Disclaimer: To Be-Papas go the spoils, including Shoujo Kakumei Utena and all related characters.

Author's Note: Shiori's POV. * . . . * indicates italics. Tense changes between one section and the next are intentional. The song quoted is a variant of the folksong "Polly Vaughn."

Title: Into the Looking-Glass (Part Five, Sub Rosa)
Rating: G

Category: Drama/Angst
Pairings: Nothing that isn't implied by the show.
Summary: Cast off by Ruka, can Shiori work her way back up from despair?
Warnings: None I can think of.
Spoilers: Through Episode 29 (Azure Paler than the Sky).

Sub Rosa

Part Five: Into the Looking Glass

The day after the night of the highway, the morning of our Duel, Ruka brought me a dress. A Rose-Bride dress, he called it. And roses. Twelve of them, mulberry-colored, to put in a clear vase by my window.

======

They say the reason birds fly into windows is that the reflections seem to them simply an extension of sky. They trust their future to an illusion.

I've seen many birds make this mistake--sometimes fatal--around Ohtori.

I am one of them.

======

CRASH.

I jerked into consciousness.

Splintered glass littered the dashboard across which I was lying. I lifted my aching head, blinking. *I'm in the Deputy Chairman's car. Did I crash? Was I driving? I'm not old enough--*

I straightened in the leather seat and caught a glimpse of my face in the rearview mirror: all scraped and smudged, hair tousled, Rose Bride tiara askew. I fingered rips in my ceremonial Bride's dress, and moaned.

A movement to my left; Tenjou-san and Himemiya-san together. I turned my head. There was Ruka, arrow-straight in his uniform. But his rose--my eyes slid to the blue rose petals on the tiles.

And when I called to him, his response was colder than the wind over the arena.

======

The next day, my wailing plea to Ruka, under the fascinated regard of the entire school:

"Ruka, wait! please! You're all I've ever loved! You're all that I have now!"

"Would you please let go of me?"                                                                                               

I gasped at his tone, but struggled on. "I don't know what I'll do without you! So please, please *believe me*!"

His voice went quiet. "What should I believe?"

"What?" I looked up at him, startled.

"What do you want me to believe?"

"That I love you more than . . . I love you more than anyone else!"

Ruka's face stayed set, but in his eyes appeared a sudden, murderous flame. He flicked my hand off his arm and strode off. I tumbled to the ground: a snapped branch, a discarded nosegay.

"Sempai. Sempai!"

He never looked back. I crossed my hands over my breast and keened.

======

So utterly alone.

There's no way I'm moving from this room.

They'll open the door at term's end and find my shell, dessicated, still curled around its memory of pain.

Alone. Forgotten, except for a few phone calls--one from my concerned Spanish teacher, one from an irritated-sounding counselor in the guidance office. I claimed illness; they didn't sound convinced.

But it's true--I'm sick to the heart.

I'm tethered to that phone. But there are no calls that matter. No answers to my agonized messages.

Distress calls. No response.

Pleading. No response.

Anger. No response.

Declaration of love. No response . . .

*I love you. Who am I without you? How can you make someone, and then unmake them, so carelessly?*

The brittle stalks of my Bridal bouquet have shed their last purplish petals.

I haven't cracked a schoolbook since that day. I'm living on odds and ends from my fridge and cupboard, sodas from the machine down the hall.

(Every midnight, I step out onto the walkway, one shade among the night's many. I flit to the machine; a can drops like a bell tolling. I wonder, walking back with it, whether I'd be able to read the label through the back of my hand--if I'm turning as invisible as I feel.)

It's maybe the fourth evening after the end of my world. I'm flat on my stomach on the floor of my room.

Steps approach down the walkway outside. Too light for a man's. Too surefooted for the hallmates on either side.

The footfalls stop. Squinting at the sliver of light below my door, I see shoes. Red-orange shoes.

Soundlessly, I get to my feet. I wait, hugging my middle.

Juri knocks.

*Spare me your I-told-you-so,* I think grimly. I don't move.

She knocks again.

As quietly as possible, I slide closer to the door. I set my hand on the knob, wondering if she's about to give up and leave. *Go. Please go.*

Juri knocks a third time.

I give the knob a savage twist and yank the door ajar. A harsh noise as it grates against the safety chain, which I've left hooked.

Even harsher is the sunset light bouncing from the windows across the way straight into my dark-accustomed eyes.

Juri has stepped back, just a little. She's as beautiful as I've ever seen her. Perfect, golden, poised: Balder to my Hoder, Persephone to my Hades. She enrages me. My voice comes out as a rusty growl.

"Juri-san, so it's you. What do you want?"

"Shiori--"

Damn her for sounding pained, for looking at me with eyes of concern. If there's something I'll never want, it's Juri's compassion.

"Did you come to laugh at me? You must be really happy now!"

"Of course not--"

 "You really are pathetic!" I'm almost panting with eagerness to let my fermented emotions pour through that crack in the door. "Did you expect me to cry for help on your shoulder?! Well, too bad, I'm not doing what you expect!"

With that, I thrust against the door, slamming it shut. I slump back against it as it vibrates.

I don't know why I think she'll start shouting at me, pummeling the other side. She doesn't; merely turns and walks away, heels staccato.

My fists clench and unclench, my body shudders and shudders.

*I could really have used that shoulder to cry on.*

Painfully, long minutes later, I push off from the door and move to my closet. I strip off my grubby nightgown, splash cold water all over.

After a few moments, I picture what I must have looked like to Juri. A worm, a slug under a rock. No, a centipede-type creature with mandibles waving threateningly.

 . . . My satchel is packed, my hair brushed; my face carefully washed, my cheeks pinched for color. I lean down to lace my shoes. I may not look perfect, but it will do for the library; I've got a lot of catching up to do.

*Of all my so-called friends, Juri was the only one who came to visit me.*

Just as I unhook the door chain, I stop in shock. Sounds are coming from the room next door.

*Isn't most everyone still at dinner?* I think in dismay. *Was someone listening to my outburst?*

Twanging noises. My neighbor Shiiko is probably sitting in her window-seat, messing around with her latest acquisition--a banjo. She doesn't usually rehearse her theatrical pieces in her room, but seems to be making an exception today.

Once she's done tuning up the instrument, she begins singing. Her voice is clear and carrying.

*Uncle, dear Uncle,

Have you heard what I've done?

Cur-sed be this old gunsmith

That made me this gun

For I've shot my own true-love

In the form of a swan.

*Uncle, dear Uncle,

Let Jimmy go clear

For my apron was wrapped round me

When he took me for a swan

And his poor heart lay bleeding

For Polly his own.*

I hurtle into the hall. I drum on Shiiko's door, screaming. "Shut up, shut up, SHUT UP!"

Before I'm done yelling, the door swings inward--it must have been poorly latched.

Shiiko's slender, thick-ponytailed form is silhouetted in profile against her window. She's set aside her banjo, perhaps in response to my demand.

After a moment, her head turns towards me. No doubt she's smiling in that creepy way of hers. She lifts her hands, makes them into a fluttering shadow-bird that takes wing against the last streaks of sun. Up, up--

"Baaaang," she says casually, and her joined hands drop.

I gulp and run down the hall, satchel smacking hard against my thigh.

======

I can't say things returned to normal with my emergence from my room. Those first two days, I barely said a word to anybody. Out of awkwardness, misplaced tact . . . or pity . . . nobody spoke to me either, except for a few necessary words involved in classroom tasks.

I developed an almost scientific interest in the cracks and textures of Ohtori's sidewalks. It was a pretty effective way to avoid accidental glimpses of indigo hair or red-gold curls.

Towards evening of the second day, though, I grew bolder. The dropping of the sun always seems to stir my sense of daring. And so, near dusk, I found myself facing the entry to the fencing hall balcony.

*Standing in my usual spot will help me think things over. The hall's sure to be empty now.* That was my excuse.

The door swung open noiselessly, and I stepped onto the gallery, turned towards the railing.

The hall was not empty.

Below and to my left shone two figures, still in their fencing suits, facing each other across a triangle of spectators' seats near the doorway.

Sound carries impressively in that space--perhaps the designers built in a sort of whispering-gallery. Short of leaving the room, there was no way I could avoid hearing their conversation.

Naturally, there was no question of my leaving.

Ruka, seated casually with his back towards me, spoke first, lightly. "What a surprise. You told me before to keep my hands off her . . . "

My own fists clenched.

" . . . and now you want me to take her back."

Juri's response was quiet but steady. "If it'll make her happy . . . "

I saw Ruka turn his head away, strained to catch his next words.

"Sorry, but I can't do what you ask."

He rose, and took a step or two towards the door, as though intending to conclude the conversation.

"Ruka!" Juri sounded . . . frightened? Desperate?

"I appreciate your friendship with her." Ruka kept his course for the door. "However, she's spoiled, pushy, and self-centered. Not to mention a liar!"

There's rarely any satisfaction gained from hearing someone sum you up precisely, coldly, categorically.

When you hear those words from a person whose touch made the world sing around you, it's like a swift injection of something lethal.

Time turned sluggish. Every place on my body which Ruka had caressed seemed to grow numb. *Presently,* I thought, *my throat will close, my lungs will shut down.*

Below me, my executioner took a few more steps toward the exit, then paused as though to deliver a final blow. A heavy dread grew within me, though what could be worse than what he'd said already?

"Who'd want a girl like that?"

A remnant of sunlight pooled around Juri as she stared towards him. Through my numbness, I noted she was shaking. "You son of a--who do you think you are?!" she burst out.

Ruka turned his head slightly in her direction. "You don't control me."

"What gives you the right to hurt her?!"

*Why,* I wondered dully, *does he seem to want to wound her? And why on earth does she still want to defend me?*

"My God, what a bastard you've become!" she was hissing at him.

*Strange that in all my time with Ruka, I detected nothing between them. But then, I also thought he--  well, I'm not the only one with a talent for improvisation, Tsuchiya-sempai.*

"And what about you?! Presuming to order others around!" Ruka shot back at her.

At that moment, I witnessed a transformation I hadn't seen since elementary school--Juri turning panther. With a cry, almost a howl, of rage she sprang at him, fist arcing towards his chin.

But Ruka was ready for her. He caught that flying hand, then the other as it flashed towards him. *At last,* I commented distantly, watching them grapple, *she meets a worthy opponent. Or a worthy--* I cut off the thought, just watched. Watched Ruka flip Juri against the wall, hold her writhing there.

" . . . I was thinking I'd like to go out with *you* now," Ruka completed my thought.

*Here's where she'll blush and yield to force majeure. It's as good as a movie.*

Juri apparently didn't know the script of that movie. She was still struggling. "Who'd want to go out with you?!"

"Because you love your fencing club's captain, don't you?"

*Don't you, Juri?* I trembled, clinging to the rail. *How can she still be fighting him? When the full strength of his passion is trained on her . . . *

That's when it hit me--the man below me was the true Ruka, a Ruka I'd never met. A Ruka who, just now, was not quite in control of his speech and actions. *This is Ruka in love.*

The thought should have pulverized what was left of my heart. Instead--how strange--it seemed to ease the numbness, just a little.

"Stop resisting," I heard him say as he lowered his face to hers. Her angry response was abruptly silenced, and after a moment her body stilled, pressed against his.

I closed my eyes. Not to protect myself--what was left of me to protect?--but to respect the privacy of their moment. *This, at last, is the turning point.*

My eyes sprang open, though, at a sudden clatter of noise. I stared at the change that had taken place. Ruka, with his back to me, was now several feet away from her and had lifted his hand to his lip; Juri was against the wall, hunched as though in pain, gasping for breath.

They stood that way a moment longer. Ruka was the first to stir. He straightened, gazed at her as she panted. Then he raised his hand--and let her locket dangle from it, chiming as it swung.

Juri looked up, touched her neck in obvious horror. "When did you--?!"

Ruka's only response was to let the necklace fall to the floor, and raise his foot over it.

 "Sto . . . stop it! Ruka!"

I'd never heard that pleading sound in Juri's voice before. It was as though she was begging for her life. Or someone else's.

He did not make a sound; his foot still hovered over the little heap of gold on the floor. Or was it descending?

Juri flew at him, one hand connecting with his cheek in a sharp smack. *Doesn't look like he was ready for it this time.*

The force of the blow sent Ruka slightly off balance. By the time he recovered, Juri had dropped to the floor and was cradling the locket to her breast, head down.

Ruka spoke. "I've changed my mind. I'll do what you want. I'll take her back."

Slowly, Juri lifted her face to look at him. My breath caught. I had never seen that look on her face--a look of rage and pain perfectly mixed.

"You hate me more than you can stand, don't you?" he said in a low voice.

Suddenly, I knew jealousy as I had never felt it before.

Not jealousy of Juri.

Of Ruka. For being able to call forth Juri's anger as well as her hurt. For summoning fierce-fighting Juri instead of pained-cold Juri. She has never lashed out at *me* with the full force of her rage.

I wanted to see her look at me that way, angry and alive.

Was my heart starting to beat again?

Ruka began walking towards the door again, his steps slow, almost like those of an old man. But he stopped when Juri spoke.

"Wait. Ruka . . . I challenge you to a duel. If I should lose, I'll do whatever you want. But when I win, you and Shiori--"

"Understood. You don't have to say it."

He passed through the door and was gone.

And I realized that Ruka, like me, was Juri's shadow. In both of us, she inspired despair.

And yet--and yet--

I saw Juri rise slowly to her feet, raise her hands to replace the chain around her neck. She stayed for a moment, head bowed, one thumb rubbing the relief of the pendant's face.

*I run my own thumb over exquisitely carved, inexplicably wet, petals.*

I blink. I lift my hand, gaze at my empty palm. My hand is barely visible in the gathered darkness, here in the upper reaches of the room.

*My thumb springs the catch of the locket.

*I discover an image of myself gazing off to the side. . . .*

Memories burst into me. How could I have forgotten it all?

*"Who'd want a girl like that?"*

Yes, who would want a girl like that?

A girl whose actions have so often been moved by jealousy?

A girl who once mocked her friend's pain, then pulled a sword out of her breast and left her lying on the floor?

Juri was walking through the doorway.

I almost called to her, said "A duel won't be any use. You can't make him love me when he loves you." But I held my tongue, and she, too, was gone.

======