At 11:50 AM 5/21/99 -0600, you wrote:
Worse than my brother's old boss, and he could be *really* creepy --"
Of course Goto had secrets of his own...:)
"It wasn't so much her as it was what she represented," Touga
replied. "Correct me if I'm wrong, Miki-kun, but when you looked at her,
didn't you see all the things that you'd ever wanted from someone?"
This is what I mean. If what you claim or I think you claim about Miki is
true, why would everything he ever wanted from someone be embodied in a girl?
Juri closed her eyes, but couldn't shut out the voice. And the
darkness only gave rise to the images ... of Anthy, holding out the flower
and looking just like --
"Didn't she almost symbolize everything that you could ever
desURRRK."
Wish fulfillment, Mr. Davies? :)
Juri's eyes opened, and she looked towards where Touga was
standing. Or rather, crouching and clutching his lower abdomen with a
shocked expression.
"Wrong, oniisama," Nanami said as she lowered her knee, filling
the word with contempt. She turned to address Wakaba. "Look, Shinohara.
What he said about desire ... well, that's partially true. But it's not
the whole truth. The whole truth ... look, in the years since my dad
kicked me out on my ass, I've met a lot of people, and I've come to
understand the one real thing you can say about them. People are a
mixture of good and bad and smart and stupid, and the only reason that
most of us do anything, even when it's bad for us, is that it seemed like
a good idea at the time. It was the same when I challenged your friend to
a fight and tried to cut her heart out. It seemed like the right thing
when I did it."
Well, it never was clear why if at all Nanami would desire Anthy, I
suppose (rather than envy him her relationship to Toga, I mean). Perhaps
though there's something Nanami herself has missed? Or is she really
attacking Toga's explanation at all as far as it goes (though she doesn't
fit the pattern)?
(Which of these lines is the Harlan Ellison quote, by the way?)
"Oh. All right then," Wakaba replied, surreptitiously trying to
put as much distance between herself and Nanami.
Hee hee hee. I can just see that in animation. :)
"Memories that just come out of nowhere? Isn't that a little
magical for your tastes? Maybe even, dare I say it, miraculous?"
"No," Juri replied coldly. "Just strange and, for the moment,
unexplained. Much like a castle hanging upside down in the sky inside a
forest.
Which turned out to really be a trick of the light. :)
May I take it from your comments that you believe that you have a
more mundane explanation?"
"Yeah." She turned to look at Wakaba. "You can't believe that
you could ever forget the name of your best friend in junior high school.
I hate to break this to you, but it's too *easy* to do that. I remember
that I had three really close friends at that age, but I'm damned if I can
remember their names, much less their faces. Eiko, Biiko, and Shiko?"
Now _I_ was told the Shadow Girls would not be appearing...:)
(Yes, I know, I _know_ who she means. But they were only her friends so
they could hang around Toga. :) Their relationship was not deep.)
I remember I took Mr. Davies to task about building a story around the
premise (as I saw it when I first read what would become this story) that
the memories of Utena really had been artificially blocked out (presumably
through the magic of Dios and Anthea). Surely, I said, memory couldn't have
just faded with time? He didn't dignify me with a response. Now I see this
it may have been because he was one step ahead of me the whole time. :)
She has a point, though. Why isn't it Julie and not Nanami jumping to the
rationalist conclusion? The romantic within her back from the supposed dead,
then?
"Nanami ... I didn't do it. Seriously."
"Touga, after all the crap you've pulled, I wouldn't believe you
if you told me what time it was." She turned to look at her older brother
where he lay sprawled on the grass. Almost imperceptibly, her face
softened. "And yet ... and yet even as I look at you, I can remember how
I felt when I was thirteen -- hell, when I was *sixteen*. How all I
wanted in the world was to be loved by you, and to be the center of your
world. But I'm not that person anymore. She's gone. But I guess parts
of her still remain. And for whatever it's worth, somewhere in my heart
.. I still love you, oniisama."
And something moved through each of them. It felt like a wave of
static electricity blended with the vibration of a struck piano key, or
the clash of two blades.
I think I know exactly which discordant piano key it is. Though this
passage I had to read more than once before realizing that Nanami's sudden
softening isn't unrealistic at all, but rather follows from her previous
speech.
But is the reaction to _oniisama_ or to "I still love you?"
"What the hell was that?" Nanami burst.
I think "burst out" works better here. I'd rather not imagine Nanami
exploding. ;)
"Personalized for each of us then -- *of* *course*." He began to paw
through his jacket pockets, and pulled something out with a grin of
exultation plastered on his face.
He held the stopwatch up, and slammed his thumb down on the stop
switch. And the sensation surged once more, perceptibly stronger this
time.
Miki's fingers work their magic...;)
"I thought you gave your watch to Tsuwabuki," Nanami asked,
confused.
"I did. I picked up another one the very next day. Some habits
you never quit." He grinned now. "And that's the point. You were right,
Nanami. If you spend any amount of time in the presence of people who've
known you for a long time, you start reverting to old patterns of behavior
-- and that's why we've been called here, just for that purpose. All of
us have to find something that we did back *then*."
"And then what?" Juri asked quietly.
"Hell if I know."
*facefault*
Ignoring them for the moment, Wakaba nodded. "Um ... Saionji-san?
Would you mind turning your back for just a moment."
With a mystified expression, he did so. She proceeded to back up
two paces ... and without warning leapt into the air and came down on
Saionji's back, wrapping her arms around his kneck and her knees around
his waist. "UTENA-SAMAAAA!" she trilled.
Somebody, please do a fan art of this scene! :)
"You did this to her often?" Saionji gasped as he tried to regain
his balance.
"Sometimes while she was leaning out an open window. Scared the
hell out of her. Me too, but I hid it better."
One of my favorite lines from Utena:
Utena: Wakaba, that was kind of dangerous.
Wakaba: Yeah, so?
"Remarkable. I would never have thought such a scrawny, insolent,
arrogant tomboy as she was could have endured such shock."
Pulse.
When'd he call her that?
"If it does not break out of it's shell
the chick will die without being born.
We are the chick,
the world is our egg.
If we don't break the world's shell,
we will die without being born.
Smash the egg's shell!"
That's "Smash the world's shell," right?
And Miki joined in on the final line.
"For the revolution of the world!"
The longest pulse so far surged through them, almost bringing
Nanami to her knees. Miki whirled to stare at Juri. "Sempai," he said
with exaggerated calmness, "you didn't join in."
I take back my joke about Miki's magic fingers. This isn't a pleasant
sensation, is it?
"I just don't think that this is going to work," she protested.
"It doesn't make any sense that --"
"Sempai!" Miki snapped. "Can't you feel it? Can't you feel that
something is about to happen?"
"No," Juri lied firmly. In fact, the sensation of imminence was
almost overpowering.
His face was frustrated beyond words. "Juri, for God's sake,
we've got a repeated, controlled event. You're holding back a miracle out
of pure stubbornness --!"
Did he do this on purpose? He's as devious as Toga. :)
"Miki!" she shouted, having been at last pushed too far. "There
are *no* such *things* as MIRACLES!"
And the miracle occurred.
In any other context, Julie's last speech would have been too cliched to
bear. I never thought its very familiarity could make it the last words of a
spell.
At first there was only a faint glowing light in the center of the
clearing, but as each Duellist slowly turned to look at it, shapes and
sounds began to emerge. In gazing into the image, what was within it
became clearer to the eye.
And what was within the image was a bar. Men and women sat at
tables, muttering to one another over the faint sounds of clinking
bottles. Slowly the perspective of the image changed, moving to the bar
itself, where a woman sat, with long pink hair trailing over the back of
her torn blue raincoat, staring down at the bar.
And then she lifted her head, and they saw her face. And Juri
regained her self-awareness as she heard herself gasp.
Shoot. People have seen her dead. Or cloistered in a hospital. Or--I
thought, thinking myself a real pessimist--an asylum. I never even
considered Utena Tenjo reduced to a half-mad bag lady. And the sad thing is
it's the most realistic end.
Should we recognize the raincoat?
Her face had changed even less than Miki's or Nanami's faces had
.. so little that later Juri would wonder how she had entered the bar.
But in the windows of her soul ... she was ancient beyond belief, and
every wound that she bore could be seen written there. Her eyes were not
those of a woman who has lost all hope. They were the eyes of a woman who
doubted that she had ever had hope to begin with, and to see that in those
deep sea blue eyes tore Juri's heart in half.
Don't tell me she's been cursed with immortality too? Oh God...
Somewhere close, Juri thought she heard someone wimpering.
Let me guess. Wakaba? Or maybe even Julie herself?
Abruptly, a mustachioed man in an apron appeared in the vision,
looking down at her. "Look, honored customer," the bar tender said with
heavy sarcasm, "if you want to sit here, order something, will you?"
Wild guess. Is this the Chachamaru pub from _Maison Ikkoku_?
She slowly opened her mouth to reply ... and then her eye
twitched. She blinked, and began to stare.
And at once, Juri knew that she could see them as clearly as they
saw her.
Her ocean-blue eyes seemed to pass over each of them, seeing them
not only for who they were, but for who they'd been ... seeing how much
had changed, and how little. Her eyes seemed to linger once ... just
before she slowly smiled, giving the impression that the muscles involved
had not seen much usage recently.
She blinked again, and looked up at the bar tender.
"Tea, please," said Tenjou Utena.
And with those words, the image dissolved.
Juri slowly regained awareness of her own body. At the moment,
she was leaning against one of the trees, arms crossed over her stomach.
The others were also strewn across the clearing in seemingly uncomfortable
poses ... except for Wakaba, who knelt on the grass only a few feet away
>from where the vision had appeared, her hand outstretched.
The more I turn this image over in my head, and themore it impresses
itself on me, the more I think I might cry.
(Like something from the little theatre. _Perfect._)
After a moment, she let the hand fall. Silently she rose and
brushed off her knees before turning to look at the others. "Well," she
said, and then nothing else for another moment. "That was interesting."
She bowed slightly. "It's been very interesting meeting all of you. Good
evening."
With that, she began to walk away.
"You're just going to leave?" Juri asked, finding her voice.
"Without even trying to discuss or understand --"
"Yes," Wakaba interrupted without turning to look at her. "These
are strange and arcane things, and I want no part of them. I want to go
back to my nice, safe life where I work in an office and I don't think
that the entire structure of reality might turn into liquid at any given
moment. So if you'll excuse me, I'll be running in desperate fear, now."
Wakaba was always far more "sensible" than Utena; at times, Utena
couldn't have gone on if she hadn't had her to set her straight. Is that why
Wakaba never seemed to catch on? Because she needed life to make sense?
"Wakaba-san," Saionji said quietly. "I think you missed your
movie."
Wakaba paused and looked at her watch. "Yep. Looks like. Damn.
Oh well, I'll apologize to Noa tomorrow, and I mean it's not like they're
really going to kill Ruri off anyway. I'll just tell her that I met an
old school friend and we lost track of time talking."
Isn't Ruri one of the "New Elegants?" :)
"Do you really want to lie to your sister-in-law?"
She slowly turned to look at him with an odd, somewhat pinched
expression. "What are you suggesting as an alternative?"
Saionji visibly swallowed. "We could ... lose track of time
talking. I promise not to tell you what happens at the end of the movie
... and not to discuss anything that happened here."
For several moments, his words hung in the air. And then, quite
clearly and quietly, Wakaba replied, "That could be nice."
That childhood romance picked up again rather quickly...
Nanami watched them go with an expression that someone might call
faintly envious, and then turned to look at her brother. Within a second,
she turned to look at Miki. She smiled faintly. "I've got a plane to a
dig in Iran in twelve hours. I figure I can spend a few of them arguing
with someone about what just happened. Up for it, Mickey?"
...considering the other one didn't.
He drew in a breath to reply, then slowly let it out as he turned
to look at Juri. "Sempai," he said hesitantly.
"Save me, PLEASE, for the love of GOD...!" :)
Seriously, if Miki'd had a crush on Julie too, it wouldn't have surprised
me. But isn't this again at variance with what you'd implied earlier?
Juri surprised herself then, as she slowly walked towards him.
And then she surprised both of them as she drew Miki into a firm but
gentle hug. "Don't be a stranger, Miki," she whispered into his ear.
A Big Sister to the very end. :)
His smile as she pulled back was dazzling. He ambled over to
where Nanami was waiting with a somewhat shocked expression on her face,
but she shrugged and walked off with him. "I know this great strip joint
in Shinjuku. Much better than Chippendales ..." she said as they walked
out of sight.
If I were Miki, I'd smile too. Seeing as he's finally gotten at least a
little...*duck*
Seriously, I know Miki and Julie were never meant to be, but I can't
quite see Miki with Nanami either, even her new and improved version (and
still less if he's gay!).
And then there were two.
"A night for odd pairings, I take --" Touga began.
He's impossible. :)
Or was he serious?
"You knew everything that we found out tonight." She almost added
the accusation that he had sent the letters ... but held back.
"No," he replied quietly. "Only most of it, and a bit more. But
I did not know that she was still alive. If I had believed that, perhaps
I ..." He trailed off, shaking his head. "But it is too late for that."
He adjusted his jacket. "And I have to be going now. I will probably
have to have an early meeting tomorrow."
o/~ Meet the new boss... o/~
A horrible certainty settled in Juri's stomach. "You know, I
never did hear what you were doing these days," she said casually.
He turned away. "As sole heir to the Kiryuu holdings, I live the
life of the idle rich ... including a seat on the board of trustees of
Ohtori Academy." He paused. "Someone has to stand watch over the devil,
after all."
o/~ ...same as the old boss... o/~
There _are_ worse fates than death (or having Nanami as a sister). One is
eternal life. Another is eternal servitude. A third is eternal childhood.
Oddly fitting. Toga never grew up, and so of all the Duellists he is the
one doomed to imprisonment and enslavement in Akio's insane world, for all
we know forever. Mr. Davies, am I on the right track?
And without waiting for her reply, he marched away into darkness.
Still. Without Anthea to seduce his prey, what has become of Akio, do you
suppose?
"It wasn't him," Juri said aloud, quietly. "And it couldn't have
been her. And it wouldn't have been the other one. So that only leaves
one person to send the letters."
Who's "the other one?" Akio? Or someone else?
And then she stepped out of the shadows.
"Excellently reasoned, Arisugawa-san," Himemiya Anthy said with
her quiet, just slightly superior smile.
In the darkest, quietest part of Arisugawa Juri's soul, the part
that *hated* Shiori with a passion more intense than any of her burnt-out
desire had ever felt, something broke down and wept at her likeness to --
And then it stopped.
Anthy looked apologetic. "I am sorry, Arisugawa-san. I have more
control over it than I once did, but it is still difficult."
I'm a little confused as to what happened here. Did Anthy suddenly take
Shiori's form for a moment? (I had thought early on--wrongly--that Anthy
would conjure up deliberately ghosts of the past, Shiori, Kozue, et al.;
hence the question now.)
I've snipped Anthy's story to save space; I actually have little to say
in complaint about it. Anyone familiar with the _Together Again_ cycle will
be able to fill in details Anthy left out--like why she didn't die.
Still. There still is no explanation as to why Julie is being told and
the others who don't already know (that is, all except for Toga) are not, as
I'd hoped there'd be.
That and I'm a little surprised that Anthy professes little more
knowledge of the "science" Julie does not understand that Julie has. Not all
the Godlings were magicians on even Anthy's level, were they, surely?
Well. Let's see. In the time that I've spent writing this, Utena
has become vastly better known than it was at the start, thanks largely to
the commercial release of the first thirteen episodes by CPM/Software
Sculptors. There's been a fair amount of fanfic already, including one
story on just this topic which really pissed me off. But someone told me
that my story was less wrong than that one, so I'm happy.
Hey, I liked it. At least Utena and Anthy really did meet again. I like
happy endings, too. :)
While the basic idea (ten years after, the Duellists reunite) was
in place around March of 1998, much of the elaboration of it is owed to
Scott "Zagyg" Johnson (author of some kick-ass Utena fanfic of his own and
all-around good guy) who suggested a way to draw this story into my
Together Again continuity. Initially, I was reluctant to do so, as I
planned on having "Shoujo Kakumei Utena" be as popular an anime in that
universe as it is here; in particular, Sheila Tenkai (the little girl in
this story) was a major fan of the series.
Heh. Imagine Sheila asking Anthy for her autograph! :)
Credit is also owed to "Kotori" and Paul "I have no cute nickname"
Corrigan for looking over the story at various times and not killing me in
the arguments that followed.
Why would I kill you over a story when condemning you to listening for
eternity to my demonaical ravings about man, God and law (and lesbianism) in
the works of Kunihiko Ikuhara is so much more fulfilling? :)
"Get yo' hands off'n mah Utena!" -- Shinohara Wakaba, Revolutionary Girl
Utena, "For Friendship, Perhaps" (dub)
Heh. Go watch the new _Video Girl Ai_ dub to see why dialects are not
used in dubbed anime...:)
Paul Corrigan
corrig11@pilot.msu.edu