A Fading Prince

By shukuchi

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None of the Utena characters belong to me....

I actually started this fanfic at least a year ago, but only went back and finished it a few days ago.

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I'll admit that it's pitiful when your whole life revolves around one person, but that's never stopped the love-struck.

Even if they aren't loved back.

I'll admit it's ironic, and even be the first one to do so. Touga Kiryuu, the playboy who can have any girl he wants except the girl he wants. Really pointless, but it's true. So here I am, sitting in a church without benches and too empty for ghosts. Here I am, sitting back and thinking of that first day.

She didn't want to leave that coffin. Anyone else would have dragged her out nonetheless and told her relatives they found her. But I saw that pink- haired princess and understood: it'd take a miracle to get her out willingly. I saw her fragileness and knew that if she were removed otherwise, it'd completely break her.

Why do we keep on living if we're just going to die someday? I didn't know the answer then, and it sealed me in my own coffin to hear the question. The feeling of that hair as soft as innocence stayed with me despite it all, and no matter how many years passed, I still remembered. And my coffin closed tighter, leaving me alone in darkness with only a memory to hold on.

How fitting, it's happened again.

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Akio saved Utena from her coffin like I couldn't. Then he gained her love like it was just a trinket. He loved torturing me with both, but I owed him everything I had for saving my only princess. That's why I never had a chance at being her prince: when it mattered most, I did nothing.

Nothing.

In the end, I'm just a washed up knight who likes to play at chivalry. Who will do anything to get what they want, no matter whom it hurts. At least I'm persistent.

And loyal. That's what separates me from Akio. He cared about Utena, or once she had won that last duel against me, he would have taken her sword and let her live only long enough to see if it worked, then stabbed her with whatever was left of it. I knew what would happen in the last duel.

And I still didn't tell her. I told her I couldn't, but there was still the hope that she'd realize for herself. Realize that he wasn't her prince....that word which describes something I'll never be...

But he is. Akio is her prince, and every day, she forgets Dios more and more. Until, one day, there will be nothing left of the prince who used the last of his energy to save her.

Nothing. His power will belong to that darker self, and all memories forgotten. I know that Akio, or Anthy by his orders, can make that happen. I know that Nemuro Hall was once alive, shadowed in darkness, though every memory of it is gone.

Do we really still exist if no one knows we do? The theory "I think, therefore I am" is usually flawless, but in Ohtori, many things still imagine that have ceased to be. Do i still exist? Is it really me who is here? Every day, those questions become more and more desperate in my mind, as who I once was and now pretend to be slips further and further away.

Utena... Please don't turn away from me. Please realize that I'd rather be with you than anywhere else. Please, just know that I'm here.

You may be the only one that still does.

I'd like to make one promise before the final duel ends, though your ears may not hear me give it: I will remember you, no matter how much Akio or Anthy tries to take that away. You'll always be in my heart.

And in that way I will save you, from nothingness, and maybe finally become your prince.

Even as I am forgotten and fade away.