thought

"They're gonna transfer mmmmmmmeeeeeEEEEEEE!" Mihoshi wailed.

Ayeka, Washu, and Ryoko all turned towards the chair where Mihoshi was sitting and Tenchi was passing by. The blonde Galaxy Police detective had looked like something was bothering her all evening and Sasami and Tenchi had been asking her what was wrong every twenty minutes since dinner. She finally broke down and told them.

"They're transferring me...*sniff*...to to...the field office on Obra-skai!"

"Obra-skai?" Ayeka said. "That's on the other side of the Ankari Confederation; it'll take you three weeks just to get there."

"Mmhmmm, and...and and...because of the...the isolation order *sniff* I can't come back!" Mihoshi exclaimed as her big blue eyes started to tear up.

With a GP exclusion zone in affect around the entire Sol system traffic was restricted to official and emergency traffic only within one light year of the primary. Anyone entering without authorization would be arrested immediately and authorization would be almost impossible to get for someone outside the royal family of Jurai.

"So are they assigning somebody else to be resident officer?" Washu asked from the large overstuffed recliner she had summoned up to sit in.

"Yeah," Mihoshi moaned, "He'll be here in two weeks."

"Can't you ask them to let you stay?" Sasami asked.

"I've already stayed long then I was supposed to," Mihoshi said between sobs. "An officer should be assigned to no more then six galactic standard months of duty on a protected world," she said like she was quoting regs. "I've been here more than seven."

Sasami started to sniffle a little and sat down next to Mihoshi, hugging her friend and trying to offer some comfort she didn't feel.

Washu was tickled to death to be rid of the blonde ditz, the one woman wrecking crew who managed to destroy half her lab without even trying. At least that's how she thought she should feel about Mihoshi's imminent departure. Instead the self proclaimed greatest scientist in the universe felt...felt something she hadn't felt in a long time. Spinning on her heels she disappeared into her lab in a flurry of bright red hair.

Ayeka's comforting words to Mihoshi barely registered on Ryoko, much like Washu she was struggling with the fact that she wasn't overjoyed to have one less competitor for Tenchi's affections in the house, but unlike Washu she knew exactly why she was happy. Seeking a respite from those thoughts she looked around for Tenchi but didn't find him. "Hey, where'd Tenchi go?"

*********************

The man with the ability to attract gorgeous female aliens like flies was sitting on his bed and staring at his wall, well more through the wall than at it. The very thing that had haunted him for the last year was coming true.

For the first six months that Tenchi had know the girls, right up until the Clay incident he had struggled simply to not get killed. He was too busy trying to keep the girls from thinking he had picked a favorite to really enjoy their company but right after Zero and Clay things had changed. For the last year things had been quiet, down right tranquil. Not even Minagi's appearance had really altered that. As tense as her arrival had been Washu's other daughter hadn't really stressed them out quite like Kagato and Clay.

Which left Tenchi with a lot of time to think and the only thing he could think about were the five alien women who had come crashing into his life and laid claim to him. Amazingly enough it wasn't until then that he was able to realize just how much he cared for them. In retrospect he thought it should have been obvious, how many guys could claim that they had already died, sort of, for several girls.

His friends hadn't been able to figure out what was wrong with him, he'd walk through school in a daze, not seeming to care about the fact that quite a few magnificent examples of the feminine side of his own species were very interested in him. His friends were constantly telling him how they'd heard this girl saying she liked him or how that girl thought he was cute and he ignored it all. As nice as those girls were they couldn't compete with the five that waited for him at home. The silver haired pirate who made it perfectly obvious she'd jump him at a moment's notice, the red eyed princess who was the most regal woman he'd ever met, the meter and a half red head who was constantly trying to extract a "sample" from him that required him to be naked, the little cyan haired princess who cooked better than anyone he'd ever met and the drop dead gorgeous blonde who thought he was the most comfortable pillow in the world.

The five wonderful girls that waited for him at home had ruined him for human women. They had also made his life a constant struggle.

It wasn't the fighting, the sniping, the groping, or the grabbing that bothered him; it was the fact that through it all he had to stuff his own feelings for them as deep down in his heart as he could manage. He'd lost count of how many times he caught himself just before he blurted out "I love you," to one of them in the last year, after the hundredth time it just got to depressing to think about.

When Tenchi had realized he cared for the girls he'd tried to do the only honorable thing he could, pick one of them. It just wouldn't be fair to keep stringing them all along. For many many nights he would lie in bed staring at the ceiling trying to figure out which girl he'd choose. 'Mihoshi,' he would think. 'She's sweet and kind, lots of fun...and Kami-sama what a body.' But just as soon as he would think he may have finally managed to choose just one girl thoughts of the others would destroy his decision, memories of Ayeka's regal air and the small smile few people ever saw, thoughts of Ryoko's exuberance and lust for life and her just plain lust, Sasami's innocence, he was even wistful for Washu's maniacal cackle which more than anything told him he loved her.

When he realized he couldn't choose he would try and decide which girls he could eliminate, which ones he could come clean with and let them know that they were wasting their time. 'Ayeka, she can be snob at times, and she's a princess, a PRINCESS! I don't want that responsibility,' he'd think, and then the thought of her not being there would freeze him in his tracks, his blood would turn to ice water, his stomach to a leaden knot, even his balls shriveled up at the mere thought of any of the girls leaving.

He loved all of them, couldn't be without them and because of this he was damned to live without any of them. When he realized he could never bear to tell any of them good bye he had realized how hopeless his situation was. He loved all of them but he knew that none of them would accept that, the only thing they seemed to agree on was that they all wanted Tenchi and they all wanted each other gone. Even little Sasami had gotten into it from time to time and he couldn't miss the glare's Ayeka gave her little sister anytime Sasami sat down next to him and just dared anyone to try and move her. He loved all of them, but how could he tell them that? How could he convince them that it wasn't just because he was some kind of pervert looking to bed them and that he had actual feelings for them?

Then he'd made the mistake of turning to Kamidake and Amidake for help. What he'd learned from them had made him hopeful and sent him right back into despair. Thankfully Ayeka had long ago ordered the two log-like robots to do as Tenchi said and so long as nothing he asked of them conflicted with their primary function of keeping Ayeka safe the two amiable wooden constructs were happy to help him, even going so far as to provide him with a data pad so that he didn't have to do his reading at night while sitting in front of Ayeka's door.

It had taken Tenchi a while to learn how to use wooden tablet and its holographic display, in his world images didn't just hover fifteen centimeters in the air over your desk, but once he did he was able to access the tremendous amount of data that the two robots held.

The very first thing he did was try to look up each of the girl's files, and that was when he got his first shock. Ryoko's file was less than complimentary and read like a police report, actually police reports made up the bulk of it, but it didn't tell him anything he didn't already know. Washu's was devoid of any useful information, a few notations about her being a scientist were all he could find, everything else was hidden behind big red classified markers that Kamidake and Amidake refused to decrypt, though they apologized profusely. Mihoshi's file was the first shock, after the normal bit of biographical information, name, date of birth, place of birth, some planet named Seniwa, etc. came her record as a Galaxy Police officer and eventually detective. It all seemed very normal except that Mihoshi's record went on and on and on, page after page of arrests, cases, accident reports, lots of those, and more than a few commendations. When he checked the entry counter he saw that her record had more then eleven thousand entries, and only the major ones at that, it listed more than fifty thousand minor events that weren't displayed. Tenchi was sure that there had to be a mistake, there was simply no way that Mihoshi could have had all that happen to her, her date of birth meant nothing to him, it was a jumble of numbers and decimal points so he asked if Kamidake could translate it into human terms, and Tenchi immediately wished he hadn't.

Mihoshi's birthday on Earth was March 17th, but the year, Tenchi made Kamidake and Amidake both confirm it, Mihoshi, sweet, innocent, happy, bubbly Mihoshi, was born in nine hundred and thirty two A.D. She was one thousand and seventy two years old; she had been a GP officer for more than six hundred years and was still only a junior detective.

Of course Tenchi knew in an analytical way that Ryoko was even older than that, by a long shot, but he also knew that Ryoko's body was probably closer to a biological machine than a normal person's body. Washu was even older but she was also some kind of genius scientist. It was only now that the full weight of it all hit him, Ayeka and Sasami being in hibernation for seven hundred years and their parents showing up like it was nothing, the girls cooling their jets at his house for more than a year like it was a nice vacation, it finally dawned on him why they were so patient with him.

Another quick check showed that even if you didn't count the seven hundred years of their hibernation Ayeka was just over three hundred years old and Sasami was a hundred and twenty eight. With a little more research he found out why, every single one of the girl's species lived more than thirty thousand years. They could kill a year or two on earth waiting on him like he would blow a weekend at the beach.

He would be dead and gone long before Sasami was even a teenager. He wouldn't even qualify as a speed bump in their lives.

For a long while Tenchi had just sat and stared at the screen hovering in front of him. It was both reassuring and depressing at the same time. He was happy for all of them that they'd get to live LONG and he was sure happy lives, but he was saddened by the fact that he'd barely get to spend any of them with them. Did he really want to waste his life with girls who would probably forget him in a couple of centuries?

As quickly as that errant thought reared its head Tenchi smashed it back down. There would be no 'wasting' of his life with them; you couldn't waste your life with somebody you loved.

Deciding that there was nothing he could do about it Tenchi pushed on. His attempts at making any sense of the cultural histories of Washu and Mihoshi's home planets was pointless, they were longer than anything he had ever seen and full of references he didn't understand. He finally gave up and moved onto the history of Jurai and started with the royal family seeking some information on Ayeka and Sasami's lives. He was perusing the history of some of Jurai's emperors when he noticed something.

Juraian emperors always had more than one wife, usually many more. Again Tenchi had been stunned, at the time he had realized this it had been more than a month since the royal family had visited. Azusa had been married, to Misaki, AND Funaho. He had been so busy trying not to piss off the group of aliens with the huge ship when they had come to visit that he had missed the obvious and its connection to his situation.

He quickly found his way to the anthropological details of the Juraian's. There were three females to every male! It wasn't just ok for the emperor to have more than one wife; it was the norm for the entire species! He switched over to the same details and found that it was true for Haudurans, Ryoko and Washu, and Kizikans like Mihoshi, multiple partner marriages were the norm in all three species.

Tenchi recalled that for the first time in a long time he slept peacefully and well that night, content in the notion that he had finally found a solution to the problem. His happiness didn't last long.

The next day was bad, even by the high standards set in the Masaki household. The rain hadn't helped.

With nothing to do but stay inside Ryoko and Ayeka's usual light bickering quickly escalated. Bored and annoyed with their confinement the two started to push each other's buttons, hard. If Sasami hadn't been in the room it was likely that they would have come to blows but the little princess was enough of a damper on their enthusiasm to limit them to the spoken word. It was nearly a year later and Tenchi still wished they had just had it out. To call the words they used on each other hateful would have been a gross understatement; they bypassed their usual sniping at each other's ages and physical appearance and went straight to the things they knew would really hurt. Ayeka quickly found the chink in Ryoko's emotional armor and stared to tear into her with reminders, subtle and blatant, to the things she had done under Kagato. Never one to sit idly by Ryoko came back with a constant string of stinging barbs to the effect that Ayeka was just a puppet of her father and he'd never let her be with Tenchi.

As if the day couldn't get bad enough at the crescendo of Ryoko and Ayeka's screaming fit a tremendous roar issued forth from Washu's lab. Ayeka and Ryoko were nearly bowled over as an adult Washu came storming out of her lab dragging Mihoshi behind her by the collar. While Mihoshi looked as pristine as she could be Washu was covered in a thick layer of soot and had pieces of wire and smoldering plastic sticking out of her hair. The resulting fracas resulted in a tremendous amount of screaming between Washu, Ayeka, and Ryoko while Mihoshi apologized profusely and Sasami stood as close to Tenchi as possible while he watched what was going on from the balcony upstairs.

Tenchi had gone down and broken them up after he thought they'd gotten most of it out of their systems and it was safe to be near them. When he'd gotten in the middle of it all of them ceased their verbal assaults, except for Mihoshi who never missed a beat in her constant stream of apologies to Washu, but for the rest of the night they'd glared at each other and many a muttered insult passed back and forth.

That night Tenchi hadn't gotten much sleep, what had seemed like his salvation not twenty four hours before now looked even more unobtainable. How could he possibly think of even suggesting that they all try to live together as a married group, the girls could barely stand each other as it was.

And that was the question that he'd spent the last year trying to figure out. Every time he'd think he'd be getting close to an answer something would happen, the girls would explode at one another and he'd be back to square one.

Through it all one dream haunted him nightly, reminding him that time was his enemy. Now that dream was becoming a reality.

Sure in his dream Mihoshi was reassigned and she left with no warning or fanfare rather than with a couple weeks notice and in a storm of tears but it was still happening. Once or twice a week he'd wake up in a cold sweat from it, his sheets drenched, his body shivering from terror rather than a chill.

Sometimes it took place during the day, but usually it was at night. Every light in the house would be off and he'd be up looking for the girls. He'd walk down the stairs from his room proceeding cautiously unsure of why all the lights were out. He'd walk into the living room to find the TV on, Mihoshi's favorite cartoon playing on it but the blonde was nowhere in sight. He'd head to the kitchen but find it empty, bowls and spoons and containers of food would be all over it like somebody was preparing a meal but nobody was home, a familiar stool would be sitting in front of the stove. As his dread rose the dream Tenchi's footsteps would hasten, he'd burst through the doorway to the bath house to find it empty, a tray full of sake bottles and a cup floating gently in the pool. Now he knew what was happening, he'd seen this scene in his dreams a hundred times but like every time before he couldn't stop himself. He'd blow into the house and snatch open the door to Washu's lab only to find a simple broom closet on the other side of the door, a small white tube with a little red crab on it was lying on the floor. Finally in desperation he would take the stairs two at a time, running hard for his last ray of hope only to find none as the vanity in Ayeka and Sasami's room was unoccupied, the spots where Amidake and Kamidake usually stood were now bare.

Knowing all was lost but knowing that there was still more the dream Tenchi raced up the long stairs to his grandfather's shrine. Tenchi had never met the young man in Juraian robes that he found in his grandfather's home but for some reason in his dreams he always treated him like the old priest. The man was standing at his grandfather's dresser slowly packing up his things into a strange looking suitcase.

'What happened, where are they!?' Tenchi would yell in his dreams.

'Who Tenchi?' the stranger would ask.

'Ayeka, Ryoko, Sasami, Mihoshi, Washu! Where are they!?'

The young man would shrug and return to packing the suitcase. 'Ayeka and Sasami were recalled by their parents, they couldn't stay on vacation forever you know. Mihoshi was reassigned, with out Ayeka and Sasami here there was really no reason for her to stay on any more, this posting was killing her career you know. Washu...well I haven't seen Washu in a while, I suppose she just got bored and left. As for Ryoko, well she was the last to go, you just missed her in fact, she took Ryo-ohki and headed out, said she had wasted enough of her time here.'

His dream body would stand there, stunned, trying to process what he'd been told and the more it sank in the more it would seem to collapse in on itself. After seeing this dream over and over the young man's statement had lost much of it's punch but none of the horror it contained, the words '...wasted enough of her time...' were what echoed in his head more than anything now. Still the dream wasn't over.

The young man finished his packing and shut the suitcase with a final snap. By this time his dream self had sunk to his knees and his unseeing eyes were staring right through the floorboards. 'I hate to say it but there's really nothing left for me here either. You've turned out to be a great disappointment Tenchi, I suppose it's up to me now to try and clean up a bit of the mess you've made.' The man would walk through the door of the old rice paper walled house and just before he closed it he would always say, 'Goodbye Tenchi, I don't suppose any of us will be seeing you again any time soon.'

It was usually the clack of the door sliding shut that Tenchi would wake too but some nights; the ones after he would have a particularly good time with one or even all of the girls a more sinister ending awaited him. He wouldn't awaken with the shutting of the door, instead his dream self would sit there and start to sob. After a few moments he would notice something sitting on the nearby table. The pistol normally hung in a case in his Grandfather's study, a memento from a Japanese Army officer in WWII whose family his grandfather had looked out for during the war. The weapon was always unloaded and kept locked behind glass but now it was lying on the table, a magazine sitting next to it with a curve of brass peeking out of the top. The Tenchi in the dream would pick up the pistol, load it, and then press the barrel against his temple. Tenchi would wake up when the hammer of the pistol fell.

The thing that bothered him the most about the new ending to his dream was that if that dream were to come to pass Tenchi wasn't so sure that that wouldn't start to look like a good idea.

Now it was actually happening, now it was coming true, Mihoshi was being transferred. How much longer did he have until the house was empty? There would be no second chance, if the girls left he had no way to follow, no space ship, no way to contact them, nothing, if they left, that was it.

Desperate for a solution Tenchi grabbed the holopad and started trying to find something that would let Mihoshi stay, something that would buy him just a little more time. After a few hours of work he had it, it was starting to get late in the day but he knew this couldn't wait. He quickly smoothed out his rumpled clothes and headed to see Ayeka.