It began as a normal day at the Misaki residence, Sasami making breakfast, Aeyka in the bath, Ryoko asleep still, Tenchi and Nobuyuki getting ready for school and work respectively, Mihoshi snoozing on the porch, Grandpa up at the shrine, and Washu doing whatever it is mad scientists do in the morning. By the time breakfast was ready everybody was awake and dressed, though Ryoko was about to fall asleep in her miso soup. Sasami looked around and noticed someone was missing. "Does anyone know where Washu is? I told her it was time for breakfast." She asked.
"I think she's still in her lab, you know she's been in there nonstop for the past week. Ryoko, wake up, you're snoring in your soup." Tenchi replied.
Ryoko yawned and stretched as Sasami got up to find Washu. Upon entering Washu's lab Sasami noticed that most off the lights were off and the plants were a bit withered, as though they hadn't been watered for a while. "Where could Washu be?" She wondered as she walked to the lift that would take her to the lower levels. Sasami looked in the zoo and physics lab, but didn't find Washu until she went into Medlab, the room where Washu kept all the info and health data for everyone, as well as occasionally patched someone up. The first things Sasami noticed were seven transparent pillars with people floating in some green fluid in them, and that Washu looked to be about 18 physically instead of her normal 12.
"Miss Washu? It's breakfast time. Are you all right?" Sasami's concern showed clearly in her voice.
"Oh, Sasami. Yes, I'm fine. Come, let me show what I've been up to." Washu sounded exhausted, but also oddly exhilarated.
"Who are they?" Sasami peered closely at the pillar on the far right. She gasped and jumped back in fright.
"Kagato!"
"It's all right Sasami, this is Kagato's Urtsdin." Washu explained.
Still looking wary, Sasami asked, "What is an Ur- um-?"
"Urt-s-din. A tradition of his race is to keep a sample of their body tissue, enough to create a clone, in suspended animation from the day that they get married."
Washu promptly went into her 'lecture' mode, materializing a desk for Sasami to sit at, a podium and display board. "You see, the tissue is kept in a special chamber that effectively suspends time within it. The chamber itself is something that has never been developed outside of their culture. And upon the day that the tissue's donator dies, the chamber activates it's primary function. Do you remember the amulet Kagato was wearing on his collar?"
Sasami raised her hand. "The decoration shaped like an upside-down Y in the American Alphabet that Tenchi showed us, professor?"
"Correct Miss Sasami. That amulet was a receiver for the chamber, one that enabled it to perform it's primary function. And what was it's primary function? To create an exact copy Kagato, to reincarnate him so to speak. And what would the receiver have to be relaying to the chamber?"
Sasami thought about it a while, then answered bravely, "His thoughts?"
"Good answer Miss Sasami, but not the complete one. His thoughts and his emotions."
Sasami waved her hand in the air.
"Yes, Miss Sasami?"
"Professor, why have you allowed the chamber to do it's primary perfun. . .funktion? Wouldn't he come back hating us for killing him?"
"An excellent good question, Miss Sasami. I found that the recording of his emotions was faulty. In fact, while the record was perfect until about a thousand years ago, the recording had degraded until the last three hundred years had barely been recorded at all. The thought recording was in perfect condition, except for an odd blank about two thousand years ago, with reoccurring blanks more frequently happening until he died."
"Two thousand years ago, wasn't that when Kagato captured you and took control over me?"
Ryoko asked as she came fully into the room, while Tenchi and Aeyka stayed by the door and looked around.
"No questions will be answered unless the student is properly seated and raises their hand." Washu said primly. Ryoko, Aeyka, and Tenchi sat down at the desks that materialized for them. Ryoko raised her hand and repeated her question, heavy on the sarcasm. "Hey, mom, wasn't that when he imprisoned you?"
Washu dropped a flower pot on Ryoko's head. "Correct, but no sassing the teacher, Miss Ryoko. It appears the blanks become more frequent the closer we come to Kagato's death, in fact, most of the fight before his death was lost."
Aeyka raised her hand. "Oh, professor, would that mean the clone has little memory of the fight?"
"Yes, Miss Aeyka."
The short pause while everyone thought that over was interrupted by Mihoshi asking, from where she was standing in front of the middle pillar, "Um, Washu, who's this? He seems to be awake. And why does he have rocks all over his skin?"
An hour later, after he identified himself as Zelgadis, the person from the middle column was munching on a broiled fish in the dining room. He was dressed in a mix of his stuff, a ivory-colored cloak, hood, and a strange neck-collar that came down to about mid-upper arm with Tenchi's black pants and a black turtleneck. It was a fairly interesting look, since his hair was a almost metallic-shine pale violet-blue with decidedly blue skin with rock-like formations around his eyes and along his chin. "I'm sorry I couldn't save more of your stuff." Washu apologized.
"It's all right." His voice was low, with a faint whisper to it that was almost villainous.
"I think I can replicate what was damaged though. Now tell me, why were you so badly beaten up?"
"That is none of your business." This was said in a flat, final tone.
"Listen buddy! I didn't have to help you! At the very least you could give me a little information so I don't drop you into whatever it was that chewed all of you six up!"
"All six . . who else was sent here?"
"Not until you tell me what happened!"
"We were attacked by beserkers."
"What are beserkers?" Ryoko asked.
"You really don't know?" He sounded highly skeptical as well as scornful.
Ryoko responded with an all-out punch to his left shoulder.
"Ouch!" She grunted, shaking the sting out of her hand. Everyone looked at Zelgadis in shock. He had taken one of her punches and barely moved! Everybody teardropped, except Zelgadis who resumed eating his fish, and Ryoko, who was still shaking her hand and muttering under her breath.
"The others . . ?" Zelgadis let his voice trail off questioningly.
"Will you tell me their names?"
"Yes"
Washu cleared her throat. "A tall, blond man."
"Gourry."
"A blond female."
"Did she have large blue balls in her hair?"
"Yes."
"Firia (sigh)"
"Is she some type of trouble?"
"She is a highly emotional part human, part dragon with a mace and a tendency to act before she thinks."
"I think I see . . . There was also a short, dark-haired girl, about fourteen or thirteen years old."
"Amelia, oh boy."
"Why?"
"She's naive and a firm defender of justice, which means she's often tried to arrest the rest of us whenever someone frames us for something." Everyone teardrops.
"There was also a very tall man with red hair like yours."
"Rezo."
The word comes out as a snarl, but everyone's attention is drawn to the explosion that blew open the door to Washu's lab. In the sudden silence following the explosion, all hear the wry amusement in Zelgadis's voice. "And that is Lina."