My third "Shoujo Kakumei Utena" fic, and I am apparently sticking the theme of the black roses. I suppose I can't really help it, because Mamiya and Mikage are two of the "Utena" characters who fascinate me the most, and yet so little it written about them. It's like having to be your own supplier or something! Still, I slip back into first person narration in this piece, though I stick to my modus operandi of "nothing really happens." This is simply Anthy reflecting on what it is to play a part on Ohtori's stage.

As always, no copyright infringement is intended. I write this fanfic because my original stories won't come home. This piece is dedicated to everyone who commented upon "sub rosa," but especially Kim. Though I don't know if I've taken her wonderful advice too well, I'm certainly grateful that she gave it to me in the first place. Feedback is the only way for me to even attempt to improve…hey, if you want to be my beta reader, I'd love to hear from you. ^_~

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it's a hard pill to take * my second skin is wearing thin * my polished visage aches

* it's not the fact I'm a part of that * but the thought I'm part of this

-- slowburn, stellar*

Smiles Are Made Of Accolades

(that don't belong to me)

You wouldn't know that it was a grave unless somebody told you so. It's not marked, you see. Well, that is unless you count the tree that presides over it. That does serve as a marker, though trees themselves do not often inherently strike a viewer as a gravestone. So, we can say that the grave is unmarked.

That is the way oniisama would have it, after all.

It's actually rare for a person to be buried in any way, shape or form in the grounds of this place. Even though when my brother leaves this place it will lose what measure of sorcery our presence has instilled inside of it, we do not usually leave any kind of mark of ourselves here. This grave does count as such a thing, even though he who lies here is not as we are. No one is as we are, I do not think. It is difficult for me to imagine that anyone could have made the same mistakes as we have. That any other pair could have loved one another so deeply that they would cheerfully damn not only themselves, but with them their most beloved, just so that neither would ever had to die.

That is not really what I want to consider tonight, however. Or is it? Is that why I am standing beside this grave? Because I wish to think about love, and about the cost it has for those who indulge in it?

That has been weighing on my mind lately.

Though the grave is unmarked it is easy to find. At least, it is if you know where to look, of course. As I pointed out, there is a tree here. I'm not sure of its significance; I'm not even sure of its species. Though I know that might surprise some people who think that they know me, it's not that strange at all. I do not tend those roses because I wish to; I am the Rose Bride so that is what I do. It is not dissimilar to my brother and his stars. They are a cover, they are a mask. They do not have as much meaning as we both perhaps wish they did. Growing roses, watching stars – they are merely simple metaphors for deeper untruths.

But yes, to return to this grave. It's not exactly a grave in some ways, I suppose. There is no coffin beneath the grass, beneath the darker dirt. His ashes are simply scattered here, beneath this tree, in its shadow. Not that there was a shadow here when he was buried. The tree was a sapling when it was planted by two of his classmates, one of them a member of the same student council he had belonged to in his healthier days.

Only healthier days; he never truly had "healthy" days.

The fact that the tree is now taller – taller than me, its trunk far thicker than my own body – tells me more about the passing of time than my own face ever could. I never age; I look the same now as I did when I stood here in the rain when the tree was planted. I can remember the funeral quite clearly; it rained hard, hard enough to soak through even my thick red wool coat. I remember that some people found that coat inappropriate for a funeral but even then I was not asked about it at all. I was an invisible girl in those days, more invisible than I am now in my infamy.

And despite that heavy rain, despite the drops that slipped into my eyes as if to mimic the tears I certainly was not going to cry, the smell of smoke was invasive. We could all smell it though we all tried to pretend that we could not; the smouldering ruins of the building not so far from where we stood were more invasive than that of course. Sometimes I think I can still smell that loss of a building; indeed, now if I turn in the direction of "Nemuro Memorial Hall" I can even see it for what it truly is.

A smoked and blackened ruin.

The funeral was short for that reason, I think. That they couldn't go on ignoring the burnt husk. The funeral of Chida Mamiya wasn't the only funeral that these people had to attend, after all; there were joint and separate services for the hundred dead boys of the unspoken Tragedy. My brother granted them that much, you see; there were funerals and services before he took their bodies and interred them below that dead building with the imaginary creature he would eventually call Mikage Souji. As a joke, of course. Our honourable shadow indeed.

Yes, there were services, and then they were gone. Nobody remembered any of them ever again, and since my brother kept their bodies his illusions hold true even now. That is why Chida Mamiya is buried here beneath this tree; we must keep him on these grounds to weave such illusions to control our shadow of the Memorial Hall.

Mamiya is still here, because I can feel him.

Mamiya is remembered, however. I think it is because he did not die in the fire that my brother had to cover up to avoid drawing attention to the games he plays here. Mamiya died the night of the fire, as I understand it – I was not there to witness this passing – but it was simply a surrendering to his terminal illness. I did hear afterwards that his doctor was surprised that he had lasted that long in the first place.

There was eternity inside Mamiya, perhaps. He grasped it for awhile and then it slipped from his grasp…sands through an hourglass, the crumbling of dried flowers into dust.

I don't bring flowers to this grave, though there are remnants of flowers past here that assure me Mamiya is definitely remembered. The students currently attending the academy aren't aware of this grave so these flowers must come from his ageing friends and his remaining relatives. Though his funeral was a quiet affair there were enough people there to assure a person of Mamiya's simple popularity among his peers and his teachers. Though he regularly missed school he was a member of the student council in his last year at Ohtori. In fact, he was at school right up until three months before his death.

It was not until the arrival of Nemuro Souji that he was taken so ill that his sister removed him from his classes, from his school life. He would never return to it; his eventual destination would be and is the grass I am running my fingers through now.

The timing was coincidental; I do believe sometimes that it was in some measure the sorcery of my brother and myself that kept Mamiya alive long enough to weave the web we created for Professor Nemuro. Of course my brother did not expect this to happen in the beginning. He brought Nemuro into the game expecting him to bring the castle into existence. I think he did actually hoped that Nemuro would be able to ascend to the castle, though he did not place all his bets on that happening. All his eggs are never placed in one basket, for he wishes the shells to crack of their own accord, not shatter from a fall.

Still, he was something of a realist, my elder brother. You see, it is one thing to create a belief that creates a floating upside down castle, and it is entirely another to be able to enter such a belief. Nemuro could not enter the castle and thus his spirit sword was useless to my brother as an implement of destruction towards the Rose Gate.

I do remember all three of them, the three of them from those days. Chida Tokiko, Chida Mamiya, Nemuro Souji. Each very different, and each drawn to the others so that they formed a strange family that my brother and I have exploited to our advantage. We exploit everything around us, of course; I remember actually listening in biology class one afternoon to a lesson on viruses, and thinking that my brother and I act in much the same way. We take our host to spread our illusions and often, we destroy that host. We need to make sure that Tenjou Utena will bring forth a spirit sword capable of breaking the Rose Gate, you see. The only way to do this is to test her.

Mikage Souji, the shadow of Nemuro Souji, is our current host.

I think Nemuro is still here, the way Mamiya is. Tokiko is of course gone; I believe that she is still alive even now. In the past she has visited Ohtori once a year on average, often to make a bequest on the behalf of her wealthy husband. The bequest is always used for scientific equipment and renovations or additions to laboratories, for it was science that her brother loved the most. His name is never mentioned, naturally; in a different school, perhaps there would be a sort of memorial to Chida Mamiya. A plaque outside a laboratory, a scholarship for students excelling in chemistry or biology.

In Ohtori, however, Mamiya has only an unmarked grave and a constant presence in the form of me.

I don't come often to Mamiya's grave, but occasionally I am drawn here. It happens most often after I leave the presence of Mikage Souji; I feel a desire to commune for even a second with the spirit whose earthbound form I mock with this dark-skinned, pale-haired shadow of the boy he really was.

I am not sure of the nature of the relationship that once existed between Mamiya and the professor. I am sure that his sister does not know; perhaps my brother does, but he is unlikely to tell me if I ask. I could not be sure he was telling the truth even if he did tell me something at all.

These days the relationship is more obvious to me. In the days of Nemuro, however, I played only a minor role in the lives of those three. I never truly met Nemuro himself – which is to a benefit now – and I only vaguely knew the Chida family. Though a student council existed then as it does now the game was very different. The duelling arena itself did not exist, and the Rose Bride had not been created for this school as of yet. The only students privy to the goal of "revolutionising the world" were the hundred boys working on the eternity project.

Still, I had met Mamiya several times. He was a year below me in school, technically speaking, though he was so intelligent that he was almost finished his high school education. He might have been a sports team member if not for his illness, but it was that illness that kept him in quieter after school clubs such as the ones I belonged to.

Because of my constant association with flowers I of course belonged to an Ikebana club; Mamiya was there as well and though we rarely talked properly he was always kind to me, always asking my advice on arrangements and occasionally offering me a suggestion as to my own work. That was what little I knew of the child whose life I now lead as if it were my own.

I did not see him after he left the school, when he became bed-ridden. That was when Nemuro entered the equation so that my brother could exploit the emotions he knew lay hidden in the computer-like man. He gave Nemuro – though not an orphan as Utena is, he was isolated from his fellow man by his phenomenal intelligence – the family the man did not even know that he had been longing for. That is what Mamiya became to Nemuro – his son. His son and Tokiko's son, for he loved her desperately.

That love has been transferred to Mamiya now. I don't know when it happened, though from what I heard of the "accident" at the hall, Mamiya had been there, and he had been brought there by Nemuro. What Nemuro was doing with Mamiya at that hour of the night I have no idea, though I have no doubt my brother had a hand in it all.

But there is something between Mamiya and Mikage now, and even though I am the one who plays Mamiya I cannot profess to understand what it is. He does not touch as my brother does but he does not treat me as a simple friend. Mikage is a very different man to Nemuro, of course; he is charismatic and he is charming, and he is not at all cold. He openly flirts with this child that I pretend to be, openly displays affections that, while I do not believe them to be unnatural in a wider sense, find them unnatural to the professor I had vaguely known in the days before the fire.

It is hard to pretend to myself that I do not enjoy the company of the professor, all guilt and uncertainty aside. Oh, I do feel my pangs of guilt, for after all even when – or perhaps if – Nemuro is given a chance to graduate from Ohtori Academy, he will never be the same man. He may remember it all, he may remember nothing at all; he may be haunted by obscure dreams or may simply slip into schizophrenic insanity. But he will still be free of us only physically. His life, emotionally and mentally, will not be the same.

That is enough to make me feel guilty…not only towards him, but towards all the people we have ruined…and when I look into those blue eyes of my only friend, those innocent, trusting blue eyes, I wonder if I can really go through with this all again. Perhaps I grow soft in my old age, but perhaps what I know of Nemuro reminds me far too much of Utena, and seeing Nemuro, in the form of Mikage, destroyed before me makes me think…that I…I…

I press my fingers into the grass, knowing – though I know just as well that I shouldn't – that I can feel the gritty ashes of Chida Mamiya embedded in the soil anchoring the dark blades to the earth below.

"He did love you, you know." I can hear the wind sigh, the whisper of the rustling leaves above me. "I know that you wondered…and I know that you believed for the longest time that all he wanted from you was your health, simply so that you could help him win your sister, but…"

The strangest thing, perhaps, is that I don't feel strange at all, speaking to a boy who is dead. A boy whose "face" I wear even though I know very well there is little physical resemblance between us at all. It some ways it lessens the little voices at the back of my mind, speaking to Mamiya thus. After all, it is only my presence here that is making that strange man (for he was strange before we took him, we only made him stranger still) the slightest bit happy. I am sure that the spirit of this grave – ashes to ashes, dust to dust – at least appreciates that, if not the methods or the supposed outcome. After all, I do know that Mamiya loved the Professor. He was his elder, his sister's potential companion, his own potential father figure, perhaps even saviour.

Saviour of one who did not even wish to be saved in the first place…how many people in this world are like that? And how many of us truly do not wish to be saved…?

"Perhaps you hate me, for what I do to him," I say softly to the grave, the tree moving uneasily in the growing chill wind of the fading evening, "but when everything is over…when he is of no use anymore…we will abandon him." The leaves shudder briefly in the breeze, settle again with my sigh. "It is the least we can do for the both of you."

The grass is damp, and I can feel the moisture seeping into the material of my uniform. Like my dress, only different. In some ways I feel like more of a prisoner in this boy's uniform than in the Bride's dress.

Sitting here under this tree, the evening beginning to turn to night as the sun sinks, I wonder if it is only melancholy that makes me feel this guilt. For surely my brother has never felt such a thing.

I hear footsteps ascending the hill, but I am not afraid of the devil of whom I speak appearing. The steps are confident, but they make too much sound to be those of my dark brother. My brother moves like velvet, coming in silence and leaving in like, for he plays such games with a cleverness that exceeds all others. I have watched Kiryuu Touga try to mimic his manner and fail, for he does not seem to understand that a failure is not black, in much the way that a victory is not always white.

These steps are quick, clever as the one who creates them in the twilight comes to stand behind me. They only seek me out, for they have no idea of whose grave this truly is.

"I thought you didn't like to come outside, Mamiya…?"

He has changed with the times that never really passed, of course. His words are confident in a way that they never were before. Back then, I know from others that they were forceful only in their cool cadence. Now, they are forceful with the strength of the made-up personality of the person behind them.

Still, they are slightly hurt. I can hear as much, and I knew that if I were to turn, I would see that faint hurt reflected in those peculiar eyes. Shall I be dramatic, compare the colour to the sheen of fresh blood? Or shall I be more accurate and compare it simply to the darker rays set off in the sky by the sinking sun?

I do not turn, and I simply press my long – slightly longer in this form – fingers actually into the dirt, feeling the ash more strongly…feeling him more strongly as I do so.

Am I the only one that can sense in the air the melancholy scent of a burned stone building, or can he sense it too? Is that why he seems so loathe to be here, something I hear even though I do not see?

I feel his form kneel down beside me, catch sight of him as his jacket comes into view, a blue made faintly more purple by the setting sun in the distance, the sun setting behind this hill we both kneel upon. And though I do not turn to him even now, I feel his long fingers move to rest gently over mine. They are not static as mine are, buried deep enough in the gritty soil so that my nails are concealed. No, his fingers move even as his entire hand does, silently seeking to coax my fingers from the dirt, to come back inside with him, to return to the darkness that he had, only that two mornings previous, asked me to leave.

The soil is still damp from the rain.

"Come inside, Mamiya," he cajoles me gently, the tone almost like that of a father's…it would have been, if not for the almost indistinct sensuous undertone of the movement of his skin against mine. "You will catch cold, and you're not strong enough to fight off such infections." I hear a faint echo of laughter in his words though he does not voice such a gesture aloud. "Not yet, at any rate."

Is it normal, I wonder, to be able to look up at another and smile so innocently at the mention of one's own impending murder? Particularly while one is standing on a grave, in the guise of the one interred there? Ah, such peculiar situations my brother has woven into his tapestries… "Sempai."

Then again, I don't suppose that "normal" is ever a word that could be applied to one such as myself. To one such as my brother. To ones such as Utena, such as Nemuro, such as…the lost prince, wandering enchanted forever in a castle that does not truly exist.

"Mamiya?" Such concern in his words now, echoed in those remarkably red eyes; I suppose that he does see the faint sheen of tears over my own green. Ah, but that is one thing I do appreciate about the façade I play out as Mamiya; the weight I carry may be exposed. Anthy is static, Anthy has no feelings but those that The One Engaged imposes upon her. Mamiya is changeable, Mamiya carries only feelings of melancholy hope and devotion to the only person who gives him that hope. "Mamiya, what's wrong?"

And how should I begin…? "There is nothing wrong at all, sempai, at all, at all." My spoken words seem to echo those that are unspoken -- …for how should I tell one such as you of my secret, that I am not the one you love…that not even the boy whom I mock with this façade is the one you truly love…? Mixed memory and desire! Do I dare disturb this make believe universe of yours…? – but I do not believe that he is listening.

No, instead his hands tighten about my own, pulling the dark-skinned fingers from the ground as if pulling out a delicate flower by its roots. Such a peculiar thing to do. Maybe the transplanted flower will last longer that way, but when it does die, there will be nothing left of it at its original home but a few scattered petals and the ashes of something that once resembled itself.

Looking into those concerned eyes, I do feel something within myself break. Oh, so strange, to feel such things…I had truly thought that even as Mamiya I could not hurt as I do now. But Anthy…even Anthy hurts now. I thought all my pain was riddled with swords and trapped at the Ends of the World, but Mamiya – and now Anthy – feel that pain. It is simply because they make me remember. In both of these brides I play, I feel that pain.

I feel it because those who seek to save me remember what it is that needs to be saved.

It is when I see the abiding love in Mikage's eyes – even if that love is a twisted and magnified love that had been fully intended for another in its original configuration – that a part of me cries. A part of me that I believed – or at least, chose to believe – dead comes to life only to stand up in the open coffin and weep openly in sorrow.

There is love there, but that is not what makes me weep. Not even in the knowledge that below our damp knees in the still-damp soil there are ashes that deserve at least a form of that love makes me weep.

No, it is the simple knowledge that when I drop this face, that when I walk away from this strange-eyed, strange-minded man, there is another person who looks at me and loves me.

Wishes to set me free.

Mikage is gently pulling me to my feet, wrapping one arm about my slender waist as he draws me into his side. I fit there so well, though I know that is simply because this body was made to do such a thing. I wonder if the ashes below our feet ever made a being that fitted so well into the arms of this honourable shadow here beside me.

"Come and tend to your black roses, Mamiya," he says to me tenderly as he begins to guide me inside. "And as you do, I will tend to you."

"For am I your rose," I murmur quietly, more to myself than him, and I sigh. "Your rose upon the rood of time."

Mikage – my shadow of Nemuro – seems perturbed by what was somewhat purposely a disturbing comment. "A rood, Mamiya?"

I lean into him a little further, feeling the tiredness of two personalities clouding my thoughts. So hard to stay awake, sometimes, when you live two lives in one day. "I am merely recalling poetry, sempai," I tell him gently. "I am simply tired, and I need my rest."

He is smiling at me gently as he leads me inside, to the hall that is burned halfway to the ground and yet is not. The courtyards and walkways are empty, of course; I would not have come outside in this guise if I knew that they would be otherwise. Mamiya exists only for Mikage now, after all.

"You won't need to sacrifice yourself at all, Mamiya," he surprises me by saying as we walk carefully along in the dying light, our shadows low before us. "I will save you myself, and you need only wait for me to do so. And I will – for what are you if not everything to me?"

He is still smiling that strange smile at me; it is so soft and caring, so unlike Nemuro. I do not think that is was bothers me the most. I am not even particularly bothered by the thought that I can not sleep even when I return to the burned out husk of a building that stands yet, that I will have to return to Utena and try to explain where I have been.

No…I think I am more bothered by the fact that there are accolades in that smile, esteem for the strong young man he sees in this frail young body, and they do not belong to me. There is love there, and it does not belong to me.

But even when I feel guilt for that, it is worse when I consider that I abuse the accolades – the love – in smiles that are, indeed, meant for me alone.

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