Disclaimer: I seriously wished I owned Utena...I love it a lot.
Adolescence Renaissance
Chapter One
The Prince-Woman
The New Self Of Anthy Himemiya
Shadow Girl A: What is a prince?
Shadow Girl B: A man, who is loyal, brave and true to his love!
Shadow Girl C: A man who is faithful to the principles of ethics and love! The Knight of All Virtue!
Shadow Girl A: So...a man, can only be a prince...?
Shadow Girl B: Yes, it is the masculine form
Shadow Girl C: The feminine is a princess.
Shadow Girl A: What is a princess?
Shadow Girl B: A woman, who is loyal, waits patiently for her love to come and rescue her!
Shadow Girl C: Yes, she must play the damsel in distress and be subservient to her prince!
Shadow Girl A: What if she wants power and independence?
Shadow Girls B and C: Than she's a witch!
Shadow Girl A: Why...?
Shadow Girls B and C: Because, she's woman...
Shadow Girl A: What does that mean...?
Shadow Girls B and C: A Woman must follow a man!
Shadow Girl A: But...why...?
Shadow Girls B and C: If she does not she's a witch!
Shadow Girl A: No
Shadow Girls B and C: NO?!
Shadow Girl A: A princess is as important as a prince even if a princess is a girl!
Shadow Girls B and C: But the damsel...
Shadow Girl A: Can also be a man!
Shadow Girl B and C: But a man is not seen vulnerably!
Shadow Girl A: If he is human than he will be vulnerable!
Shadow Girls B and C: A renaissance of thought!
Shadow Girl A: What if a woman was a prince and her princess was a man?
Shadow Girls B and C: Surely a revolution!
Shadow Girl A: And what if she were not so virtuous before and not so righteous.
Shadow Girls B and C: Surely a revolution!
Shadow Girl A: What if the princess-man loved another man before?
Shadow Girls B and C: Surely a revolution!
Shadow Girl A: And what if the prince-woman thought her brother was the ideal Prince before?
Shadow Girls B and C: Surely a revolution!
Shadow Girl A: And before the prince-woman is engaged to another woman by default?
Shadow Girls B and C: Surely a revolution!
Shadow Girl A: Then, let there be a revolution! Let there be a renaissance! For the world to survive let the infant break out from the egg! From the womb to the world of absolute birth! Apocalypse redux!!
Shadow Girl A, B and C: Let Adolescence Renaissance Begin!!
" ample quietude;
only,
leaves rustle
wind comes to dance
Nature is discordant
Nature is virtuous..."
Prolifically her pointing mind asserted that the view she held for things captured nothing and everything in a glance. This is how she witnessed the world sometimes through a looking-glass and sometimes beyond while others saw via the looking-glass.
" Miss Anthy Himemiya."
The voice primarily seemed distance; that is why she recognized her daydreaming-scandal. It diverted her, distracted her, Like so much, like that terrible past.
" Uh," the voice sounded hesitant, " How are you liking your first day at Ohtori academy?"
Distraction ended with her eyes focusing on her questioner; a boy adorned in a blue uniform deviated from the norm in design (hers was white that was the only deviation) and he had blue hair, bangs, uniform with white pants and soft emerald-gold eyes.
" Well," she acknowledged that she was listening, "It's going great seeing how a cute boy like you has come along."
"Wahhh!" he giggled flirtatiously and as she got up he edged closer and he dared to slightly touch her shoulders, obviously smitten.
" Are you busy right now?"
" No, I'm all for you Miss Himemiya..." he chirped.
" Then," she asked, " Can you show me around Mister-"
He looked surprised then realized that he hadn't introduced himself. With a blush and smile, and a chirp, " I'm Miki Kaoru!"
At a distance, a digitalized voice was awakened to progress into the world of Ohtori Academy, a voice exclaimed over the radio:
" Hello, welcome to Ohtori academy!"
" It seems everyone is very busy today!" another voice
" Yes! As you know the academy has new students coming in its university-section!"
" Yes, all you high school graduates will soon start your terms! Yippee!" And another voice.
" Yes, about the weather..."
" There might be a slight summer shower coming fast."
" Don't worry about it though, showers are romantic!"
" Make sure you will get your lover and head across some Rose bushes!"
" Rose bushes! Rose bushes! That's what's makes Ohtori so special!"
"Ohtori FM out!!" all the voices together.
Anthy seemed preoccupied. The smell of roses...they drew a picture-book in the recesses of her mind, pre-emptive to all the things she desired and hated. Roses...are, roses are what princes are living for...or that's how he used to joke about it...
Suddenly a clash of swords disrupted her recollections; she saw a two fencers fighting a battle,
" Fencers? Is this the fencing club Miki?"
But he was preoccupied exclaiming, " Oujisama Juri-senpai! Do Regan Divide!"
As if she took his advice the woman fencer spun and spun and then gave a rough side-slash furthered by a rough down-slash to her opponent. She had won.
" Well Nanami, you surely are not your brother..." the woman commented and another girl looked livid as she took this remark.
" Well, I'm not my brother Juri-sama." She almost scowled then looked at the crowd, " You!" she pointed at Miki, "Stay outta fights that you aren't involved in!"
" Personally," the older girl called Juri ignored the other, Nanami, and spoke, " I think Miki is so strategic and studious he should stick to his calculus than fencing."
" No way Juri-senpai! One day I hope to beat you!" Miki stared at them then commented, " You see Anthy-kun I wanna-"
Anthy was gone
" Anthy!" Miki was alarmed, " Miss Anthy where've you run off to?!"
The halls were large pathways that induced the motifs of wells and caves. Yet, despite that gothic imagery her heart ached as conclusions became severe; to her core it was of utmost importance that she dash to the end of this labyrinth.
Soon, the pre-declared shower descended, upon roses a drunken stupor became evident and all meshed with water becoming a haze of a frequency most detectable by the sound sleeper as poignant and intensified with its own fashion.
She saw his flame hair, his pleased gaze and then she ran to him, and then stopped. She couldn't speak, she allowed, she yearned he spoke first.
" What a shower we are having..." then casually, " They said on the forecast that the ideal setting was near those drowned roses." He looked at the rose bush, " Aren't we lucky."
" It's not important Touga." Anthy commented, " Why, why are you here?"
" It is an academy for all isn't it?"
" I figured that you have prepared an answer like that," she looked irked, " But..." softly clinging to her like rain on skin, " I felt that you have you followed me here." Touga remained silent almost proving her theories - when, " A ring? Are you engaged?"
Here, Touga let the playful smile prance, " Look at it more carefully my dear Anthy..." Anthy then looked so flabbergasted that she shook, her core startled as ripples in water, disturbed, poked, by forces incomprehensible, " This ring is a symbol of this academy, did it draw you here?"
She looked away, " I don't know." She felt he now held the questions, " I just felt that this place would help me forget...though," she looked fearfully at the ring, " It appears I have run to my incomplete chapter."
" Why are you dressed like that?" Touga questioned, " Though it is not bad, it suits you and you look better but your old self doesn't look like that."
" My old self was a princess stereotype." She concluded disheartened, " The way my brother wanted it to be so he can feel good about himself, be a pretend-prince."
" Yes, true." Touga seemed inquisitive, " But, you showed to be more than a marionette before in your previous self."
" Yes, but..." she smiled, " I like this new self, that has the old but is determined to be the prince who finally slays the witch."
" And where is the witch?" Touga asked interested and amused.
" I'll find her as I've found you."
It was the rose vine with its snake-like vestiges and all of bloomed poison that reminded her of the day she realized her follies. Typically it was that day that she had cropped her hair and wore her brother's clothes to defy him and in actuality humiliate him. It was then she felt the swords. Everyone applauded the pretend-prince and that applause reverberated throughout her new self as well. It was endowed in her white gakuran and cropped-boyish dusk blue hair. It was the determination of prince-hood.
It was evoked by rain water, a particular rose, blue in colour; it bloomed and glowed as a mystic pearl. It beckoned her and she submitted.
Out of a dew,
Out of the remnants of the rain
Out of some folklore
The dew evolved to a metallic being
It became a ring.
" A ring, that ring," she looked scared, " My brother, he used to wear a ring like this..."
One drop
Two drop
Three drop
Of blood-filled petals, as she scanned the heavens above a platform came to view and from it descended a rain of petals.
" I thought it was raining again." She put the ring in her pocket, shuddered at her actions, " I want to go and see that place."
Was it a real curiosity? Or, was it a distraction? Anthy presumed it to be both.
Endless roses that don't find the word limitless to be fictional: her face, blooming-pale, a hybrid; as tears welled up horrendously.
" I once had a rose garden as endless as this..." she spoke aloud to believe it, Now, that's a part of the past I'm trying to destroy.
" Don't walk near the edge!" a voice warned, " You'll fall!"
" What?" Anthy just realized she was walking, she looked and realized that she had been walking, and was close to drop off the unshielded edge, " Oh, thank-you."
She looked at her saviour then almost dropped to the floor, This girl! I met her somewhere before! But where! Why does she trouble me so?!
" I see you are troubled, miss..." the pink-sunrise was her hair and oceanic eyes was on her face, her hair was also cropped but she wore her green plaited skirted uniform with an elegant air, "Hmm, a rebellious woman, as if you were expelled from somewhere..."
" Excuse me," Anthy was annoyed, " But are you speaking allegorically?"
" Oh, pardon me," the girl looked apologetic, as the wind ran his fingers through their locks, " I was just speaking from experience."
Anthy raised her brow, " What does that supposed to mean?"
The girl did not answer so Anthy concluded that she didn't want to answer, "People come here mostly to get answers, this garden seems like Eden to them, do you believe it to be so?"
" A pretend-Eden maybe," Anthy looked apathetically, " I think appearances are deceiving."
"Yes," the girl spoke, " Just like you a woman in man's clothing."
" Whoever said it was for a man?" Anthy argued.
" It's a gakuran so..." the girl explained.
" I know you didn't mean it like that at all." Anthy bought out the ring and stared at it, " Many things God grants to us seems to be for someone else but that's just others' envy talking."
The wind stopped.
The entire world stopped
The girl gasped, " Where...where...did you get that ring from?"
" What's it to you...?" Anthy looked doubtfully at the girl.
" Give it to me!" the girl screamed and lunged at Anthy
" Hey stop it now!" Anthy pushed the girl away. " What's wrong?!"
" You will make the same mistakes I did!" the girl screamed
" You're..." Anthy looked bewildered, distorted, stupefied, " You're the witch...the witch my brother use to speak about!"
" What's going on here?! Tell me! What are you doing with the Rose Bride?!"
" Saionji-sama!" The girl looked at the new speaker, " I..."
" Rose bride Utena Tenjou come over here!"
The girl called Utena presented herself to the man and he rewarded her with a giant force on her cheek, the slap stunned Utena and pushed her to the ground.
" Hey!" Anthy called out
" Who are you?!"
" Anthy Himemiya!" Anthy looked at Utena and glared and then glared at Saionji, " And this girl is my business!"
Author's Note: "Ok, I love the character designs of Utena The Movie so I'm following that. Also, this story will be a meshing of the anime and the movie. The ideology of Anthy as the prince came from many fan pictures in Deviantart . com (I had forgotten the name of the illustrator) and some official scans of Utena itself. I hope you bear with me and I hope you like the story so far! My friends, family and various animes inspired this! So enjoy!