At 11:50 AM 5/21/99 -0600, you wrote:

                          Shoujo Kakumei Utena:

                             Ten Years After

   ...or at least sent it to the FFML. I've already commented on large
portions of this by private e-mail, so I'll just comment on what I hadn't
seen yet myself.

	A cloud passed over the moon once more.  Miki's face passed into
shadow.  "I received a letter telling me to come here.  From `The Victor
of the Duel', whatever that means."

	Juri felt her jaw fall, but no sound issued from her throat.

	"You as well?" he asked.

	She could only nod.

	"Do you understand it?"

	Slowly, she shook her head.

	"For my part, I believed that it was perhaps a challenge by
another practitioner of kendo who had probably seen far too many samurai
dramas, and wished to recreate some scene from one of them as he attempted
to defeat me.  It would seem that this is not the case."

   All right, Kuno, is that you and what have you done with Saionji? :)
   (It's fine, don't worry--they were always similar--but it's still worth a
chuckle.)

	Juri's eyes narrowed.  "How long were you standing there 
listening?"

	"A few moments," Saionji replied, shrugging.  "Should you be 
concerned that I overheard any private moments between the two of you, 
rest at ease.  I neither heard anything, nor cared to."

   Ouch. Guess Julie's not the only one with acid wit.
		

	"I suppose it could have been worse," Saionji continued to muse 
out loud.  "My supervisor could have intercepted the letter before it 
reached my desk, presumed that it referred to one of those `live theatre 
cults', and then I would have been subjected to a lengthy lecture on how 
engaging in that sort of behavior was *not* in the best traditions of 
Tokyo Maritime Fire Insurance and --"

   Mr. Davies is fond of in-jokes, to the point where sometimes one can't
tell where the in-jokes end and the original work begins. But good in-jokes
are like that.
   Should we recognize the name of Saionji's new employer?
   (Now I think of it, what's a 'live theatre cult?' :) Unless the boss
thinks real men don't attend Takarazuka performances or something...:) )	

	"Wonderful," she muttered.  "We're drawn to an obscure meeting by 
someone whom none of us have seen, because of an impulse none of us 
understand but cannot deny.  I suppose next the mastermind will step out 
of the trees and mock us for falling into his trap."
	
	"I wasn't planning on it."

   I'm amazed you didn't have him do it, myself...:)
	

	Juri's eyes closed in a spasm of psychic pain as she heard the 
bemused voice from behind her.  Reluctantly, she opened them again to look 
over her shoulder.
	
	"I suppose you're wondering why I called you all here?" Kiryuu 
Touga asked, a smile playing on his lips as he looked over them.  His suit 
and trousers 

	"Then it was you," Miki snapped.

	"No.  However, I've always wanted to say that.  Lovely as always, 
Juri.  Kyouichi, looking well.  Are we still on for next week's match?"

   I don't know myself why I find this line so terribly funny. :)

	A deep sigh came from a few yards behind Touga.  "Quit fooling 
around, niichan."  A much shorter blonde figure with a long pony tail 
stormed into view.  She wore hiking boots and a pair of short shorts 
supported by a pair of suspenders over a tanktop, with several large 
pouches hanging from her belt.  "We each got a letter delivered," she 
announced, pulling one up to the light.  "Naturally, the jackass calls me 
up to see if I need a ride.  I'm going to be nice and presume that none of 
you sent this damn thing.  Am I right?"

   This Nanami comes as a bit of a shock, not least because of her language.
The extent to which she's different here may be partly because of me; in
earlier drafts--if Mr. Davies will permit me--Nanami was, I thought, the
least changed from her 13-year-old Kodachi-wannabe persona. I protested that
she might have grown up just a bit. I guess I got my wish, but it still
throws me for a loop.
   I'll get back to Nanami below. For now though--she's in Japan now. The
dig is in Iran. Did she _have_ to suit up just yet? I'm surprised she hasn't
on one of those white tin hats that cartoon archeologists always wear...:)
	

	A long silence fell.  "Hello, Nanami-san," Miki said belatedly.
	
	Kiryuu Nanami fixed him with an icy purple glare.  "Hello, 
Miki-chan.  Steal any boyfriends lately?"
	
	Miki flushed.  "He wasn't your boyfriend and we didn't --"  He 
broke off, and turned away.

   I am slowly--very slowly--coming to accept that probably nothing I can do
or say will shake Mr. Davies from his extreme interpretations of friendships
between women in Ikuhara's work, SM as well as Utena.
   Miki is where I draw the line. :) 
   Are you implying what I think you are, and what do you have for evidence
that master of repression Miki Kaoru is like that?

	Juri didn't even try to bother being subtle as she stepped between 
the two of them.  Subtlety had never worked with Nanami.  "No, Nanami-san, 
I don't think anyone here sent the letters."
	
	Nanami gazed levelly at her for a moment, then shrugged.  "Okay.  
You and niichan were the only ones that I seriously thought would have 
tried something crazy like this, and you're too wrapped up in that honor 
shit to lie outright about it like that."

   Hm. Nanami's grown up a bit, but still I think it's a bit much to have
her swear like that. She _was_ brought up very well indeed, you know.
	

	"Thank you for the compliment," Juri replied without a trace of 
moisture in her tone.  "Just out of curiousity, how do you know that your 
older brother didn't do it?"
	
	"I'm wounded by your your lack of faith in me," Touga said, with a 
genuinely hurt expression.  "As it happens, I showed my dear little sister 
the letter which I received ..."  He trailed off as he reached into his 
trenchcoat pocket.
	
	Nanami held up a pair of identical cards.  "They both look 
genuine, but it's still possible that he just wrote one for himself.  
Still, I think this would have been a lot better handled if he did try 
something like this."
	
	Touga simply sighed and looked put-upon.  "Nanami, honest little 
sisters don't pick their brothers' pockets."
	
	She smiled sweetly.  "Touga, honest big brothers don't wait until 
their step-fathers throw their sisters out of the house before letting 
them know that they're blood relations."

   The bit about the blood relatives being adopted together I remember. The
disowning of Nanami I don't. Should we?

	"Um, I don't mean to interrupt your ... whatever, but would one of 
you happen to be the Victor of the Duel?  I'm supposed to meet this person 
here, and I'm also supposed to meet my sister-in-law for a movie so I'd 
like to get it over and done with as soon as possible?"

   Wakaba's nicely voiced here. I don't see her changing much, but she was
never terribly deep, so there wasn't much to change.

	"Excuse me," Miki interrupted.  "Didn't you attend Ohtori Academy 
at one point?"
	
	"Yeah," Wakaba replied with a nod for emphasis.  "Up until my 
first year of high school, when my dad decided to transfer me to a school 
in Switzerland for some reason."  She paused, then suddenly turned to 
stare at Touga.  "Wait a minute ... I recognize *you*!  You were the 
Student Council President my first year there ... all the girls were crazy 
about you!"  

   In Switzerland. Is this a Patlabor reference? (I mean, did Asuma go there
for school too?)

	"All right, other than having attended Ohtori, what connection do
all of us have?" Juri began.  "Now, Touga-san, Kyouichi-san, Miki-san and 
I were the Student Council at Ohtori in 1998 --"

   Minor point. Did anybody ever call Saionji by his personal name?

	"Maybe niichan's replacement embarked on a scheme of vengeance
after realizing the mess he'd been saddled with," Nanami opined.

	"That does seem like a possibility, Nanami-san," Juri replied.

	"Really?"

	"No."

   This is the line where I cried foul about Nanami being too static and too
flat in her personality. Its implications are quite different in context.

	Saionji shook his head, frowning -- then paused.  "I ... think I
might, at that.  You have to remember, I was something of an ass then --"

	"We do," Juri said, deadpan.

	He smiled apologetically at her, and then continued.  "-- and I
did a fair number of oafish things.  `One does not always care to remember
the mistakes of one's youth'," he quoted, "but ... the more I think about
it, I *do* recall doing something like that to at least *one* letter I
recieved, though I can't recall the person who sent it to me."  He
frowned, suddenly.  "But I *do* remember someone being extremely upset
with me about it."

   Identify the quote for five bonus points. I know (now), so I'm not eligible.

	For a split second, she heard a fragment of a very old story in
her mind's ear.  `I am youth, I am joy, I am a little bird that has
broken out of the egg.'  As if the words were a key, a score of images
flashed in her mind; images of a woman -- no, a girl -- with bright pink
hair, enormous blue eyes, and a male school uniform that did nothing to
disguise the femininity of the form within -- and most of all, an easy
smile, and laughter.
	
	"Tenjou Utena," Juri murmured.

   Identify this one for twenty. I've forgotten myself. :)

	"You don't understand, do you?" Nanami asked, frowning.
	
	"Understand what?" Wakaba aked, blinking.

   "Asked."
	

	"Make a sentence using the word, Duel."
	
	Wakaba stared.  "Uh ... I watched a movie last night about a duel 
that Mushashi fought in --"

   "Musashi."

	"In the forest, there was a staircase."

	Juri's heart skipped a beat.

	"You climbed it, and waiting there was a Princess dressed in red."

	She saw Miki's eyes widen as he slowly turned to look at the
speaker.

	"And you drew a sword from within her heart, and fought."

	Saionji nodded, slowly.

	"Only this time was different.  This time, a slip of a girl tore
the rose from your breast, and claimed your trophy for her own."

	Nanami breathed a single word far too faintly for Juri to hear.

	"That's what happened," Touga said, pulling his cigarette from his
mouth and tapping the ashes away from the burning end.

   Was Toga ever this much of a smart-ass? :)

	"... when did you --" Juri began, rising anger in her tone.

	"Just now," the ex-president replied as he replaced the cigarette
in his mouth.  "I think that the difference may be that I observed it
personally, rather than having it described later, at a council meeting.
There are things in this world that you have to see to believe, after
all."  He smirked.  "Of course, some of us insist that that is *all* that
is in this world."

	She loathed him.

   And were he and Julie always like this? 

	"In any event," Touga pressed on, "that is what occurred, and it 
was not the only time that it occurred.  In succession, each of those 
present -- not including Shinohara-san -- challenged Tenjou to a duel.  
And were ultimately defeated."

   Just to head off any questions, mind explaining again why the Black Rose
duels don't count here? Not everybody's seen them after all...

	"I don't get it," Wakaba said at last.  "Why?  What was the point 
of all this?"
	
	"Oh, I imagine that someone might claim that there were countless 
deeply personal reasons that motivated each of the Duellists to their 
actions," Touga said, examining his cigarette and discarding it.  He 
produced another.  "But if you boil them all down to their essentials, it 
was all about desire."  With his final word, he lit the cigarette, lending 
an almost Satanic light to his features.

   Remember that.
	

	"It was never that simple," Miki interjected angrily.
	
	"Oh?" Touga asked, turning to look at him with an expression that 
hovered between a smile and a sneer.  "When *you* first challenged Utena, 
it was because you wanted to possess something she had."
	
	"No it wasn't!  I wanted ... I thought that she wasn't doing a 
good enough job protecting --"  Miki broke off.
	
	"What?" Wakaba asked, getting annoyed.  "Her complete collection 
of Ikeda's manga?  What are we talking about here?"
	
	"Himemiya Anthy," Saionji answered quietly.
	
	Wakaba spent a few moments visibly thinking.  And then she turned 
to stare at Miki with an incredulous expression.  "Her *room-mate*?"
	
	"It was ... a situation more complicated than that."  Miki 
couldn't quite meet Wakaba's look.

   I don't think Mr. Davies will appreciate me harping about _this_
situation again--much less the moderator.
   So I'll just ask this. Is this Miki's imagination at work, informed by
his own (alleged) nature perhaps, or could he have given any real proof?
	

	Wakaba blinked, then gaped.  "No way.  No bloody way.  Utena 
dressed like a guy, yes, and I had a lot of fun teasing her about that, 
yes, but she was in no way a --"  She broke off, realizing that Juri was 
looking at her with a bored yet anticipatory expression.  "Not that 
there's anything wrong with that," Wakaba concluded lamely.
	
	Juri didn't even have the heart to snort and turn away.  The 
girl's almost deadly ignorance of what had actually been going on during 
her junior high school days lost all its humour in the wake of their 
regained memories.

   Ditto Julie. Not to mention Utena denied it to her face, and Julie had no
reason to not believe her. Now I think of it, Miki was there too, right?

	"Wait a minute."  Wakaba suddenly turned to look at Saionji.  "The 
girl you mentioned earlier, the one that you were with when I ... anyway, 
that was Anthy, wasn't it?"
	
	Saionji nodded in silence.
	
	"I remember Utena asking about her on the first day of school ... 
just a little before everything went crazy," Wakaba murmured pensively, 
then looked up.  "I still don't get it.  What was so special about her?  
The few times I hung around with both her and Utena ... I mean, she was 
nice and all that, but she creeped me out worse than anyone else ever has. 

   "Badly enough to make me...KILL!" *duck*
   More follows. My mail utility split the story in half.

Paul Corrigan
corrig11@pilot.msu.edu