Start of Fragment

-----

Achika woke up early that day.  She hurried to her father's shrine to fetch
him for breakfast.  Her husband had already left for work.  The climb up the
steps on the side of the hill was always her morning exercise, and she liked
it.  Not only because she was getting a great workout, but the reward of
meeting with her father was satisfying enough.  She reached the top just as
the door leading into her father's shrine office opened.  To her surprise
another young man was with her father.

"Achika.  Is that you?"  Katsuhito, the priest of the shrine and Achika's
father called for her.  She approached the two of them.  The man, the
stranger that was with her father was familiar to her.  She couldn't place
him, but somehow she thinks she knows him.  Achika greeted her father and
the visitor of the shrine before inviting both of them for breakfast.

"Have you forgotten, Achika?" The young man asked her, "Is that a way of
treating your Uncle?"  That word struck her, right in her head, deeply
unclogging the cobwebs of her past memory.

"Uncle?" Achika's eyes lit up, "Uncle Takeshi? Why I haven't seen you
since...I...was..."  She could hardly believe her eyes.  He was the same,
nothing had changed with him.  The person in front of her couldn't be her
uncle that she had last seen when her mother was still alive.  "It can't
be..."  Vague pictures filled her head.  A young man so young when she had
last seen him, couldn't be the same one that was standing in front of her,
at least two decades later.  "It just can't..."  Both men laughed smartly,
offering no comfort to Achika's confusion.

"I'm sure you have a lot of questions, Achika."  She nodded, looking at her
uncle and her father back and forth.  "Yes, I'm the one.  The one you
remember when your mother was still alive."  Achika thought for a moment.
Thinking and asking herself if this man, professing as her uncle that should
be twice her age now, could read her mind.  Surprisingly, Takeshi nodded
even without a question uttering from her lips.  "Shall we eat first?"
Katsuhito agreed, and both men helped the hapless woman down the steps.

-----

"I heard you have married, Achika."  Takeshi sat across the table, opposite
Katsuhito.  Achika asked him if he knew her husband, Noboyuki.  "Yes, I do.
For a long time now."  Achika was surprised, asking him how and why.
"That's not important right now, Achika.  I'm here to tell you...a secret."
Katsuhito excused himself, something about the carrots growing in the fields
or something.

"Secret?  What are you talking about, Uncle?"  Achika poured more tea into
Takeshi's cup.

"The power that you have...inside you, Achika."  Takeshi sipped some tea,
but was the unfortunate receiving end of one of Achika's hand slap on the
back.  He made quite a mess.

"Oh, uncle.  How did you know?  I just got the phone call from the hospital
last night.  How did you know?"  Achika melancholicaly giggled and tried to
hide her embarassment.  "I'm so happy.  I'm just so happy right now.  When I
told Nobo..."  Achika stopped blabbering on when she saw her guest lying
flat on the table full of food.  "Oh, my."

-----

"I'm so sorry, uncle."  Takeshi finished toweling himself off, forgiving the
young lady of the house at the same time.  "You know, it's really wierd of
me to call you uncle since you look much younger than me."  Achika laughed a
bit, but she would have been more surprised than amused had she realized
that she had stumbled on the purpose of her uncle's visit that day.

"Do you want to know why?"  Achika hesitated to answer.  Somehow she had
already guessed it was or had something to do with Jurai Power, the same
energy she had learned to use once in her lifetime already.  Takeshi sat
down, telling her it wasn't exactly that what she had suspected.

"What's not Juraian?"  Achika sat down with Takeshi, a visible cat curious
look on her face.  She was the curious and serious type, Takeshi recalled.
A trait she inherited from her mother, non of the flambouyance of her father
in her.  Takeshi cleared his throat, Achika leaned forward anticipating an
important conversation if she ever had guessed one.

"I cannot die, Achika.  It's my...curse."  Achika was more intrigued at
Takeshi's revelation.  "I have...so much, it's so hard for me."  Takeshi was
talking in riddles, she knew it was difficult to tell a secret, especially
something that kept a man so young for over two decades now.  "Two billion,
Achika.  Probably more, but who's counting."  She was more than surprised
this time.

"Why are you telling me this?"  Fear crept up from the back of her mind.
She couldn't keep her belief and trust from turning to ignorance for too
long.  She wanted to know more, but at what cost she asked herself.

"Achika, I need your help.  I need you to..."  She braced for the worse.
"kill me.  Kill me, Achika."  She exclaimed silently, her breathing almost
stopped.  The flood of memories broke through a barrier in her mind, the
memories that were locked in her suddenly filled and came into view.  "While
you still have the power, Achika."

"I...I..." Her mind was the crossroad of the past, present and future.  As
if a key had opened her eyes to things she never dreamt of seeing.  Was this
the power he was talking about?  Achika meditated, a discpline instilled by
her father.  She filtered what she was seeing.  A slew of images she was
tossing aside, She saw her mother, She saw Noboyuki.  She saw a small child,
crying in the middle of the shrine under the falling snow.

"That is your son, Tenchi."

"Tenchi?"

"Yes, he will inherit the power I gave you."

"Gave me?"  A vision of darkness fell on Achika.  She was the solitary glow
in the middle of that empty vast space.  The evil was encompassing, it was
overwhelming her.  She fell on her knees, aching to release her will, the
power that will free her.

"You were not ready, you would have died there and then in their hands.  If
I had not interceded."

"Who are you?"

"I'm your ancestor, I've come to fulfill a promise."  The voice was a little
speck, but it was the sound she needed to hear within that soul less void.
Being trapped, she didn't feel alone with that voice.  Her saviour.

"What promise?"

"That while I'm still alive, evil will not truimph over the good, the
righteous, the loved."  Her surroundings started to change.  The power
weakened her, the transfer was so great she almost passed out.  She did
however manage to remain conscious, and with every little step she took, she
felt the power in her.  Achika now had it, the secret so long forgotten, so
long feared as well.  The darkness was receding.  Too afraid now to even
touch her own shadow.

"I'm sorry."  Achika opened her eyes.  She awoke in her bed, looking down on
her was her father and her uncle.  The skylight was devoid of light.  It
must have been hours that she had fallen asleep, Achika calculated.  She sat
up, hearing the apologetic voice of her uncle again.

"How long have I been sleeping?"  Achika tried to get up, but she was still
too weak.  She felt the stiffness in her limbs, the strain on her back and
neck.  "What?  Three days?"

"I sorry, but the transfer was so powerful.  I'm truly sorry, young Achika."
He placed her hand on hers and it began to glow.  Achika, fearing more than
being enlightened, she took her hand away.  "Achika.  Please,  you need
this.  It'll restore your life."

"My Life?"  Katsuhito pleaded for Achika to receive the Jurai energy she was
being offered.  But stubborn as her mother, Achika wanted explainations, the
truth.

Takeshi leaned over and placed his hand on Achika's head.  They both started
to glow, until the two finally disappeared from the room.  Katsuhito prayed
a little before rising up from the floor.  The door slid open before he even
got to it.  Noboyuki was there carrying a tray of food with him.

"Where is Achika, dad?"

"She had to go somewhere, Noboyuki.  She'll be back later."  Noboyuki turned
around, accompanying his father-in-law down the stairs.

"Is she all right?  She must be sick, father.  We should have brought her to
the hospital last night."

"Don't worry, Noboyuki.  She's in good hands."

"I see."  Noboyuki returned the tray into the kitchen. "By the way, that
Takeshi guy is sure is weird."

"You don't say?"

-----

"Who is that?"  Achika looked down from up a tree that she was hidding in.
Takeshi wasn't with her, but she knew his spirit was there just beside her.

"That's your son, Tenchi."

"Tenchi?  But...Are we in the future?"

"Yes, and he has grown up to almost everything that you have always wanted
him to turn into."

"Really?  Wait, what do you mean almost?"  Achika heard a commotion from
below, a few more people gathered and met with her son.  "Who are they?"

"They're the almost...I'm afraid."  Achika tried to hear what was going on
down below.  So far, she could clearly see the girls were fighting over her
son.

"Oh, my.  Why are they fighting over Tenchi?"

"They're all...Tenchi's girlfriends."  Achika's eyes grew in surprise.
"Well, something like that."

"My Tenchi, a playboy?  How could this be?"  She felt her stomach churning.

"Well, actually...he's not a playboy.  He's not even showing the slightess
interest in any particular one of those girls."  Achika's heart almost fell
off the tree.

"No, don't tell me...he can't be..."  A huge sweat drop hang invisibly among
the leaves of the tree.

"No..no, he's not that, Achika.  I swear."

"Then what are you saying!"

"He's just...shy, that's all.  And indecisive, and too patient, and too
forgiving."  Achika didn't want to hear more.  Her worst fear had already
been discredited, much to her relief.

-----

Ryoko and Ayeka were fighting again, this time the Guardians were caught in
the middle trying to fend the two off each other.  Tenchi had stopped
sweeping the yard and ran towards the nearest shelter, carrying the young
Sasami and Ryo-ohki with him off to safety.  The visiting queens of Jurai
were sitting on the front terrace, enjoying a cup of tea with Washu.

"Misaki, do you remember that young man that had his own palace back on
Planet Jurai?"

"Who?  That young man who used to teach at the Royal Academy?"  Funaho
hesitated to reply, fearing that she might be wrong with her suspicions.
Washu was intrigued by the current conversation, but was briefly distracted
by the small explosions happening over the lake.  "Didn't he disappear from
Jurai a long time ago?"

"Yes, he did."  In her mind, Funaho was asking herself another question.
Was the man she had seen meeting with her son the same man she had known
since she was a child?  She didn't know how to answer, but for sure she
needed to talk to her son as soon as possible.

"Why do you ask, sister?"

"I think he's up at the shrine talking to Yosho."

"What?"  Misaki was surprised at the neews.  "Are you sure?"

"No, but I'm pretty sure about my suspicions."  Misaki clasped her hands.

"This is great.  Now, I can finally ask him where he gets those wonderful
fruits he used to store his palace."  Funaho almost choked.

"How did you know about that?  That was supposed to be a..."

"Oh, come on sis.  I saw you eating those fruits everytime you came from his
palace.  It wasn't that hard to figure out he was the one giving them to
you.  So I just asked him."

"And he gave you some?"

"Yes.  My favorite are those yellow fruits he calls mangoes.  They are so
sweet."  Funaho smiled, realizing the secret she had been keeping all these
years was not really a secret at all.  Washu couldn't help interject her
voice into the conversation.

"Mangoes grows only on this planet, Lady Misaki."  Both women reacted with a
"really" question at Washu.  "Yup.  I do have a plantation in my laboratory,
but natively it's only on Earth that you could find Mangoes."

"Interesting."  Funaho already knew that, but it was further proof that she
needed.

------

End of Fragment


Sorry for this one, but I've got to put this down before I go to sleep.  So,
it's quite obvious that I'm laying out something about this fic, and the
continuity theory, history theory and alternative storyline I've set for TM
OAV.  I'm just disgruntled by the fact that I'm looking at a lot of writing
to even come close to finishing one chapter.  Oh, well.   I'm projecting
that this fic will encompass three important issues. 1.  The relationship of
the gems and the three sisters.  2. The five LHW of Tenchi.  3.  Tenchi's
succession towards the throne of Jurai.

Ok, now you could start spamming me.  (eh, killing me? ^_^)