***This Fanfic is written without the permission of both Pioneer and AIC but 
I'm not
selling it so please do not sue me. Actually what you can do Pioneer and AIC 
is reopen
sales of Tenchi in the UK (you know how much it costs to get the stuff from
America!!!!!!!) PLEASE!!!! ***

There was an eerie standoff as Tenchi and Soja just stared at each other. 
Ryoko stood next to Tenchi, as did Ayeka as they evaluated the situation.

Ayeka felt the connection inside her reopen slowly; Tsunami knew what was 
going on, this was preparing her for what may happen in the near future.

Ryoko was also getting signals she increased the amount of energy she was 
drawing from her Gems.

All three knew they were the pieces to the puzzle to defeat Soja, how 
exactly to place these pieces however was a different matter.

Washu wiped the sweat from her forehead, a smile started to develop on her 
lips, this grew ever wider.

"Done it!" she said happily as pressed enter, the Holo-screen flashed up a 
re-boot, the updated bios and then:

	"Soja AI v2 restart activated, ETA to full system awareness 5 minutes"

Gary, panting, the brain reconstruction still going on inside of his head 
looked over Washu's shoulder.

"What have you done?" he asked quirking an eyebrow.

"Oh nothing a genius like me couldn't have done" Washu said smugly to 
herself, grinning like s Cheshire car.

"Which is?"

"I reserved a space on Soja's virtual space 10,000 years ago, not even Soja 
AI itself could access this space. The plan was for me to hack into it at a 
later date a reconstruct a 'Warrior' Soja AI from scratch. One, which could 
take on the evil AI"

"And you did all of that within 30 minutes?" blinked Gary.

"Uh-huh" Washu nodded, smiling happily, very pleased with herself "beat my 
personal record of 35 minutes, cool huh?"

"So what are we waiting for?" Mihoshi said "can't we let this new program at 
the evil AI now?"

Washu shook her head, waging a finger in Mihoshi's face "patience, this 
program will put Soja into a state of limbo, this new AI is designed to 
nullify Soja, not beat it, so we have to find a time when the evil Soja is 
at it's weakest so we can let Soja 2 infiltrate it's systems and begin 
limbo"

"So we wait?" Gary as he eased himself into a sitting position "and hope 
Tenchi and co can hold the line?"

Washu nodded "don't worry they'll do it".

***

"Sir" shouted Waiserdau's aide "something has come up"

Amnasaki and Waiserdau rushed over to the controller in question.

"What have you found?" Waiserdau said, sweating a bit at the forehead.

"We were doing a check on Soja's systems and we found a closed off area of 
space, security protocols were nothing on the scale we had ever seen, we 
managed to find a backdoor that was already being used and found this 
Operating System"

The controller brought up a new window it read:

	"Soja AI v2
	 <Command>/"

Waiserdau read the command prompt.

"What do you make of it?" he asked the Controller.

"Well we went over the coding and we think it's a dedicated anti-viral OS 
sir," the Controller explained.

"Washu" Waiserdau thought, "She's fighting it"

Waiserdau looked to Amnasaki "Sir I would recommend a bringing forward of 
the Arty strike deadline"

"How long now?" Amnasaki asked.

"Two hours sir" Waiserdau said "I think Soja might bring dimensional travel 
forward beyond that time however, I'd recommend it being brought forward to 
say 10 minutes from now"

Amnasaki thought for a moment, looking Waiserdau dead in the eye, then he 
sighed

"You have my seal of approval Waiserdau" he smiled "go for it".

Waiserdau walked off with his aide.

"What now sir?"

"Tell the Arty to fire in about five minutes" Waiserdau said sternly as he 
snatched a fresh coffee off of a lieutenant as he walked past.

"But you said ten" the aide said, raising an eyebrow.

"I like to be unpredictable" Waiserdau smiled as he sipped his newly won 
coffee.

***

"Just keep it busy for a bit longer" Washu said into Ryoko's head.

"Like we couldn't do anything else," Ryoko thought back sarcastically.
Soja stood there, with a smile.

"Well are we just going to stand here and stare, even our esteemed Royal 
guest here would know her manners" it said with a tint of humour.

Ayeka glared back in contempt, her palms clenched tightly.

"Got to hold it back," she thought shakily.

"Ayeka you must keep calm, the time will come when the three of you will 
work together to destroy the inherent evil that is here"

Ayeka blinked in her head as she suddenly left the Soja in all but body. 
Tenchi looked at her as she stood there, transfixed on the spot.

Washu was waiting for the right moment to strike. Slowly her head felt warm 
and fuzzy, yet sharp and alert like it always was. Like she was feeling 
something that she had experienced before and had liked, something ingrained 
in her mind.

"What..." she mouthed to herself as she felt a force sweep over her.

Tenchi felt his mind go blank, he slowly saw himself as he started to leave 
as well, blinking and too surprised to say anything he drifted slowly away.

Soja just raised an eyebrow as now Tenchi and Ayeka were standing, eyes 
blankly staring ahead. Ryoko blinked then felt herself disengage.

"Washu!" she said in her mind "what's happening???"

"Be calm" Washu said, "I think you're having an out of body experience"

"What does that mean!"

"I don't know just go with the flow!" Washu giggled.

In one flash she appeared in Jurai-ten, the high-blades of grass flowing in 
the wind with grace as the autumn sun shone over the green lush valley, 
native to the planet Jurai.

In the centre was Ayeka's tree, Ryu-oh, next to it, standing in all her 
glory was Tsunami. Ryoko appeared next to Ayeka and Tenchi, both looking 
over themselves. Ayeka looked up and saw Tsunami.

"Tsunami" Ayeka gasped as she ran over "what are you doing here?"

"Yeah we're meant to be stopping Soja!" Ryoko said sceptically.

"This is Tsunami?" Tenchi said, quite in awe.

"Time is short" Tsunami began "Ayeka, your younger sister cannot hold the 
connection for long" Tsunami said.
Ayeka nodded, she understood the effort Sasami must've put into helping her 
through her battles.

"Soon the evil will expand, it will try to engulf you all, you can stop this 
though"

The three looked at each other.

"Ryoko, Ayeka" Tsunami said as she walked towards them "I know there is much 
strife between you and despite your truce, it still clouds both of your 
minds"

Ayeka looked at Ryoko and Ryoko at Ayeka, both exchanging apologetic looks.

Tsunami walked to Tenchi "Tenchi, by handling the Tenchi-ken you have proved 
your ancestry"

Tenchi blinked "pardon?"

"You Tenchi are the descendent of Crown Prince Yosho of Jurai" Tsunami said 
"but that must be left for now"
Tenchi nodded, getting over the original shock, Ayeka though was shocked and 
looked at Ryoko who shrugged.

"You have a pure mind and soul Tenchi, your Grandfather has taught you well" 
Tsunami said "the time has come to combine the power of the sword, the gems 
and the mind to form one unstoppable force".

"But how?" Ryoko asked.

"It will come to you, trust me it will" Tsunami said calmly "now I must go, 
Sasami cannot hold the gate open any longer and I must return to protect 
her"

The three nodded.

"Farewell and good luck" smiled Tsunami quietly as she walked to Ryu-oh.

***

Tenchi gasped as he came back to reality, Ayeka rubbing her eyes as was 
Ryoko.

"Oh we all back now?" Soja said.

"We can defeat you" Tenchi replied, "We've seen it"

"I don't care if you seen whole FHM calendar on a nudist beach" it muttered 
as it's eyes narrowed "you're still gonna burn".

With that Soja formed what appeared to be an ordinary energy sword, then as 
Soja pulsed more energy into the sword it grew larger and more elaborate.

"Washu what is that thing?" Ryoko said in her head.

"That's my experimental energy sword v0.1, it is the most powerful sword I 
ever produced, you could boost the hitting power by pumping more and more 
energy but I never completed it because it was too unstable" Washu 
explained.

"And you never outfitted that to me!" Ryoko sounded hurt.

"Not unless you get kicks out of getting your arm getting blown apart" Washu 
smiled back.

Tenchi looked to Ayeka and Ryoko "what can we do?"

Ryoko looked to Ayeka who nodded to Ryoko.

"Tenchi!" Ryoko said "hold your sword in your hands"

Tenchi complied.

"Now me and Ayeka hold hands with one hand and hold each end of Tenchi-ken 
with our other hand"
Ayeka nodded and put her left hand on the Tenchi-ken and held Ryoko's hand 
with her right.

"Now pray that our individual energy flows out and intermingles with each 
other," Ryoko murmured as she closed her eyes.

The three focused as the bond between them grew stronger, energy started to 
flow from Ayeka's tiara, the Tenchi-ken and Ryoko's Gems. They started to 
mix and bond together in the middle of the triangle slowly  rising upwards.

Soja seeing this glared in hate and started to move towards the three.
"You won't stop me now, not now, not ever!" it screamed in an inhuman tone 
as it raised it's sword, sprinting towards them now.

***

"Sir Arty strike commencing in 10 secs" the DW officer said.
Waiserdau nodded as he saw the display on the 6 generators, somewhere, far 
away on the other side of the earth in the middle of nowhere, 20 of the most 
advanced heavy artillery was about to surgically insert several high 
explosive shells into the generators, starting a chain reaction that will 
bring about their destruction.

"3...2...1...firing has commenced, 40 shells being fired, 2 shells per gun 
in the battery" the DW officer said.

Waiserdau just watched as he saw the ripples around the 6 generators to show 
the exit and re-entry holes the shells were taking into their respective 
targets.

"Lieutenant-Bombardier Inzaman has confirmed 40 direct hits sir, insertion 
operation complete success," the DW officer said.

Waiserdau noted something down on a small notepad, a habit he picked up from 
his previous superior.

All he had to do was wait.

Soja stopped as it felt shockwaves; it looked back down the walkway as it 
saw six large explosions about a mile down the vast engine room.

"No" it said in surprise "no!" it screamed "not now!"

"Yes now!" grinned Washu over a voice network as she started to regain 
control of the ship "inserting Soja AI v2"

Soja gasped as an identical copy suddenly appeared, this new Soja however 
was green, had a lighter haircut and on the whole, much more presentable.

"Yo..You" Soja stammered at the newcomer.

"I am indeed" winked Soja v2 "I'm here to exercise your worst case scenario"
Soja stepped back, its sword disappearing "you can't do this, not now, not 
when I'm so close!" it turned and try to run, it's emotion programming in 
overload.

Soja v2 simply leapt and immediately merged into Soja with no trouble.

"Washu you bitch!" it cried "you will feel me again you hear!"

Then silence as it stood there, frozen in time as Soja v2 neutralised it.

"Operation complete success, all six targets destroyed" said the DW officer 
as he looked up at Waiserdau.

There were no cheers, no whooping or hugs exchanged, just the usual sigh of 
relief, the beginning of event and witness reports and the order for more 
coffee.

Waiserdau looked up to Amnasaki who nodded down from his office, Waiserdau 
smiled and turned to the Duty officer.

"Call off the RCS alert and go back to normal business" Waiserdau said.

"Yes sir" the Duty officer grinned.

***

Washu appeared above the three in a holo-video link as their energy reached 
a climax.

"Hurry" Washu shouted through the link "Soja v2 will only keep Soja at bay 
for a period of time only"

Tenchi looked up and nodded, he started to pray for all the energy to be 
returned to Tenchi-ken. The orange-ish mass of energy flowed into the sword 
as Ayeka and Ryoko moved to flank Tenchi on either side, supplying the 
energy that powers the Tenchi ken.

Ayeka first felt her connection expanding, forcing a rush of energy from 
Tsunami; she regulated it so it flowed quickly to Tenchi. Ryoko felt the 
same urge too to flood her connection with Tenchi with energy.

Tenchi gasped as he felt the rush hit him a bright white sheet of light 
formed in front of him, instinctively he held the Tenchi-ken in front, 
attracting the light towards him.

Ayeka's Tiara glowed and then went into strobe as Ryoko's eyes started to 
turn red, the energy being expelled by the two taking on astronomical 
levels.

The light flashed through him, coating him from head to toe. Then as soon as 
it appeared, it disappeared. Tenchi remerged from the steam clothed in a new 
light; he was covered in head to toe in the clothes of legend, and the 
warrior that Grandfather had said would turn into when he inherited the 
Tenchi-ken.

Knowing what he must do, he held out his left arm, a new white sheet of 
light appeared in the shape of a shield.

"The wings of the Light hawk" said Washu in amazement "I knew they were all 
special!" she giggled.

Tenchi stuck his arm into the white light and it disappeared, forming the 
sword of the light hawk into his hand.

Face stern and determined he looked at the frozen Soja, taking a step and 
setting his position he began to learn.

Moving forward with unnerving speed and force, spurred on by the energy 
provided by Ryoko and Ayeka, Tenchi swung at Soja, the sword cutting through 
the figure as he passed.

Finishing the sequence he slowly formed back to his battle stance turning 
round to see what he had done.

Soja had literally been sliced in half, crackling around the sliced 
midsection. It's face in shock and amusement.

"You think you can get rid of me hah!" it spat, trying to hold back laughter 
"Washu may think I am gone but I will return...you can be sure I will 
return!"

Soja's insane cackles could be heard as it slowly faded away into 
nothingness.

As soon as Soja had wasted away, Tenchi's suit faded away as well, he heard 
Ayeka gasp out loud as the connection inside of her was abruptly cut off, 
falling to her knees, she yawned, as she felt sleepy.

Ryoko also strained, her gems somehow forcefully powering down, in the end 
she too started to succumb, sleep clouding over her eyes.

Tenchi blinked, he himself didn't feel the slightest bit sleepy as he walked 
over to the two sleeping girls to check to see if they're okay.

"Heh" Washu said as she walked into the engine room "I didn't know you had 
that up your sleeves!"

Behind Mihoshi limped in, Gary trying to make her journey as painless as 
possible.

"But why are they sleeping?" Tenchi said.

"They put so much into helping you, in fact I was afraid of some kind of 
overload they were pumping so much energy" Washu said, a grin forming 
"somehow I think they were competing for him there as they would anywhere 
else" she said to herself.

"I heard that!" Ryoko snapped in Washu's mind.
Washu just winked at Ryoko's sleeping form.

"And Soja?" Gary asked.

"Destroyed forever, if not forever then forever in Limbo with Soja v2" Washu 
shrugged as wiped her brow again.

"So how are the systems still up then?" Mihoshi said.

"I've installed a temporary Soja AI that's here to maintain the ships 
systems, nothing more"

***

"Wow!" shouted one controller as he looked at his screen.

"What?" Waiserdau as he paced over "I thought we were over for the evening?"

"I just seen this colossal amount of energy being released in the Engine 
room of Soja sir" the controller said, passing the printouts to Waiserdau.
Waiserdau nodded with a smile "I'll go over them tomorrow morning, anything 
now?"
The controller shook his head "nope, only now the components in the Engine 
room are becoming unstable, now we're looking at the detonation of Soja 
itself".

Waiserdau grinned as he walked off "I'll be off now, Duty officer you have 
control of the centre, give me a call if anything else crops up"

"Yes sir" the Duty officer said.

Washu was about to pick Ryoko up when a massive shudder was felt throughout 
the ship, she looked down the hall into the distance and saw what exactly 
what she didn't want to see this early.

"Damn!" she cursed "the ships breaking up"

Tenchi blinked in fright "what!"

"Soja is held together by a force field, this disables any need for ultra 
welding etc" Washu said sheepishly "however if the power is knocked out, the 
ship starts to fall apart"

Tenchi shuddered as he felt one part of Soja slip away "lets get out of 
here!"

The trip back to the ships was actually quite smooth, the new 'caretaker' 
Soja had opened all the doors and removed all the traps. As soon as they got 
to the hole though they realised that there was no getting through the logs.

"Ayeka wake up!" Tenchi said frantically as he looked at the hole, still 
filled with the logs of Jurai.

"Come on you know you wanna wake up!" Gary said as he held Mihoshi up.

Ayeka smiled sleepily and held her hand up, still in deep slumber.

The logs fell away, allowing access to the Yukinojo. Gary sighed as he 
carried Mihoshi on board.

"We'll get on Ryo-ohki and Ryu-oh" Washu shouted as Gary entered the ship.

"Righto" Gary nodded as he closed the main entry hatch.

"Uh Washu" Tenchi said unsteadily "why do I have to carry both the girls", 
he was holding Ryoko over one shoulder while he held Ayeka over his other 
shoulder.

"Why I can't believe you could even rely on such a small child like me to 
that!" giggled Washu playfully "Ryo-ohki!" she chimed happily.

"Miya miya!" Ryo-ohki replied happily as she towed Ryu-oh towards the Soja, 
soon they were inside Ryo-ohki.

Two special hover beds were instantly constructed by Ryo-ohki, Tenchi smiled 
happily as he laid Ryoko then Ayeka down on each bed and watched them snooze 
happily.

"They look so peaceful when they're quiet...quite cute actually" Tenchi said 
to Washu who began to manoeuvre away from Soja.

"Yep well that's what being young is about" smiled Washu "being quiet and 
calm on the outside and a miniature tsunami on the outside!".

Washu's smile turned to one of shock as she looked out of the view screen.

"Dammit!" she cursed.
As they were speeding away from Soja, the engine room as slid out of it's 
fitting to the ship and was floating freely into space. However it wasn't 
heading for deep space, it was on a collision course with Earth's biggest 
satellite, the Moon.

Tenchi looked in horror as the massive engine block collided with the Moon, 
though to his and Washu's amazement, the collision didn't even budge the 
Moon, instead a smaller part of the engine block bounced off of the Moon, a 
lot of moon rock embedded into it.

"Say" Washu said as she looked closely "Ryo-ohki take us in to that block"

"What you crazy!" Tenchi said, "We could be crushed!"

"No we won't" Washu muttered, "We're getting a new bath".

In one skilful movement, Ryo-ohki disengaged from its 'jam' with Ryu-oh and 
sped to the block. Ryo-ohki flipped around, locking with the engine block as 
they started to tow it to Earth.

Meanwhile on Yukinojo, Gary had assumed command of the ship as it returned 
to Earth, Mihoshi tried to protest but was banished to a bed in her bedroom.

Gary, worried about Mihoshi set Yukinojo to autopilot. He made his way back 
to the living quarters to check up on her. He walked in just as Mihoshi, now 
dressed back into her normal clothes was about to leave her bedroom.

"Mihoshi!" Gary said.

"What?" blinked Mihoshi.

"What do you mean what?" Gary glared "you're meant to be in bed!"

Mihoshi looked down glumly "I...I'm sorry I just wanted to help that's all"

Gary looked a bit guilty for snapping at Mihoshi, he walked over and put a 
hand on Mihoshi's shoulder.

"I'm sorry its just you're hurt and you need rest!" he said with a smile 
"you've done more than enough to help protect Washu"

Mihoshi smiled weakly up into Gary's eyes "I..um..don't know what to say"

Gary blushed as he moved away, going back to the door to the cockpit "I.. 
ah.. have to go steer Yukinojo, now you go
and get some rest"

As Gary left Mihoshi thought to herself as she got back into bed "what's 
troubling Gary?"

***

"Yeah I'm sure they won't half the moon!" Ryoko said sarcastically as she 
looked over the lake at the new arrival.

"Well it doe look nice, with all the excess water draining out like a 
waterfall into the lake" Ayeka noted with a smile.

"Well I think it looks really nice" Sasami said, Ryo-ohki on her head, 
snoring away happily "thank you Washu"

"Well that bath inside the house was getting a bit crowded" Washu said

"Ladies and gentlemen welcome to the Onsen!"

Washu played with the holo-keyboard as she stabilised the height of the moon 
rock, which had now been covered with a glass shield and planted with 
tropical plant life, the atmosphere inside powered by the heat from the 
generators powering the anti-gravity engines that had broken free from Soja. 
This also heated the water with was circulated around the Onsen.

Mihoshi giggled happily "wow that sounds really good eh Gary?"

"Just don't catch me when I'm on my stool okay!" Gary grinned.

"Man I've been dying for a chance to properly relax" Ryoko smiled as she 
looked up at it.

"How about you Tenchi?" Ayeka said as she turned around "Tenchi?"
Tenchi was nowhere to be seen.

Tenchi was snoring happily in bed in his bedroom,  frankly too tired to do 
anything at all.


Fin

***Final part of Series 1 -  Trust - Epilouge***