Chiaroscuro: Of Light and Shadows


By Gabi (pinkfluffynet@yahoo.com)


Chapter Five – Who is John Galt?



ALL VISITORS MUST FIRST REPORT TO THE CHAIRMAN'S OFFICE


As the car idled just outside the main gate, Nemuro wondered exactly how many innocents had been caught by the sign alone. He certainly couldn't recall the large, fine signboard mounted neatly on the high marble wall at the entrance of campus, but then he couldn't recall entering or leaving Ohtori at all, so it wasn't all that surprising.


"It's always been there," Anthy answered demurely from the back seat and it took a full tick for Nemuro to realize that she'd answered a question that he'd only asked silently. Utena did not seem to notice.


Tsuwabuki leaned forward between the two seats to better see the sign.


"It's like a cruel joke, isn't it?" he asked, and then his eyes dropped and he crossed himself in Eastern Orthodox style, "It's one of those disturbing mockeries that he'd think is funny."


Nemuro raised an eyebrow as Tsuwabuki went through his holy motions, "I didn't know you were religious."


Tsuwabuki shook his head and then ran fingers through the hair that threatened to get in his eyes, "I'm not, but you, well, you have to do something."


"Well, we may as well do what the sign says," Utena remarked after a moment, struggling to refold the map of Denmark so it would fit neatly back into the glove compartment, "After all, we don't have anything better to do."


Nemuro choked at this, though he managed to disguise it in a cough. Had she taken all leave of her senses? Surely she could see that they needed to regroup and plan something. It didn't really matter what kind of plan it was at this point, they'd already arrived in the madman's lair by invitation. He seriously doubted they would be able to do much to level the playing field on that count, but at least they could gather a little information so they wouldn't face him blind. If they were very lucky then he'd invent some new game to play with stupid rules that he actually adhered to. Then, they'd perhaps have a chance at beating him, but it was suicide to mince on up to the top floor of the observatory and ask for an audience with no preparation at all.


Her words echoed back at him. If you knew this was a trap, then why did you come? The answer was simple: because she was his prince, beautiful and strong, and terribly, terribly innocent.


"Utena, don't you think it would be better if we took a little time to get cleaned up first? We have been in the car for over twenty four hours," it was Anthy again, sweet and unassuming, her voice laced with something he could not quite place.


Utena apparently considered this for a moment and then bit the side of her lip thoughtfully, "Well, I am feeling a little nasty and that does seem like a good idea, not that I want to get cleaned up just for Akio-san or anything. The thing is, where can we go? I can't recall that we passed any hotels or anything on the way here. Not even so much as a gas station."


We didn't pass anything other than freakish monstrosities, unknowable terrors, and that cyclopean church that has now vanished back to whence it came! Don't you think that's a little odd? Nemuro wanted to shout. It wasn't as if they could just pop down to the convenience store and buy some wet towelettes and a hairbrush to tidy themselves up with.


"I suppose we could go back to where I used to live," Tsuwabuki started slowly.


Nemuro shook his head sharply, "We cannot throw ourselves into Akio's grasp with no preparation. It would be as intellectually sound as ringing the Rijichou's doorbell."


"I know of a place we could go," Anthy reassured, her voice rich and smooth like buttermilk, with that same unknowable nuance, "A place that's quite safe from onii-sama."


Nemuro turned his head sharply, ostensibly so he could look at Utena, but quite frankly so he could study Anthy from the corner of his vision. What was she planning?


"Well, that's certainly better than nothing," Utena agreed, "Where is this place?"


"If we're going there, then I should drive," Anthy answered in such an unassuming manner that he almost didn't catch the import of her words. Almost.


"I didn't know you could drive, Himemiya," Utena sounded quite surprised, "That's great! You're more independent than I thought!"


At her words the rodent scrambled into the front seat with them. Nemuro drew back but Utena picked up the animal and ruffled his fur. From somewhere the little monster had gotten driving goggles and a white racing scarf. How could Utena not realize that this was freakish?


"She is not driving my car," Nemuro said flatly. There was no way he was going to trust his car and their well-being to a woman whose driver's license (if she even had one, which he doubted) was for the 'Ohtori' Prefecture and bore the cheerful signature of the Chairman of the Board himself.


"Come on, professor, it'll be fine! Besides, who's she going to bump, anyway? We haven't see another car since we got out of the city," Utena reasoned. She did have a point there. Unfortunately, just now they were coming upon a place that had at least one other car that they could run up against, and that car Nemuro strongly did not want to meet.


"Maybe you'd be less forgiving if the situation were different. Of course there's nothing to lose. It's not your car that she's going to be driving," he muttered back tersely.


Utena rolled her eyes exasperatedly, "Listen, if you have a better idea, then I'm game to hear it, but if you don't I say you suck it up and let Himemiya drive."


Nemuro looked skyward for patience before responding, "Oh, now that you've put it that way, how could I refuse?"


Utena scowled at his sarcasm and he sighed, defeated. He didn't have any sort of contingency plan so at the moment their best bet apparently did hang with the rose witch, although Utena seemed to have no concept of the idea that sometimes it is better to do nothing than to do something that is plainly ill-advised. He gave up his seat, if only to be away from the rodent, and was soon settled in the back seat again, opposite Tsuwabuki. Sinkingly he felt as if he was the third wheel which had suddenly joined the fourth wheel on a bicycle built sweetly for two. He did not entertain any delusions that he would be categorized as one of the two.


Anthy settled into his spot comfortably. She didn't even have to adjust his seat. They were close enough in height that it didn't matter. Nemuro forced himself to ignore her and instead focused himself on looking out the window.


He had expected something more monumental when they finally passed through the ancient wrought iron gates, a feeling of creeping doom, a premonition, something. Instead, he just felt somewhat lost, which he had been feeling (more or less) since the witch had first arrived on their doorstep some months ago.


She apparently knew exactly where they were going as she drove surely and without glancing about. For this at least, Nemuro was grateful. He had no desire to stop and ask for directions from the helpful faceless locals and this had nothing to do with his gender, rather with his sense of self-preservation.


On the cassette deck in the front of the car the track changed quietly. Ein Kleine Nacht Musik. Well, perhaps that was appropriate, if only in title, because his stomach began to flop in similar rhythm to the violins and flutes as he noted with growing discontent the serpentine road the witch had chosen. While he had no recollection of the world on the outskirts of this pocket universe, he knew this part of eternity's mock up as he knew the lines on his own hands.


Surely she wouldn't . . .


Even she . . .


And then they stopped and Anthy shifted the car into park delicately before pocketing the keys somewhere on her person. Utena was first out of the car, stretching her legs although they'd had quite enough aerobic exercise recently in the grand cathedral, in his opinion. Tsuwabuki scrambled out soon after her followed by the demure witch who refused to even face him. The rodent stayed behind a spare moment if only to waggle its baboon-like bare bottom at Nemuro in defiance. Nemuro refused to move, cheek still resting against the smooth glass of the window. He knew exactly where they were.


He would have stayed in the back seat of his own car, hands loose around clothing bar, for an unknowable length of time had Utena not arrived and unceremoniously yanked the door open and out from under him. He tumbled forward onto her despite his grip on the clothing bar, but she caught him in one arm with little effort. She was gesturing behind him with the other, waving animatedly in a wide arc.


"Professor, you'll never guess where we are," she assured, helping him to his feet. She provided a discreet shoulder to lean on, which he was glad for when he finally turned and faced the milky Greek revival facade he'd been dreading.


He coughed and his hand trembled, but he steadied himself and shifted his weight onto his own feet before facing the rose witch, resplendent in her persimmon pantsuit.


"This is the safe haven you've led us to?" he asked incredulously, folding his hands behind his back in the way he was fond of while calling down graduate assistants, "Perhaps we should've let Tsuwabuki choose after all."


The rose witch cast an idle look over her shoulder, apparently not expecting him out of the car so readily. She smiled benignly and looked, not as if she were justifying her actions, but rather explaining herself to a child.


"It's somewhere onii-sama would not expect. Because I have caught him off guard I can consecrate this ground. He will not be able to touch us here."


"Sanctuary," Utena murmured, and he looked back over his shoulder to find her eyes soft and unfocused. Perhaps she was remembering something.


He would not. He refused. It was a road he would not walk. It was no happy accident that the place the witch chose for their sanctuary was the burned out husk of a decade of duels that he – that Mikage had had a hand at setting afire. What she was playing at he still had no idea, and at the present he still could not hope to. Those verdant eyes, heralds of the abyss, wide, deep, and soul sucking and the silver spun lavender that burned like fire, like a sour-sickly-sweet drug in his nose. Those oceans of plum shifted violet, deep and heady that had swallowed him whole and spit out his remains. He felt like screaming. He felt like crying. Where was his prince then?


"Thank you, Himemiya," her voice was soft and near his ear. She laid a steadying hand on his shoulder.


Did you love me?


Of course, you idiot. Only you would ask a question like that and only you would ask it that way. Perhaps we should arrange for you to go back to grammar school so that you might learn your verb tenses better.


He squeezed his eyes shut for a bare moment, unwilling to show her more weakness that he already had and then steadied his voice, "Yes, thank you, Himemiya-san."


The witch smiled, presumably at both of them, although he had his doubts. She turned back to the facade of the building and kicked off her low cream flats and began to sing softly. It was a beautiful chant, high and airy and by the second round she had begun hand motions that followed the achingly beautiful rhythm. Light flared around her, billowing her hair up and haloing her and the building. As the light faded, slow, soft, and rhythmic, in a tattoo that he somehow knew matched her heartbeat, her bare toes splayed in the earth of the unkept flower bed which stood square center in front of the building and she spoke.


"I name you home. I name you sanctuary. I name you safe haven. Nemu -- "


"No," his head jerked up immediately, the mesmerizing spell of the song broken, "Don't call it that."


"Why?" asked Utena, puzzled, "It is your hall. You can't deny that."


He shook his head adamantly, "I refuse to be named a casualty before we even start this war. My name is Nemuro and I need no memorial."


He did not even imagine what kind of spells the witch could weave into the building if it shared his name.


"Then what'll we call it?"


He shut his eyes tightly and gritted his teeth, but it was not the witch or the prince who spoke next, but rather the herald of it all.


"Tsuchiya," Tsuwabuki spoke softly, fisting and unfisting his hands, "He deserves a memorial."


Nemuro opened his eyes and looked to Utena, lost against this name that rang no bells within his brain, either duelist or otherwise.


Utena was not looking at him. Her face went solemn as she nodded slowly, "Tsuchiya-san was the first casualty." She looked lost in a reverie again for a moment, but then she shook herself out of it and turned to face the witch again, who still stood poised, arms embracing and waiting to name. Utena nodded once, surely.


"I name you Tsuchiya Memorial Hall!"


It was as if the building let out a great sigh and as it did the witch seemed to shrink a few inches and it was only then that he realized that she had been floating a good three inches above the ground during her 'dedication.' As she settled back on her feet, she turned and slowly extended an arm, motioning them into the building. Utena brushed past him and beelined for the witch, offering more than one excited compliment concerning the abilities that she'd just displayed. Then she demanded the honor of carrying the witch into the building since, after all that "she'd have to be tired."


Tsuwabuki rushed to hold the door open and disappeared into the building after them, presumably to continue his duty, with the rodent capering about on his shoulder.


Nemuro was left standing alone outside the only protection anyone had offered him. He looked back at the car, doors all still standing wide, and briefly considered driving away.


If you knew this was a trap, then why did you come?


Because I love you.


...


And I don't trust her.


Besides, you need someone to be your strategist. Duels may be won through courage and skill alone, but wars require more sophistication.


Why did you come?

Because you need me.


...


...


Because I need you.


He sighed inwardly and closed and locked the car with his spare key. Casting one final baleful look at the ghost-white columned front, he turned and climbed the steps into the building that had once been the tomb of all his hopes and dreams.



It was just as he remembered: silent and terrifyingly empty, the thick carpet of the foyer muffling even the tiny sounds that he might have made. The receptionist's window was closed. No ghost of his one time paramour on eternal coffee break was still to be found in these halls. He'd dismissed her before having his 'conversation' with Utena concerning their differences and the lack thereof. He almost regretted dismissing her. Perhaps she might be able to provide some information. Then he cast that thought aside just as she had cast him aside previously. He no longer needed her. He'd found a stronger drug.


He turned his attention to the wall of his duelists, faceless photographs of all those who wished to protect their precious things, who desired a revolution denied them, who lived by the driving force of their memories. A photograph he'd never noticed before despite his previous years as tenant and master of the building drew his eye and he could not help but gently take it off the wall and fold it under his arm.


It was of a young man with pale gray-shaded hair sitting cypress-kneed on a stool and speaking to a girl with long silver hair who was sitting up in a coffin.


Thank you, Nemuro-san. I promise I'll see you again.


Down the hall from the receptionist's desk and to the right, by the window: the door to his office was still standing open, as he'd left it when he'd left for his final duel. He was the duel called self-actualization. Or was it self-delusion? Perhaps they were the same. He turned the gilt-framed photograph on his desk face down and put the new wood framed photo he'd brought from the wall of duelists in its place. It was a new world and he had a new sustaining memory. After staring at the back of the delusion that'd kept him strong for so many years he shook his head and shoved to the bottom of one of his drawers. Perhaps he'd give Mamiya a proper burial sometime soon, but not yet, not now. Now the best he could offer was an impromptu burial in discarded file folders.


Despite his best intentions to stay relatively still until Utena and Anthy finished 'washing up' he found himself moving again, following his feet down the hall and up the side stairs to the door of his former workroom. As he stood in front of the smooth walnut door and rested fingertips lightly on the frame he could see the room clearly, floor to ceiling with chalkboards covered in cryptic scribbling, the smell of chalk still heavy in the air and yellowing his fingernails. The door was locked. He knew it was. He'd locked it the day that finding the equations had no longer mattered because he'd found an easier way, a way that wasn't so poisoning, but that was moreso, just the same.


His shoulder ached where she'd almost broken his arm ten years ago and his soul ached where he'd been betrayed twenty years before that and everywhere was the heavy smell of chalk and in his pocket was the steady weight of a key that he no longer owned, a key to the door in front of him: a key to the key to the key to the door of miracles.


"Extra! Extra! Extra!"


He turned sharply and found a shadow cast on the wall behind him. She was slim, arms akimbo, feet spread wide as her shoulders and she sported a high ponytail that curled at the end in a way that defied gravity and physical law.


"I can't believe that you're back! I've been waiting for you, Mikage-sama. They didn't think you'd come, but I knew you would! Just wait until I tell them!"


This was wrong, somehow not cryptic or veiled enough. Surely there were some bizarre costumes or abstruse metaphors to pepper that last statement. What was going on when even the prophet spoke sense?


"My name isn't Mikage. It's Nemuro," he told the shadow.


Then he felt a gentle tug on his coat and turned to find a slim girl standing behind him, one hand still on her hip, mouse-brown hair still caught up in that obscene twist.


He blinked at the girl and then turned back to the shadow.


"I didn't think you talked to us. I thought that broke whatever code of ethics you abide by," he spoke softly, following the outline of her shadow with his eyes.


"Times are changing, Mika – Nemuro-sama. I'm so happy that you came back. I've always . . . you know, I've always wanted to talk to you, but before, well, I couldn't. I wasn't supposed to. I'm sorry," the shadow hopped from foot to foot and he finally turned back to the girl, whom he found was blushing, "I'm sorry. I haven't introduced myself! I mean, I'm sure you know who I am and all, but I promised myself I would be polite and now I haven't. I'm so terrible at this. Ambiku-san and Brigid-san are always threatening to throw me out of the club. My name is Cassandra. No last name. Only the special people get last names. You can call me C-ko. I'm the third, but then, you knew that. Heralding for you was my first big assignment. You really don't know what an honor it is to meet you. I hope you think I did an okay job. A-ko and B-ko wouldn't let me do anything else after that. I just had to assist them. They said it was too important for me," here she made a little face, "But I'm rambling. You must be exhausted, since you just arrived. I'll get the word out among the faceless that you're back. I can't wait to tell A-ko and B-ko. I'm so glad you're back, sir. You can certainly count on me for as long as it takes," finally out of breath, she saluted smartly and then clasped her hands behind her back, military fashion.


Well, here was one asset, certainly. It was unwise to underestimate the power that the shadow players had at Ohtori, although he had never known them to get directly involved in anything. Perhaps it truly was as she had stated earlier. Times were changing, rules were changing. The game was no longer the same.


"Thank you," he murmured quietly, "I appreciate your support."


She blossomed under his praise and looked as if she were about charge right into another monologue when suddenly she looked very troubled and touched her ear lightly where he noticed she was wearing an earpiece. She listened quietly for a moment before raising her eyes to his again.


"I'm sorry, Nemuro-sama."


"What?" he demand was sharper than he intended and she winced slightly. He repeated himself again, more gently and she shook her head.


"Out front. You should go see yourself."


He nearly fell over himself in an attempt to get to the front hall again, visions of horrors unnamable dancing in front of his eyes. When he finally burst through the main doors he almost collided with Utena who was shielding her eyes with her hand and watching something in the distance.


"What? What is it?" he stuttered, trying to regain his balance against the heavy carved door frame.


Anthy pointed in the same direction that Utena was straining and he found that if he squinted he could just make out a lavender tow truck and his own small black car. Utena handed him a slip of paper. He turned it over and read it before laughing mirthlessly as he recalled Tsuwabuki's earlier observation. It was one of those disturbing mockeries that he would think was funny.


Their car had been towed for being parked in an illegal area.

He somehow did not think it was a coincidence that she had parked in the fire lane.


"It's all right," she intoned absently, "We won't need it for a while anyway."


The rodent on her shoulder nodded in agreement.


"After all, we can walk to the Observatory," said Utena thoughtfully.


He shut his eyes as he slumped against the door frame weakly.


"We only need the car if we want to leave."


*


To Be Continued in Chapter Six

For those curious who don't necessarily have a head for names, Tsuchiya is Ruka's family name.