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No Need for Masculinity	By : Richard_Priapi Category: +S to Z > Tenchi Muyo Views: 501 -:- 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
- 12
- 13
- 14
There was something uniquely refreshing to Tenchi about visiting the city in her school uniform. Here where nobody knew her, she could be just another small-town girl visiting the city, not the “Okayama Oddity,” as some of her classmates had taken to calling her.

“Hiiii Washu!” Tenchi’s voice bubbled as she crossed through the portal to Washu’s Shinjuku office. In the week or so since her outing at school she had drafted a minor point or two on her gene therapy she wanted to run by the former honorary head of the Universal University of Sciences. She spluttered to a stop as she entered the office proper. The cotton-candy-spiked genius waved at her absently, tending a waiting room packed elbow to elbow with patients.
“Come on in, Ten-chan. Grab a seat, I’ll be with you shortly.”

For a moment, chafed pride pinched Tenchi’s shoulders together- why should she have to wait; she was patient zero, and Washu was living out of her house! Her upbringing forced her to swallow the unkind thought with a sigh and pop into the first chair that opened up; there were about two dozen more than the original pair ringing the room. The men and women- and untold variations therein- filling the room were of every age, height, and weight. Even a foreigner or two rubbed elbows with natives in the crowd. Every eye crackled with an electric energy. Tenchi blinked, letting the import sink in. Waiting no longer seemed so heavy an inconvenience. A babyfaced man in a wispy goatee elbowed the person next to him, twitching a head in Tenchi’s direction. Furtive glances spread from them to the before and after portraits to Tenchi quickly enough that soon half the room had paid her some form of greeting as they shuffled by. Never the debutante, Tenchi waved back demurely, wishing the chair would swallow her. Was this what Ayeka felt like back in the Jurai court? If so, she had a newfound appreciation for the princess’ instinct to abandon ship.

“Thanks for waiting, Tenchi doll,” Washu showed her relief for a stationary moment with a weary breath, tucking flyaway hairs back into the loose assemblage framing her face. “Now, what can I do for you?”

Tenchi opened her mouth to speak, holding up a hand to gesture along with it. But for a moment, in the corner of her eye, the polish on her nails caught the light just right and lit a spark of pleasure that needed to be savored for a moment: it derailed her train of thought. Every idea flew from her head like birds running from a gunshot. Washu’s eyes wandered back across the clinic, mental circuits resuming their natural current.

“I… I was wondering what’s next. For my treatments.” There. That much should do, right?
A pale smile curled on Washu’s lips. She put a hand on Tenchi’s knee.
“I see, I see. You want two vaginas now. Gosh, I envy your creativity.”
Tenchi’s face burnt a deep red as several pairs of nearby ears perked up in her direction.
“What? No, nothing like that, it’s just…”
“Just what, sweetie?” Washu cocked her head, her emerald eyes twinkling innocently. Her finger hovered over a button on her wrist: If this is a complaint, I’ll turn her into a tanuki.

Tenchi paused. Her ideas were fizzling as quickly as they came. The little faults she kept finding with her face could be safely ignored under a coat of makeup. And the gripes she had about her figure, come to think of it, were no more dire than those she’d heard voiced by girls at school every day since junior high. Tenchi bowed her head apologetically.
“Nevermind. Thanks for your time, Washu.”
Washu kept her lips tight in the private smile of a teacher whose student had just mastered a challenging lesson. She fished under her labcoat- as Tenchi tried to stand, she slid an envoleop into her hand and pressed her gently back into the seat.
“A letter came for you, by the way.”
“A letter? Who do you know who would send me a-“
The envelope was clearly labeled: to Ten-chan from Amaya.
--
Kiyone untucked the service pistol its holster under her arm, the cold metal reassuringly solid in her hands. She aimed for the man holding her partner. Even Mihoshi deserved the protection afforded to a fellow officer in the field. If only the three of her would stand still. She aimed over the tallest Mihoshi, the shot sailing wide into one of the struts supporting the catwalk, melting a small hole in the metal. Masanosuke remained still, a bloodthirsty smile cut across his lips as he watched his men leap into action. Tochi used Mihoshi as a human shield, grimacing over her shoulder. With so many of his own people in the way he wouldn’t risk return fire from the cannon in his hand.

Mihoshi wrestled and writhed, her elbow bouncing helplessly off Tochi’s ribs until finally she turned enough to rock one into his jaw. He grunted and let her go- stumbling forward, a contraption fell from her coat pocket to the floor, its single yellow button facing down.
--
As Tenchi’s world shrank to envelope size, Washu made herself scarce again in the crowd. Now and then a blue flash of light popped behind the reception desk, each bringing a wave of joy that permeated the air. The letter was written in meticulously neat writing, pretty enough to be captions in a textbook- except for the affectation of replacing each period with a tiny heart.
Dear Ten-chan.
I apologize for my loss of composure at your good fortune. I have no excuses- it was unbecoming of me. Since we parted ways I took the time to talk to your friend, and she really is nothing if not a miracle worker. I’ve been passing the good word onto every queer I can get my hands on, and if my new hips don’t lie, she’ll have more patients than she can treat without hiring a full-time staff!
I… words can’t… fuck I was thinking about your name. It must be pretty important to you if you’ve kept it this long. To tell a family secret? I used to train as a Shingon Buddhist Monk. I know, what a waste of “me!” But I had half a memory poking me for a while now and I finally got the bottom of it.
Since you’re an old-fashioned sort of gal, you might like this old-fashioned sort of name. Flip your name backwards and you get Jiten: she was one of people said to have witnessed the first Bhuddha’s ascension. Not convinced? Well, Jiten was a monk who was born and buried male, but rose again as a woman and ascended to be a goddess of the twelve heavens. How’s that for a namesake? Anyway, it’s just a thought. I don’t know if I’ll see you around again. But even so, I’m glad I got to meet you once. Hang in there, Ten-chan.

Tenchi sat with her thoughts for a minute, the letter folded up in her lap. The rest of the room felt a thousand miles away, all conversation blending to the whisper of a breeze. Earth and heaven instead of heaven and earth. It did have a certain poetic symmetry. Her fingers absently drummed against the paper before she slipped it into her bag. Maybe. And maybe it was worth visiting Goldfinger again sometime, too. After she could drink, though, just to be safe.
--
Kiyone rolled and slithered like an eel. The horrible feeling that her skin was crawling and bubbling over her flesh did nothing to help her fighting talents. Still, the first man to reach her was wrapped up in a tangle of her limbs until his head met the hard ground seemingly of its own accord. As she let off wild shots, the group of insurgents encircling her held back, their ring pulsing into and away from her as openings were presented or denied. A few fell clutching shoulders, knees, a groin.
“Spiders! How did he afford a spider army? Get your damned mandibles away from me,” Kiyone wailed like a banshee, splaying a hand over her eyes and spraying fire. The circle retreated but kept a close rank- it was a matter of time before the gun’s power cell failed to keep up with such wild shooting.

Mihoshi’s own firearm was out now- while the fat tears in her eyes matched her unwillingness to put a live round into a living being, she tried anyway. A few shots slammed into the strut Kiyone had hit.
“Sorry doll, looks like you missed.” Tochi crouched low, drawing a knife from his belt.
Then his supposedly traditional woman pulled a GXP restraint bolo from her purse, casting the ball on its thin strand of charged-particle thread over the catwalk railing. When Tochi tried to tickle her ribs, she swung clumsily out of reach on her line. As metal groaned, Mihoshi allowed herself a lopsided smile. In the aftermath, witnesses would debate over drinks if she could have done it on purpose. The catwalk pitched forward, and the crowd scrambled- some for the exit, some to shield friends or shove them heroically out of the way, others into any form of cover. Masanosuke sprang deftly from the moving platform, landing on his feet with the slightest give in his knees. He strode through the chaos towards the backs of the retreating police.
Kiyone clutched her own face with twitching fingers, her free hand holding tightly on Mihoshi’s dress.

“Mihoshi, I can’t hail the Yagami; please tell me you have the landing beacon Washu gave you.”
“Oh of course, Kiyone! I have it right here- or was it here? Surely here- uh-oh…. Kiyone…”
Kiyone risked opening her eyes: Mihoshi’s air-filled head looked even more like a balloon as she checked her watch.
“I’m getting a ping that the beacon is active. But how can that be, I never hit the button?”
If Kiyone’s hands weren’t reflexively dancing across her body-god when did her own skin get so soft?- she could have strangled the blonde. Words choked past her fractured attentions.
“Mihoshi… where is it?”

Eyes locked ahead, Masanosuke failed to see the little silver device with the shiny yellow button that yielded under his foot. A few steps later, red lights began to flash throughout the building, the clipped voice of the recorded meteor alarm blaring “IMPACT IMMINENT. PLEASE EVACUATE CALMLY.”
Mihoshi’s cruiser slammed through the wall at three hundred miles an hour, front panels crumpling as its forcefields burnt out on the walls in front of it. Masanosuke was thrown to the ground as a wall of debris swept him off his feet like a wave. His vision swam, ears rang with a high-pitched whine. Bits of pulverized stone, metal and wood shed from him like confetti as he lurched to his feet just in time to watch two madwomen dash through the room and into the light craft’s short loading ramp, a molten hail of energy beams from their pistols keeping all heads but his lowered.

As the ship’s engines spun to life, filling the room with a volcanic burst of heat and roaring thunder, a slurred voice issued from the ship’s comms systems.
“Masanosuke! You will always remember this day as the day you were almost caught by Detective Sergeant Kiyone Maki-“ her final syllable was drowned by the ship’s sudden acceleration back through the facility’s stylish new back entrance, and up towards the edge of the atmosphere. Those tough enough to find their feet sent half-hearted potshots after it from guns drawn all too late.
Only a throbbing vein that stood out on his forehead belied Masanosuke’s calm and calculating expression. His hand seized a nearby acolyte. Slowly, clearly, he mouthed at the man, “Ready my ship.”
--
- 12
- 13
- 14
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No Need for Masculinity