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.
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. ^^;
- 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."
--- In the Shadow of Revolution ---
=====
Act I
=====
- Six -
"I assume you've all received the letters?" Keiko said casually,
seeming to pay more attention to the long-stemmed red rose she held
delicately under her nose. She had begun taken to wearing her hair
unbound, and her long, flowing hair fell down to her shoulders. She
stretched out in her seat, reveling in her new, white uniform which was
proper of a member of the Student Council.
In fact, we all wore uniforms for this occasion, our first
official Council Meeting, and I was feeling quite uncomfortable,
unaccustomed as I was to wearing those green pants; I thought the top
was a bit much, also, what with the tassels and epaulets and everything.
I stood up from my own chair, unwilling to stay in one position while in
that outfit for too long, and though I told myself I would get used to
it, I was beginning to realize that perhaps my role didn't involve
becoming too comfortable with the uniform. I drew solace from the fact
that unlike Keiko I had kept my old hairstyle, in an effort to leave
some part of me unchanged.
My distraction did not last very long before it was interrupted.
"Indeed," Shiori said, placing her own warm yellow rose under
scrutiny.
"Indeed," Kozue said, nodding, her blue rose resting on the pages
of her log book as she took down the minutes of the meeting.
"What do you think, Keiko? Of course we received the letters," I
spat, casting my own green rose down on the glass table as I raised my
left hand, displaying the signet on my ring finger. "Stop asking these
useless questions and get to the point." Still I surprised myself with
my new behavior, though now my shock seemed relegated to a quiet corner
of my mind, the part of me that claimed sanity in the face of
overwhelming evidence to the contrary, the part of me that was largely
ignored by the rest of me.
"That's the problem with you, Wakaba," Keiko said, taking a long
sniff of her rose, "ever since we were children you showed very little
appreciation for pleasantries."
"Ever since we were children," Kozue repeated, continuing her
note-taking.
Ever since we were children? My mind seemed to reject this
statement like the body rejects a powerful drug the first time it is
ingested -- it turned my stomach, and an unpleasant taste began to
spread in my mouth. Yet I continued in my role like a method actor,
seeming reluctant to break disbelief until some invisible director
yelled "Cut!" to mark the end of the scene.
There was no such end in sight. "Unlike you, Keiko, I recognize
formalities for what they are."
"No, you don't. That's the unfortunate part," Keiko replied, still
apparently unable to extract her attention away from the flower. "There
is one more 'formality' we must concern ourselves with."
"And that is?" Shiori said, placing her rose in the empty vase,
having lost interest in it much faster than Keiko.
Keiko idly called into the archway leading to the meeting area,
"You may reveal yourself now."
A young man of thirteen or fourteen -- it wasn't too clear
which -- stepped out of the shadows. He was thin, pale-skinned, perhaps
even sickly in appearance, and his short, straight hair was of a shade
of brown similar to my own. He was dressed in a red version of our
uniform, except with two breast pockets instead of one, and different
epaulets from ours, lavender in color. "Good day," he greeted, in the
clear, musical tone of a young boy's yet-unbroken voice.
"Good day," Kozue said, not so much as a greeting than as a matter
of reiteration as she continued writing.
"Who are you?" Shiori said, raising an eyebrow.
"A formality," Keiko said, chuckling, "from the End of the World."
He walked over to me and bowed, almost imperceptibly. "My name is
Chida Mamiya," he spoke, smiling a beautiful, guileless smile that
reminded me of a part of myself that I hadn't realized I'd forgotten.
"I've been waiting for you, Miss Shinohara. I am the Rose Bride. From
this day forward, I belong to you."
- Seven -
Mamiya and I began our walk home together, in silence. The trip to
the new Student Council quarters was not long, though only Shiori and I
really used them; Kozue and Keiko both had family-owned houses on
campus. Since Shiori tended to keep to herself, we were not as close as
we pretended to be in public, even though we lived across the hall from
each other. She had gone ahead, in fact, uninterested as she was with my
problems about living with the Rose Bride.
I'd complained loudly, then. I had thrown the crystal vase meant
to hold my rose over the edge of the Council meeting place and had made
threats and gestures, as if to draw my sword.
But Keiko calmly crossed her arms in front of her, her hair
blowing in the high winds, and told me this:
"If you don't like it, then I suggest you lose your next duel for
the power to bring the world revolution."
I decided I could live with the trouble after that.
The ground was damp, with newly-fallen late-afternoon rain; odd,
as I didn't recall any rain falling while we were in the open-air
meeting place. But I shrugged, recognizing it as 'just one of those
things' that seem to happen in Ohtori Academy.
Mamiya stayed quiet for most of the trip, though I could see from
the corner of my eye that every so often he would look at me and smile,
for no apparent reason. I suppose it should have made me feel better,
should have made me happy, since no one had smiled at me so innocently
for... as long as I could remember at that moment.
But it only made me more wary than before.
My room was quite large, and apparently the double bunk was placed
there in anticipation of today's events. The room had a deceptively
orderly look because I didn't have enough things to make it look
cluttered.
No, that wasn't right; someone had arranged everything while I was
out. I turned to Mamiya with a questioning gaze but all he did was smile
at me.
That smile. It was starting to unnerve me. I already had trouble
with the idea that we would be sleeping in the same room from now on. I
didn't want to deal with the thought of him smiling cheerfully at me
from beneath my bed, since I had chosen to stay on the top bunk.
We didn't speak any more that night -- he coughed quietly every
now and then, and apparently he had decided not to burden me with the
reasons behind his condition (for which I was secretly grateful); and as
for myself, I didn't feel like 'sharing my feelings'. We had eaten in
silence, took turns getting dressed in the bathroom, and turned in for
the night.
I imagined his smile burning into the back of my neck as I lay in
my pillow. It grew twisted and even more disturbing in my imagination,
seemingly contorting at every stifled cough I heard coming from below
me. I buried my head under my pillow, but as the coughs died down, they
grew louder and louder in my head, Mamiya's smiling visage now
resembling a sort of death mask in my mind's eye.
I bolted upright, threw off my blanket, and looked out over the
side of my bed.
He was asleep.
And yet sleep had given a different quality to his expression, his
closed eyes and regular breathing granting the innocence and naivete and
guilelessness of his face something that was needed to complete it --
serenity.
The moon was waxing, that night, and it cast an ethereal light
into the room. Mamiya's face seemed to glow, looking more full of life
now than it did under the harsh light of the sun and the unnatural cast
of the room's lamps. It was like looking at the face of a dream, a
beautiful wisp of a dream lying asleep before me, living, breathing in
the same room as me, and I seemed to be suspended in that moment after
waking but before the passing of the dream's memory...
I suddenly felt unworthy. The signet ring seemed to burn into my
finger. I remembered all those faces in the crowd from the other day,
the impression they left on me so fleeting, so temporary, and I realized
that what I hated about those faces most of all was that I might have
found my own face there, lost in the mob of the ordinary, the
unremarkable, the transitory.
And now I shared the room with one who bore the face of eternity.
I pulled the covers over my face and wept.
- Eight -
Another love letter.
Another insipid, uninspired love letter slipped into that most
predictable of places -- my foot locker. Another maudlin correspondence
sent to interrupt the regular routine of my day, already made miserable
by my lack of sleep the night before.
No, that wasn't quite right. The letter fit into my daily routine
quite perfectly. Too perfectly. It irritated me that I had grown to
dislike something I had always dreamed of before.
Before? Before what? There was nothing before this. There was
nothing before today. There was not even a trace to indicate anything
came the moment I lived in.
Except for Mamiya's face.
In irritation I tore the envelope that previously held the letter
into shreds. I opened the letter itself and read it. It was some
pathetic drivel about the writer dancing with me in his dreams. What was
his name? Kazami Tatsuya, it said.
Why was that familiar to me? Was it familiar to me? Why should it
have been? I stared at the letter and looked at the handwriting,
familiar as a hidden memory, familiar --
No! I clutched the letter and walked to the bulletin board, where
I tacked it up and walked away. A crowd had gathered behind me, no doubt
to read whatever I had put up on the board. I didn't care.
Or perhaps... Perhaps I wanted someone to remember whatever I had
forgotten.
Mamiya stood there in front of me, blocking my way. The smile was
still on his face, though only a mild one, barely perceptible except in
his eyes. "Please don't worry, Miss Wakaba. Someone still remembers."
I had a million questions after that, all racing for a chance to
be spoken first, but the one question that did come out was "Who?"
He shook his head. "If that person truly remembers, then you'll
know who it is very soon." He walked off, leaving me standing in the
corridor alone.
I stomped off to the kendo hall, grabbing my shinai on the way
there. I needed to hit someone. Anyone.
"You! Shinohara!"
I simply continued to practice, not bothering to face the
newcomer. "Don't you know that coming into the kendo hall uninvited is a
very, very stupid thing to do?"
"What's stupid is posting Tatsuya's note up like that on the
bulletin board."
"What I do with the notes I receive is my business. That stupid
note..." I paused to laugh. "I meant to say, that unique note seemed
amusing to me. I felt the need to share the source of my amusement with
others. I don't see any problem with that, do you, Mister...?"
"Mikage."
I gave a start. "Mikage..." I slowly turned to face him.
He stood there, pointing his own shinai at me. He shook visibly,
and his dark eyes flashed with anger -- but I caught myself looking
closer, and I saw that the anger for what I had done to Tatsuya did not
go deep; as I saw further into his eyes, I saw something his rage change
into something else, and it mirrored something inside me even as his
eyes held my own image within them. "I challenge you to a duel."
"A duel?" I said, and I truly, for a brief moment, had no idea
what he was talking about. My disorientation did not last long. "I see.
Then you must be the duelist mentioned in the letters from the End of
the World." My jaw hurt, voicing its protest for being forced to mouth
words of which I didn't know the meaning.
I saw Mikage's own jaw clench and unclench several times, and he
tried to swallow before he spoke. "Duelist?" he said, and his voice
trembled as his face contorted to express the ignorance his eyes did not
seem to share. "What..." He paused and swallowed hard. "What do you
mean?"
You know very well what I mean, I thought, and on the other hand I
have no idea. I have no idea what I mean. I have no idea even I I hear
myself say this: "I'll meet you at the dueling forest, then, after class
hours."
"The forest no one is allowed to enter?" he said, and as he
mouthed the words my mind thought them at the same time.
What did I mean? I knew, and at the same time I didn't. Perhaps it
didn't matter that I did not know -- I realized I would in time, and
there was nothing wither Mikage or myself could do about it.
"The very same." I left and made my way to the arena, each step
making me more and more certain of something I could not quite grasp.
But how can anyone be certain of what they do not know?
- Nine -
I stood in the center of the arena, clutching at my shinai, and I
marveled at the castle floating in the sky above, suspended on a
foundation I could not see; it gave me the distinct impression that it
was me who was upside down, staring at the upright castle; I was the
reflection in an upside down mirror.
"So the duels have begun," Mamiya said quietly.
"What are the duels?" I demanded, spinning to face him. "What are
they for?"
"The power to bring the world revolution," he replied.
"I've heard that before, and I don't even know what that means!" I
cried. "Why would I even want to bring the world revolution?"
"Everyone wants to bring the world revolution. It is the natural
instinct of humanity to change its surroundings to fit its desires," he
said.
"But what about those who prefer things to stay the way they are?"
I asked.
"They want to bring the world revolution as well, because everyone
knows things will never remain the way they are, although we like to
believe they will." He smiled and walked up to me, dressed in his deep
red uniform, a delicate golden crown on his forehead. "Miss Shinohara?"
"Yes?"
He regarded me intently, still wearing the smile on his face. "I
have a small question to ask you. A small, trifling, personal thing."
I said nothing as I looked at him, as I tried to pierce the smile
on his face as he lifted a graceful hand to my cheek.
He traced the line of my jaw with his fingers, and a chill ran
down my spine. "Are you prepared to lose this duel? You should know you
cannot win."
I slapped his hand away. "How dare you! I am the captain of the
kendo club! That alone is enough. And on top of that, with you at my
side, I have the power to call upon the Sword of Dios!"
"Nevertheless," Mamiya said calmly, slowly lowering his hand, "you
are simply not fated to win this duel. The letters from the End of the
World said so."
"Enough!" I slapped him. "You are the Rose Bride, and you are
engaged to me!"
"Only for now," Mamiya said, holding his cheek, and almost
imperceptibly his smile took on a menacing air. "Your challenger has
arrived."
Mikage stepped into the arena, looking at the sky at the inverted
castle. He carried with him a shinai, and I found myself scoffing at his
audacity in doing so. I thought I caught him glancing at Mamiya once or
twice, but I wasn't quite sure. "What is this place?" he asked, and the
note of wondering in his voice grated in my ears, grated because it
sounded so false.
"Oh, you've never seen the castle before?" I said with a sneer,
even though I hadn't, either, not until that evening. "Some would say
it's an illusion, a trick of the light." Some? Who?
"But it isn't visible from outside the..." Suddenly he paused and
clutched at his head. "No..."
"What is it?" I asked. "Have you decided to back out?" I hoped he
did. I certainly didn't want to have to duel him, no matter how
confident I seemed to be behaving.
"NO! Can't you see?" he screamed, and I staggered back. "Can't you
see how pointless all of this is?"
I was about open my mouth, to respond in typically snide fashion,
but then I stopped myself. My words seemed so hollow, so empty. I
clenched my teeth and followed him with my eyes, hoping he could read in
them what I could not speak out loud because the part of me that had
blustered and bragged, the part of me that I did not recognize, would
not let me. "Silence," I finally heard myself say. "Mamiya, prepare us."
Mamiya walked up to me and placed a green rose in my breast
pocket. Green? Why green? I wondered. Them Mamiya turned to Mikage and
placed in his breast pocket a white rose. "Good luck," he said, and with
this he turned to face me, and his eyes taunted me, dared me to slap
him. It was my place to do so. I was expected to do so.
And so I did not.
Instead I waited for him to begin the chant to draw out the Sword
of Dios from within him.
- The Prayer to Dios - Reprise -
Rose of the noble castle that hangs in the sky above
Power of Dios that sleeps within
Sword of revolution, sword of the ends of the world
Awaken, heed the call of your master and arise
- Ten -
Both Mikage and I shielded our eyes from the blinding light that
erupted from Mamiya's chest. I chuckled, and confidently strode to
Mamiya, and as he bent over backwards I caught him in my arms, as if we
were partners in a dance.
"Grant me the power to bring the world revolution!" I shouted, and
in one motion grasped at the sword handle and pulled.
Except there was no sword.
"What?" I gasped, and suddenly the script in my mind had run out.
There were no more lines, there was no more prompter, screaming in my
mind's ear. The role I had been playing vanished, disappearing like a
wisp of smoke. I dropped Mamiya onto the ground and grabbed my shinai.
"Don't you see? Don't you get it? The power to revolutionize the
world is DEAD!" Mikage cried, and the tightening in my chest told me his
words were true.
"Lies!" Mamiya screamed, and for the first time I saw the smile on
his face shatter, replaced by a scowl of such intense fury that I had to
avert my eyes. "You will defeat Wakaba, and you will claim the power to
revolutionize the world for yourself!"
"He will not!" I exclaimed and charged Mikage, and thought of
nothing, thought nothing for roles, thought nothing of Rose Brides,
though nothing of the power to bring the world revolution -- and I let
the sword and its movements take over.
And the duel was on.
- First Chorus - Epiphany -
I press the attack
dreams of fire
dreams of light
dreams of sun and sky and endless blue
he parries
dreams of green
dreams of falling leaves
dreams of yielding branch and bough
and ripostes
dreams of reflection
dreams of luster
dreaming on the edge of a finely crafted sword
I feint and counterattack
dreams of stone
dreams of cliffs
dreams of harsh rock rubbing against shredded palm
on and on the duel goes
dreams of blue
dreams of dreams
dreams of ripples on an endless surface
back and forth
dreams of morning
but sooner
dreams of stirring
or later
stirring
someone
stirring
has
rousing
to
waking
win
WAKE UP!
- Eleven -
...And white petals flew into the clear blue sky, carried by the
high winds over the forest below, over the courtyards, over the garden,
over the school buildings, over and out of the walls of Ohtori Academy.
I walked toward where Mikage was and I stood behind him.
"Well, now..." he said, still not facing me. "It seems that the
End of the World isn't infallible in this world anymore."
"What do you mean?" I asked. "What is happening? What is happening
to all of us?"
"I... don't know," he said, turning to face me, and he regarded me
with those deep violet eyes. "I honestly don't know. Do you know what
you've done?"
"I won."
"You weren't supposed to win."
"So what? What does that mean?" I asked.
"I don't know. But I have a feeling we are all going to find out
very soon." He smiled at me, and he turned to go. "Gather up your Bride,
before he hurls himself off the edge."
I grabbed Mamiya, who was sobbing, palms bloody from clutching his
broken crown. "He promised..." he cried, "he promised me..."
"Stop that," I said, and now I felt the role was mine to make up
as I went along. "Behave yourself. Remember that you are still engaged
to me."
"For whatever that's worth," I heard Mikage call out as he
descended the stairs.
- Second 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 transience and eternity 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.
=====
Writers have to simultaneously believe the following two things:
1. The story I am now working on is the greatest work of genius ever
written in English.
2. The story I am now working on is worthless drivel.
Of course, believing two contradictory facts at the same time is
somteimes referred to as madness -- but that, too, can be an asset to a
writer.
-- Orson Scott Card