"Adolescence Post-Apocalypse"
Five
"I am All That You Knew That I Could Be"
Silence.
In the absence of sound, the small noises faded out, and left only the sound of her labored breathing. Her face and clothes were drenched in sweat, her hands, arms and legs were shaking. She sunk the sword into the ground and leaned on it to keep standing. She could barely breathe through the pain, she could barely see, barely hear. The bell had stopped, leaving them to her breath.
"Wuh-wuhh-whell..." she gasped, trying to breathe enough to speak, "I win."
Touga dropped his sword. Utena saw something come over him, a spell. His face was unreadable, but his eyes told a different story. He was standing there, silent. His gaze dropped and he saw the petals on the dry soil, red like blood, scattered.
Slowly, very slowly, he pulled the remains of his rose out of his breast pocket and flicked it away. He looked at Utena. Her knees were wobbly, but she hadn't fallen. She had barely made it, but she had won.
"Yes. You won." He said. Utena raised an eyebrow. He sounded incredibly resigned.
Touga began unbuttoning his jacket.
"Wh-what are you doing!?" Utena asked.
Touga stopped four buttons down. He stuck his hand inside and retrieved something from the jacket's inner pocket. Without buttoning his jacket back up, he came to her side and demonstrated it.
It was a ring. Sterling silver, gleaming even in the dull gray semi-light. Utena saw a rose signet on it. A torrent of emotions coursed through her upon the sight, and she was sure it was exhaustion. It was exhaustion and longing and sorrow and all the things that she had felt, one way or the other, ever since she had woken up without a name, only more potent than she had known before.
He gently pried one of her hands away from the sword's handle, and put the ring on. It was a perfect fit.
It was a disgusting sight. Her finger was a sham, a bad parody of ring fingers, and the ring was pristine. Yet some part of her was curious as to why it felt like it belonged there.
Maybe because it could, she wanted to say. She didn't.
"This ring is your way out." He said, his face serious, "If you follow it, you'll find your way."
"Out to where?" she asked.
"Ah, yes."
Touga reached into his jacket pocket again. He pulled out a small, square envelope this time, laced with the smell of roses. Utena took it
Touga retrieved his sword. He went back to its case and placed his sword insid. He buttoned up his jacket.
Utena panicked.
He was leaving again, and this time, she knew, he would leave for good. She would have nobody left in this godforsaken place, she'd have to go back to the nuns calling her 'Girl', she'd go back to that stupid radio drama; to walking around the Convent and wondering what was behind the woods, but never daring to go in there, never daring quite enough to venture because she knew she'd be lost again.. and as strong as she was, strong enough to beat him, strong enough to be the Prince, when it came down to it...
...was she all that strong? Had she ever been?
"Will you be back?" Utena asked.
"It's all in the envelope." He said, "Everything you need to hear."
"Why don't you stay?" Utena asked.
"Why doesn't anyone?"
With a smile and a look in his eyes like he was the one who was losing something, Touga left Utena standing there, drenched in sweat, aching all over, holding an envelope that held the secrets of the universe.
Had Utena a stopwatch, she would have timed how long she had sat there, next to the Prince's sword, staring at the envelope.
"Everything I need to hear..."
There was a part of her, louder than the others, repeating a question: what if she wasn't ready to hear what she needed to hear? What if what she needed to hear had been a yes, from him? Or from someone else? What if what she needed to hear was so complex that it wouldn't fit in one tiny envelope, one tiny page?
Utena glanced at the sky. Gun metal grey, she thought, like a rusted blade. Like the rusted blades of a thousand swords, left with nothing to begrudge, nothing to hate – so they had sat, piling up, catching rust and then they had colored the sky above her.
With one swift move, Utena ripped open the envelope.
I am the Prince now, she said with a smile, I earned this.
Utena took out the single page, which turned out to be barely larger than a postcard, and felt like she was about to read a declaration of war... or a love letter. She was sure in her heart of hearts that there was no difference whatsoever.
The handwriting was incredibly pretty, but felt somehow generic to her. It was like the piano piece on the radio that followed the show, something familiar yet forgotten long ago.
What Utena needed to hear was simple:
Come, and we will shine together.
Perplexed, Utena turned the page over, and found a small ticket stub on the other side of it, folded neatly and taped there. Careful not to rip the stub itself, she pulled it free and inspected it. One way. Good for any time at all. One person.
A line caught her attention, printed in neat typeset right at the bottom of the stub.
Courtesy of Ohtori University Student Council.
Huh.
She glanced at the destination.
Ohtori City.
Of course it was a declaration of love and a declaration of war. It was like the game they used to play, the revolution game, the Prince game. It was a challenge. Utena recognized the envelope and the letter now, in that she knew she had done this a hundred times before. Touga had come and gone time and again, and many others before him or herself had seen the Convent; but this place was another challenge as well. Like the treacherous path to the playground, the thick trees besieging this place, the winding pathways stretching on seemingly for miles that had always broken her spirit as she walked barefoot through the bare branches, looking for something else, something more.
But now that she was the Prince, wasn't it time to abandon the castle for its illusions, leave the grandeur that was only a trick of the light... and see beyond it?
It will never be the same, Utena thought, there's been a revolution, after all.
When Utena returned to her room, carrying the sword and the envelope, she turned on the radio out of habit. As if on cue, the familiar voices of the twin, faceless narrators filled the room.
"Extra! Extra! Extra!"
"We've been cancelled! Again! All we have is this week's show, and then it's the curtains for us! We should use the time we have to finish our story, but oh, if only it ended that quickly!"
"This just in: the Prince is free at last!"
"So little time to say so much! What if I can't make it? So many people I have to thank, so much left in the story to tell, oh, what can I do?"
"Headline: Love has conquered everything once again!"
"If only they gave us a warning, but nobody was expecting that! How can you expect such a development?"
"It's just a radio show, says the man on the street! (And I think he's following me around now, too)"
"For those of you who stuck with us, I assure you, we will never give up! We will never give in! If the Prince made it and managed to persevere, we can too!"
"We're now reporting live fro- wait, wait. Did you say the Prince made it? Why aren't we covering that?"
"Yes, the Prince made it! He's free! That's where we are now, but we've been taken off the air! Haven't you heard?"
"Haven't you heard? Haven't you heard? Haven't you heard the news?"
"I want to thank-"
"Cancelled!? Why did nobody tell me!?"
The piano piece came on, but Utena didn't shut it off. She let it play, and felt the strange knot in her chest ache wonderfully to the music.
The next morning, for the first time since she had woken up without a name, Utena put on her clothes – all of them. The jacket that resembled his. The torn, mended shoes.
They didn't fit her very well. She was thinner now than she used to be, she saw. The nuns had done a wonderful job of repairing it. The damage inflicted was well-hidden, but missing buttons, torn filigree, and other small scars told her that her clothes were well past their expiration date. But still, the nostalgia embedded into every stitch and every fiber of cloth held it together; the uniform was still very pretty, and very familiar. But her scarred face, her barely-existent hair, her tired eyes gave the impression –expressed the truth- that she had died in it.
I guess I just didn't know how to properly do that, either. How proper – I don't look like a proper girl, I can't walk like a proper person, and I couldn't die properly.
Then, I guess, I don't have to worry about that sort of thing.
Utena stuck the ticket stub into the uniform's side pocket, along with the letter. She found a ring on the belt wrapped around the jacket's waist, currently at its narrowest, and she attached the sword to it. She felt more complete somehow, more like a Prince that had died and had seen no reason to stop there.
She didn't stop to say goodbye. Even thinking about it, she understood then that she had never known exactly how many nuns were there, if any, or even who they were beneath their shadows, but knew that it was too late to learn now. The mundane details of her surroundings kept jumping out at her as she walked, as if she was seeing them for the first time. What she had once thought of as dull walls were rich with cracks, teeming with the ravages of time. The faceless nuns waving at her as she walked past them seemed more radiant, more regal than they ever had, and the doors leading to the courtyard seemed positively majestic, despite the wear and tear marring their surfaces.
With scarred hands, Utena pushed them open and stepped outside. She stood there for a moment, looking around the seemingly endless siege of dead trees, and saw her path. It made her smile. So obvious, the well-worn, well-traveled path leading her heaven – to the playground in decay. One hand on her sword, Utena went through the crooked path once more, and found it much shorter than she remembered. She didn't stop once she reached her heaven. She walked right past the crooked swing set, and the slide surrendered to rust, the caterpillar she had first seen Touga on, and found herself at the edge of heaven: the tree line.
The urge to turn around seemed too strong for a moment, but Utena conceded that maybe, she'd come back to visit one day. Her resolve resurfaced then, as she felt in her heart of hearts that it wouldn't be the same. Nothing would be the same, and there was nothing to do but to brave the forest, to get out of there and never return.
In front of her, the trees stretched on, seemingly into eternity. Utena recalled the note.
Come, and we will shine together.
"Just wait for me." she said, to nobody in particular.
Utena entered the dead forest and began to make her way through the trees.