Author's notes:
This occurs after the entire 39-episode run of Shojo Kakumei Utena, so
spoilers are everywhere (but hidden really well) in this fic. C&C is not
only welcome, it is wanted -- might as well hear from the three or four
people on the list who've actually watched the whole thing. ^^;
Yes, this is partially why I haven't posted new parts of What Wish?, Sum
of All Parts, or A Soul Forever Voyaging. Other reasons include a
Evangelion-themed Gratuitous Self installment that I have not approved
and may NEVER approve for posting (^^;), Yen Town 6 -- still only
partially written after days of hacking at it -- and parts of 7!, and a
secret project known only as The Diary of Hosokawa Daisuke.
I know, I know, I should finish the fics I've started... but that's no
fun, especially when my muse has no regard for any semblance of
schedule.
I'll stop babbling now and let you read the darned thing.
Disclaimer: Utena and its characters are the property of Be-PaPas, Chiho
Saito, Shogakukan, Shokaku Iinkai and TV Tokyo. I make no claim of
ownership on them, I'm not making money out of this, I'm just having my
fun with them. ^^;
=====
Prologue
It seemed like nothing had changed; like nothing could change in
the little greenhouse we called our school. The sun still shone every
day; bright, surrounded by a field of white and blues early in the day,
orange and framed by lesser shades of oranges and reds in the afternoon.
Students still milled into school, filling the air with light
conversation in their wake. The bells still tolled, and the impossibly
tall tower that housed them still cast its shadow across the fields,
across the courtyards, across the forest that lay in the heart of the
campus.
It seemed like nothing had ever changed here, in Ohtori Academy.
There was no trace of change, of transformation.
There seemed no sign that we lived in the shadow of a revolution.
--- In the Shadow of Revolution ---
=====
Act I
=====
- One -
We were the chick, and the world was our egg. But none of us ever
wanted to leave, to break the shell; none of us seemed to know that
there was an Outside to the Inside we had spent our lives in.
It never seemed important before, at least, not to me -- at the
moment the most important thing to me was hurrying to class without
ruining my meticulously arranged hair. Politely I responded to greetings
of 'Good morning'; I nodded at the customary references to the fine
weather we were having. The weather was always fine, except during days
when no one felt like having fine weather. I'd noticed this before, but
never thought to bring it up. Perhaps I should have recognized those
thoughts as a sign, long before the others knew about the way I was
different from all the rest. But I'm getting ahead of myself.
Wakaba. Shinohara Wakaba. That is my name. It has been my name for
as long as I can remember, just as I know I have had parents for as long
as I can remember. But I can't remember the last time I've been home,
and it makes me wonder if I've ever been home at all, sometimes. It's
the oddest thing, I know -- of course I'd been home, otherwise, it
wouldn't be home, now, would it?
The bell sounded and I made onto school grounds in the nick of
time. I'd never been late before, and it would have been a shame to
tarnish such a spotless record. Had I ever been absent? I couldn't
recall, and neither could anyone else -- so did it matter in the end?
No, it didn't, I told myself -- but I didn't believe it. It
disturbed me to think that something could cease to exist if it ceased
to be remembered.
But why did it matter? In the end, why did it matter?
The teacher scraped her lecture onto the blackboard as I idly
waited for the bell to ring, even though we were only halfway through an
hour-long class. Amid English personal pronouns and tenses and
conjugation I swept my gaze across the classroom.
My eyes failed to rest upon any single face for very long. I felt
like I was looking at a hastily-drawn crowd scene; broad, charcoal
strokes seemed to fill in whole figures, without thought for outline or
boundary. Uniforms conveyed sex but not much else, and even that blurred
in the distinctions my mind refused to make for anyone else in the room.
Did anyone else look over me and find my face filled in, my
features drawing in a few sparse lines? Did anyone else harbor the
secret, shameful fear that she was not the main character in the story
of her own life? That somewhere in our midst, someone else was living
the story this place, this time was meant to tell? Was anyone else
afraid that the story had already played out, and we lived on merely for
the story's denouement?
Then my eyes fell on him.
Why had I never noticed him before? He seemed to listen intently
to the teacher, but only for the sake of listening; even watching him
from the outside I could feel his mind wandering, beyond the confines of
the classroom. His uniform was a deep blue, bordered in red, and his
pink hair seemed to bring me to the brink of remembering something that
had hidden itself in my mind, so deeply as to leave only the faintest
trace, the vaguest feeling. He wore a white signet ring on his finger
the insignia of which I could not make out... Perhaps the school
insignia? And the scent of roses... I could have sworn I smelled the
perfume of roses whenever he was around.
What was his name? Mikage. Mikage Souji. He had joined the class
only a week or so ago, and it was said that he was a genius -- that
explained his lack of interest in the subject. Everyone in class admired
him, and he would have probably been popular if he wasn't always so
aloof. No, that wasn't quite right. A sense of loss always hung around
him, and it made him seem both fascinating and distant at the same time.
I paused. Why was I only remembering these things now? It was as
if they were being made up as I thought about them, like the world was
in the middle of creation, like the world was being completed, even as I
watched it happen.
A strange thought occurred to me, yet compelling in its oddity,
and some part of me felt that it was true simply because it was so
strange. The world was not being completed.
It was being remade.
- Two -
"Hello, Wakaba," she said to me as I passed her in the hallway, as
she left the music room where she practiced the piano every day; she
spoke to me as though we had been speaking to each other our whole
lives.
I knew who she was. Everyone did; it was in the nature of who she
was. She was friendly in a way that made people wary of her; she was
often quite polite, unfailingly so, but in such a pointed way that a
part of you always asked what her motives were. Though her talent for
playing the piano was renowned throughout the school, she was more
famous for her other exploits. The way she went through her men, coldly,
unflinchingly, did not deter her unending throng of suitors, inevitably
always the type that would bring whispers about her lack of
discrimination behind her back. Not that she was unaware of the gossip
she stirred up. She seemed to revel in it. She seemed to be looking for
scandal all the time, though for what reason no one seemed to know; not
even herself.
"Hello, Kozue," I replied, even though I had never spoken a word
to her before.
We stood there, looking at each other for a moment, wondering what
it was that drew our attention to each other.
Then she smiled and shrugged. "Well. I see you're going to be
trouble for me already."
I felt my brow furrow. "What? What do you mean?"
She crossed her arms in front of her. "You mean, you can't see it?
Even while you look around you?"
I did look at that moment, and I noticed that a small crowd had
gathered around the two of us. "I still don't see what you mean."
"You will," she replied. "There's a reason for everything." With
that she walked off, leaving more whispers in her wake, whispers that I
realized I couldn't completely make out.
I stood there for a moment longer, and turned to leave.
But the part of the crowd that remained still stood there,
blocking my path.
"Wakaba," a female classmate of mine whose name escapes me, even
now, asked me then, "are you all right? What was that about?"
"The nerve of that Kaoru," another classmate chimed, "she's only a
junior but she acts like she owns the school."
"Tell us what that was about, Shinohara!" yet another pleaded.
"I... I don't know," I replied, and I meant it. Or at least, I
thought I did; I believe that even then I somehow understood the reason.
I continued walking in the direction I had meant to walk and the
crowd parted in front of me. And even though the words of encouragement
and support continued, not one person dared to even touch me, not even
to comfort me.
The table I usually sat at to have lunch never seemed more full
than it did that day.
I must admit, I was beginning to enjoy the attention, although a
nagging thought still floated to the surface of my mind: What was this
all about?
I smiled as I turned my attention to the crowd, and I realized
that I was not so much dividing it among the people at the table than I
was simply devoting it to the group as a single entity. Why shouldn't I
have? No one in particular attracted my attention. No individual drew my
singular interest.
Not that it really mattered to me. For the first time I could
remember, I was too caught up in playing the lead role in the story of
my life.
- Three -
"Next!"
I watched from the balcony overlooking the fencing hall as the
team captain made short work of yet another opponent. The sound of foil
on foil sounded almost continuously from that place, and every now and
then swords would glint in the sunlight that filtered in through the
large windows.
"Next!"
I felt drawn there that particular afternoon, although I knew that
the fencing team practiced nearly every day for a tournament. The Ohtori
Academy fencing team always won the tournaments; that was a fact
everyone took for granted. It was more of a question of who would bring
the most glory to the Academy.
Invariably it would always be the team captain.
"Next!"
This next opponent was tougher than all the others, nimbly
parrying and deftly following up with ripostes. The offense shifted from
one duelist to the other, back and forth, back and forth...
...But in the end, the result was inevitable.
"Next!"
"There is no one else left, sempai," Kozue said as she lifted her
helmet, sweat glistening in the sunlight. "You've made pretty short work
of all of us."
The team captain took off her own helmet. "You were doing fine
until the end, Kozue, but the strength in your forearm wavered a bit and
you parried with the tip of your foil, instead of near the base --
that's why I was able to break through with my last lunge," Takatsuki
Shiori replied.
"Well, like I said, Shiori-sempai," Kozue said, "You were simply
too good for all of us, even combined."
"You did well, Kozue. Don't sell yourself too short now," Shiori
said, laughing. "All you really need is inspiration."
"Is that so?" Kozue replied, smiling. "Can you tell me what your
inspiration is, Shiori-sempai?"
Shiori opened her mouth to reply, but then she stopped, and turned
to look up at the balcony where I was. She paused for a moment, and a
strange, wondering expression crossed her face. Then she called out,
"Wakaba! Come join us down here!"
Before I knew what I was saying, I had already replied, "Do I have
to? You both look like you could use showers!" And I was already headed
down the stairs to where they were, to my surprise.
"If it isn't the Onion Princess," Kozue snorted.
"Put a sock in it, Kozue," I replied, to much less disbelief this
time, as if I was growing more and more comfortable with my role.
"Ladies, please," a new voice said, "don't start fighting on my
account."
"You wish, Tsuwabuki," Kozue retorted. "Getting out of middle
school must've inflated your ego even more."
I turned to look and saw Tsuwabuki Mitsuru standing before us,
flanked by his flunkies Suzuki, Tanaka, and Yamada (whom I could never
tell apart, actually). He looked rather confident in his new high school
attire, which was the reason for Kozue's comment. "If one is to be
treated like royalty one must act the part," he said, running his
fingers through his combed blond hair.
"Hello, Tsuwabuki," Shiori greeted him. "Finally decided to join
the fencing team?"
"I'm sorry, Shiori-sempai, but my busy schedule simply doesn't
allow me to join any more extra-curricular activities," Tsuwabuki said
with a bow and a flourish. "Perhaps when my schedule loosens up a bit."
"Perhaps," Shiori said with a smirk. "What about you, Wakaba?"
"She's too busy being captain of the kendo club to join the
fencing team," said yet another voice. "And I promised her a rematch."
Without thinking I turned and said, "I'll beat you this time,
Keiko. Or should I call you President Sonoda?"
"Please, it's too early in the campaign for that. You're
embarrassing me," Keiko said, shaking her head, her pigtails swishing
gently with the turn of her head. "For all I know, Mitsuru here might
beat me to it."
"Now, why would I want to do that?" Tsuwabuki said, producing a
red rose from apparently nowhere and offering it to Keiko, who accepted
it graciously. "I wouldn't want to put myself at odds with you, my dear
sister."
"Stop calling me that. This weird tendency of yours to imagine me
your sibling is going to raise some eyebrows, especially in this hotbed
of gossip we call our Academy," Keiko said.
"Well, I've had enough of this for one day," I replied. "I'm going
to the kendo hall to get in some more practice."
"Afraid I might beat you again, Wakaba?" Keiko teased, and I felt
my hackles rise at this.
"You were lucky," I replied. "I'll be waiting for you, Keiko."
"I'll be there."
As I walked out, heading to my locker to retrieve the shinai I
never knew I owned, I looked up at the balcony and saw Mikage standing
there, watching all of us -- and it was all I could do to repress a
shudder.
- Four -
I don't know exactly what I was thinking then, but I took the
practice sword in hand, pointed at the rest of the kendo team members,
and said, "Attack me."
They did indeed, rather hesitantly at first, but after I'd cut
down (so to speak) the first three or four people they started to charge
me, determined not to make utter fools of themselves by allowing me to
take the whole club down single-handedly.
The less I thought about fighting, the more naturally it came to
me; pretty soon it was as if I'd been practicing kendo all my life --
and for all intents and purposes, I had been. I cracked another opponent
on the head -- firmly, but not enough to cause irreparable damage, and
immediately sidestepped and caught the next one in the stomach. I lifted
my foot and swung down, parrying a strike meant for my knee. I struck my
attacker in the face with the handle of my sword, then spun around and
hit the one to my rear with a thrust to the shoulder.
This wasn't ordinary practice for a kendo club, but then, this was
no ordinary kendo club, and I was no ordinary captain. The others were
fighting for pride, I knew; I was fighting for fighting's sake. It
seemed right. It seemed proper. I belonged here, and the sword belonged
in my hands.
"Do you still have enough left to take me on, captain?" I heard a
voice behind me say, and I say Keiko standing there, in her gi and
hakama, her own sword in hand. "Perhaps I'll be lucky again this time."
The ever-present crowd had more than doubled in size at Keiko's
arrival, and their cheers had turned into low murmurs as Keiko and I
faced each other, focusing; we knew that at our level of skill, the
fight would be decided in one exchange. It was no longer a question of
who was better, but of who would show weakness first.
We must have stood there, perfectly still but for our breathing,
for over two minutes -- but to be perfectly honest, I would have been
contented to stand there forever.
Something in the crowd gave me a start.
Then I heard Keiko's left foot shift, and I charged her.
A sharp, quick strike. I felt it on my chest, on my sternum, and I
cursed to myself.
"A draw, then," I heard Keiko say, and I opened my eyes. While she
had struck me squarely in the chest, I had landed a blow that would have
split her cranium, down the middle, if we'd been using real swords.
A cheer sounded, but I was displeased. I was not in the mood to
pander to the crowd as Keiko was doing. I put my shinai away and wiped
my brow with a towel. I had slipped, even as Keiko had slipped as well.
I looked up at the crowd but couldn't find Mikage. I could have sworn he
was there, watching us, watching me... It was his fault. He broke my
focus. Damn him.
"Oh, I must have forgotten to tell you, Wakaba," Keiko said to me,
diverting her attention from the crowd for a moment.
"What?" I said, a little more irritably that I would have liked.
Keiko smiled, self-assuredly. "I'm always lucky."
I turned away, and chuckled. "Oh, right. I forgot."
- Five -
Days passed, and I grew more and more comfortable with the role
that life had suddenly dealt me, though I felt myself growing more and
more discontented with something as time went by. The adulation that the
faceless mob showered on me became more and more wearisome, and I
suspected that this was because it became easier and easier for me to
obtain it.
More and more men began asking me out, but the more numerous they
became, the less interested I became with the whole idea, and the
novelty wore off rather quickly. I soon became unable to distinguish one
date from the next in my memory, and I quickly learned not to risk
calling my date by name unless they'd just mentioned it, and even then I
was cautious.
The results of the Student Council elections came as no surprise
to anybody; not even myself, which was the surprising part. Keiko,
President; myself, Vice-President; Kozue, Secretary; and Shiori,
Treasurer. Tsuwabuki immediately threw a party in our honor, but I
wasn't in the mood. Besides, he only wanted to impress his 'dear
sister', and I'd seen quite enough of that.
I was also sick of the sight of Keiko.
I passed the Rose Garden on the way to my locker, and saw someone
inside, probably watering the plants. Or did I? I remember the place
being declared off-limits to students, no doubt due to some impropriety
that occurred there some time ago.
But there was Mikage, speaking to someone -- I couldn't tell if he
had company or he was one of those people who believed that speaking to
plants was good for them. I doubted, however, than any plant would
benefit from being spoken to in the tone he was using. He sounded like
he was in an argument with somebody.
It was none of my business, I told myself, as I made my way to my
foot locker, dreading the deluge of love letters no doubt stuffed in
with my shoes.
There was none.
Inside was a single white envelope, sealed with wax, and upon it
lay a white signet ring, inscribed upon it a single, pink rose in bloom.
My first letter from the End of the World.
- First Interlude -
"Inside, the world goes on as it always has, night and day, day
and night," Shiori began, taking her place beside us in the elevator.
"Outside lies the power to bring the world revolution," Kozue
said, her hand lightly touching the elevator walls.
"Between the inside and the outside lies the fragile shell of this
world," I intoned, crossing my arms in front my chest.
"Break the world's shell," Keiko finished, standing upright in the
center, "for the power to revolutionize the world."
to be continued...
=====
w.o.m
TimeRunner's Web Page:
http://www.geocities.com/Tokyo/Towers/7482
=====
"Whatever," he heard her say sarcastically, although he could still
hear the grin in her voice. "You'd better not be messing around back
there while I'm gone, buster!"
"Mess around? Me? I'm hurt, Yui, truly hurt."
"Uh-huh."
"No, seriously!"
- Yui and Gendo Ikari, Neon Chronicle Evangelion 0:1