Tenchi Muyo Fan Fiction ❯ What Women Want ❯ No need for vodka! ( Chapter 6 )

Chapter Six: No need for vodka

The wooded area around the Masaki property: two days later

To Nobuyuki Masaki, it had seemed like a million years since he'd been tied up by his father-in-law and left to rot in the shrine office. So much time had passed by that he greatly feared Katsuhito had forgotten about him. Nobuyuki had missed the whole weekend now and most of Monday. Almost three days of his one-week vacation had been wasted now, and he was eager to make up the time lost.

For quite a while, Nobuyuki had been slowly squirming his way out of the ropes that bound him. He'd finally escaped not too long ago, and leaving the shrine, he disappeared into the dense foliage of the woods.

By now it was Monday evening, and the sun was setting far in the west. It had vanished behind the mountains, but from there it still gave off that last bit of daylight. The summer sky was tinted a brilliant shade of orange, like a giant, never-ending, all-expansive carrot.

Deftly sneaking through the thick underbrush, Nobuyuki made his way down the mountain. After another five minutes of journeying, he at last came within sight of the Masaki residence. At the edge of the forest, he could see the modest little house, next to the lake, where it had been deposited a few years before by Ryo-Ohki. Soon he would be at home where he could take a bath and not worry about anything for the rest of the day.

Truthfully though, at this point in time, none of that mattered in the least.

The most important thing now was peeping.

Nobuyuki stopped in his tracks, and hid behind the nearest tree. Someone was coming his way, and he could hear the faint pitter-patter of feet running across the grass. Looking carefully at the approaching figure, he quickly deduced that it was Tenchi, based on the foolish way in which the young man always seemed to run. Tenchi was a blur as passed by and veered off in another direction, away from the house and toward the far side of the lake.

At first, Nobuyuki didn't have a clue as to what was going on, but he would find out a few seconds later. Squinting as hard as he could, he gazed out across the lake, where, at the other side, he could vaguely make out someone sitting in a tree. The only thing he could tell at such a distance was that the person had very light cyan, almost powder blue, hair.

He immediately jumped to conclusions.

"Ohhhhh, a romantic evening perhaps?" he said to himself softly. "Well Tenchi, you could have picked a better place, but hey, what ever floats your boat. Oh, my wife in heaven, forgive me, but I've got to watch over our son's natural development!"

With that, Tenchi's father slinked back into the forest, hoping that when he finally reached the other side of the lake he'd still be invisible.

Poor Nobuyuki, often times he was too lecherous for his own good.

A large tree next to the quiet lake

Just about out of breath completely, Tenchi Masaki finally reached his destination. He stood now the base of a big oak tree, peering up at Ryoko, who was sitting up on one of the higher branches, almost out of sight. Nevertheless, he could see her up there, sprawled out on the limb gazing at the sky, a strange bottle clenched in her right hand.

For a minute, Tenchi said nothing, and listened quietly to her thoughts.

"There he is, right on cue," she was thinking, having already sensed his presence. "He'll likely come up with some excuse for Ayeka. Never mind that she could have killed me! I should be furious at him, but I'm not. He injures me every day almost as much as she does, but I don't hate him at all. Strange..."

"Hello Tenchi," Ryoko said quietly, without much emotion.

Knowing now that she had acknowledged him, Tenchi vowed to speak with her face to face. Since he couldn't fly like she could, he would have to climb. After one or two failed and embarrassing attempts, he got a good grip on the bark and did his best to scramble up the tree. Tenchi finally reached the top, and sat down next to her on a thick, yet extremely uncomfortable branch.

Her nose wasn't broken anymore, apparently. More than likely she'd used her powers of bodily regeneration to repair the damage, but that didn't necessarily make the inner pain go away.

"Where have you been? We've been looking everywhere for you!" Tenchi exclaimed, still panting. "We were so worried that we almost called the police to file a missing persons report!"

Ryoko stirred only a little bit, seemingly unaffected by his words. He realized too late how many times he'd foolishly used the word "we" when he mean to use "I".

"I was underneath the lake most of the time..." she answered.

"Looking for something to drink, that is..." Ryoko thought a second later.

Although Ryoko was humanoid, she wasn't limited by homo sapiens' paltry need for oxygen. Under the cool water she could hide from all her troubles and fears, a place of quiet solitude. It was there, amongst the wreckage of the original Ryo-Ohki, that she had her private stash of alcohol. She wasn't ready to admit it yet, but every time Nobuyuki or Katsuhito gave her some money and sent her into town to buy sake, Ryoko spent fully half of it on herself. Upon returning, she would hide her alcohol in the lake for future use. Later, Ryoko would then tell whoever asked that the remaining sake had been so expensive that she had to spend all the money just to get it.

Princess Ayeka had always been suspicious of her in that regard, but was never able to obtain proof of wrongdoing. The others simply took Ryoko's words at face value, and thought nothing more of it.

Tenchi took a good, long look at the bottle in her hand. It was quite large, and had a lot of strange characters on it that he didn't recognize. He assumed it was Russian, and therefore came to the conclusion that its alcohol content must have been astronomical.

"What is that?" Tenchi asked of her.

"It's vodka," the space pirate answered simply.

"Oh, I see..."

It was plain to see that Ryoko hadn't actually drunk any. The bottle was quite full, and she seemed to be merely fingering it, questioning whether or not to take the plunge. Even with the power to hear what she was thinking, Tenchi didn't have a clue as to where this conversation would go. For a short moment, he was tempted to leave her alone so she could be by herself, since it seemed that's what she wanted. At least that's what his mind was telling him, but his heart was sending a much different message.

"Ryoko…please tell me, how do you feel?" said Tenchi, hoping she would reply.

That finally got her attention. She hadn't heard him ask that question in a one hell of a long time, and now that he had asked, she would oblige.

"Like shit..." Ryoko thought.

"I don't feel very good at all Tenchi," she answered, sounding as if she were restraining herself. "It's not every day that somebody hits me in the nose like she did. It was a cheap shot, and yet it took a lot of guts, I suppose. I don't give a crap anymore though. Over and done with as far as I'm concerned."

For a second, Tenchi mulled over what to say. He didn't have to read her thoughts to know that she was in a state of emotional turmoil and also fragile and vulnerable.

"Well…um, for what it's worth, Ayeka does feel sorry," Tenchi said, trying to put her at ease.

"Is that supposed to make me feel better?" Ryoko answered immediately. "I'm not gonna believe that until it I hear it come out of her mouth!"

"Son of a bitch, why the hell does he always defend Ayeka? She's a grown woman, so why the hell does she need Tenchi to protect her all the damn time?" the depressed pirate thought afterwards.

"Ryoko…I'm not about to defend Ayeka for what she did," Tenchi said, taking advantage of her thoughts. "It was very wrong for her to lash out at you like that. If Ayeka were here, I'm sure she'd tell you herself, but she's not, so I have to."

At that point, Ryoko's eyes became fiery with anger, and she glared at her beloved Tenchi. Even with his ability to hear her innermost devices, he still seemed to be insensitive and oblivious to her feelings. Ryoko had been in the throes of despair for the past two days, questioning whether or not she could live in the role that the Masaki household had given her.

Tired of the mind games, the fights, and the rejection, she found herself honestly contemplating leaving Okayama, and Tenchi, for good.

In a nearby shrub

Nobuyuki was hiding quietly some distance away, flat on his stomach, in a bush.

In his hands he had a camera, and was taking still photos of Tenchi and Ryoko. He silently wished that he had a video camera, but there hadn't been enough time to run back to the house. It didn't really matter, because he was recording for posterity his son's development in romantic and sexual matters, all privacy concerns having long ago been set aside in his mind.

"His mother would probably be appalled by this," he thought, "But I can't stop now, not when today could be the day when our Tenchi becomes a man. Come on, Tenchi, you fool, be a man!"

Nobuyuki had seen a lot of crazy stuff in his time, but nothing nearly as insane as having a bevy of alien females land on humble little Planet Earth one after the other after the other. He had finally learned to love again, and married Rea, long-time friend of the Masaki family who helped raise Tenchi throughout his childhood after the death of his mother. Then life turned upside down again with the return of Tennyo, his other child with Kiyone, whom he'd hidden knowledge of from Tenchi for a long time. More Juraians kept coming to Earth after that, then all kinds of hooplah surrounding mystical Goddesses, finally ending in more epic space adventures.

Of course, poor Tenchi was placed right in the middle of it all.

It had been a difficult time that translated into a long story, one best suited for individuals who have a lot of time to listen to it. Obviously, the most important thing now was not storytelling, but peeping.

Taking a few more pictures, Nobuyuki took a rest and enjoyed the beauty of the forest in the fading light. He put the camera away and sat up, then proceeded to continue silently observing Tenchi and Ryoko.

All of a sudden, from seemingly of nowhere, he heard a distinctly female voice.

"So, what are we looking at Nobuyuki-san?" the unmistakably childlike voice of Washu quietly said.

"Oh, nothing nothing, I'm just spying on ol' Tenchi again Miss Washu," he whispered off handedly.

"He's with Ryoko, correct?"

"Yup."

"I hope he's not doing anything indecent with my daughter."

"That'd be doubtful. Ya know how much of a wuss Tenchi is when it comes to...y-y-yourdaughter?!"

It was then that Nobuyuki realized that it wasn't a ghost or a spectre that he was carrying on a conversation with, nor was his mind playing tricks on him. He turned, with his mouth gaping wide open, to face the flesh and blood Washu sitting next to him, grinning happily.

He was about to scream loudly and run away, but Washu had already driven her balled fist into the top of his skull, knocking him out almost instantaneously. Nobuyuki hit the ground like a sack of potatoes, a slack-jawed expression frozen on his face. The red-haired scientist used her powers to produce a length of extra strength, high-tension wire rope from another dimension. She proceeded to tie him up until he appeared to be like a caterpillar in a cocoon.

"Men are pigs…but what can you do?" the super genius thought as she grabbed the loose end of the rope

Washu then began to drag him away back towards the Masaki household, where he'd be taken to her lab, thrown in a cage, and be occasionally fed.

If he would be experimented on or not was still up in the air.

Poor Nobuyuki was in for a ride he probably wouldn't ever want to take again.

Back in the tree

"Hey, did you hear something?" Tenchi asked, looking around the area..

"No," Ryoko answered flatly.

"Well, I think I heard something."

"Am I supposed to care?"

Ryoko turned away from him and stared at the bottle of vodka in her hands. It was cold and clear, and she swirled its contents around in order to see the late afternoon light spread out into a dazzling spectrum. The pretty colors calmed her down a good deal, and put things into perspective for her in a way.

"Ugh, never mind that will ya? Let's focus on you and me for the time being," said the pirate firmly. "I was just…so angry at Ayeka, much angrier than I've been in a long, long time. A little space to myself for awhile, that's all I really needed. I'm not going anywhere Tenchi, you know that well enough, so you didn't need to worry about me in that regard. Maybe I just wanted to drown my sorrows away, but I couldn't go through with it, even after I'd wasted so much energy searching for this stuff."

Again, she stared longingly at the vodka. Her body had been telling her that she needed a drink, but her mind and heart were saying something different. Tenchi gently put his hand on Ryoko's shoulder, giving her enough courage to finally confess to him another one of her long kept secrets.

"I guess he hasn't figured it out yet. Might as well tell him and get it over with..." she thought.

"Do you know how long it's been since I've had a drink?" Ryoko asked.

"I...I can't say really. Is this all because of Ayeka? I know she drives you to it sometimes," he answered. "You've said so yourself."

For a moment, she laughed rather heartily at that. Tenchi did hit, right on the button, one of the many factors that drove her to the bottle, but not the main cause. Her mood changed again though, back to the melancholy state she'd been in before.

"In a way it has to do with her. But honestly, it's been about three months since I've had any kind of alcohol," Ryoko admitted. "I used to need it all the time, like it dominated me or something. I was a slave to alcohol, Tenchi, but not anymore…at least, not until now. Here I am, still sober, trying to decide whether or not I want to get drunk. It's usually the opposite, where I'm trying to stop myself from having any more. Odd, isn't it?"

"Heh, yeah, it is kinda strange," replied Tenchi nervously. "What brought this about, all of a sudden?"

"It's kind of a long story," she said. "You remember, don't you? Oh come on, what happened a little over three months ago?"

The look on her face showed that Ryoko expected him to know exactly what she was referring to. She stared at him, in the way that always seemed to whittle his resolve down to nothing.

"He's forgotten about the cherry trees...I can't believe it!" Ryoko's mind cried out.

"I didn't forget about the blossom trees," he replied, responding to her thoughts. "That's a painful memory, and I didn't want to remember it. They were old trees, as close to being ancient as you can get. Then they were gone in a flash. It hurts just to think about it."

On the day in question, Ryoko and Ayeka had already been in the onsen for several hours. It was one of those rare moments where they actually bonded, and one might think that they were starting to become friends. They could be heard singing all sorts of drinking songs, from the most melodious Juraian opera to the simplest, most vulgar pirate limerick.

However, all good days of drunken revelry must come to an end.

When the two girls finally exited the bathhouse, it was quite evident that they were well beyond being toasted. They both went looking for Tenchi, who was still working in the fields. They'd already forgotten the reason why, and seemed to just want to bother him. As always, whenever the two of them were together and the object of their affections was near, it meant that a fight was just waiting to happen.

Tenchi had watched in stupefied horror as the two girls fought against each other with all of their might. Energy beams were flying everywhere, tearing gigantic craters in the ground, putting the young Juraian prince in bodily harm. He hid in the bushes some distance away, hoping to escape the blasts, when to his dismay, he glimpsed Ryoko high in the air, a huge, glowing ball of red plasma in her hands.

She launched it as hard as she could at Ayeka, who was on the ground encased in a personal energy shield. The Princess seemed to be tempting the pirate to unleash her greatest powers, just to prove that she wasn't about to back down any time soon.

Of course, Ayeka did have to be standing less than three meters from the row of beautiful cherry blossom trees that lined the roadway.

In a blinding flash of light, the ground, along with the precious trees, was totally obliterated. Unhurt and none the worse for wear, Ayeka taunted Ryoko and insulted her a little more, and they continued fighting after that without a second thought to what had just happened. Tenchi, on the other hand, was flabbergasted. He stood there speechless, gaping at the charred bark and burning leaves with his mouth wide open.

At last, he finally let out a long, hoarse cry, full of emotion. He began screaming at the two girls at the top of his lungs, dramatically telling them what a horrible things they'd done. When they got a little closer to him, Tenchi noticed the scent of alcohol that seemed to cling to them, and went into a long-winded lecture about the dangers of having too much to drink.

Although she did hear him, for the inebriated Ayeka, everything seemed to go in one ear and out the other.

Ryoko, however, had always been able to hold her liquor better than the Princess, and took every one of his words to heart. It was on that day that she quietly resolved to conquer her alcoholism. Never again did she taste any fermented beverage, even when Ayeka goaded her into a drinking contest. Since the pirate wasn't above cheating, she always won the competitions, and always came out with a hefty sum of money.

"You were so angry with us," she said to Tenchi. "It was like you loved those trees, like you were bonded with them somehow."

"Of course. Grandpa planted one when he and Grandma got married," he replied in a soft voice. "He planted another tree when my mom was born, then another when my mom and dad got married. Then my mom planted a tree when Tennyo was born. My dad planted a tree when I was born too. Those trees represented three generations worth of the Masaki family here on Earth...and we tended them for so long..."

"I'm sorry, Tenchi. I always knew they were precious to you," said Ryoko. "Knowing that my drinking problems caused their destruction was too much. After realizing it, I didn't drink anymore, and I want to keep it that way."

"Don't worry about it, " said Tenchi, smiling warmly at her. "With a good deal of time and patience, they'll grow back. More importantly, how can I help you kick your bad habit for good?"

For a second or two, Ryoko didn't know what to say. She mulled over what to do, weighing different scenarios in her head. Throwing the bottle away seemed like the best idea, but that would be a waste of good liquor. Forgetting about Ayeka, broken noses, and cherry trees for a moment, a wicked thought passed through the mind of the lovely space pirate.

"Hmmm...if I won't drink it, perhaps my Tenchi can give me that good bit of closure that I so desperately need," Ryoko thought, trying to hide a devious smile.

She handed the bottle of vodka to Tenchi, who stared at her rather oddly before accepting it.

"Why are you giving this to me again?" he asked.

"Just do something with it," she answered, frowning at him a bit. "Dispose of it in whatever way you see fit…"

Ryoko then smiled at Tenchi, mentally willing him to get rid of the accursed bottle. However, the young prince stopped just as he was about to throw the vodka back into the lake. He gazed at it with the same wonder that the pirate had just minutes before, and found that he didn't really want to part with it.

When it came down to it, Tenchi could be the most courageous person there ever was. Unfortunately, whenever he found himself involved with the opposite sex, he became quite the pussywillow. Now, with a bottle of liquid courage in his hands, Tenchi would do something very bold that might finally give him the push he needed to reveal the true feeling he had for Ryoko.

"All right," Tenchi said firmly, "if you wont drink it, then I will."

The lovely humanoid type found herself dumbfounded.

"He can't be serious about that, can he? Tenchi can't hold his liquor worth shit!" Ryoko thought to herself.

"Oh, I'm serious, all right," he answered, mirroring her thoughts. "We'll see just how well I can hold my liquor. Okay, here I go!"

Tenchi performed a feat of strength by ripping the well dug-in cork from the bottle. He swallowed his fear, held his nose, put his lips on the bottle's mouth, and took a big gulp. It burned as the vodka went down his esophagus, and Tenchi winced and began to cough hard as soon as he got his next breath of air.

Again, he looked at Ryoko, who didn't seem impressed. She gazed back at him for a second, then nonchalantly began to examine her fingernails.

"I'm not gonna say a word," she replied, still smugly looking at her hands.

"Fine then," Tenchi answered, "I'll do the talking for the both of us."

"And the drinking, too," thought the pirate.

"And the drinking, too!" said the Jurai prince.

Ryoko sighed quietly, then smiled and laughed to herself as Tenchi had another swig of vodka. Then, he had another, and another, and another, and another.

Finally, the last rays of the sun had disappeared from the horizon, bathing the Masaki property in the cold embrace of the pale, lonely moon.

A few more devilish thoughts passed through Ryoko's mind, and she knew this was going to be a long night.

End Chapter Six

Chapter Seven Coming Soon!

Author's note: For anyone who wants to know, the references to characters that haven't yet appeared (e.g. Tennyo, Rea) are new ones that have been introduced in the 14th and 15th episodes of the Tenchi Muyo! OVA series.

Unfortunately, these episodes haven't been released in the U.S. yet, so you have to go to a bunch of Tenchi sites before you can find one that has the story. I'm trying to keep this fic in tune with the OVA as much as possible, so in order to make it believable, it has to be set after the 3rd OVA series, which again, hasn't been released in the U.S. I'm just assuming that Tenchi doesn't choose at the end of the series, but that could very well change at the end of things.

We just have to wait and see.

Thank you, dear readers for your patronage and support. Please leave a critique once you've finished reading this.

Peace out,

~Lord Augustus