Cyclic
It's pouring again. When the last star-filled hollow in Ohtori has been absorbed in darkness (that split-second before the cycle begins again and again, circling round ad-infinitum), she stares. She stares at the streaming sky, the enraptured rain. Its coolness flowing through her veins has a music all its own. She can hear it rustling and rippling, snapping and roiling with alarming intensity. Mingling in her blood, red as those roses she pins at her Victor's breast, as roses tangling thorn-sharp through skirts woven cool and flush as second skin.
Glasses obscure this knowledge. Neither eyes (either pair) fully see; her body does. Duelists may feel the sting and clash of steel against flesh, yet for every pinprick, their wounds well at her own. Soon steel will press once more against bone.
Very soon.
She inspects her fingernails –- the polish Utena applied is pale, iridescent. Inoffensive. If it hits the light a certain way, it glints red. She'll have to remove it. Pity. Though borne from naiveté, that girl seemed to have held a certain spark. Yet it was all useless in the end. She should have known better; how foolish.
She wonders why her insides feel hollow. And ignoring that irrepressible ache (fastened nor from sword nor Hate), she tries to stare at any place besides her mirror. Not for what it reflects now, but for what it once could have.