Azusa momentarily hesitated to leap into the pathway Kirito had created. However, if Kirito had judged the situation this dangerous, then his discontent meant nothing. “I guess this shows I’m still just an amateur…”
Just as Azusa and Jijii vanished in the golden light, a wooden spaceship appeared in the cathedral’s skylight.
Kagato regarded the ship. “A Juraian vessel… You mean to say this was all that ship’s doing?!”
Dozens of light beams stabbed at Kirito from Kagato’s battleship Souja as Azusa and Jijii returned. Souja was 37 times larger, with an overwhelming advantage, but her blasts could not put even a scratch on Kirito. The three wings of light Kirito had deployed to her fore completely blocked physical, psychic, and even subspace attacks.
Meanwhile, on Kirito’s bridge, Azusa fought pain as he held the Master Key aloft with both hands, linking with the Royal Tree and directing Kirito to counterattack.
“I never expected someone like this.” Azusa had assumed he was just a pirate, though formidable. There was no way for him to know that his opponent was the assistant to Washu, the scientific genius of the Galaxy Academy, with Ryoko’s prototype body. On his first training journey, Azusa had encountered a being who could stand up to a Juraian vessel, lauded as the strongest. It was fate.
“However…” Concentrating power into the center of the wings of light, which were devoted exclusively to defense, the light penetrated Souja’s defense field like a thin skin and landed a direct hit. The 60 meter long sword of light pierced her, inducing an explosion.
“Such power. So those are the wings of light used by the ships of Jurai, renowned throughout the galaxy… The Light Hawk Wings?! I see. They are powerful, indeed.” Floating within the partially-destroyed cathedral, Kagato stared at Kirito, directly in front of him. His face showed faint surprise, but no fear.
“Meeowwww!”
A ship appeared, along with a cry that seemed to resonate through the heart. A ship made of black crystal, with four horns projecting from its central core block! The ship’s name was Ryo-Ohki, in her first generation, before she regenerated.
This time, it was Azusa’s turn to be surprised. Ryo-Ohki possessed firepower equal to that of Kirito. If anything, she had an advantage, if only a slight one. “What’s with that power?! Could she possibly have the same power as a Tree?!”
A communication override overlapped Azusa’s shocked exclamation. The screen showed a young woman with bristly hair and fire in her eyes. It was Ryoko. She licked her lips, seeming to enjoy the battle, as she looked Azusa over. The jewels on the nape of her neck and both hands shone crimson.
“Not bad,” she said, “against me and Ryo-Ohki!”
“A woman?! No… You aren’t human either, are you?!”
“You can figure that out when you’re dead. I don’t care if Juraian ships really are the most powerful in the galaxy—Ryo-Ohki and I are going to blast her to bits!”
The moment she cut the transmission with a rude wink, Kirito began to take heavy fire. The wings of light generated by Kirito, the three Light Hawk Wings, could not cover the ship completely. The beams fired from Ryo-Ohki scored direct hits through their gaps. The Light Hawk Wings’ defenses were not enough… or so it seemed to Azusa and Jijii.
Part of Ryo-Ohki’s attack passed through the Light Hawk Wings, neutralizing them. There was one form of energy that could pass through Light Hawk Wings. It required an immense reactor to utilize such energy in a weaponized form. Because of this requirement, it would take nothing short of a planetary-scale battleship to generate this weaponized energy, and it still would not cause critical damage to a Juraian vessel. The weapon Ryo-Ohki used was something else entirely.
Kirito shook, her hull taking direct hits for the first time. Juraian vessels could get away with wooden hulls because they possessed Light Hawk Wings, which served as both an absolute defense and offense. Of course, it was also an old tradition, but ships made of wood were the symbol of Juraian invincibility. Now, the ship composed of black crystal shattered that symbol!
“It’s sluggish?! Dammit, from just this much damage?”
“Young Master, you cannot maintain the link with the ship in your condition. We must retreat!” Jijii anxiously advised Azusa.
“If we do that, that ship will finish us! I’m taking us in!” Diverting energy from the Light Hawk Wings, Kirito focused its barrier at the bow. Ryo-Ohki began to spin like a top, emitting energy beams. The two tremendous energies collided. Back and forth, the two ships struggled against each other.
“That wasn’t good enough?! The link may be imperfect, but this is a First Generation Tree!”
It was Jijii’s frightened scream that roused Azusa from his bewilderment. “Young Master, the fabric of space… It’s tearing!”
“What?!”
The screen showed an exterior view. Space was twisting and curving right before his eyes. The two energy fields slightly out of phase with each other were generating an enormous repulsion, inducing a dimensional rift.
“Meow… meooww!” Ryo-Ohki, too, cried out at the tremendous energy.
The phenomenon spread out at the speed of light, engulfing Souja, as well. “A ship capable of taking on Ryo-Ohki. She may be unstable for now, but she couldn’t overwhelm it with the power of her jewels?!” On his bridge, Kagato’s body began to tremble for the first time.
The rift in space would not be enough. The excess energy of this phenomenon would likely cause ripple effects up to 300,000 light years away. The three ships fell through the rift. And in that instant, Kagato saw a humanoid form in space. The woman, her long blue hair tied behind her in two bunches and two circular marks inscribed on her forehead, floated in space like a transparent ghost.
“Who are you?” Kagato’s asked in a dazed murmur. Ryoko’s own murmured reply provided the answer.
“Tsunami.” Ryoko knew her… or, rather something within Ryoko knew Tsunami.
Wings of light grew from Tsunami’s body. Tsunami: the progenitor of the Juraian Royal Trees. Ten Light Hawk Wings grew from her body, enveloping the dimensional rift created by Kirito and Ryoko! Everything faded to white.
From the cathedral aboard Souja, Kagato saw Tsunami’s form, as did Azusa from Kirito’s bridge. But, almost immediately, the woman began to transform into another.
“Azusa-chan… Azusa-chan…” The woman with white hair longer than she was tall smiled at Azusa. He had not seen that slightly clouded smile in a very long time. He could never have imagined he would see her again.
“Mitsuki…” Azusa called her name, his face in sorrow.
“Azusa-chan.”
He longed for that lovely voice to embrace him forever. If I’d met you now, I could have protected you, he thought. I would protect you. Was that now an impossible reality?
A rude, hoarse voice called Azusa from his reveries and back to reality. “Are you all right, Young Master?!”
He stared silently at Jijii in front of him. This brief pause was Azusa’s meager resistance to his reality.
The dimensional rift sucked in Kirito, Souja, and Ryo-Ohki, and all three ships vanished from the area of space where they had been battling. Unbelievably, the excess energy created by Kirito’s Light Hawk Wings and Ryo-Ohki’s jewels had also vanished without a trace. The only thing left in that region was Tsunami, who had absorbed the energy. Tsunami gazed at one spot in space. Perhaps there had been something that drew her attention there, but eventually she silently closed her eyes and then seemingly melted away into space.
The progenitor of the Trees of Jurai, the Tree of Beginnings who could deploy ten Light Hawk Wings—Tsunami would, in 50 years, have her fateful meeting with Azusa’s second daughter Sasami and assimilate her. And then, 700 years later, she would save Masaki Tenchi in his battle with Kagato after Tenchi lost half of his body.
This incident also prompted Kagato, a scientist seeking a complete unified theory for all dimensions, to take interest in the ships of Jurai, particularly the Royal Trees. He would later order his servant Ryoko to steal Tsunami, the mightiest tree of Jurai. For now, he started on the repair and refit of the badly-damaged Souja.
As for Ryo-Ohki the First, whose incomplete link with Ryoko’s jewels had been unstable, the battles with Azusa’s ship Kirito, as well as with the First Generation Ship Funaho (which would belong to his son Yosho, born ten years later) dramatically shortened her life span. In 700 years, the spat between Ryoko and Ayeka would silence this Ryo-Ohki for good, eventually regenerating to evolve into Ryo-Ohki the Second.
Azusa and Kagato fought for barely three hours. No one could have guessed how much that brief encounter would affect history. Indeed, this was the moment where destiny took a turn.