Chapter 74: No Need for A Betrothal's End
Washu sits down in the studio and announces, "Hey, there, everyone. Dragonwiles said he wanted to honor the scientist of the century with being the chapter's DJ." She looks knowingly at the camera. "Yeah, you figured it out, too, didn't you? Yep, he forgot to put me in the chapter, so he's trying to flatter me. Oh well, a genius should be able to figure out a song for this chapter. I picked 'Someday' from the album 'I Wish We All Could Win' by 'The Afters.' "
Two miniature robot duplicates of her clamber onto her shoulder. The one labeled A chants, "You're the greatest, Washu!"
The other exclaims, "Dragonwiles doesn't own any of the copyrighted names or songs previously mentioned! And Washu's a genius!"
After being perhaps a little too encouraged by her robots' words, Washu continues, "Yeah, this song is a bit of a tear-jerker, but you'll get it after you read the chapter. Unless you already have, in which case you're either a time traveler or you'r re-reading it. Either way is cool."
Washu hits a control, and the music begins to play: compelling, full of pain, but with some hope for the future.
"Make way in the name of the queen!" the official cried as he swept into the highly guarded space tree weaponry lab in front of Misao Kuramitsu, Mihoshi's brother, and his Galactic P partner Mataran, a tall, purple-hued humanoid.
"I could get used to this," Mataran murmured happily to Misao.
"Really, don't," Misao muttered back. "We're just doing Juraian Intelligence a favor, remember."
One of the beings working in the lab demanded, "What is the matter, Sir Dorrol?"
The official preceding them responded, "The queen has appointed Inspectors Misao Kuramitsu and Mataran to be special inspectors on a surprise visit to the lab. Garfan, we are to show them the incomplete crystals you have been studying at once."
"At once!" Garfan protested. "The complex security protocols-"
"Are intended to give them access," Sir Dorrol told him, stern, but also confused.
"Very well, Sir Dorrol," Garfan sighed. "I'll take you myself, since it's so important."
"Sorry about this, sir," Misao told him, "we'll be out of your hair soon."
Garfan stared at him, then examined his own beard with suspicion, then briskly led them to a vault. He entered some complex combinations to a pad, then fished in a pocket for a secure access token.
"Inspector Kuramitsu," he then said, "please come here, I'll need a biometric measurement from you. Are your retinal scans in the galactic-"
Misao stepped forward to answer, but at that moment, Mataran's tentacle curled around Garfan's shoulder and hauled him down onto the floor, so the beam from the blaster Garfan had just pulled went into the wall instead of Misao. Misao recovered his wits quickly and pinned Garfan.
"What have you done?" Sir Dorrol asked in amazement.
"Something quite worth the enmity of Juraian oppressors," Garfan replied, bitterly smug.
After he'd been placed in custody, Sir Dorrol, Misao, and Mataran finished opening the vault.
Sir Dorrol gaped at the vault's interior. "Surely they've moved them into a lab for more tests."
"I'm thinking they moved them quite a bit further than that," sighed Misao as he surveyed the empty room. "Apologies, Sir Dorrol, but I'm afraid we and Lady Tatetsuki's officers will now need the full cooperation of the entire lab for some time."
"Lady Tatetsuki?" Sir Dorrol gasped. "Juraian Intelligence is coming here?"
Mataran certainly hoped so; he had sent them a quick message after arresting Garfan. He managed to say instead, "Indeed, sir. We're looking forward to working with you." He bowed slightly.
Sir Dorrol swallowed, then began to bluster, "I really must protest. This is an entirely legal operation. My lord and I were never once ordered to return the crystals-"
Misao made a slight motion to Mataran and told Sir Dorrol, "Sir, I am not sure what you intend to defend. Unless you are, in fact, guilty? In any event, this investigation will be entirely impartial. We will follow evidence where it leads, and nowhere else. Can we count on your cooperation, or do you intend for the first day's record of investigation to show that you were interfering?"
Suppressing a mulish look, Sir Dorrol bowed and allowed, "I am sure my lord and I intend to offer all available assistance, my lord Kuramitsu."
"My thanks, sir," Misao replied, returning the bow.
Later, while they were at a landing pad waiting for the Juraian Intelligence officials to disembark, Mataran remarked, "This is turning into quite a favor."
"Rather," Misao groaned.
Mataran leaned down to whisper in his ear, "If these crystals can really bring down space trees, why are they sending spooks instead of an armada?"
Misao whispered back, "They must be confident that the rebels haven't gotten that far. Or they want to confirm it quietly. Come on, Mataran, I don't know, I'm just a cop."
"Sure, rich boy, sure," Mataran whispered sarcastically.
"Shut up, slimy," Misao whispered back.
"And by the way, about saving your life, you're welcome."
"Now we're even."
"Not by my count."
"Shut up, slimy."
Tenchi sat up awake sometime past the middle of the night, then groaned and laid back down. The noise that had awoken him was a normal one made by some of Sasami's nocturnal pets.
He tried to fall back asleep, but this was apparently one of those nights when they were going to be making a lot of such noises. It would've been nice to hear something else at that hour - Ryoko sleepily grumbling at Sasami for not making her pets shut up, Mihoshi stumbling around in the dark trying to find a light switch, followed shortly after by Ayeka inquiring why lights were being ignited at this hour. But that wasn't happening. For a few years now, the house had been as quiet as it had before any of the aliens had arrived.
They weren't aliens anymore, of course. They were friends of the sort that you rarely got to have in this life; friends who had shared some of the most dire and horrifying perils life could throw at you. All of them knew each other now: in fact, they knew each other a bit too well. But they hadn't stopped fighting for each other. Now, though, for the best of reasons, in one of the best endings they could've hoped for, they were apart.
Wow, waking up in the middle of the night was proving really awful. Tenchi rubbed at his eyes, but wasn't getting back to sleep anytime soon, it looked like.
The house was just so quiet, though. There were supposed to be people in it. For awhile, he and the gang had gotten to take the place of the big family that Tenchi's parents, and he had to admit, he himself, had always wanted. Now the rooms were silent again.
It wasn't even like he had anything to complain about. He'd gotten to see his mom again, when they time traveled to the Tokyo Tower incident- how many people who had lost a parent could say that? But in a way, seeing the advantages he did have didn't help either. Why had his mother been cut short so soon? Was there something he could've done in the past to prevent it? What if there had been a way to help her without breaking the universe or whatever? In any case, he had right now, and she did not. Why? Did he really deserve time she hadn't gotten to have? And there was the question of what to do with the time he had that college was bringing into focus. Was it really alright to try to pursue a happy life, the sort of life that she had never gotten to have? Was it OK to dream the dream that his parents never had fulfilled? Would doing that mean having to leave Mom behind?
When he woke up again in the morning, a detachment of the queen's honor guard contacted him as previously arranged, to take him to the planet where the duel would be held.
Mihoshi and Kiyone looked at each other as they sat in their office. "Did the legend say what Lady Tokimi looked like, or if she traveled in a ship or anything?" Mihoshi inquired.
"Not really," Kiyone said. "It's one of the features that makes the stories seem either legendary, or as though they were originally written for people who knew so well what she looked like that they took it for granted. Of course, it also fits the style of the time - many other pieces from the time don't have much physical description. Sorry, I'm sounding like a professor - must've read too many."
"Too bad," Mihoshi commented mildly. "I guess this means that you could run into her on the street and not even realize it!"
"I don't know about that," Kiyone returned, staring at Mihoshi. "A being who you could reasonably expect to bestow Light-Hawk Wings just walking by like anybody else?"
"Weird, huh? But if we don't know what she looks like, it's still possible," Mihoshi insisted.
"Let's change the subject," a discomfited Kiyone told her.
"Sure," Mihoshi agreed readily. "I looked a bit more into the visitors to the planet - you know, the ruined one we just went to, the one where Dr. Clay went, and Z went too. Dr. Clay stopped going shortly before he tried to kidnap Washu, and we arrested him. I got a warrant for the system traffic logs and started trying some correlations. It wasn't long after Dr. Clay's arrest before representatives from the company he founded and was supposed to have retired from started visiting the planet. I can't say for sure that they visited the planet, but there wasn't much in the way of business to draw them there."
"Really," Kiyone commented with interest. "Can you show me the dates? The intelligence liaison was finally able to come up with a report on suspected rebel agents who visited the planet."
They looked over the reports together briefly before Kiyone noted aloud what they had both realized, "So the rebels and Dr. Clay's representatives both stopped coming around the same time, and haven't been seen there since about a year and a half ago."
"Almost like they fought with whoever they were meeting with there," Mihoshi commented. "I'd say they met and fought with each other - but there was only one set of footprints! You can't get enough dust to obliterate a second set in a year and a half, and if you can, why was the first set still there!"
Kiyone thought a moment and told her, "I want to say that it's a dead-drop like we thought, and they just hid it really well or got rid of it and whatever documents they left for each other there. But it is still a weird place for it. It would better fit both groups having a fight with whoever they were meeting there.
"I almost think this is enough. Enough, anyways, to tell the liaison that it's fairly likely Dr. Clay's company is conspiring with the rebels."
"Yeah, there are a few visits that overlap," Mihoshi agreed, "but is this enough to tell the queen that Z is involved with Lady Tokimi?"
"There's plenty that's not normal at least," Kiyone posited, "and Lady Tokimi certainly isn't normal, so there's a good chance that somehow the rebels and Dr. Clay's company men met with Lady Tokimi, or a representative, on that planet. But it does feel a bit like making an excuse to cover the data we don't have."
Mihoshi nodded. "How do we get the data, though? And how do we figure out the whys? But I'm worried that we may not have a reliable way of finding out what was going on at those meetings. We could spend a lot of time trying to look for evidence and connections on this part when we should be looking at parts of the case we can crack."
Tenchi looked around the area. It was a lovely meadow; not one of Earth, but lovely in its own way. It almost seemed too lovely to have a battle on, but you didn't get to pick that sort of thing.
The shortness of the alien grass in the dueling square and adjoining spectator's areas, as opposed to the rest of the meadow, was likely due to some sort of mowing. As he and the crowd watched, the resplendently garbed seconds (Yosho for Tenchi, and one of Lord Koji's friends for his lordship) of the two combatants solemnly used mallets to pound fluted wooden devices into the ground. After Tenchi and Lord Koji entered the ring, these were activated to create a visible, square boundary for the duel to take place in, although the seconds also ceremoniously tied white ropes between the wooden devices for even greater clarity. When the last knot was tied upon the officiant's command, Tenchi and Lord Koji's fates were sealed in the ring with them.
Yosho had explained the rules very well beforehand, and Tenchi was finding that they and Lord Koji were about the only things he could focus on now. The fight was not supposed to be anywhere near to the death, but that was dependent on skill, chance, and, barring all else, the doctors each second had waiting outside the square. All it ought to take, though, was for one or the other to be disarmed, or to surrender.
Queen Ayeka pronounced the formal words and gave the order to begin the duel. Tenchi approached, using the blade Tenchi - he didn't want to use the Light Hawk Wings unless he really had to. Lord Koji came forward, aggressively, but also clearly on his guard. Tenchi feinted, and Lord Koji apparently saw through it, since he carried out an attack on Tenchi. Tenchi was able to block it, barely, and felt the powerful blow through his arms.
If Lord Koji was giving it his all, then Tenchi had to as well, didn't he? Except that giving it his all was something different here. Tenchi had gotten so used to giving it all meaning aiming to kill. Lord Koji seemed a decent enough fellow, and Tenchi didn't want anyone to die today. Holding back, however, would insult Ayeka and Sasami and Lord Koji, and based on the blows he and Koji were raining on each other, would lose him the fight, too. Doing his best here would have to mean using his skills differently.
Ayeka swallowed. All was now set in motion. The duel before her would play out, as countless others had over the millennia. Sasami was another step closer to being in the place where Ayeka had wanted to be.
There were a thousand distractions, a myriad of valid concerns for a ruler, and all of them were needed to dull the hurt. Right now, however, confronted with the raw, gaping wound, Ayeka could only hurt.
Of course, that didn't mean that hurting was the only thing she could do. Her empire, her family, her friends, Tenchi included, needed her protection. They needed her to fight.
She only hoped she'd have the strength to hold out against the blows she was receiving.
Sasami was watching the duel from the location traditional for the betrothed woman whom the duel concerned. She had never felt quite so far from her sister. She glanced over at Ayeka, and wasn't sure she could stand to watch much more. Yet this was the path she had chosen, selfish or not.
Four Hundred Years Ago
Lord Koji and his father were winding down their argument as they sat in their home. His father challenged, "Koji, the sort of freedom you're talking about, not even most of our ancestors had that! How can we hope to surpass them? Are we really any better than them?"
Koji answered sincerely, "Father, why did our ancestors work as hard as they did? Why did they take the risks? What made them take the battles and trust the people they did? Why did they scramble and negotiate and make alliances, why did they strike hands in betrothal agreements? It was because they wanted their descendants to have better lives, didn't they? The opportunities I have now are thanks to them, and to you and Mother. What I mean to do is to take advantage of them."
His father grimaced at the last point - they both knew perfectly well Lord Koji's mother thought he was doing exactly the opposite with those opportunities - but nevertheless considered his son's words. Finally, he announced, "I remain unconvinced, Koji. You still need to determine what it is that you will do with your freedom - what you will accomplish with it that will make your life better."
It had been so long both before and after that day, and Koji still didn't have enough of an answer to satisfy himself or his father. Honestly, his parents would never have allowed matters to reach this point if Sasami hadn't made the last request to end the betrothal. But he was close, so close, and that meant that he couldn't give up now - that he had to keep pressing on to the answer.
Lord Koji's blows were punishing, Tenchi noticed. Was this the difference in strength between them?
Tenchi tried to focus more on his footwork, sliding through the dry grass for attacks, bracing himself solidly for defense, and felt some relief, but not a lot. He tried a purely horizontal stroke, and when Lord Koji parried it vertically, ran his blade up Koji's and tried to shove on its tip, to twist it out of Lord Koji's grip, but despite all the work Tenchi had put in over the last few weeks with Yosho, Lord Koji still escaped with the correct counter - lowering his blade so Tenchi's skipped off, then lunging to strike at Tenchi's now-vulnerable torso. Tenchi managed just barely to bat Lord Koji's sword down so it pointed more towards the ground. With a great jerk of tired arms, Tenchi heaved his blade, still above Lord Koji's, into the area of Lord Koji's throat. The fear in Lord Koji's eyes as the blade Tenchi lunged towards his throat turned instead to resignation. Lord Koji announced as best he could, "I yield," and the two stood and stared at each other as they drew hearty breaths. It took them a moment to realize that Queen Ayeka had formally pronounced Prince Tenchi victorious, Princess Sasami's betrothal annulled. Tenchi and Lord Koji had returned their key blades to their belts by the time that their seconds had both declared that they had no objections to anyone's conduct during the duel.
After they bowed to each other, Lord Koji offered to Tenchi, "It was an honor, my lord."
"I was honored also, Lord Koji," Tenchi told him sincerely but haltingly, and a little jealous that Lord Koji seemed to be recovering his wind faster than Tenchi. They turned and went towards their seconds, who were now untying the knots of the ropes fencing them in. Tenchi wanted to look back, but knew that he was the least able to do anything for Lord Koji, and so went on with Yosho to meet his doctor and Sasami.
"Already, mother?" Lord Koji asked while his doctor finished placing the bandage over the minor burn on his side from a near-miss of Tenchi's key blade.
"I don't mean right this moment, but tomorrow morning is well within the bounds of tradition," she insisted. "Everyone knows you're available now. No point delaying the inevitable. 'Strike while the iron's hot.' 'Seize the day', you know, that's all I mean."
"The inevitable," Lord Koji repeated weakly.
"You do want to get married, don't you?" his mother asked, incredulously.
"Of course, but - so soon? No time for reflection? For consideration for what we should be looking for?"
"That's what the meetings are for!" his mother snapped. "You've finally got what you wanted all your life. It's a little late to regret it now!"
"I regret only that things had to fall out as they did," he retorted. "But I don't want this chance to be wasted! I didn't do this so we could make another attempt to seize what we could!"
"What nonsense is this?" she shouted. "Seize what we could? Is that what you thought of what your father and I did? You're my son! Why shouldn't I want you to be happy! We have only ever wanted the best, and we only ever wanted it for you, because you're the best thing that has ever happened to us!"
Lord Koji literally took a step back. Breathing heavily, he replied slowly, "I apologize, my lady mother. I shouldn't have spoken rashly."
She said, in a subdued but clearly perturbed tone of voice, "You're our son. We thought you knew." She turned away as her voice broke, saying: "We'll speak of it later. I need to make some arrangements."
Lord Koji stared after her, and a bit over his shoulder as he left the tent for some fresh air. What she'd said couldn't be true, could it? If only it were, though.
"You two are very alike, you know," his father's voice called to him.
Lord Koji turned, and saw his father pacing towards him; apparently he'd only just been able to shake off the retainers and rivals. When his father came closer, he added, "I was hoping you'd win."
"My apologies, my lord father," Koji said, bowing formally. Bows certainly were convenient for blanking out troublesome emotions.
His father paused a bit before replying, "Yes, but, you're here, and your honor's intact. Unfortunate, but, you put up a fight, eh? Gave us all a real, honest, old-fashioned duel. If I were a hundred years younger - I'd be tired of hearing my elders talk about what they'd do if they were younger!"
Lord Koji allowed a bit of smile. His father had told that one an awful lot, but in all honesty, it was still somewhat amusing.
"Son," his father was clearly getting to his main point, "go and see Doctor Donagren on Ryuten. Just a second opinion, make sure you're coming along and all that. And when you're healed up, there've been some troubles on our lands there. See if you can't get to the bottom of it. Dai has the details."
When Koji talked with Dai, his space tree, shortly after that, Dai remarked, "Something useful for you to do then."
"About as useful as someone like me can be," Koji replied ruefully.
"You do realize," Dai noted to him, tone wavering uneasily between sardonic and concerned, "that you still got everything you've always wanted since you were a sprout?"
"Everything?" Koji inquired back, tone wavering just as much. Dai teleported him aboard.
As Mihoshi and Kiyone sat down for lunch, Mihoshi asked, "What did you think of the duel?"
"It was a privilege to see it, I know that," Kiyone replied. "They were both impressive. I wasn't surprised by the result, but it wasn't for lack of effort on Lord Koji's part."
"Mmhm," Mihoshi agreed. "Yeah. This was one of the better ones I've seen. A lot of the time at least one duelist is just doing it to please his family, so any excuse is taken for a victory."
They talked and relaxed awhile longer before returning to their duties.
As they left his doctor's tent, Yosho said to the man approaching them, "Lord Haruhi." Tenchi turned and saw Lord Haruhi coming towards them. Other Juraians would return Grandpa to earth, but he'd be going with Lord Haruhi to the meeting with Z. Seeing Lord Haruhi reminded him that he really wouldn't be going back to Earth for awhile yet, and he began to fear for the people he'd left there. But then, among them were Ryo-Ohki and Yosho. He could entrust everyone to them.
Yosho seemed to sense Tenchi's uneasiness, because he said, "Remember your honor and everything you've learned. I'm sure you'll be a credit to us all."
"I'll do my best," Tenchi replied, feeling a little better. "Say hi to Dad and Ryo-Ohki and Zen-Ohki for me."
"I will," Yosho assured him. With that, Tenchi bade his grandfather farewell.
The Juraian intelligence analyst rubbed at his eyes and scanned the screen again. "So, they were part of that patrol group there, but here they're listed as destroyed; and those ships were listed as damaged and scrapped..." He absently inserted another chip into his mouth; it had been a long day, but it was starting to pay off.
One of his coworkers got up and walked stiffly over to him. "You found it?"
"I'm sure of it now," he said. "Took awhile to find it, though, but the tip from our liaison at GP HQ was right, the shipyards Dr. Clay used to own were collaborating with the rebels. They're hiding entire fleets in our bureaucracy; listing individual ships as scrapped or totaled at a rate totally inconsistent with the militia's engagements."
"You're kidding," his coworker said incredulously, frowning at the screen. "Don't people have to sign off on that sort of thing?"
"Militia officers with rebel ties, or bribed Juraians," he said disgustedly. "Already correlated the files on the signers from Records. And some of these, I think they hacked the records to make phony entries. Hard to be sure now."
"But they're hiding the ships somewhere," his coworker insisted. "Could it be in plain sight? Even if they removed all IFF transponders, people would still see them flying around."
"I think they move them out of the way," he answered, "off the major space lanes, but if you could check the monitors we do have in rebel space, we could confirm that the ships which should no longer exist are running around."
She waggled her finger at his screen. "I can do better," he replied. "Once I find them on the monitors, I can start predicting where they're moving the ships to based on their heading while they're still in range of the monitors."
He was still a moment, then said, "Oh, sorry. That'd be great thank you. I've really gotta crash."
"Our night reliefs should be in soon," she agreed readily. "Wouldn't you know, it's just when I'm getting excited? This could be our big break."
Kiyone sighed and stood up from her chair. She'd just meant to read a few articles to relax a bit before sleeping, but now she'd gotten worked up. All the sites she'd found that night were dead ends in a mystery that had intrigued her since even before she'd joined the Galactic Police; how had Dr. Washu Hakubi escaped GP incarceration?
It was as though her search for the truth about Jurai, largely resolved thanks to Lady Tsunami's revelations about the Chousin, had resulted in satisfaction, but also a resurfacing of that old question.
Her curiosity was shared by seven centuries of other beings, their intrigue nurtured by public romanticization of the tale of Washu, the mad scientist who had narrowly evaded GP capture. By this time, the cliche GP Academy bull session in the freshman dorms was about whether Washu was a mad scientist or a persecuted scientist. Kiyone found the moral questions fascinating, but like many others, she was also curious about the physical aspects of the escape. Seven centuries ago, the GP's extensive after-the-fact investigation had figured out her trick of hiding in the ceiling, but it was still unclear how she had made it appear that she was encased in isolation gel though she actually was not.
Old-timers at the GP museum had confirmed the rumors to her: that what the GP had captured in the gel was some sort of doll, which somehow appeared to be Washu long enough to make her escape. The old-timers, like their predecessors, had playfully but carefully considered both prosaic and outlandish guesses, and actually come up with clever ways of disproving some hypotheses, with the balance of evidence being that Washu had somehow managed with the doll to fool not only the sensor technology of the time, but also the living beings who carted away the gel. This was no mean feat on its own, but it was nearly incredibly given that the doll could no longer fool either, and detailed analysis had found no devices inside it for ever doing so.
She knew she had no reason not to trust a friend that she'd eaten with, fought alongside, and retaken Jurai with. The only reason Kiyone had to pursue the mystery was its siren song calling to her soul. GP training had encouraged her to leave well enough alone when the time wasn't right for such things, so she had put the yearning aside, but it still called to her during her downtime. Not only that, but Mihoshi's earlier comment about the possibility of powerful beings appearing to be passerby was weighing on her mind more than she would've expected.
Kiyone smiled ruefully at herself. Solve one mystery, and instead of relaxing, she piled more and more onto herself. What did that say about her? It explained why she was always busy, at the very least.
Lo-Folot could hear the rising voice of the man through the door of Z's study: "You of all people should know what it's like, Sir Z!"
"Ulfo, believe me when I say that I do," Z's voice returned, and Lo-Folot cringed a bit, but it couldn't be helped, both he and Z knew that by now. They'd tried everything within reason, but Z simply couldn't put the empathy into his words. It usually didn't matter; his natural style and the way he and the rest of the cabal had shaped the rebellion meant that inspiration from his strength or the meaning of his words was all his public addresses called for.
While preoccupied with his reflections and his work, Lo-Folot had missed some of the conversation, or else it had become more subdued, but now it escalated once more. "It is not much I ask of you!"
Z returned, unperturbed as ever, "You know that it is something I cannot do. You're a good man who's done much for the cause, and there are many things I would do for you. I can't do this. Ulfo, ask for something else."
"This is for the sake of my family!" Ulfo retorted. "It's not something I can barter or take a substitute for! Sir Z, I've proven my loyalty to you through two arrests and tortures! I beg you for this favor!"
Lo-Folot knew from long experience the even gaze that Z would be training on him at this moment. "You are aware of the movement's resources, which is precisely why you came to me. But I can't give you a different answer. The impossible remains impossible. I must ask you and your family to bear this pain."
They parted on fairly good terms, but Lo-Folot could just barely make out, when the petitioner was at the farthest end of the hall, his breathy whisper, "How easy it is for you to say that, Z."
Lo-Folot frowned but simply made a routine database entry to have Ulfo surveilled more closely. You got used to this sort of thing.
A few moments after that, Z emerged from his study and asked, "How is Project Deathmask coming along, Lo-Folot?"
He answered calmly, "The submissions have all been catalogued, sir. As we expected, research into some of the tragedies had to be cut short to make the departure dates, but we know enough about the incidents to be effective. I just finished vetting the replacement member of the media crew who'll be recording your public announcement, so that can proceed as scheduled this afternoon."
"Good work," Z dipped his head, as he always did when satisfied. "Is it having the expected results?"
Lo-Folot replied, "It's not only brought in more new members, but also solidified the bonds between our old comrades more than I expected. The worlds who recently joined us are much more at home now, and our older allies are more welcoming of them."
Z dipped his head again. "Excellent. I can only hope it will be as terrifying for the Juraians as it ought to be."
Next Chapter
Ryoko stares at Yosho a moment. "So, why has nobody asked you to help take care of Z?"
"I'm retired," Yosho points out.
Ryoko shrugs. "Works for me. Anyhow, get ready to hear just what the mysterious Z has to say as he and Tenchi negotiate the fate of the galaxy."
"The Empire," Ayeka murmurs to herself.
"The fate of the empire, fine," Ryoko harrumphs. She turns to Ayeka, pointing out, "At the moment, Earthlings frown on empires: sure you wanna run with that?"
"Yes," Ayeka says grimly.
"Guys!" Mihoshi calls to them. "We need to start planning the surprise story-wrap-up party!"
"Might not wanna shout that across the room, Mihoshi," Ryoko calls back.
Missing the point, Mihoshi continues saying as she runs up to them, "But we probably haven't got that many chapters left!"
Ayeka admits, "Dragonwiles didn't give an exact number, but I would think not."
Ryoko insists, "We'll help you plan it if you're serious about keeping it secret."
"I'm good at keeping secrets," Mihoshi says enthusiastically. "Count on me!"
Ryoko relates, "The next chapter is 'No Need For Negotiations'".
Continuity With Dragonwiles
Dragonwiles reposes in state in the library of his lair. Looking up from his book, he greets, "Welcome to this special segment, in which I give a few brief continuity notes.
"Misao Kuramitsu exists in the third Tenchi OVA, but Mataran, Garfan, and Sir Dorrol, are all made up here. Kagato's gems, imitations of Washu's, exist in the first OVA, but I don't think they ever reappear, as they have in this fan fiction.
"I hope I wasn't too maudlin during Tenchi's early scene in this chapter. Perhaps I was too inspired by an episode of the BBC television series 'Foyle's War', a combination detective show and historical fiction set in England during World War II. The episode I was thinking of was apparently originally conceived of as the last episode ever of the series, and is set around V-E Day (Victory in Europe Day), exploring both the excitement of a victory nearly beyond hope, but also how hard it was for people to return to normal life, including leaving behind bonds of friendship formed in danger.
"Lord Koji is an original character, and GP Intelligence is largely non-canonical. His doctor is also made up - he has the family name Donagren, and is supposed to be part of the same family as a character I made up for flavor, 'Field Marshal Donagren', back in the first chapter or so, near the start of King Azusa's reign.
"'Project Deathmask' is not part of any Tenchi canon that I know of. It's a subplot I've inserted. Similarly, Lo-Folot and the man petitioning Z are also non-canon.
"Finally, I wish you all a happy Thanksgiving. Just to be safe, let me wish you a merry Christmas, too, since I may not be able to put out another chapter before then. This will be the 7th Christmas since I've begun putting this story - and I was planning it for quite some time before that, too! Thank you for coming with me on this journey."