It's a hot and lazy summer day and the sun is beating down on Okayama. Sasami and Ryou-oh-ki are napping out on the deck. (Sasami has changed to her summer clothes. She's wearing a lighter Jurian outfit in dark green.) The ice shifts in a glass of iced tea. In a field of sunflowers, Yuugi calls for Sasami. Sasami wakes into the hot, dream-like atmosphere.
Yuugi calls to her friend Sasami. (Or something like that. But Sasami's friendship is evidently important to Yuugi.) Sasami runs after Yuugi, and then she wakes up, startling Ryou-oh-ki. It was a dream, but it portends another meeting with Yuugi.
Inside the house, Ayeka is eating noodles, watching some weird show on the television. (She's wearing her summer outfit, which is light blue.) She hears a sound, and Washuu comes out of her room. Ayeka immediately seizes her. "Don't you know what's been happening?" Ayeka asks. But Washuu has something important to say.
Meanwhile, Tenchi and his friends and Sakuya and her friends have gone out to the beach. The boys are just lying around and the girls are hitting around a beach ball. The beach ball gets away from the girls and rolls over to Tenchi. Sakuya, wearing a green two-piece bathing suit, runs up to pick it up. Her cheery face greets Tenchi as they talk for a bit.
Back in Washuu's room, Washuu is showing Ayeka her analysis of Yuugi's attack on the Tenchi house back in the 13th episode. Washuu has concluded that Yuugi, like Ayeka, is Jurian. (I wonder if Yuugi's headband was a clue.) Ayeka is pretty surprised to think that Yuugi could be Jurian. Washuu's pretty sure though. She tells Ayeka to go to this place, which she thinks has something to do with Yuugi. (It's underground, beneath a really big tree.) So Ayeka's Guardians fly her there.
Meanwhile, Sasami (with Ryou-oh-ki) is chilling a melon in the stream. (Melons taste better if they've been chilled in a stream than if they were just sitting in a refridgerator.) She senses something, and sure enough, hiding behind the tree is Yuugi. (This is the same place she appeared to Sasami when they met in the 13th episode.) She's wearing overalls. (She was wearing this when she appeared to Sasami the first time this episode.)
In outer space, Kiyone and Mihoshi are being decorated. (I guess for their valor in infiltrating Ryouko's gang, even though neither the duo nor the Galaxy Police accomplish their goal.) Mihoshi is quite chirpy, but Kiyone is more reserved. She's thinking back to her life in the Tenchi home, full of chaos, and then she thinks back to the last words that Ryouko said to her, when Ryouko accused her of bringing the Galaxy Police to her hideout. So she nearly misses what the chief is saying. Apparently, Kiyone and Mihoshi get a new ship. As they leave, Mihoshi remains her chirpy self, but Kiyone is down.
Ryouko, meanwhile, is disconsolate as well. She's lying around, thinking about how fun it was when Kiyone and Mihoshi came by. Hotsuma, sensing her mood, comes by the break it. He talks for a while, and somehow reminds Ryouko of Tenchi and Sakuya. At this she flies into a rage. And this secretly pleases Hotsuma.
Back on earth, Sasami is playing around in the stream, splashing around barefoot. Yuugi is sitting on the bank, along with Ryou-oh-ki and the melon. Yuugi timidly puts a foot in and a surprised at how cold it is. (Ryou-oh-ki tries it too. The stream is really cold!)
They walk through the woods, Sasami carrying Ryou-oh-ki. Yuugi, I think, brings up the subject of friendship again (this is pretty important to her.) I think she might say that Sasami is her only friend, which Sasami finds surprising. (Assuming she said it at all.)
Meanwhile, Ayeka has arrived at the cavern where sits a black block covered with runes. (Why runes? I dunno.) The Guardians interface with the block, and then they broadcast a video so all the viewers at home can learn what they block has told them. That story begins many thousands of years ago on Jurai....
Right now, on earth, Sasami and Yuugi continue their walk through the forest. Birds are chirping, feeding their little birdlings, squirrels are gathering nuts.... Sasami says that all of these creatures are her friends (I think she says something like that.) Yuugi contemplates what Sasami has just said as she stares at a cicada sitting on a tree.
Three thousand years ago on Jurai, Yuugi is wreaking havoc. She's powerful enough to conjure up these huge dog-like spirit-creatures that crush buildings with a single step. People flee in terror. (One person trying to face her with a sword finds it transformed into a small shadow-creature.) Yuugi herself is riding on one of these creatures. She laughs gleefully.
(I wonder if she conjured them, or if they existed before.)
Suddenly, the Jurian police arrive. They're lead by this woman with a big light helmet, so you can't see her head. (This makes her look like Mysterio, and it's pretty disturbing, actually.) The police start blasting her creatures. "Stop it!" yells Yuugi. She's pretty frightened. She's just a child, and she doesn't really understand what she's doing, but she does have to be stopped. The woman fires this blast at Yuugi which knocks her off her steed. As Yuugi falls, branches come from the ground and envelop Yuugi and drag her into this "auto sleep chamber." Yuugi is very scared. "No! Don't leave me alone!" she yells, but the doors of the chamber are already closing. They leave Yuugi, isolated in darkness. The chamber, along with a chunk of Jurai, held by a giant tree is sent off into space. (The woman's helmet is removed at this point, revealing her face for the first time. I don't recognize her, but "PsychoPixi" says that this is the Jurain queen.)
The chamber and tree finally land on earth. Ayeka contemplates this story that she's hearing. Finally, an embittered Yuugi emerages from her chamber.
In the present day, on earth, Yuugi crushes the cicada in her hand.
Sasami asks Yuugi what is wrong? and tries to cheer her. I think. Yuugi has a dark look in her eyes, but she allows herself to be brought back to the present. (I think.)
Ayeka returns and tells Washuu of what she has learned. They think that, for whatever reason, Yuugi means ill towards the Tenchi family.
In Tokyo, Sakuya and Tenchi are sitting in Tenchi's apartment. They also have new clothes. Tenchi has a blue T-shirt, while Sakuya wears a plaid orange skirt with a white blouse with "KM" on it. She's reading magazines at him. (For some reason I don't quite understand, Tenchi thinks of a flatworm.) But they're interrupted by a strange glow in Tenchi's apartment. They track it down to Tenchi's toilet. When he lifts up the cover, he sees Washuu's face staring out from it. "You should clean your toilet more often, Tenchi," she says. (Actually, I have no idea what she says. And Tenchi seems a lot neater than most guys I know living alone.)
Washuu gets out of the toilet, and Sakuya is pretty surprised to see this. Washuu thinks Tenchi should return to Okayama. But Sakuya is very much against this. She has tears in her eyes as she pleads with Tenchi to stay in Tokyo. Tenchi is very apologetic to Sakuya, but it looks like he's going back.... But then Luke Perry rushes in. The old priest at the shrine where Tenchi works has hurt himself, he says, and he pleads with Tenchi to come help him. (Luke Perry's father runs the shop next to the temple where Tenchi works.) Luke Perry literally drags Tenchi with him, and Tenchi apologizes to Washuu. (Luke Perry's shirt says "Juley." Apparently, the months have taken to marketing themselves.)
Washuu is a bit disappointed, but she's about to go back. She contemplates the crystal on her wrist. She's about to leave, but something makes her turn. It's Sakuya, glowering at her. Sakuya has a very dark expression on her face. (It's similar to the expression on Yuugi's face when she meets Sasami at the tree in the 13th episode.) And this disturbs Washuu.
It is night now in Okayama. Sasami and Yuugi are still talking. Yuugi asks Sasami to come away and live with her. Sasami, playing with Ryou-oh-ki, says she can't do that. They're just children, she says, and they're dependent on adults.
Yuugi is angered. "Fine!" she spits out. "But don't blame me for what happens next!" In a rush of wind, Yuugi rises into the air and disappears, leaving a confused Sasami to stare after her, and wonder what will happen next.
I wish to thank Junji for helping me so much and being so patient with me as I tried to understand these episodes. Without this help, my comprehension of these crucial episodes would be so lacking, it wouldn't be funny.
I also thank "PsychoPixi" for letting me know what Luke Perry was saying, and who the Jurian woman was.
I am the keeper of Gummi Wisdom!
Email address: gee@math.berkeley.edu