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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
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In Tenchi’s room, Ryoko gently ran her fingers through Tenchi’s hair. She’d known her secret for a week; far too little time for the jet-black locks to have grown out even if Washu’s treatments were more noticeable in other spots. It didn’t stop her from imagining, though. Not the way it stopped Tenchi. Her heart lurched whenever she caught Tenchi looking towards a mirror; the way she winced or let her eyes slide past her own reflection weren’t lost on her. Ryoko might have been a ferocious criminal, but she’d known what it was like to want nothing more than to look at yourself and see a beautiful person worth loving. She remembered the school uniform in Tenchi’s closet.

“Hey, Tenchi!” she called in a sing-song tone.
“Hmm?”
“Let’s try out your Tenko skirt.”
The color drained from Tenchi’s tanned face.
“I don’t know-“
“It’ll be fine.” She planted a kiss on Tenchi’s ear that dissolved the new girl’s complaints to a low grumble. Tenchi had to use a few judicious slaps at Ryoko’s wrists to keep her from getting distracted as she “helped” Tenchi out of her boy clothes and into her alternative.
“And this!” She helpfully held out the brown, pigtailed wig.
“Oh, Ryoko, I don’t know…”
Ryoko shook the offending hairpiece at Tenchi, shaking tawny tendrils loose from their elastic supports.
“Oh fine. You’re incorrigible,” Tenchi scolded, trying to make her tone imply that was a bad thing.
“One last thing!” Ryoko pinched Tenchi’s cheeks hard.
“Ow! Ryoko, just what do you think you’re-“ she saw the mirror. “What… just who the hell is that?”
Ryoko’s voice was honey in Tenchi’s ear.
“That’s you, gorgeous. Look a little longer. Can you see what I see?”
Tenchi hated to admit it, but she could: even if she had to fudge the details a bit. The soft deposits of new body fat she had noticed in the bath looked different; hugged by tights, framed by pleats and supported by a lightly padded bra, they were almost…the word e c h o e d in her head- curves. She touched a hand to her cheek- the spots where she’d been pinched had a rosy blush. Looking herself in the eye this way felt easy. She thought of a worn picture in an old frame her father had; when had she started looking so much like mom?
“Jeez…”
Ryoko’s vice purred in her ear as she floated above Tenchi, massaging her shoulders.
“You like it?”
“Ryoko, I don’t… I mean what can I… YES.” She bounced on her heels, then froze. That jiggling feeling. Her eye twitched suddenly.
“I know that eye. What are you worried about?”
“I’m really going to have to tell my family before I have boobs, aren’t I?”
“We could always elope.”
Techi snort-laughed. “So that’s a yes.”
“Want to paint your nails?”
“Won’t people notice?”
“Not if we use the peel-off stuff.”
“They have that?”
“Yes!”
“Yes!”
--
“Kiyone! Mihoshi!” The squeal of delight rang out through the Masaki house, rattling the rafters.
Sasami swept through the home’s front door to sweep as much of either of the two women as she could get ahold of into a spirited hug, not caring if the flour from her apron spotted their clothes. She ushered them in like a giddy whirlwind, merrily filling them in on the latest Earth gossip.

A quiet presence exerted itself over the scene. Katsuhito greeted the girls as warmly as ever, but sighed inwardly as he took in their starched uniforms and the half-hearted light in Kiyone’s eye as she mouthed her way through pleasantries.
“I take it you are here on business, ladies?”
Sasami looked at them with a start, as if noticing their uniforms for the first time. She turned away with a wounded expression on her face. Mihoshi stood by Kiyone like a lost puppy, so it was up to her superior officer to respond to the question with a grimace.
“I’m afraid so. Is everyone here?”
“They are.”
Katsuhito felt unduly the weight of his years as he surveyed his son-in-law’s domain. In the quiet morning, a sonata played for his keen hearing. Raspy percussion kept pace in Washu’s lab, a tittering, flutelike series of notes trilled out in Tenchi’s room as he and Ryoko laughed at heavens knew what, punctuated by the gleeful triangle chime of Ryo-ohki wrestling with yet another carrot; that anything need disrupt the peaceful tune filled him with melancholy.
“You must be famished after your long journey. Perhaps what you have to say can wait until after lunch?”
Mihoshi perked up noticeably, tugging at Kiyone’s sleeve. “Can we, Kiyone, can we?”
Kiyone nodded at Yosho gratefully, managing a wan smile.
--
After the plates were licked clean, Kiyone stood and faced the group as if delivering a report to a government official.
“I’m sorry to say that we’re here to warn you about a possible threat related to the coup against Princess Ayeka.”
Expressions across the room turned grim. Ryoko touched a hand to her side.
“But how’s that possible? We defeated Kagato and ended the coup.” Tenchi’s modesty was not lost on the group. While she had personally struck the fatal blow to end Kagato’s rebellion, not a soul in the room had not risked or sacrificed everything in the name of saving Ayeka and stabilizing the interplanetary empire.
“Besides, I thought everybody involved took their resignations quietly to avoid getting themselves mixed up in more serious trouble." Washu added. She knew from personal experience how persuasive the threat of a Juraian imprisonment crystal could be. Mihoshi cut in.
“That was before Ayeka ran away from home! Boy, a lot of people all over Jurai space did not like that one bit!”
Mihoshi’s grin spread ear to ear. She was helping! Kiyone took a very deep breath as slowly as she could, pinching the bridge of her nose. Ayeka sat with her lips pursed as eyes around the room moved to her. Stoically she averted her eyes.
“Anyway… It’s true that many of the higher-ranking backers and small-fry cut deals to escape punishment. But I noticed that one face kept showing up attached to different files in our records after the coup. I dug a little deeper… clear away a lot of smoke mirrors and it all points to one man; Masanosuke.”
Only Ryoko reacted, barking a too-cocky laugh.
“The urban legend?” Seeing the blank stares of everyone around her, she continued. “Every criminal in the system knows a guy who knows a guy with a Masanosuke story. They all agree on just two details; he can get you anything you need for a price, and you had better stay on his good side. But he’s practically… a ghost.”

Ryoko eyed the detective with a newfound and begrudging respect. Pride burnt behind Kiyone’s eyes. Few people would have had the attention to follow the trail of breadcrumbs hidden in a web of shell companies, family registrations, tax forms and invoices. Half of them would have gladly given it up as a cold case when they saw where it led; a single dossier with more than half its fields blank or redacted. Kiyone had him fingered on a traffic stop in the Solar System?

“And that’s when we sent his file to every GXP officer in the universe! Now we’ve flushed him out and we have no idea what he maybe planning to do next!”
A vein throbbed in Kiyone’s forehead.
“And who is this we? It was your behind that sent that email.”
“Come on Kiyone…. Don’t be mad!”
“Mad? MAD? Over a little thing like this?” Her voice grew with each word as the blonde airhead backed away from her, hands raised plaintively.
Yosho cleared his throat. With tremendous difficulty, Kiyone steadied her breathing. Her expression softened.
“There might not be anything to worry about, really. This guy is as scarce as Ryoko says, so the odds are good he won’t show his face anytime soon. We’re just dotting our o’s and crossing our a’s here. This is the last known vehicle he was operating.”
She pulled a silver cylinder from her pocket, engaging its gossamer projection screen. A grainy, low-resolution image of a ship appeared; a black craft with a flat, circular nose leading along a low-profile cruciform fuselage and a constellation of five thrusters on backswept tails burning hell for leather as it rocketed out of frame.
“Aaaanyway, Kiyone and I had better get going now, the Commissioner says if we don’t run damage control by five on Friday, he’s going to-“
“Mihoshi!” Kiyone cried, clapping a hand across her partner’s protesting mouth.
“Just… if you see that ship, let us know immediately. There are a lot of people out there who would love to get their hands on this guy.”
--
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No Need for Masculinity