Author Notes: This is a short piece from Anthy's perspective, taking place in the last episode of the TV series. Mother of spoilers. Many of the conclusions drawn here are open to debate; this is just my own interpretation of the story. Feedback is appreciated, flames are welcome and will be linked to from many different locations, particularly if the flamer is semi-illiterate, as most people find such things highly amusing and self-validating. As the title indicates, this story was inspired by the opening song, "Rinbu Revolution", and may become a multiple chapter fanfiction in the future.
Take My Revolution
Everyone has forgotten her name. Less than a month has passed, and yet it is as if she had never been. Her once devoted admirers can no longer hear her voice, nor recall her smile. Those who bore the Rose Signet have only a vague recollection; their illusions are less restrictive than the rest, but just barely. Nothing is ever entirely real here, neither friendship, nor love. There is no truth in this fortress of illusions, this stronghold of the weak. We are all puppets here.
The puppeteer calls to me from his office. He smiles at me with his familiar, icy warmth, a predator desperately dependent upon his prey. He disgusts me. The Dios that I loved is gone. Worse than dead, he is replaced by a dark human shell masquerading as a man, hiding in his illusory playground, manipulating the children that play there, waiting for the day that he may once again seize the power he no longer deserves.
He, at least, remembers her well. He has no illusions but those he creates for himself. When he speaks of her, he does not speak her name. Names are powerful things; they grant identity, solidify existence. She does not exist here. My brother laughs at her failure. S he revolutionized nothing. Life at his academy goes on as it always has, and always will.
So he believes.
I smile inwardly. My absence will destroy him. My brother is nothing without his Rose Bride.
Her revolution has come. Her part is over here; it was loud, dramatic, impassioned. Thus is Utena. Now that we are separated, my turn has come. It will be quiet, subtle. Thus am I.
I'm leaving, dear brother, oniisama, my love. This game has grown old.
It's true, I am the Rose Bride of my own free will. And I am no longer willing. My prince unlocked the doors, but I must free myself from the tower. I can now walk on my own; no one need carry me.
I tell him this only in so many words. He will never understand. He refuses to try. I save my words for the one who waits for me, and place the useless glasses, the mask he forced on me for so many years, upon his desk, one of the few solid things remaining in the room.
As I walk away, the illusions dissolve-- my brother's control is slipping. My name echoes in the cavernous room as he cries out to me, over and over, rising in volume and desperate pitch. I pay him no heed. I have paid for my sins, the time for my brother's penance has come.
As my brother's control over the illusions of the office loosens, so does his hold on the Academy. Ohtori Gakuen will suffer, as do all in the initial wake of revolution, when reality begins to invade its walls. The fortress will be breached. Its inhabitants will diminish, age, become nothing more than everyday students and faculty at an everyday school. But, in the end, the souls within will become free, as I have been freed.
There is little for me to pack. The Rose Bride has need of few possessions. I leave the uniforms-- one, ruffled and girlish, a prisoner's uniform; the other, long and crimson and elegantly cut, the uniform of a slave-- carefully arranged on the bedspread for my brother to find. They are empty, lifeless relics of a time freshly past and forever lost. I take no material reminders. My memories are not fond, and I will never forget. All that I treasure from this day forth, I leave to seek now.
The threshold of this academy has been my border for years now, ever since my brother first came here to build up its walls, a parasite looking for a host. The decades have passed blindly-- I have forgotten how many years I have lived within these walls, never changing, never advancing, never growing, only existing, continuing. I take a deliberate step through the invisible barrier between the open gates.
I'm outside now, and the final curtain falls on the tragic comedy of the Rose. The charade is over. The façade discarded, my hair flows over my shoulders, unbound. The day is yet young and there are few clouds in the sky. The sun glints off of every surface, a hard, unyielding, shining world, the reality lost beyond the painted illusions of a broken prince. A world in which, somewhere, my love is waiting.
Wait for me, Utena....