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No Need for Masculinity	By : Richard_Priapi Category: +S to Z > Tenchi Muyo Views: 505 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: I do not own the various Tenchi Muyo properties, nor any of the characters herein who may be found within that canon. Originally posted to AO3, I'll be posting more proofread/edited versions of the chapters here.

Chapter List
- 9
- 10
- 11
The day began with the same honeyed words as always.
“Oh, Tenchi, please don’t go. Stay in with me today.”
Tenchi pinched the bridge of her nose and grumbled as Ryoko’s head nuzzled her cheek.
“I can’t. I’ve really been putting off that field for long enough. School will be starting up in a couple of days, you know.”
Despite the smoother sound of her new voice, her lecturing tone was all too familiar. Ryoko’s succubus smile wilted into a sulk. Her fingertip traced curlicues along Tenchi’s shirt, the soft contact tempting in its promises. Ryoko breathily faked innocence.
“If you’re sure…”
Tenchi brushed aside rapturous mental images and centered herself on solid earth.
“If you want, you could come along and help. We could be done before lunch, have the rest of the day together.”
Ryoko turned her nose away like Tenchi had just offered her rancid meat.
“You’re a cruel mistress, Tenchi darling. But fine.”
Tenchi perked up, only for the hope to be smashed like glass.
“I’ll be patient,” she trilled sweetly.
“Ryoko, come on. I’ve seen you throw a two-ton crystal while mid-flight. Even you pretending to give an effort would be worth three people trying their hardest.”
The praise cheered her, but…
“Only three?”
“Ryoko. You really won’t help?”
“Tenchi, you know me. I don’t ‘work.’ Life’s too short.”
“Well it feels pretty long when you’re doing all the work by yourself.”
Ryoko clicked her tongue. “Don’t be like that.”
She leaned in to give Tenchi a kiss goodbye- and she turned her cheek away!
“What’s wrong?”
“What… what’s wrong?” Thoughts bubbled in Tenchi’s head. One by one the accusations or snapbacks rising to the surface were struck down by images of Ryoko, in her corner from Transition-Moment-One.
“I can’t do this right now. I have work to do.”
“Fine.” Ryoko huffed, “It’s time I uncorked breakfast anyhow.” She rocketed up to the ceiling and slid through it, leaving Tenchi with clenched, trembling fists below.
--
Tenchi swung her hoe with practiced ease, parting the ground in neat pockets of loosened earth no bigger than was needed to scoop out the tubers below. She observed the shadow the sun cast from the nearby woods and grimaced. Her pacing was always methodical, but the morning was nearly past, and she was lagging well behind where she should have been. The muscles in her shoulders and arms trembled and screamed in protest, too. She stretched them slowly, tracing arcs forward and back, side to side, before digging her fingers into the muscle along her upper arm. Obstinance held realization just around the corner. Tenchi flexed, eying her muscles distastefully. She had been slacking recently yes, but there was no good reason to lose so much of the scant definition her muscles had held before. No good reason. Yeah, right. She groaned. Hadn’t she said it herself? “Being a man certainly had its upsides.”
Her breath quickened, stomach sinking. Maybe she hadn’t intended on being a farmer her whole life, but she was good at field work. If she worked double-time, she might just get this one field done by sundown. How was she supposed to help around the farm at this rate?
Pensively she looked down at her hands.
The line of callouses she had cultivated across years of kendo and farming mocked her, pads of tough skin fraying off the soft, delicate flesh beneath. Voices whispered in her ears, hideous thoughts she did not need racing in circles. She clapped her palms together and screwed her eyes shut. The smells of honest sweat and sun-baked soil filled her nostrils. No. This was not a mistake. I am not going back. I CAN keep up with my work. That’s who I am. I can find a way past this. Her thoughts stilled, and she opened her eyes, blinking in the brilliant summer sun. Her stomach growled.
“I can find a way past this after lunch.”
--
Lunch was a polite, quiet affair. Grandpa and Sasami discussed techniques and ingredients needed to get the texture just right for a good dengaku. Washu chewed distractedly, making half-there replies to any attempts at communication as she scrawled a galaxy of chemical equations in a notepad.
Ayeka sipped tea casually, nursing her pride at how only Nobuyuki seemed willing to speak with her, with all the sugar-coated flattery only a single middle-aged man can muster. The seat next to Tenchi was empty, an untouched place setting snowy white. Eyes exchanged glances. Mouths opened to speak and then abruptly closed.
In the end, it was Sasami who opened the package and see if it was a time bomb or a clock.
“Has anyone seen Ryoko today? It’s not like her to miss lunch.”
Tenchi wanted to let it slide. She fixed her eyes to her plate to stay under the radar. A little awkward silence had kept her from being entangled in so much drama.
“Especially not if someone else cooks and cleans it for her,” slid out of her mouth instead.
Ayeka raised an eyebrow. Only the flickering light in her eye gave away her mirth.
“I take it this is in regard to this morning’s… discussion?” she offered.
Tenchi’s shoulders sank.
“You heard that, huh?”
“I happened to overhear something, yes.” Came Ayeka’s poised, regal enunciation. She had been listening through a cup pressed to the bedroom door.
Tenchi placed a palm to her face.
“Well, go on. What do you think?”
Half the room busied themselves with their teacups.
“She was the same when I asked her to hang up laundry. Both times a beastly overreaction. You didn’t ask her any more than anyone else could have in your shoes.”
“Thank you!” Tenchi stretched a palm towards Ayeka. “It’s not like I wanted to stick a plow on her or anything.”
Ayeka’s bubbling princess laugh floated across the table.
“You might consider it next time. Dangle a sake bottle on a stick over her shoulder and you’ll have the whole day to canoodle.”
Tenchi chuckled, then guiltily added a toothless warning: “Careful, Ayeka, that’s my girlfriend you’re talking about.”
Ayeka pulled a retching face, and looked to be forming a witty riposte. Sasami burst in, eyes gleaming.
“So it’s official then? You two are in love?”
Tenchi and Ayeka went red to their ears.
“I guess we are.” Tenchi murmured. She folded her hands on the table and focused on the knitted fingers. Their first fight…
Ayeka’s voice was low and soothing.
“She’s a difficult woman to love, isn’t she?”
Sensing a deluge of the much-dreaded “girl talk,” the aging bachelors in the room took their leave quietly. Tenchi fiddled with the hair that dangled over her ears.
“Not really. I just forget how she can get sometimes.” She pushed a morsel of food around her plate. Ayeka’s scowl was most unprincesslike.
“I can’t imagine how. That woman is so lazy I sometimes feel her career in piracy only ended because you must first get out of bed to rob anyone.”
“That’s not fair, Ayeka!” Sasami protested.
“She’s just been so supportive ever since-“ Tenchi froze, not willing to remind Ayeka just why her relationship had bloomed so quickly, “since we first got together. Maybe it was too much to ask for her to help around the house too.”
Ayeka and Sasami tripped over each other offering their advice.
“All your needs matter, Ten-chan. I’m sure if you talk about it with her respectfully, she’ll come around.”
Ayeka snorted.
“She won’t change one hair for anyone- not that one should ever bank on changing their lover. Get used to her or find someone new.”
“Ayeka! That’s horrible.”
Tenchi blinked: the sensible advice was the most reasonable thing Ayeka had said to anybody in recent memory. She added on.
“Not to mention really difficult. Who would I even date if this doesn’t work out? Ayeka, what are you doing this weekend?”
The princess in question blanched, throwing her hands up and rolling her eyes.
“Perhaps if you had asked in the springtime. I can’t put my finger on why, but nowadays you just aren’t my type.”
Washu looked up from her work with a coy grin.
“Oh, you can put your finger on it. Whole hand, too, if you ask her nice enough. Innit that right, Ten-chan?”
As Techi blushed and covered her chest, gales of laughter split the room.
“Washu, you are vile!” Ayeka cackled. Listening intently through the roof, one irate pirate steamed against the tile, arms crossed in a tight knot.
--
As Tenchi stood on the x in Washu’s lab, she voiced her most recent concern.
“Washu, can I… add on a little to our agenda today?”
Washu’s head swung back and forth like a cobra’s as she considered.
“I suppose, depends on what you need.”
“Well… I’ve been losing a lot of strength. Or… stamina? Is there… anything that will change that without… without messing up what we’ve done?”
Washu batted the idea with a wave of her hand.
“I thought you had something tough for me.”
A few keystrokes on her computer later, she declared “There! Just reconfigured your nanomachines with a common physical fitness subroutine. Same one the Galaxy police uses on their cadets. There’s a little spaghetti in the code but it works out.”
Ignoring the confusing notion of spaghetti in her muscles, Tenchi pressed on.
“That’s… that’s it?”
“Well. That’s it for that. Today’s concerns are… a little more involved.”
The color drained from Ten-chan’s face as she mentally tallied the steps of her journey so far. If this was what she thought…
“So what about your penis? Keep it, toss it? Shrink it, maybe?”
Tenchi’s mouth fluttered like a fish gasping in thin air. In truth, with Ryoko’s… generous attentions to her changing body, she’d paid shockingly little thought to that step.
“Could you really…”
Washu huffed. “No, Tenchi. I can’t. I can rewrite your DNA and have nanomachines perfect your body’s performance at a cellular level, but a six-inch noodle of blood vessels is way over my head. I was just asking to be polite.”
“Washu-“
“I’m having trouble mapping out this polypeptide chain, do you have a box of crayons I can borrow?”
“All right, all right, you’ve made your point. I’m sorry. It’s a big decision, you know?”
“Not that big.”
“Washu!”
The scientist grinned slyly and spread her hands wide by way of apology.
“Let’s just start with some thoughts. Sky’s the limit- what would you want me to do?”
Ten-chan looked down, her mind’s eye peeling back her clothes to reveal her oldest friend. With everything going on in her life, she hadn’t thought much about the bulge in her panties- positively or negatively. Somehow it didn’t seem so unnatural jutting out of her now. Truth be told, Ryoko had been giving it a lot more attention than she had.
Washu’s foot kept time on the floor as conflicting thoughts ricocheted through Ten-chan’s mind. She could almost feel Ryoko’s breath on her ear as she remembered her words: It must be pretty interesting having your body molded just the way you like it. She licked her lips, trying to ignore the tingling in her panties. Maybe she was right. With an unstoppable mad scientist at the wheel, she could afford to make a choice or two for pleasure. The only question was if it would count as a makeup present or a way to one-up her girlfriend’s hedonistic streak.
“Is there, an… errr... additive option?”
Washu eyed Tenchi warmly.
“You want some more dick? Bold choice, I like it.”
“No, no, imeannowthatyoumention, I meant like… can I keep him, but also you give me a… Oh man, is it hot in here, or is it just me?”
Washu let out a satisfied “Aaaaaaah,” nodding sagely as she pulled up the right tab on her computer. “The full package! Keep ‘em guessing, that’s what I always say.”
“Little Washu, when have you ever said that?” cried one puppet.
“Little Washu, I thought your motto was ‘All’s fair in love and war, so bring a laser to both?” opined the other. Washu groaned, adding an update to their speech filters to her to-do list.
“At any rate, I’ll get you set up. On one condition.”
Tenchi’s eyes narrowed in suspicion.
“Afterwards, you tell me exactly how this felt.”
Incorrigible. Tenchi gulped and nodded. Blue light washed over her. Her groin felt tight, like an angry fist was squeezing her to bursting. Then the pressure popped, but instead of the pain she expected was a strange, molten warmth. Skin crawled, nerves tingled and sizzled as the warmth spread, burning away old flesh and casting the raw biological material in its new form. The seconds-long moment had felt like an eon. Sucking in air, she thought wryly a shrink would take a year to help her sort the experience out.
Washu tented her fingers silently.
Nearly forgetting she was being watched, Tenchi reached down a hand, pressing it into her flesh. Her thighs clamped together over her fingers as her breath came out in a gushing sigh.
“I did good, huh?”
“Washu… I think you did great.”
The world’s greatest genius crossed her legs, a prim smile tugging at her lips. “So tell me- and remember, this is for science-“ they each knew it was only half a lie- “How did that feel?”
“Well..”
--
As the sun set, Ryoko had finally brooded enough to allow herself to float gently down to the yard.
“You’re ruining Lord Tenchi, you know.”
Of course Ayeka would be waiting beneath the porch. She kept her voice flat.
“What?”
“He was perfectly normal before you came along.”
She turned, taking the princess dead in her sights.
“You think I’m doing this to Tenchi? So my powers have expanded to mind control now?”
“You encourage him to be… perverse.”
“There’s nothing perverse about knowing who you are.”
“And who are you then?”
“Whaddya mean? I’m Ryoko the devil caller, feared space pirate!”
“Pardoned of her crimes for services rendered, retired on Earth, and settled down with Tenchi Masaki.” Ayeka finished. “You cannot cling to that past if you want to be part of his future.”
“Her future.”
“Ryoko, stop. I say this for Tenchi’s sake. I don’t care what Tenchi is called. I don’t care what Tenchi looks like. I want Tenchi to be happy. And that happiness, unfathomably, is tied to you. Do you desire Tenchi’s happiness?”
“Of course.” Ryoko would walk through an ocean of fire and blood if it meant Tenchi’s smiling face at the other end. Ayeka suspected as much. Her voice climbed in pitch and speed as if any delay risked the words falling apart.
“Then be a part of all of Tenchi’s life. Not just the parts that are… sexy and fun and aggrandizing to you. Please. Any chance Tenchi and I had is… smoke.” Tears welled in her eyes. “I cannot tell you how it feels to cross a galaxy for someone who chooses another. But I would not have you learn now what it is like to have to cross it alone after losing them.”
Even Ryoko’s hair sagged beneath the weight of that thought. She tore her eyes away from Ayeka’s. Whatever words she had intended were strangled into a soft grunt. But she nodded. The princess brushed past her. For the barest moment, brief enough she might have imagined it, Ayeka’s hand squeezed her shoulder.
- 9
- 10
- 11
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No Need for Masculinity