In Yuugi's domain, she's watching the crystals which represent the Tenchi gang. The pink one is hovering dangerously close to the white one. Her three minions are watching with Yuugi.
In Okayama, Nobuyuki is desperately looking for his secret stash of money, which he keeps in a small blue envelope in one of his shoujo manga comic books. He's ransacking his library of shoujo manga looking for it. He runs out of the library and runs into Sasami, wearing a backpack and singing to herself ("la la la") with Ryou-oh-ki on her shoulder. Ryou-oh-ki is also singing. Nobuyuki asks her if she's seen what he's looking for. It's about so big, he explains. Sasami realizes that that's exactly the size of the small blue envelope Ayeka found in a comic book at the end of the previous episode.
Sasami shrinks back. "No, no, I haven't seen such a small blue envelope full of money in a comic book!" she denies in too much detail and runs upstairs. Nobuyuki just accepts her denial.
Upstairs, Ayeka, Mihoshi, Kiyone, and Washuu are getting ready for a trip. They used Nobuyuki's money to book train tickets to Tokyo. Ayeka also has a backpack, as does Mihoshi. Mihoshi has stuffed her backpack mainly with candy. Kiyone doesn't think she needs all that. Mihoshi shows her other things she's put in, like a banana, an apple, an orange, a large melon, a coconut.... Kiyone smashes Mihoshi over the head with her melon.
Ayeka is very determined on this trip. I get the impression that she's kind of the organizer/leader type person here. Ryouko comes up, and calls the rest of them (especially Ayeka, I bet) stupid. She's quite confident in herself, and she leaves the rest of the gang to go off without here. (Again, I speculate that Ryouko is planning to build on what transpired in the 10th episode.) Ayeka is angered by this, and she gets even more determined. Sasami enters at this point, so the gang's all here, and they yell "Let's go!"
In Tokyo, Tenchi's high school is holding their festival. It's very busy.
Tenchi is stirring batter behind his group's booth. They're making crepes of some sort. His friend Luke Perry comes up to him. He's carrying a big fish and daikons on his back on his way to his booth. He stops to talk conspiratorily to Tenchi before he's called away. (He's telling Tenchi about his plan to confess his love to a girl that night, as per the school "jinx". This was mentioned in the previous episode, and will come up again later.) The Nosy Girl comes out to say something to him, probably booth-business related.
Sakuya and Ditsy Girl are out in front, cooking food and serving customers. Ditsy Girl starts to pump Sakuya for information, and she lets her imagination runs wild. Sakuya tries to disabuse Ditsy Girl of her wilder fantasies, but she's actually embarrassed by this exchanged. She's more embarassed when she realizes the customers have been listening. She burns her food.
The Tenchi gang arrive at Tenchi's apartment, where Tenchi is not. (I guess he never told them about the festival.) Ayeka rings the bell. No answer. She looks through the peephole, but she doesn't see anything. The girls wonder what they're going to do, but Washuu has an answer. She puts on a "power glove" and rips the door open.
Of course, the room is empty. (But it's very neat, though.) Ryou-oh-ki finds a flyer advertising the festival.
Tenchi and Sakuya, meanwhile, are eating lunch. I think Sakuya made it. She's delighted that Tenchi likes it. She shows Tenchi a flyer advertising some sort of musical program after the festival. (It shows the mascot, a giant penguin like thing, in a bonfire playing a guitar.) They're going to go there after the festival, I guess.
The girls have made it to the festival, and they're quite delighted at all the stuff going on. Mihoshi, especially, is excited at the prospect of eating okonomiyaki, fried noodles, and octopus balls, but Kiyone puts a damper on her excitement.
Ayeka and Washuu go off, looking for Tenchi, and they're concerned....
Yuugi watches this.
Ryouko is watching a soap opera back in Okayama. It seems to be a fairly convential soap opera with a doctor and a nurse professing their love for each other until a giant meteor comes down and destroys everything. "What is this?" asks Ryouko, as she slurps up a bowl full of noodles. Nobuyuki comes in to ask Ryouko if she's seen his envelope, but she just waves him away.
In Tokyo, Tenchi is cleaning up. He's washing dishes when he catches a glimpse of Ayeka. "Naw, it couldn't be...." he thinks, but then he hears Sasami calling for Ryou-oh-ki! "It is!" he thinks. "What are they all doing here?" Tenchi hears shots. He runs off.
The shots come from Mihoshi, who's used her gun at a shooting gallery. Kiyone is understandably mad at Mihoshi for causing so much damage. Tenchi runs up, and the girls are glad to see him. Tenchi is not. He's angry at them. But Tenchi is interrupted when he hears Ryou-oh-ki's "Myaa!" and windows blowing up from a classroom.
Ryou-oh-ki seems to have gotten herself in a fix. She's in a classroom being chased by a bunch of science students wearing surgical masks and weilding hypos. (A sign on the wall indicates that they're studying "Mysterious Life" and I suppose a cabbit qualifies.) A mad genius type is standing around giving an appropiately manic speech. The leader throws a handful of scalpels and pins Ryou-oh-ki against the blackboard. They start wheeling Ryou-oh-ki to an operating table. So Ryou-oh-ki turns into the Carabot. (Cat-Rabbit-Robot)
Tenchi runs up the stairs where he runs into Sasami, who is also looking for Ryou-oh-ki. They arrive in time to see a hole blasted into the classroom with various students flying out of it. Sasami in Tenchi rush in. Sasami comforts Ryou-oh-ki (still in Carabot form) and Tenchi sees to the students. Tenchi is pretty angry.
...But he's interrupted by another explostion in another building.
Meanwhile, a group of students are running little robots through mazes. Washuu is there, and she looks at one of the little things, and she thinks she can do better....
At the same time, Sakuya is by the booth, waiting for Tenchi. (No one else is around.)
And still at the same time, Tenchi has found the source of the explosion I mentioned before. It's Ayeka! She's in some sort of monster maze, I guess sort of a mini-haunted house type attraction. She explains that she was looking for Tenchi and someone told her he was in this maze (probably just to get another customer in the maze.) When she saw the scary monsters in there (and a paper snake rises up to give an example) she tried to defend herself.... Anyway, she's pretty contrite when she's talking to Tenchi, but Tenchi's pretty mad. I don't think he's interested in hearing that Ayeka was worried about him, and he's walking out. Suddenly, he sees a giant mouse run through the corridor. "Don't tell me," he says, "Washuu's here too?"
"Yes," says Ayeka meekly.
"Oh, no!" says Tenchi. The mouse leaps out of the corridor, through the walls, makes the multi-story leap and lands on the festival grounds. It starts crashing through booths.
Mihoshi, Kiyone, and Washuu are talking on the steps of the school. Tenchi runs up to asks what's going on. Washuu can't stop the giant robotic mouse -- she didn't give it an on/off switch. It won't stop until the power runs down. Tenchi sees it heading towards the area where Sakuya is (still waiting for Tenchi) and he runs to save her.
Sakuya doesn't notice the mouse heading towards her until it's almost upon her. Tenchi squeezes through booths to reach her.
Kiyone from a small hill a little ways away fires her gun at it. The mouse explodes! When the smoke clears, Ayeka is visible. She threw up a shield to protect Tenchi and Sakuya. "That was close," she says (I think.)
The rest of the gang runs up, and they're relieved that Tenchi is unhurt. But the booth was completely destroyed, and Tenchi is very angry. He yells at all of the girls. Ayeka is quite chastised by this, and she meekly bows out. Everyone else follows suit. They're pretty shocked. Only Sakuya is left, and she looks at Tenchi with a sorrowful countenance.
Meanwhile, Ryouko has somehow made it to Tokyo. She's cheery. She flies by Tenchi's apartment, but, of course, no one is there. The door is still ripped open, but since this is Tokyo and not New York, his apartment has not been looted. Ryouko looks in and wonders where Tenchi is.
It is night, and the festival is over. The mascot of the festival, the giant penguin-like thing, has been put in the bonfire. Up on the roof, Tenchi and Sakuya stand leaning on the railing. Tenchi is in a bad mood, but Sakuya is cheery. Tenchi tries to apologize for the day's events, but Sakuya brushes it off. She enjoyed herself, she seems to say. They were going to have to take down the booth anyway, she says. She realizes that they never thanked the girls for saving them. Tenchi says it doesn't matter, but Sakuya says it does.
Sakuya admires the very large moon shining down on them. As Tenchi looks at Sakuya's cheerful face, his mood cannot help but lighten. Sakuya moves closer to Tenchi, snuggling up to his chest.
She tells Tenchi they don't have to declare their love for one another -- she doesn't believe in the school "jinx." She says that just being around him everyday is enough for her.
But sometimes, she says, Tenchi seems very distant. She thinks back to Tenchi scolding the rest of the girls earlier that day, and she realizes that she had never seen him look so serious. It made her kind of jealous of them, and kind of sad. She begins to cry, and says that she doesn't know why she's saying these things.
Tenchi says not a word in response. He turns her around, holding her by both shoulders. He gently caresses her cheek. Slowly, Sakuya rises on her tiptoes....
Alone, up on the roof, seen only by a moon large enough to engulf the world, Tenchi and Sakuya share their first kiss.
Ryouko comes by the festival. By the time she gets there, everything is winding down. The bonfire has consumed the last of the mascot; soon, the last embers will die away. She's looking for Tenchi, but does not see him.
She teleports to the roof, where she can get a better view of the world below. She doesn't see Tenchi below, but slowly, she begins to sense something.
She turns around, and sees two lovers, oblivious to all else, kissing each other, silouetted by the moon. Their shadow extends across the roof, reaching Ryouko. Ryouko staggers backwards. Her eyes waver. "You idiot!" she whispers, and vanishes.
Meanwhile, Yuugi watches her crystals. The pink crystal now touches the white crystal and glows spectacularly. The glow surprises Yuugi's three minions. Yuugi just observes. "It's coming!" she says, "The breaking of the Tenchi family has begun!" And she smiles, and she laughs.
I would very much like to thank Junji Inaba and "PsychoPixi" for their help in understanding this. Without them, I would not have understood the nature of the school "jinx," or what Sakuya was saying to Tenchi, or a bunch of other little things. If you compare this version to the first synopsis I sent out you can see the difference.
Most of Sakuya's conversation with Tenchi on the rooftop is taken from "PsychoPixi's" comments on my synopsis. My original interpretation was pretty far off the mark. I included them without attribution in order not to interrupt the flow of the narrative. (Writing synopses is far from real art, but I do have literary pretentions.)
The last line was translated for me a little differently by "PsychoPixi" and Junji, so I used a phrase different from both of theirs. I'm sure it's at least as accurate as the other Japanese phrases I've "translated," considering that I don't actually know any Japanese.
I am the keeper of Gummi Wisdom!
Email address: gee@math.berkeley.edu