Reminders of the Past

A Tenchi Muyo and Invinsible Crossover

Chapter 5 - No Need to Kill all Your Heroes

Mark had listened to what Seto had said but from the look on Tenchi's face there were obviously some people in trouble. He couldn't handle it. As quietly as possible he moved toward the house. He quickly changed into his suit, pulling his mask on last, and lifted into the air. He flew toward the place that exploded, and he could see the crater that was left behind. A writhing black mass was in the center of it. Something that looked to be straight out of an old school hentai.

It was mostly shapeless, seeming gathering things and pulling it into itself. Like the others he'd heard the voice in his mind, and part of him wondered if this was more of the same. In a way it reminded him a bit of the symbiote that Spider-Man had talked about. He'd said that the creature by itself was sort of a formless black mass that was attached to a human host and gave them incredible powers.

Part of him wondered if this thing was the same, and if it was, then what kind of person was piloting it? For a moment it stopped writhing, and a white mask seemed to float to the top of the shapeless form. The mask almost seemed to express emotions, its three eyes looking at him for a moment.

"NOT JURAI!" the voice screamed in his head causing him to wince, "ARE YOU A GOD?"

He looked at it, "No."

"THEN DIE!" it screamed as a large chunk of what had been a building came flying at him. He dodged it only to see a child falling from it. Without thinking he flew toward her, catching the child, not noticing that there was something odd, the child's eyes opened, both of them solid black, its mouth opened and an ear splitting scream ripped through the air. He felt his ears rupture, throwing off his equilibrium, and causing him to falter in the air. Before he could correct himself he began to fall.

The child felt in front of him, and he watched as something bubbled up from the poor girl's mouth. A black form that moved from her mouth, forming a small ball, and fell toward the large black form below. It joined with it, and the girl screamed again. The difference was that this time it was actually the girl. She saw the very thing that had crashed earlier, the thing that took her parents, the thing that destroyed their new home, and she saw it coming closer.

Suddenly she jerked in the air. She looked to see a man wearing a yellow, blue, and black suit catch her. There was blood coming out of his ears, but she couldn't stop screaming. He pulled her close, flying away only for something to stop them. She felt them going the opposite way, and a moment later both of them were flying in the opposite direction. They flipped end over end, she screamed, felt nauseous, and without warning she vomited all over him. Her world grew dark, and then she simply passed out.

Mark held onto the girl, ignoring the puke on him. It wasn't the first time, and he doubted that it would be the last. He hit a tree, and used his body to shield the girl as he fell into the Earth. Humans were fragile, and he had to protect her. They slid carving a deep trench into the Earth, busting rocks, and unsettling the natural beauty around them. He looked to see the girl still in his arms, and he prayed that she was okay.

He stood, and the thing from earlier was moving. It was big, its body almost looked like a strange slug, but occasionally he would see arms and legs sticking out of it. Whatever it was, that thing had killed an untold amount of people, and it had done it in seconds. The girl he was holding was intentionally left alive, he knew that. He slowly stood, hoping that she would be okay, and he felt something. His side hurt, bad, and he looked to see a blackened piece of something sticking into him. He grabbed it, pulled hard, and felt blood gush out. He wanted to vomit.

He was far more busted up than he would have believed. This thing, this Kain, would have likely given his Dad a hard time. If he would have been on his Earth when he was fighting his Dad there was little doubt in his mind that Cecil would have unleashed him on them. Not that it mattered right now. He stumbled, feeling something wrong with his right leg. It hurt to put pressure on it. Kain had grabbed him, pulled him, and when he had managed to pull away he had felt his lower leg bend at an awkward angle.

He limped, for a moment, before he focused and let himself float in the air. This way there wasn't any pressure. He carried the girl, unsure of where they were, and tried to move in the cover of the woods. Sure, it could be equated to a cop hiding behind a large cardboard wall while a gunman had armor piercing shells, but even in that situation the gunman couldn't see where the cop was.

He wasn't hoping for the forest to shield him from Kain, he was hoping for it to hide him long enough that he could find help. He moved until he saw a building coming into view. The moment he saw it, he recognized it. The building had been a small Shinto Temple at the top of a hill just past Tenchi's place. He moved toward it, and then he flew down the stairs toward the house. He didn't know how he looked, and he didn't care. He got closer, and he couldn't help but feel woozy.

He heard voices, moved toward them, and saw the group there. Someone moved toward him, took the girl, and he landed. When he did the sudden pressure caused his right leg to buckle. It bent at an impossible angle and he fell back.

"Shit!" he hissed the curse, "Fuck! Dammit that hurts!"

He was unceremoniously lifted by unseen forces, and moved. Before long he felt something surround him, and for a blissful moment he felt nothing. His eyes grew tired, and then he simply fell into a deep slumber.

Washu looked at the Viltrumite as she allowed the regeneration tank to do its work. The device itself was older, something she'd made before she had decided to live as a child. It was honestly one of the oldest pieces of equipment that she'd kept and maintained. Part of her refused to get rid of it, despite the fact that she had improved its design several times.

She looked at the read out, and the tank was removing the foreign particles from his body. She watched as they collected into a small ball of black antimatter, and it remained inside of a small stabilization container. She then looked to the girl that she moved into the room as well. She was in less danger than he had been in. The leg wasn't difficult to repair. That was something she could have done outside of her lab, but the infection was different.

She knew about Kain, she knew about what he was, and she knew how dangerous he was. Could Ryoko destroy him? Yes, if she wasn't worried about everyone else it would be more than possible. But her daughter was pregnant. The baby was nothing more than a fertilized ova right, but it was going to be a baby. In truth, Ryoko's own body was currently redirecting her power, managing it so that she wouldn't be a danger to the growing baby inside of her.

If she attempted to use enough power to defeat Kain either her body would destroy the ova, thus killing something that she created with Tenchi, or it would overload her senses. She'd likely lose conscientiousness. She considered what was going to have to happen in order to defeat Kain. The amount of energy the previous Juraian Emperor had used wasn't a small amount by any means. In truth it likely would have been comparable to a supernova. That hadn't killed Kain, only weakened him enough to be trapped into a special containment unit that created a small pocket of subspace. Once there he must have slowly regenerated until he was healed enough to escape.

She finished checking the girl, seeing that while there was some internal trauma, mostly burst blood vessels, a few lacerations, and nothing that would prove too difficult for her to handle. She let her machines repair the damage done to her, and then she looked back at Mark Grayson. The Viltrumite had attempted to face Kain on his own. It was foolish in the highest degree. She heard the door and smiled softly, "They're fine."

The steps echoed slightly. It was something she purposefully designed to happen. After all, it wouldn't have been hard for her to arrange the lab in such a way that echos wouldn't happen, or remove the frequency itself from the lab entirely. No, she might be the smartest being in the universe, but ultimately she enjoyed a little dramatic flare. Echoing steps were just a nice little touch. The steps revealed Yosho, or rather his alias he went by on Earth, Katsuhito Masaki.

"I had wondered how they were doing," he said as he studied the girl, "I fear that Seto is contacting the Juraian forces."

Washu nodded, "It makes sense, she has grandchildren here, a great grandchild, and of course her own daughter."

He studied her, "Washu, why hasn't Kain simply swarmed?"

She looked at him, "I think you know that reason as much as I do," she replied, her statement both cryptic and simple, "If he does swarm there's a chance that Tenchi's true power will unlock. If that happens Kain loses, and he knows it."

He nodded, "Of course, depending on how much it drains him Tenchi could potentially be weakened for months, maybe even years."

She looked toward the two that were recovering, "There's also the unknown elements. He wanted the Juraians to come and face him. That means that he's already converted the area he destroyed to his own personal liking. It's exceptionally likely that he feels any confrontation that happens there will go in the direction he wants."

"So, ultimately, it is a trap."

She smiled, "That's very true. If he swarms he leaves a preferred battleground and he has to adapt to whatever place he swarms to," she replied as she walked from them and began pulling up the various designs she had on her hard light console, "I have something that I designed a long time back. It was something that I had designed to use against the Soja, should I ever escape on my own."

She presented it and he let out a long whistle as he looked at it, "Is that, am I wrong, or does that canon state that it creates a black hole?"

She grinned, "You're not wrong," she said with some pride, "I believed the best possible way of dealing with the Soja was to collapse it into a blackhole. Simply make it condense so much on itself that it simply blinked out of existence."

He studied it for a moment, "But that wouldn't kill Kain."

She shrugged, "No, it would trap him, in a black hole, with absolutely no way out."

He studied it, "So, do you have to build it?"

She rolled her eyes, pressed a few other buttons, and he saw a small section of subspace open. There, inside were thousands of weapons, all of which were designed to destroy entire planets, solar systems, galaxies, and beyond. He had to remember that while she appeared young Washu was considerably older than he was. In addition, she was far more powerful in her own way. Secretly he was thankful she didn't hold his trapping Ryoko in the Masaki shrine against him.

She looked toward the weapons, "There are a few backups, but the Collapser is by far the best option. I can adjust it so that the blackhole it creates is focused solely on Kain. It will keep it from destroying the Earth, and it should prevent anyone else from being dragged into it as well."

"Wonderful," he said, "So, is there a problem?"

She nodded, "We have to keep him distracted. Kain will know that something is up, but he is going to have to be in place, distracted, while the adjustments are made," she said, "Once they are, and once it's fired it won't matter if he moves. The Collapser will track him and ensure that he's hit. But it has to be fired with him in sight."

He felt a shiver run down his spine, "How long will it take?"

She sighed, "Roughly six minutes."

"Six minutes," he repeated as he looked at her, "I take it that the adjustments can't be done automatically."

She nodded, "They have to be made, by hand, and specifically by me," she replied as she walked near him, "I get what I'm asking. Taking six minutes might as well be asking for six months. I also understand that if it was a single person it would be nearly impossible. Even with multiple people it will be incredibly difficult."

She shrugged, "And the worst part is that it won't matter. Six minutes is rushing it," she said as she slumped her shoulders, "Even with the ability to make nearly anything, I have to follow some very basic rules when it comes to the universe itself. One of them is that I won't be able to simply undo the amount of time it will take."

She walked with him and pointed toward a small room, "Inside of that room is a place where I was able to artificially speed time up. Inside of it a second out here is an hour in there, and that's just on the edge. Toward the center seconds can turn into centuries," she said as she let him look at it, "The issue is that while I was able to slightly change the basic rule of time and physics inside of the room I couldn't break them. There are some rules that are simply unbreakable, or at least are unbreakable in this form, in this existence, and in order to break them I would need to do something that would endanger my daughter."

He looked at her and she didn't look away from the room, "I will openly admit that I haven't been much of a mother. I let my guard down with Kagato, and while I was trapped I was subjected to feeling everything he put her through," she finally looked at him, "I felt every time she was whipped, every time she was beaten, and I felt every time he used her as a toy."

She didn't look away, she didn't hide the seriousness in her eyes, "She finally has some happiness with Tenchi. I will admit that I teased her, and him, about starting a family with him. But I wouldn't undo her happiness for anything in the world. In order to undo the restraints that keep me from speeding up the time to fix the canon, or from simply ending Kain completely, I would have to steal all of my power back from Ryoko."

She breathed out, "I mean all of it," she closed her eyes, and for the first time he saw a tear escape, "I'd have to kill my baby in order to do it, and I can't. I can't because there's other options. I can't because I know what's inside of Tenchi. I can't because I know that ultimately there doesn't have to be a sacrifice."

He touched her and she didn't pull away. Instead she leaned into it, "I swore, I swore that I would never be hurt like this again," she said, her voice betraying that she was the verge of tears, "I swore that I would live as an eternal child, and I would never be hurt like I was when I lost two of the most important people in my life. The fact that I even considered doing that to Ryoko… for a moment, I was the worst possible parent in the entire multiverse."

He wasn't sure what to do, but instead he hugged her. She returned the hug, letting the former Juraian prince comfort her, "We can find a way of stalling him, I know we can, so we just have to think of it."

He couldn't speak, but he agreed. He hadn't considered how Washu might feel, and that made him feel terrible. He had basically seen her only as the scientist that she often presented herself as. He didn't consider her as a mother, and he certainly didn't consider that she was a caring woman. Instead, Washu proved that she didn't just care, but she cared deeply.

"If Seto is able to bring in the full might, it might buy us the time."

She shivered, "Possibly, but I believe that there is another option."

She looked toward the two in the lab, and then at the small piece of Kain that had been inside of Mark, "I believe that we might be able to use something a bit more basic to stall him for time."

He walked with her and looked at the small black ball in the containment. It didn't move, and for all rights and purposes it looked to be completely inert. She let a small current of electricity touch it and the ball produced what looked like a spike. It then went back to a ball.

"Being separated from Kain, the black antimatter simply becomes antimatter. It craves matter, in any form, and when it does get it the antimatter takes a form best suited to keeping that form."

He looked at her, "what does that mean?"

She looked at him and then at several tanks lining the wall, "I can do something that will help buy time. I can make a dummy that will keep his focus. I'll design it to exist for no more than seven minutes, and I'll use his own essence to power it."

He watched as she took a small bit of the blood she had collected from Mark and placed it into a tank.