[FFML] [R1/2 & TM]Comfort in the Eye of Chaos: Chapter Eight

I must have a lot of free time, releasing two stories, almost at once to the FFML. The truth is more boring than that actually, but I won't try to change any ideas with reason. Enjoy.

^_^

Troy Thomas

***

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Comfort in the Eye of Chaos
By Troy Thomas

Ranma 1/2 and its characters are the creations and properties
of Rumiko Takahashi. Tenchi Muyo and its characters are the
creations and properties of Masaki Kajishima. Excepting
flames, if you have any comments or criticisms, feel free to
send them my way.

***

I can be found at the following addresses:
URL: ca.geocities.com/therealsilentnova/fanfiction/index.html
E-mail: Silentnova@go.com

***

Chapter Eight

His footsteps walked ahead, an echo.

The cave's darkness was incredible, surrounding and hiding
him.

His heart rapidly beat. He traced the wall with his hand. He
prodded his steps, hoping not to step in any holes, large and
small.

The darkness wasn't terrifying with dread, but with promise.

Primal fear is simple.

Fear of failure is worse, for true failure is a fall into a
different and inescapable darkness.

However, the fear wasn't his, but the feeling of the cave.

The wall seem to smooth out, Tenchi noticed. It began as a
wall built of dirt, but the further into the cave he walked,
the smoother the wall.

He felt a metallic cold under his fingers.

'I wish I could see what it is,' he thought.

He smelled something. 'This smells like the water at the
tree...'

Continuing on, he walked into a wall. "Ow, damn it!"

His words seemed to... open up a vague light to his left.

"What is that?" he wondered aloud.

Walking towards the light, his hand still tracing the wall,
the other ahead to catch any hidden walls in front, Tenchi
then found himself staring at a door in the wall.

Light escaped through the cracks, as though barely contained
inside.

In the door's middle was a sword, impaled through it,
surprising due to the wall's build: stone.

"This can't be what I came in here for..." he mentioned,
touching the sword's hilt.

The blade of the sword crumbled into dust a moment after
Tenchi lifted his touch from the hilt, causing the hilt to
collapse to the ground with a clanging sound, which echoed
through the cave behind him.

"Junk..." Tenchi picked the hilt up, but suddenly directed
his gaze at the outlines of the door, which shook with a
terrible ferocity.

There was no sound.

He covered his eyes, shielding them from a fine dust, which
came from the door.

A moment later, with the end of the dust's flight, Tenchi
looked at nothing, when he was expecting to see the door.

"Did the door... Was that what the door became? Dust?" he
asked himself.

Beyond the door frame, lay, lived a setting he never could
believe unless seeing with his own eyes.

A pool, crystal clear and ice cool, surrounded a silver
sphere of water.

In the sphere's centre, slept a girl.

'Demon?' he thought, dreading any living sound.

To his surprise, he slowly walked un-minding-ly forward
through the water, a desire to see closer the girl, whose
sky-blue hair was of notice.

The closer he stepped, the fuller she seemed.

Of life...

Of dread...

He studied her face, when he could see it. 'She can't be a
demon.'

The cave's feeling seemed so terrible. 'But it can't be her,
who's terrible.'

He stood at the sphere, beneath it.

'So free,' he decided, but wondered why she slept so soundly,
as though welcome for the peace of prison.

He remembered, 'Yosho fought and sealed the demon away.'

'Her hair is like the sky... So free.' Tenchi reached forward
towards the floating water sphere.

'What is she?' he wondered, as the water rippled from the
passing touch of his fingers, which he slowly withdrew.

It came into his mind, a memory, having travelled from the
tips of his fingers into his soul.

The water was never so pure, so long ago, polluted and
distorted with the rage at the heart.

The water though, was the only hope, fed from the great tree
to the spot beneath the mountain, where despair, anger, and
hate were sealed, with only hope as prison, mercy as
punishment.

Perhaps, the hope's purpose, the hate would heal, the despair
would change itself, and the anger subside.

Tenchi blinked away the memories, distorted and confusing,
and screamed in pain when he felt his hand crushed.

"Who do we have here?" the girl asked, having been the one
who grabbed Tenchi's hand, water flying away from around her
as though it were a broken casing, a cast away cell. She
pulled him close, to her face, and she growled, "Who are
you?"

"Tenchi... Tenchi Masaki!" he stuttered out, shivering.

"Masaki, what is a Masaki?" Her face contorted from anger to
disassociation. "Whatever!" The girl tossed Tenchi away into
the water. She frowned at him. "Where's Yosho?"

"Yosho?"

The girl never bothered with confirmation, instead choosing
to check herself over. "I don't have everything..." she
quietly said. "My strength's mostly gone..."

"He's dead."

The girl looked up at him. "He can't be."

"He dead! He's been dead for thousands of years!" Tenchi
shouted, hoping to make the girl understand.

The girl's voice was frank. "He's not dead, the idiot." She
pulled her sleeves over her wrists. "What I need from you
now, kid, is that hilt you have. It has something of mine
that I want back."

Tenchi pulled out from underneath his bottom the hilt he
earlier grabbed. He thought a moment, 'She wants this? But
it's a piece of junk!' He looked at it a while, and decided
its worth still horrible. "No," he decided.

"No?" The girl laughed, and then extended her hand. A sword
appeared in it.

'Wait a minute,' Tenchi thought. 'She's floating... She's not
floating in the water!' He stood up, and then pointed behind
the girl. "You wanted Yosho! Then there he is!" he shouted,
remembering the lessons from Nodoka.

The girl frowned, and then floated down to Tenchi. She
grabbed him by the cuff of his shirt. "Are you trying to
plays tricks? That's not nice!" She pulled Tenchi right face
to face. "You don't want to be nice and hand me the sword?
Then I'll just have to show you what happens to people who
don't listen to what's good for them!" She looked up.

Tenchi looked up, but saw only the metal cave's ceiling. He
looked at the girl, who smiled at him with menace in her
eyes.

"No, no, no!" Tenchi shouted, trying to cover his head,
before the girl flew into, and then through the roof.

He felt a great heat surround him, but nothing touched him.
He opened his eyes, only just realising they were closed.

He saw the stars, everywhere in the heavens, hidden by
nothing. He looked around, seeing below the mountain ablaze,
further below the ground, cold and hard.

"Give me the sword, kid," the girl ordered, before beginning
a descent towards the ground.

The air was cold and screaming, or was it him who was
screaming?

Again, he opened his eyes, only to see the ground speeding
close below. He didn't think, but it stuck him as a good idea
to kick the girl.

Expecting to hit the ground upon release, he was instead
surprised to land on, and then bounce across, before sinking
into a sharply cold lake.

'What way is up?' he wondered as he floundered under the
surface, sinking either down or up, much to his confusion.

Tenchi hit his head on the lake bottom, dreading the thought
of how deep he was.

After righting himself, he kicked off the bottom sending
himself torpedoing towards the lake surface.

Reaching the surface, he gasped in a huge amount of air, only
to scream it all out when he was grabbed by his collar.

Wildly swinging about, he managed to catch the person who
pulled him out of the water on the chin.

"Tenchi! Is that you?" the person asked, dropping the boy
into a boat.

His legs hanging over a boat side, Tenchi quickly collected
his senses before looking at the person he just hit.
"You're... you're my homeroom teacher!" he said, relieved.

"You've got quite a punch, Mister Masaki!" the teacher said,
rubbing his chin.

"Where the heck am I?" Tenchi asked

"You're in the lake, near the town..." The teacher looked a
little bewildered. "You just came skipping along the surface
before sinking into the water underneath my boat! I was quite
surprised! Damn near thought you'd have sunk my boat if you
hit it!"

"Skipping? In the town?" Tenchi tried to get out of the boat.

"Wait a minute, kiddo! We're in the middle of the damn lake!"
The teacher hauled Tenchi back into the boat, before the boy
had a chance to splash in the water. "I don't know what you
people are up to at the shrine, but this defies explanation!"
He spat over the side. "Maybe it's better I don't know."

The teacher began to row the boat. "I'll drive you home, once
we get back to shore."

Ignoring the gentle splashes of the oars in water, Tenchi
risked a glance up to the sky, hoping to not see a figure of
a girl, defying gravity by actually flying.

"Ah, it's been so long since I've seen you're dad and
grandfather..." the teacher said, between strokes. "I'd
really enjoy a chance to speak with them before you move off
to Tokyo."

"Yeah, so would I," Tenchi added, trying his best to kill the
cold in his mind, which was slowing his thinking.

The girl in the sphere, what was her name?

Why was she imprisoned?

What's so important about a junky old sword?

Tenchi held up the hilt of the crumbled sword.

"That's a pretty nice old thing. Pretty valuable, is my
guess," said the teacher. "Too bad the blade's gone."

"Yeah."

He held it in appraisal, and then put it down. 'I'm tired.'
He relaxed, placing his hands behind him so he could look up
at the stars, which were so distant and untroubled. 'I hope
everything's better tomorrow. No more flying girls.'

He fell into a sleep, and then dreamed of a fall.

***

The sunlight crept over his eyes, warming and waking him.

Sitting up, he glanced at the figure sitting in his desk
chair.

"You didn't come up to see me yesterday, Tenchi," Katsuhito
commented, holding a cup in his hands, steam rising into the
air from the tea within. "I am pretty disappointed."

"I went up there, but..."

"But you instead left before you found me, right?" Katsuhito
smiled, knowing but mischievous. "I'm guessing there was a
girl?"

"How'd you know?" Tenchi said, his voice worried.

"The teacher brought you home, remember? So, what's her name?
She, who is brilliant enough to draw you into town and into
the lake?" Not waiting for Tenchi's answer, Katsuhito
continued asking his questions, "She must be very pretty,
yes? What's her name? When's the wedding?"

Tenchi jumped out of bed, and sprinted towards the open door.
The last question he heard was, "When will you make me a
great-grandfather?"

***

Katsuhito turned from Tenchi's bed, and looked on the desk,
with an expression of sorrow. "So then, it's really all
begun." He noted the condition of the sword hilt. "Well now,
you've got a real purpose now, Tenchi-ken. I hope you do
well, better than you've ever done with that foolish boy, so,
so long ago."

***

The bath water running, Tenchi looked in the mirror, hoping
to find something, or nothing, as a trace of the former
night.

Bruises from hitting the water covered his face.

'Damn! It's all real then!' He wasn't totally upset though,
with a feeling of relief deep down in his heart, somewhere,
trying to overcome his fear. 'She was pretty cute, at least,'
he thought, purposely substituting the word cute for sexy

Oddly, he couldn't shake off the feeling of falling, like a
terrifyingly fun carnival ride.

He sank into the rising hot water, smarting from hidden
bruises and tired muscles.

'I wonder what'll happen now?' He remembered Ranma's past few
days. 'I hope nothing bad.'

***

"Your grandfather tells me you sneaked off to say goodbye to
some girl in town last night, Tenchi!" Noboyuki's face beamed
with delight. "I remember your teacher carrying you in,
soaking wet. Guess she didn't take the news of you leaving
too well, huh?"

"That's not it at all!" Tenchi responded, sitting down at the
kitchen table.

"Oh, there's no need to be so shy around me, Tenchi. I'm your
father, after all!" Noboyuki pushed forward Tenchi's
breakfast, which was rice and something seemed to have once
been an egg. "I wish Nodoka was here..."

Heart sinking, Tenchi silently agreed.

Suddenly, he looked to his right.

Had some... one been looking at him?

It was only the branches of a tree swaying in the breeze,
which Tenchi could see through a window in the nearby
distance.

"I have to stop off in town when we're leaving, Tenchi. I
guess while you're waiting for me, you can visit the mall or
something."

"Okay." Tenchi swallowed the egg, which seemed a sort of
plastic, after only a bite. He prodded the rice, which was
pretty damp and sticky. 'Oh my,' he thought, a sort of
sinking feeling growing in his stomach, which he assumed was
the egg.

***

The town mall food, Tenchi decided, was fine enough. He sat
down, Chinese food on a plate sitting on the table before
him, invited him to eat, tempted him even.

However, when he was bringing a first morsel of food to his
mouth, a girl said, "My, that certainly looks delicious." Her
voice seemed to purr.

Actually, Tenchi noted, the girl's purr would make a cat
jealous.

"The sword, kid."

Tenchi slowly placed the food in his mouth, and then placed
his chopsticks on the plate. He picked the plate up, and then
began walking away from the table.

The girl instantly arrived in front of Tenchi, almost causing
an accident with piping hot Chinese food and a stumble. His
eyes were wide with fear, surprise, and curiosity.

"Teleportation, kid, it's the way of the future." She grabbed
his food, and placed it on a table. Pulling Tenchi close, she
whispered, "I want the sword, now."

"I left it in the car," Tenchi replied.

To the girl's bewilderment, the boy began to make motions
towards his right. She looked, and saw the food. "Go ahead,"
she said, a bit annoyed.

***

Tenchi put the food aside, and reached for his bag. Unzipping
it, he quickly pulled out the useless hilt.

In his eye's corner, he noticed a brief lapse of attention in
the girl's stance. Taking the moment, he kicked the girl, and
then grabbed his bokken.

Taking off in a run towards the mall, Tenchi heard behind him
a scream, which contained an embarrassed rage. 'Man, she's
really mad now, isn't she?'

***

Tenchi jumped over top a store counter, which the girl sliced
in half with the sword Tenchi remembered seeing in her hand
the previous night. 'Is it made of energy or something?' he
idly wondered, before dodging another slice, which cut in
half the store manniquen he had been hiding behind.

"Oh man! Who the heck are you?" Tenchi shouted, when out of
range of the girl.

"Ryouko! The greatest pirate in the galaxy, kid." She lifted
a hand, which filled with a ball of energy. "I'd say
something like, 'Don't forget it', but..."

Tenchi watched it a moment, and then surmised it wasn't a
nice ball of energy.

Running as fast as possible down the empty mall corridor,
Tenchi was suddenly caught in an explosion, which propelled
him into a flight into a wall.

***

"I doubt you'd live long enough to have to remember it."
Ryouko walked towards Tenchi, who lay crumpled in the corner,
seemingly unconscious.

When she neared him, she wasn't surprised when the boy tried
to land an elbow in her stomach, which was a waste of energy,
in her mind, due to her flying away.

"Besides, I'm not into killing anymore." She thought a moment
on her words. "I wonder why?"

The boy started running again, much to her annoyance. She
quickly teleported in front of him, and picked him up, again
by his collar.

"This is getting really tiring," Tenchi muttered.

"Tell me about it," Ryouko grabbed for the hilt, but found it
just beyond reach.

Tenchi kicked away from the pirate, and landed with bokken up
in a defensive stance. "I'm not getting away, am I?"

"No, but you've been pretty fun to chase, like a rabbit,"
Ryouko replied, a smug smile on her face.

Raising the bokken a little higher, Tenchi stepped back from
the pirate, who landed with her feet on the ground.

The pirate again summoned her sword, and smiled devilishly
before advancing towards the boy.

'She's not a girl,' Tenchi thought.

The girl slashed at Tenchi, which he quickly parried, before
jabbing at her arm.

However, the wooden sword broke when the girl grabbed it with
her free hand. "Stupid! If you want to beat me, use the
sword!"

'The sword?' Tenchi fell back to avoid another slash.

Ryouko jabbed forward...

Tenchi jumped up...

Against a wall, Tenchi jumped aside to avoid a downward
slash. However, the energy exploded outward from the wall,
causing him to fly out of control into a garbage can.

He looked up at the pirate, who scowled at him.

'Use the sword?' Tenchi wondered. He stood , and then fell
back against a wall. He raised the useless hilt. "What's so
special about this stupid thing?"

"You see my sword? Yours is sort of like it, but different. A
lot."

"Why are telling me this?" Tenchi asked.

"Because, that's why."

He looked at the hilt, and he thought he saw something
flicker above it.

"You've almost got it, kid," Ryouko said. "But you probably
need a bit of encouragement!" She flew towards him, sword at
the ready.

It was almost natural, he realised afterwards. The pirate
slashed, and he deflected it with the sword. Of course, he
wasn't thinking when he cut the pirate's hand off in a second
stroke, which he was taught to do in matches, oddly.

"Oh... no!" he cried out in alarm.

"Would you look at that!" Ryouko said, looking at her
handless wrist. She next looked at the hilt. "I guess you can
do it, but only in special circumstances... Yosho was always
able to have it ready, whether he needed it not."

A hand grew on her wrist. "Pretty cool, huh?" she asked
Tenchi, before levelling him with a punch to the gut.

Tenchi looked up at the pirate, an expression of fright and
compassion on his face. "You were called a demon..."

"I'm not a demon," Ryouko replied, a bit of bite in her
voice.

"The legends say, you destroyed so much..."

"No!" Ryouko pushed Tenchi into the wall, and lifted him up,
holding him against the wall. "None of it's true! That wasn't
me!"

"Yosho sealed you away... Why? You're no demon..."

"I know, but I... don't know!" The grip around Tenchi's
collar weakened. "My dreams are so mixed up..." Ryouko looked
on Tenchi's face for truly the first time. Letting him go,
she continued to look at and through his face, around his
expression, mentally caressing his eyes. "You're a dream?"

"Dream?" Tenchi asked.

"I had so many, and nightmares..." The pirate began to sink
into the floor, disappearing from Tenchi's sight.

"Ryouko?" Tenchi asked.

***

In the car, Tenchi looked out the window.

Dreams, he decided, are real enough to qualify as an actual
experience.

After all, why bother having them otherwise?

What of experiences becoming dreams?

The pirate Ryouko, she dreamt her life, and decided it all
was a life, he presumed, knowing he could be wrong.

"Grandfather, could you tell me the legend of the shrine?" he
asked. "Everything?"

"He's sleeping, Tenchi," Noboyuki said, quietly.

'I think, Ryouko wasn't a demon, but...' the previous day's
events with the tournament stuck with him. 'What's happening?
Kamen, Ryouko...'

The world passed by so quickly, he believed. Everything was a
blur, nothing was definite, and the people, he knew only a
few, but none in the passing.

The people he truly knew, were fellow passengers, and he only
knew little.

His grandfather's body remained quiet and unmoving.

'Purple eyes...'

Ryouko had red eyes.

'Grandfather, you're a mystery too,' Tenchi thought. 'What do
you know? What are you're secrets?'

Suddenly, he turned his head.

Something in the distance, so far away, trailing, leading,
falling, flying... It once was nothing but a dream and
fantasy, but suddenly in a moment it was a life and powerful
reality.

'Ryouko... Are you following me?' Tenchi wondered.

So far away, but closer than ever in youth.

"We'll back in Tokyo soon, Tenchi," his father said. "I
suggest you take a nap before we get in, so you have the
energy to help us pack this stuff in."

"Right..." Tenchi closed his eyes, and wondered, 'Where are
you going, Ryouko?'

***

"That's what happened?" Ranma asked, seriously looking at
Tenchi. "Ryouko, the sealed pirate." He finished listening to
Tenchi's story.

"Wait, I remember something now!" Tenchi looked outside at
the stars. "She said she was the greatest pirate in the
universe."

"Universe? Like in space?"

"And Kamen too, both had weird strange powers, right?" Tenchi
asked.

"I guess so. From what you're saying, Ryouko could fly,
right? And Kamen could too."

"But Ryouko could make fireballs or something. She fought
with a sword too."

"And Kamen was some sort of ice demon..."

"Not demon, Ranma. Alien."

Sitting silently, Ranma brought his hands behind his head.
"And this Ryouko's somewhere out there? She followed you?" He
said, his voice calm, "We're dealing with aliens, who can do
weird and crazy things, like fly." He put a hand to chin.
"How do we beat that?"

"Kamen's going to return, Tenchi. I need to find out how to
beat him," Ranma said, after a moment, his voice sturdy.

"I don't think we really have to worry about Ryouko," Tenchi
said. "I don't think she'll hurt anyone, unless you know,
they ask for it."

The door to the room slid open.

Akane, who entered, said, "Dinner's ready you two."

***

The day's end, Tenchi sat alone near the window, staring out
into the night sky, towards the stars.

Certain of its truth, he didn't bother to question an image
in mind of Ryouko sitting atop a tall structure, looking down
amid the world below, which moved so quickly and callously.

Dreams of life, but not hers.

The image, perhaps vision, shifted from Ryouko again towards
the night sky, falling up in the depths, until he sensed an
approach and retreat, from two separate feelings, of nobility
and of wrath, both together in destiny, but yet unknowing of
each other.

Before the vision's end, he saw Ranma walking into a storm,
violent but silent, and himself falling, falling into a
depth, the universe's, descending into a chaos, with the
purpose of hope.

Falling...

Into a sleep, and into tomorrow.

End Chapter Eight

***