Chapter Twelve
Souja's tree stood, tall and bleak, in the centre of a barren wasteland. As Tenchi glanced at the forbidding sight, he felt a prickle run down his spine, anticipation racing through him as he recalled his last encounter with Kagato. Well, much had changed since then, he realised. The last round had gone in his favour, but then again, he had been so sure that he had finished off the evil prince once and for all. His grip clenched around his sword as he shot Ryoko a sidelong glance. And then...well, then there was her.
She had gained control of herself remarkably well, considering everything, but he knew her better than that and he could see the strangeness in her eyes and the thinness of her lips as she fought constantly against the gems' darker powers. What Kagato had done to the crystals in the first place, he did not know - but he found himself cursing the dark prince for it anyway. That Ryoko should have to go through so much for a second time pained him, and he felt his resolution double. Whatever happened, he told himself, he would not let her - or Jurai - down. Not in this battle.
"Right."
Nozomi's voice startled him back to the present, and he glanced up, seeing the young girl standing mere feet away from the trunk of the blackened old tree. Her face was pale, but determination flickered in her amber eyes, and Tenchi was struck once again at the resemblance between her and the pirate.
"I don't know what will happen when I do this." She continued, turning to meet his glance. "When I did it in...well, in the future, it was a little bit different. But Kagato rose out of Souja like a dark cloud blocking out the sun. I can't explain it any other way - the people of Jurai thought it was a solar eclipse. I don't know how much time you'll have before he starts to wake, so be ready, both of you. Like I said, I...I don't know quite what will happen."
"We're ready." Ryoko said quietly. "Just get on with it. Whatever he's going to throw at us, it can't be worse than waiting for it to come."
Nozomi nodded her head. She cast one more glance up at the tree's twisted branches, then reached into her belt, pulling out a long, narrow blade.
"Where the hell did that come from?" Tenchi stared at her in shock. "What are you going to do to yourself, Nozomi? Tsunami never said..."
"Tsunami said I was to do whatever I needed to do to wake Kagato, and for that, you need my blood." Nozomi told him calmly. "Sasami gave me the knife. That's why I waited behind. She knows what I have to do as well as I do, because she is Tsunami-sama - or she will be, one day."
She held up her hand, hesitating for a moment, then bringing the sharp blade across her palm, flinching slightly as the two made contact. Warm blood rushed out across her fingers, dripping to the ground below with a soft hiss, and she bit her lip, taking the knife in her wounded hand and repeating the action across the other, then dropping the blade to the floor. Clouds of steam sizzled up from the tainted landscape as traces of her blood made contact with the sap of Souja, and before Tenchi knew what she was doing, she had closed her eyes, muttering a brief prayer of help to the Goddess herself. Then, with determination, she thrust her hands forward, pressing them hard against the wood of Souja's trunk. At once, there was an intense flash of light, and as Tenchi watched, paralysed to the spot by horror and incredulation, Nozomi's hands sank beneath the surface of Souja's wood, taken deep into the tree as the young girl let out a cry of pain.
"Nozomi!" Ryoko sprang forward as if to pull her back, but Tenchi grabbed at her, holding her still.
"No." He said softly. "Tsunami asked her to do this - we can't stop her now."
"He'll kill her!"
"And he might yet kill us, too." Tenchi looked troubled. "I don't like it any more than you do, but Ryoko, this is why the kid was sent back here. Remember? Let her do what she has to do. We've got enough to do ourselves without worrying about Nozomi's role in all this."
Ryoko's eyes flickered with a strange fire, but before she could respond, there was another explosion of light and Nozomi was sent flying back across the ground. She lay still, unconscious against the dead foliage and it was all Tenchi could do not to run to her side, to see whether or not she was all right. Even from where he stood, however, he could see that her hands were badly burnt, blackened and damaged by the touch of the tree.
"Nozomi!" Ryoko blurred out of view, re-materialising over the girl's still form and standing over her, reaching a hesitant hand down to touch her throat. For a moment, nothing moved. Then the pirate let out a cry of anger, her body bathed in red light as she launched herself into the sky.
"Come on out, Kagato!" She exclaimed. "Or are you such a coward that you have your tree kill a child instead!"
"Is she...dead?" Tenchi stared, and Ryoko nodded her head curtly.
"That's what she meant, when she said she wouldn't be fighting our battle." She said softly, her palms flickering with dangerous shards of red energy. "She knew it would kill her but she did it anyway. And now it's our turn, Tenchi. No time for regrets...look."
She pointed, and Tenchi turned, seeing the slithers of blackish smoke that were beginning to pour forth from the tree's many branches. Anger seared inside of him as he cast another glance at Nozomi's still body, and in his grip, the sword flared and grew into a white hot blade as he prepared himself for battle.
The darkness continued to spread, swirling and changing as it darkened the whole landscape, clouding the sun as it rose towards the heavens. As it reached across the sky, deep within the massing blackness a vague physical form began to take shape, translucent and unfocused, but recognisable all the same.
"Well, well, well." The voice seemed to echo from nothing, but Tenchi knew that it came from the apparition that stood before them. "If it isn't the little Prince of Jurai. We meet again...and like your Grandfather before you, I intend to show you what a mistake you made in believing me dead and gone."
"Kagato!" Tenchi's eyes narrowed and he held his sword aloft. "I wasn't afraid of you then and I'm not afraid of you now! You're not going to spread any more of your poison across this planet! I give you my word on that!"
"You shouldn't make promises you can't keep." Kagato's voice rumbled forth, and a sweep of darkness pushed Tenchi off his feet, dumping him down on the ground. "You see, I am not quite the man you fought then. I have grown. Developed. Taken from Tsunami what I needed to survive. You may think you've woken me while I'm still weak, but I will always be stronger than you - you and Azusa and everyone else on this wretched planet. See how easily I dispensed with that girl."
He flickered ghostly fingers at Nozomi. "Do you think you will fare any better against me?"
"You're going to regret killing anyone, Kagato." Ryoko launched a barrage of reddish light at the apparition, dispersing him, but only for the briefest of seconds. "I mean it! Why can't you just die, like any normal person! Jurai are sick of you! They don't want you! This is Tsunami's planet, it isn't yours!"
"So perhaps I could inhabit that world you think so much of, could I?" Kagato's shadowy face twisted into a derisive smile. "Earth, isn't that what they call it? Oh yes. I know who you are and what secrets you hide from me. Those gems you think you can so easily manage and control - they were my work. My magic. My design. Do you think that, even after this many years, I can't still harness their power for my own ends?"
"They've chosen a new mistress now." Ryoko's eyes glittered dangerously and she flicked her hand, her sword forming and glowing beneath her grip. "And I have control of these just as much as I'd like to, thank you very much. You're a twisted soul, Kagato, just like your tree! I don't care if you did taint these gems for your own ends. They don't belong to you now. They belong to me and I'm going to use them to bring you down!"
"Such an interesting idea, Ryoko." The words flitted across the sky like a breeze through the branches of a tree. "But through them, I can read every thought in your head. I know your weakness, I know your strength. I know your identity and I can use those things to stop you. I don't have to raise a finger to your pathetic, weak magic to bring you to your knees. All I have to do...is kill him... like I killed your precious offspring."
He flickered a hand at Tenchi, who ducked out of the way of the blast, holding his sword up to parry the blow.
"I'm not so easy to kill!" He exclaimed, launching at the apparition and swiping his blade through Kagato's torso. "I would have thought you'd have learnt that from the last fight we had!"
"And I would have thought you'd have learnt the same." Kagato blurred out of sight, drifting back into form across the other side of Souja's tree. "But obviously not, since here we still are. You're both like moths, batting against the window trying to get at the light. Do you think either one of you can hurt me? You, with your pathetic sword of Jurai, and you, with your stolen gemstones? Please. All the magic on this planet couldn't stop me now. Not even Tsunami could prevent me from taking Jurai as my own."
"We'll see about that." Ryoko snapped, launching a fresh volley of red fire at the ghostly prince, who once more blurred out of its path, re-materialising behind her.
"You have courage." He said softly. "But not much sense. Do you think that you inherited even a little bit of my magic, when you were built to be my nemesis? Foolish people meddling with small dreams, that's all you amount to in the end. You aren't strong enough to hurt me. Not even with those gems you fear so much. Your magic is untrained, your power is useless. You're going to die here, Ryoko, on a planet that hates you. Isn't that the cruellest of ironies? That they'll throw you to the front line, but they won't even call you Princess or treat you with the respect one deserves?"
"I'm not a princess and I'm not going to be fooled by your attempts to play with me!" Ryoko exclaimed, a reddish light enveloping her body as she sent out a flare of power in Kagato's direction. "I'm not your daughter, I'm a lab experiment, and if you've read my mind you know that. So you can't play on my emotions. I don't have any of those. Not where my family are concerned. You'll have to do better than that, Kagato. Right now, all I care about is killing you once and for all and if it kills me in the process, so be it! I'm not afraid!"
"I see." Kagato laughed, brushing the flare aside as if it were no more than a glancing blow. "You and who's army? The true power of those gems is locked away, far deeper than someone of your inferior ability could hope to manage. You don't understand what weapons you use, and it makes you weak."
He sent a stream of dark energy in the pirate's direction, knocking her out of the sky and she fell to the ground with a thump, struggling to pick herself back up.
"Ryoko!" Tenchi exclaimed. "Kagato, you've had your fun! It's time to end this, once and for all!"
"I agree, but in what way?" Kagato turned his back on the pirate, bearing down on Tenchi whose eyes narrowed as he held his sword aloft. "I tell you what, Prince of Jurai...why don't we play a little game? You're obviously no match for me, so a fight between us would be something of a waste of time." He paused, then, "And as for you, my little pirate, you can't sneak up on someone from behind when they can read every thought in your head as clearly as if you shouted it."
He swung around, taking Ryoko completely off guard as he enveloped her in a cloak of blackness, lifting her high above the ground as she fought tooth and nail against his grip.
"Ryoko! Let her go! Let her go, you monster!" Tenchi launched himself at Kagato, swinging his sword again and again as the piercing light of Jurai's power cut ribbons through the ghostly shape. Kagato glanced down at him, interest touching his lips.
"So, you care for this wasted piece of lab technology?" He asked, interest in his tone. "That makes the stakes all the more interesting, now doesn't it?"
The cloud of blackness that enveloped Ryoko grew stronger and her struggles grew more and more feeble as Tenchi watched, alarm and anxiety growing in his heart as he did so.
"Let her go!" He exclaimed again. "I warned you, Kagato! Let Ryoko go!"
"With pleasure." Kagato offered another strange little smile, and in an instant, the dark force evaporated into nothing, causing Ryoko to fall headlong towards the ground. Tenchi ran forward to catch her, but just before she hit the turf, she seemed to right herself, launching herself up into the sky as red light glittered across her palms. Kagato laughed.
"I have an idea. If you can't battle me, why don't you battle against your friend instead? I'm sure she could use the practice." He said softly, flicking his fingers at Ryoko. She raised her head, and despite himself, Tenchi let out a gasp. Her eyes were dulled and dead of all life, and a strange greenish glow flickered in their depths. As Kagato lifted his hand, gesturing at Tenchi, the pirate flickered light into her sabre, launching herself in his direction with an unearthly battle cry. Tenchi, stunned for a moment, lifted his own sword at just the right moment, and the two clashed, blade on blade as Tenchi struggled to keep his footing.
"Ryoko! Ryoko, snap out of it!" he urged, but Ryoko did not appear to hear him, sending a barrage of orange-red light in his direction as she flickered and blurred out of view, re-appearing behind him and shooting a second volley that almost caught him on the leg. He sprang backwards, shaking his head.
"Ryoko, stop this! You can't let him control you - you can fight this!"
"I think you'll find she isn't listening to you." Kagato lazily raised his ghostly hand again, and Ryoko launched herself upwards once more, sending a renewed attack towards the hapless Tenchi as she did so. "You see, those gems she wears, I understand their magic in ways she doesn't. My power is strong, and hers is no match for it. She doesn't know how to use them, and so they make her vulnerable to me and my suggestions. Think of them as a vessel, if you like. A doorway to her mind and her thoughts. She no longer has control of her body. I dictate every move she makes. If you want to fight me, little Prince of Jurai, you're going to have to defeat her first. Doesn't that make for a nice twist?"
"You're a monster!" Tenchi yelled up at him. "I won't do it! I won't hurt her, so your game is over!"
"But she wants to hurt you, so you might want to rethink that strategy." Kagato said calmly. "Ryoko might be flawed, but with my help, she can finally awaken the power to control those crystals and use them for what they were meant to do. I make her stronger...I make her the weapon her creator hoped that she would be. Washu did a good job, didn't she? Unfortunately, not good enough."
Ryoko's eyes narrowed and glowed with a strange light, then she flew at Tenchi, knocking him off his feet in his surprise. She stood over him, sabre drawn, pressing the flickering tip to his throat as she glared down at him, red energy encompassing her whole body. Tenchi swallowed hard as his blade flickered and died in his hand, combatted by the strange magic Ryoko had flung up around them both. He tried to shuffle backwards, but she was too quick for him, pressing her foot down hard on his chest as she hovered her blade to his throat once more.
"Ryoko!" Tenchi struggled to speak. "Ryoko, snap out of this! This isn't what you want to do - you don't want to hurt me! Don't let him control you! You tell me that you're more than just someone's tool or someone's weapon - well, prove it! Prove it right now! This isn't your will and you know it. You wanted to go back to the Earth together, to have some peace and quiet away from all this madness - don't you remember that?"
Ryoko did not falter, and Tenchi closed his eyes, uttering an inward prayer for help. He could now feel the tickle of hot light at his throat, and he drew a shaky breath into his lungs as he attempted to regain his composure. Then, at length, he opened his eyes once more.
"Ryoko, back on Earth, you said that nothing would ever make you forsake the choice you made after the battle with Haki." He said softly. "You said that nothing in the world would compel you to let me go, and I know that you meant it then. Think of everything we've done, everything we've been through. Everything we've fought to overcome. This isn't what you want - this isn't your destiny. Your destiny is to put an end to all of this once and for all and come back to the Earth. Come home. With me and with Ryo Ohki. That's what you really want. You don't want to take all that away."
"Touching, but completely pointless." Kagato said scornfully. "Do you think she can even hear your babbling? It's like the squeak of a mouse to her, caught in the hawk's claws. One word from me and she'll finish you...once and for all."
"Tenchi?"
The word was softly spoken, and Tenchi glanced up at his companion, noticing as he did so that the touch of the blade was gone from his throat. Confusion and dismay flickered in Ryoko's eyes as she drew her weapon back, dispersing it as she held out a hand to pull Tenchi to his feet.
"What was I doing?" She demanded, fear in her gaze. "What...what happened?"
"Impossible!" Kagato's eyes glowed with rage and he let out a roar, sending a barrage of dark energy down to the ground as he did so. "How could one so weak as you break through my spell! Impossible!"
"Looks like you'll have to fight your own battle after all." Tenchi squeezed Ryoko's hand. "You can control her thoughts and her actions but you can't control her feelings. Ryoko and I are stronger together than you'll ever be. That's what brought her out of the trance. You can't make her hurt me because it goes against everything she knows is right. You're not as strong as you think you are."
"Control...me?" Surprise followed by anger flashed across Ryoko's expression and she let out a cry of fury, launching herself into the air and sending a new wave of light bolts in Kagato's direction. "How dare you mess with my mind! How dare you try and make me hurt Tenchi!"
"You pathetic little creature, do you think you can hurt me? Without my help strengthening your magic, you aren't a match for anybody." Kagato told her derisively, swiping her out of his way with a single beam of power. "And I only used a very small amount to control you. This fight isn't over and I'm not done playing with you yet. If you think you can break through that, well, let's try and see what happens when I crank up the power. You can't resist me, Ryoko. Through the gems, we are connected."
"No!" Tenchi let out a cry, running forwards as the darkness enclosed around Ryoko once more, stronger and more opaque than the last time. "Stop this! Stop playing with her mind and fight your own battle, you coward! Or are you too scared to face me like you did in the Throne Room the last time? Are you so scared that I'll beat you?"
"Tenchi...I can't fight him." Ryoko struggled against the apparition's magic, desperation flaring in her eyes as he engulfed her once more. "Please...whatever you have to do to stop him, do it. Whatever I do...Kagato must be...must be...stopped. Nozomi knew it...and you know it too. Promise me."
"I'm not going to hurt you!"
"You might not have a choice!" Ryoko screwed up her eyes, focusing her magic, but the red glow dimmed and faded to nothing as Kagato resumed control of her once more. He dropped her to the ground, and she teleported out of sight, re-materialising a few feet from where Tenchi stood. Her words echoed in his head and he frowned, holding his sword aloft.
"Don't make me do this, Kagato." He said darkly. "This isn't fair."
"Who said anything about playing fair?" Kagato let out a deep throated chuckle, shaking his head as he flicked a finger in Ryoko's direction once more. "You woke me before I was fully ready, and you talk to me about playing fair? No. You asked for this battle. You asked for all of this. We're playing by new rules now. If you want to fight me, man to man, you'll have to take her out of the equation first. And I'm warning you - this time, there won't be any breaking the spell. Feeble human emotions are worthless against the full power of my magic."
Ryoko raised her arm, her sabre materialising in her hand as she did so. She narrowed her gaze, and Tenchi bit his lip, his grip tightening on his sword as she launched her attack.
"Whatever you have to do to stop him, do it." The words echoed round his head for a second time as their blades clashed together once more, Ryoko's strength more than doubled by the dark energy Kagato wielded within her. As he fought to keep his footing against her, Tenchi realised that the ghostly prince had been right. He wouldn't break this trance with simple words this time. And yet, his heart balked at what he might have to do to get past her. To face the prince, one on one, in the way that he had faced him in the Throne Room of Jurai.
"You almost died so I could fight that battle then, too." He muttered to himself, renewing his determination as the sword within his grip flared with new life. "But I can't ask you to make that kind of a sacrifice again. And I won't. I won't, damn it!"
Ryoko's body glowed once more with hot red energy as her sabre doubled in it's strength, bearing down on him from above and he parried her blow at the last second, knocking her backwards onto the ground. She was up on her feet in an instant, and Tenchi stood firm, his blade ready to meet hers once more.
"You aren't much good at attacking, are you, Prince of Jurai?" Kagato's mocking words echoed out from the sky above him, and Tenchi scowled.
"I already told you, it's not her I'm fighting!" He retorted. "You just want to see me kill her, because you're twisted and sadistic and you think playing with people's lives is fun!"
"I wonder what Yosho would say, if he knew that blade of his was about to be tainted with the blood of an innocent." Kagato continued, as a bolt of spectral lightning split the sky, casting new illumination on the battlefield and shadowing Ryoko in an eerie white glow. "Do you think he'd be proud, Tenchi? Or would he be disappointed that, faced with an enemy, you can't even think how to launch an attack?"
"I'm not you." Tenchi spat out, parrying another series of blows from Ryoko's sabre and jumping back from her as she sent a wave of energy bolts in his direction. They burnt and singed the ground around his feet, boring deep into the landscape like tiny meteor craters, and clouds of smoke and steam rose up from where they landed. Tenchi cast a glance around him, his eyes narrowing as he considered the situation he was in. As he did so, light dawned in his brown eyes.
"Oh, I get it now." He said, as he ducked another swipe of Ryoko's powerful sword. "Every time she attacks me and attacks the planet, you take another little piece of Tsunami's strength. By destroying her land, by controlling her crystals...it's all a part of the bigger picture, isn't it? You've wrapped Ryoko up in some twisted battle you have against the Goddess of this world - because you want to be a God, and there's no way in hell she's letting you in!"
"Clever." Kagato sounded approving. "I didn't think you'd work that out so quickly, considering you are Earth-born and barely worthy of Jurai's notice. Tsunami is weakening, day by day. She inhabits the body of a child, and she relies on a creature such as this to do her bidding, but doesn't tell her the true power of the elements she possesses. Washu studied them and thought she had the answers, but she is not of this planet and even she, with her genius mind cannot hope to comprehend the full magnitude of Jurai's magic. In the end, the battle was won a long time ago. What I did to those gems all those years past still holds them in good stead now. I have no physical form to bear them - but thanks to Washu's meddling, I have a daughter whose mind I can inhabit, and she is the perfect vessel for such matters, being that she has so little will of her own to fight back. The true power of these gems is terrible. Their scope hasn't even begun to be imagined. They are chips from the core of this world, tiny fragments of the Heart of Jurai, the true source of Tsunami's power. Without them, time and energy must be spent destroying this world. With them, the process is so much cleaner. So much faster. But I'm afraid that you won't live to see the end result."
He raised his hand.
"Ryoko! Finish him!"