Galaxy 1001D presents:
Bram Stoker's Kagato
Starring Tenchi Masaki as Tenchi Harker
Ryoko Hakubi as Ryoko Westenra
Washu Hakubi as Doctor K. T. von Washu
Aeka Masaki Jurai as Ayeka Murray
Sasami Masaki Jurai as Sasami Morris
Mihoshi Kuramitsu as Mihoshi Renfield
Kiyone Makibi as Doctor Kiyone Seward
Special Guest Star Kagato as Count Vladimir Kagato
Special Guest Star Kagato as Count Vladimir Kagato
Tenchi Muyo and all related characters are © AIC/Pioneer. Additional dialog by Mel Brooks © Castle Rock Studio. This story is written solely for entertainment and is not intended to make a profit in any way.
Based on "Dracula" created by Bram Stoker
And "Tenchi Muyo" created by Masaki Kajishima
Chapter Four: A Night at the Opera
In the fashionable private box at the Pioneer Theatre in the west end of London, a tuxedoed Tenchi was flanked on either side by lovely ladies.
Ayeka was radiant. Ryoko's sabotaging of her hair dye had actually won Tenchi's admiration. "I just love the opera! How I love this palace of art and beauty!"
"Oh yes Miss Ayeka," Tenchi agreed. "The opera is astonishing! The music is frothed with love, hate, sensuality and unbridled passion... All the things in my life I've managed to suppress so far."
"Grr," Ryoko was not happy with the state of affairs. Rather than be embarrassed to be seen with the purple-haired Ayeka, Tenchi seemed to be proud to be at her side. What to do? What to do? Flirt with a gentleman and get Tenchi jealous? Fat chance of that. Their close circle of friends was all female.
As if on cue, Kiyone entered the box clad in an exquisite white gown. Her teal hair was worn loose, totally defying convention, but beautiful nonetheless.
"Kiyone," Tenchi greeted. "You missed the first act, but the playbill should catch you up."
"That's okay," the depressed doctor sighed. "I don't really think that I'm going to pay much attention to the show anyway."
"Oh my," Ayeka lowering the opera glasses that were suspended at the end of a stick. "Is it Mihoshi? How is she?"
"Not much better," Kiyone shook her head sadly. "She still doesn't remember her trauma and has the attention span of a gnat. I don't know if we are ever going to get our Mihoshi back again. It's as if a part of her entire personality has been suppressed or eliminated somehow. Like she's had a stroke or something."
"My goodness," Ryoko snapped out of her envious funk. "Has she become violent?"
"Just the opposite," Kiyone again shook her head. "She is the sweetest thing. It's as if she doesn't have a single negative impulse in her soul. Depending on your viewpoint, she's either a saint or an idiot."
"Poor Mihoshi," Tenchi murmured.
"If only I could do something!" Kiyone's voice was louder than she intended, so her next words were softer, but no less frustrated. "Psychology is such a new science, we'd be better off calling it an art! We just lock up the loonies and watch them, but there's nothing we can do to help them. It's all so frustrating."
"What about that book by Herbert Spencer?" Tenchi asked. "Did you find that helpful in your work?"
"Spencer! Ha! Don't talk to me about Spencer!" Once again Kiyone raised her voice without meaning to. "Herbert Spencer spent six hundred and forty two pages telling me what I already know. The amount of useful information on psychology that he wrote down in his book you can find in an unabridged dictionary under 'psychiatry'."
"What about that Austrian fellow you've been in correspondence with?" Ayeka asked. "What's-his-name, Sigmund Froud?"
"Freud," Kiyone clarified with disgust. "And you can forget him. He's a pervert who thinks that everything is related to the reproductive drive."
"Yeah?" Ryoko, a lover of 'bodice-ripper' romances, suddenly became alert. "How do you mean?"
"I mean that he has been hypnotizing teenage girls to discover why they are in a state of hysterics," Kiyone replied.
"Seems quite sensible to me," Tenchi cast a furtive glance at Ryoko and Ayeka.
"Not really, do you know what he came up with?" Kiyone rolled her eyes.
Ayeka, Ryoko, and Tenchi shook their heads.
"He said that at the heart of their neurosis was sexual frustration," said Kiyone, daring to mention a forbidden subject. "Can you imagine such perverted claptrap?"
Both Ayeka and Ryoko were blushing and their eyes darted about guiltily.
"That dirty old man has too much time on his hands," Kiyone sighed. "I hope nobody listens to him, he could set psychiatry back to the dark ages."
"Don't worry, Kiyone," Tenchi smiled. "I'm sure that in a hundred years, no one will even remember his name."
Kiyone seemed to perk up a little at this.
"So now what?" Ayeka asked the question nobody wanted to bring up. "What about Mihoshi? Will she ever be able to live a normal life?"
Kiyone looked down at the ground. "Sure, as a chambermaid or another domestic. But that's a far cry from the intelligent, spirited woman with the indomitable will who was the first woman to pass the bar." A tear formed in her eye. "She could have been a pioneer in women's rights, or the first woman in Parliament, but now she's just an eccentric who assists me in a loony bin. It's not…fair…"
Everyone's eyes misted over as Tenchi gallantly offered Kiyone his shoulder to cry on. Ryoko saw the tender moment through her tear-glazed eyes and hated herself for feeling jealousy when Mihoshi was but a shell of her former self.
"Good Evening," said a sinister voice as the new fangled electrical lights of the theatre flickered as if they were old style kerosene lamps. "I hope that I am not interrupting anything."
The quartet turned to see a tall broad shouldered, handsome man in a purple frock coat and a green cape close the curtain to their private box. "Huh?" they all gasped at the same time.
"Allow me to introduce myself," the mysterious gentleman bowed. "I have recently purchased Carfax Abbey. I am Count Kagato."
"Count Kagato," Kiyone smiled weakly. "Yes, of course. I'm Doctor Seward. I'm your neighbor. Welcome to London."
"Thank you, Doctor," the count nodded. The light reflected off his dark hair, revealing green highlights. His sideburns were unnaturally long and became ponytails that nearly reached his shoulders, similar to Ayeka's now lavender locks. Unlike Ayeka's bangs, his hair was parted down the middle in a widow's peak. His cape had a high collar, making him appear to be priest or magician. Ice-cold lips kissed Kiyone's gloved hand. "I did not expect you to be a woman, let alone one who is so young and beautiful. If I am not being too impertinent, will you introduce me to your friends?"
"Not at all," Kiyone still had her fake smile, for she thought it was impertinent to enter a private box without even sending an usher in with a calling card to announce his visit. "This is Ayeka Murray, the wealthy heiress to the Jurai Company's fortune…"
"How do you do?" smiled a demure and darling Ayeka.
"This is Ryoko Westenra, the daughter of the eccentric explorer and Miss Ayeka's live-in companion," continued Kiyone.
"Why hello there…" Ryoko deepened her voice and gave the count a saucy wink.
"And this is Tenchi Harker, a junior partner in the firm of Yosho, Harker and Renfield," the doctor finished.
"My father was a founding partner," Tenchi nodded. "Hello there, your grace. Welcome to England. I hope you enjoy your stay. Will we be seeing more of you?"
"Certainly, my dear boy." Although he appeared to be only thirty, Kagato seemed to have the cynical maturity that only age can bring. "Now that I have arrived, you can expect me to see me in…circulation," he grinned as if smiling at a private joke.
"Well," said Ryoko with exaggerated forwardness as she stood and extended her gloved hand. "I hope be seeing a lot of you, Count Kagato," she fixed him with a lusty look that she imagined the heroines in her 'bodice rippers' used to seduce dashing young rakes. "A lot more of you. If you ever need someone to show you around London, I'm available…day or night."
"Oh really?" the count gave her a predatory smile. "'Day or night' eh? I will have to remember that, Miss Westenra."
"Please, call me Ryoko," Ryoko stole a glance back at Tenchi. Sure enough, Tenchi did not like the glances that promised a late-night assignation between herself and Kagato. He seemed to be struggling to get out of his chair, his hand pulling itself out of Ayeka's gloved fist. Her plan was working perfectly. Now for the coup-de-grace. "Oh yes, I can't wait until we meet again," she smiled as she inhaled seductively, blowing Kagato a kiss.
"Well Miss Westenra," the count nodded. "I guess that I will be seeing you…later." He bowed to the company before him. "Forgive me. I do not wish to interrupt you. Enjoy the show and live life to the fullest…while you can." With that ominous remark the disappeared behind the curtain to the hall.
"The lights have stopped flickering," Tenchi remarked gazing at the arrow-shaped light bulbs that resembled candles placed in the sconces on the wall.
"Yes," sniffed Ayeka. "Electrical lighting. The science is too new to be reliable. In a few years they'll have it all sorted out."
"He was creepy," Kiyone tapped her finger on rim of the balcony suspiciously. "He barged in here without even leaving a calling card."
"I'm sure he was just being friendly," said Ryoko, pretending to like him to rouse Tenchi's ire.
"He's not from around here," Tenchi shrugged. "I'm sure things are different in his country."
"Well when he drew back the curtain, he let in a draft," Kiyone complained. "Did any of you notice how cold it seemed to get when he was in here?"
"I'm sure he didn't mean it," said Tenchi, who always attempted to think the best of everyone. "Come now, Kiyone, he's your new neighbor. You don't want to get off on the wrong foot. You're just upset because you're worried about Mihoshi."
Kiyone let out a deep breath in surrender. "You're right, Tenchi. I'm not myself. I'm sorry for being so grouchy."
"There's a lot of that going around," muttered Ryoko. After her shocking and scandalous flirting with Kagato, Tenchi was still able to defend him. When she tried to get Tenchi jealous, she underestimated his kind nature. Drat the dratted luck! Now Count Kagato thought she was a woman of loose morals. Hardly the right way to make a first impression with a member of the aristocracy.
That evening, after Ayeka, Sasami and Ryoko turned in, Ryoko heard a voice at her balcony. "Ryoko…Ryoko…" the seductive yet sinister voice murmured. "Awaken, my dear…"
"What?" the young woman was startled awake.
Floating outside the balcony as if standing in midair was Count Kagato. "You shall be flesh of my flesh and blood of my blood," he whispered as he drifted forward and passed through the glass doors to the balcony like a ghost. "You shall provide the blood for my starved and broken heart and you shall flow within my veins forevermore…"
"Hey!" Ryoko pulled her blankets over her nightshirt. "I don't know how they do things in your country but I'm not that kind of girl!"
"Oh, you aren't?" the count seemed to be quite amused at her distress. "Tell me my dear, what kind of girl are you?"
"The kind who will kill you if you try anything," she growled as she leaped out of bed and pulled an oriental dagger from a drawer. "My father was in Shanghai and he taught me all about knife fighting in case I should have to defend my virtue. So back off!"
"Dear me," the count joked sarcastically. "I really appear to be in trouble now. You continue to surprise me, Miss Ryoko. You have an admirably strong will. Perhaps I should make you immortal instead of merely feeding on and disposing of you."
"You sick puppy!" shuddered Ryoko. "I'll die before I bear any children of yours!"
"On the contrary, Miss Ryoko," inexplicably, the count seemed to be approaching her without taking a step. "You will die and then you will become one of my children. One of my brides."
"Back off!" she warned him. "No court in the realm would convict me, so back off! Hiyah!" she plunged the dagger into the area where his chest connected to his shoulder. "I-I don't believe it!"
To Ryoko's horror, Kagato was simply standing in front of her with a dagger sticking out his chest as if he didn't even feel it. With idle curiosity, he glanced down at the bladed weapon and pulled it out of his body. He examined the weapon, admiring its sharpness and fine craftsmanship and then looked up at Ryoko. "You have a killer instinct, Miss Ryoko, as well as a strong will. You have the potential to be my greatest creation. Allow me to welcome you into my family."
Ryoko could only open her mouth in silent horror, then she screamed, but no one heard. It was as if a spell was cast on all members of the house that no one would awaken to her cries.
NEXT: Doctor von Washu at Your Service!
