Alternity 
by utena@duellists.tj


	The gilded pages of the spineless and ragged book turned slowly in
the man's hands, passages of red and of black intermingling on cream-white
paper gone brittle. He knew the words by heart, smiling a lifeless smile
at a particular passage or two. He didn't even mind that most of the
pages shattered, and fell across his lap in pieces. His world was like
that now, crumbled yellow pieces, shot with harsh red and black, falling
apart at his every touch. 

	Red and black. HER colors. The divine and the mundane made one.
The red words in the book said that man had been formed from dust.
Dust is his fate, and dust shall he become once again. Oh, didn't he know
that so well. Better than anyone, he knew that. And dust was his world
now. He breathed it, lived in it, drank and tasted it. Throw the ashes
over me, beg forgiveness... 

	Dust and ashes, soiled, crumbled, and shattered. For ten years
now, a moment, a blink of the eye. All the same. All for nothing. 

	The sanctum of shadows and decay he had chosen to make his home
after her departure (why did he think of it like that, like it was her
choice? He'd cast her down, down, down the caracole, down from heaven, she
fell, her body gleaming...) gleamed in a tattered manner as the morning
sun filtered through the rotten wooden beams of roof, transforming 
cobwebs into white silk that draped along charred rafters, a ghost of
elegance in the center of what was once (so long ago) the Nemuro
Memorial Hall.

	Alone. Forgotten. Useless. He belonged here.  

	His mouth was full of dust. He lifted a tired face set with tired
eyes underlined with pain to the crack in the ceiling and stared numbly
at the invasive sunlight as it crawled over burned chairs and overturned
rotted tables, over broken walls and fragmented floor tiles. His mouth
hung open. He tried to gather thoughts that slipped through his fingers
like the pages of the book in his hands.

	Did he deserve this? He couldn't remember. He'd done bad things.
Hadn't he? Or was he merely his sister's pawn? A tool, like the rest of
the Council? That was it. Just another tool. Another object. A fetish that
whirled in accordance with its master's keeping... so why wasn't he angry?
Why did he feel as if he deserved this? Did he deserve this? He couldn't
remember...  

 	And then the sound. Footsteps behind him. How could this be? No
one knew he was here. No one even cared. He did not have the strength to
turn in his beaten wicker chair and look. He suspected the figure was his
imagination, anyway. He heard footsteps all the time here. Ghosts that he
once controlled now came to mock him, the fallen majesty in his meager
throne of the world. Those ghosts, the whispers of voices and shreds of
memory were his constant companions. 

	A sigh, sounding so weary, played in his ears. A warm breath
stirred the lacy cobwebs flung out between two beams before him, sending
it to shivering. From behind him, a hand slipped over his own. Long and
delicate pale fingers from the shadows, warm fire to the ice of his
numbed skin. Bewildered, he lowered his gaze to the hand slowly, not
understanding. 

	But the hand was real. Real in a frightening way- real beyond
reality. A chin nestled over his shoulder, breathing slow and thick.  A
familiar scent. A shifting sound, heavy fabric. A light in the darkness.

	"You." he whispered hoarsely. "You're not real." He turned his
head away, the bible sitting forgotten in his lap, holding down his legs. 

	"There's nothing left for you, is there." The voice familiar. Soft
and gentle, rich and vibrant. Like the one from his dreams- or was that
nightmares? Night mares. Black horses. Horses crossing the sky, bursting
from within the Arena. A prince on a gilded white horse, in black armor.
Black and red. 

	He raised his hand and pressed it over his eyes, the dust on his
chest rising in a cloud at the exhale of his breath. The warm perfect hand
traveled langourously up his sleeve, over the bicep, toward his wrinkled,
buttoned shirt. The fingers seemed burning hot in comparison to the
deathly chill of his own flesh. He did not protest when the buttons were
pulled apart, revealing his smooth chest. He did not give a sound when
the hand carressed, trailed fire, attempting to restart a heart long
since disinterested in beating. He looked down, looked at the traveling
hand, unable to believe in it. The sheer perfection. Unreal. 

	Another hand took his left, turned it over by the wrist. He did
nothing to stop this. Into his palm was pressed something like a lump
of frozen tears, cooler than either flesh or bone, something slick and
harsh, mocking and smooth.

	"The only choice left for you is to revolutionize the world. I
understand. I've prepared your way." A kiss along his neck,
slender lips nipping at his jugular vein, seeking his blood, his life.
The scent of roses, overpowering. A shadow moving over him, hands on his
shoulders, leaning down.   

	Ootori Akio closed his eyes. 

	His fingers enveloped the rose signet in his palm. 

	He leaned back in the chair, surrendering without a sound. 

	And when it was done, he stood, and he was alone. Shirt undone,
hair curled and flowing about his shoulders. He started to laugh, through
tears. The scriptures slid from his lap and burst into nothingness on the
floor, ashes to ashes, the new rose signet gleaming on his finger with
bitter silver radiance. He brushed away the tears, speaking quietly into
the air. "How fitting." 

				    * 

	The door slammed in her face, creating a forceful gust of wind
that somehow did not stir the tightly drawn orange coils framing Arisugawa
Juri's coldly perfect face. Her mouth pursed, and she turned away,
crossing her arms over her chest. For the last time. She told herself this
would be the last time she would tolerate this, the last time she'd allow
herself to slide down the Shiori spiral.

	She shook her head angrily. Of course it was the last time. Just 
as it had been a month ago, and two months before that, and so on and so
on for the last ten years. Nothing changed... and somehow, every time, she
was fooled, again and again. She was a fool for a smile, and a whisper, 
the tilt of eyes the color of hazelnut coffee. But this time, she swore to
herself it would be the last time. 

	Her hand over her eyes, Juri stumbled back into her living room
and slumped into the white futon couch edged with lacquered brown wood,
her sleek body sprawled haphazardly along cushions that exhaled under
her weight, as if sighing for their mistress. 

	Slowly her azure gaze lifted to the cream-colored wall before her.
A row of pictures. She hadn't paid any heed to them since the day Shiori
had put them up, really- now her eyes fell on them and recognized them.
They were the framed copies of some of the many magazine covers her visage
had graced in her career. Angles of herself staring out endlessly,
captured in some fragile and forced emotion. She had no memories of the
individual shoots for those pictures. Each had blurred into the next, one
more job, tilt your head, and can you make yourself look more like.. yes,
that's perfect- then the blinding flash of light, searing her eyes, over
and over. Like miracles, the light pushing at her, in her, violating her.  	

	In annoyance, the elegant woman pushed from the couch and stood,
approaching the framed pictures, her finger trailing along the sharp edge
of one of the closest, one of the earliest from shortly after leaving
Ootori Academy. There was still hope in her eyes, even a bit of her own
self, then.  Before the loveless life and the spiraling dance with Shiori
began, before the drinking (which reminded her, she wanted one now),
before the 'glamourous career'. Juri snorted at her thoughts, and whirled
away, her soft white dress hissing over the wood floor as she moved to the
cabinet and drew down the crystal bottle of brown liquid... 
hazelnut-brown.. the color of Shiori's eyes.

	She had half the bottle down before she even realized it, the
expensive glass slipping from her fingers and shattering as she stifled a
sob and leaned unsteadily against the kitchen countertop. Why was it like
this?  Why did her life become this way? What did she do wrong? She raised
her head and stared at the row of pictures, watching the expression become
more 'adult' over the years, the elongation of her face- but her eyes had
become dead, dead, dead... If only she could return to the way she was...
if only she could find the place where her life went wrong... if only she
were ten years younger... 

	The doorbell rang, and she whirled toward it with a snarl. If it
was Shiori... damn it, she was going to unload on her this time, the way
she never had for these many years, let her feel what she always felt..
She yanked the door open, and snapped into the face of the person
standing there, "WHAT DO YOU WANT FROM ME?" 

	She froze when she recognized the person in the hall. 

	A friendly, perfect smile that could stop a heart. And a pale,
slender hand that held out a freshly minted signet ring before her bleary,
unfocused eyes. "You've had your fill of this life, haven't you,
Juri-sempai?" So simple a question... answering her pain perfectly. 		

	Juri blinked her watering eyes. (she was crying?...) She bowed
her head, slowly stepping away from the door to make a path for the
visitor. "... Come in." 
	
	The guest drifted by, gentle and regal, scented of roses, and
entered. Timidly, Juri closed the door behind herself, and turned to face
the visitor, lifting her reddened eyes and her face so wet with tears.
There was no such thing as miracles. But maybe, sometimes, prayers could
be answered... 

	Two days later, tucked away in the living sections of a handful of  
newspapers, a small paragraph was given to note the death of the famous
(and very unhappy) model, Juri Arisugawa. She was found dead in her home, 
apparently having consumed both sleeping pills and too much alcohol- a
common enough cause of celebrity accidental deaths.  	
	
	But, complicating the matter, a letter had been found with her
body, which pointed the finger for her misery straight at Shiori
Takatsuki, who had been her secret lover and agony for many, many years.
The letter had been deeply personal, and had suggested that Juri was going
to part ways with Shiori, tired of the constant cruelty and abuse. Because
of the evidence of the letter and other things found on the scene, the
police, the papers said, were investigating Shiori as a possible cause of
Juri's death, and treating the case accordingly.

	And when she read a copy of the article three days later, Juri
laughed until she cried, the signet ring glittering in the sun as the
whirling breeze moved through her long and uncurled orange hair, as she
sat beside her liberator in the passenger seat of a car that traced the
road of a ocean coastline. She was dead. She was free. She could start
over. 
	
	Beside her, in the driver's seat, her liberator's beautifully
formed hand rested on the stick shift, thin fingers tapping the knob while
shifting from second to third. The car responded perfectly, cherry-red
Jaguar freshly waxed swift as its namesake, engine purring as it carried
driver and rider away. 

				  * 

	Bells rang out, dramatic and too loud, and as he stood in the
church to the side of the pews Kiryuu Touga had to fight the urge to
laugh; it was assuredly highly inappropriate behavior for this solemn
moment. Which made him want to laugh all the more. He tilted his head,
long red hair slipping over his shoulder, blue-violet eyes twinkling, and
he listened to the resonating gongs in their grim sanctity. The tone of
them reminded him of the old Duel bells; it was fitting to this situation,
the beginning of a life-long duel. 

	Touga allowed a bit of the smile inside to reach his face; wasn't
that really what love was, a duel between a man and a woman to become
victor over the other? Certainly, Saionji and Nanami had been duelling
verbally and emotionally almost without cease over the last ten years. 
They had needed SOMETHING to fixate on, and he'd pushed them toward each
other. There had been a hint of the inevitable, that this day was bound
to come... so he'd just helped it along, as he always did, spreading his
words and hints thick and thin, weaving a web around them until they fell
headlong into it, and into each other. He didn't think what he'd done was
wrong. That was just his way; when he could see a chance like that, he
tried to make it come to pass. 

	He gazed on his sister in her ornate white gown and his best
friend and rival in his perfect black tuxedo. Cobra and mongoose. If they
didn't kill each other during the honeymoon, it would probably last
forever. It was a good match. And yet... he couldn't resist the thought
that came... the idle wondering. Ten years later, she still haunted him,
his achilles heel, the wound that wouldn't heal. As he glanced idly
beside himself to his sister in her wedding dress, he wondered.

	What would it have been like? If she had lived... if her fate
hadn't led her to destruction. She was meant for him. Touga had known
that, felt the right fate of it every time he'd been near her. But he'd
been a fool, and he hadn't even tried to seize it until it was too late. 
Because taking that path would have destroyed everything... Revolution and
all. 

	It didn't stop the wondering. It didn't ease the hurting. 
Now his mind began to drift, away from his sister and his friend to the
past, to a could-have-been. The only one that truly existed. Any other
question of any other woman, he'd answered easily enough, in his time.
There was not a woman in his past, ever, that he couldn't say he had
known his future with, explored and found it a dead-end. Except for Utena.
The proverbial one that got away. 

	What would she have looked like in white, standing beside him, her
rose-scent wafting up to his senses with a blush along her features,
hidden behind a diaphanous veil... what would it have felt like to be the
one to brush back that veil and claim her as his, to carry her away, lay
her down and sink into her? They would have had beautiful children, strong
and swift, perfect and far-seeing. Touga could almost see those unborn
children, red-haired like him, blue-eyed like her, slender waifs dancing
like the smoke of candle flames just out of sight, teasing the one who
would have been their father. Potential lost. WASTED. If only he could go
back those ten years... they had been a perfect match. But fate had
laughed at him and ripped her from his arms. He'd never even kissed her. 
And in the ten years since her passing her myth had grown larger in his
mind, the distinct memories both fading and crystallizing at the same
time, fetishized. 

	He'd stopped seeing other women, because all of them bored him
almost to tears, and were utterly wrong. Wrong in the way they moved, or
the way their necks were shaped, or the color of their eyes, or something.
The legendary playboy Touga had become a recluse, attending social
functions with his sister, but with an obvious distance in his eyes; 
eventually, the women who he didn't care about realized his disinterest,
and though they were reverent of his beauty and yearnful of his touch,
they left him alone. 

	Now, even his sister and his rival were about to turn away from
him. Nanami no longer needed him. Saionji had defeated him long ago. And
Touga could hear fate laughing capriciously in a woman's voice behind him,
beyond him, a step ahead of him. Fate was a bitch. And yet he continued to
serve her loyally, even as she teasingly led him toward utter isolation
and emptiness. 

	The bride and groom turned. They smirked victoriously at each
other, their thoughts transparent and identical to Touga's clear eyes; "I
got what I wanted." And they turned to leave, walking back up the aisle
toward the back of the church, bells tolling their future, rice and white
paper showering over them in a rain, the handful of family and friends
that had come to honor them applauding. Cheering.

	Touga didn't follow. He watched them, watched the priest removing
his vestments and laying them aside with the reverence appropriate to holy
objects. Felt the priest's curious eyes upon him, though he had no
interest in answering the unspoken questions. Aren't you happy for her? 
Why don't you go to see her on her way? 
	
	Because I'm no longer needed. Touga sighed and moved to one of the
pews, taking a seat, the wood giving no sound; he leaned forward and
linked his hands, gazing up to the altar, the cross behind it as the
priest disappeared into a side room. 

	 Why did you have to die, Utena? Why did you have to follow that
path even though you knew where it led you? His mouth twisted. Why wasn't
I good enough for you?

	Someone sat down next to him, a figure that rested its hands in
its lap, regarding the cross with a sad little smile. "Whatever you were
expecting, your expectations couldn't be fulfilled." the figure commented
after a few moments of heavy silence. Touga blinked, gazing at the figure
in alarm, lifting his head, the curtain of red parting. Astonishment
touched him, astonishment and even disbelief. 

	The figure smiled. "To fall in love normally, to get married
normally, to make a normal family, that kind of normalness doesn't really
concern us." Fingers touched Touga's face, easing back his hair from his
eyes. "...Does it?" He found himself staring into familiar eyes, eyes he
couldn't escape from... 

	And gentle hands lifted his left, fingers teasing and playing in
the softest, subtlest of ways. A cool metal sensation as a rose signet
slid onto his ring finger. And the soft laughter of the one beside him.
"So, shall we be engaged again, Seitokaichou?" 

	Somewhere, Fate was still laughing, Touga thought. But now he
laughed back at her. Now he understood. Now it all made sense. She was
leading him... right to where he belonged. He could feel the truth of it.
Ten years melted. He fought back the genuine tears in his eyes and replied
in a voice given new warmth, new life, "Dinner this Sunday?" And then he
started to laugh. 

	The figure laughed with him, and leaned against his arm, nodding. 
And Touga breathed deeply in the scent of roses. 


				  *

	It just wasn't home without tea, the woman thought. Sitting down
in a comfortable chair at the table with china cups and a bone-white pot,
fragrant liquid gleaming in amber waves and flows... that was home. 
What was the saying... 'Home is where the heart is'. She wryly thought
that, in reality, any place could be home as long as there was tea. It
brought back so much so her mind. Tea had been the nexus of a thousand
conversations, the prelude to certain times she could never forget, the
grease of the wheel of fate. 

	The table before her was decked in a modest white lace tablecloth
that stirred at the edges from her movements around the kitchen. She set
the tray of tea, with jars for sugar and honey, on the tabletop with the
cups rattling. There were two chairs, one facing the other- one empty, one
about to be filled. Brushing her hair back, she sat down in one and gazed
at the other. 

	Her hands lifted and seperated the second cup and a saucer from
the tray, and she placed both in their place before the unfilled chair
gently. For the sake of memory. She didn't like to drink her tea alone. 
And sometimes when she looked at the chair just right, she thought... It
was a little hard to remember her now, hard to remember all of it- much
had vanished into the mists of the myth- but tea always helped bring it
back into focus. After a time she reached for the pot, and poured out two
cups full- one for the ghost in the empty chair and one for herself.

	Ten years. Ten years ago, a promise was made, over poisoned tea
and cookies. Today was that day. She had no mystic sense, no certain
intuition that anything would change today; her heart gave no particular
indication anyone would come... but she had to fulfill her promise. If
she'd learned anything, anything at all over the last ten years, that was
it- to always keep her promises. The wind gently stirred through the open
window, disturbing a set of chimes placed over the frame, parting the
translucent white curtains. She closed her eyes, the scents of the tea and
of the warm summer breeze curling together in her nostrils. Suppressing a
sad little laugh, she lifted her cup and drank without opening her eyes,
to the bittersweet memories of the past. 

	Abruptly, the door in the distance was heard to open. She froze,
biting her lips around the rim of the cup. But she didn't open her eyes.
The sound of the chair being pulled back over the floor played through her
like a knife in the ribs. Someone sat. There was an intake of breath, a
moment of pause. Neither of them breathed out.  They both held back,
waiting for the other to speak first. Finally she broke the silence and
let her shaking hands move her cup back to its place. "I hope you like
it. It took me a long time to find the kind of poison that you like." 

	A sip in response. "Tastes good." Then, a delighted laugh,
sweet and bright. The laugh that held no mockery, the laugh of a child.
She'd forgotten how much that voice had warmed her. Like the tea, it made
her remember... She opened her eyes, and fought to see clearly through the
rising haze of tears.

	Azure and jade met for the first time in ten years. And yet it was
as if they, just they two, still lived in the fluid time of another world; 
the years fell away as if they had never been. They smiled at each other
through bright, wet faces. Together, someday shining. They joined hands,
dark and light across the table in a firm grip, palm to palm.  They would
never be broken apart again.

	"I'm back." Utena whispered. 

	"You never left." Anshi replied. 



Missing truth and forever, Ten'jou Utena, the Victor of the Duel
<utena@duellists.tj> 
The End of the Innocence: http://www.duellists.tj/~utena