A good hour later Washu showed up with her keyboard and some unspecified equipment. She had looped Rezo, who looked rather odd in one of Yosho's priest outfits, into carrying most of the equipment. Rezo's staff drifted in behind them, following Rezo. She smiled at Lina and Zel, who had switched from chess to Othello and then to draughts while they were waiting. Gourry was watching one of the waterfalls, utterly transfixed by it.
"Well now, how are you two feeling? Any dizziness or nausea?"
They shook their heads no.
"Good, that means the tea I made worked. Now, what do you remember about the transfer to here?" As Washu said this, she lifted the equipment from the pile Rezo was carrying and began assembling something. Zelgadis simply watched her, and Lina yawned. "Come now, how am I going to figure out how you got here if you won't tell me?"
Zelgadis ran his fingers down a slim scar on the right side of his face, just outside the hairline, no more than an inch long. He looked off to the side, then murmured, "I don't remember all that much, to be honest, just a swirling darkness and a faint repetitive sound." Zelgadis turned back towards Washu, only to find Rezo not more than an inch away, peering intently at the scar.
"What do you think you're doing?" He said, giving Rezo a flat, hostile, look.
Rezo backed away, moving to sit on the edge of one of the hotter pools a few feet away. "I was simply trying to figure out how something got through your defense. Rather careless of you, wasn't it?" Rezo gestured to the scar as he said that, a rather bland expression on his face.
Zel was beginning to stand up to go throttle Rezo when Gourry asked, pointing at Rezo. "Uh, excuse me, but who is he again?"
Lina hit Gourry over the head, while Rezo and Washu stared at Gourry in utter disbelief. Zel simply sighed in disgust and sat back down in the bath. Rezo leaned back, a rather strange look on his face, part disbelief, part incredulity, part disgust, looking at Gourry. Gourry was holding his head and saying 'ow' repeatedly.
Rezo shook his head. "Wonderful, he even helped kill me and he still doesn't remember who I am-WHOOPS!" Rezo, who had leaned back too far and fallen into the hot tub, blinked in astonishment, utterly soaked. Zelgadis broke out laughing, pointing a shaking finger at Rezo. Rezo glared at Zel, but that only made him laugh harder. Washu hid a smile behind her hand, her other hand busily typing something into the transparent computer system before her. She turned back towards Lina and Zel, turning a screen towards them with a gesture.
"This is what you looked like when you fell through the gate." Washu said, her face impassive.
Lina took one look and turned pale, quickly turning away, then looking back. Zelgadis's only reaction was to turn a bit pale, no other reaction showing on his face. Rezo pulled himself out of the pool and slogged over in his wet clothes. He took one look and staggered back, a hand over his mouth. Gourry was still rubbing his head and didn't look.
"I had to do major reconstruction to all of you, and some massive internal repairs on you, Zelgadis, as you had internal bleeding in various spots and some damage to your major organs." Washu's voice was very flat as she pushed a button on her keyboard. "This is what the gate looked like in that instant that it dropped you, the shot on the left just moments before you were dropped." Washu blinked, looking at Lina who was facing away from her again. "Lina . . . ?"
"WHO EVER DID THAT TO ME IS GOING TO PAY FOR IT!!!" Lina shrieked, stomping up and down and generally throwing a fit, spraying water all over the place. Washu and Rezo watched in amazement, Zelgadis simply studied the screen, ignoring Lina, and Gourry tried to hide behind the waterfall.
Meanwhile, not too far away in space, Kiyone looked up at her new partner, who was holding out a hot mug of cocoa for her. She smiled at him as he sat down in his chair in the cockpit of the ship they were going to exchange with Mihoshi for the Yagami.
"Thank you." She murmured, taking a sip of cocoa. He smiled a tad sheepishly.
"These people we're visiting, one of them is your old partner, right?" He asked, looking curious and a bit nervous about meeting them.
"Yes, Mihoshi, the biggest bubble head in the force. Also the luckiest." Kiyone smiled wryly. "Miho pretty much destroyed any chance we had at promotion, but in many ways, she's the only one who be able to take on these high-level criminals and survive. Of course at the time, the only way I could see her was as an albatross around my neck."
"Albatross, Ma'am?" He asked, an overly innocent expression combined with honest confusion warring with a completely neutral expression for control of his face. Kiyone swatted his arm. "I'm not that old!"
"Mom always told me to be respectful to my elders." He said, with his best hillbilly accent and making a goofy face at her.
"It's a bit of ancient slang, basically meaning a burden, an barrier of success." She smiled reluctantly, not quite ready to fully relax with him, despite having been partnered with him for over three months. In some ways he still made her nervous. His ability to hold perfectly still for longer than hour still confused and unnerved her, as well as his slit-pupiled yellow eyes. Though his preference for raw or near-raw meat no longer grossed her out, as she had found that he needed the enzymes and proteins that were normally destroyed in the cooking process. What puzzled her was his liking for utterly charred bits of meat, which he kept in a bag in the cooler to munch on. He was quite handsome, she freely admitted that, in a kind of unguarded, open way that so far she had rarely seen in someone as old as he was.
Kiyone blinked, yanking her mind back to the moment from her musings. She looked at her partner, who was rooting around in the cooler he had besides his chair. A half-smile lifted the corner of her mouth briefly. The urge to munch was definitely something her partners, now and in the past, had always shared. At least he cleaned his hands after he finished off a munch. She cleared her throut to catch his attention, then nearly burst out laughing when he looked up. He had a string of cold sausages dangling from his mouth. He blinked, a look of puzzlement spreading across his face at her expression. He removed the sausages from his mouth. "What?" He had no idea why she burst out laughing.
Hours later, back in her lab, Washu looked at the data she had compiled. She made a face. "Not bloody much . . . ." She sighed, considering her options.
Meanwhile, Firia, Kagato, and Rezo were talking with Yosho at the temple, Zelgadis was helping Sasami with the cooking for dinner, Aeyka, Lina, Gourry, and Ryoko were watching TV.
Firia looked across the table at Rezo, who was taking a sip of his tea. "So, you are Zelgadis's grandfather, is that right?" She asked, setting down her teacup.
Rezo looked up from his tea. "Not quite, as I have no idea if his mother is my granddaughter or daughter."
Yosho looked down at the table, his face thoughtful. He looked back up. "How can that be?
Rezo sighed, putting his tea cup down on the table and rubbing a hand across his face. "First off, celibacy is not required by the order I was in, though for the most part it is my preference, or was, more accurately."
Kagato nodded. "Go on. Please."
Rezo continued. "Soon after my acceptance at the Great Temple I made a bargain with the owner of a small town on one of the main trade routes. In return for . . 'companionship' of a completely willing female for three nights every twenty years, I would set and maintain a set of warding mandalas for the town. The only flaw of the mandalas was that without my continual presence, they could only be set to ward against ghosts, goblins, ogres, demons, that sort of creature, and not wolves, bears, human bandits, or other natural creatures." Rezo took a sip of tea to wet his throat. "Anyways, five years after I left one time, someone, or something, broke the mandalas. I returned as fast as I could, but as I was over three month's distance away, it took some time. The most I could do at the moment was notify a small city nearby them what had happened and request that they send a fighting force out to rescue any survivors. When I had arrived, the town was in ruins, many of the buildings burned to the ground. The townsfolk of the city had found only three survivors, in the form of two children and woman who died soon after the fighters found them on their way to the town. Before she died, the woman, who was severely injured, managed to say ' they are Rezo's ', as she handed the children, both girls, to the sergeant at arms. Needless to say, the people of the city guarded and cared for the girls until I arrived."
Rezo smiled wryly, seemingly amused, but the light in his blue eyes was bitter. "My staff," He shook the odd metal staff beside him lightly. "Revealed that the girls were both related to me, or more accurately, descended from me. And that they were not twins, as they seemed to be at the time. But that was all I could find out, as both of their mothers were dead, and only one of the two woman I was able to identify as my daughter. Problem was, the woman she was living with, who was the other mother, was also the woman from five years ago. I was father to one child, grandfather to the other, but for the life of me, I couldn't tell which was which." He smirked, still deep in his memories. "Still can't, but I haven't seen either of them in over twelve years."
Yosho cleared his throat. "Interesting, but why does Zelgadis hate you? And for how long were you blind?" Rezo looked up, mildly surprised, while Firia and Kagato both had expressions of complete confusion on their faces. Rezo smiled bitterly. "How could you tell?"
Yosho had no expression on his face whatsoever as he replied. "The way you move is of one who has only recently had they eyes re-opened. Zelgadis watches you, and his eyes burn with fury and an icy rage."
Rezo's smile disappeared, but the bitterness did not. "I was blind for all of my life, despite all the magic and power that I gained and earned. I did not know it then, but I was the living prison to a demon, a demon sealed within my eyes, which is why they never opened. Gradually, the healing of my eyes became an obsession, fed and fueled in no small part by the demon I held captive, however unknowing. In my search, I found out about the philosopher stone, a magical artifact that magnifies any magic-user's powers a hundredfold. That led me to finding about the powers of the imprisoned Shabranigdo, lord of the monster race in my world. Then, there was none of my returning to the paths of light, as the darkness, and the insanity of the demon began to swallow me whole." Rezo stopped suddenly, watching Yosho in surprise as he spun around and glowered at the door.
"Who is it?" Yosho called out. Tenchi opened the door, bowing respectfully to his grandfather. "Sasami sent me to tell you dinner is ready."
"Ah! Dinner!" Yosho turned and waved the others towards the door. "We can finish this tale later, dinner won't stay hot for long." The others stood up, and with Kagato helping Firia up, they started on their way down to the house.