I guess I need to say that I don't own any of the Tenchi Muyo characters. I'm only using them for this story, because I love Tenchi Muyo. So please don't sue me, you'd most likely only get blood out of me. When Worlds Collide -Chapter 7- No need for Success It was another beautiful morning at the Masaki Shrine. The birds were singing and the sun was shining brightly. Ryoko was asleep perched on her beam, dreaming sweet dreams of joy and happiness. Or at least that's what Brian could only assume. He is floating next to her on her beam waiting for a good time to tell her the news. Ryoko has a smile written across her face, so Brian assumes she's either dreaming about getting Tenchi or Ayeka dropping dead. Although he doubts she would like the idea of Ayeka dropping dead, now that they are getting along with one another. She begins to stir on the beam and Brian continues to sit floating beside her. Ryoko stretches her arms and legs out like a cat waking up. She opens her eyes and sees Brian floating beside her. "Brian. What are you doing?" "I was just waiting for you to wake up to tell you what I found last night." "How long have you been floating there?" "About ten minutes." "Why didn't you just wake me up?" "You looked like you were having a nice dream, so I decided to just wait for you to wake up." "Well what is it you were wanting to tell me about?" "This." He said handing her the paper. As Ryoko read the paper, she wiped her eyes to wipe the sleep out of them, she didn't think she was reading it right. After wiping her eyes she looked at the paper again and it said the same thing that was on it before. "What is this a joke?" "Why does everyone keep asking me that? Is it really that bad of an idea?" "Well come on Brian, it's just. . .different." "I thought the most dangerous space pirate would welcome a little challenge." "Well since you put it that way, let's do it." "Alright let's tell the others we've solved the money problem." Everyone was slowly making their way toward the kitchen for breakfast. Sasami made another excellent breakfast for everyone that morning. After everyone finished their breakfast, Brian stood up to make an announcement. "Everyone your worries about the money trouble is over. I've come up with something that should be easy for us to do and enjoy." "You sound as though it's going to be something fun." Ayeka inquired. "Actually it should be fun. I could pass the paper around, but it would take too long. So I'll read it to you all. (Clears throat) In two days there will be a contest for a magician's showdown. The best act will receive 2 million yen." "Two million yen!!" Tenchi exclaimed. "Oh, wow that's a lot of money! But do you think we could win?" Sasami asks. Ryoko nods. "Yeah, I think that the greatest space pirate and a super strong sayajin should have not problem winning that little contest." "Don't forget about the universes greatest scientific genius to help out too." Everyone turns around to see Washu standing in the doorway of her lab. She was dressed in what appeared to be a magicians costume. Her outfit looked like a tuxedo with the tails, but it fit her like a one-piece bathing suit. Which added great detail to her exposed legs. She also had the white gloves that usually go with what someone would picture a magician to have on. Her costume was even complete with a black top hat, which was carefully nestled on her wild mane. "You mean you want to do this too Washu?" Asked a surprised Ryoko. "Well why not, I can now add the title, The Greatest Magician in the Universe." Everyone gets a dull look on their faces. "Oh boy." Ryoko mutters. "Were you expecting me to do this too?" Asked Ayeka. "No, it's alright if you don't want to Ayeka, I don't think a group of four magicians has ever really succeeded or not. So just leave it up to us." Brian answered. "Well come on you two I'll show you your costumes I made last night." Washu said while entering the lab. "Brian you told Washu last night and didn't tell me until this morning." Ryoko asked while following Washu into the lab. "Well I figured you were asleep and knowing Washu she was probably up. I'm sorry if you would have wanted me to tell you sooner." "It's alright, but next time let me know what's going on." "OK." "Well you two here's your suites." Washu said with a smile. "Wow." Was both their replies. Meanwhile outside the house. . . Tenchi was tending to the fields with Ryo-oh-ki helping him with the carrots. He was hoeing the soil to make it ready to plant more carrots for the lovable little cabbit. While Tenchi was hoeing the soil, Ryo-oh-ki was helping herself to some of the carrots that Tenchi had placed in the basket to carry home. "Hey, Ryo-oh-ki cut it out, you can wait till lunch to start eating." "Meeooww" The little cabbit replied as if to say "alright" before jumping out of the basket. "Boy Ryo-oh-ki can be such a pain sometimes. Oh well it's nice to have her around, she's always so cheerful."He sighed while wiping his forehead from the sweat. "It looks like it's going to get hot again today." He finished looking to the sun. Tenchi started to work on the fields again, but he caught a glimpse of Ayeka out of the corner of his eye. She was walking toward him, so he placed the hoe on the ground and started to walk to meet her. "Hi Ayeka." "Hello Tenchi." "Was there anything you needed?" "Oh, no, I was just out walking and I thought I'd come out here and see how you were doing." "Well I'm ok. I'm just tending to the carrots with a little help from Ryo-oh-ki here." "Mea!" Ryo-oh-ki exclaimed. "Well aren't you the mighty little helper." Ayeka finished with a gentle laugh. "Mea Me Ma meaa!" "I was wondering Tenchi, if maybe you had enough time to walk with me for a few minutes?" "Sure Ayeka." Tenchi and Ayeka started walking into the woods, it was peaceful and serene. The sunlight faintly shown through the treetops adding the effect of pillars of light shining into different spots. Tenchi and Ayeka just seemed to walk, neither of them said anything; they would just look at each other and faintly smile. Finally Ayeka asked Tenchi what was on her mind. "Tenchi, I was wondering. With everything that's going to be happening in a couple of months, what are your feelings for me?" Tenchi seemed totally unprepared for her question. He didn't know what his feelings for her were, he couldn't tell who he loved. To him he was totally content with loving each of them like someone would a large family. However, Ayeka or Ryoko would always want him to choose one of them to love. It's like they though it could only be one person he could ever love and not all of them. "Ayeka, I wish I could tell you how I feel about you, but I'm not sure what I feel about for each person. Why is it you and Ryoko can't be content with how things are now?" "Because you will have to eventually choose which of us you want to marry. And I would want it to be you and me more than anything else in the universe." Ayeka finished her sentence in total disbelief. * I can't believe I just told Lord Tenchi how I feel about him. I'm a princess of Jurai, I have been taught to be more discrete than that. * She looked at Tenchi worriedly, hoping that he wouldn't be offended by her rudeness. She was surprised to see that he wasn't that troubled by what she said. He seemed to be in deep though about it. "Tenchi I'm sorry about saying that. I didn't. . ." "No it's alright Ayeka, I just need to consider that each of you have feelings for me and I can't keep avoiding everyone. I just want you to know that if I ever do choose anyone else, I won't love you any less than I do now." "That eases my concern about you Tenchi, but I still worry about loosing you." "Don't worry Ayeka, I'm not going anywhere." He finished laughing. They continue their walk through the woods enjoying the scenery around them. In the next two days Ryoko, Washu, and Brian hardly came out of the lab. The only times they did come out were for the meals. They would tell everyone that they were working on their act, they wouldn't tell them much of anything. They told them that they would have to experience the show, in order for them to enjoy it more. Then the day finally came to where they had to go to Tokyo for the act. Everyone was preparing to go watch their act, everyone except Noboyuki who had to work. After everything was packed and ready to go, Washu used her teleporter to teleport everyone to Tokyo. She was finally able to get all the kinks out of it to make it work. Washu teleported everyone into downtown Tokyo in an alleyway, so nobody would see a group of people suddenly appear out of thin air. They wanted to save stuff like that for the act. Washu carried a small handbag that contained all the props they needed for the act. She was able to compact the props into the handbag for better ability to move them to the stage. When they arrived at the building the acts had already started. So Washu, Brian, and Ryoko went in through the side entrance and the others went through the front door to find a table to sit at. There were a few acts ahead of them so they were able to watch the competition and see what they were up against. Washu just watched the acts and giggled a couple of times. Brian and Ryoko went off to get changed into the suits that Washu made for them. When nobody was looking, Washu emptied out the props they had from the handbag she was carrying. She smiled when she though about how everyone in the audience was going to be shocked at their act. She smiled a little more when she though about how she was going to surprise Brian with an act she didn't tell him about. Washu told Brian and Ryoko to wait for their que to appear onstage. She'd use her telepathic link with Ryoko to tell them when to appear. As the last act was finishing up Washu checked herself over to make sure she was presentable. After she adjusted her hat to fit nicely with her hair it was time for the show to begin. "Alright ladies and gentlemen, that was a good act let's give these guys a great round of applause." The announcer suggested. The crowd applauded the act that was finished as they left the stage. "Yeah, ok on to the next act, the next performance is an act of three magicians. Boy you don't see that type of act everyday folks. This is their first live audience performance so let's give it up for The Terrific Three.(Hey you come up with something better.) Washu walked out onto the stage in her outfit and everyone took notice that it was just her. Some people turned to each other and started whispering to one another. The announcer noticed everyone's reaction to this little girl coming out onto stage alone. "And what's your name little girl?" "Hello. My name is Washu and I'm the greatest magician in the universe." She said with a bit of a smile. "Aren't you a little young to be the greatest magician in the universe?" He asked. "I'm old enough." "Ok so where is the rest of the Terrific Three?" "Oh yes that's right I'll get them." As Washu finished, she reached into her pockets and pulled out a couple of smoke bombs she had. * Ok Ryoko come now. * She threw down the two balls, one on each side of her; which caused a small flash of light and smoke appeared. The audience watched with interest on what was happening on stage. After the smoke cleared Brian and Ryoko were standing on either side of Washu. The audience started to applaud and Washu and the gang took a bow. Brian was dressed in a classical magician's outfit, complete all the way down to the blacktop hat. Ryoko's costume was more like Washu's costume was, only hers showed more skin than Washu's. Ryoko's was sleeveless and she had two white wrist collars on each wrist. She didn't have a hat like the others, but she still looked the part. Tenchi was only able to reply to what he saw by whistling. Ayeka looked at him in shock and Ryoko just blew him a kiss. With both of their reactions Tenchi crunched up a little and blushed. "Alright Ladies and Gentlemen. For our first trick I will enter this box and I'll change into. . .something more comfortable." She finished with a big grin. As Brian wheeled out a box that was tall in height. While he wheeled it out everyone seemed to wonder what it was she was going to do. The box was tall enough for Brian to stand in with some space. Tenchi had a guess as to what it was she was going to do and knew that everyone would be surprised. "Ok now my two companions here will finish the trick and if it works I'll age a little more for you to take me seriously." After Washu declared this everyone in the room started to whisper to each other. Ayeka could here people say mostly "What does she mean age?" It was almost too funny for Ayeka to hold in the laughter that was trying to force it's way out of her. Washu stepped into the box and Ryoko closed and locked it. Both of them stepped a couple of feet back and did a couple of little hand gestures. Then they both started some kind of chant, but the others weren't really able to make out what they were saying, because they were chanting really quickly. Suddenly the box started to glow red. The box grew so red it illuminated the entire room and everyone's faces were visible and looked like they were in total awe. Even the people backstage were wondering what was making the box turn red like it was. After a few seconds the light from the box began to dim and the light eventually disappeared. Brian and Ryoko had stopped chanting when the light began to dim. After a couple of seconds of just standing there looking at the box. Brian looked at Ryoko "Do you think it worked?" He said it loud enough for most of the people to hear it. Tenchi assumed it was a part of the act to get people interested in what was going on. Ryoko just shrugged her shoulders as a response. Ryoko walked over to the box and slowly unlocked it. She slowly opened the box and some smoke came from inside the box. After a couple of seconds the smoke cleared and inside the box was a now adult Washu. She was still in her earlier suit, which really emphasized her figure now. There was a couple of wolf whistles coming from the audience when she stepped out of the box. She smiled. "Now, now, boys, I'm sorry, but I have an interest in someone else already." She finished looking at Brian. Some of the guys in the crowd hollered, making Brian scratch the back of his head and blush. This in turn caused Ryoko to laugh a little. "And now for the next trick ladies and gentlemen. Brian the great here will perform his act." Brian looks confused. "What trick Washu? You didn't tell me anything about me performing a trick by myself." "Actually you're not performing it yourself. I'm going to help you with it." Ryoko walks up behind him. "Come over here Brian, I'll help you get ready." Ryoko walks Brian over to a wheel with metal straps on it and it has a humanoid outline on the wheel. Ryoko takes his hands and straps them down, she then does the same with his feet. "Uh Ryoko, what exactly am I supposed to do in this act?" "Well I guess you just sit back and hope mom doesn't hit you." "H, Hit me?" Ryoko nodded and jerked her head over her shoulder to signal Brian to look past her. Brian looked at Washu and she was holding some kind of book in her hand. She was glancing over the pages some, Brian couldn't see the front cover of it to make out what she was reading. Washu scratches her hair and turns around enough for Brian to see the cover. Brian started to read it and his eyes nearly bulged out of his skull. The cover said "Knife Throwing for Dummies." "Oh, so the object is to miss the target." Washu stated out loud. "What! Ryoko let me out! I quit! Enough fooling around! Jokes over!" Brian exclaimed, rocking the wheel trying to break free of the restraints. Tenchi was getting a little nervous, he wasn't sure if this was suppose to be part of the act or not. He looked over at Ayeka and she looked at him seeming to be thinking the same thing. Even Sasami seemed to be getting a little concerned. "Tenchi you don't think Washu is going to hurt Brian do you?" "I don't know Sasami, I think it could be part of the act. It might be just to get everyone's attention." If it was just that it seemed to be working, everyone was now watching with a little bit of worry about what was going on. Washu set the book down and walked over to a small pedestal that's top was covered with a red sheet. Washu pulled the cover from over the top, to reveal the throwing knives underneath. Brian was beginning to wonder if he was going to pass out from the fear he was feeling. He tried to break the restraints, but it seems Washu had made the straps from some indestructible material. Washu picked up one of the throwing knives and showed it to the audience. "As you can see these knives are very real." She drops the knife and it sticks in the floor. "And very sharp." The knives were metal, all metal; there weren't any handles on them like normal knives. The parts of the knives that were the handles were about as wide as the blade. Washu walked out in front of Brian who was facing the audience. Ryoko rolled the pedestal out beside Washu and handed her a knife. She took the knife and faced her target, who was sweating at that moment. He could see Washu mouth the words "Don't move." He closed his eyes, praying that Washu wouldn't hit him. The few seconds he had his eyes closed seemed to be an eternity. Finally he heard a noise that sounded like the knife hitting the floor. His brain wasn't registering that there was any sharp pain anywhere on his body. He opened his eyes and saw Washu straightening herself up from the throw. He glanced to his right and the knife was just next to his head. He looked back at Washu and Ryoko and they just smiled and continued with the act. Washu repeated the act three more times, the knives hitting different areas. Brian was really nervous with the last one that Washu did, the knife landed in the area between his legs. After they were finally finished with the act, Washu kindly undid the restraints and allowed him to move. He smiled and bowed to the audience. When he was smiling he leaned closer to Washu and whispered. "I hope for your sake there's no more surprises." "Maybe not the type of surprise you'd expect tonight." She replied placing her hand on his butt. Ryoko moved in. "Mom." Washu removed her hand. "Alright." Washu looked at Brian. "Maybe some other time then." Brian couldn't tell how much more of the girls antics he could take. Sooner or later, he was going to have to do something, the girls were getting more aggressive with him. When he first came, Katsuhito had enough time to tell him about Tenchi and the girls, before Tenchi arrived at the shrine. When he first heard that Tenchi wasn't taking advantage with the girls, he wondered what could be wrong with the man. It wasn't until now that he understood Tenchi's situation with all of the girls after him. "Now for our next trick Ryoko will volunteer to be hypnotized and then we will perform the levitation act." Washu announced. Brian knew this trick, so hopefully there wouldn't be any more surprises. He gets to pretend to hypnotize Ryoko and Washu does most of the rest. Washu stands behind Ryoko and Brian starts looking into Ryoko's eyes. And with a little hand gesture, he tabs Ryoko's forehead with the palm of his and she falls back into Washu's waiting arms. Washu and Brian pick Ryoko up and place her on a table they had on the stage. Washu reaches into her hair and produces out a hair needle. She turns to the audience. "Now Ladies and Gentlemen I will demonstrate how out of it Ryoko is. Observe how this needle is very sharp." She takes the needle and pokes her finger with it. "Arugh." Escapes from Washu's lips. She then holds out her finger and shows the small drops of blood coming from her finger. "And now I'll show you that she is indeed hypnotized." Washu walks over to the table and takes Ryoko's hand and pokes Ryoko's finger with the needle. She doesn't do anything to signal that she is conscious. This has the others who are watching the show wondering if they did hypnotize Ryoko or not. Washu goes on to continue with the trick. She stands behind Ryoko facing the audience and begins to wave her hands around, as if casting a spell. Suddenly Ryoko is slowly lifting off of the table and the audience begins to take awe. She continues into the air and stops about five feet above the table. Washu begins to wave her hands toward her right side and Ryoko's body begins to turn clockwise. Washu keeps going until it looks like Ryoko is standing on air. To Tenchi and the others that wasn't a very weird sight, but everyone else was completely mesmerized. Washu continued to revolve Ryoko around until she was back in her original composure. Then gently she floated back down onto the table and came to rest. Washu then took her hand and placed it just above Ryoko's face. She then brought her hand up and Ryoko's body sat up to where her hand stopped. "And now I will wake Ryoko up." Washu finished snapping her fingers and Ryoko opened her eyes. Ryoko then took a look around the room and then looked at her finger. "Hey what did you do to my finger?" Ryoko asked load enough for the whole room to here. Someone in the audience yelled "You should have made her bark like a dog." "Well maybe I should come back there and make you squeal like a pig." Ryoko shot back. Ryoko was about to start walking off the stage to the man who made the rude remark, but Brian held her back. Washu decided on one last trick for their act, would be a simple one. She walked to the table and took her hat off and sat it upside down on the table. "And now Ladies and Gentlemen for our last trick, I will pull a rabbit from the hat." The audience clearly sounded disappointed by Washu's announcement of the final act to be a rabbit out of the hat. Washu merely but her hands up to signal for everyone to quiet down, she then held the hat up to show everyone that there wasn't anything inside her hat. "And now I give you a rabbit out of the hat." She reached into the hat and thanks to her knowledge with dimensions reaching into her hat was a gateway into her lab. She reached around trying to find the animal she was aiming for. She grabbed hold of something and pulled it out. She pulled out a dove. The bird flew out of her hand and landed on some people's table. This act resulted in a few laughs. Washu smiled embarrassingly. "Sorry about that folks, I guess even the best make mistakes. Let's try that again." She reaches back into the hat and feels around the area where she should have put the rabbit. She grabs something that feels like fur through her gloves and pulls it out of the hat. This time Washu produces out a cat. "Meeoow." This gets even more laughter from the audience. Washu hands the cat over to Ryoko and tries again for the rabbit. "Alright folks third times a charm." She reaches back into the hat hoping that she didn't miscalculate the coordinates for the gate. She felt around, cursing herself for having so many creatures from so many planets. Hopefully she wouldn't pull out some type of hideous creature that would go wild and attack people. They'd win the prize money for the contest for sure with that. Finally not coming up with anything on where she was reaching toward she decided to do things more drastically. "I'll just need about one minute folks, so hold on." With that she spreads the hat out and is able to stick her head through the gate to the lab to see where the rabbit was. Everyone in the audience was at a total loss for words; Ayeka, Sasami, and Tenchi were sitting in silence just waiting for something to blow up in their faces. Washu was still looking around where she could see to try to locate the rabbit, but was unable to find where it was. Everyone in the audience was really enjoying watching a magician sticking her head in her hat to find where the rabbit was. Everyone could here Washu trying to call out to the rabbit, Ryoko and Brian were trying hard not to look embarrassed about what was happening. She finally decided that she wasn't going to find it and figured she could just call off the final act. She pulls her head out of the hat and looks embarrassingly to the audience. "I'm sorry folks, but it seems we just can't find the rabbit anywhere. So I believe that is the end of our show." After Washu apologized to the audience, they started clapping louder than what they had done for the other acts. So the still adult Washu and the others took a bow to the audience and started wheeling what they brought with them backstage. The announcer came out onto the stage while they went to collect everything up. "Alright Ladies and Gentlemen let's give it up for The Terrific Three. I think that it's safe to say that they deserve the contest prize, don't you?" The audience began to cheer. Brian looks at Washu. "Well it looks like we've taken care of the financial problems." "Yes I think we have." Ryoko walks up behind the two. "Hey guys I believe this calls of a celebration party." After the gang leaves the Tokyo with the prize money, they head back to the house and have a celebration. Everyone helps in with the party. Ryoko, Brian, Tenchi, and Noboyuki set up decorations; Ayeka and Sasami fix the cake and food. Noboyuki was so happy that the family did what they did to make the money he opened up his secret stash of sake, which made Ryoko very happy. Ryoko and Brian were turning out to be good drinking buddies, they even convinced Tenchi to try some. They partied the night away with food, drinks, and Kareoke(I can’t remember how to spell it). Then everyone ate the cake that Ayeka baked and surprisingly to Ryoko, it wasn't that bade. At the end of the night everyone was worn out from the party, Ryoko was in a bit of a drunken state, so Noboyuki volunteered to take her upstairs and let her use his room tonight and he'll take the couch. As he was carrying her to his room, she mumbled something about Tenchi and Noboyuki couldn't help but smile. His son was very lucky to have all these girls living with him, who love him so much. After a few minutes he finally reached his room, he had to take it slow because Ryoko didn't seem to have any type of balance. He walks her to the bed and since he was propping her over his shoulder had to sit down on the bed and lie back on the bed to get her down. Before he can get up Ryoko rolls a little on top of him, seeming to be dreaming he was Tenchi. "Ooohh. . .Tenchi." Noboyuki knew he had to get up, because if she woke up like this, she might go off. So he gently and carefully grabbed her by the shoulder and tried to roll her the other way, but it seemed to wake her up. She opened her eyes and looked up to see she was in bed with Noboyuki. "What's going on?" She asked softly, obviously from her drunken state. "You were a little out of it from the sake and I thought you could have my bed tonight and I'll take the couch." Ryoko was surprised at Noboyuki's thoughtfulness. "Oh that's so sweet of you, thank you Noboyuki." She gave him a quick peck on the cheek to show her gratitude. For some reason she looked at him and saw into his eyes through his glasses. She saw a kind and gentle man behind the glasses instead of the old perverted man she thought of him. Here she was lying drunk on his bed next to him, even gave him a kiss on the cheek and he wasn't trying to take advantage of her. Ryoko suddenly felt something overcome her, she leaned forward and kissed him on the lips. For some reason she kept kissing him. He started to kiss back and it didn't look like either one was going to try to stop this from happening. They continued to kiss for a minute and Ryoko rolled on top of him and he then rolled on top of her. Ryoko awoke sitting up in a bed in the dark in a cold sweat. Breathing heavily from the panic she was feeling. She assumed the dream was from the partying she did that night and hoped Washu didn't catch that little nightmare she just had. She then brings her hand up to her head, resting her elbow on her knee. "Tsunami, what a horrible dream." She whispered to herself. Suddenly she felt a hand come to rest on her left shoulder. "It's ok baby, I'm here." A voice came from beside her. She looked over her left shoulder and saw Noboyuki under the covers beside her with a wide grin on his face. Ryoko's eyes went so wide, when she realized that she wasn't wearing anything in the bed. And from what she could tell neither was he. Ryoko could only respond to this with one phrase. "AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!" Ryoko awoke sitting up, finding herself in the living room next to a few empty bottles of sake. The floor was riddled with paper mashie, Ryoko then faintly remembered that during the party she flung paper mashie everywhere. She continued to survey her surroundings and finally her eyes fell upon what was left of Ayeka's cake on the table. She fell back onto the floor and covered her face with her right forearm. "UUHH, that's the last time I ever try any of Ayeka's cooking." I do so hope that you enjoyed this chapter. I reread my story some and realized that my story was a little depressing, so I decided to make this one a little funnier. I hope you enjoyed the last part of the story. I came up with this idea for it during the beginning of my story and thought of making it into a short misc. I came up with the idea for the magic act watching a re-airing of Magicians Secrets revealed and thought how cool it would be to get Washu to do this. Anyway, E-mail me if you have any suggestions or praises for my story. My e-mail address is deathgiver2000@yahoo.com.