Tenchi stares in
disbelief at the wreckage of Earth; the blast of energy that
he dodged has torn away a quarter of the planet, including most of
Japan and the Pacific. Suspended in space and surrounded by his Light
Hawk Wings, Tenchi turns to see the dark and menacing figure of Z
silhouetted against the moon. Z introduces himself (using his full
name, Z0001332536893), and with a wave of his hand he scores several
more fiery wounds into the Earth's surface. Tenchi demands an explanation,
and Z simply tells him he could bear watching his comfortable life
no longer, that he intends to destroy everything, and will only restore
it when Tenchi is dead. He reaches behind him and blasts almost the
entire moon to smithereens, sending chunks of rock flying at Tenchi.
Meanwhile, the
girls have evacuated to the Ryo-ohki, which still lies at the bottom
of the now-empty lake. Washu is monitoring the situation closely.
Ryoko is up for a fight against this mysterious interloper, but Washu
warns her off, telling her not to interfere with Tenchi's battle.
Sasami notices that Noike is watching the scene with a strangely
intense look on her face.
Tenchi changes
into his Light Hawk Wing form (last seen when he escaped from Clay's
ship in episode 12), and converts one of the
Wings into his sword (as used against Kagato in episode
6), which he uses to slice apart the incoming chunks of debris
Z throws at him. Z is impressed, but summons his own Light Hawk Wings,
five to Tenchi's three, and uses three of them to cancel out Tenchi's.
He then launches one of his remaining Wings at Tenchi, who is no
longer able to defend himself. Suddenly (as Noike watches with a
strange smile on her face), Tenchi is whisked backwards at incredible
speed, and within seconds he finds himself in orbit around Saturn.
The girls watch
in disbelief, Washu wondering if Tenchi was capable of dodging like
that. However, Z takes off in pursuit of Tenchi, and Ryo-ohki launches
into space to join them.
Still utterly bewildered,
Tenchi turns to flee, but he is suddenly surrounded by a strange
red ring, preventing him from moving. Z approaches, brandishing one
Light
Hawk
Wing, poised for a killing blow. But his blow does not connect; he
is within metres of Tenchi when a translucent purple form appears
around his target; the chôshin (almighty being) Lady
Tokimi has enveloped Tenchi in her body and stopped Z in his tracks.
She
orders
him to
cease,
but Z
defies
her
and changes
his body into light, allowing him to penetrate Tokimi's body. He
is about to grasp Tenchi when Tokimi attempts to counter by moving
Tenchi aside, but to her surprise she is unable to touch him due
to the red ring around him, a blast of energy dispersing her body
and knocking Z back. Tokimi reappears
in her more conventional form and questions Z about how he was able
to repel her, asking him if he had located "it". Z confirms
that he has indeed found "it", what he calls the "counter-actor".
Z asks Tokimi whose side she intends to take.
Tokimi remains silent, so Z resumes his attack on Tenchi.
Speeding towards
the scene on board the Ryo-ohki, Sasami senses Tenchi is in danger.
She cries out his name and disappears in a burst of blue light. Tsunami's
chôshin form appears behind the charging Z. She lunges at him,
but Tokimi blocks her blow. The wave of energy resulting from the
clash of the two chôshin blasts apart stars across half the
galaxy. The two chôshin face
each other, locked in a battle of strength, neither willing to give
in to the other. Z and Tenchi watch
the standoff,
but Z is awaiting the appearance of another. 
The two red
gems on the Master Key, which Tenchi still keeps stashed in his waistband,
glow brightly and separate from the pommel, forming into the shape
of Washu's chôshin form. Chôshin Washu joins the two
other chôshin still
locked in their struggle. Tokimi warns her that the "one before us"
could be the end of their hopes, but Washu tells her that Tenchi
is as important to herself as he is to Tsunami. Washu warns Tokimi
that they could cause dimensional damage in their
present
location, so the three chôshin project their astral forms outside
the universe itself.
Z explains to Tenchi
the nature of Washu, Tsunami and Tokimi, telling him that they are
hyper-dimensional beings of incredible power, and that they created
the known universe. He reveals that Tsunami and Washu are seeking
a being with more power than even themselves, someone stronger even
than Tokimi. However, they cannot simply create someone like
that. Instead, they generate irregularities in space-time, hoping
that the chaos they create will eventually throw up someone more
powerful than them, someone who can use Light Hawk Wings, the weapons
made of the life-energy of
chôshin.
The chôshin's meddling in space-time has produced two such
beings; Z himself, and Tenchi. Tenchi is still confused, and asks
Z why he
seeks to
destroy him. Z replies that he himself has already lost so much
because of their quest...
Some time ago,
Z's race was involved in a vicious space battle.
Z0001332536893
himself was a crack pilot in a vast fleet of highly manoeuvrable
combat ships. However, Z's fleet found itself heavily outgunned and
losing
ships
fast. One of the command ships ordered Z to strike at the heart of
the enemy's defences. As his fellow pilots perished around him, Z
alone managed to survive the enemy onslaught. However, even he fell
before long; hearing that all the troops had been wiped out, he was
distracted and collided with an enemy ship. Unable to move and horribly
wounded, Z faced death at the hands of his enemy. However, he was
saved at the last moment, his parents piloting the command
ship into the enemy vessel that was poised to kill him (their last
words, "Please, protect our child", is the distorted transmission
played at the very start of episode 14).
Alone and without hope, a great and powerful rage was awoken in Z,
a rage
that
took form as Light Hawk Wings that sliced his own ship apart and
tore through the enemies surrounding him. Using his newly-awoken
powers he obliterated every last enemy ship, and forged himself a
new eye to replace the one lost in the crash. As he roared with laughter
at his incredible new powers, a figure loomed up behind him, the
figure of Lady Tokimi. "I have waited for you" she told
him, and she took him for her own.
Z finishes his
tale, and tells Tenchi that can be only one supreme being, which
is why he wishes to kill him. He tells Tenchi that the chôshin
could easily resurrect him, rebuild his body and restore his memories,
but he would lose his ability to use the Light
Hawk Wings. He offers this deal to Tenchi; allow himself to be killed
and he can return to an ordinary, happy life, without his great powers.
Just then, Ryo-ohki arrives at the scene. The furious Ryoko is not
about
to
let Z kill
her beloved Tenchi, and she opens fire at him. She flies the Ryo-ohki
straight at him, but Z is far more powerful than her ship and he
stops it with one hand. He uses a Light Hawk Wing to slice the Ryo-ohki
in two, the core ejecting just in time to avoid destruction. Ryoko
reappears in space to fight him one-on-one. Tenchi cries out to her
and tries to go to her aid, but the red ring surrounding him restrains
him again. A harsh female cackle emanates from the ring
and a single malevolent eye appears inside it, glowering at him.
Ryoko and Z battle on, Ryoko firing plasma bolts, Z defending
with a Light Hawk Wing. Dodging Ryoko's blasts, Z swings his blade
at Ryoko. Ryoko closes her eyes, expecting to be struck by the blade,
but when she opens them again she finds Tenchi has freed himself
from the restraining ring and placed himself between her and Z. Z's
Light Hawk Wing has sliced right down the middle of Tenchi's body.
Crying out in distress, Ryoko embraces Tenchi, begging him not to
die.
Inside his mind,
Tenchi floats in nothingness, images of history spooling past him
like a film reel. One image flickers past and halts, an image of
a lush forest on some alien planet, and Tenchi steps into it.
It is night-time, and flaming meteors streak across the sky. 
Tenchi
hears a young girl crying and rushes towards the sound to help her.
He finds a young girl weeping at the shore of a lake where a spaceship
has crashed, as the debris from
a
space battle raging above the planet crashes down around her. Tenchi
approaches her and tries to get her to leave and escape the danger
of the spaceship fragments raining from the sky. In her grief the
girl ignores Tenchi. "Why do you hate me?" she howls at the lights
of the battle in the sky, "Is it because I am also Kagato?". A bright
flash from above engulfs them both, and both the girl and Tenchi
are floating again in nothingness. The girl's fear has passed, and
Tenchi comforts and reassures her as they drift back and forth between
nothingness and real space (in a scene that was shown as short flashes
in episodes 15 and 16).
The girl
asks
if she
can
stay
with
Tenchi forever, and Tenchi agrees, as soon as he can find a way back.
Suddenly, they drift back into nothingness and are pulled apart.
Tenchi snaps back
into consciousness, the glowing line of energy from Z's Light Hawk
Wing still cleaving his body. With a grunt he forces the energy out
of his body and back at Z, who is engulfed by it. The chôshin
are shocked; Tsunami asks D3 for information. D3 reports a massive
energy discharge in the battle area. The energy discharge begins
to form into a human-like shape hundreds of thousands of light-years
tall. D3 and a whole group of trans-dimensional beings report
a quake spreading out across the dimensions. Washu warns that Tenchi
is placing
himself in danger; his mind is not ready to cope with this level
of power, and she asks Tokimi to release the seal that holds her
and Tsunami. Tokimi complies, and the chôshin surround Tenchi
and try to contain the massive outflow of energy pouring from him;
without them, Tenchi could destroy himself and the entire universe.
The red restraining ring reappears around Tenchi and 
forms
itself into
a
humanoid shape.
Suddenly,
Tokimi
begins
to
choke;
the
figure
that formed the ring, the "counter-actor", as Tokimi called
it earlier, has become a mutated, demonic form of Misaki (Sasami
and Ayeka's
mother) and is attacking Tokimi's physical chôshin form. Tsunami
begs her to stop, but the demon Misaki lashes out at her. Washu orders
Tsunami to remain focused; it is
only they that are keeping Tenchi's consciousness from spilling into
the higher dimensions, and it is now up to Tenchi to fight.
Floating in a bubble,
crying in pain and confusion, Tenchi begs for help. A voice replies,
his own voice, telling him there is no-one that can help him. A glowing
white
version of himself appears before him, telling him that he must help
himself, that he must remember what it is he is fighting for. Tenchi
remembers; Ryoko, Ayeka, Sasami, Ryo-ohki, Mihoshi, Washu and Noike,
the loved ones he wants to protect. Remembering them brings him to
his senses. His glowing alter-ego departs, mentioning that the little
girl he saved is safe now.
Back in normal
space, the demon-Misaki is about to choke the life out of Tokimi,
about to let everything come to an end, when Tenchi grasps her by
the arm. The demon's face softens and she releases her grip. Tokimi
passes out, and for a moment the energy outflow the three chôshin
were holding back explodes beyond the boundaries of the universe,
but is then contained without their help. Tenchi,
glowing with a divine white light, calms the raging demonic form
of Misaki, returning her to normal. He embraces her, kisses her,
and they disappear. The
battle over, the chôshin move across the face of the universe,
restoring the devastated void to normal. Tokimi beholds the body
of Z, turning him into energy, allowing it disperse and vanish.
Later, Tenchi and
the girls have returned home, and the chôshin explain how the
three of them, as all-knowing and all-powerful beings,
dealt with the knowledge that there could be someone more powerful
than
themselves. In a quest to discover if this was true or simply
a flaw in their knowledge, they spent an eternity contemplating
the possibilities, trying and retrying situations in their minds.
Ryoko remarks that their situation is exactly like that of Zero's
who, despite possessing absolute knowledge about everything, could
not comprehend Tokimi's nature (see episode
11). Tokimi explains that the higher dimensions that she and
the chôshin occupy exist outside of the universe they created,
and thus would be incomprehensible to anyone inside that universe.
Ryoko suggests that the reason for the chôshin being unable
to comprehend the existence of a being more powerful than them could
mean that they, the chôshin, are simply an experiment of someone
even higher up (a suggestion that brings tears of motherly pride
to Washu's eyes as she remarks that Ryoko would never have thought
up something like that before she was joined with Zero (see episode
12)). Tsunami admits that Ryoko's conclusion is a possibility,
but one they cannot accept without any evidence to base it on. The
chôshin continue their story, telling the group how each of
them approached the problem. Washu erased her own memory, sealed
her power into the three gems and became human, to start with a clean
slate and work things out from the beginning. Tsunami tells of how
she took on the form of the original tree of Jurai, and tried to
bring about the existence of a new life form in the generations of
trees she spawned. Tokimi recounts how she took a more direct approach,
causing disruptions in space-time in the hopes that it would spontaneously
bring this powerful being into existence. Her experiments produced
Z, but he was too unstable and unpredictable, and ultimately he brought
about his own downfall.
At this point,
Mihoshi throws a spanner into the works by asking Noike to explain
things to her in words she will understand! Before anyone can berate
her, the egg she is clutching, the only thing that remains of the
destroyed
Ryo-ohki, begins to shudder and crack; Ryo-ohki is being reborn.
In fact, there are now two Ryo-ohkis, a result of the last one being
sliced in two. The two Ryo-ohki's are just getting used to one another
when Ryoko decides
that two Ryo-ohkis is out of the question, seizes the egg, shakes
it like a cocktail mixer, and out pops a single (if rather dizzy)
Ryo-ohki. With a sigh, Ayeka reminds everyone that they are conversing
with the three beings who created the universe, yet don't act like
this is anything out of the ordinary! Chuckling, Tokimi admits that
that should be expected, once everyone has seen past their powers.
Tsunami and Washu explain to Tokimi that after they chose their methods
of seeking out the most powerful being, they realised that it could
be enjoyable too, that although they have seen the potential in Tenchi
there is more to him than power alone. Tokimi sighs, realising that
she became so wrapped up her approach that she never tried to see
more in Z than his potential, never tried to form any kind of relationship
with him. She raises her hands, and between them is suspended Z,
resurrected as an infant. She returns him to the planet of his birth,
to let him begin his life anew. The chôshin then discuss having
to repair the past to take into account the changes they have made
to allow Z to be born again. They suggest returning time to the point
when Z was born, but mention that they cannot guarantee anything
will play out the same again. Ryoko is horrified; what if some tiny
change in the past meant that she never gets to meet Tenchi in the
first place? Tokimi tries to lay her fears to rest, explaining that
because Tenchi's powers were awakened after they all met (during
the battle
with Kagato in episode 6), their meeting will
take place regardless. At the very most, only the events of the past
few days will be affected. Ryoko still protests, but Washu's patience
with her daughter wears out and she gives her a hefty clout over
the head!
Ryoko wakes up
in her usual sleeping spot atop the rafters and Sasami, who is busy
preparing breakfast, asks her to go and wake Mihoshi. Ryoko finds
Mihoshi asleep at her desk, an open e-mail waiting to be sent. After
Ryoko wakes her with a stout kick to the head, she warns her that
Washu has told her not to send that message, since it would set in
motion the same chain of events
that drove Misao to try and kill Tenchi. 
Ryoko drags her off for
breakfast, leaving the email unsent. Mihoshi's room now empty, a
cabbit very similar to Ryo-ohki, only with a bell around her neck,
appears and retypes the message. "Well done," says Noike, who
sits on the desk beside her. "I still want to meet Tenchi again,
and if
we don't do this you won't get to meet Seina." (referring to how
this cabbit, Fuku, comes to meet Seina Yamada in Tenchi
Muyo! GXP episode 14). Noike presses the button to send the message
on its way,
and she and Fuku disappear.
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