Tenchi Muyo Fan Fiction ❯ Concubine Chronicles ❯ Watersports ( Chapter 3 )

Concubine Chronicles

By: bsmart

Disclaimer:Why the hell am I writing this? Nobody reads them and they have no legal weight. It's a complete waste of time and bandwidth and yet I'm still typing. If you're under the legal age where ever you are don't read this, but since you're going to anyways at least don't let your mommy catch you. This fic is very much NC-17.

Note: This is a sort of manga/OVA fic. If you've only seen the show then you might be a little lost.

"…" Normal Speech

Chapter 3: Watersports

Tenchi tried to compose himself before he headed down to breakfast, at first it had been hard to face the girls after masturbating furiously to their likeness in his head, especially after some of the scenarios that his subconscious had come up with. This morning he couldn't manage to pull himself together though, he knew he would have to face them all and tell them how he felt, and soon, but how do you do that and try to tell them it's not because he's a pervert, especially after this morning?

The constant image of the four adult female members of the household standing in the kitchen in one big half dressed pile of delicious flesh kept derailing his attempts at composure. His previous favorite mental image of all of them had been the last time he'd caught a glimpse of them all in the bath together, but he knew he had a new favorite now.

In a final act of desperation Tenchi stopped pacing in the middle of his room and began to go through a breathing exercise his grandfather had taught him so that he could center himself. As much as it bothered him to admit it the old man's techniques worked, the constant beatings he received at the elder Masaki's should have been enough to point that out. As he put his loss of self control into context, 'rationalizing beating off to the girls' he subconscious teased, he was able to once again put his feelings into the little box he always kept them stuffed inside and headed down for breakfast.

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

Washu slipped out of her lab and headed for the kitchen, instead of changing back in to her more normal adolescent body she'd decided to stay keep her adult one for the time being. 'Some things are just more fun this way,' she thought with a grin. Her smaller body let her stay more focused on her work but sometimes she preferred the distractions. 'Like this morning, I just wish Tenchi would hurry up,' she thought. Tenchi's rapid departure had left everyone a little surprised though unlike the rest of the females in the house she understood why.

'Tenchi, if you don't hurry up and figure it out I swear,' Washu thought. Tenchi was a bright boy; her constant testing confirmed that over and over, in addition to other interesting things, so his inability to act on the current situation frustrated her. When there was an obvious threat to the things he cared about he was capable of action but when there was no immediate threat, 'He turns into a Siracyn jellybloom.' But she had her suspicions about why Mihoshi's orders had been changed all of a sudden; she'd just have to check her records later to see what had gone on last night.

Just before she turned the corner she saw Ryoko and Ayeka staring at somebody near the still unseen stove and given the looks in their eyes whoever it might be she doubted it was Sasami. When she got into the kitchen she wasn't the least bit surprised to find Mihoshi at the stove talking to Sasami and while she had changed her clothes Mihoshi still wasn't wearing much more than she had been half an hour earlier.

Washu was pleasantly surprised to find her mouth going dry as Mihoshi rocked back and forth on her feet alternately tensing and relaxing every muscle in her long legs and Washu congratulated herself on deciding to stay big this morning. The greatest scientist in the universe's attention drifted northward from the long tanned appendages and locked onto Mihoshi's delicious little rump. Unlike her own body which was much like her daughters', long and lean but with plenty of padding where it counted, or Ayeka's which Washu thought was still a little scrawny, though she knew that Juraians took a little longer to flesh out than most species, Mihoshi was all curves. Her entire body was smooth with nary a sharp crease or protruding bone, everything blended together wonderfully. Washu felt a pang of jealously mixed in with her appreciation as she stared at Mihoshi's bottom, at the mall Washu had thought that the cut off jean shorts would cover plenty but it was obvious that she had underestimated Mihoshi, the lower curve of the detectives butt was obviously protruding just slightly from the bottom of the shorts and as Mihoshi turned a bit Washu could have sworn she saw a flash of pink ruffles.

Mihoshi's turn made it so that she was standing silhouetted to her and face on to Ryoko and Ayeka who made valiant attempts to try and look Mihoshi in the face as she chatted with them happily. Mihoshi's choice of a shirt had seemed similarly acceptable at the mall but just like her shorts once it was actually on her frame it went from acceptable to wear around the house to titillating and nearly indecent once it was on her. The little red and white top was skin tight on the detective and barely made it all the way down her expansive chest to snug up around her just below her beautiful breasts. To top it off Mihoshi had her hair up in its usual pony tail with a red ribbon holding it in place.

Washu finally tore her eyes away when the thought, 'She looks good enough to eat,' had popped into her mind. As much as Mihoshi drove her to distraction on a regular basis Washu could certainly appreciate her charms. Unlike what she suspected the other girls to believe she was fairly certain that if Tenchi caught her ogling one of the other girls he wouldn't throw her out, but the rest of the girls only had the soap operas they watched as a cultural reference for this planet. 'Maybe I should get them to read some of Noboyuki's manga,' she thought before remembering a certain part of the elder Masaki's stash, 'then again maybe not but some of it wouldn't really faze Ayeka.' She was tempted to just set the girls down and explain it all out to them in black and white but she figured that this was Tenchi's show. 'And besides,' she thought as she watched Ayeka and Ryoko trying to sneak peeks at Mihoshi and each other while the other wasn't looking, 'this is sort of fun.'

As always Ayeka and Ryoko were sitting with a single space between them for Tenchi and across from them were Sasami and Mihoshi's spots. Washu took her place at one end of the table and relaxed. Sasami started to bring things to the table with Mihoshi's help and half way through Tenchi made his reappearance.

As soon as he entered the kitchen Tenchi realized that at some point in his life he had pissed off Fate royally. Every single one of the girls was dressed to kill. Mihoshi's skin tight cut off t-shirt and shorts were every bit as eye catching as Ryoko's midriff baring red, yellow and black dress, Ayeka had apparently heard his thoughts the night before and had forgone putting her hair up on putting on her outer kimono, she had still applied make up but it didn't look like much, and even though Washu was wearing her usual outfit she was in her adult body which filled out her regularly baggy khakis and t-shirt very nicely. As always his only calm in the storm of feminine charm was Sasami who was busily putting food on the table while Ryo-ohki darted around her feet.

"Perhaps we should sit down," a calm thoughtful voice said right behind Tenchi.

Yosho smiled as his grandson jumped at his voice. He thought he probably should berate Tenchi for his lapse in concentration but when he saw everyone in the kitchen he felt some sympathy for the boy and let it slide.

Katsuhito's sudden appearance behind didn't surprise Tenchi, his grandfather was able to move as quietly as he pleased whenever he wanted but the expected verbal thrashing for letting his guard down never materialized. The old man simply took his place at the end of the table and Tenchi soon followed, squeezing in between Ayeka and Ryoko who were both sitting closer to him than normal.

Sasami and Mihoshi got the conversation rolling, and Washu and his grandfather soon chimed in but Tenchi noticed that Ayeka and Ryoko were both nearly silent, only occasionally chiming in with disinterested comments and both were looking at Mihoshi when they thought no one was looking. In his chest Tenchi's heart crumbled, not only did Ayeka think he'd chosen but somehow Ryoko had found out. He began to wonder how long it would be before Washu knew what was going on but before he could finish the thought he saw Washu peering at him intently. He couldn't decipher what she wanted but he had a suspicion that his next trip to the lab might not end in something as frustratingly pleasant as another of her guileless attempts to extract a "sample". He felt the long pillow that everyone on his side of the table sat on start to move beneath him. Ryoko and Ayeka were both fidgeting and Tenchi wondered how much longer it would be before either of them exploded.

Washu grinned as she watched her daughter and Ayeka squirm on their seats, it was a wonder that neither of them had caved in the last eighteen human months and many days she just wished they would. Both of them were so tense that the only relief from their frustration was their verbal sparing and occasional fights, she suspected that today would be one of those days.

A light giggle on Mihoshi's part at something Katsuhito had said drew Tenchi's attention back to her. The giggle quickly turned into a laugh and then in the midst of it she snorted. In a rare bought of self-consciousness Mihoshi's hand shot up to cover her mouth and nose as she looked startled by the sound she'd made, but quickly the giggles returned and Sasami joined her as did Katsuhito and Washu.

"I believe I am finished," Ayeka declared as she stood up.

"Yeah, me too," Ryoko added.

"Awww, don't go!" Sasami said.

"I have things I have to do Sasami," Ayeka said.

"Same," Ryoko mumbled.

"I'm gonna take a bath later," Mihoshi said happily, "do you wanna join me?"

Ryoko and Ayeka looked at each other before Ryoko said, "Yeah, we're game."

Tenchi grimaced slightly at the tone in Ryoko's voice. Normally she seemed to enjoy relaxing in the bath but there had been none of the usual happy anticipation in her voice this time. He didn't think he had much time.

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

Ayeka didn't know how much more she could take, she'd had to sit through breakfast trying to act like nothing had happened, and to top it off that blonde ditz had come dressed like that! 'She just sat there, acting all innocent dressed like some common tramp and she doesn't even know she's already won!'

'No, she hasn't won,' the more reasonable side of her psyche responded.

'Of course she's won! You saw how he came in here and pleaded for me to help her stay.'

She had no real answer to that. In all the time they'd spent at the Masaki house Tenchi had never really gotten close to any of them, treating them like some strange combination of sisters and renters. Now he'd actually come to her begging for one of them to stay, how else could you explain it.

"He just...he won't." Her declaration sounded hollow in her ears. "Why did I agree to take a bath with her?"

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

Ryoko settled to the floor outside the door to the onsen. Technically the onsen wasn't even connected to the house, it was in a dock based glass done hovering thirty meters off the ground a half kilometer from the house but Washu had connected the two through the bathroom door courtesy of one of her dimensional rifts. Ryoko was particularly thankful for the fact that the door only worked for the girls and Tenchi, Noboyuki had to make due with the regular bathroom and Katsuhito, well she supposed the old man took his baths up at the shrine or maybe in some ice cold spring up on the mountain. If he did it wouldn't surprise her, the old loon was seriously out of whack.

Walking through the door was as uneventful as the act would be with any other door and Ryoko almost tripped over Mihoshi's clothes as she walked in. The changing area was beside the door but somehow Mihoshi had managed to toss her clothes right in front of the door. She kicked the clothes back into the changing area but not before noticing the pink ruffled panties that were wadded up in the jean shorts, the same one's she'd been wearing that morning.

With a thought Ryoko's own clothes vanished into the ether leaving her naked for the bath. Mihoshi had apparently already done all the bathing she intended to do as her bucket of jumbled up bathing supplies had been put back in place with the rest of the group's and she was lounging in the largest of the hot pools under one of the trees, a tray of small sake bottles and saucers floating beside her bronzed body. When she saw Ryoko approaching Mihoshi's face lit up and she jumped up waving excitedly at Ryoko.

Ayeka managed to walk into the onsen just as Ryoko spotted Mihoshi and the sight of the bubbly blonde happily waving at Ryoko and asking her to come sit with her destroyed most the spiteful thoughts that were in Ayeka's mind. Whether she liked it or not Mihoshi had never done anything to anybody except try very hard to be their friend. 'That's probably why Tenchi chose her,' Ayeka thought, 'she might not dress the part of a proper wife, or even act like much of one but her heart's in the right place. She never started a fight with anyone, she never pressured him, and she was always there for anyone who needed her.' She supposed that Tenchi would have to teach Mihoshi how to act like a proper Japanese wife but given how loving and patient that he was and how eager to please she was Ayeka doubted it would take long. 'Now the only thing to do is make the best of it and hope that Mihoshi does the right thing.'

Mihoshi was thrilled to see that her best friends, well two of them, had decided to join her. She had noticed them both acting funny and quiet at breakfast and she hoped that a nice dip in a hot bath and some sake would improve their moods, and if all else failed she could suggest some sunbathing or maybe a nap, they had things too good to stay sad.

Like her daughter, 'Well daughters,' she corrected herself as she remembered Minagi, Washu didn't really need to take a bath, where as her progeny simply absorbed any foreign materials on their bodies she had a bunch of nanites that took care of cleaning her. After one particularly long weekend, 'Month and a half,' she had found that nobody would stay around her long enough to praise her newest invention because of the somewhat foul funk she had developed over the course of many many all nighters. She had immediately developed a nanite that would help keep her clean so that she could avoid a reoccurrence. 'I wonder if that one is still even active,' she wondered. Most likely it wasn't but his successors were and they still did their jobs, but it was nice to take a regular bath sometimes, or a soak in the hot pool.

Mihoshi had been in the middle of welcoming Ayeka when she spotted a still adult Washu sliding into the water at the other end of the pool and swimming over to them. She liked that Washu was staying big now, it made her feel a little less funny about letting Washu drink the sake they had and not so weird about other things.

Just like always the water was warm and relaxing and the sake flowed freely but none of the usual light conversation was happening. Mihoshi and Washu of all people were talking a great deal, not about anything of any real consequence, just about Ryo-ohki and Sasami and TV but, but Ryoko wasn't as expressive as she usually was and Ayeka was almost silent. Ayeka would occasionally offer up a comment about Sasami and Ryoko would do the same in regards to Ryo-ohki but neither of them were paying the conversation much mind.

Washu wasn't finding it as fun to watch Ryoko and Ayeka try to surreptitiously steal glances at each other and Mihoshi as she had that morning. She was certain that her daughter was still fairly oblivious about what had actually happened in regards to Mihoshi's transfer but it was only a matter of time before Ayeka spilled it. The surveillance footage of Ayeka's room, which was strictly for scientific research, had cued Washu in on what had transpired last night in Ayeka's room and the First Crown Princess was not taking it well. For a moment Washu had taken it just as badly, but then she'd run her personality models again to reassure herself of what she felt in her heart with hard science. The consensus of the models was that Tenchi would wind up falling for all the girls and so far his actions seemed to play that out, albeit in a very strange way. A few of the models suggested that he would pick just one or two of the girls, usually Mihoshi or Ayeka and Ryoko, she was actually quite annoyed that her models didn't rank her higher but she did rank higher than Sasami. She was pretty sure that she had been a little tipsy and a lot hard up when she had programmed the model that had picked Sasami but a little randomness was a good thing.

Washu doubted that she would have been quite so objective if Tenchi had come to her with the same request so she understood Ayeka's feelings but it was only a matter of time before something bad happened unless somebody set things straight with Ayeka. 'At least she hasn't blown up the house.'

Ryoko was another matter; her daughter had started to talk to Mihoshi more, finally realizing that if she talked to her she could look at her without being sneaky about it. She still sometimes wondered if she should have re-established the inhibitors in Ryoko's programming so that she could have gotten used to her body the way she was supposed to have. What was done was done however and Ryoko seemed to have finally learned how to deal with it all about six months ago, unfortunately things had actually gotten worse. When Ryoko finally got adjusted to herself she had to deal with the reality of her situation, and the fact that in her mind she couldn't do anything about it.

Washu kept track of many things, one of them being the frequency and nature of her daughter's fights with Ayeka. When she had first arrived at the house Ryoko and Ayeka had fought constantly peaking approximately six earth months after they had arrive, Washu classified that as the "confusion" time, Ryoko didn't know why Ayeka got under her skin but she did, so her daughter had done what any person of her then maturity level would have done, she harassed her. From six months to a year there had been a long decline in the frequency and severity of their fights, Ryoko was growing up but now Washu figured that they were more of a defense mechanism than anything. Unfortunately the two were starting to bicker more and more and now it was an expression of frustration, and it wasn't just them who were arguing. She found herself starting to react worse to Mihoshi's occasional clumsiness and even Sasami was getting a little snippy from time to time. The entire house was a quantum implosion charge of repressed emotion and she was afraid that the GP had finally started the timer.

The sake was starting to get to her. Ayeka knew this perfectly well and she still refilled her saucer from one of the bottles on the floating tray, she could always get rid of the buzz when she got back to her room but for the moment she welcomed the emotional dulling the rice wine provided. It was also having an undesired side effect; she wasn't looking at Mihoshi with nearly as much sorrow as before. 'Stop it,' she mentally chastised herself, 'Proper, you have to act like a proper lady for Tenchi.' In many cases what was considered proper in Juraian society and what was proper in Japanese society meshed nicely, but sometimes, very frustrating times, it didn't. Tenchi was a very traditional young man in a very traditional home, if you ignored Noboyuki so Ayeka was striving to be a very traditional proper Japanese girl for Tenchi. 'If only he were a little more like his father, a very little,' she thought, 'this would be easier.' But he wasn't, so now her hopes depended on Mihoshi, maybe after Mihoshi had had some time with him, maybe she could try and talk to her husband, Ayeka mentally recoiled at the thought but pressed on, maybe then. She watched Mihoshi laughing at something Washu had said and for a split second she almost gave in. 'No! I will not do that, I will not ruin her chances with Tenchi and I will not do that!' On Jurai it wouldn't have mattered, but here in Tenchi's house she knew it would. 'If I was lucky he would only throw me out,' the idea of ruining Mihoshi's opportunity didn't appeal to her, no matter how much she wanted to from time to time she couldn't wish the girl any ill will. And at the worst time possible she ran out of sake.

Whether she wanted to or not Ryoko started to laugh at the joke her mother, 'Washu, WASHU!' had made about how much Ryo-ohki loved carrots. Right along with Washu and Mihoshi she started to crack up, which made it all the more obvious that Ayeka wasn't laughing. The first Crown Princess of Jurai was instead fumbling with the bottles on the floating sake tray obviously looking for one that wasn't empty and not finding one. Mihoshi noticed Ayeka's distraction too and decided to help. Still giggling Mihoshi got up off the ledge she was sitting on and walked across the waist deep pool to where Ayeka was sitting. Ryoko sat and stared as Mihoshi moved across the hot pool, water streaming down over her copper colored skin highlighting and framing every curve and dimple. There wasn't a single tan line on the GP detective's entire body and the only deviation from that single perfect color were the hardened pink buds of her nipples that sat up high and proud on the bounty that was Mihoshi's cleavage.

"Let me help you with that," Mihoshi said between angelic giggles. She unabashedly leaned right over Ayeka and rummaged around inside a box that was directly behind the princess. Ryoko watched was Ayeka's nose came within a centimeter of being pressed right into the cleft between Mihoshi's breasts, and she desperately wanted to trade places with the princess.

Washu smiled when she saw her daughters tongue just barely peek out from between her lips as she stared at the sight of Mihoshi standing right over Ayeka. She felt a momentary pang of jealously towards but also wondered what was taking Mihoshi so long as she had already heard the clinking of ceramic on ceramic several times.

Mihoshi had really just been trying to help Ayeka find another bottle or two of sake when she had first come over but the first time she felt Ayeka's hot moist breath play over the valley between her breasts she took her sweet time finding them, then ignoring them and looking for them where they weren't. The second time Ayeka exhaled over her already heated flesh Mihoshi wanted to moan, but she couldn't, so she did the next best thing, she laughed.

Ayeka had been transfixed by the sight of Mihoshi coming towards her and when she'd leaned over her she'd been terrified. The amount of sake she'd had to drink so far had been enough to start to cloud her judgment and now the only thing she could see were two perfectly shaped mounds of tan flesh and the little pink buds that crowned them, and when Mihoshi had leaned over a bit more she thought she felt one of the nipples brush lightly against her cheek and she sighed. To her undoing she saw the already taut bud harden more and Mihoshi took a big breath in bringing herself closer to Ayeka, emboldened by alcohol and eighteen months or torture Ayeka sighed again and Mihoshi laughed momentarily smothering Ayeka in the two softest pillows the Princess had ever felt.

"That tickles," Mihoshi said softly but she made no attempt to move, if anything Ayeka thought she leaned in even closer.

The fact that Washu and Ryoko were still in pool not three meters away didn't matter to Ayeka as she patently ignored her own conscience and parted her lips. 'Temptation is so much easier to resist when it's not right in your face,' she thought as she started to bring her mouth closer to the peak of Mihoshi's breast.

"So what's everyone up to?" Sasami asked innocently as she walked into the onsen.

"Sasami?" Ryoko said as the princess' childlike voice cut through the haze in her mind.

"Sasami?" Ayeka asked. "Sasami!" Ayeka tried to stand up but with Mihoshi standing right over her it wasn't possible, she just bumped her head into Mihoshi's sternum.

"IIEEEEEEE!" Mihoshi squealed as she fell over backwards into the pool, the two sake bottles that had been in her hand flying out of it but still managing to land on the floating tray in front of Ayeka.

"Oh nothing, just talking," Washu said. She didn't know whether to thank the little Juraian or curse at her, at the moment both seemed like good alternatives.

"In fact I think I'm done," Ryoko said before climbing out of the pool and hustling out of the onsen, her clothes materializing on her just before she hit the door.

"Me too," Ayeka said as she quickly followed.

"What's up with them?" Sasami asked as she slid into the pool. On the other side Mihoshi emerged from the water and tried to do something about her now soaked hair.

"Oh nothing, I guess they just didn't want to prune," Washu offered.

"But they hadn't been in here that long..."

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

Tenchi drove the hoe back into the dirt, breaking it up and mixing it. To some working in the carrot fields might have been pure torture, working all day in a field of mutant vegetables in order to feed a single rodent, to him it was peaceful, calming, and even enjoyable. The insanity of his task was never far from his mind though, even with Washu's special fertilizer making the carrots mature in only a month, weather be damned, it still took nearly four acres of carrot fields to keep Ryo-ohki full. They could have kept a couple of cows or even a pair of horses on that much land but it was all for Sasami's pet, if that was even the appropriate thing to call Ryo-ohki.

Washu had put a barrier around the fields, one that was supposed to keep the little bugger out but Tenchi still found her in the middle of a couple of meters of de-carroted ground once a week or so. Washu couldn't figure out how Ryo-ohki was doing it and Tenchi had yet to see her do it but she was managing it somehow. Her ability to transform herself into what looked like a cross between a brown baby lion and a six year old girl didn't really help things, at those times he really did think of her as a little girl and she was staying in that form more and more lately.

Tenchi normally enjoyed his labor, it was good honest work and since the sudden involuntary relocation of his house it was all he really had to do. Tenchi had finished his junior year of high school like normal, as normal as could be after half the school had been blown up or burned down, though with difficulty but at the start of his Senior year his new hour and a half commute had changed things. With no alternate schools nearby and his father needing the car for his job in Tokyo Tenchi had had to start home schooling. Technically his grandfather had taught him but really Tenchi had done it on his own. He'd managed to finish up his Senior year of high school in eight weeks and pass all his tests with flying colors, which left him a lot of free time between then and the college entrance exams which were coming up in another two months.

So the fields were where he passed the time, it was either that or spend all day at the shrine, and he came home a lot less bruised and battered from the fields. The only downside was that it left him with a lot of time to think, too much time today.

'Ayeka's taking this all wrong,' he thought. 'She thinks I love Mihoshi...well only Mihoshi.' Ayeka's downcast face at breakfast had been dominating his thoughts all morning. He figured it was only a matter of time before she decided to leave, he doubted that she would explode, she was far too composed for something like that, no, one morning she would simply declare that she was leaving and would go. He also wondered how much longer it would be before Ryoko or Washu found out. 'I have to do this, soon. No, not soon, today. I don't have any more time to wait.'

The hoe fell one more time and was still. The prospect of what he was about to do terrified Tenchi, what he had to do was more frightening than facing either Kagato or Clay. 'The only thing they could do was kill me,' he mused. But just like those times his pseudo-family was in danger which meant he had no choice, he had to do it, he would do it. He knew that at the end of the day everything could turn out alright, maybe even better than he could ever hope and it was likely at least one of the girls would still be here tomorrow, maybe even most of them, but then again, 'Could I stand it if any of them left? Even one of them? And what happens if they all leave, what if they all decide that they can't stand each other enough to stay here, what if they just think I'm some kind of primitive Earth pervert,' he wondered.

Pushing all those thoughts aside Tenchi headed back to the house. He knew that what he was about to do was going to change his life, permanently, whether for good or ill he didn't know but in an hour everything would change. He decided that this was too big to confront smelling like wet dog so he immediately headed for the bathroom and took a remarkably uninterrupted shower. His choice of clothes reflected his desire to try to be honest with the girls, 'Just Tenchi,' he thought, nothing flashy or showy, just a simple blue t-shirt and some light cotton pants. His hair was soon tamed and back in the miniature ponytail he preferred it in and a check in the mirror confirmed that he was as ready physically as he'd ever be.

Now he just had to round up the girls. The Masaki house wasn't that large and like all sentients the girls were creatures of habit, Sasami was easy to find as she was in the kitchen starting to prepare lunch. He'd planted a small garden, just ten by five meters, for her but thanks to Washu's fertilizer that little garden kept the family in vegetable year round and Sasami seemed to genuinely enjoy picking the fresh vegetables just before each meal.

"Sasami?"

"Yes Tenchi?" she said with a large knife in her hand.

"Do you think you could hold up for a minute, I need to talk to everyone in the living room."

"Oh! Of course Tenchi!" The knife and her apron were soon discarded and Sasami headed for the living room with Ryo-ohki bounding along behind her.

Washu was of course in her lab and fearing another steel tentacle attack Tenchi just called from the door way, "Washu can you come up? I need to talk to everyone!"

Normally Washu ignored most summonses when she was in her lab, making the helpless person who wanted to talk to her come into her lab but given the actions in the house lately Washu wasn't going to play any games and she soon emerged, full sized.

The self assured leer that normally adorned Washu's face when she talked to him even when she was little, like now, was gone and replaced with a genuine interest.

"Yes Tenchi?"

"I just need to talk to everyone in the living room ok?"

Washu nodded and joined Sasami on the couch, which got Ryoko's attention.

"What's this about talking to everyone?" she asked as she floated down from her rafter.

Ryoko was still in the same midriff baring chest hugging dress she'd been in that morning and Ryoko seemed to purposely try to hover so she'd have to lean way over to look at him and also give him a peek down her shirt.

Tenchi was well accustomed to avoiding the regular visual temptations offered up by his multi-hued suitors and with the gravity of what was confronting him Ryoko's flirting rolled right off him.

"I just need to talk to everyone is all," he said trying to pass it off a no big thing.

"Alright."

Mihoshi and Ayeka were a little more difficult to find but when he did they were already together, on the back upper deck, sunbathing.

Tenchi was momentarily thrown when he opened the door and saw both Ayeka and Mihoshi sunbathing together and by their choices of suits. 'Does every skimpy thing she own have ruffles on it,' Tenchi wondered as he stared at their backs. Both were face down on their lounge chairs and couldn't see him. Ayeka's purple suit was the smallest thing he'd ever seen her in and to his surprise it had been unhooked in the back. "Er...I uh."

"Tenchi!" Ayeka squealed as she sat up and tried to keep her top in place.

"Oh hi Tenchi," Mihoshi said as she sat up as well. She had been pleasantly surprised when Ayeka had agreed to sunbath with her and she hoped that her friend was feeling better. She'd also been happy to lend Ayeka one of her old bathing suits. "What's up?"

"I just...I...I need to talk to everyone downstairs," he said after composing himself.

"Oh ok, we'll be down in a minute alright?"

"Uh, sure, fine, take your time." Tenchi said before hustling back downstairs. 'I did not need to see that right now.'

Downstairs the three girls he'd already talked to had taken up their places on the U shaped couches in front of the TV. Breathing deeply Tenchi sat down opposite the TV and at the bottom of the U. Ryoko was sitting off to his right and Washu and Sasami were to his left with Sasami closest to the TV.

When Tenchi had come down Ryoko hadn't really expected him to sit next to her but it still stung a little when he sat by himself. She'd been about to hop over and cuddle up next to him but her mother put a halt on that with a stern thought leaving Ryoko more curious about what was going on than before.

Tenchi breathed deeply as he waited for Mihoshi and Ayeka to come down, he soon found himself doing the breathing exercises but he didn't fight it. Soon enough Mihoshi and Ayeka came downstairs, Ayeka in just her white under robe and Mihoshi in the same skin tight get up she'd been in that morning. Mihoshi sat down next to Ryoko but closer to him to her obvious annoyance and Ayeka sat opposite of her between him and Washu. He had the couch he was on all to himself. 'I probably look like someone died,' he thought.

Just like with Ayeka Tenchi knew he still wasn't committed, he could still back down, but just like before he knew he couldn't. For good or ill he would go down swinging, he wouldn't strike out with the bat on his shoulder. 'Besides, if you swing, sometimes you get a home run.'

With one more deep calming breath, he swung. "There's something I need to tell all of you, something I should have told you a long time ago."

Author's Notes (a.k.a. My feeble attempt to explain away how much this sucked.) V1 Beta

1) Baseball is big in Japan so Tenchi using a baseball metaphor is actually fine.

Acknowledgements:

Lighthawk - My long suffering proofreader

Warpwizard - Who doesn't write as much of his own pr0n as he should because he constantly let me talk his ear off.

Froop - My part time stalker who provided the name for this entire story.

Notes:

1) Fine, for those of you who don't know Minagi is Ryoko's sort of sister and Washu's other daughter. Basically a lab assistant, she doesn't have good luck with those, swiped some Ryoko-goop from Washu's lab and took it with him to grow his own "daughter". Anyway Minagi shows up at the Masaki's and tries to kill Tenchi because her father thinks Tenchi must be hot shit with a sword since he killed Kagato, various hijinx ensue. Minagi is Ryoko's body with Sasami's temperament.

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