Hiroki’s ship hovered above Earth. It was an hour later and he was investigating the land of the planet.
"Now, where should I land?" he said. He figured he’d better land quietly, apparently the Earthlings weren’t too involved with space. He picked a spot in the grassy mountains in Okoyama, Japan. He tried to land smoothly, but unfortunately, it was a very hilly area and it was hard make a smooth landing. So he crashed. Into a mountain, I might add.
The crash caused a little stir, because the Masaki family and company noticed. Tenchi, Ryoko, Ayeka, Mihoshi, Sasami, Washu, and Ryo-ohki hurried to the crash site, only to find a pile of rubble. Burned space ship pieces were everywhere. Trees were knocked down, bushes and grass and flowers were burned, and the air had a disgusting smell of smoke. The people pulled off the pieces to reveal nothing.
"There must've been someone piloting this ship," Ryoko said. "It really wouldn't have gotten here without a pilot." Hiroki hovered behind them. Ryoko had a strange sensation that they were being watched and turned around. Hiroki disappeared.
Deciding it was just another mystery that no one planned to solve, the people turned around to head back home. Tenchi stayed back to investigate it. When he found that there was no real evidence that someone was once inside, he headed inside too.
But along the way, something unusual happened. Hiroki appeared in front of Tenchi, and Tenchi gave a startled cry. Hiroki vanished and Tenchi went home, completely astonished and confused.
Tenchi retreated to his room to think. Though thinking in his room wasn’t much different from thinking in the living room, with constant disturbances and interruptions, it was still better. He wondered what happened with the space ship. Had it just been an abandoned ship? Who was the guy who appeared in front of him? He had an odd feeling that there was something unusual about that guy. Not just about having special powers and all that. No, there was something different…
"Tenchi!" Sasami called up the stairs. "Dinner time!"
He sighed with relief. Something that could take his mind of this puzzling incident. He exited his room and stepped down the stairs and into the living room to sit at the dinner table.
Apparently, what he thought he could take his mind off was not going to be taken off. It was a main discussion at the table.
"I mean," Ryoko said in a mouthful of sushi. "How could it have moved from where it came from if there wasn’t a pilot?"
"There could’ve been a pilot at first," Washu suggested. "Perhaps he didn’t have any food and died of starvation. Then the ship went out of control and landed here on earth."
Tenchi chose not to say anything about his fiasco with the guy. It would cause too much stir in them. He just sat there in silence, eating his food and listening to the hypotheses and estimations of his friends and family members.
When he went to bed, his mind wasn’t clear, either. It was just clouded with more puzzlement than before.
Hiroki had appeared in a dark, empty alley just beyond the crowded city street after his encounter with Tenchi. It was very dark. So dark, in fact, that not a soul out on the packed pavement, nor a gangster loitering in the alley, noticed that he just appeared there. He started to walk casually over towards the end of the alley to the street, when a group of tall, husky gangsters circled around him, banging their fists against their palms and snickering evilly. Hiroki narrowed his eyes.
"Where ya going, pretty boy?" one of them asked. He was biggest, and seemed to be the leader. "Give us all your cash and everything ya got on ya, and we’ll let you go with just a couple of punches." Hiroki didn’t move. "Now, pretty boy!" Hiroki still wouldn’t budge. "Fine then, you asked for it. Get’m, boys." At his command, every guy standing in the circle lurched toward him. The were only an inch away when Hiroki disappeared. Startled, the gangsters looked in around in alarm. Hiroki was up in the sky. He looked angry, he didn’t feel the need to battle such weaklings. He lifted his finger, and released a tiny homing energy ball, which went to each gangster and blew up on him lightly, just enough to knock him out. Once they were all out cold, he slowly lowered himself down to the ground and sauntered out towards the crowded city streets.
He started to look like any normal human being, walking along in the streets. This would only be a temporary place, until he went back to get more ideas with his plan. He started to plan how he would work his way into that kid’s house. The kid that he teleported in front of to get a good look at. He wanted to see what he looked like so he could derive a plan. A plan to get Ryoko back.
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On to Chapter 2: No Need to Leave
