Chapter 22: Aura's Words
'I can't believe she's gone,' Julius stood stunned. He sat back down on the bench, feeling a little shaky. He rubbed his face. 'Agh! What is going on?!' Julius screamed in his thoughts. 'How can she be gone? What happened? How long ago did she die? Was that why Utena came here? How long was Utena living by herself? What is-' Julius's many silent and unanswered questions were interrupted by a hand on his shoulder. He turned to Miki.
"Julius, you okay?" Miki asked, a concerned frown marring his handsome face. Julius could tell that his friend was genuinely concerned for him, but he saw that he was distracted.
"Yeah, I'm fine. Why don't you go find Utena? She probably needs some comforting right now and I doubt she would want that from me," Julius gave him a weak smile.
Miki seemed eager to go, but still he held back, wanting to make sure his best friend was okay. "You sure?"
"Yeah. Go, your girlfriend needs you," Julius lightly shoved him towards the door.
Miki nodded and ran out the door, leaving his forgotten kendo equipment behind.
Julius heaved a frustrated sigh and ran his hand through his hair. After sitting a moment with his head in his hands, Julius grabbed up his and Miki's kendo equipment from the bench next to him and, with everyone silently watching, strode out of the gym, a deep frown set into his face.
~*~*~
'I have to get out of here. I can't take it anymore! Why did it happen? Wasn't God listening to my prayers to keep everyone around me safe? Why does everyone around me always end up in the same state one way or another?!' Utena though fiercely.
Utena walked slowly around the corner of the hall and the echo of her footsteps quickened as she picked up the pace. Rounding another corner Utena broke into a run. 'I just want to ride the wind and let it carry me away from this place, away from this cruel world.'
~*~*~
A gentle, aqua-haired girl opened her eyes and looked at her expectant companion. She said softly, "She's coming this way," and she held up four fingers to indicated the seconds until the girl's arrival.
Her light-brown haired companion nodded and stepped around the corner, the serene girl following him.
~*~*~
Utena looked up and halted in her run, just barely stopping fast enough to keep from colliding with the boy in front of her. "H-Haruka! Michiru!" she gasped in surprise.
"Whoa!" Haruka took a step back, a look of equal surprise upon his face. "I think this hallway has a speed limit, you know," he grinned. Michiru smiled quietly. "Where are going in a hurry?"
"Uh--nowhere. I-I just have to get away from here," Utena gasped for breath. She looked down at the floor, trying to hide the forming of tears in her eyes that she couldn't hold back any longer.
"Utena?" She looked up to see that Michiru and Haruka both wore concerned expressions. "Are you okay?" Michiru asked.
"Why are you crying?" Haruka stepped forward and put a gentle hand on Utena's shoulder.
At his touch, Utena instantly recoiled. She pulled back and her eyes narrowed. Her face held a dark expression. Her eyes had turned a cold, icy blue color and her lips were pulled into a tight line.
Haruka and Michiru were startled. They had never expected Utena to look like this.
"Just-just stay away from me! Stay away!" Utena shouted and raced past them, flying down the hall with incredible speed and disappearing around the corner.
The couple's startled gazes had followed the upset girl and they now saw a trail of white rose petals appear in the sunlight that pooled on the hall floor, following the path Utena had taken. They both gasped when they saw the petals turn a crimson red and then a dark black before dissolving away, as it there had been nothing there before.
"What can this mean?" Michiru turned to Haruka in urgency.
Haruka looked down the hall. He turned back to his companion with a grave expression set into his face, "I'm not sure. But it seems the future that was foretold has just been altered."
Michiru looked down the hall. "Then we must go see her. Before anything else happens."
"Yes. Let's go. The sooner the better," Haruka agreed. He snapped his fingers and a flurry of blue petals swirled around them and they disappeared into thin air, the amazing performance of petals gone with them.
A moment later, Miki raced around the corner. He jerked to a halt in the middle of the hall, in the exact place Michiru and Haruka had just been standing. 'There's an aura here…something's fading away, but I can feel it. People I know were here,' Miki thought unexpectedly. He closed his eyes. A moment later he opened them again. Utena. He sensed that Utena had been here…but how? How was he able to tell? Was it because he loved her with his whole heart and soul? That must be it…there's no other explanation. Miki blinked. But there was still that little tinge of roses, different from what reminded him of Utena. It felt…feminine, yet masculine, at the same time. Two people? He closed his eyes. For a split moment, Miki thought he saw a swirl of blue petals surrounding two figures but the image was so brief that he hadn't been able to comprehend who or what they were. 'What's going on?!' Miki thought with confusion. 'Agh. I have a headache.' Holding his aching head, Miki hurried down the hall, determined to find Utena.
~*~*~
Untouchable white mist swirled around the two as they made their way up the cold stone steps, blind to where they were going, except for memories of countless climbs up these same stairs.
"Ah, you've returned," a quiet voice proclaimed to them as they neared the top. All they saw were the few steps in front of them and the mist around them.
"Of course we have, Aura. We need to know what went wrong," Haruka retorted, just as they reached the top of the staircase and came to rest on a platform in front of a higher platform with a large mirror and a beautiful young woman sitting beside it in a stone throne-like chair. The woman had the palest of green eyes and longest of jet-black hair that anyone could have ever had. Her hair trailed down the side of the chair and down the few steps it was surrounded by on the tiny platform. The mirror looked ancient, as did the wise look in the woman's eyes, although she couldn't have looked a day over twenty years of age.
The mirror was an old-fashioned, deep-gold color and shined like it always did, as if it had been polished a few seconds before. But no one had touched the mirror in ages. It held too great a penalty to the one it was not meant for. The silver of the mirror gleamed, but it held a strange sight. When one looked into an ordinary mirror, they would see themselves. But in this particular mirror, if a person looked into it, it would show nothing but a swirl of white mist, same as the enormous cloud Haruka and Michiru had just walked through.
"Nothing went wrong, Pisces," Aura always called them by their astrological signs. "Destiny is not set in stone. It is carved, little by little, each piece chipped away from the hard marble until a magnificent form emerges from it. Every little chip of the marble alters the final product."
"Aura, why must you to talk like that all the time?" Haruka asked the girl.
"Why must we all talk the way we do? Why must we live our lives in this way? It is the same answer, Pisces. We do not choose our destiny. Our destiny is controlled by one person," Aura said in her quiet, dreamy voice.
"Yes, the one person who was in great despair over something," Michiru said. "What happened to make it this way?"
"Ah, Aries, there were a number of things," Aura told her, giving her a small rueful smile. "It seems that the evil one from the past has reappeared once more." She gestured slowly to the mirror. The mist that swirled in the silver swished to the side and an image of a disgustingly familiar girl with cold dark green eyes and jet-black hair appeared.
"Sentra!" both Michiru and Haruka exclaimed in shock.
"Yes, the Dark Maiden has returned. Somehow her body was restored, just like the Princess's, and was brought to this time and place. It seems she wishes to destroy the Princess again," Aura said with slight urgency. "And with the return of her body, also returns her jealousy and greed. She desires the Prince again. But, she has not yet fully reawakened. And when she does…" Aura trailed off, her expression grave.
"Oh no," Michiru whispered in horror.
"Yes, Aries. And it is your duty to slow her own reawakening and make sure she does not delay the return of the Princess's spirit. If she prolongs the Princess's return…the world will be in great peril, this world…and ours," Aura said softly.
"Right," Haruka said. "We'll stop anything that threatens our world, even if we have to kill the girl."
"No, you must remember, Pisces, the killing of an innocent soul upon this Earth shall cause eternal damnation to the perpetrator in this life and the next, you know that," Aura warned.
Haruka's eyes narrowed. "I'll do anything to help the Princess! If it destroys my life and soul to do so, then so be it," he proclaimed.
"Haruka!" Michiru said to him harshly. "It won't do any good to the Princess if you are gone. We are the only ones left to protect her. You must wait for the right time."
"Aries is right, as usual. You must prolong the enemy's reawakening for as long as possible, for when she is reawakened, it is not known if she will have her powers as before. But one thing is certain. If her spirit returns, she will be difficult to defeat, very difficult," Aura said with a frown.
"And to even be able to have a chance to defeat her, we will need the Princess," Michiru made the thought that they had all been thinking verbal.
"Yes," Aura nodded. "The Princess will need her full powers to defeat her, so you must help her to awaken quickly, as soon as you possibly can."
"All right," Haruka said grimly. "We'll do our best."
"Good. And I shall keep track of the sensors, to make certain that no other evils had reawakened in this time. I will contact you if anything occurs," Aura told them. "Good luck to you both. The future depends on you."
Both nodded solemnly and quickly started down the long flight of stairs to the magnificently decorated oak door at the bottom.
"We've got a lot of work to do so I think it's best if we split up and report to each other in the evening at my dorm room," Haruka said. Michiru agreed. Haruka put an arm around his girlfriend, noticing that she seemed distracted. "It's alright," he reassured her. "We can do this." His words were rewarded with a small smile and he lowered his mouth to hers for a quick sweet kiss as they walked through the door and into the bright white light that would take them back to the world they were needed in. Little did anyone know that the true battle was just beginning and would end with dramatic changes.