Chapter 104: 'Retro-genesis.'

"I don't remember much before waking up." Ryoko suddenly seemed to hear.

"I don't even remember 'waking up' at all exactly. Everything was just sort of THERE! All of a sudden! One moment nothing then BAM! I there I was!"

"W-What the hell?" Ryoko stammered suddenly alarmed from her place at Ena's side.

"It's your memories Ryoko," Ena told her gently.

"Your 'true' memories."

"But that was my voice speaking!" Ryoko demanded astonished.

Floating a few feet away Ena's expression took on a dubious cast.

"Well, whose would you expect?" she asked her own voice tinged with surprise and perhaps mild annoyance.

"But ... I've never said that!" Ryoko replied. Confusion piling liberally atop mounting alarm.

"Ooohhh!" Ena grimaced, straining for patience.

"Ryoko..." She offered, gesturing contritely.

"We can stop of course. While I explain the subtleties of telepathic memory regression..."

Ena allowed her word to trail, fixing Ryoko with an expression of contrived politeness.

"But I really believe we should just press on!"

"Huh?" Ryoko started, studying Ena carefully, wondering if she'd done something wrong.

She open her mouth to speak, then thought better of what she had planed to say.

"No, on second thought forget it!" Ryoko amended after a second, while kind of grumbling.

"Explanation wouldn't do me any good anyway."

"She's magnificent professor!" A voice said to Ryoko's right.

She felt her head turning almost of its own accord, cranking slowly around while her spine plunged into the icy depths. Mainly due to having believed, she would never again have the dubious pleasure of hearing this particular voice!

"You've truly out done yourself!" The speaker continued.

Standing only a few feet away, behind a console in the high vaulted blue-gray chamber, which had quietly materialized around them. Far younger than she could remember ever having seen him, Kagito regarded her ecstatically.

"Oh my god..." Ryoko whispered, her voice thick with emotions unbidden.

"What the hell's he doing here?"

"Be at ease!" Ena told her, stepping into view between Ryoko and her nemesis resurrected.

"You are in no danger!" She continued. "These are your memories!"

Ena paused making certain Ryoko's eyes were trained on her.

"From deep within your mind!"

Ryoko staired, dividing her gaze between Ena and Kagito, fear and absolute rage waring within her.

"I FUCKING KNOW THAT!" Ryoko snapped, taking refuge in a bast of anger.

"Shut your bleeding hole!" yet another voice suddenly interjected, this time from Ryoko's immediate left. Causing her view to swing instantly that direction.

"The first voice she should logically hear, should be that of her creator!" This new speaker continued.

Standing behind her own console, Washu looked much the same as she always did.

Or at least for the amount of time that Ryoko had known her mother/creator.

"Hey there sweet cheeks!" Washu began again, startling Ryoko by looking her direction.

"Happy birthday!" Washu continued buoyantly.

"You don't know it yet but your very, very lucky!"

"Who the hell are they talking to?" Ryoko gaped bewildered, glancing wildly at Ena. Suddenly wondering if she had been somehow transported back. After all she had traveled in time once before!

"See for yourself." Ena calmly gestured, prompting that Ryoko again turn.

Looking behind from her current perspective, Ryoko sighted a vaguely 'A' shaped basin, raised several feet above the floor. Apparently the nexus of an odd contrivance of tubes, pipes and wires leading away in all directions.

Curious while drifting close, craning slightly to see. She suddenly found herself regarding a pair of wide golden eyes which in turn timidly scanned their surrounding's. Set within a delicate up turned 'moon face' with high cheekbones. Flanked in turn by 'up swept' squared off elfin ears that seemed ridiculously large perhaps even mildly cow-like.

Shoulder length, light gray-green hair currently floated wetly about the young girl's head semi-submerged in the milky fluid in which she floated face up.

"That can't..." Ryoko breathed, backing slightly away from the shock.

"Is that really?..." She stammered shooting Ena one cryptic glance.

"Me?"

"Do you recognize this place?" Ena asked gently.

"We're aboard the Soja." Ryoko confirmed unable to remove her gaze from her younger self.

The cathedral-like architecture of their surroundings was unmistakable.

"Though I don't remember this room!"

She wasn't particularly inclined to add however that central tank, reminded her only too well of the watery prison in which she had spent seven hundred years. Nor did it occur to her to mention of how the questing, undeniably innocent gaze of her younger counterpart was ripping the very soul from her being!

"Neural bridge seems to be functioning Professor." Kagito intoned dutifully.

"All links to the clones cerebral cortex appear intact and responsive." He then seemed to pause thoughtfully.

"She should be able to understand us."

"Pffft! What the hell do you know?" Washu grimaced.

"Could be days before any of the implanted knowledge elements integrate enough for her to fully even begin to correlate let alone articulate!"

Ryoko watched grimly noting how Kagito visibly bristled, before he was able to master his control enough to respond.

"You are right, as always." He conceded with forced politeness.

"I was merely understandably anxious."

"Story of your life I would guess." Washu rejoined a tad scornfully.

"Were taking this at my pace this time!" She paused meaningfully regarding the girl.

"We got plenty of it and good things come to those who wait after all!"

Kagito's only response was to bow, dutifully clasping a hand to his breast. Again Ryoko noticed how careful he was to conceal the other, tightly clenched into a fist.

"So this is Kagito..." Ena mused stroling away from Ryoko's side.

"I had heard he used to be Washu's assistant or apprentice but I hardly gave such rumors credit."

"I don't remember any of this!" Ryoko grimaced, shaking her head.

"I assure you that you do." Ena nodded studying her somewhat grimly.

"I swear!" She quickly added, responding to the look, she was receiving from Ryoko.

"All of this is from your buried recollections."

"But ... it's so detailed!" Ryoko sniffed while gesturing at the room around them.

"I can barely remember what I did five minutes ago!"

"Ryoko," Ena assured her amused.

"The mind retains more than any of us can consciously access. But this 'vision' however is far from perfect! See there!"

Ena pointed causing Ryoko's eyes to naturally follow.

"What the... ?" Ryoko mouthed, noticing an oddly blurry region just beyond where Kogito stood.

"Why's it fuzz'n off like that?"

"You weren't looking at that space, had no reason to commit it to memory." Ena shrugged.

"Thus the detail that would have been there is absent."

"Wait a second," Ryoko muttered after a moment or two. "If that's the case..."

"Yes?" Ena queried, staring at her quizzically.

Ryoko paused brows furrowing, at that precise second wondering is she wasn't about to as Ayeka might put it 'blow a brain cell'. Maybe she was just over analyzing this ... but it seemed an actual thought had occurred.

"How come I know what I looked like?" She asked, then felt supremely stupid for the way the effort had sounded...

"Come again?" Ena started curiously.

"You heard me little girl blue!" Ryoko huffed indignantly.

"If this is some kind of 'flash back' from my own 'memories.'" She emphasized.

"How do I know now what I looked like back then huh? Answer me that!"

Clearly confused Ena continued to regard her for a moment.

"I-I'm afraid that I still don't quite follow?" Ena smiled tightly over a look of mild concern.

"Ha, ha!" Ryoko laughed triumphantly. "I've never seen any pictures of 'me' when I was a kid!"

She pointed at where the image of her mother/creator waited patiently behind her console.

"If Washu has any ... I sure as heck never seen 'em!"

She then leaned smugly back, crossing her arms for good measure.

"So..." Ryoko added smugly.

"How the hell would I KNOW what I looked like back when all this was taken place huh?"

Ena continued to stare at her for another few seconds, or again what past for them in this place that really wasn't, before she answered merely by way of pointing across at series of gilded mirrored panels adoring the wall directly above the sarcophagus.

"Oh..." Ryoko kind of deflated, seeing the image of her younger self clearly reflected.

"Right, got it." She slumped grumbling.

"Still don't trust me eh?" Ena chuckled.

"Damn!" Ryoko griped. "Thought I had something there."

"And this of course merely illustrates a point." Ena continued.

"Once known so to speak, the mind tends to backwardly construct a perceived self image almost instinctively."

"Bite me!" Ryoko huffed angrily.

"Activate circuit." Washu smiled, seconds before an audible 'click' resounded within the console in front of Kagito. Forcing a gasp as within ' the coffin' the girls head snapped suddenly back when her whole body began to glow.

From Ryoko's perspective, it almost appears that invisible wires were lifting her younger self.

Causing her to almost rise from the milky bath as the lithe young body arched, cloaked in soft silvery light.

"Neural patterning seems to be settling in nicely!" Washu murmured in satisfaction. Her face now lit from the display she currently studied.

"Mass symbiont integration is ninety-seven point two." Kagito affirmed in business like tones.

"They are virtually one being now."

"Right on the money." Washu nodded.

"Told ya that little re-sequencing would make all the 'dif' didn't I?"

"Again, I stand corrected." Kagito smirked wryly.

"Your grasp of the humanoid genome is without compare professor!"