It had been a little over a month since the “Wheels of Fire” escapade and Tenchi and Ayeka were settling into a cosy little routine. The whole atmosphere of the Masaki household had been much calmer of late, especially since the love triangle of Ayeka, Tenchi and Ryoko had finally been resolved. Ayeka had won and she and Tenchi were now beginning to live as if they were already married. It’s true that they still slept in separate beds, but many couples who have been married for years do that too.

Ryoko, for her part felt much more at ease now she knew exactly where she stood in her relationship with Ayeka and Tenchi. The lady whom she considered her most venomous rival and the man whom she considered her rightful lover were now her two best friends.

Now, looking at this comfortable little domestic scene, it is somewhat surprising that our Lady Ayeka was to become embroiled in the world of film. No, she didn’t go anywhere near Hollywood - Japan has its own movie industry, thank you very much! All the same, anyone who knows her would not imagine her having anything to do with the world of entertainment.

The story began when Tenchi’s father, Nobuyuki Masaki, had one Kazuya Hokuzono and his then mistress Sawa Sajima as his guests in the Masaki household. “This is my son Tenchi,” began Nobuyuki. Tenchi bowed respectfully to Hokuzono and Miss Sajima. But while Hokuzono bowed in return, Miss Sajima gazed at Tenchi with vacant eyes. Only when she saw Hokuzono bowing out of the corner of her eye did she bow herself.

“Oh, sorry, I was miles away,” she giggled.

“And this is his fiancée Ayeka, her sister Sasami,” continued Nobuyuki. Hokuzono acknowledged the two princesses but Miss Sajima continued to stare at Tenchi. “And that’s Li’l Washuu, Ryoko, her pet Ryo-oh-ki and Mihoshi,” said Nobuyuki, indicating the pint-sized genius, her finest creation to date, an irresistibly cute creature and a thoroughly endearing officer of the Galaxy Police. “And of course, you’ve met my father Katsuhito Masaki,” said Nobuyuki, concluding the introductions.

“Well, the reason my lady and I are taking time out here is to escape the mayhem of Tokyo,” explained Hokuzono. “I’m working on a movie script and I feel that this place will give me the peace and quiet I need to get my work completed properly.”

* * * * *

After the dinner was over and everyone in the house was settled down for the evening, Hokuzono and his mistress were shown to their room. Ayeka took Tenchi to one side and said in a low voice, “You know, I don’t think Mr Hokuzono made a very wise move looking for peace and quiet here.”

“You don’t?” said Tenchi. “It’s a lot more peaceful here than it was three months ago. For one thing you and Ryoko don’t fight any more and wreck the house in the process.”

“No, but we still have the occasional wild party and wreck ourselves in the process. And remember when Ryoko used to pour booze down your throat whether you wanted it or not?”

“Ugh, I’d rather not remember,” groaned Tenchi. “It usually took my brain two whole days to recover.”

“Well, she may do the same to Mr Hokuzono or his lady friend. It may not have much effect on Sawa, though. She doesn’t appear to have a brain.”

“I have to agree with you about that. She didn’t take her eyes off me the whole time she was in the room with us.”

“I’ve a feeling that Mr Hokuzono is only keeping her around until someone better comes along,” said Ayeka, “and that Sawa is only tagging along until someone better-looking comes along.”

* * * * *

Sure enough, the next few days were filled with petty annoyances for Hokuzono. He found it hard enough to concentrate on his work while he could hear Tenchi outside practising his fighting. When Sasami wasn’t planted in front of the TV watching kiddie cartoons and giggling intermittently, Mihoshi was planted in front of the TV watching ‘Moldiver’, her favourite show, or seemingly endless hours of brainless soap operas. Ryoko made her presence felt by singing and playing air guitar to ‘Megadeth’, ‘AC/DC’ and ‘Iron Maiden’ records and Ryo- oh-ki raced around the house with Sasami on her trail. The noises that came from Washuu’s laboratory are too diverse to be adequately described in a single paragraph. Of course it is the prerogative of a genius to make weird and wonderful sounds as she works.

Only Lady Ayeka was tolerably quiet and self-effacing. During the day she would practise her sewing and embroidery, read her girls’ comics (or Shoujo Manga, if you don’t mind peppering your English with incongruous Japanese words), draw her own comics (or doujinshi) and make tea.

At night, however, when she slept she was quite a different person. As Hokuzono tried to work on his movie script in the small hours, he could clearly hear Ayeka talking in her sleep. Among all the gobbledygook he could hear her calling, “Tenchi- sa-a-a-a-a-ma-a-a-a-a!”

These petty annoyances on their own were bad enough, but to have them day after day was stretching Hokuzono’s mind to breaking point. To crown it all, his relationship with Sawa had gone distinctly sour. What Ayeka had said about them was in fact true. There was no real feeling in this supposed love, and now that Hokuzono had been spending the past few days immersed in his movie script, Sawa had become more vociferous and had taken to starting arguments with him to get him to pay attention to her.

All these things conspired to give Hokuzono what was perhaps the worst case of ‘writer’s block’ in recent history. His condition was obvious to all of the Masaki family as they sat down to dinner one evening. Just as the meal was being finished and the dishes taken away, Nobuyuki rather unwisely asked Hokuzono, “How’s your script coming along?”

At that point Hokuzono’s floodgates opened and eight days of repressed grievances came pouring out. “It’s not coming along at all!” he cried. “I haven’t been able to write anything for the past three days. All I’ve done is sit for hours on end staring at half a page of nothing and a blank word processor screen. And I’ve got to get the script to the publishers and the film studio in two weeks. I’ve already missed one deadline and I can’t decide for the life of me where the plot of the movie is going next...”

The whole company were taken aback. Ryoko, Mihoshi and Washuu wondered how the peace and quiet of the Masaki household could have driven Hokuzono to this sorry state.

Sasami spoke up, “You might find it easier to work in the court of Jurai.” At this she got a reproachful look from her elder sister. Sasami quickly put both hands over her mouth for saying something she should not.

After Hokuzono retired for the night Tenchi said, “Sasami’s got a point, though. Mr Hokuzono really needs more of a change of scene than this.”

“He needs somewhere that really is peaceful,” said Ayeka. “We haven’t exactly been going about our daily business in silence.”

“That ruddy girlfriend of his isn’t helping either,” muttered Ryoko. “She’s got about as much personality as a squashed fly.”

“Actually, he really needs to go back into the city,” suggested Yosho. “I’ve seen this happen to a lot of fan fiction writers. Sometimes you need the hustle and bustle of the city to get your creative juices going. And he definitely needs to jettison that Miss Sakajima, or whatever her name is.”

* * * * *

A little later Tenchi and Ayeka approached Hokuzono as he sat staring at a blank word processor screen. Miss Sajima was leafing idly through back issues of Japan’s equivalent of the ‘National Enquirer’.

“Mr Hokuzono, we’ve been discussing your problem,” Ayeka began, “and we think the best way you can get your movie script finished is to go somewhere you can find inspiration.”

“You know, you could be right,” said Hokuzono. “I’ve had writer’s block before and I tried to cure it by shutting myself away from the rest of the world like a hermit. It didn’t work.”

“May we see what you’ve got so far?” asked Ayeka.

“By all means,” replied Hokuzono, producing some thirty pages of A4 paper.

Looking through the script, Ayeka and Tenchi wondered what sort of movie this was supposed to be. “I can see some romantic plots developing, but there’s not much in the way of action,” noted Tenchi.

“That’s because it’s basically a romantic film,” said Hokuzono, “and we’re working to a very low budget.”

“And that’s why you can’t beef up the script with any action scenes?” said Tenchi.

“Precisely,” said Hokuzono. “So you can see why I’m so frustrated. That script you’ve got now won’t take up more than forty minutes. This is supposed to be a feature- length film!”

“Can’t they give you time to get the script finished?” asked Ayeka.

“No,” replied Hokuzono. “The studio bosses say they’ve set the deadline back far enough. And if I don’t turn in a script in two weeks they’ll sue me.”

“Well, surely it would be better to take the script to them as it is,” said Ayeka. “To my mind it’s better to turn in part of a script than no script at all.”

“Just a minute!” Sawa butted in. “Are you planning to make up the movie as you go along?”

“That’s about the only option we have right now, Sawa,” said Hokuzono.

“Oh, no,” Sawa protested. “If I’m going to be the female lead I want to know exactly what I’m going to be doing on the screen before we start shooting. It’s in the contract.”

Tenchi and Ayeka exchanged a glance that said ‘Oh jeeze!’ Then Ayeka spoke up, “Look, let’s all go down to the film studio, see what resources we have and what we can do to make this a proper movie.”

* * * * *

The following morning, two men and two women disembarked from the Bullet Train at Tokyo Station. One of them was Kazuya Hokuzono carrying the script for his movie under his arm and bearing a rather uncertain look on his face. The other man was not so uncertain; Tenchi Masaki wasn’t sure how the day would go, but at least it wouldn’t be boring. Leading the group was a lady with a confident and determined aspect and carrying a digital camera and lap- top computer; if nothing came of their trip to Tokyo, at least Lady Ayeka could do some sightseeing. She would also have something to tell her friends when she got back to Jurai. Bringing up the rear was a sour-faced young woman; Sawa Sajima desperately wanted to get back into the entertainment industry after her career as an idol singer went belly up before it had even begun.

Before braving the executives of Toshinden Studios, Hokuzono suggested that the four of them fortify themselves with a little drink.

“But it’s only a quarter past nine,” said Ayeka. “Even Ryoko doesn’t drink that early in the morning.”

“Maybe not,” replied Hokuzono, “but I need to be completely at ease when meeting the top brass in the Studio. They have a way of winkling out of you the facts you don’t want them to know.”

They went to a bar where Hokuzono had a friend who could circumvent the licensing laws at will and before long Hokuzono had before him the tipple of his choice. It was almost indescribable in its foul taste and totally indescribable in the effect it had on his brain. Suffice it to say, he passed out and no effort on anybody’s part could revive him.

“Oh, for heaven’s sake!” groaned the bar owner as he and the others stood over the comatose form of Hokuzono. “I warned him time and again about drinking the stuff in one gulp. They only do that in the movies.”

“Well, he is a movie scriptwriter,” said Sawa. “They don’t always live in the real world.” Sawa bent down and rifled through Hokuzono’s pockets. “Bingo!” she exclaimed when she found what she was looking for.

“What is it?” asked Tenchi.

“My pass back into show business,” replied Sawa, holding up Hokuzono’s entry pass to Toshinden Studios and grinning the kind of grin which to Tenchi and Ayeka was a portent of evil.

“Um, Miss Sajima, haven’t you forgotten something?” Ayeka asked in a singing voice. “Oh, Kazuya?” said Sawa blandly. “Get him to a hospital, or better still, drop him into a vat of black coffee.”

Ayeka gave an exasperated sigh. “Do you know what else you’ve forgotten?” she said, holding up Hokuzono’s script.

“Oooh, I’ll have that!” burbled Sawa, reaching out hurriedly, but Ayeka whipped the script behind her back before Sawa could snatch it from her.

“Oh, no, you don’t!” Ayeka retorted. “You’ll use your pass and I’ll use the script together so that all three of us will gain entry to the studio.”

“You’ll what?” squealed Sawa. “Why would they let you in? What have you ever done for Kazuya?”

After about half an hour of wrangling between the princess and the floozy the latter relented. After Hokuzono was taken to hospital, Tenchi, Ayeka and Sawa all got past the security and the concierge. Fifteen minutes later, as the three of them were wondering where they should go next in the labyrinth of corridors, they came face to face with a skinny, scruffy young gentleman who appeared to have an overactive thyroid.

“Good gravy! Sawa Sajima!” he exclaimed. “What are you doing back here? Hoping to revive your career? Let me save you the time and trouble, sweetie, you’d get further working in a fast food joint. You’d be better paid too.”

“Actually,” Ayeka interrupted the man’s flow. “We’re here on behalf of Kazuya Hokuzono. We’ve got the script here for his new movie.”

“Hokuzono? He finally managed to finish the script?” The young gentleman’s eyes widened. “That means Hell has finally frozen over! And you are...”

“Ayeka Masaki Jurai,” stated the princess, sorely tempted to reveal her status on Jurai - not that it would have carried a lot of weight in the Toshinden Studio. “And this is my fiancé, Tenchi Masaki.”

“Great, well, I’m Hiro Takase, pleased to meet you both,” said the young gentleman, and he turned to take them to his boss.

Seeing Sawa staying behind, Ayeka called to her, “Aren’t you coming with us?” But Sawa stood still with a malicious frown on her face until the others were out of her sight. Then she made an about turn and stalked off cursing to herself.

* * * * *

After walking down what seemed to be twenty kilometres of corridors, Mr Hiro Takase, Tenchi and Ayeka came to an opulently decorated restaurant. Once inside, Hiro made a bee line for a table where a corpulent, middle-aged man was seated with several girls who seemed to be aspiring idols. “Mr Okawara, I’ve got two youngsters with Hokuzono’s script...”

“Not now, Takase,” said Okawara testily, then suddenly he started. “Hokuzono? Kazuya Hokuzono? Well, I never! I thought he’d never get the movie script finished. He didn’t even have a working title for it the last time I spoke to him. All right. I’ll have a quick butcher’s at it later on.”

“Well, that’s it,” said Takase. “You’re in. I have to say, though, you were pretty crafty using that Sawa Sajima to get you past the security. She’s still pretty important here even though she hasn’t worked for four years. Though you can probably tell I don’t get on with her, and neither does Okawara. All the time he’s been a director he’s always had some bust up with her and every time she’s walked off the set and left him in the lurch. She hasn’t exactly hit it off with Matsui either...” By this stage the three of them were back at the concierge. “Those are your passes and your room keys and the directions to your rooms are on these sheets,” said Takase as he foisted two each of passes, papers and hotel room keys on Tenchi and Ayeka. Then, walking at an impossibly fast pace, he led them to their room.

It was now 10:40 a.m. For the next hour Tenchi and Ayeka sat on opposite sides of a king-size bed, holding the script, keys, passes and a plethora of papers and wondering how so much could have happened to them in such a short space of time.

* * * * *

Sawa Sajima sat at a table in a bar commonly used by the studio staff. She had half a glass of scotch before her as well as four empty glasses. Those who didn’t know her passed by giving her nothing more than a glance; to them she looked much like any other woman in the street. Those who did know her dared not approach her; they had seen her in her present mood many times before.

So Sawa just sat and drank and sat...

* * * * *

Just after midday Tenchi telephoned the hospital to check up on Hokuzono’s condition. “I’m afraid it’s not good news,” said the nurse at the other end of the line. “We checked Hokuzono’s medical records and we found that he’s had a drink problem for the past twelve years.”

“But he shouldn’t have passed out like that after one shot of booze,” said Tenchi. “Unless it was a Pan- Galactic Gargle- Blaster,” he added (hoping in the off chance that the nurse had also read ‘The Hitch-Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy’ by the late Douglas Adams).

“There’s more to it,” said the nurse. “Mr Hokuzono had been taking medication to give him an aversion to alcoholic drink. But the way it works is, if you take a swig of booze you get ill and throw up. And when you throw up you reject the medicine.”

“I think I’ve heard of this before,” said Tenchi. “So in that case you may as well have not taken the medicine at all.”

“Yes, that’s just it,” the nurse chimed in. “And the case with a lot of hardened alcoholics is they go back to their old drunken habits. They get drawn into this vicious circle of getting dead drunk, getting dried out, put on medication, take another swig of drink, get sick and go on another bender...”

“That really is sad,” sighed Tenchi. “And I suppose Hokuzono is one of those hardened alcoholics.”

“I’m afraid so,” said the nurse. “Only, for some reason he didn’t get sick; he just passed out.”

“So, is Hokuzono able to come to the phone?” asked Tenchi.

“I’m afraid not,” replied the nurse. “He’s still unconscious. Also, he has alcohol poisoning, so even when he regains consciousness, he’ll still have to stay in hospital for at least two days.”

After he had related all that the nurse had said to Ayeka, Tenchi had more questions than before about Hokuzono. “I don’t understand it. What makes people like Hokuzono abuse themselves like that?”

“I think we’re about to find out for ourselves,” said Ayeka with some foreboding. “The script - or what there is of it - is pretty good, but it seems that we’ll have to complete it ourselves.”

“Shouldn’t we wait until Hokuzono recovers and maybe then he could tell us where the plot is going.”

“That’s no good,” said Ayeka. “Did you see the state of him last night? He was a wreck - though not as much of a wreck as he is now - but he’d run out of ideas altogether. We’ve got to help him because he can’t help himself.”

“But even if we get the script finished we still don’t know who any of the actors are going to be or what props we’ll need or where we’re going to get the money from.”

“We’ll see if we can get a hold of that fellow Hiro Takase. He might be able to give us a hand.”

Forty minutes later, Tenchi hung up the phone. “We’re not going to be able to speak to Takase until six o’clock at least,” he told Ayeka.

“Well, that’ll give us plenty of time to finish this script,” declared Ayeka as she fished out her lap-top computer with an enthusiasm that made Tenchi think ‘Oh, man! What are we mixed up with now?’ She set up the word processing program, turned to the last page of Hokuzono’s script and began typing at a speed only surpassed by Li’l Washuu.

* * * * *

At nine o’clock precisely Hiro Takase and Noboru Okawara came to the hotel room where Tenchi and Ayeka were staying. There the young couple were making revisions to the now completed movie script. The first thing that astonished Takase and Okawara was having an eighty-six- page script handed to them. It wasn’t just the length of the script that they found remarkable, but the fact that it was all in eight-point type - the smallest font that Ayeka could get on her computer.

“Holy smoke!” exclaimed Takase. “How long is this movie going to be? This looks like the first draft of ‘War and Peace’!”

“Well, this is only the first rough draft of the script,” replied Ayeka.

“Does it have any kind of title?” asked Okawara.

“No. Hokuzono never gave us any information about the script except that it was to be a romance of sorts,” said Tenchi.

“Yes, that’s just like Hokuzono,” sighed Takase. “He’s always been a great one for springing surprises on us!”

“He said he had about forty minutes worth of film at one point when he had thirty pages or so done,” said Ayeka, off the record.

Okawara added a more serious note to the conversation. “I should warn you that we’ll be making this film on a very tight budget. The resources we have at hand are very limited - more limited than your script seems to allow.”

And who should barge into Tenchi and Ayeka’s room but a soused Sawa Sajima? “So, I’ve found you at last. I suppose Hokuzono has snuffed it.”

“No, actually, he has not,” sneered Okawara. “And as proof of the fact, he was well enough to turn in a full script.”

Sawa gaped and blinked. “I don’t believe it! The last time I saw him he was zonked out underneath a bar - and this was at half past nine this morning.”

“Then the hangover must have inspired him, because he’s typed up eighty-six pages of script,” said Okawara.

“We’ve got enough of a script to make a film the length of ‘Doctor Zhivago’,” Takase put in.

Turning back to Tenchi and Ayeka, Okawara said, “We may not be able to get all the props this script calls for.”

“Why’s that?” asked Ayeka. “Is there something else going on here?”

“Yes, unfortunately,” sighed Okawara. “My rival director, Goro Matsui, is hogging most of the studio’s equipment. He’s in the middle of directing ‘Mühlacker’, an epic space adventure - at least that’s what the blurb says. Don’t get me wrong, though, I’ve a lot of respect for him and he has a lot of respect for me. But just this once I’d like to steal the march on him and get out a really cheap movie before he can get his epic done.”

“Well, we’ve got the script,” said Ayeka. “All we really need now is lights, cameras and actors and whatever props we can get our hands on- Hey, where are you going?”

Sawa was leaving in a huff. No one had spoken to her for nearly five minutes. “There’s nothing in it for me,” she spat.

“How do you know?” said Ayeka. “You haven’t spoken to Hokuzono yet. Ask him nicely and he might at least consider it.”

“Oh, yes?” pouted Sawa. “And then what?”

“Look,” said Takase with some impatience, “your career as an idol never got off the ground the first time and you haven’t worked for four years. But you still have a connection with Hokuzono. So ask him. The worst he’ll do is say ‘scram!’”

“Wait,” retorted Sawa, “I say we do this movie right away and to heck with what anybody says about it!”

“For once I agree with Miss Sajima,” said Takase.

“Shouldn’t we all get some sleep first?” said Tenchi. “This has been a really long day for all of us.”

“First we’ll get a cast and the props together,” said Okawara, “and in the morning we’ll move on to getting the script straight. I’m more eager than ever to get one step ahead of Matsui. We’ve got a full script and that’s a start. I might even be able to pinch a few props from Matsui’s set!”

* * * * *

At eight o’clock the next morning a cast and a lot of movie props were hastily assembled. Props for the interior of a house, a farmstead, a hospital, an alien landscape and a space ship littered the studio floor. Several cowboys, two American football players, a scuba diver, an astronaut, three schoolgirls, a man in a gorilla costume, a pig (two hundred kilos of it!), a dog, a penguin, a chimpanzee, a parrot, a goose and a horse milled about. In the middle of it stood Sawa Sajima nursing a blinding hangover and Hiro Takase playing the leading romantic couple. Both of them were doing their best to learn their lines for the first scene of the day.

At the side a bleary-eyed Tenchi and Ayeka sat watching the movie take shape.

At 8:15am precisely, Noboru Okawara called out, “Positions, everybody! Scene one, take one. Lights, cameras... ACTION!”

* * * * *

In the hospital near the Toshinden studios Kazuya Hokuzono slowly woke up. He could hear the staff gossiping about a movie that was just starting to be shot. He also heard his own name mentioned a few times before he drifted back to sleep.

* * * * *

It had been such a bizarre fortnight for Tenchi and Ayeka. Not only did they have to deal with an overly enthusiastic director but they also had to steer clear of overexcited animals as they ran hither and thither around the set. Then, on several occasions, some of the supporting actors with varying degrees of musical talent decided to pass the time between takes by having an impromptu jam session. They were apparently unaware that some of the cameras were still running. Other gaffes and strange things abounded, one man smoked a cigarette on the surface of the moon, another took the helmet off his space suit, swigged heavily from a flask and put his helmet back on. Hiro and Sawa played out a scene with a melodramatic quarrel, oblivious of the penguin that was standing right in front of the camera and staring into the lens.

Now, thirteen days after Tenchi and Ayeka came into the Toshinden studios, they put all the film together and edited it. But there was still one thing they had forgotten and they couldn’t think for the life of them what it could be.

When the Big Boss of Toshinden Studios met Tenchi and Ayeka just as they had finished putting the master copy of the film into the can, he said, “Well, you folks have been keeping yourselves busy. I must say, I’ve got to congratulate you for keeping the production costs so low. I didn’t think it was possible to do a movie these days for just a hundred thousand yen. In fact I don’t think anybody could make a movie that cheap since the days of the silent movies.”

“So, what’s the movie called anyway?” asked the Big Boss. “Nobody has bothered to tell me yet.”

‘Ack!’ both Tenchi and Ayeka thought simultaneously, ‘I knew we’d forgotten something!’

Then Ayeka, thinking instantly, as politicians often have to, replied, “‘Thirteen Days.’”

* * * * *

(You don’t really have to be familiar with ‘Evangelion’ to read these next paragraphs, but it might help.)

It was a fairly cool morning in Tokyo-3, but it was bound to get blooming hot later. In classroom 2-A, the subject of the gossip among the pupils was not the latest Angel attack or how cute Shinji was or what a gorgeous babe Misato was. It was about a film that premiered the previous night in the city.

“You were there, too?” said Touji to Shinji.

“Yeah. I didn’t expect to enjoy it but I did. Rei wanted to see it, because it had Sawa Sajima in it.”

Asuka muttered to herself, “So that’s where he was last night. On a date with Wonder Girl!”

“Who’s Sawa Sajima?” asked Kensuke.

“She’s an actress who appeared in an old magazine that Commander Ikari keeps on his desk,” replied Rei. “It was a blooming weird film,” Shinji went on. “It didn’t start out too well...”

“I know what you mean,” said Hikari. “Boy meets girl, boy loses girl...”

“But then the boy finds her hairs in the bathplug and makes a clone of the girl,” continued Shinji.

Kensuke piped up, “And then he takes her to bed, and when he wakes up he comes back to find his whole house full of clones of the girl.”

“And what about that bit where half a dozen clones of the girl go to Washington and run off with the president?” chimed in Touji.

“Am I the only one in the whole class who hasn’t seen that stupid movie?” wondered Asuka.

“There’s one really weird bit where the girl is about to face with a gunslinger in a bar, then she pulls out a guitar and everybody starts singing ‘Hey Jude’, and when she’s finished, the cowboy just shoots her!”

“And then there’s the bit where all the naked clones run past a pub,” Shinji cut in, “and the original comes along and asks a drunk staggering out ‘Excuse me, did you see a group of about forty girls run past? They looked like me but they were all naked.’”

“And then at the end all the clones of the girl regroup, gang up on the boy and eat him alive!” said Kensuke with a gruesome grin.

Just then Shinji noticed Rei frowning and apparently thinking hard. “Hey, Rei, what are you thinking about?”

“There’s one person in the credits who was one of the sub-directors of the movie,” said Rei. “Tenchi Masaki, his name was. I think I know that name from somewhere.”

* * * * *

Later that week, Hokuzono received a handsome payment from Toshinden Studios for his ‘horrendously weird but excellent script’. Even though he couldn’t remember which script the letter could have been talking about, he wasn’t about to look a gift horse in the mouth. He pulled out a well-thumbed diary that was five years out of date and looked through the hundreds of phone numbers. Then he rang up Sawa to ask her if she’d fancy a night out.

But something still bothered him. Why was everyone connecting him to that oddball movie ‘Thirteen Days’?

* * * * *

The next day, Sawa received a letter from Harry the Singing Cactus Records saying that they had been impressed by her singing in the movie ‘Thirteen Days’ and asking if she would be interested in coming for a voice audition.

Well, it wasn’t a major record label, but this was better than nothing. She picked up the receiver and dialled the number of the record company.

* * * * *

If the film did remarkably well in Tokyo-3, it achieved cult status on Jurai. When news that Tenchi’s name was prominent among the opening credits, Emperor Azusa took time to see the movie in a private screening. The Empresses Funaho and Misaki were pleased with what they saw. They perceived it as evidence that Tenchi was taking a wide variety of interests in life and this attitude would rub off on Ayeka and possibly Sasami as well.

Some weeks later Ayeka received a letter from her father. “I have seen the direction that Tenchi seems to be taking with this film,” he wrote, “and I am more doubtful than ever that he will be any good to you as a husband.”

Ayeka’s heart sank like a stone. She wrote back, “Father, you are wrong. He has been there for me all the time. He has loved me, respected me and supported me unstintingly for more than a year and he will do so for the rest of his life. One day you will understand this.”

* * * * *

“Tenchi Muyo” and all its characters are owned by Pioneer/AIC and numerous others. The characters of Sawa Sajima, Kazuya Hokuzono, Hiro Takase and Noboru Okawara are my creation, as are Toshinden Studios and all that happens in them.