Utena, Revolutionary Girl Fan Fiction ❯ Memory of the Rose ❯ Chapter Ten ( Chapter 12 )

Don't be afraid to be weak

Don't be too proud to be strong

Just look into your heart my friend

That will be the return to yourself

The return to innocence.

If you want, then start to laugh

If you must, then start to cry

Be yourself don't hide

Just believe in destiny.

Don't care what people say

Just follow your own way

Don't give up and use the chance

To return to innocence.

That's not the beginning of the end

That's the return to yourself

The return to innocence.

Enya-- The Return to Innocence

Chapter Ten

Autumn.

One Sunday early in the fall semester Akio walked the halls of Ohtori as a tired monarch would- stopping often and brushing his hands against the cool walls of the building as if to ascertain their reality or even to keep himself from falling. No one saw him and for that he was grateful. He wanted this private time with his greatest creation… excepting Utena, of course. Ohtori Academy. It had been crumbling brick and mortar the first year he came across it and discovered the key to Revolution he sought within it's cursed boundaries. He had manipulated the youngest Ohtori, Kanae's father, into squandering his fortune on rebuilding Ohtori Academy. He had vanished then, letting the school grow in reputation and style until he could return to take the daughter of Ohtori as his child-bride…a pawn in a girl's game. Oh yes, indeed. Over the years the school had indeed changed, chalkboards exchanged for more high-tech equipment, musty library tomes traded in for the more efficient and streamlined computers. Even so, there was a quiet, untouched quality to the campus proper, as if time here did not so much flow like a liquid but instead fell like snow, drifting through the corridors and piling up through the ages, adding weight to every second.

He felt like that very often these days- as if something important had slipped through his fingers and he couldn't quite grasp what exactly it was. It had been more than just important, it had been dire, a matter of life or death. And so he walked these halls, drifting and fading almost from view. There was a great deal of white in his hair now- not the almost lavender-white of his youth, but several streaks of a distinguishing silver graced his temples. Akio, the vain fallen prince he had once been, would have crowed with delight at the effect that the sundry streaks gave him. Women of all ages had fallen for his charm before- always uncertain as to his true age, always guessing what would suit them best- but the streaks aged him in a way wrinkles never would. They gave hinted at danger, at seductive nights spent lounging on ruby sheets under a canopy of stars in the arms of a discerning lover. What his youthful appearance had only been implied before was now coming into full sensuous fruition and it was driving almost every woman on campus to distraction as he passed them in the halls.

Almost every woman.

Akio paused at the new Rose Garden and settled down on the wrought iron bench in the center. Flowers bloomed lushly around him giving off their overpowering scent. He leaned backwards, bracing himself against the bench, and popped his back and shoulders with relief. The small cracks and pops of his bones reminded him that he was no longer immortal. Utena had seen to that, and in a way, he was very grateful. She had unwittingly given him a chance at mortality when she shattered his world… when she took on the mantle of prince for herself. He hadn't believed it at first; indeed, he hadn't ever considered his death even possible until that day he had set eyes on her.

His progeny.

Closing his eyes, Akio actually loosened up enough to sprawl on the ground in the middle of the Rose Garden. He had no fears that any of the students would find him in such an undignified position-- a rumor, or rather an urban legend of sorts, had circulated about all sorts of horrible deaths linked to tribal worship in this very rose garden. He had no clue how they began, but such tales were rather useful, as the rumors of Nemuro Hall were useful. It kept the nosy out of places they were not wanted and kept the merely innocent from accidentally stumbling into situations where they might be injured. Nemuro Hall, for instance, was not the best place to be for curious students. The spirits had gained enough form and substance to actually pick up objects. He had found that little discovery out the hard way; he'd come to check on Mikage's presence and had been startled by the lovely apparition of Juri.

She had nearly stabbed him with a hunk of rotting beam from the ceiling.

He, in turn, had learned to knock before entering the spirit's sanctuary from then on.

It disturbed him greatly to see how many of his pupils had died in such a short period of time. It nagged at the back of his mind almost constantly. Wasn't it unusual for such a class of bright shining students to suddenly fade and fail so drastically? Miki, for example, had been in the prime of his youth when he'd drowned. Nanami had only just been married a very short time before her car wreck.

Destiny, a voice seemed to whisper to him as the last remnants of summer drifted and faded around him. Fate.

But the one face he longed to see, the one pair of eyes he needed to meet, the one voice he yearned to hear had never returned. Anshi had been truly freed by Utena's sacrifice, and in more ways than one he feared. Utena had not only saved Anshi from her physical tethers to the school grounds itself, but had sent her out into the wide world with a fraction of her former magic to see her through.

Anshi had survived.

The Swords, however. The Swords never forgot the tang of blood once tasted.

And Anshi had been no more.

A soft laugh caught his ear. Akio rolled in one fluid motion to a crouching position and then tentatively peered through the lush wall of thorns to the world outside the garden.

There they stood.

He didn't mean to shudder, but it was as if his body had a mind of its own. His limbs trembled, his lips tightened, and his fingers began to seep red where he pressed his unprotected palm into the thorny wilderness of the rose bushes.

The Council chosen by the Ends of Innocence.

Shaking his head slightly, Akio took them in slowly. He'd seen them on a one on one basis many times before. But never like this.

Never so closely bunched.

And there she was… with them.

Sari.

His daughter.

As he watched, Sari stumbled, dropping an elaborately designed bento to the earth.

The flat crack of flesh meeting flesh was just loud enough to gather all the attention in the common area and make Akio scowl. If he could, he would stop this. But Utena wouldn't like him interfering in any little power struggle between the Council Members. For a moment it looked like the boy Heero would step in between the two girls, but at last moment he stepped back and let the flame-haired Secretary chastise the newly appointed Rose Bride in her own manner. It was as it always had been and always would be. Akio was sickened by it.

"Pick it up," Nurikia commanded, pointing to her fallen bento.

Sari, uncaring, knelt and did so. What did public humiliation matter to her any more? Nurikia had gone from being her best friend, no, her ONLY friend, to her worst enemy in a matter of weeks. Right after Miki's death and Nurkia's appointment to the Student Council as a matter of fact.

She didn't touch her cheek though it hurt.

"Eat it," Nurikia commanded, toeing a piece of trampled sashimi toward the kneeling girl. "I want you to eat it and remember that the next time you drop it you'll have to eat more of it. So don't drop it next time."

Akio was rising to his feet to put a stop to it when, in an act so smooth and graceful she seemed not Sari but the tortured specter of Anshi kneeling there, Sari followed her orders. Only two others seemed to find this disgusting and not humorous. Akio's eyes narrowed as he took the pair of girls across the quad in. They were talking back and forth while they gestured toward the food and he could almost make out the words… not quite…

He was suddenly reminded of the time Anshi had 'accidentally' poisoned Saoinji's curry with the special spices to teach the abusive young man a lesson.

"No!" he cried hoarsely, struggling to rise to his feet, but it was as if the roses held him down. They tore at his hands, clutched at his suit.

And Sari swallowed the piece of sashimi.

The crowd was practically rolling with laughter now. They thought it was the funniest thing, to see the prettiest girl in school on her knees in the dirt eating filthy sashimi.

But that was before she screamed.

Sari couldn't help it. The sound broke her throat with a horrible grating hack.

It hurt.

Oh god, it hurt.

A LOT.

Sari gasped and coughed… her eyes bugging almost as her fingers clawed at her throat.

The pain was brilliant in its intensity, like some sort of captured beast with claws and teeth and coarse fiery fur that scraped down sensitive nerve endings with every movement. She'd never known such exquisite pain; not once in all her years of dueling and dancing and training had she come across anything that could rip her up one side and down the other like that. Not even in the aftermath of Miki's death had her body and mind seized up with such uncontrollable agony.

Voices sounded in the distance- it served as a faint buzz at the edge of her mind. Nothing could compare to the pain or compete with the total attention Sari was giving said pain.
Nothing.

She could feel blessedly cool hands cupping the back of her neck, tilting her head. Someone was saying something to her as those cool fingers wandered up and down her arms, smoothing her hair off her face, and praying, it seemed like.

A small part of her separated from the scene with a sense of relief. The electrifying anguish faded, paled, became as a distant memory. Sari barely felt the rise and fall of her chest- the heavy, slow thump of her heartbeat… all of it was leagues away, fathoms deep.

'Mitsuru', she thought as she dropped off and Akio scooped her up in his arms; not running but actually SPRINTING for the infirmary. 'Mitsuru, I'm sorry. I'm so sorry.'

Her thoughts wandered languidly along before it came again, just like the last time, in soothing waves of pale light. The mists descended and the same cloak of soft vapor formed about her body. The vise of pain that confined her to her body loosened…lessened.

Something was different though. Sari sat up and looked around. Last time she'd been here, after the fire at Bara Academy, there had just been a sense of well being, of calm, despite the disjointed world all around her. In that dream she didn't remember having a body, much less a corporeal one.

Had she not fallen asleep after all?

"Call it an interlude," intruded a voice, and Sari's head snapped to the side. Before her, where only seconds ago there had been nothing, stood Betty. Alex relaxed at her feet, playing with the roses that sprung up like grass from the smoky, foggy earth. Sari gasped and ran forward to hug the girls, but her arms went through them easily.

They were as the smoke and she was as solid as dreams would let her be.

"Do you miss me?" she asked, tears welling up in her eyes. They had never written to her since she left.

"We never left you," Alex replied, making shadow puppets on the mists. "Neither did Miki."

"Miki?" Sari whispered. "Oh, no, Alex. Miki's… Miki's dead."

"Granted, he's not smiling much these days," the girl said, as if ignoring her words. "But he still loves you."

Taking a step back, Alex fell silent and took in the slip of a girl sitting before her. Like the other times, she had remained unchanged from her physical corporeal shape in these dreams. She was strong and confident, yet, at the same time, not. So much raw power and heart, and yet, so much pain. Would she be able to withstand the shock of it all, what they were about to show her, to offer her?

Sari rose to her feet and looked around the misty world with no small amount of joy. She would miss Mitsuru, and the girls weren't part of the package last time around, but while she was back in this dream anything could happen, she could feel it. The universe could stop aching again.

The shadows grew and whirled.

Sari turned quickly, to say something, but her eyes caught on the shifting form of Alex and she blinked. It was just a dream after all.

Just a dream.

"Who are you?" she asked the girl, but mostly out of weariness. This wasn't that wonderful, powerful dream. It was all a lie. Again.

The girl smiled slightly wider and again Sari had the sense that she could hear her thoughts. "I'm Betty, remember? Or if you'd rather, you can call me B-ko. It suits me more."

Sari blinked, but nodded. "So, B-ko, are you some sort of dream guardian or something? This is a dream, right? Not what I was hoping for?"

Stifling a chuckle, Alex shook her head. "In your case, no guardian of the dreaming dimension would ever be needed. You are a Champion, Sari. And a first-rate actress to boot!"

"Good that someone noticed," Sari quipped, as she began spinning slowly around taking in the roses on the walls, the shifting shadows, the brilliant shining beam of light in the far off distance pulsing like a beacon. "But why the conversation and the misty fogginess, huh? Last time…"

"Last time," Betty interrupted, "you volunteered for that dream. It was your was of taking the next step into adolescence. This time you did not."

"That's the role of the Bride," Sari said softly. "They rarely have a choice, right? And blind obedience is my gift, so it's only right that I am punished that way."

Betty sighed. So young, all the Brides were so young. "Obedience was never your gift, kiddo. And the Ends of Innocence have different plans for you since your return to this side of the world. You protect more than just the world you know, Himemiya Sari, you protect the future. Consider the next few hours a sort of tour, okay? We've got a long road to travel in a short time, and we are your guides." They stepped forward and each took a hand. Sari stiffened at first, but then relaxed.

Their hands weren't as she'd anticipated they would be…like some Lewis Carroll nightmare gone mad. Far from being the smooth skin they appeared to be, or the inconstant mist she'd almost expected, their now tangible flesh kind of reminded her of the zoo in second grade and the petting zoo's snake cage. All the other children didn't want to touch the thick baby python sunning itself on a rock, but the handler took it out anyway. Sari alone had crept forward, expecting the skin of the beast to be slimy and unpleasant. It was to her great surprise that she found it warm and faintly rough- the recently fed snake had held patiently still as she tentatively stroked its head and down the length of its body. Betty's hand reminded her of that snake; benign, warm, and slightly rough across the tips of her fingers. But there was power there, a strong power laying in wait within the tendons, within the bones.

"Where are we going?" she asked. "Why won't you explain what's going on?"

"I did," she replied tugging her forward through a particularly heavy cloudbank, "but keep your voice down, kid. You'll wake the babies."

Sari blinked in surprise and a slow smile curved her lips. They were in the newborn room of a hospital. Softly beeping machines purred all around them and every baby she saw was quiet, still. The scent of baby powder clung to the air and she inhaled it, taking the sweet smell into her lungs. Peace.

This is what she'd sought in her heart of hearts. A family.

Betty looked down on the slender girl and nodded. "You don't often get to visit here."

She shook her head, crouching down slightly and looking on a small scrap of pink-wrapped humanity with a longing look. "No, no, I don't. But they're beautiful."

"Yes," Betty agreed, still gazing down on her, "beautiful." For a moment all was quiet, the only sound was the hum of machines and soft mewls of the newborns.

Though she hated to do it, Alex reached down and touched Sari on the shoulder. "I know you have deserved this break, but you need to follow me. We're here to see a particular baby, Sari."

Sari raised her head and looked around, confused. "We are? Whose baby?"

Betty opened his mouth to speak when a large figure slammed against the viewing window with a loud thud. Startled, Sari tried to see the figure, but got no further than impossibly dark hair and a nicely built figure before a second figure joined the first rather painfully. A spiderweb of cracks creased the glass as the first dark head drew away from the glass and the second figure slid to the hallway floor. The first one leapt back into the hallway. Sounds of scuffle followed.

Sari's eyes widened. Now that the figures were no longer embedded in the glass she could see the result their impact had. Wasting no time she dived forward to yank the three babies beneath the wobbling window.

Her hand went smoothly through the handles.

Sari growled in frustration and whirled on her girl companion. "I can't touch them! Why can't I move the cribs?!"

"You can't save them, Sari," murmured Betty. "You're dreaming, remember? And besides, you're a girl. Only a true prince can save them."

Her eyes widened then her face tightened with frustration. She began swiping at the cribs again, trying anything and everything to push the babies away from the window.

Then, just when she'd about given up hope, three figures darted into the room and each collected a baby a mere second before the rest of the ruined viewing glass gave way and shattered over the empty cribs.

"Damn, that was close!" gasped the first figure; a boy she recognized from…(New York)…school as he uneasily juggled a small blue bundle. The bundle protested the treatment and set up an ear-piercing wail that made all three figures wince.

"Here, let me," ordered the second figure as she took the baby from…(Adam…was it Adam?)…. the boy. It was a woman Sari felt that she should know. Pink hair fell in soft waves across her face as she cuddled the baby close.

"Go help Akio."

At Akio's name, Sari felt a strange lightness in her mid-section.

Who were this guy and this woman?

But the third figure holding the two babies, the woman… could it be?

"Anshi," Sari breathed softly. "That was her name. Anshi. She's…there's something different about her."

Betty nodded.

"But there's more to it than just that, kiddo. This is a taste, a glimpse, if you will. Now follow the sound."

Without questioning the order, Sari stepped purposefully out into the hallway.

Her eyes widened.

No.

An older man she had never seen before (red hair, his hair was the shade of fresh berries/blood/roses/crimson satin/lust) was battling a monster about twice the size of the waiting room that stretched and slobbered its way down half the hallway. She recognized the form of Akio darting in and out of a doorway, taking every opportunity presented to jab the beast in the rear with a rather ugly-looking dual-bladed sword. It wasn't clean and pristine like the rapier the flame-haired man wielded, but it seemed to be doing a better job. With every jab it glowed a little brighter.

"Go Ohtori-san," she breathed, but before she had time to take a closer look a very familiar scream echoed down the hallway. The monster had apparently wormed a tentacle into one of the hospital rooms and was trying to have an early snack before dinner.

Another scream.

Sari ran down the hall and skidded through the monster, ignoring the strange feeling of disgust that welled up as her pure form touched its slimy essence.

It couldn't be.

A young woman, obviously only just finished with the process of giving birth, held a screaming mucus-coated baby to her chest as she pushed herself as far into a corner as possible. The prone form of a doctor sprawled across the doorway; a pool of blood was forming where his head once was.

She took one good long look at the woman clutching the baby and Sari wanted to scream.

It was… her mother?

"LEAVE HER ALONE!" came a dark yell. Sari, who had moved her invisible form to stand before the beast attempting to devour her mother, looked up in startled surprise. The young man from the hallway had somehow managed to squeeze himself past the beast and poked at the tentacles with an obscenely sharp weapon; some mixture of sword and staff that sparked dangerously.

"Touga!" cried the slender woman who Sari only just recognized. "Be careful!"

The young man nodded curtly and continued to do battle with the beast, his weapon flashing and his teeth bared.

"A Champion as well," murmured Betty's deep voice beside her. "He's a good kid. Just not quite good enough to be a prince, if you know what I mean."

"Where's my father?" Sari whispered. "Why isn't he here?"

Ohtori-san appeared from nowhere and began helping Touga battle the beast. He sidestepped a nasty swipe then erupted in a flurry of movement- sharp jabs and stabs took off bits of the beast that twitched and spasmed on the previously pristine hospital floor. Sari couldn't help but be impressed even while disgusted at the dark art of battle. It almost looked like the dean was playing with the beast.

"He is," Betty replied, looked evenly on the distinguished-looking dean. "She sure knows how to choose them, huh?"

"Oh Mom," Sari murmured, sighing heavily. "Her life was never going to be normal, is it?"

"It's a dream, but you did hit the nail on the head there. Tough luck, huh kiddo?" Betty grinned. "Like mother like daughter, I suppose. She's got a taste for the danger. But you can't keep hiding her from the rest of the world by going along with what she wants. She needs to be able to protect herself from here on out and only you can help her win over her demons. Only you can teach her how to balance the dream."

Sari was so confused. Balance the dream? This was a dream still… wasn't it?

She paused, then looked at the monster. Seemingly irritated at being played with, it lashed out and caught the dean by surprise, neatly impaling him on a spiny tentacle. The misty figure screamed and Sari gasped, her eyes tearing and spilling over. "No," she whispered while her mother began shouting.

The monster swelled, darkened. It shook the spiny tentacle and Akio's body was flung across the room, crumpled like a broken toy. A malevolent glow encased the room and the baby began wailing in earnest, mirroring the mother's screams. "I WILL HAVE THE NEW-FORMED KEY."

"Protect her," whispered Betty in Sari's ear, "and this may be. Guide her in the way of the Bride, wield the magic well, and she will protect herself, she will wake herself from the dream in which she walks. The choice is yours. But there isn't much time. Wake up, Sari. WAKE UP."

And then it was over.

The dream, gone.

Her reading light was shining above her head. A novel lay across her belly, her long hair swirled unchecked around her shoulders. From below Nurikia snored in her sleep and Sari whimpered, trying not to cry. She mustn't feel. She had to go back to that cool, clinical precision of the past few months. She couldn't let them see her like this. It was just a dream. Just a woman with hair of pale pink and eyes the blue of a clear summer sky… it wasn't her mother. Just a dream. Her mother was dead. She didn't need saving. Just missing.

Just missing.

There was much to be done. So much flowed through Sari; the knowledge of the universe seemed at her fingertips. Life was such a beautiful, precious thing. Mom, oh Mom.
But first…Mitsuru needed her.

With a wondering expression, Sari rose from her bed and prepared herself.

Dawn, tremulous and pale, painted the horizon. Sari drifted across the dewy grass then stilled a short distance away from a mound of rounded dirt barely covered in small sprouts of grass. The morning breeze played idly with the panels of her skirt, lifting and teasing the edges of the clothing as if with a lover's touch. Wisps of her soft red hair lifted and danced as well, as if joining her skirt in revelry.

It was peaceful. Quiet.

"Oh Miki," the girl murmured to the plot, taking the last steps toward the grave, settling down beside the loamy earth. Her hand stole out and brushed gently across the tombstone; she tested the roughness of the marble with the tips of her fingers, smoothed a small scratch on the polish with a rub of her thumb. Slender fingers moved to the edges of the grave; with a deft movement she began the daily task of maintaining Miki's resting-place. Already small weeds were poking their heads through the soil. The woman reached to pull the last batch, but stopped. These plants would flower, she reasoned. Miki would like fresh flowers.

"Is it all cloudy?" she asked the grave as she ran her hands over the prickly new grass. Time would soon age the grass and soften the look of the grave. Right now it was still too fresh, too harsh on her hands. Like Miki's loss on her heart. "In Heaven, Miki? Are there clouds, or is it like laying in bed, all soft and warm-like? Have you seen my Mom? Does she miss me?"

The stone, and likewise Miki, had no reply, but Sari believed she could hear an answer in the low whisper of wind. Shaking her head at Miki's usual close-mouthed response, Sari traced the numbers of Miki's birth date with calm fingers. "I suppose I could ask Mitsuru what it was like," she reasoned to her dead teacher, "but I don't think he'd appreciate that. I know I wouldn't want someone digging up my past and asking all sorts of questions about my dead friends. What was that?"

The woman tilted her head towards the stone as if Miki had spoken, then chuckled softly. "You really think so? I don't know. Things have been so strange around here. I miss you. But I bet you knew that already, right? Can the dead hear it when the living think of them, Miki? Because I bet you'd go deaf with all the times I've thought about you in the past few months."

Her watch beeped. The woman brushed a strand of loose hair behind her ear and smiled tremulously. "Well, Miki, I have to go. I have to go to the train station with Nurikia to pick up our guest. I'm not a member of the Student Council but I might as well be."

The woman paused but once again the stone had no reply. A single tear slid down her face and she brusquely rubbed it away. "Miss you," she told the stone. "I'll see you tomorrow."