Rose of the Noble Castle Proudly Presents:
Ohtori Academy's 30th Reunion
A RPG Log in Many Acts
Act I: RSVP
"Ohtori never forgets its children."
The alarm clock trilled one bright and beautiful morning in the auspicious year of 2030. In Japan it was a lovely, golden spring filled with gorgeous blooming flowers and kawaii twittering little birds.
Unfortunately for one bird shaped alarm clock, none of this mattered as it was very unappreciated and knocked about on a daily basis. Take this morning for example. It had calmly gone off, like it was supposed to, and a slender hand reached out from beneath the covers and batted at the annoying sound until the clock crashed to the floor and lay dead beside all the other clocks exactly like it. No workman's comp for it, that's for sure!
As for the owner of the hand? Well, after the clock had been abused yet again, there was a contented sigh at the silence. Peace . . . pure bliss on a morning like-
*THUD!*
"Mommmmmmmmyyyyyyyyy!" bellowed a voice in her ear. "Geeeeettttt uuuuuupppppp! It's already ten a.m.!!!! I'm hungry!!!!!!" Grumbling, a woman formerly known as Utena Tenjou sat up and looked at her youngest child, one eight year old Ryo, with her stylish pink pageboy tangled, bags under her eyes due to lack of sleep (Ryo had just gotten over the flu), and a smile only a mother could pull off. It was an odd mixture of 1. desire to kill child 2. amusement at child's overwhelming cuteness 3. distress that she wasn't awake with breakfast fixed yet 4. fear that she was late for work 5. awakening realization that today was Saturday and she had no need to go to the office 6. desire to return to sleep and 7. puzzlement as to where her husband was this morning.
Settling for a soft sigh, Utena swung her legs over the side of the bed and pulled her wriggling child in her lap. "What, no love for your Mommy first thing in the morning?!" As Ryo screamed in helpless laughter, Utena took Mommy privileges and tickled her youngest mercilessly. "No 'Good Morning, Mommy and Daddy?'"
Ryo, convulsed with giggles, naturally had no reply.
All early annoyance banished, Utena finally relinquished her death tickle and hauled her son off the bed. "Come on, help Mommy make the bed. Where's your Dad?"
Ryo shrugged. "Dunno, but Makoto and Yui are with him. They lefta note saying they'd be back inna couple'a hours."
The bed made, Utena scooped her son up. "Airplane!"
Ryo, once more, convulsed with giggles. They reached the kitchen and Utena set her son gently down on the counter. Her back ached; Ryo was getting to be a big boy.
Breakfast had, surprisingly enough, already been made. Ryo happily slurped some miso soup as Utena sipped her tea and paged through the mail and sale ads in the paper.
"Bill, bill, bill, trash, resident . . .hey . . . what's this?" Neatly tucked between the phone bill and an advertisement for Silver Millennium Crystal at the local jewelry store was a plain cream colored envelope. No return address was visible, indeed, there was no mailing address either, just Tenjou Utena scrawled across the front in neat kanji. As Utena's fingers brushed it, she shivered. Something about it reminded her . . .
***
The steady *WHACK* *WHACK* *WHACK* greeted the morning, as usual, echoing out from the dojo. A solitary man stood in the middle of the room, bamboo practice sword in hand, running through his usual practice moves. Shoulder-length emerald green hair was tied in a tight ponytail at his neck and his still-toned muscles shone with sweat in the early morning sunlight. 30 years hadn't slowed him down, not Saionji Kyouichi . . . oh no.
"Daaaaaaaddddd! You're going to be late!" A tall, lanky teenage boy with short, spiky green hair stuck his head into the practice room and arched an eyebrow. One of the youngest of five children, Saionji Touga was already turning out to be much like his namesake, in that he was considered quite the ladies man at school, even though he was only 15.
"You know how mom gets when you're late for breakfast."
Kyouichi rolled his eyes but gave the boy a smile and rested the bamboo sword in the rack with the rest. Roughly, but affectionately, he shoved his son towards the living quarters of the house.
"Same goes for you. Get going!"
Touga Jr. just saluted and jogged off, calling to his younger sister as he went. Said younger sister, Chieko, sprinted past him towards Kyouichi and threw herself at her father. Only 7 years old, she was the youngest by far and definitely the sweetest of the children.
"Papa papa! Mama made my favorite this morning! Hurry up!"
Grinning, Kyouichi let his daughter pull him along towards the kitchen. Touga Jr. was already waiting at the table, having an animated conversation with his older brother by two years, Hiroshi. Chieko dropped her father's hand and jumped into her chair, trying to look interested in what the two boys were talking about. Their mother stood at the sink, staring out the window with a rather distant look on her face, a cream-colored envelope held loosely in her hand.
Kyouichi walked up behind his wife and wrapped his arms around her waist, kissing her lightly on the cheek.
"Wakaba, why the faraway look?"
"What? Oh! Kyouichi. I was . . . just thinking about the past. This just came in the mail today."
Saionji Kyouichi took the envelope and turned it over, a curious look on his face. It certainly seemed familiar. And then he saw the seal. Oh, he'd recognize that anywhere.
"Ohtori Academy....."
***
"Ara, Takatsuki-san, you are here early!" the secretary chirped as Shiori stepped off the elevator. The secretary looked a mix of scared-to-death and flustered that her boss was here so early. Shiori waved her hand in dismissal at the woman and walked to her large corner office.
Shiori poured herself a cup of tea and looked out the window onto Tokyo. The image in the window held the reflection of a beautiful woman in her mid-forties. Short curly violet hair and sharp violet eyes. She had been married briefly in her youth, then divorced. She was a woman of the new Japan, the CEO of a large multinational corporation. She had the reputation for being a shrewd, yet efficient business woman.
But, despite her wealth and success . . . her life still felt empty.
"Takatsuki-san, here is your mail." the secretary chimed, quickly placing it on her desk and then scurrying out. Shiori turned around, one envelope catching her eye amidst all the other white envelopes.
"Takatsuki Shiori." she read aloud, picking the envelope up. She noted immediately the familiar seal of Ohtori Academy. Ohtori . . .a day didn't go by when she didn't think of her days there.
"I wonder..."
***
Brushing her fingers over the hard wax seal, Utena turned the envelope over in her hands, running the tips of her fingers along the corners and edges. For some strange reason, her heart was pounding away a mile a minute at the thought of slicing through the edge and pulling out whatever was within.
I haven't been called Tenjou in years . . . not since I got married. Who was the last one to call me that?
"Mommy! Mommy?"
Brought abruptly to reality, Utena blinked a few times and looked at her son. He had finished his breakfast and was waiting patiently to be excused from the breakfast table. She smiled wanly at him and ruffled his hair. "You can go."
"Yeah!!! Can I go down the street and play with Hano?"
Barely listening, Utena nodded once and watched as her son tore out of the house and down the street. Now alone, she silently rose to her feet. The house seemed to echo as she moved through it. Ryo wasn't yelling from the top of the stairs, Yui wasn't busy at the computer panel talking with her friends and keeping her father from receiving his business calls, Makoto wasn't loitering on the front steps with one of the many girls who followed him like bees to honey . . . it was just . . . silence.
As if in a dream, Utena drifted through her home of twenty years, the envelope still loosely clasped in her hand. It had been so long. So long since . . . everything. She'd almost forgotten it all. Away . . . safe . . . even waking up to her history every morning hadn't changed the fact that as the years had passed, the horror of the days gone by had slipped away, memory by memory. She went up the stairs on a cushion of remembered history, each step brought her closer to her inescapable past. She glided by Yui's room, by Makoto's. As she walked past Ryo's open door, she leaned over and silently slid the panel closed. Now she passed their room . . . and there were the stairs to the attic.
Step . . . step . . . step . . . step . . .
It was dusty up here. Unkempt. That wasn't like him or her. They were such orderly, neat people. Clean. Honest. They'd never had any trouble. They'd never been . . . more than normal. They weren't special. They had never been more than this. This was what they were meant for. Just this. A home . . . a family . . . the PTA and girl-scout cookies. Peace. Quiet. Love. No serious pain. No serious doubt.
The contents of the attic belied her words. Swords lined the walls in neat rows. A bokken laying calmly in a forest green rack, beneath it, and identical one with a black silk ribbon loosely wrapped around the handle. Directly to the left lay a rapier in a sky blue painted rack. As before, a matching rapier with a black silken ribbon sat in the rack below. Another rapier, a broadsword, a dagger and a sword . . . all with identical swords beneath . . . all beribboned with black silk directly below.
Moving across the empty, dusty floor, Utena winced. She remembered when Makoto was a boy . . . his father would bring him up here and teach him stances. Yui would sit in her lap and squeal with joy. That was before . . .what? She'd grown scared she supposed. Frightened with the idea of Makoto following in her footsteps, she'd closed this room up and forbidden him to play with swords. Her husband had loved her too much to stop her . . . and now, sitting among tangible memories of her past, Utena wanted to weep. She couldn't, of course, it would be weak. And the moment she opened the envelope, she could show no weakness. That was how they got to you. The swords were just duplicates, of course, copies of those who'd come before. Their owners had been no one save herself, her husband, and their children. The original owners of the real swords had split to the four corners.
Would they be there?
Now in the center of the filthy floor, she settled down on her knees and closed her eyes for a moment in preparation. Now prepared, Utena slipped the smallest dagger off a yellow rack and neatly sliced open the edge. Her slender pale fingers slipped out a cream colored card with a stylized rose on the front. The black edges dripped blood. She silently flipped open the top and the words that met her burning eyes made her want to scream.
Tenjou Utena, Thirty years have passed and Ohtori never forgets its children. Come home, we are waiting.
The Ends of the World.
Himemiya Utena calmly slid the card into the envelope and curled into a ball on her attic floor. They hadn't escaped after all. Their happiness, their life . . . had only been a dream . .
.
***
The thin card slipped from unknowing fingers and fluttered down to the floor as if in slow motion. Kyouichi and Wakaba just watched it fall, every twist tracing lines in the floor.
You cannot hide from the past. Your something eternal is here.
The Ends of the World.
The three children blinked at the sudden silence and stared at their parents. It was like a moment frozen in time. Something on the couple's faces kept the children silent. Well, almost silent. A spoon clattered from Chieko's hand and she blushed furiously, reaching to pick it up. But the spell was broken. Kyouichi's face started to regain some of it's normal coloring but before Wakaba could say anything to him, he spun on his heal and strode out of the room. Saionji Wakaba, happy wife and mother of 20 years, suddenly felt 14 again, watching her beloved prince walk away from her without even noticing. She reached a hand out, but turned away and back to the sink. No . . . not again. Couldn't he just leave them in peace? Shaking her head in the typical Wakaba way, she lets out a small sob and ran from the room, the children watching with wide eyes.
Chieko, always the curious one, walked over and picked up the invitation, turning it over and over in her hand. The kanji was fancy, and a little hard for her to read so she held it out to Touga Jr., blinking as she did so.
"Nii-chan, what does this say?"
Hiroshi grabbed the card before Touga could and looked at it. There was a definite odor of. . . . roses coming from it.
" 'The Ends of the World?' What the hell is that?"
Meanwhile, Saionji paced the garden path between the main house and the dojo where he ran one of his two main businesses. He always had been dedicated to his sport and leaving the Academy hadn't changed that. Except now he taught privately . . . and was rather well-known in the area as being one of the best. Touga had laughed at him once for that, but that was in the past.
"No . . . it's not going to be in the past anymore. That bastard is going to bring all that back up between Touga and I. Damn him!"
The green-haired man paced a few more times, then turned and walked into the kendo room, then through it all the way to the back. Pulling a key out of his pocket, he shoved it into a small keyhole in a door hardly seen and even less opened. The rusted metal groaned but the lock gave way. Almost as if enchanted, the door slid open easily to reveal . . .
A sword. A very familiar sword. The blade he hadn't touched since he graduated from Ohtori.
Pulling it off the rack, Kyouichi pulled the blade from the sheath, the metal ringing in the silent room. He stared down the blade, wondering how it stayed so sharp all of these years. But then again, when one considers exactly what this sword was, maybe it wasn't such a surprise. Bringing his hand up and around, he felt the easy movement of the blade . . . and remembered all the things it stood for. With an angry groan, he brought the blade up to the back of his neck.
And then he completely chopped off his ponytail.
The long, green locks fell to the immaculate floor, still bound together by the cord. A few stray tendrils drifted down after, making their lazy way in the still air. For a moment, Saionji Kyouichi stayed in the pose, his right hand still holding the blade, raised over his head, his left holding the sheath loosely. Then his hand dropped and he sheathed the blade once more, turning to walk back into the house. Saying not a word to the children despite their many "Dad, what did you DO" and "Oh my lord . . . his hair", he walked through the kitchen and into his bedroom. The door shut firmly behind him and only the soft mutter of voices could be heard as Kyouichi and Wakaba 'discussed' the matter.
The three children looked at each other, all confused, then at the door. Whatever was going on, it was because of that card. . . . and boy was it strange.
***
"Utenaaaa!" The back door slammed shut as the voices filled the entrance hall. The silence of the house was broken by Yui and Makoto; they raced into the family room, both angling for the phone.
And then a man stepped in; a tall, dark-skinned man with light-violet hair. Anyone who had once attended Ohtori Academy would be able to tell you right away who he was. Even 30 years older, his tanned skin and slightly ethereal features set him apart from everyone else. It wasn't hard to tell who he was at all.
Except that they'd be wrong.
Very wrong.
"Utena?" The man stuck his head into each room as he passed, wondering at the almost tense atmosphere in the house. There was something wrong. He could always tell when something was wrong. He knew that time Utena had been in a car accident; he had known almost simultaneously when she had fallen while mountain climbing. There wasn't a time where he hadn't know about her pain, where he hadn't been there for her almost instantly. Even now, thirty years later, he could still do it.
With a sigh, the man stopped in the hallway on the second floor, running a hand through the short, violet locks. It had been Utena's request he keep it short, even when the style was to wear long hair. He knew why, and he didn't mind. Sometimes, it was hard to tell the difference himself.
And then he glanced up. Of course, the attic. The knob turned easily, despite it's apparent disuse. She had forbade him to come up here again, except when it was absolutely necessary. So what would possess her to return of her own will? Unless it wasn't her own will. Cold dread settled into his stomach and the stairs were soon ate up under his long stride.
"Utena!?" A cream-colored card caught his eye and his slim fingers slowly reached for it. Oh no . . . no. He knew -- of course he knew -- but he didn't think he would go through with it.
The Ends of the World.
With listless eyes, Utena glanced up at her husband, then reached a hand out towards him.
"He's back, Dios . . .he's back."
The once-prince reached across the dusty floor and grabbed his wife's hand, looking for all the world like the poor, lost boy he once was.
"I know."
***
Nanami drove a little golden convertible, one that was just ostentatious enough to make her look rich but not so much as to make her look frivolous. She'd bought it twelve years ago, when her son was old enough to get out of a car seat. She took the curves at a rather dangerous speed, enjoying the sensation of the wind in her face.
She picked her precious son up from the private school where he'd been while mom and dad worked. He was turning out to be a fine figure of a person, already a foot taller than his mom at age fifteen. He had his dad's shade of yellow hair, but his mom's violet eyes. He spoke quietly of what he'd done during the day.
She pulled up outside their upper middle class home, and went to pick up the mail. The mailbox was empty, which meant that her husband had already done so, although he was rarely home before she was. She and her son, Muriko, climbed up the front steps, but for some reason Nanami had a feeling of dread. Something was not right.
Her suspicions were confirmed when, instead of greeting her with a kiss, her husband handed her a cream colored envelope.
"What's this?" she said.
"Look at the seal," Tsuwabuki Mitsuru said.
Nanami flipped the envelope over, and an icy hand reached out of no where and grabbed her heart.
On the back was the seal of a rose.
***
Arisugawa Juri opened the door of her lofty apartment and walked in with a smile on her face.
Juri had gotten older, and was no longer modeling. That's not to say that she wasn't still beautiful. She now kept her hair shorter, cut at an angle about the length of her chin. The sides framed her face rather nicely. She was still tall, and regal, her face only showing a few of the lines that could have worn there through the years. She'd taken excellent care of her skin.
So now, instead of modeling, she was designing clothing. Her designs had become famous, and she was quite proud of the showing that she'd hosted today.
She walked through the living room and into her workroom. In a corner of the desk, a pile of mail had been sitting for quite sometime.
"Nani? I forgot all about that mail. I hope it wasn't anything too important."
She proceeded to rescue the mail from the pile of drawings and new designs. Her hand froze as her eye caught the outline of the rose seal . . . on the back of a cream envelope...
***
Shaking uncontrollably, Utena leaned forward and buried her face in Dios' shoulder. His warmth and green scent calmed her, but not by much. "I hate this." Her voice rose in desperation. "What do we do? It's not like we can just not go. If we do..."
Dios hugged his wife close. She was strong, true, but was she strong enough to handle this? "If we do, the Ends of the World will find a way to punish us. We all escaped that hell, and now we are dragged back once more."
Shivering at the finality of his words, Utena tried to pull away but his tight hold on her didn't loosen. Futilely she began to pound his arms, his chest, his legs; desperately trying to wrench herself free. "I won't let Ohtori do this to us! That Academy let us go . . . why . . . why reclaim us now? We're useless to them; the Duels have no chance of being anything more than a futile game. We aren't teenagers anymore. We're in good shape, but old age is setting in for all of us. None of us are in any shape to battle . . . and even so, the Revolution has already occurred. Twice. What do they want? What?! Why do The Ends of the World seek more?"
Groaning, Dios pulled his wife even closer. Weakened by her outburst, Utena complied and tried not to cry any harder.
"Why?" she whispered over and over again as her tears began to soak the fabric. "Why?"
"Momma? Dad?" Dios looked up at the wavering, frightened voices. Yui and Makoto stood within the doorway, looking curiously at their parents and the dusty attic.
"Yes?"
Makoto licked his lips and stepped forward. He remembered a bit about training up here with his father when he was small. He'd loved this room and had been heartbroken when his mom had made them quit practicing. The light had seemed almost magical . . . Running one hand through his dusty rose colored hair, he turned his eyes to his father's. Blue clashed with teal and he swallowed. "I thought Mom said the attic was dangerous. What are you two lovebirds doing up here, huh?"
Yui tittered a bit at the remark, but her violet eyes scanned the room nervously. She'd been barely old enough to go to school when they'd closed up this room. Why had Mom suddenly decided to come up here?
Utena and Dios exchanged a glance that only parents could share. Let's take this to the other room.
Helping his wife up, Dios turned to the children and shooed them down the attic stairs.
"We were. . . . reminiscing. There was . . . something you mother needed to get. Now run along and start getting lunch around for you mom, okay? She's tired."
Yui and Makoto exchanged glances, but the turned and did as their father wished. There was defiantly something going on here but they had a feeling they weren't going to get anything out of the two just yet.
After the children had gone, Dios wrapped an arm tightly around Utena and held her close for a moment. The silence whispered of dark secrets and half-forgotten battles and the once-prince closed his eyes, trying to push away the memories.
"We don't have to go." Turning, Dios looked at his wife and held her hands tightly in his own. "We don't. Despite . . . what happened, we two are still who we are. He can't make us do anything. He can't make me do anything and I am protecting you. So . . . we will not go. It's as simple as that."
***
"We won't go."
"Anni?" Wakaba looked up at her husband from where he held her tightly in her eyes. A few stray tears still found their way down her face, but she was almost smiling now. She should have known he wouldn't forget about her just because of the past.
"We aren't going. I don't care. I'm not going to take one step back onto that campus even if it kills me."
"Kyouichi..."
Saionji Kyouichi just shook his head and put a finger over her lips. "You still keep in contact with Utena-san, right? Give her a call. I'll try to find Touga again . . . you know how he travels. If none of us go, there's nothing the Ends of the World can do."
A soft -thud- interrupted the two and Kyouichi frowned, looking towards the door. Wakaba's hands flew to her mouth and her eyes widened to the utmost. Something . . . something was very wrong.
"What was that?"
"The children!" Wakaba ran from the room, her mother's instinct on edge. "Hiroshi! Chieko! Touga!"
But when she ran into the kitchen . . . no one was there. A chair was turned over; milk was dripping from an overturned jug onto the floor . . . but the three children . . . were gone.
***
Kaoru Kozue opened her car door. She threw the mail on the front passenger seat and sped off to work.
"Traffic..." Kozue muttered. She turned on the radio and looked in the mirror. Kozue fixed her hair a bit. She had grown it out to her shoulders after high school.
"I wonder how Miki is doing." Kozue sighed. She hadn't seen her brother after the end of high school since they both went their separate ways. Kozue now had two children, twin girls. And she was also widowed. It seemed like she could never stay in a relationship for long. Though she would always think back to the fun times when her husband was still alive.
"MOVE!!!!!" Kozue screamed at no one. The traffic was pissing her off a lot.
After a half hour of zero movement, cars finally started to move. Kozue drove up . . .only for about 5 seconds. The cars instantly stopped.
"DAMN IT!" Kozue yelled out. She banged her head on her seat and then opened her eyes. She spotted something on the passenger seat.
Looking at her mail, Kozue confirmed what she saw. It was a envelope with a rose seal on it.
"It can't be..." Kozue said and quickly opened the envelope. Could this day get any worse?
***
Juri frowned at the envelope, hesitating to open it.
I don't believe in miracles . . . Words from another age . . . another life even...
Slowly, she lifted the seal, and the scent of roses rose from it. But the scent was sickening . . almost too sweet. Juri had never liked roses much after those years.
Arisugawa Juri,
Ohtori waits for you . . . what miracles may happen? Whose illusions may shatter?
The Ends of the World.
"No . . . not again . . . "
***
Shivering with his words, Utena blinked a few times. The mere idea of not going hadn't occurred to her. It was an unfamiliar concept; much like the idea of being very very ill and not seeing a doctor. "Dios," she whispered softly, "Are you sure? He won't just let us escape him. You know that. He'll find a way . . . some way to get us there. And what about the others?"
Her husband didn't answer, just moved to look out the window, so she continued. "Do you think he'll let us off this easily? And the Student Council . . ..what about them? He must have kept tabs on us all these years. He probably knows about the children . . . the house. He is thorough . . . he'll have your number at work and mine. And the children!!! He would use them to get to us!! He probably has Yui's GPA or Makoto's stats from the basketball team! And..."
At the thought of harm coming to her youngest, Utena froze up and shuddered once more. "NO! NO! Dios . . ." her voice turned pleading and she walked up behind him and lay her head on his shoulder as her fingers brushed his arms, "he won't let us escape."
Still Dios said nothing. He knew his wife was right . . . and yet, there was this sneaking suspicion that this wasn't all that it seemed. After . . . well, the Revolutions, he had thought his other half had settled down, if that was possible. But this . . . this came out of no where.
As if to prove Utena's words right, the phone rang, shattering the silence. For a moment, the two looked at each other, the feeling that something wasn't right lingering in the air. Almost as one, the hurried down the attic stairs and over to a nearby phone. Trying to compose himself, Dios picked up the receiver and spoke with as calm a voice as he could manage.
"Moshi moshi. Himemiya residence."
Wakaba's blubbering voice greeted him on the other side. True, it had been a few months since she called last, but everything had sounded fine then. Now, she was practically hysterical.
"Utena? Is Utena there? Oh Kami-sama . . .he took the children. They're gone . . . they just disappeared. He took the children!"
End Act I