AN: Okay, I'm going out on a limb here, since this story will probably only appeal to people who are fans of both Shoujo Kakumei Utena (Revolutionary Girl Utena) and X-Men: Evolution. None of my other stories come into play here, so we're starting from square one. This story is set after the end of the Utena anime series. Jean and Scott are in their second year of college, Kitty is a high school senior. With luck this will make sense and not be the stupidest thing I've ever thought of.
"Let's live our lives heroically, let's live them with style…" –from the opening theme of Shoujo Kakumei Utena
It was like walking into Rome, or at least, like what she imagined walking into Rome would be. In the morning sun, the white was so bright that it nearly blinded her. She climbed the stone steps from the dormitory section to the main campus and the view of the hills took her breath away. Green hills set with white buildings, vibrant color, and everywhere the smell of roses which she still hadn't gotten used to, even after living there all summer playing catch up with the curriculum.
The Academy had bewitched Xavier, with its soft and cunning promises of a strict non-discrimination policy, an eagerness to be the most mutant friendly private preparatory and university in the world, starting with its U.S. campus in the north of New York. Kitty could see how Scott had been so easily won over, and soon after him Jean. She'd been shocked when Xavier had transferred the rest of the main team as well, but suspected that the increasing impatience of the Bayville Board of Education had played a much more influential role than beautiful architecture.
"There are three others, you know," a voice said at Kitty's right. She turned to see a boyish looking girl who looked like she was around twenty or so, but something about her seemed so much older. Her clothes were well pressed, a black and white uniform with clean lines, but her short hair was vivid bubblegum pink.
"Three other what?" Kitty asked, fidgeting with her own uniform's puffy sleeves and short skirt.
"Three other campuses," the girl replied. "Three other Ohtoris. At the one in Tokyo, it seemed like summer year round. In Marrakech, they say its always springtime, in London, always autumn." A faint smile came to the girl's lips, and a faint pain crept into her eyes. "Wasting away, one fair day after another, feeling like the summer would never end."
"Sounds nice," Kitty said sincerely. The smile slipped off the girl's face.
"Winter is all that's left for anyone now. In summer you lose track of the time. In winter, you lose track of your place. Though I dare say you've lost track of both."
Kitty turned as the clocktower's strident bells began to chime out nine.
"Oh no," she muttered. The girl smiled again, but with that same sickly pain in her eye.
"Hurry now," she said, and walked down the stairs. Kitty ran off to class as fast as her legs could move.
"She reminds me of someone," the girl said.
"Who?"
"My first girlfriend."
In winter you lose track of place, in summer you lose track of time…
"What do you lose in spring and fall then?" Kitty murmured aloud.
"In spring, one loses all sense of reason," a voice replied. "In autumn, all sense of compassion. A very good question, Miss Pryde."
Kitty looked around to see that her math class had emptied out, and only she and the teacher, Kaoru-sensei, remained.
"Oh geeze, I'm so sorry, I must've spaced out," Kitty said, leaping up and scrambling to gather her books. The teacher smiled kindly.
"Please don't worry, Miss Pryde," he replied. "I'd sooner see you lost in thought than found in the lack of it."
Kitty smiled, though she wasn't at all sure what he meant, and left the classroom. As she moved into the white light of the courtyard, she heard a voice call her name. She turned, but couldn't find the source.
"Kitty!" The voice called again. A shadow fell over her as two people approached. She shielded her eyes from the sun and the figures came into focus.
"We've been looking all over for you!"
Kitty hadn't seen Jean and Scott since they last came home for winter break. They'd seemed different then, and they seemed even more so now. They were dressed in white uniforms, Jean's trimmed in jade green, Scott's trimmed in red. Instead of his old, sleek and sporty sunglasses, Scott wore ones which were perfectly round with metal shields on the sides, like turn of the century welding goggles. Kitty could actually see his eyes for the first time behind the thin red quartz; they looked as though blood colored smoke was rising from the irises.
Jean looked as though she'd taken her hairstyle straight from Pride and Prejudice; the red of her hair was all pinned to the top of her head, except for a curled tendril on either side of her face.
"Wow… you guys look… different," Kitty said. The two gave each other knowing smiles.
"Ah yes," Jean said.
"The uniforms," Scott added.
"We joined the student council our second semester."
"Oh," Kitty said. They sounded different too, speaking in tandem with deceit in their voices. It was so strange, she couldn't recall who had spoken each time. "That's great. Have you seen Rogue around at all?"
Their eyes hardened.
"Actually, it's Maigo now."
"Rogue was no proper name for a lady."
"Oh. Cool. So have you seen her?"
"You know Maigo," Scott smiled.
"Likes to keep to herself."
"Right," Kitty said nervously. "So how are you two?"
"Fine."
"Wonderful," Jean added. "We wanted to invite you to the fencing tournament of Thursday."
"Fencing?"
"Bigger than football here," Scott smiled.
"We're in the beginners' trials," Jean said. "For foil."
"No, I'll totally try to make it," Kitty replied.
"That's great," Jean said.
"It's so great to have you back with us," Scott added. Kitty gave a little shiver as they turned and walked away. After class she'd have to find Rogue. This place was far too strange these days.
Kitty shared a room with another sophomore named Lily Laurie, who would sometimes strike her as the only normal soul in all of Ohtori. She had red hair, but it was real red, not blood colored like Jean's, and it was curly and tended to frizz. She exploded in freckles after ten minutes in the sun, and sang off key in the showers. She looked up as Kitty walked in through the door of the room they shared and shut it behind her.
"Rough day at the office, dear?" Lily asked from behind her book on the top bunk. Kitty rested her head against the wood with a thump.
"You have no idea. I really hope this place doesn't turn me into a weirdo too."
"Hey, I'm as normal as normal can be!" Lily said. Kitty tossed her bookbag in the corner and flopped onto the bottom bunk.
"Not you, ditz, my friends from Massachusetts. Jean and Scott. I just ran into them for the first time in months and they're like, totally different people."
"College does that," Lily said from above her. "You think you'll be friends for life, you believe them when they say they'll stay in touch, but everyone drifts apart."
"We were all really tight once," Kitty murmured softly. "We were a team."
"It happens, Kit."
"They started acting super weird when I asked about my old roommate."
"The goth chick?
"Yeah. When I asked about her, they said she'd changed her name to Maigo."
Lily snorted from the top bunk.
"I think they were teasing you, Kit," Lily replied. "Maigo's an Ohtori urban legend."
"What?"
"There's this big empty dorm, it's been being renovated as long as I've been here, but I never see anyone working on it. About a year ago people started saying they'd seen a ghost or a monster in there, and started calling it Maigo."
Kitty lay there in silence for a moment.
"What's it called?"
"Flandreau Hall. It's on the top of the hill next to the stadium. Oh, are you going to the fencing tournament on Thursday?"
Flandreau Hall…
"Yeah," Kitty said. "I'll be there."
Later that day, Kitty sat staring out the window in history class, much as she had that morning in math. Unfortunately, Professor Arisugawa was nowhere near as forgiving as Professor Kaoru had been.
"Miss Pryde," the cold voice rang out, piercing her reverie. Kitty looked up guiltily, and Professor Arisugawa fixed her with a chilly glance. The rest of the class knew better than to giggle at Kitty's misfortune, less they share in it as well. Professor Arisugawa continued.
"I realize that in this country it is customary to drive students into a stupor with Eurocentric perspectives on history. However, if you would lend me your attention, perhaps you will not find the more expanded view quiet so tedious."
She turned back to the board and resumed her chalk-rendered diagram of the power hierarchy in feudal Japan.
Kitty took diligent notes through the rest of class. Professor Arisugawa never failed to finish exactly on time; as soon as she spoke her last words, the bell would ring, and today was no exception. With great trepidation, Kitty approached the professor's desk as the others filed out.
"Professor Arisugawa…" Kitty began softly.
"Unless we are in the presence of other faculty or my class is in session, you will address me as Juri-san."
Kitty was taken aback by the young teacher's sudden statement. Juri looked up and locked her in place with a sky blue stare.
"What is your question?"
"What do you know about Flandreau Hall?"
"I am told it is under renovations," the teacher answered.
"But no one's ever there."
"What would that mean?"
"No renovations are currently going on if no one's there to do them," Kitty said automatically.
"Which means that whosoever claims that they are…"
"Is mistaken."
"Or?" Juri prompted.
"Or lying."
"Why?"
"So that no one finds out why it's empty. Is it really haunted?" Kitty blurted out. She blushed, expecting Juri to laugh at her, but with a calm face the teacher replied,
"There is more than one kind of haunting. And there is more than one kind of ghost."
"Who is Maigo?"
"Perhaps Maigo is one kind of ghost. Names have meaning, perhaps if you discover that, you'll discover what this ghost wants."
"It wants something?" Kitty said, astonished by the strangeness of her conversation with this terrifying woman.
"Everyone wants something, Kitty-chan," Juri replied with uncharacteristic warmth. For the first time, Kitty noticed the beautiful gold locket resting on Juri's breastbone.
"If I went to Flandreau Hall, would I get in trouble?" Kitty asked in a hushed voice.
"That would depend on if you got caught," Juri said, all warmth vanishing. "But more importantly on who caught you."
Juri stood up and gathered her papers into her satchel.
"We're nearly late for supper, Miss Pryde. Come, I'll walk you."
One of Ohtori's strangest practices was the mandatory presence of each student and staff member in the enormous marble lined banquet hall for dinner each night. The board sat at the center table on a raised platform, with the staff to their right and the student council to their left. Below them, the rest of the student body sat at long tables, one for each year, grade two to university seniors. Fourteen tables stretching from one side of the room, which was about the size of a football field, to the other, displaying the students to their authority and vice versa.
At this first dinner of the new semester, Kitty found it an entirely new experience. Over the summer, the hall was sparsely populated, the platform only occupied by the skeleton crew of faculty who taught summer school. Now that the board and the council had reconvened and the rest of the students had returned, it was a majestic sight.
The council wore their white uniforms with colored trim, the faculty whatever they chose, and the board uniforms similar to the council in colors of their choosing.
"Who is that?" Kitty asked Lily as they sat down.
"Who's who?" Lily replied, glancing around.
"The woman in the middle at the board table."
"That's Chairwoman Himemiya," Lily answered. "She's in charge. Like, really in charge."
Jean caught Kitty's eye from the council table and raised her water glass slightly. Kitty smiled wanly back, uneasy at Jean's ability to hone in on her in such a crowd.
"Don't worry, Kitty," Jean's voice said in her head. "Now that Scott and I are back, we'll take good care of you."
Kitty looked down at her plate, wishing she could vanish into the crowd, use her powers and sink through the floor, hide intangible in the dirt below. Then, everyone turned to look at the Board's table as Chairwoman Himemiya stood up. She surveyed them all with dark jade eyes behind large round glasses, her waves of violet hair were held at the base of her neck with a clip, and the uniform she wore was black. She smiled and spoke.
"Welcome, students, to Ohtori Academy. If this is your first semester with us, we're glad to have you, if you're returning to us, we're glad to have you back. I thank all of you for indulging me by joining me for dinner every evening. I would like to take this opportunity to introduce you to the distinguished members of the Academy's governing board.
"To my left, Miss Kanae Ohtori, vice president of finance and management, Miss Kozue Kaoru, vice president of external affairs, and Professor Touga Kiryuu, liaison to the Student Council. To my right, the academy archivist Kyouichi Saionji, Professor Juri Arisugawa, vice president of academic affairs, and Professor Miki Kaoru, vice president of student life.
"I sincerely hope your stay at Ohtori Academy is an enjoyable and enriching time in you lives."
With that, she sat down, and the staff started pushing trolleys between the tables and serving.
Kitty craned her neck. She was at the table for high school seniors, Rogue should have been at the one right behind her, for University freshmen. She scanned up and down the table, but the only anomaly she observed was an empty chair.
"You know Maigo," Jean's voice said in her head. "Keeps to herself."
Kitty turned back around in her seat. The staff had served up a potato and leek soup as the first course, which Kitty consumed as quickly as she could without being stared at. As progressive as Ohtori Academy's thoughts on mutants may have been, they had completely missed the train on vegetarianism. Thus, Kitty frequently found that she was not as full as she'd care to be at the end of the meal. Lily slid her bowl of soup over, and Kitty handed her her plate of fried dumplings. Out of the corner of her eye, Kitty glanced up at Scott and Jean, who were whispering conspiratorially at the Council table. At the Board table, there seemed to be deep tension between the three officials to the Chairwoman's right and those at her left.
"What's with everyone here?" Kitty muttered.
"What do you mean?" Lily replied with a mouthful of dumpling.
"Aside from the overall weirdness everyone exudes? Well, let's start with the hair. Green, orange, blue, violet, blue again, primary red, and okay one blonde. And I ran into a lady with pink hair this morning. Is everyone but us working for Manic Panic, or in a band or something?"
Lily smiled.
"Oh you should talk, you're the poster child for superheroes anonymous. Tell me the truth, did you beg them to let you wear your spandex and leather to class?"
"Just cause you have a point doesn't mean you don't suck," Kitty muttered.
AN: Marrakech = a city in Morocco.