Seinen Kakumei Utena
Utena and Penguindrum characters belong to their various owners.
WARNING: Parts of this work contain depictions of transphobia, controversial shoujo fantasy trans situation that in no way reflects real life trans people, and misogynic magic attack leading to forced masculinization.
Note: My thanks go to denihilistgum for the support over at Tumblr, PhantasmusProdigium, CelianAdellanie, BunnyHeartMedicine for commenting on this story in great detail, and those many others for supporting it either publicly or in PM. I owe my being able to continue this story at such a busy time in my life to you all. I've been writing out much of this update during a bad cold; hopefully the mistakes here will not detract too much from the story.
This really is the second last installment of the story, which will be concluded by the next update.
P.S. Major Jaquemart reference in one of the scenes. If you ever read this, Mr. Harnum, I hope you'd approve ~
Part Thirty-Five: Light over Invisible World
"When in darkness, just what does it take for people to go on living?"
They were within the inverted castle, where the inverted prince -– positioned inside his semi-open coffin like the flesh of a clam - directed the above question to the assembled Duelists he was currently facing off against.
None answered him.
Green eyes narrowed, the Prince cast his gaze upon the one to have separated him from his sister for the first time in history.
"You, who've lived through numerous coffins now, should be able to answer this question, Utena-kun."
Tenjou Utena, current possessor of the Light of the World, who currently happened to be existing between genders, faced him and his challenging question with a hard and rigid stance.
"Your reason, Akio," demanded Utena, unyieldingly. "No more games. You will tell us your reason. Now."
Ohtori Akio kept his piercing gaze upon Utena –- his last and only worthy opponent -– for one long, drawn out moment, prior to redirecting his attention towards the one currently supporting hir by presence.
"Touga-kun." He spoke to his former witch and pupil - for he was both to him - with genuine indulgence. "I know it's been a long time by human standard, but . . . surely you can still recall those lines I taught you back then?"
Kiryuu Touga, watching him guardedly all along, widened his eyes at the question.
"You said Himari-chan did what?!"
Kozue's question, coming out sounding sharper than she had likely intended it, had Hikari and Hibari -– teary to begin with –- burst out in hysterical sobbing. Miki hurried to sooth the young girls.
"Shhhhh, it's okay. Just tell us how-"
"It's not okay!" protested Hikari, agitated and fearful at once. "Himari-chan . . . she-"
"Himari-chan jumped!" exclaimed Hibari, pointing fanatically out of Mikagechopper's glass window and down and at the sea of gender symbols raging about like the wild waves of an insubstantial sea. "She jumped right into the crazed audience! We both tried to stop her, but . . . "
Just then, a faint, wheezing gasp from Kanae drew everyone's attention to her. Seemingly drained, the society lady's elegant frame wavered, before collapsed backwards like a long stripe of willow; the Kaoru twins hurried to keep her from falling.
"Neesan?!"
"I can't feel it anymore," rasped Kanae, pallid complexion flushing at the kind gesture from her newly acquired siblings. "I tried channeling Akio-san's power, to help locate the Takakura girl . . . but it seems like I've been cut off."
"On the bright side, this could mean that you're no longer bound to the Ends of the World," said Miki. "This is a good thing for you, Neesan." Beside him, Kozue nodded in firm affirmation.
Kanae looked like she wanted to voice some kind of disagreement, before settling for just nodding.
"Mikage," Saionji, having been listening in silence all along, called to the one currently harboring their group within himself. "I've been wondering about this for a while now. While they may look freaky, can these gender-symbol-people down below - who look barely more substantial than shadows - actually manage to inflict physical violence?"
/"Human beings in their soulless, completely invisible state – such as those currently making spectacles of themselves below – are insubstantial, and thus incapable of physical violence,"/ replied Mikagechopper. /"However . . . "/
" . . . however?!" asked/demanded Double H in unison.
/"Even without soul, the feelings remain. Being insubstantial, these invisible people have below no physical barrier between their feelings and their surroundings. Their emotions – likely negative – will directly impact those in close proximity with them."/
"In other words, the audience below is dangerous like those Swords of Hate once infesting Tenjou-sempai," stated Miki, making the connection. "They can cause mental scarring by exerting emotional strain upon those in contact with them. Should a young, innocent mind like Himari-chan's get prolonged exposure to their negativity . . ." He trailed off on that grim note.
"But . . . wha . . ." Unfamiliar with the terminologies involved, Double H nonetheless appeared to have picked up on how things were looking bad for their friend. "Then how do we save Himari-chan?!"
"Fifty-thousand, huh . . ." pondered Saionji from underneath his breath as he eyeed the ominous mob below with hardened eyes. Thoughts running on a similar vein, Kozue got what he was thinking.
"Sempai, let's head back down to look for Himari-chan. We've beaten the Million from before, a mere fifty thousand shouldn't be much problem to us."
"It's not that simple. With the Million, we had Himemiya and Chida-san present helping to re-divert the Swords into some space gape. This time, we only got our own Soul Swords to use as weapons. Kanae-san doesn't look like she'd be of much help in her current state, and Double H are ordinary girls in the way of magic. If we're going to manually fight our way through that mob to rescue the Takakura girl, it'd be five against fifty thous-"
/"Four,"/ corrected Mikagechopper, his voice crisp to the point of sounding mechanical. /"I just got a message from Tokiko-san. It looks like I'm urgently needed at the Castle above. This will sound cold, but all passengers who'd wish to head down below to engage in a time-consuming rescue will have to get off now."/ All were shocked to hear this from him.
"Cold," muttered Saionji, prior to clasping his board hands upon Double H's small shoulders. "Nevermind, children. Even if Computer-like-san isn't willing to help young girls in need, I'm still here to -"
/"That blaze of white light from earlier on appeared to be Tenjou Utena's robot form exploding from up at the Castle. I wonder how Kiryuu Touga - the Victor's designated Duelist partner - is faring?"/
Agape, Saionji's righteous stance sagged as though his backbone had melted, much to the young girls' alarm.
"Mother is with Akio-san up at the Castle," said Kanae, her voice low. "Like how I was, she too has power enough to matter in tonight's battle. She is likely playing her adversarial role against your friends at this very moment." The Kaoru Twins, previously eyeing the crumbled Saionji in distaste, likewise turtle-ed up.
"But then . . .!" exclaimed Hikari in fearful outrage at the turn of events . . . prior to wilting at realizing how she was in no position to demand help from these strangers. "Himari-chan . . ."
"Himari-chan . . ." whimpered Hibari, frightened as she was angry. "But someone has to save her . . .!" She then broke down crying along with her friend, while the grownups around them grew increasingly uncomfortable.
/"Hikari-san, Hibari-san . . . you told us that Takakura Himari had jumped –- by her own will - into the mob after talking with you both. Had she not revealed her reason for jumping during the talk?"/
The girls jolted at the question as though struck by a physical blow.
/"Having already been filled in by Tsuchiya Ruka, surely Takakura Himari knows the risks –- including all the magical stuff - of debuting as the final member of Triple H on this night. Himari-san is risking her well being to help her brothers become visible in the eyes of Japanese Society; she knows what kind of punishing damnation she is braving by jumping into the invisible storm-"/
"Lower us to the ground please, I'm getting off."
All turned towards Wakaba, now standing up and with a hand already on the door handle. Saionji, in particular, regarded this deceptively plain-seeming woman in awe.
"Wakaba-kun . . ."
"I, too, want to go up to the Castle, to help Utena-sama and everyone else," stated Wakaba. "But I can't. Tatsuya is still down there. There is no way I can just let him be." She then cast her now solemn gaze upon the idol girls. "Double H, is your friendship with Takakura Himari the real thing?"
Hope re-ignited, Hikari and Hibari straightened their backs. "H-Hai!"
Tightened mouth relaxing into a grin, Wakaba warmed her expression while reaching out a hand towards the youngsters.
"Then, let the three of us go down together, into that mob, where we'd find and save our best friends from harm, ne?"
Trembling – both in fright and anticipation – Hikari and Hibari clasped their small hands over Wakaba's, before finding another far bigger hand clasping itself over theirs.
"Make that four," stated Saionji, his renewed resolve surprising the others.
"But . . . Saionji-sempai, what about Touga-sempai?" asked Wakaba, brown eyes wide with gratitude.
"However pathetic he has become, Touga is still a grown-ass man; he can take care of himself fine," grumbled Saionji with the aggressive bravado of one trying to convince himself. "Mikage, take us down! The four of us are gonna go kick some invisible ass!"
"Make that five," announced Miki, currently moved up and towards the passionate group. "I'm coming along to help too. Kozue." He addressed his twin before she or the others could speak up. "I'll help the Children of Fate in your stead. You'll have to do my share in supporting Kanae Neesan when the two of you are to confront our mother up at the Castle."
"Miki-kun . . ." murmured Kanae, touched.
"Manning up at long last, huh?" murmured Kozue, pride and (remembered?) pain warring within her blue eyes. "You keep this up."
Meeting his twin's imploring gaze, Miki nodded firmly in the affirmative.
Descending all along, the Mikagechopper landed upon one of the lesser-occupied area of the stage – where the ferocious winds from its rotors had warded off what gender-symbol-people there were lingering close by. Pushing open the door in one grand, heroic gesture, Saionji stepped out ahead of the others to face the thick, semi-lucent mob spilling angrily about the vast stadium like waves of a troubled sea.
"Takakura Himari, Kazami Tatsuya . . . within this invisible storm, we will find you."
"If the chick does not break the egg's shell, it will die without being born."
Touga's voice, coming low and wistful, alarmed Utena into turning sharply towards him. The man's eyes, wide and blue, appeared to be staring off and into some distant and intimate past that he alone could see.
"Touga . . . !" S/he spoke up in warning. "Snap out of it! He's just trying to mindscrew you-"
"So you remember." Akio - still looking to be in his late teens even now - had exuded such warm fatherly pride then, that Utena had to try her damned hardest not to launch another recklessly physical attack against him right there and then. "As I've revealed since that early on, Touga-kun, we are the chick, and the world our egg-"
"And if we don't crack the world's shell, we will die without ever truly being born." Touga, who had apparently forced his way out of whatever trance Akio tried putting him under, briskly finished the sentence while re-erecting his stoic front. "Why're we talking about this now, Akio-san?"
"Yes, Akio-san, do quit wasting everyone's time and get to the point please," urged Juri, having since come up to beside Utena with Shiori, who had since reverted back to her wingless human form. Both Duelists were now in uniforms, with their respective soul swords out and ready for use.
"I would ask you not to interrupt Akio-san please," said Mrs. Ohtori from where she had remained beside Akio's coffin. "None of us want to waste even more time than is necessary on this grand exposition scene now, do we?" The woman faced the duo's scowling with her refined, condescending smile.
"Revolution, by its very definition, means changing the current World, to the point of destroying its existing structure," said Akio, watching Touga –- now at least eight years his senior, physically - like the latter was some defiant child refusing adult reason. "This includes its constraints, and those multitudes who live reliant upon those very constraints that give them stability while tying them down."
He broadened his gaze to encompass all the Duelists present.
"Smash the world's shell. For the revolution of the world."
He then looked directly at the hostile, guarded Victor.
"Utena-kun, you're no longer that innocently foolish child you once were . . . surely even you should have understood by now; the Power of Revolution that fueled your many victories upon my stage is disruptive by its very nature –- it is tied to the traumatic disruption of those other lives bound under the same shell as its wielders and seekers. Touga-kun, Juri-kun, Shiori-kun . . . each and every one of your current ally once had their world turned upside down at clashing wills with you."
"Who was the one who staged those clashes anyway?" muttered Utena, doing hir best to appear unfazed under Akio's invasive gaze; hir enemy, likewise, proofed unruffled by her verbal jab.
"Back in the day, Dios disrupted his own life to uphold the Power of Revolution for the sake of the world's people.
"Later, the Ends of the World would seek to regain this same power by disrupting the lives of the world's people instead.
"And so it began."
"And so you've continued to pursue the Power till now, knowing of its toxic nature," accused Utena, pinpointing his exact sin with the viciousness of a sword thrust. "How very noble!"
"Indeed," admitted hir lifetime nemesis with damnable ease. "Knowing what the Power can do for her, I've pursued it till this very moment."
Utena's eyes widened at catching the world "her". "What're you saying?"
"Before I became the Ends of the World, before I was even Dios, I was my sister's brother," stated Akio, matter-of-factly. "Thus everything I did, have done, still am doing . . . everything is all for my sibling's sake."
" . . . anything to have you both come back to me, Kan-chan . . . Shou-chan . . . ."
Submerged under the audience member's insubstantial forms, stifled underneath their seething hatred, Himari's fevered thoughts drifted back that prior moment, right before she took her plunge into the storm . . .
"I'm sorry.
"I'm so sorry, Hibari-chan, Hikari-chan."
Prostrated in front of the others, with her forehead pressed down upon the floor (which was really the top of the projector's massive globe), Himari dared not look up at their faces as she went on with her confession.
"Because I was trying to defy Fate, to save my brothers from the World's Hatred . . . because I've already died once from the illness . . .
"I thought that no matter what befell my body, it would be worth it.
She stole a peek at their boots, at the scrape marks ruining their once sparkling surfaces; her heart sank further at seeing the reddened scratches marring their bared thighs.
"I'm sorry. My suffering is my rightful punishment as the one who decided to go against worldly conventions, staying as the daughter of a terrorist couple.
"But . . . putting the two of you through these dangerous and humiliating situations . . . you two were only caught up in it all . . . .
"I knew what could've happened tonight.
"I've encroached upon your kindness; wielding our past friendship like some weapon, I even tried to guilt you both into risking your lives and future along by my side, all so I can get what I want . . . .
"I'm sorry. I'm a nasty girl. I've betrayed the two of you all along. I-"
"No."
Hikari's voice, coming croaked, stopped Himari from continuing on with self-bashing. Lifting her gaze with fearful tentativeness, Himari saw that both her friends now had tears streaking down their makeup-coated faces.
"Himari-chan . . ." Hibari spoke with her chaffed lips quivering. "I've . . . failed to recognize your true pain, back when your illness started to overtake you."
"I've willfully ignored your suffering," muttered Hibari from between her clenched teeth, "back when your adoptive parents came to be exposed as terrorists, and you had to quit school."
"Instead, we just let our so-called success get to our heads, dismissing you as someone insignificant from our humble past."
"When we received that scarf from you, and we showed it off on TV . . . we were mostly doing it to show the media how down to earth we were, that we'd remember someone from back when we were ordinary girls."
"And when our new agency pushed us to approach you for this Triple H deal . . . we even worried about you possibly stealing our spotlight."
"When you were suffering so much, and for so long . . . when we had said we would always be there for each other as best friends . . . !"
And, while Himari remained in stupor over their apology, Double H further shocked her by swooping downwards to encase her into their teary group hug.
"Himari-chan, we're the ones who're actually unfair!
"We're the ones who're nasty!
"We're the ones guilty of betrayal, not you, you big silly!"
"And we're so, so sorry . . . oh Himari-chan!"
"Shhh . . ." Hugging her crying friends back, Himari slowly stood up, drawing the other girls with her. "I understand." Biting back her own tears, the girl ran her fingers over the others' pelt-like long manes, all the while gathering her resolve for what she was about to do. "It's okay now. So, listen to me . . ."
"Himari-chan," Hibari spoke before she could continue. "I think we should run away now."
"That's right," Hikari agreed immediately. "It's no use staying here. The audiences have become too strange and dangerous for any artist to handle. There isn't anyone at the back of this projector now, so I think we could climb . . ." She trailed off at seeing Himari shook her head. "Himari-chan?"
"You two go on without me," said Himari. "I can't just leave this stage. I have to stay here, and take everything the World's people have to throw at me. It's the only way I can get them to accept Kan-chan and Shou-chan as human beings. It's the only way my brothers can have a future." As expected, the girls appeared stunned by her words.
"Himari-chan!"
"But-"
"Hibari-chan, Hikari-chan." Eyes on the other girls, the final member of Triple H spoke while subtly edging backwards and away from her group mates. "Please leave this stage when you get chance. Leave, and forget about tonight, about everything . . . about me."
Mouths agape, Hibari and Hikari's shock gradually morphed into outrage.
"How. . . could we possibly do something like that?!"
"Himari-chan, we're friends! Why won't you let us help you-"
And her friends' angry protesting turned into shrill, horrified screaming, as Himari –- hungry gaze lingering upon them until the very last moment –- dropped herself backwards and off the slopping projector globe, and fell into the smothering swarm of invisible people gathered below . . .
"Just like . . . that time . . ." murmured Himari, recalling that surreal moment right before the Fate Train Transfer, where she was slowly cutting herself up walking through a haze of still, aerial glass shards, all to reach Kanba. This time, she was getting her conscious mind gradually eroded away by the hatred of a ghostly mob, all for Kanba and Shouma's salvation. Then and now, it was all the same; the many punishments that Fate had dealt her were as unavoidable as those bitter medications she once took to stay alive.
It was life's punishment that had bonded her to her precious brothers in the first place. She will endure its full blunt for the sake of their salvation-
". . . no use . . . no use at all . . ."
The familiar nasal voice, made unfamiliar to her by its current desperate tone, drew Himari out of the aching trance she had been drowning in. Blinking, she saw, from where she was getting pushed around by phantom bodies, a humanoid figure in the distance. The figure, leggy to the point of being insectile, was currently perched over a small pile of female gender symbols like a spider over its gathered preys.
"Invisible women will only ever be soulless, and soulless people are only good as cash cows!" whined the figure, flipping back the long, disheveled forelocks currently dangling in front of his wide, wild eyes. "Arrrg! I need me someone with a vibrant heart that can nourish me, I need me some penguindrum-"
The predatory figured paused at noticing Himari; upon seeing and recognizing his face, the girl found herself shocked back into complete soberness.
"Seen . . . san?"
For a while, all Utena could do was stare.
"Ha," s/he managed at last. "Ha. HARK!" So angry was hir then, that s/he would have stalked right up toward Akio to belt him one regardless of the consequences, had Touga not held hir back. "You actually expected me to goddamn believe that?! You told me yourself back then: you planned for Anthy to remain the Rose Bride forever!"
"And how are you in any way better than me, Utena-kun?" asked Akio, looking her in her angry eyes with cool calmness. "Supporting whatever my sister is doing, even while knowing of the wrongness behind her actions; willfully blind then and now, you dare not change her for the better, even while knowing my sister, as she is now, is continuously harming others and ultimately herself. Like how I've allowed my sister to remain as the Rose Bride, you've also allowed for her to remain as the Witch for the past ten years." His statement impacted Utena like a punch to the stomach.
"You-"
"I, the Ends of the World, had kept the Rose Bride confined within Ohtori Academy. You, Victor of the Duels, had let the Witch roam free to endanger the World at large with her reckless and toxic doings. Which one of us is doing her more harm? Which one of us is doing the World more harm?
"You DARE to lecture me on doing harm when you've broiled down the entire country's population into the invisible mess we're seeing below?!" Utena struggled against Touga's grip, trying to do something, anything to shut Akio up. "Even now, Anthy is-"
"What shall we do, brother?"
It took Utena a while to recognize the young girlish voice - coming so soft as to sound ethereal - to be one that she had heard before.
"Anthy . . . ?"
The coffin erected beside Akio's now showed a small child's silhouette curled on the side within its lucent confines.
"How shall we go on living, after all of this?" whimpered this pre-pubescent version of Anthy, now appearing identical to the "Witch/Rose Bride" Utena remembered from that surreal night before her parents' funeral.
"Anthy!" s/he cried out trying to get her attention.
"How shall we go on, brother?" Deaf to her cry, Anthy whimpered on with the vulnerable uncertainty of a young one ill prepared to face the World's true horror. "We have never lived before this, unless a flower can be said to live when it is only a seed. Brother, if we are flowers, then, what of our soil?"
"Adversity has been our soil," spoke Akio, his once-deep voice now having softened into Dio's boyish tenor, "watered with your blood and the blood of your murderers, and the sun upon us was the light upon my blade when I slew them."
"But how shall we live, if we have never lived before?"
"We shall find a way, somewhere in the world, and if not in the world, at the ends of the world."
"I understand," conceded Anthy, sounding peacefully content as she morphed back into her adult, womanly form. "From now on, you and I will help each other to go on living." A brightening hue came to illuminate her features, revealing her eyes to be closed, and that she was sleep talking all along.
"Anthy . . ." Subdued by helplessness, Utena could only continue staring at hir coffined soulmate - currently smiling with a contented expression that she had never shown hir throughout their years spent together - in wordless silence. Slowly, then the entire coffin turned opaque, obscuring Anthy's figure from sight; Akio's coffin on the other hand, vanished into thin air.
"Utena-kun." Akio, sounding himself again, spoke to her. "Even you should know by now: when in darkness, it takes light for people to go on living."
"Light," murmured Utena, unable to look away from Anthy's coffin, which now looked identical to the one s/he hid herself in after having gotten hir parents killed.
"I'll never see anyone, or come out into the sun again."
And, the little girl s/he was would have stood by those words, had "Dios" not approached her exuding his exquisite aura. You're beautiful, she had commented; indeed, the boy who smelt of roses while engulfed under light was indeed beautiful enough to lure her out of mad despair and into his web, beautiful enough to have her care about his sister's tragic tale, to have her fight duel after duel against his other puppets upon the Arena in the sky, where she would invariably be awarded with a romantic kiss from him upon each battle's climax . . .
Indeed, however ugly the end, this deceptive and superficial prince of hir childhood was undeniably the one to have given hir the power to go on living, back when she needed it the most.
As s/he struggled against this unpleasant realization, the Prince continued to say his piece.
"Utena-kun, fish can only swim, birds can only fly. Just like how you can only live on by believing yourself to be brilliant, my sister can only live on by latching onto someone she believes to be brilliant."
Downcast, he placed his one remaining hand against his sister's coffin.
"Being the Rose Bride totally devoted to her Prince is the only way for her go on living.
"Having already lost Dios' Might, the only way I can continue being my sister's light is to acquire power, even at the cost of submitting myself to worldly corruptions - to the point of becoming the Darkness reigning at the Ends of the World."
From beside Akio, Mrs. Ohtori could be seen plucking off a random red rose blooming upon one of his many vines, and watched with lusty eyes its rapid transformation into a fleshy apple right within her grasp; focused upon Utena, he did not acknowledge the woman's action at all.
"But a truly brilliant prince, by my sister's definition, must possess both strength and nobility. So, even having some power, the Ends of the World still failed in filling the Prince role crucial to the Rose Bride's own continued existence; my sister can only find her reason for living in a Prince that she believes in. For my sister, only Dios will do; only by becoming Dios again can I help my sister go on living."
"And that's why you've been destroying innumerable lives since ancient times to try and regain the Power of Dios?" asked Utena, forcing as much irony as s/he could into hir rasped, cloaked up voice. "All for Anthy's sake?! How very noble!"
"Yes, sacrificing others to attain one's own goal - even if such a goal is tied to the salvation of one's sister - is indeed a horrifically selfish deed," mused Akio, self-depreciation evident to his voice and expression. "But, what if the goal is one that is actually a lot less selfish than it sounds? What if the end is one that can actually undo all damages its means had caused?"
"What are you talking about?"
"The reassembling of the World's Shell."
Abruptly, numerous holographic screens appeared all around the group's surroundings. Some of the holographs were videos focusing on various areas within the Big Egg, where the crazed invisible people were wrecking havoc on stage and off, while others showed the exterior of the stadium, and the gender-symbol-cluttered areas surround the building, and beyond.
"Do you know what this is?" asked Akio, prior to answering his own enigmatic question. "The World's Shell, where all captives being entrapped within have their lives defined by the Scenery as shown to them." He raised up his hand. "For instance . . . "
At a snap of his fingers, the screens facing the Duelists switched to show them the following scenes: Utena, beautiful as a stylishly-dressed woman, posed with her well-preserved mother as her still-handsome father snapped candids of them; Touga, healthy and clean cut, blowing out candles on his cake as Nanami, a teenage Shouma, along with his real parents –- who looked like ordinary, non-terrorist people here - congratulated his birthday; Juri and Shiori dinning out at some fine restaurant with two older ladies, each sharing family resemblance with one of the younger women . . .
"What is this?" asked the wide-eyed Shiori, in the whimper of one agonized by a beautiful promise she knew was unlikely to come through.
"Ohtori Akio . . ." Juri, who had since leveled her sword, looked like she was about to charge Akio regardless of the dangers involved. "You . . ." A sweep of Touga's injured hand right in front of her eyes stopped her from acting hastily.
"I see you can even bring the dead back to life now, Akio-san," commented the redhead, making a noticeable effort to keep his voice calm. The too-bright glint within his baby blues, however, betrayed his yearning.
"Or, at the very least, change the past so that the dead never died to begin with."
Utena's guess - coming from a "fool" like hir, nonetheless - shocked the other Duelists. Feeling the weight of their staring, s/he nonetheless went on with hir supposition. "Just like how you change it so that Mikage-sempai had never existed in Ohtori Academy to begin with. Isn't that right, Akio?" Akio actually gave hir an appraising smile at making the connection.
"The World's Scenery - the collective viewpoint that makes up what people call reality - is what decides whether someone is special or ordinary, powerful or weak, brilliant or dull," revealed the Ends of the World. "But, its influence goes further than what is merely subjective." He snapped his fingers again.
The holographic scenes changed once more, this time showing Utena as a virile man playing professional basketball, Touga a CEO managing what looked like his own business empire, Juri and Shiori having a couture show for their fashion brand in Milan . . . .
"See? Just by changing the World's Scenery, one's entire life – the entire situation, down to what peers and families you get to have – changes accordingly." Akio observed the Duelists' awe and wonder with apparent pleasure; Utena, who observed this, felt chilled to the bone. "Once harnessed, the power to control this change can grant people like yourselves all that you've lost: your full faculties, your education, your youth, down to your late parents." He was staring directly at Utena now, who looked away.
"Is this what the Power of Revolution truly entails?" asked Touga, studying the scenes of happier alternate realities with growing revere. Yes, even now, even loyal to hir, the redhead still could be swayed by other desires, after all.
"But didn't Utena-san already have this power?" asked Shiori, seeming so eager that she would have latched onto the Victor's arm, had Juri not reached out to still her small hand at once. To her credit, the levelheaded beauty appeared to have remained carefully guarded against the miraculous visuals the adversary now was dazzling their eyes with.
Utena saw how Juri gave hir a significant look, one that confirmed the woman shared hir skepticism.
"What Utena-kun took from the Final Duel was the Light of the World." Akio, who saw their exchange, continued smoothly on. "The Light - Dios' very brilliance - is capable of empowering people in need of strength to battle life's problems. It cannot, however, change certain things in their lives that still would continuously generate problems for them." He now focused his persuasive talk on Touga and Shiori. "Physical limitations, dark pasts . . . to change such things would take a miracle; a miracle capable of altering even fixed circumstances could only be realized by seizing control over Fate –- that which has power over Reality."
"You mean like what Takakura Shouma and Natsume Kanba had done to save their sister?" asked Shiori, completely engrossed now.
"The Fate Train Transfer," murmured Touga, mulling over the term cherishingly. "It had to do with the Fate Train –- that which once was Dios' Steed –- that you're now dragging up towards the Castle. Akio-san, are you trying to us that you now have what it takes to revolutionize our world?"
"Only the Prince on his White Horse has power enough to alter the World's Reality", explained Akio, engulfing the spellbound duo under his warm voice and mannerism. "Past, present, and future, all can be changed. Only with the combined might of the Light and Fate can the World's Scenery be altered in a controlled manner."
Having mostly won over Touga and Shiori, the princely-seeming entity again focused his full attention upon Utena: s/he who harbored what he wanted right within hir grasp.
"And this, Utena-kun, is my reason for risking everything to buy this miraculous power. Once I have the Power to change the World's Reality, I can reimburse everyone I've sacrificed - from all times - for the sake of saving my sister. You, your parents, your ancestors . . . all the lives I've ruined can be mended and rebuilt, long as I can regain this miraculous power. The end I seek will literally justify all means-"
Utena's outburst of laughter, coming harsh and cynical -– not unlike that of a fairytale witch -– cut Akio off like a slap to the face. Feeling a perverse thrill of power at seeing the startled look in his wide green eyes, she laughed on in this manner for a good minute.
"Tenjou-kun . . ." started Touga, before getting cut off by a sharp sweep of Utena's hand. Vaguely, s/he thought she caught Shiori's embarrassed expression out of a corner of her eye.
"I finally get how you can delude people so beautifully, Akio-san," rasped Utena, disregarding Touga and Shiori's reactions while focusing on hir enemy. "You . .. you'd actually delude yourself first before making the pitch!" S/he pointed a finger right at the general direction of Akio's nose. "Look at you, looking all sincere, all full of noble convictions; why, if I'm still that idealistic fourteen-year-old I was, I would have eaten it all up like you want me to for sure!"
Akio tried again. "Utena-kun-"
"So that's it, huh?" mocked Utena, hir voice snide and derisive. "That's your reason? That's how you convince yourself that what you're doing can be justified? That you can just go about destroying people's lives to get what you want, simply because you think you can rebuild it all back up for your many victims afterwards? And that would magically make everything okay? How convenient for you!"
"Uten-"
"Do you actually think that you can just erase our existence along with your own guilt, and we'd just let you?"
Hir question, cutting right to the point, had Akio tensing up, Touga jolting, Shiori agape and Juri smirking.
"What're you talking about, Tenjou-san?" asked Shiori, appearing lost still.
"Tenjou-kun is pointing out how, should Akio-san's proposed change come about, all our lives would have to deviate from our current ones starting years ago," muttered Touga, with the sulleness of one who just realized he had been scammed. "The current us - built upon our past experiences - would cease to exist."
"Akio-san," Juri spoke up with arms crossed. "You claim your reason for destroying all of our lives to be your attempt to save Himemiya, your prince-addicted sister. You're obviously after the Light of the World that's currently under Utena's possession.
"Could it be that you're planned on using the Light, in combination of the Fate Train, to enact a massive Fate Transfer aimed at changing history itself, such that Dios had never fallen from princely glory in the ancient past?"
"Wha . . . ?" Utena, who had actually missed that frightening possibility up till now just yet, felt hirself gone cold in the chest. "Of course, how best to erase the many victims, whose lives got torn apart by your millenniums of mad games, than by changing history from so early a point that all of us would end up not being born at all? How clever."
"Utena-kun, you will be born," said Akio, appearing genuinely hurt that Utena would think so little of him. "All of you will be. The Fate Transfer I had planned will, along with giving my sister the Prince she needs for survival, reimburse each and every one of my victims, of all times. Everyone will be given the happy endings they seek and need. Eternity, shining things, miracles . . . all that you humans desire will be yours to have-"
"Except none of us will get to remember anything from our present lives," pondered Shiori, finally beginning to understand the catch in the deal. "Even if Mother had never died and is still alive, even if Juri and I still are together . . . the past decade, during which we had been through so much together, would not have happened."
"If those painful, punishing things in life had never happened to begin with, there would have been no pain, no lingering regrets," murmured Akio, his voice soft to the point of being almost inaudible.
Pallid now, Shiori shook her head. "But, without having been through all that, I would've remained the entitled little moron I was!"
"And I would have remained that same icy, apathetic bitch," said Juri, holding Shiori's slighter figure against hers. "Without getting forged by life's punishments, none of us would be who we are now." She turned towards Touga. "Touga, whatever you're doing with your life now, you are certainly a far better person now than you were ten years ago." The redheaded man appeared surprised, and then genuinely moved, at hearing this from her; she then turned towards Utena. "And Utena, you're no longer that cruelly innocent fool who would get blind-sighted by ignorance both willful and genuine. You've gotten wise without losing your righteousness; that's a marked improvement"
"Sempai . . ." Utena found hirself blinking back tears, prior to beaming back at Juri, and at the other Duelists. "That's right, all of us have grown as people, precisely because of that long, hellish decade we got put through.
"We're no longer the innocent, idealistic teenagers we once were. We're now adults who got marred by many things; we've certainly become somewhat corrupted when compared to our old adolescent selves.
"But, even as we lost things to life's punishments, we've also gained new and good things along the way; knowledge, wisdom, insight . . . things that evolve us beyond what we were before.
"Yes, for better or worse, Touga has made it to becoming a twenty-seven year old man. Juri-sempai and Shiori-sempai are twenty-six year old women of the world. I'm now a twenty four year old . . . someone; well, I'm still an adult by every definition of the word."
Hir expression frosted over as s/he turned back to face Akio.
"Ohtori Akio-san, your current human id should be around twenty eight by now. But, you haven't let yourself age a single day since hitting the legal age to drive now . . . have you? You now look so much younger than us . . . younger than Anthy, who had matured where you have stalled. Are you preserving your youthful prettiness to appease your sugar-mommy? Or perhaps it's you yourself who won't dare to grow up even after all these years?"
Akio's face remained mask-like in neutrality throughout hir taunting. Vaguely, Utena noticed how Mrs. Ohtori had moved aside to a patio table and chair set spontaneously appearing to the side, and was currently slicing up the apple she plucked off Akio's vines before. The vine-bound, scantily clad teenage girl hanging right in her background did not appear to have bothered the engrossed lady one bit.
Utena kept hir focus on Akio. "All of us have changed; only you are still left stranded where you were like a beached whale. Do you seriously think the pathetic likes of you can convince me to go along with your mad plans to erase our hard-earned existences?" Empowered by the confidence gained from hir newfound insight, s/he pointed hir soul sword at the vine-sprouting, delusion-sprouting monstrosity in front of her with neither hesitation nor reserve. "Don't make me laugh, Ends of the World-san!"
For a significant lengthy moment, Akio merely remained statue still while watching hir watch him with his drilling, penetrating gaze. With his one remaining hand, he rested a palm against Anthy's coffin, as though channeling some signal coming through from within. Finally, he pulled his hand back, and straightened up to his full, threatening height.
"I was hoping it wouldn't have to come to this," he said. "I guess I have no choice but to fight you this time around too."
"Bring it on!" barked Utena, readying her sword stance as her fellow Duelists did the same while flanking her as their center.
"Tenjou-kun will not be the only one you're up against this time around," warned Touga, standing beside Utena while raising his soul sword in his uninjured left hand. "You still have time to reconsider, Akio-san."
Chuckling lightly, as though having heard an amusing joke, or perhaps something heart-warming, Akio's green eyes glittered with what looked like tears unshed, as the innumerable vines he sprouted started to twist and coil as a nest of restless serpents . . . .
End Part Thirty-Five.
Next Up: Finale - The Day We Shine Together