First things first, many thanks to Plug for a long ago shot of encouragement which may have been the reason I actually continued working on it during a stretch when my motivation was waning. Many thanks also to him for proofing this whole thing. I appreciate it greatly!
Many thanks also to True Sheol for pointing me down the path which led to a better story, and for some early proofing and idea refinement!
Thanks also to Mayhem for some help defining some story ideas!
Special thanks to the people at C&C and the AFC for providing an environment allowing me to explore my limited knowledge of Tenchi lore and get suggestions along the way.
Author's Notes:
Well, what can I say, this has been a long time in the making. I'm finally done! Wake me in a year...
Thanks to everyone for encouragement along the way, and thanks to anyone who's made it far enough to read the whole thing! Apologies to all of you who may have read the first 8-10 chapters I had posted a year ago who were forced to wait this past year for me to actually get it finished.
Now that I'm done, a few things I feel compelled to say. This story should in no way be considered as condoning the notion of a "harem" ending for Tenchi's "love life." It's nothing more than a response to the numerous pieces of fic I've read where Tenchi chooses one of the girls, and the others almost invariably get short shrift to the extent that they were put aside as if they never really cared. It was terribly important to me to try and write a story which acknowledges all the girls do have feelings for him, though Kiyone was really just an add-on when I decided to make the bad guys criminals from the past of an old partner of Mihoshi. I have my favorite, just like everyone else, but the story wasn't a tool to make him choose her.
In case you couldn't guess, I essentially took one of the aspects of Tenchi which appealed to me, namely Tenchi's struggle to have a simple life when everything seems to conspire to complicate it, and amplified it as much as I thought I could get away with. I think the story got away from me a few times, but all in all it's pretty much what I was shooting for.
The criminals developed from a question I've had for quite a while now, that being "Why is Japanese culture such a small percentage of the earth's population if the earth is a Juraian colony world?" Eventually I decided on Earth being sort of a melting pot society for the galaxy, having bounced around from one place's control to another's over time. Thus, once I decided my villains would be criminals, it eventually grew out to be the mafia who come from the area which used to be the heart of the Roman Empire. In the end, Romartans, a former galactic power. I couldn't decide on a good way to really explore that idea in the story, though, so I left most of the background out in the end.
Strange how things happen sometimes. A simple idea turned into a bigger idea, and before I knew it I decided to try and write a story just for the sake of trying to write a story. This was certainly not something that I expected to ever be doing, growing up despising English classes. Thank goodness for a few people with the patience to point out how truly lacking some of my initial writing was.
That's that. I'm a first time and maybe last time author who had a blast. Thanks for reading!
- ericchri