Utena, Revolutionary Girl Fan Fiction ❯ The Darker Shades of Green ❯ To Prove Oneself ( Chapter 3 )

Well, here I am with chapter 3. Wow, I’ve gotten quite a few reviews for this. Glad to see that everyone likes it. Getting deep into characters isn’t the easiest thing in the world, but, I’m glad that I could take the opportunity to write something like this about a character that I really love.

Maybe I can shake a few of those Saionji haters out there ; Maybe…

PLEASE TAKE THE WARNING SERIOUSLY!

Well, on with the fanfic!

The Darker Shades of Green

By: Red Rose Touga

Chapter 3: To Prove Oneself

If you gaze long into an abyss, the abyss will gaze back into you.

Literature of the essence of expression. The love of the word. The prose of an author.

When I was small, I used to adore to write. Mostly I wrote poetry and a few short stories. All of the children in school used to praise me, when I let them read my poetry. I was always to introverted to just read it to them.

“Wow, Saionji! This was great!”

“Yeah, I loved it!”

“You really have some talent, Saionji! You should get them published.”

“Thank you.” I smiled.

I wished I felt as first-class about it as they all did.

A proud boy walked up to his father, handing him a shady green book with many pages. The boy was beaming brilliantly, wishing to excel once more.

“What’s this?” His father asked in a jagged tone as he examined the book, rotating it every which way.

“They are poems I have written, father. Everyone at school says they are good and I should get them published. They say I have talent for a boy my age.”

“You can’t be serious!” His father handed the book back to him.

A deep set ache coursed throughout him.

The book was shoved back into his hands. The boy’s father hadn’t even tried to comprehend. Anything, anything to progress his relationship with his parents would have sufficed. But now…

He had failed again…

“Now, quit wasting time, Saionji. Let’s get started on that training. I realize the next Championship isn’t until next year, but winners never quit, and to be a winner, you mustn’t waste your time on silly thing like writing in that book.” His father intoned. “Hopefully, you’ll actually win that championship without a fluke.”

The emerald-haired boy frowned. It still wasn’t enough. He knew that his father couldn’t allow anything then the best.

‘He hadn’t even tried to look at my poetry…I thought for sure that would get him to think I was actually good at something.”

That day, the boy trained with strength of mind like no other, but his father was even harder on him. The constant clashing of shinai against shinai with an even force, and a merciless sense of swiftness. The force never let down, and his father seemed to be fighting with more fierceness then usual. The small child worn-out easily and did not have enough power to keep up with the older man.

CRACK!

The shinai flew out of the child’s hand; once again, the child fell upon the dented wooden kendo hall floor. The floor. It was so full of memories…Memories that I had tried to wash away over and over again from my own kendo hall floor.

Hours upon hours I would spend, trying to scrub the spit, the sweat, the blood…But sometimes I seem to be overwhelmed by it, and no matter how hard I scrub, or what kind of scents I use to cover it, it would always be there to haunt me, for the rest of my life.

Over and over again, I would try. Often times, I became anxious to get rid of it. But no matter how fanatical I became, it would never go away.

I stare into an abyss that stares back into me…Only the abyss can see into me; see me as I really am…

“Saionji…Come here.” The taller figure would say to the child.

Of course, the child comes to his father…

Only to receive a smack with the shinai, right across the face, leaving a red mark which is visible. “You’ll never be worth anything if you don’t do better then that!”

The child sat in his room, holding his wounded cheek, crying to himself. So many disregarded tears…

He had only thought one thing….

‘I wish mom was still alive.’

As I stand here, I hold the green book in my hand. Staring into the abyss that stares back at me. The bottomless green of the cover, everywhere- the green. I look down on it with a deep set sorrow. This was the book that I was once complimented for…The book that I had felt would please my father…

I held a hand up to my cheek. Sometimes, I can still feel the smart in my cheek from that day. I run my hand over the smooth skin on my cheek. The skin that has suffered from so much damage over the course of my younger years.

To prove one self must be impossible. I could never prove myself to him.

I walked through the grounds of OhtoriAcademy, holding the book firmly in my hand.

This book was full of excruciating memories. Memories I wished were better.

I stand before a giant metal oddity in my wake. Looking up at the massive machine, I stood for a while, wondering what to do. I seemed caught between worlds at the moment.

So many memories…

So much pain…

Am I really a nutcase?

I smiled to myself.

Perhaps I am…but who wouldn’t be? I don’t even believe anyone is sane in the school anymore. They all have their own delusions, they just don’t realize it. The funny thing is…I’m just as bad as they are.

I hold the book out, above the mighty conflagration of the incinerator. How they have an incinerator here, in the middle of the school grounds, is beyond me. Not that this world was meant to make sense.

“Good bye, sweet memories.” I smiled warmly at the book.

Then I let it fall into the fire, fall into the hell to smolder alive and scorch within the depths f the flames, just as I had so many years ago. To suffer the flame’s wrath, as I had suffered under my father.

“To hell you go…And I know I shall soon join you.”

I looked into the flames for a while, watching them swirl around in a hot molten pool of color. I smiled to myself.

“Farewell, false hope.” I said in a voice that seemed too happy for what I was feeling.

I turned away, walking from another false hope, which I had earned so pointlessly. I know now, that I am no poet, there is only one thing I am set to do, and that is kendo.

I’m no duelist, not truly.

Just a kendoist.

And nothing more.

TBC

VV

Preview for chapter 4:

All are lunatics, but he who can analyze his delusion is called a philosopher.

VV

A/N: Well, here’s another chapter. I myself even think this is interesting. I hope that other people do as well. This is so dark to me that I often times I have to take breaks in writing it. Sorry about that people. I’m going as best I can, do I do hope that everyone’s enjoying this.

I have to give some thanks to my beta reader, whom in which is feeling down. Oneesan no Miroku Houshi, I appreciate your efforts in beta reading my fanfics. She’s been dealing with some stupid flamer on an Inuyasha fanfic of hers, but she also works on wonderful Revolutionary girl Utena fanfics.

Note to Oneesan: Don’t let them get you down. I hope that you write those other Utena fanfics that you were planning to and please don’t give up writing.

Or I’ll kill you. ;

From one Saionji fan to another, just tell that person screw them.

Besides, they didn’t have the GALL to write a note back to you. I dedicate this chapter to you, to inspire you to keep writing and never give up!

Anyway, to everyone who read, please R&R!