Tenchi. He was so proud of Tenchi. His grandson had taken up a sword he didn’t quite know how to use to take up a fight he didn’t quite understand, all to rescue a woman who brought destruction and chaos into his life. The other women in his grandson’s life had followed him into danger without a second thought, though Ayeka had balked briefly at the reasons for that danger.
Ayeka had come back, briefly, to say good-by and tell him of his grandson’s final moments. His last words, “I would rather die than forsake any one of them,” told Katsuhito that Tenchi would have considered the mission a success. All the girls he set out to protect emerged without lasting physical harm. However, the priest of the Masaki shrine knew those girls would carry the emotional injury for a long time to come.
The elder of his two half-sisters had been functioning by means of her ingrained mask of dignity and protocol, but the young woman behind the mask had retreated so far within herself as to be effectively absent. A soulless doll, a parody of a proper princess, had politely thanked him for the hospitality of his family, expressed sympathy for his loss, promised to deliver news of his condition to their parents, and returned the Tenchi-ken. While Sasami and Mihoshi hugged him and wept into his robes, Ayeka simply looked on with the schooled bland civility of a trained diplomat, and not a hint of life in her eyes. Then all three of them left aboard Tsunami.
He had not seen Ryoko since Kagato took her, but Katsuhito was sure the space pirate was in the same condition as Ayeka. Her grief would take a more violent form, but the violence would be as much a mask to hide behind as Ayeka’s calm courtesy. Ryoko took Ryo-Ohki from the scene of the battle and fled into space. The woman or girl, Washu, who claimed to be her mother, had pursued her. Katsuhito took another sip of sake, toasting the stars and where ever they were. If there was any measure of justice in the universe, the odd family might be able to recover as a family. If there were justice to be found, Ayeka would come out of her shell before the pain consumed her utterly.
If justice were to be found, the “old” man sitting in the tree with a great deal of sake in his belly was in for some heavy karmic retribution. His perch stretched over the waters of the lake, and he leaned out to look at his wavering reflection, the reflection of an old man. Loathing surged through him and one of the empty bottles in the tree with him plunged through the image, destroying it. Yet the wrinkles and enlarged joints of his hands remained, and as he stared at them, his reflection reformed below.
Running and hiding. Hiding and running. Was that all there was to him? He ran after Ryoko as an excuse to get away from the pressures and prejudice of Jurai. Once here, he hid from the galaxy, never realizing what it would do to Ayeka’s heart when he failed to return. He hid the truth about Ryoko from Tenchi with stories and fabrications. He continued to hide behind the mask of physical age when his identity was revealed. He sent an unprepared boy and a collection of girls after one of the most dangerous and outright evil beings in the known universe, while the “old man” stayed behind. Ayeka returned, an empty shell, and still he hid, lest the revelation of his deception destroy what was left of her.
Now they were all gone. Tenchi, the women who loved him, his son-in-law who could not bear to return to his house now that his son had been taken as his wife had. All the “old man” had was himself, and he found that he didn’t like the person he saw in the waters below him. Katsuhito…No, Yosho dropped the mask and looked on his true face for the first time in many years. Still dissatisfied, he sent the window-glass spectacles after the bottle hurled earlier.
There he was, the cowardly prince finally found something he couldn’t run or hide from.
Himself.
No more running. No more hiding.
Yosho was done with trying to leave his problems behind.
Yosho wasn’t going to send anyone else off to fight his battles.
Yosho was going to spend the rest of his life living up to the example of his grandson, who cared for and defended others before himself.
Yosho was going to be very sick in the next few minutes.
A gentle hand patted him on the back and a familiar voice said, “There, there.” Jerking around, he glimpsed Mihoshi in a rather revealing outfit before surprise and alcohol in his bloodstream combined to tip him off the branch.
As he fell, the world vanished into white light.
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(Posted Mon, 28 Feb 2005 02:51)
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らんま1/2 © Rumiko Takahashi
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