Disclaimer: I do not own any of the characters used in this fanfic. They are the property of the Pioneer company, as well as a bunch of other rich people, whom I would really like to avoid a conflict with. I'm not making a cent off this fic, so please don't sue me.
Ryoko set down her newly emptied sake cup and exhaled heavily. "Lishn, Ayeka," she slurred. "I'm gonna tell you once more. I'm sick 'a you always hanging around my Tenchi. So just stay away from him."
"Oh, he's your Tenchi, is he?" sneered the equally intoxicated princess. "Well let me ask you something. If he's your Tenchi, why does he cringe whenever you touch him?"
Ryoko tried to wade through the alcohol induced mists, but was unable to come up with any response more intelligent than, "Shut up! Screw you, Ayeka!"
"Just what one would expect from a third class, unrefined pirate like you."
Ryoko felt her blood pressure rising. She would have attacked the prissy princess right then and there, but she wasn't exactly at the top of her game at the moment. She decided to wait for her chance to retaliate. "I don' need this," she said, and promptly dematerialized."
"That's right, run away," said Ayeka, opening another bottle.
Ryoko didn't have any particular destination in mind when she teleported away from Ayeka. She wasn't in the mood to deal with Ayeka's crap, and she just wanted to get away from her undue cruelty. She found herself amidst a jumble of machines that she took to be Washu's lab. She stumbled through the clutter, a difficult task even while sober, and finally collapsed amongst a pile of dead equipment. "Damn it, Washu, move yer junk...snnxxxx..."
A bright green subspace monitor, similar to the ones Washu was fond of using, blossomed into being next to Ryoko. Lines of code began running across the screen, culminating in the words "preliminary reestablishment program commenced". A thin beam of green light flickered from the screen and touched Ryoko's forehead. The sleeping woman twitched lightly and a small moan escaped her lips.
* * *
Tenchi sat up and stretched, rubbing the sleep out of his eyes. "That's weird," he mumbled. Usually he awoke to find Ryoko hovering above him. This was traditionally followed by her yelling "Tenchi!" and glomping him, and his being rather irritated with the whole thing. Today, though, he felt strangely disappointed that she wasn't there. *What am I thinking?" he asked himself. *Must not have gotten enough sleep. What time is it, anyway?* He rolled over and looked at the clock on his nightstand. "Oh, crap!" he yelled, realizing that he was half an hour late for his chores. He dressed hurriedly and ran up the stairs to the shrine.
"You're late, Tenchi," Katsuhito commented as Tenchi crested the stairs.
"Sorry," he replied, breathing heavily. By way of explanation, he added, "Overslept." Tenchi grabbed the broom from where it rested on the wall of the shrine and began sweeping.
"And why is that?"
"Well, Ryoko didn't wake me up this morning and--" Tenchi mentally kicked himself for saying this. Katsuhito may have been wise, but he also had a slightly hentai sense of humor.
"Tenchi," replied the old priest seriously, "is there something you want to tell me? Perhaps your relationship with Ryoko is different than with the others, hmm?"
"Grandpa, you know that's not what I meant." Tenchi searched for a subject to quell his grandfather's chuckling. *C'mon, something, anything.* "Have you seen Ryoko around?" *Okay, anything but that. Smooth, Tenchi.*
Katsuhito's mirth slowly subsided. "No, I haven't seen her. You might try the house, though."
"Right," said Tenchi, starting toward the house.
"After you finish your chores," finished Katsuhito.
"Oh, yeah..."
* * *
Tenchi hurried through his chores and jogged all the way back to the house. There was an anxiousness about him that he couldn't quite explain. *You're worried about Ryoko.* he told himself.
*That's ridiculous. Ryoko's probably just goofing off somewhere.*
*What could she possibly be doing that would take precedence over groping you?*
Tenchi was getting the distinct impression that he was loosing this argument. *Well what's wrong with being worried? She gets in trouble enough. Anyway, I'd be worried about any of the girls.*
*Why were you embarrassed to talk about it in front of Katsuhito then?*
"I just need some food," Tenchi decided aloud, trying to dispel the strangely logical voice within him. "Everything will look better after breakfast."
Loud snores greeted him as he walked through the doors into the living room. *Ah, there she is.* "Ryoko, time to--"
It was not Ryoko he found, but Ayeka, sprawled out on the floor amidst a sea of empty sake bottles, snoring for all she was worth. "Aw, man..." sighed Tenchi, picking up several of the bottles.
"Tenchi, is that you?" came Sasami's voice from the kitchen.
"Yeah. Sorry I'm late. Anything left?"
"Hey, don't worry about it, I saved you some."
"Thanks." He took an arm full of bottles into the kitchen and placed them in a large garbage bag. He grabbed the bowl of miso soup Sasami had saved for him and began eating. The snores emanating from the next room suddenly stopped. "Be right back," said Tenchi, filling a large glass with water and heading into the living room.
"Oh, Tsunami, my head!" moaned the princess, opening her eyes slowly. "Lord Tenchi!" she exclaimed, suddenly noticing him, then looking dismayed as she realized where she was. "Oh, dear. Here, let me clean this, Tenchi." She struggled to get to her feet, then promptly collapsed on the couch as the room spun around her.
"Here," Tenchi said, offering her the water. "This will help. I'll clean up."
She started to object, but then decided to just accept the water. The sound of her own voice only served to amplify the already incredible pain inside her head.
Tenchi took another load of bottles into the kitchen, filled another glass, and returned to the living room. Ayeka gave him the empty glass and he handed her the full one. "Looks like you had fun," he observed.
Ayeka blushed slightly. "Yes, well, Ryoko and I were having a drink," Tenchi glanced up quickly at Ryoko's name, but he quickly returned to tidying. "And we...we had a rather frank exchange of views."
"What happened after that?"
"She disappeared."
"Did she say where she was going?"
"No, she wasn't in the best of moods." A long pause followed this statement. Finally, Tenchi broke the silence.
"Would you like some soup?"
"No thank you, just some more water, if its not too much trouble."
"Sure." Tenchi smiled as he took her glass and headed for the kitchen, but the smile faded as soon as he turned away from the princess. Breakfast hadn't helped, and the conversation he had just had with Ayeka only served to amplify his worry.
* * *
Deep in the recesses of Washu's lab, Ryoko lay hovering above the now functioning machinery, surrounded in a green energy field. The beam of light issuing from the subspace monitor had widened and was punctuated now and then with larger spheres of light, which disappeared as they made contact with Ryoko's forehead.
Ryoko's eyes snapped open. She was standing in the middle of a large, circular platform, but she couldn't remember how she got there. The last thing that she remembered was passing out it Washu's lab. *Oh, well. At least I don't have a hangover.*
"Time to go," she said, only to find that she was unable to teleport out. "That's odd. Guess I'll just have to fly out." She ascended rapidly, then stopped as she forcefully encountered an almost invisible green force shield. "Jeeze, where am I?" she wondered aloud. She gathered an energy sphere into her hand and slammed it into the shield, then screamed and grasped her head as she plummeted to the ground.
"There's a feedback loop, Ryoko. I wouldn't try that if I were you."
* * *
"Image training?" asked Tenchi. "What's that?"
"Image training is the art of using an energy source to solidify a psychic bond," explained Katsuhito. "In this case, the energy source is the gems in Tenchi-ken. The link is then used to allow the two subjects to engage in combat without danger of serious injury. It will also allow me to monitor your brain waves and reactions to certain stimuli. I can use that knowledge to help you in your training."
"Sounds good. How do I begin?"
"Focus your Jurai energy onto Tenchi-ken. At the same time, envision yourself in our training grounds. I will do the rest."
Tenchi closed his eyes and breathed deeply. He envisioned himself in the middle of the familiar clearing with his bokken held before him. He looked around for his grandfather, but Katsuhito was nowhere to be found, and everything beyond the clearing was obscured by what looked like very thick fog. *What do I do now?*
"Prepare yourself" came Katsuhito's voice from all directions. Tenchi shifted to a defensive posture and reached out with the Jurai energy in an attempt to sense where his enemy was. A slight shift in the energy behind him warned him of his grandfather's approach. He spun around and braced for the attack, but no one was there.
"That is not the way, Tenchi. You are letting your emotions take control. Focus!"
Tenchi breathed deeply and focused on achieving the void. There were no emotions, only his body, and his sword was an extension of his body. He reached out again, but this time when he sensed Katsuhito's attack he did not tense. Instead, he spun and deflected the attack, then quickly followed with one of his own. His sword did not score a hit, but the older man retreated into the fog all the same. The attack came again, and again, each time stronger and faster, and each time it took a little more for Tenchi to rid himself of his grandfather.
Finally the attacks ceased. "Very good, Tenchi." came Katsuhito's voice. "Are you ready for the next level?"
Without bothering to wait for Tenchi's reply, the fog enveloping the clearing began to move in closer, encircling Tenchi, leaving him only a few feet in which to move. Then it burst into flames.
"What the hell?!?!" exclaimed Tenchi, backing into the flames. "OW! How can this hurt?"
"Your mind believes it will, so it sends those impulses to your body. Now, are you ready?"
Tenchi reassumed his defensive posture, but before he could try and sense an attack, bright green bolts of energy shot through the space around him.
"What now?" he called out to his grandfather.
"I don't know. There is a foreign energy. I am breaking the bond."
Before Katsuhito could act on this promise, however, one of the energy bolts struck Tenchi in the chest.
* * *
Next to Ryoko's prostrate form, a new monitor appeared. Glyphs flashed across the screen, "Gem control and re-fusion commencing".
Ryoko lay on the platform, eyes closed. "No, that's impossible, it can't be, it can't be..."
"You're right," replied the man hovering above her. "I'm not Kagato, but I am a remarkably good replica, don't you think? In truth I'm just a program designed to bring you back to him should you ever get free."
"Kagato is dead!" cried Ryoko. "And that means you have no reason to exist!" She summoned all the energy at her disposal and blasted it at Kagato. "DIE!!!"
He simply waited, allowing the energy to hit him. And pass right through him. The energy connected with the barrier around them, sending inconceivable waves of pain through Ryoko. She was unable to scream as her body convulsed in agony.
"Don't you understand the concept of a feedback loop, Ryoko?" asked Kagato. "Anyway, I'm being powered by your energy. You can't hurt me. Feel free to keep trying, though."
"I...won't let you," gasped Ryoko, barely able to force the words out.
Kagato began laughing, a sound that threatened to drive Ryoko insane with rage. "How do you plan to stop me? Once the gems return, I'll have complete control."
Ryoko pushed away her pain. She might not be able to teleport out of the shield, but she could probably teleport inside of it. And just because she couldn't hit Kagato with energy didn't mean her fist would be the same.
She tested these theories by teleporting behind Kagato and delivering to his back a kick that would have killed an elephant. She smiled as the gray haired man went flying to the ground. He rose unsteadily to his feet. She was determined not to let him get in an attack. Before he could get his bearings, she teleported above him and smashed her elbow into the crown of his head. His knees buckled and he collapsed again. He rolled over and shot an energy blast at her. She dodged by reflex, then realized her mistake. Kagato smiled as her screams echoed around them. He rose into the air above the motionless Ryoko. "Nice try, Ryoko. But you're only a waste product, after all."
The barrier surrounding the platform began solidifying. "Remember, Ryoko? Remember what it is to be a prisoner in your own mind?"
* * *
The first thing Tenchi saw when he opened his eyes was the master key engulfed in a green aura, floating a few feet off the ground. Bursts of electricity licked the gems, which were now a dull green as well. Suddenly, the gems disappeared from the hilt. The aura dispersed, and the sword began to drop. Tenchi caught it before it could touch the ground.
"Ryoko." When the energy beam had hit him, he had felt a piece of his mind being pulled away. He could see in his mind's eye what he knew to be Ryoko's mindscape just as he had seen his own while training. He saw the cyan haired woman lying on the ground with Kagato hovering over her, laughing. He ignited Tenchi-ken and started running toward the house.
* * *
"Can you feel the gems returning, Ryoko? This power is incredible!" Kagato began to laugh.
"Tenchi!" For a moment, Ryoko saw a ghostlike Tenchi just beyond the ever darkening shield. He looked angry.
"What's a Tenchi?" asked Kagato incredulously.
"Please hurry, Tenchi," Ryoko whispered. The barrier was filtering out light now, becoming opaque.
"Well, I'd love to stay and chat, but I can't control your body from inside this cage. Ja ne, Ryoko," were the last words she heard him say before floating through the now black dome surrounding her.
* * *
The image in Tenchi's mind hadn't faded as he ran toward the house. If anything, it had grown in clarity. He saw the look on Ryoko's face as the sphere around her darkened, watched Kagato as he floated out of the sphere and began transforming her mindscape from a bright white into a dank gray. Tenchi's blood was pounding in his ears. He didn't particularly care how Kagato got there, but, he thought, *He made a big mistake messing with my Ryoko.* Jurai energy was coming off of him in waves now, and he made no effort to control it. He grabbed the shoji and flung it to the side, derailing it in the process.
"Lord Tenchi, I...ahh!" Ayeka gasped and stepped back as Tenchi stormed into the room. She had never felt Tenchi channel this much energy without the Lighthawk Wings.
Tenchi, for his part, didn't even acknowledge the princess's presence. He stepped right past her and approached the door to Washu's lab. "Washu!" he yelled at the top of his lungs. No response seemed forthcoming, so he slashed at the door with Tenchi-ken. The blade bounced off with no effect on the door. Tenchi growled and powered down the blade, then began to increase his own aura. It expanded until it was engulfing the house, shaking the building on it's foundation. Tenchi drew back his hand and slammed his palm into the door, using all the energy available to him. The door flew off whatever had been holding it in place and crashed into the far wall.
He stepped in and looked around for Washu. The small scientist was rubbing the sleep out of her eyes, obviously having just been awoken by the crashing of the door against the wall.
"Washu!"
Washu blinked and looked around. "Wha?" Her eyes snapped open at the sight of Tenchi engulfed in energy. "Lord Tenchi?! What's wrong?"
"Where is Ryoko?"
* * *
Ryoko lay curled up in the fetal position on the floor of her prison. For so long Kagato had kept her in this same mental cage, forcing her to watch the atrocities he was committing with her body. When she had finally escaped Kagato's influence, she had been locked up again, this time in that cave. Seven hundred years later, Tenchi freed her and she had felt so good. But now she was back, enveloped in darkness.
A small bit of light broke through the shield. Ryoko looked up, horrified to discover that the dark dome above her had turned into a screen through which she could see everything her physical eyes could. She watched as her body stood up, unable to control it. "Tenchi, help me!" she cried in desperation.
* * *
"What do you mean you don't know?!" Tenchi demanded angrily. "I thought you had a mental link." Suddenly Ryoko's voice rang out in his head. *Tenchi, help me!*
"She needs our help!" he insisted, the anger now replaced with worry.
"I'm sorry, I'm working as fast...wait. I'm picking up some odd energy surges deep in the lab. They appear to be Ryoko's."
Tenchi raised his sword and once again willed the blue blade into being. "Lead the way, little Washu."
"Gladly," replied the diminutive genius. She punched something into her keyboard and a large glowing purple disc shimmered into being above the floor. She stepped on it and disappeared. Tenchi followed.
They rematerialized in a scene of utter chaos. Ryoko, surrounded by an intense energy aura, was destroying everything around them. Washu pointed excitedly to a small monitor.
"That's a synaptic resequencer!" She had to shout to be heard over the din. "That's not our Ryoko!"
"I know!" Tenchi yelled back. "Look!" Washu followed his pointing finger to Ryoko's wrists. Bright points of green were there, where the red gems would have been. "And her eyes!" Rather than their usual gold, her eyes had also become green.
Ryoko turned to face them.
"Uh oh..."
* * *
Ryoko watched as her body destroyed the machines around her. It wasn't so much that she cared about the machines, but the hated what she was doing because she couldn't control herself. Suddenly there was a bright purple flash, and Washu and Tenchi were there.
"Tenchi!" gasped Ryoko, stunned. She was amazed to see this much energy in Tenchi's battle aura.
Ryoko could see Tenchi and Washu talking, but she couldn't make out what they were saying over the explosions. She hoped they knew she wasn't in control.
Her body turned to face Tenchi.
"So this is Tenchi, eh?" Kagato's voice came from all around her. "What to do, what to do. That's clearly Jurai energy, so I'd say...he dies."
"No!" Ryoko pleaded. "You can't! Please!"
"Uh oh..." came Tenchi's voice.
Ryoko saw her arm raise, watched as the energy gathered in it.
* * *
Tenchi raised his sword to deflect the energy blast. Instead of deflecting it, however, Tenchi-ken detonated the energy bomb, sending both he and Washu flying back. Tenchi shifted his weight so his head was facing down. Just before he hit the ground he shot out his arm, vaulting up and completing the flip. He grabbed Washu just before she hit the back wall.
He threw Washu to the right and jumped to the left, throwing himself to the side to avoid another blast. Tenchi was quickly realizing that he probably couldn't do this with Tenchi-ken alone. He heard the familiar sound of Ryoko rematerializing above him.
*Above? No time!*
Ryoko's red blade cut a swath in the air, curving toward Tenchi's face. Bringing Tenchi-ken up to deflect would be futile, he knew, because he lacked the speed and the strength to block her swing. *Not Ryoko,* he reminded himself. *Kagato.* In his mind, he saw the gray haired man laugh with delight at Ryoko's mental screams.
*How dare he!*
The Lighthawk wings blazed into being in front of Tenchi, stopping Ryoko's sword an inch from his face then tossing the woman backward like a rag doll. She slammed against the far wall, creating a massive dent.
Tenchi stretched out his arms, willing the energy to change forms. He winced as the wings covered his arms and upper body in the weightless armor that had stopped Kagato's sword on the Soja. He grasped the base of the third wing and watched as it formed a sword as indestructible as Tsunami.
A battle cry alerted him of Ryoko's presence behind him. He spun around and brought his arm up to block her saber, his own sword dissipating and reforming as a shield over his arm. Ryoko began an all out assault, throwing energy bombs, punches, and slashing at him with her sword, but with the Lighthawk energy augmenting his abilities, he matched her blow for blow. The insignia on his forehead glowed intensely, and Tenchi was showing no signs of fatigue.
Finally he backed her up against a wall, covered his hands in shield energy, grasped her sword and squeezed. The energy blinked out of existence while his own sword reformed in his hand, the tip facing Ryoko.
She smiled and held her hands up in a gesture of surrender. "You wouldn't hit a girl, now, would you Tenchi?" she asked coyly.
Tenchi's sword and determination wavered at hearing her say his name like that. The insignia dimmed.
Ryoko brought her arms down and unleashed a torrent of energy, blasting a crater where Tenchi was milliseconds before.
Tenchi spun to the side and brought his sword down in a chopping motion, loping off both of Ryoko's hands just above the gems.
She stared dumbly at the stumps, then at the pile of ashes that had been her hands only moments before. She gave Tenchi a look of anguish before disappearing.
The wings evaporated as Tenchi fell to the floor, his face mirroring the look that Ryoko had given him before dematerializing. Washu rushed over to him.
"Lord Tenchi, are you okay?" She quickly brought up a subspace monitor and started typing furiously, checking his vital signs.
"I hurt her," he said weakly. "I didn't want to, but I did. How could I do that to her?"
"You had no choice. She was trying to kill you."
"No, she wasn't. That was Kagato. I can hear him..."
Washu paused, then looked up at Tenchi. "You can what now?"
"I can hear him. He's yelling at her for being weak. That bastard!"
Washu looked at her monitor again. "So that's it. Tenchi, you say you can hear him. Is there anything else out of the ordinary?"
"I can see something...I think it might be Ryoko's mindscape."
"Well that accounts for the unusual synaptic activity. Tenchi, you seem to be linked to Ryoko's mind. I can't say how, but Ryoko's brainwaves are in your head, in addition to your own."
"So?" asked Tenchi, emotionally dead.
"So Kagato only exists in Ryoko's mind. If you have a link, you might be able to defeat Kagato."
"But wouldn't Ryoko have tried that?"
"Sure, but it wouldn't have done any good. Kagato's program would be powered by her, so she couldn't hurt him."
Tenchi thought on this for a while. Finally he nodded. "What must I do?"
* * *
"You weakling! How could you possibly fail to defeat a worthless Juraian?" Flecks of spittle were flying out of Kagato's mouth as he raged. "A Juraian! You killed thousands of them on Jurai! Their best warriors and kings fell before you, yet you cannot defeat this child!?"
"He's not just any Juraian," Ryoko stated simply. She struggled not to smile, for in this mood Kagato was likely to hurt her as a vent for his frustrations. "And besides, it wasn't me, it was you."
That was the wrong thing to say. Kagato immediately flew down and kicked her in the side. Hard. She flew several feet before hitting the barrier and falling to the ground.
"Well this time, I won't make the mistake of holding back."
