Rating: T for mature and sensitive subject matters.
Genres: Real Life Problems, Yuri, Female Empowerment, Trans Man, Yaoi, Male Rape, Surreal Symbolism
Timeline: 10 years post Revolution, a few weeks post Fate Train Transfer
Notable Chars: Trans Utena, shadow boys "K-taro" and "S-taro" (do you really need to ask who they are?)
Notable "Mysteries" Covered: Nemuro Hall, Child Broiler, Million Swords, Fate Train, Shadow Girls, Invisible People
Summary (or rather, Excerpt): “The revolution succeeded; it crumbled afterwards only because those whose lives got revolutionized did not follow up on the revolutionary success,” said the Bride, her words setting their closed hearts aflame. “This time, will you help us help you?”
After what seems like an eternity of non-fic writing, I have again written something in tribute of this timeless shoujo anime classic. This is a work dedicated to the passionate, wonderful people at In the Rose Garden (fic thread here), which even now remains the coolest place for Utena fans to hang out online.
Other sites hosting this fic includes:
http://gorgeousshutin.livejournal.com/
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/8086621/1/Seinen_Kakumei_Utena
http://archiveofourown.org/works/432468/chapters/732392
On to the fic:
Seinen Kakumei Utena
Utena and its characters belong to its various owners.
WARNING: Parts of this work contain depictions of transphobia, controversial shoujo fantasy trans situation that in no way reflects real life trans people, and misogynic magic attack leading to forced masculinization
Part Five: Prince, Interrupted - Main II
The water, crisp cold against his skin, was running so
soundly by now that he was slowly but surely drifting out of his slumber.
Opening his eyes anew, he saw, to his great
unsurprise, that same white, sterile ceiling – a sight that was starting to
look awfully familiar to him after the past couple of days . . . or had it been
weeks already? He could not say, being
so out of it at the time when they picked him up and took him in; he had been
in a constant daze since.
For, in return for their hospitality, they had taken
the core of his being from him, leaving his already brittle mind in fragmented
pieces.
No, that was not a statement he should make, not even
if only in his thoughts unvoiced; he surrendered himself to them willingly;
because that somebody he once loved (and still would’ve loved, had things
turned out differently) had helped him, and now needed his help; and the only
way he could help his love, as he was now, was to give them his strength such
that it became their strength, so they might better face the hurdles ahead.
The very first of such hurdles – perhaps the highest
one yet in the series to come – would be for the one he loved to face them.
He himself knew, first hand, how old acquaintances
were the toughest to face during a downhill moment in life; plenty were those
who once would give up arms and legs to be termed as his friends, who then
showed neither interest nor mercy towards him when they crossed paths in recent
years. Liar and hypocrite that he was, he pushed his love into the lion’s den
that he himself feared to tread, telling her that the old gang will accept what
she became – all so she can “get help” (in spite of the pains he knew
she would suffer under such “helpers” – all for a straw’s chance at her
salvation).
“ . . . only a fool believes . . .”
“Chu!”
Murmur cut off by the soft, mousy chirp, he turned his
head to see an urgent-looking Chu-Chu pushing at his bared shoulder with a warm
paw, as if willing him to get up. He
sighed.
“Your owner now carry my might, so there’s no need for
me to go out there to help; you need not fret.”
“Chu!” The
intelligent creature shook his head frantically, and gestured at the rushing
water rising steadily around him up the porcelain dent. “Chu!
Chu!”
“Troubled as it is, this water is only a metaphor – it
can’t hurt me,” he explained to the creature, knowing that it would understand,
“after all, one cannot drown twice in the same sorrows.” No, one could only rot and dissolve
underneath that which he could not escape; losing form, sinking downwards . .
.
“Chu . . .” Chu-Chu sat at the edge of the porcelain
and looked at him with his beady eyes, refusing to move.
“Just won’t leave me alone, will you?” Somewhat touched by the creature’s
persistent concern (how much more simple and sincere were animals compared to
people), he raised a wet hand, and petted the animal’s head like he would a
naïve child. He remembered now: he once
was a boy who loved animals. Even as an
older teen masked underneath a sophisticated front, he had gushed over
receiving something as simple as a pet cat; it was only after that
happened, after everything that followed, that he forgot about pets, forgot
about animals, forgot about everything but the bottomless abyss he had been
falling endlessly down for the past ten years.
“Well then, how to pass time, kid?”
A languid, bittersweet smirk came upon his sultrily curved lips. “I know, how about a story? Let me tell you . . . there once were two
little victims who thought they would always help each other to go on living,
and they came upon another little victim grieving alone in the night.
“ ‘Being alive is so sickening,’ said this lone little
victim – a little girl whose parents died from a terrible event, who now hid
herself in a strangely present coffin placed beside those of her dead parents.
‘How can people go on living when they know they will one day die? Eternity doesn’t exist, so it’s all right
now. I'll just stay here in this
coffin, never to come out into the sun again.’
“A disagreement broke out between the original two
victims – boys suffering different abuses – regarding what they should do with
this other victim – the orphaned girl: the more impulsive boy wanted to save
the little girl by draggng her out of the coffin, while the worldlier boy knew
to leave her be in her mad despair. The
little boys ended up arguing and leaving the little girl still in her coffin,
with their own green friendship now sorely tested by one’s annoyance with the
other, and the other’s sense of inadequacy.
“The next morning, the little boys saw the little girl
out and about attending her parents’ funeral, and took it as the girl having
left her coffin. Seizing the
opportunity, the worldlier, craftier of the boys put on an act of having shown
her something eternal; the other boy, impulsive and innocent, abruptly realized
that they were no longer kindred spirits, that he was being left behind in victimhood
. . . and the cracks in their once unmarred relationship started broadening
into wide gaps.
“Much later, the boys would, on the verge of manhood,
discover that the girl they once thought was saved was in fact still inside her
coffin; not only that, but the boys themselves too had remained trapped inside
their own coffins of victimhood, through childhood and youth, for all those
years.
“The boy victims, wanting to help break the girl out
of her coffin, and wanting break out of their own coffins themselves, joined
forces as they tried saving the girl their way; the girl, trapped but still
very spirited, fought their help insisting that she did not need saving; she
claimed that she was no longer a victim entrapped, but had instead become a
coffin-breaker who could break open the accursed coffins keeping living victims
dead and trapped. The worldlier boy,
seeing her coffin –and her attachment to the ones who kept her in it – clearly,
called the girl a fool; the girl, unfazed, proudly admitted to being one, as
she moved gloriously ahead with her coffin-breaking quest. So impressed were the boys by the girl’s
conviction and her power, that they were content to step back and let the girl
take care of things; they believed, at the time, that this special, spectacular
person could save herself; save them, save everyone all by herself.
“ . . . but was that really such a good idea?”
***
Being
“special”, as Shinohara Wakaba had come to realize, was not all it was cracked
up to be.
Up until yesterday afternoon, she had been leading a
murkily mundane existence as one of the countless bottom dwellers at a
sales-numbers-driven magazine. It was
not like she was living in despair or anything: her superiors were not
especially harsh, nor her colleagues especially antagonistic; these people,
like those from most other cooperate settings, were simply habitual takers –
people who routinely take credit for all the extra work they make other people
do, in ways at once thoughtless and mechanical. Working with them, she felt like a cog in a vast construct – just
a handy tool there for the more “special” people in the company (the
so-and-so’s sons, and daughters, and nephews, and nieces . . .) to make use of
– with the keeping of a dead-end, low-wage job her only reward reaped.
Then came her boss, walking up to her desk with a
gazed-over look in his tiny eyes, telling her that a “Himemiya-san from Château Princesse”
is waiting for her down at the lobby’s information desk, and that she can take
as long as was needed entertaining this guest, even calling the rest of the day
off. Seeing all those life-deadened
eyes around the open office now sparkling with envy as they glared heatedly
upon her, the young woman almost thought it had just been announced that she
was getting to entertain the U.S. First Lady.
“Haven’t you been reading our own magazine at all,
Shinohara?” snapped a (particularly gossipy) colleague at her question as to
what the fuss was about. “The woman had
been spotted at almost all the major high society balls for the past
month! Rumor has it that she is a top
courtesan who has all the power players of the financial district eating out of
her hand; remember that apocalyptic stock market plunge from two weeks ago?
They say she’s the one behind it, raking in the big bucks while countless
seasoned investment firms go bankrupt!
I swear, Shinohara, if you keep on drifting through life like this,
you’ll remain always a leaf and never a flower . . .”
Riding the elevator down to the lobby (all the while checking
her own reflection on the mirror walls as she quickly wiped the sweat-grease
off her nose), Wakaba found herself feeling more than a little fretful over the
upcoming meeting. Of course she
remembered Himemiya Anthy: that subdued, dowdy girl at Ohtori whom all the boys
– including the Kendo Club Captain she liked at the time – were strangely
attracted to; whom all the girls hated . . . except for her tomboy best friend
at the time, who actually got into a fight with her over her accidentally
splashing the dark girl. Just what kind
of stunning flower had that bespectacled yet bewitching kid blossomed into?
The elevator doors parted, giving her an unobstructed
view of the information desk, and the one currently waiting for her there.
Hourglass figure delicately wrapped under an elegant
dress that Wakaba knew would cost more than her annual income (that was
excluding the tasteful, matching designer’s handbag and shoes), the grown up
Himemiya Anthy positively glittered despite a stark absence of
jewelry. Naturally heavily lashed green
eyes (revealed to be exquisite now that they were no longer masked under
plain-Jane glasses) narrowed in a serene smile, the dark beauty bowed
lightly at her; Wakaba, awed by her old school mate’s stunning presence, quickly
bowed back and hurried up to the woman.
Leading her to settle down at an elegant café down the
block (all the while smilingly nodding at her nervous, cutesy babbling about
how gorgeous the woman now was, how sexy her hair looked half up half down, how
expensive her handbag must be, and all that pointless crap), Himemiya cut
straight to the point right after the waiter had taken their orders:
“Shinohara-san, Utena needs your help.”
Wakaba’s eyes widened at her words. “Utena . . . sama?” So, Tenjou Utena, her best friend from
childhood and youth who left Ohtori without telling her, still had kept in
touch with Himemiya after all. Had
Utena really thought of her as a best friend, Wakaba wondered, or was she to
Ohtori’s star athlete but one insignificant fan girl out of the dozens, no one
special at all?
“It’s not like that, Shinohara-san,” said Himemiya,
startling the young woman who just got read like an open book. “She got expelled from Ohtori under
circumstances beyond her own control, and was left badly hurt; she could not
have contacted you even if she had wanted to.”
“Utena-sama got hurt?” asked Wakaba, in surprise and
genuine worry. “What happened at the
time? There were so many rumors
floating around school about her leaving, but nobody really knew for sure: I
didn’t even know where to start looking for her, since she had no parents. I thought about asking you, since you’ve
somehow gotten so close to her at the time, but then you left too; and then . .
.”
“. . . and then your father got transferred overseas,
and your whole family moved with him out of the country.” Himemiya continued her sentence for her,
smoothly. “After leaving, you wrote a
few letters back to your friend Kazami Tatsuya, asking him if he heard anything
about Utena’s whereabouts, but you never got any of his letters back; you’ve
not contacted anyone from Ohtori since.”
Like stealth fingers, the woman’s words send chills
creeping down Wakaba’s spine. “How’d
you know all that?”
Himemiya’s eyes – trained upon her – were soft with empathy. “Kazami-san never got your letters,
Shinohara-san: Ohtori had an invasive mail-scanning system in place; no letter
can get past its walls without my brother’s approval.”
“The Acting Chairman . . .” Wakaba remembered the man
to be strikingly handsome and charming; to the point that she envied Utena for
getting to stay with him courtesy of her friendship with Himemiya. “But why would he do something like
checking through students’ letters?
What is he . . .” and just like that, she suddenly remembered her
instinctive distrust of the peculiar Himemiya from all those years ago, “. . .
what’re you?”
“My brother
is someone who needs to be stopped, and I plan to stop him,” replied Himemiya,
not exactly answering her question.
“Utena getting hurt ten years ago, Kazami-san being exploited since . .
. he is the one behind it, reaping the benefits born of their pains. Shinohara-san, will you help Utena and I
destroy him once and for all?”
Wakaba found her head swimming from the onslaught of
jarring info. “Tatsuya’s being
exploited . . . how? And Utena . .
.wait.” Only now did her brain started
processing the woman’s actual request.
“Destroy your brother? Like how
. . . kill him? And for what, invasion
of student privacy? Shouldn’t you
people go to the police if he’s doing something nifty? Or did he . . .” Her babble trailed off at
seeing Himemiya produce a black velvet box from her handbag.
“Perhaps this can help you better understand.”
Himemiya pushed the box across the table and at her. “Here, Shinohara-san.”
“What’s this?” Taking the box, Wakaba opened it to
find a torn, wrinkled envelope.
Reaching into it, she pulled out a small, water-stained note written in
Tatsuya’s boyish, slightly rigid handwriting:
I’m almost transparent to you; you can hardly see me.
I don’t want to become invisible; I won’t just become
nothing.
I will be seen; if not by you, then by everyone else
around you.
“This is a letter that Kazami-san sent you a month
after you left,” supplied Himemiya, her voice sounded miles away to Wakaba’s
ear, so focused was the young woman on the note. “It got intercepted by one of
my brother’s ex-helpers, one whom I’ve come across only years afterwards. By that time, what’s done to him had been
done.”
“What is Tatsuya talking about here?” Wakaba was
feeling hopelessly lost now. “I don’t
understand-” A slight, shuffling sound caught her attention. Glancing down, she noticed, for the first
time, that the inside of the velvet box had a cushioning of small, dark rose
buds. Impossibly, those rose buds now
were rapidly blossoming in animated vortexes of ink-black petals; a
lighter-colored rose, budding in the middle, spread its green petals to reveal
not a flower’s heart, but rather, a leaf-shaped hair clip handcrafted from wood
. . .
. . . standing under an inverted castle, upon an arena
in the sky, pointing the sword she robbed from Saionji-sempai at her
“Utena-sama”, who was never even her friend to begin with. See?
There she was in her non-regular, mock-Student-Council uniform, defending
that witch/bitch/cunt who took away her everything without even having to try .
. .
Screaming, Wakaba scrambled backwards and away from
the table, backing until her back hit the glass window wall, against which she
now was trapped. “Y-You . . you!
Saionji-sempai . . . Utena-sama . . . I . . .” Still seated, Himemiya
pinned the traumatized young woman to her spot with her steady gaze.
“I apologize for having to make you remember that,
Shinohara-san, but you need to understand: my brother is a monster above the
laws of your world. Only a chosen few
have what it takes to bring him down, and you’re one of them.”
Even amidst the current eerie circumstance, being
termed as “chosen” made Wakaba tingle inside.
“But . . . Himemiya-san, I mean
. . .you were . . .”
“Indeed I was the one behind your pains at the time,
manipulating you against Utena on my brother’s orders,” admitted the woman,
readily. “But I am his slave no longer
– Utena had freed me from that. Since
I’ve finally managed to find her three years ago, Utena and I have been helping
each other to go on living.”
“Then it took you seven years to find her,” murmured
Wakaba. So, even Himemiya got separated
from Utena for many years prior to their reunion – it wasn’t like the other
woman was any closer to her best friend as she herself was, thought a still
very juvenile part of her with much pleasure.
“But there is no living for Utena as she is right
now,” Himemiya spoke on, giving no hint of having detected Wakaba’s childish
gleefulness, “not unless I can defeat my brother, and take from him the power
to reverse the hurt that Utena now is suffering under. And there is Kazami-san too, who succumbed
to the same darkness as you once did, and has remained enslaved by my brother
since. Lately, I’ve been doing a number
of things to weaken the Ohtori Clan’s – my brother’s main backers – influence
over Japan's financial and political worlds, just to lower the number of his
goons here in this outside world; but as to his actual powers . . .”
Tenjou Utena, her school idol best friend from ten
years ago, in trouble and now waiting for her help; Kazami Tatsuya, her white
bread guy childhood friend, also in trouble, also needing her help; Himemiya
Anthy, a wealthy and powerful . . . whatever she was, came to her asking
for help . . .
“Shinohara-san,”
Himemiya leaned forward, her stance all business-like in its formality. “You are one of those few special people who
can withstand the Light of the World; this means that you have the potential to
be a Duelist – a fighter capable of delivering damage to even one like my
brother. I’ve since recruited most of
the former Student Council, plus some others, towards the cause; if you’re
willing to join us . . .” The woman went on to talk about how she had already
taken measures to maximize the Duelists’ safety in the upcoming battle, and how
they shall all be sumptuously rewarded for their efforts . . . Wakaba could
only make out a few disjointed words here and there, so heady was she by the
revolutionizing revelation revealed.
Even flowers need their leaves to stay in bloom –
Shinohara Wakaba is every bit as special as those rich, blooming elites whom
she had envied for her entire life.
“ . . .
already agreed to hire you as junior editor; as for that romance serial novel
you’ve been pitching for years, there’ll be a literary agent coming in contact
with you within the month-”
“I’ll do it,” proclaimed Wakaba, feeling so empowered
at the moment that she would have agreed to slay dragons on the spot. “Let me be the one to help Utena-sama!”
Which brought her to here and now, huddled fearfully
against more notable former schoolmates as they all gawked stupidly at the
large, pulsing cluster of outward-pointing swords – buried underneath which was
her no longer female adolescent best friend – and the conveniently blank
dinning room wall upon which shadowy, humanoid forms acted out as if on stage:
Long time no see, our dear old fans!
Do you know?
Do
you know?
Do
you wonder what we know?
The
ugly frogs!
The
handsome princes!
They
actually have something very much in common!
That’s right!
Frogs
and Princes alike . . .
They’ll both undergo metamorphosis under the right
circumstances!
Take
the White Horse Prince! (waved cardboard carousel horse)
Don’t
you mean Prince on a White Horse?
Anyway
. . . ! He thought he’d stay noble to
the very end, fighting dragons, dating princesses . . . BUT! (produced
cardboard girl with multiple swords sticking into her like pins)
Meh
sister, no!
Seeing
his own sister destroyed by the people he once protected with his life was just
too much for him, the poor thing; and so, he became . . . the Devil Prince!
(waved cardboard horned devil wearing prince’s crown and garb)
Meh Prince, no!
And
the Girl Prince! (waved cardboard girl in crown and prince garb)
Don’t
you mean the Tomboy Prince?
Anyway . . . ! She was the lone girl on the boys’
team, attracting girls, attracting men . . . BUT! (produced cardboard “devil
prince” plus carboard bloom-wielding witch, who both proceeded to plummet the
girl prince)
My
Prince, no! My Witch, double no!
Getting bitch-slapped by her man, then back-stabbed by
her woman was apparently too much for the poor girl; and so, she became . . .
the Trans Prince! (cardboard girl was now placed such that it rode the phallic
mic between her legs)
Meh Prince, no!
And
. . . (lifting a toilet seat amidst sounds of drum roll) . . . last but not
least-
The crisp sound of clapping cut off the hypnotic
shadow play’s momentum, irreparably, thus allowing for the Ohtori group to
recover their wits as they turned towards Himemiya, now applauding the shadows
with a scorching glint within her smiling eyes.
“I had an inking that you three would come for us in
spite of the barriers guarding this place,” she said, “and you did. Bra-vo.”
Watching those Shadow Girls (as she had come to call
them), Wakaba abruptly remembered that she had seen these ghostly entities from
long ago, back in Ohtori, back when she had easily accepted them as part of the
school’s semi-surreal reality. How did
she ever manage to forget about them, she wondered; something this surreal,
this strikingly . . . then she remembered the ease with which she had
“forgotten” her best friend Utena but months after leaving Ohtori herself, and
realized that it really was all to easy to forget anything not present in the
here and now.
“. . . you know we couldn’t resist coming,”
said a Shadow Girl to Himemiya, all the while self-consciously twirling her own
high tail, “that with like most of the main cast together again after our very
looooong wait.”
“You guys left the story hanging just when it was
getting good!” The pigtailed one hugged
herself while spinning with a ballerina’s grace. “There was battle, there was romance, there was revolution;
and then . . . what, nothing?”
“Basically, we just can’t stand that so-called open
ending,” drawled the remaining one adjusting the ribbon atop her curly-haired
head. “What’s with the girl prince losing her grip on the witch princess just
when things were starting to look so hopeful to us audiences? And the way the sidekick characters were all
so eager to forget the heroine, thus undermining a good chuck of her princely
presence; our Utena-sama, who helped everyone throughout her heroic journey, had
to metamorphose on her
own at those unlicensed, underground clinics that left her body wrecked by
aftereffects . . . and talking about wrecked, there’re the swords too. For Utena-sama to have to go through all
that, that’s just . . . wrong!”
“Wrong, indeed,” agreed Himemiya, her voice cool as an
autumn stream running in the night, “is that why you’re again showing up to rub
salt in our wounds by giving your lively takes on our misfortunes?”
The shadow girls actually looked somewhat embarrassed
now. “Err . . .”
“The three of you have always thrived on the stories
of others, even since back before you all got put through the Research;
following Hoshimi-chan around as her personal entourage, mocking where you can,
jabbing where it hurts . . .” Abruptly, Himemiya’s voice and expression both
brightened up, such that she appeared cheerful as a cardboard sun. “So, would you three like to listen to another
story, one that’s even more riveting than our tale of old?”
“Another story?” The shadows were taken aback. “But we already have our hands full making
fun of yours-”
“We’ve got star-studded storytellers here ready
to say their piece,” said Himemiya.
“Isn’t that right, Chida-san?”
“Indeed.”
Before Wakaba even had time to wonder where
Chida-san’s voice was coming from, the edges of the wall the shadow girls were
on suddenly darkened into what appeared to be a brilliant night sky, which quickly eclipsed inward such that the bright “shadow-play area”
now was a surrounded “island” upon that dark, glittery space. Numerous figures
now were coming out from within the starry zone: elegant Chida Tokiko, with a
hesitant-looking Kozue by her side, and the penguins (there were four of them
now) bumbling after two shadow-covered little boys (but somehow their hair and
clothes remained clearly visible) now running up towards the Shadow Girls, who
appeared to recoil in shock.
“W-Whoa . . . what?!”
“Nee-chans!” The boys (revealed to be eerie creatures
with pitch-blank faces and flesh) ran right up to the edge of the “shadow-play
area” in childlike exuberance. “Do you
know, do you know, do you wonder what we know?
That’s right, the apple is a gift for those who chose to die for love!”
“Apple? What
kinda metaphor is that?”
“Just hear us out: the apple is a universe in itself .
. .”
“That should keep them occupied for a while yet,” eyes
bright and feline-like, Chida-san walked up to beside Himemiya. Adopting a gallant stance, the taller woman
then hovered a delicate palm over the darker woman’s supple chest, with her
other hand placed at the small of the latter’s back “Ready, Himemiya-san?”
Nodding, Himemiya then arched backwards in an almost
mechanical motion, and started glowing at the chest. Amidst the bright rays and phantom winds suddenly engulfing the
two, Chida-san drew back her palm, and two objects – a sword hilt and a sword
blade – got pulled out of the light as if by invisible strings, the sight of
which induced a gasp from Tsuwabuki-kun.
“I-Is that . . .”
“Utena’s soul sword,” Juri-sempai eyed the objects
grimly, “snapped in half.”
Indeed, those were two halves of a broken sword,
radiating a signature-like aura that Wakaba immediately recognized as that of
her old friend; there was a melancholic sense of loss radiating off the damaged
item, one that forced involuntary tears out of the young woman’s eyes.
“Utena-sempai told us earlier about Akio-san breaking
her soul sword . . . no wonder; how tough she was to have survived even
something like this,” murmured Miki-kun out loud; standing beside him, a now
more sober-seeming Kozue narrowed her eyes at what was still emerging from
within the light.
“I see another sword coming out . . .”
Saionji-sempai and Kiryuu Nanami both widened their
eyes at the new sword in spite of the light.
“Onii-sama!”
Kiryuu Touga’s soul sword, while whole unlike Utena’s,
radiated sheer pain instead of melancholy.
Lower lip quivering, Nanami tried going up to the sword (now hovering in
midair underneath Utena’s snapped blades), but Saionji-sempai held onto her.
“Wait . . .”
In front of everybody’s stunned eyes, Touga’s sword
“melted” into a boiling liquid mass, one that quickly splashed upwards to
engulf Utena’s broken weapon; in no time at all, a new, singular sword
materialized out of the fluid metals, and Wakaba knew this new blade
represented a strong bond – a togetherness beyond friendship, beyond love –
between these stunningly special people.
Before the group had time to further dwell upon the
implication of the merged soul sword, the shrill scrapping of metal against
metal drew their attention towards the countless swords walling in Utena;
whereas they were only pulsing sluggishly before, the swords now were sharpening
their edges against each other in what appeared to be boiling bloodlust, as
more and more of them started grinding their gleaming lengths out from what
gaps there were between the blades.
Ghostly sounds, uttering coarse curses in innumerable overlapping
voices, started to fill the air like the drones of a vast locust swarm:
. . . witch, butch, whore, catamite, sissy, girl-boy,
boy-girl, freak . . .
“The Million Swords shining with human hatred,”
Chida-san, now grabbing the soul sword by its hilt and pointing it at the
ever-growing mass of hate-filled blades, spoke in awe and contempt, “again they
stir at the sight of a worthy prince’s sword.”
Still arched backwards against Chida-san’s hold, Himemiya reached a
glowing hand up to the woman’s chest, and pulled from there another sword;
judging by the vibes it gave, Wakaba judged it to also be two soul swords
merged into one: Tokiko’s and Mikage’s.
Sleekly straightening up, Himemiya swished her sword down such that it’s
point touched that of the Utena/Touga soul sword, with both soul swords now pointed
towards the Million Swords; the hate-filled weapons all were soundly vibrating now,
as they pointed back at the soul swords like loosened metal studs drawn by a
strong magnet. Despite her growing
fear, Wakaba felt something hot budding within her chest, seemingly eager to
burst out; she realized that she was not alone in feeling this way, as the
others gathered were all displaying a peculiar expression that she knew to mirror
hers.
“Duelists,” Himemiya called out to them, her hardened
eyes never leaving the increasingly animated pile of hate-filled swords, “draw
your swords, and touch their tips to ours.”
“W-What?” Wakaba could not believe her ears; the
others looked equally shocked by the woman’s request as well.
“All Duelists O’ Black Rose or otherwise, draw. Your.
Swords!”
“But-”
In a deafening roar of metallic droning, the many
Swords of Hate rushed forward in one colossal, dragon-like mass towards
Himemiya and Chida-san; Wakaba thought for a heart-stopping moment that the
women will be grinded to nothing right in front of her eyes, but the swords
somehow all managed to only impact the pointy joined tips of the touching
soul-swords, before getting repelled away and towards the Shadow Girls, who all
somehow remained oblivious as blade after blade disappeared into the void
of their forms that she once mistook as shadow; they still were listening to
the Shadow Boys’ strange story, engrossed.
“I get it now!” Miki slammed a fist against his palm.
“They’re using the soul swords of princely people to bait the parasite swords
away from Utena and into the shadows!”
“Hurry and come help us!” Visibly strained as she kept her sword up against the swarm of
sharp blades, Chida-san snapped at them in an uncharacteristically harsh
voice. “Four souls alone cannot
withstand the Million’s onslaught for much longer!”
Shiori’s trembling voice was almost inaudible against
the thunderous sounds of clashing metals.
“But . . . the swords . . .”
“Did you not all gather here with resolve to help
Utena?” asked Himemiya from between gritted teeth; sweat could now be seen
glistering upon her dark, flushed skin.
Wakaba looked around, and saw that everyone –
ex-Student-Council members or otherwise – all looking like they were poised to
draw their swords, but were all held by hesitancy in face of the
infinite-seeming swarm of blades originating off Utena – still completely
buried even after so many swords had since come off.
Everyone was actually willing to help, but none dared
being the first to so; not when the possibility that others may not follow suit
means certain death/damnation for the lone ones helping.
And, without the first to step up and help, there
could be no second, nor third . . .
Only one question remained for the young woman faced
with this situation: was she, always a leaf and never a flower, special
enough to break the shackles of hesitancy holding back even the most noble of
roses, so that the best friend of her youth can have a chance at salvation?
. . . so that Tatsuya, trapped by the enemy according
to Himemiya, might also be saved?
Closing her eyes against the intimidating swarm of
hate-filled swords, Wakaba placed a trembling palm over her boiling, hurting
chest, and pulled.
***
“. . . Tenjou-kun,”
Waking up against his naked, beautifully-proportioned
body, with strains of his long red hair brushing against her skin, Utena opened
her eyes to see Kiryuu Touga’s flawless face smiling down upon her.
“Touga . . . how often have we done this before?”
“Many times . . . in my dreams.”
Running her fingertips across his smooth, unmarred
cheek, Utena abruptly drew back as if noticing something off. “Your face . . .” Glancing down, she
inspected her own unclothed, feminine body with wide, surprised eyes. “I’m a
girl again!” She turned back toward
Touga, feeling at a loss. “How . . .”
Blue eyes warm with indulgence, Touga pointed a long
finger off to the side, where she saw what appeared to be a shadow play upon a
vast monochrome tableau: the only substantial thing in this vague space aside
from their own presences.
The shadows depicted the scene of what appeared to be
a mob lynching: a vast swarm of sword-wielding villagers (as their silhouettes
suggested that they wore medieval country-side garments) were rushing a much
smaller group all wearing something reminiscent of Ohtori’s dueling
uniforms. Wielding their own swords
against the villagers, the group could be seen straining to push what they
could of the ferocious mob off a cliff to the side, below which perched a
three-headed dragon whose sharp back spines impaled the fallen as spears. The round-headed girl at the front of the
group – standing ahead of even the goddess-like silhouette with the rippling
long mane – had both hands on her sword as she slashed desperately at the
villagers, and Utena gasped out loud as she recognized who that was.
“Wakaba!
What’s she . . .” No, not just
Wakaba, each and everyone of the Duelists recruited by Anthy was there, Black
Roses or else; they all were there, wholeheartedly battling the hate-filled
villagers using every last ounce of their respective strengths and skills,
determined to push every last one of their assailants off the cliff and out of
the picture.
Voices, sounding afar as if seeping through another
medium, still could be heard:
“ . .. tena-sama!
I’m not scared! I’m plenty
special enough to fight for you, just like you’ve always fought for me before!”
“Get a grip,
you damned tomboy! Can’t you see you’re
dragging my Onii-sama down with you?”
“Tenjou! This time, I’ll smash
your goddamned coffin and drag you back out if it’s the last thing I do!”
“Utena-sempai! Hang in there! I think we’re almost at the five hundred thousand mark by now!”
“Utena! If you can believe in anything at all,
please believe this: we’ll definitely fight by your side until the very end;
this time, let us all help you to go on living! We . . .”
“They
surprised me, actually,” mused Touga, idly running a hand through his hair.
“Whatever ulterior motives they may have for coming here, these people are now
putting their lives on the line to help you.”
He paused for a moment, during which the sounds of violent battle raged
on in the background. “There was a time
whey you needed them, and they weren’t there for you; but now, they’re all here
risking themselves fighting for you. Of
course this cannot undo the years of hurt you’ve suffered through alone . . .
but this moment of passion in this here and now . . . isn’t this worth
something too?”
Vision blurring from tears, Utena nodded her head
firmly, all the while willing herself back to reality, to where everyone
awaited her return.
Whatever
gender or body she now had, whatever hardships she faced, Tenjou Utena always
fought her own battles.
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