~*~ Ma Vie et Roses ~*~
                                Chapter Two
                            "Kage-E no Kikagaku"
                       [The Geometry of Shadow-Plays]
                     by Scott Johnson and Scott Jamison

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(All characters and settings except Skyler Sands and the state of Minnesota
are the creation of Saitou Chihou and BePapas. Publishing rights are held
by Shogakukan and Terebi Tokyo in Japan, and Central Park Media in the
United States. No challenge to these rights is intended.)

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[brackets indicate thoughts. Unless and until someone in the story develops
telepathy, they're always Skyler's.]
{brackets indicate, well, you'll see.}
Authors' Notes follow the Glossary

Dear Mom and Dad,

Hi! It's me, your wayward son Skyler. I don't know when this will reach
you, or even if it can, or even if it matters. For all I know, this is all
some fantastic dream. But in case it isn't, I'm writing you anyway.

First thing, I'm back in high school, the Ohtori Private Academy here in
Japan. Yes, I know that seems impossible, but somehow it happened. I woke
up in a fancy uniform (which is not like the normal school uniform, and
seems to make me something of a target) near a rose garden on campus.

There was some foolishness involving a kangaroo (I *still* don't know what
that was about), but I decided to check out the living quarters I'd been
assigned. Higashi-kan (East Hall), is an interesting place, but there are
only three people living there right now. Me, a girl named Utena who wasn't
in at the time, and her roommate Anthy.

Anthy is a very sweet person, I think you'd like her, but a little distant
sometimes. She does most of the cooking and cleaning around here, though
I'm pitching in where I can. (See, Mom, I did learn something from you...)
We had dinner together, along with her little monkey friend Chuchu. Utena
didn't make it home because of a rainstorm. Anthy also fixed up my room,
which wasn't very nice at first.

The next morning I walked with Anthy to school. Unfortunately, I wasn't
paying attention, and she got ambushed by some bullies, who were led by
this bratty girl named Keiko. Seems they blamed her for the kangaroo
incident, and inconveniencing Touga, who's big man on campus here, and his
little sister Nanami.

Nanami herself showed up and stopped the bullies in their tracks by
invoking her own status. She's very pretty, and pretty easy to flatter,
though a bit catty. She reminds me of Stella. How are Sis and her kids
doing, by the way? I think maybe Nanami *might* be interested in me, and
wouldn't that be a switch?

In class, (I'm in First Year, which is equivalent to sophomore back
home...), I met my Student Guide, Juri. She's very striking, almost
supermodel quality, but very prickly. Juri's on the Student Council (which
is a *really* big deal around here), and seemed put out that she's stuck
babysitting a weird foreigner. Especially given...

You may have noticed this letter is all in Japanese. Sorry about that. But
when English class started, I discovered that the reason I was suddenly so
good at the local language is because somehow my skills with Japanese and
English had been switched. (Boy, am I glad I actually taught myself some
Japanese, rather than just rely on dubs.)

The other kids in class just seemed to not "get" why I was so bad at
English, but Juri is smart, and when we broke for lunch, had some questions
for me....

"So. Who are you, really?"

For a long moment, the question hung in the air. Juri leaned against the
windowsill with deceptive casualness, her gaze locked with Skyler's. The
early afternoon sunlight slanted through the windows, casting illuminated
squares upon the floor.

Finally, Skyler spoke. "I'm beginning to be less sure of that than I was.
Who I think I am is Skyler Gregory Sands, born in Gunntown, Minnesota. I
lived all my life in the United States, except for being stationed in
England for a while, and short vacations in Canada. I *should* know
English. It was my best subject in school. And now there's a hole in my
mind..."

She nodded slowly, eyes still fixed on his. "You're honest about it, at
least. But still... you're a Caucasian unusually proficient in Japanese and
mysteriously inept in English. You're wearing a Student Council uniform and
the Rose Signet. You seem to be rather important to the Ends of the World.
And now you claim to have no idea why all this is. I'm curious. You haven't
the faintest idea what is happening to you?"

["The Ends of the World"? Hmm...] Skyler took a deep breath. "Okay, but
I'll have to answer with a question. Are you familiar with the Fox-Broome
Theory of Parallel Earths?"

"I don't believe so."

"In essence, the theory is that there are an infinite number of parallel
universes existing next to each other, separated by a function of
space-time we don't understand yet. In some cases, psychically sensitive
people can pick up `information' from these other universes, believing it
to be their own imagination. Thus, they create `fiction' with this
information. You might also have heard of it as `World as Myth.'"

"And your point?" asked Juri.

"Where I come from, Ohtori Academy and its students are fictional
constructs. I was perusing a magazine devoted to this and other stories
when I wished, in essence, to become a part of one of the stories. For
reasons I have yet to determine, someone or thing chose to grant this wish,
resulting in my arrival here."

Skyler sighed. "I wish I'd read the fine print first..."

Juri looked at him skeptically, and opened her mouth to retort, but then
paused. She just stared at him, frowning, scrutinizing his face, his eyes,
his posture, looking for any hint of deception or misleading intent.
Finally, she broke off with a slightly surprised look on her face.

"You actually believe that, don't you." It wasn't entirely a question, but
not quite a statement. She held his gaze for a moment longer, then abruptly
started walking down the corridor past him, back to where they had broken
away from the group.

"So?"

Juri fixed him with a cool stare. "I believe that you believe you're
telling the truth. Understand, though, that I have no reason to accept it.
I think you're sincerely deluded. If you can change my mind, so be it, but
insane or not, you seem for the most part harmless."

Skyler thought about that.

Juri kept walking until she reached the corner. "Are you coming?"

"Oh, right." Skyler's stomach growled to punctuate the idea.

As he hurried to catch up, he said, "That is the most plausible
explanation. It does, however, lead me back around to your first question.
Who am I *really*? And why don't I remember?"

She shrugged. "I don't know. I've barely met you -- I'd be a fool to
speculate on your history without learning more. I could guess, but there'd
be little point."

She had a point there. "Ah well, enough about me. Tell me a bit about you,
please?"

She quirked an eyebrow at him. "Shouldn't you be able to tell me? If this
school is fiction, no doubt I'm a moderately significant character."

"If my memory is correct, as of two days ago, my Japanese and English
literacy ratings were reversed. And what I had was a magazine featuring
announcements about the story, in Japanese, rather than the story itself.
The star, from the pictures, was a pink-haired girl named Tenjou Utena, who
I haven't actually met here yet, though I did meet the other person who was
prominent in the pictures, Himemiya Anthy. And since the story was
apparently just starting, not much else was obvious."

Skyler sighed. "That is, presuming my memory is correct."

"I see. Quite convenient." The two of them entered the cafeteria -- a
fairly large room with an even larger open-air patio separated from the
main dining room by glass doors. Lunch was being served by uniformed
employees in a manner not noticably improved from American public schools
-- chicken with some sort of chunky red sauce, it seemed -- and round,
white tables were scattered around the floor.

"In any case," Juri continued as she entered the line, "my name is
Arisugawa Juri. I am the captain of the fencing club and a member of the
Student Council. According to school gossip that you'll no doubt hear soon
enough, I'm an unpleasant and wicked enough person that even the teachers
live in fear of me, and no one who knows my true colors dares come near me.
Satisfactory?"

"It's a good thing I'm not in my right mind then, ne?" said Skyler, hoping
she would understand that his smile meant he was making a joke. "I was
certainly the butt of my high school's gossip chain enough to get an idea
how you feel. I know *that's* true, regardless of whether I remember my
past correctly or not."

Looking at the food, he decided it was not surprising many students brought
bento.

She shrugged offhandedly. "And how do I feel?" she asked in an even tone,
not putting much care into her voice. "Don't be so quick to assume all
rumors are false."

They took a seat out on the patio, which had another 'wall' of white arches
around the edge, looking out on the pathways and lawns of the school below.
Students were scattered around on the grass, eating their bentou under the
bright blue sky, in twos and threes and larger groups. Skyler looked out
over them for a moment, taking in the beauty and strangeness of it all --
an anime crowd, brought to life and talking in a language he could
understand.

His eyes fell on a dark-skinned figure in the shade of a nearby tree. Anthy
was eating her lunch, or rather feeding bits of it to Chuchu, who was
seemingly engrossed in staring at the tree's leaves. Two other people were
sitting next to her, a blue-haired boy Skyler didn't recognize, wearing a
uniform like his and Juri's, but in white and blue, and a pink-haired girl
Skyler was all too familiar with the sight of.

He couldn't see much of Tenjou Utena from this angle -- she was kneeling
and her back was to him, but he could still make out the pink hair cut
slightly below her shoulders, the black jacket she was wearing, and the
bare legs indicating she was probably wearing shorts or a skirt as short as
the regulation uniform. As he watched, she rubbed the back of her head as
Anthy smilingly offered her a morsel from her bentou.

"Ah, Sands-kun, Arisugawa-kun! I was hoping I'd find you here."

Skyler turned to see Kyoto-sensei approaching, briefcase in one hand and a
ruffled stack of papers in the other. "Sands-kun, I know this might be a
little inconvenient, but I was wondering if we could start your student
teaching duties early. It's nothing much -- all you'd have to do is grade a
few short tests sometime today, and I've got the answer key right here..."
He set down the sheaf of papers on the table.

"No problem, sir. What time do you need them back by?"

"The end of the day, if you could... just leave them on the desk and I'll
drop by the room on my way out. It shouldn't take too long. You should be
able to finish before lunch is over, if you want."

"Certainly."

Kyoto-sensei went off, presumably to fetch his own lunch.

Skyler quickly leafed through the tests, and noted they were all for Junior
High class 2-A. A couple of the names were familiar. [Lessee, Tenjou Utena
-- Tenjou written as 'Above Heaven.' Shinohara Wakaba, wonder if there's a
Shinohara Industries in this world. Ah, Himemiya Anthy. "Princess", huh?
And the other name in katakana...]

He turned his attention back to Arisugawa, who had continued eating at a
measured pace.

"I remember that on the acceptance letter I got when I arrived, there were
members of the Ohtori family listed as the management here. And this is
also Ohtori province, so is the Academy named after the family or the
location, or both?"

She shrugged disinterestedly. "The Ohtori family has always been
influential here, whether as feudal lords or wealthy academics." She fixed
him with a jaundiced eye. "For one with such grand delusions, you seem
fixated on rather mundane topics."

"Cognitive dissonance. Very well, then, you mentioned `the Ends of the
World'. Who or what is that, and what does it have to do with revolution?"
Skyler added that last on a hunch, remembering the card he'd found on his
arrival.

In response, Juri placed an envelope on the table -- small and almost
square, formerly sealed with a drop of wax imprinted with the same rose
seal on his ring. It looked remarkably like the card he had recieved in his
introductory packet.

"'Sekai no Hate' is whoever sends these mysterious letters to the Student
Council. They have various purposes -- the most recent one predicted the
arrival of a new Duellist, and instructed me to be your student guide.

"As for revolution... you don't know about the Duels yet, do you?"

"Only that they occur, and apparently the distinctive uniforms indicate
who's eligible." Skyler was getting a little concerned about the
possibility he would be involved in one soon.

"According to the letters, there exists a 'Power to Revolutionize the
World,' whatever that may mean. Those of us with the Rose Signet are
supposed to fight duels among ourselves to become the Victor of the Duel,
who not only controls the Bride of the Rose, but will someday gain this
mysterious 'power.'"

"The Bride of the...?"

"Himemiya Anthy." She shrugged. "Foolish, don't you think?"

"Sounds vaguely familiar, somehow. Like something out of Masonic ritual, or
maybe the Rosicrucians, but taken farther. And yes, it does sound a bit
foolish. And dangerous. I know I wouldn't trust most high schoolers with a
power like that, including me." He paused, then flicked his eyes to the
tests. "My note wasn't signed. Wonder why?"

Juri shrugged disinterestedly. "Who knows?"

She then rose to her feet a bit abruptly. "If you'll excuse me, I have a
Student Council meeting to attend. It would seem President Kiryuu is far
more curious about you than I." She took her tray and walked off, barely
sparing him another glance.

"See you round!" Skyler chirped brightly. "Well, at least I have something
to do in the meantime."

Skyler took up the tests again. He shuffled the three names he recognized
to the bottom, to give himself something to look forward to. [Now let's
see, we have the answer key, and...ah, history.]

The grading went quite quickly -- the test was mostly simple
multiple-choice and fill-in-the-blank questions. He went through, marking
off errors and scribbling in the percentage right. An 88 here, a 94 there,
the occasional 98 or 72... He tried to absorb the information himself, just
in case.

Finally, he came to the first of the familiar names. Tenjou Utena -- a 76.
She'd struggled with some of the more obscure questions, it seemed, but
managed to scrape through.

[Okay, traditionally anime heroes aren't too good at schoolwork, but at
least she's passing.]

Shinohara Wakaba -- a 74. She'd missed most of the same questions Utena
had, along with one or two others. [Well, that lends validity to the
"studying together" story. Curse you, Chris Davies.]

Himemiya Anthy -- a 0.

Zero?

Skyler blinked. Aside from her name and the class number in the upper right
hand corner, she hadn't written a thing on the paper. Every single question
answer was left blank, even the simplest -- even the ones *Skyler* could
have gotten just from his anime background.

[Hmm, she doesn't seem to be an idiot, so this is deliberate. Anthy
*wanted* to fail this test. Why?] He thought back to Nanami's remarks. [Um,
no, if it were overwork, she'd at least be *trying*. This is rebellion. But
against whom?]

He'd have to risk prying a bit tonight.

He glanced down at the grass again. Utena and Anthy were still there, along
with Chuchu, who seemed to have gotten a large falling leaf right in his
face. The blue-haired boy had left already -- [Another Student Council
member, maybe?] -- and Utena and Anthy seemed to be starting to gather
their stuff to go.

Skyler looked up at the clock, noting with surprise that it had been almost
an hour since class let out. Just about time to get to class...

The first two classes of the afternoon proceeded reasonably quickly. Juri
remained distracted but competent, the classes remained dull but somewhat
familiar, and aside from the language Skyler found little that didn't
remind him of his high school days.

Finally, it came time to break for P.E. [Wonderful. Not exactly my idea of
a fun time...] He glanced over at Juri as she stood.

"I have a meeting of the fencing club to attend. You can follow the class
to the usual P.E. session if you prefer, or you can accompany me." Without
waiting for him to choose, she set off for the door.

[Well, I don't have a sword, so let's try the physical education class.
Three gets you two there's a gym locker for me.] Skyler followed the main
group of boys, noting that several were going off in different directions,
presumably for other club meetings or to get a smoke.

Skyler tried in vain to catch his breath as he leaned against one of the
windows of the gym. Gym class had been... a mixed blessing. On the bright
side, he'd found his locker and a set of sweats in the school's teal, and
discovered that his endurance and speed were definitely better than they'd
been in his real body.

On the down side, it apparently wasn't enough to make a dozen laps around
the track anything less than unpleasant. It was better than the torture it
would have been otherwise, but he didn't see himself doing long races for
fun anytime soon.

To make matters worse, he didn't exactly find himself growing enthralled
with his classmates. There wasn't exactly anything wrong with them -- they
seemed mostly to be nice enough guys, generally friendly and conversational
in a high-school sort of way. Still, he just got a feeling from them... a
feeling that, if he had to put a name to, he'd call 'Hiroshi and Daisuke.'
Nice people, maybe worth making friends with, but not exceptionally likely
to take the initiative or get involved with any of the interesting things
going on in the school. They were, in short, perfectly, blandly normal.

[Well, I guess it's best to have some people around who aren't complete
weirdos. At least they aren't attacking me.]

He leaned back against the glass as he cooled down, listening to them
gossip against a background of sporting sounds -- the clashes and squeaks
of a fencing match inside the gym, and the cheers of the baseball game in
the middle of the field before him, punctuated by the occasional crack of a
bat as someone (often the very familiar pink-haired first-basewoman) sent a
ball long.

[Well, I did suspect she was the athletic type. But why am I getting this
strange sense of deja vu?]

"Man, she's good," a brown-haired boy commented, eyes following Utena as
she ran the bases. "Seems like kinda a waste, don't it? I mean, one or two
wouldn't be so bad, but it's like she's got half the girls in her class
after her."

Skyler's interest peaked slightly.

"It's just hormones," a black-haired guy with glasses said. "Give 'em a few
years and most of them will grow out of it. Besides, it's not like it's her
fault. I heard she and the Student Council President almost kissed at that
party last week."

[Let's see, that's Touga, right?]

A third boy shook his head as a crowd of cheering female spectators rushed
Utena as she crossed the plate, offering her water bottles, fawning over
her, and generally contributing to what looked like a rising blush from
where Skyler stood. "Nah, I was there. It wasn't like that at all. Besides,
what about that freaky girl who works in the flower gardens? There's gotta
be something going on there."

[Now who's that?]

"Saionji was sure mad. I mean, if she hadn't stolen her away, you think
there'd be such a big grudge there? I mean, I can understand Utena's side,
because of that letter. But why'd Saionji get so obsessed?"

"Ego. You know him -- can't stand letting anyone think anyone's better than
him."

[Who's Saionji? Obviously, I'm missing some important information here....]
Skyler stood up to stretch a bit. [Best guess, Utena won a duel with him.
But I don't get the "stolen" bit--]

*CRACK!*

Skyler barely had time to blink. There was a line drive, he realized,
coming at an angle to the first base line, extremely fast, at about the
height of his head.

He also realized he was standing just far enough from the base line that it
would land almost precisely between his eyes.

Reflexes honed by years of having things thrown at him and his mild
ballistophobia took over, and Skyler dropped to the ground as if he'd been
shot. He could feel the ball brushing against his hair--

*CRASH*

The ball plowed through the window, shattering its central pane into a
hundred pieces. Skyler picked himself up gingerly and peered inside.

Most of the fencing class -- including the blue haired boy he'd seen
before, who was sitting on the sidelines in his uniform and carrying a
stopwatch -- was looking on in stunned silence. From the looks of things,
the window had been at just the right angle that the baseball would have
hit one of the fencers right in the back of the head...

Had the other one not shoved her out of the way and impaled the ball on the
end of her foil.

"Sorry, sorry!" Utena called out as she rushed over from the baseball
field. "Didn't think it'd go this..." She trailed off as she took in the
scene -- Skyler, the window, the blue-haired guy, the fencer, the ball...

Somehow, Skyler wasn't entirely surprised when the fencer pulled off her
mask to reveal Juri's somewhat sweaty face. For a long moment, she met
Utena's gaze with a cool, hard stare of her own.

Finaly, Juri broke the stunned silence. "Next!" she commanded theclass, as
she walked over to the window.

Skyler was still a bit stunned to actually be seeing Utena up close.
Especially that amazingly pink hair.

He tried to get his voice to work again. "H-hi." But any further
conversation would have to be put off...

Utena blinked at him, her bright blue eyes flicking over him for a watchful
moment. "Um, hi. Sorry about the ball... I didn't think it'd go this far.
I..." She trailed off as Juri reached the window, the blue-haired boy right
behind her.

Juri tossed the skewered ball through the broken pane with a casual flip of
the wrist. "I believe this is yours."

"Um, yeah," Utena managed as she caught the ball instinctively. She glanced
from the boy to Juri a few times. "Sorry. It was a wild pitch, and I
couldn't get under it right..."

"Of course." Juri cut Utena off almost casually as she studied her face.
"You're Tenjou Utena, aren't you?"

There was an audible *click* as the boy stopped his stopwatch and looked up
in embarassed surprise. "Oh! I'm sorry, I should have thought of this
sooner." He sounded fairly young, though there was a naggingly familiar
quality to his voice. "Juri-sempai, this is my friend Tenjou Utena.
Utena-sempai, this is Arisugawa Juri, the captain of the fencing team." He
glanced at Skyler. "I'm sorry, but I don't..."

"Skyler Sands, pleased to make your acquaintance."

"An `exchange student'," Juri added dryly.

"It's a pleasure to meet you, Sands-sempai," the boy bowed. "My name is
Kaoru Miki."

Utena nodded. "Yeah, a pleasure." She glanced at Skyler, then back at Juri.
"You're with the Student Council, right? I've heard about you a little."

[She must be a new student this year then,] thought Skyler. [And not in the
Fencing Club, either, despite all those pictures of her with a sword.]

She looked at Skyler again. "Wait, I think... Aren't you the the guy
Himemiya said moved into the dorm last night?" Utena's eyes darted for a
moment to his hand, and the ring there.

"Yes, that's so. I suppose we'll be running into each other a lot then."
Shouts from the field drew some attention. "Oh, you'd better get back to
the game, though I don't think that ball is play-legal now."

She glanced back towards the diamond, where the various players were just
standing around watching her, or practicing tossing around a new ball.
"Yeah, probably not. But I guess I'll--"

"Actually, I'd like to speak to you."

Utena blinked as Juri interrupted. "Huh? But I just said..."

"Miki, can you handle the rest of the meeting?"

The blue-haired boy blinked. "I suppose so, but..."

"Good." She fixed Utena with a cool gaze as she pulled off her gloves,
letting the silver ring on her left hand catch the sunlight for just a
brief moment. "I'm sure you can finish whatever you have to soon enough."

[Interesting,] thought Skyler. [Obviously a fated meeting, but did I change
things, or just facilitate what was always going to happen? I *did* tell
Juri that bit of information about Utena, but that doesn't mean she would
think it worth acting on...]

Arisugawa-san walked away, most likely to the changing room. Utena looked
after her bemusedly. "Weird..." she murmured.

She then looked suddenly back towards the diamond. "Guess I'd better be
getting back to the game. Nice meeting you, Sands-sempai. Later, Miki-kun."
She gave a pleasant wave as she started jogging back to the baseball field,
tossing the ball in one hand.

Skyler and Miki stared at each other a moment, then Skyler said, "I should
let you get back to running the meeting."

Miki glanced back to the fencers talking among themselves. "I suppose so.
It was nice to meet you, and I hope we'll be able to talk later." Miki
turned away from the window and began setting up the next match. Skyler
watched him go for a moment. There was something familiar about him, but he
couldn't quite place what. Something about his looks, or his voice, maybe,
but whatever it was, it rung a bell.

[Maybe he had the same voice actor as someone in a series I've seen? Don't
remember who the VAs were for this...] thought Skyler, feeling a slight
uncomfortableness about treating the situation so analytically.

Skyler tagged along with the rest of his class to the showers, and managed
to get out just in time to see Juri (back in uniform) meeting with Utena as
the baseball game broke up. He watched as the two of them talked for a
moment, then set out at a casual strolling pace back into the main
corridors and paths of the campus, still talking quietly.

[Wonder what they're talking about?]

*Click*

Miki glanced up from his stopwatch as he stepped up next to Skyler, eyes
following Utena and Juri as they walked out of sight. He, too, had changed
uniforms, Skyler noted, into yet another variant on the one he and Juri
wore, this time with blue pants and some blue trim, along with the
ever-present silver signet ring. It matched his hair and eyes well, giving
him a look that wasn't exactly bishounen -- more 'cute', perhaps, maybe
with a touch of innocent vulnerability. The sort of thing that, in Skyler's
professional estimation, would have female fans of the series wanting to
cuddle him like a lost puppy.

"I wonder what they're talking about..." Miki murmured to himself.

"The future, I suppose. It's nice to have a future, if a little scary."

Miki nodded. "If you can find out what the future holds, perhaps..." he
said quietly.

"Although if you knew too much about how tomorrow will turn out, you'd have
a script rather than a future." [Maybe it's best I don't know.]

Miki nodded thoughtfully. "True..." He looked at Skyler for a moment, eyes
lingering a fraction of a second on the signet ring. "So..." He struck out
vainly in search of a conversational topic. "Have you been enjoying your
stay here so far?"

"It's been very interesting. A few rough spots, but I think I'll like it
here." He paused a moment, then decided to change the subject again. "Say,
does the cafeteria here serve dinner, too, or are we on our own?"

"Usually the dorms have their own arrangements," Miki replied. "They
usually have kitchens as well, for those who want to make their own food."

Skyler nodded. He had a hunch that, given his living arrangements, Anthy
was likely to be cooking most of the meals for the dorm, especially since
it had only been for herself and Utena (and Chuchu) so far.

[Of course, that means negotiating with them about chipping in for the
meals. Since I don't have any funds yet, that could be tricky.] Of course,
he could cook for them every so often, if Anthy wasn't too possessive about
the kitchen.

"Fair enough. What's the city like in general? I just arrived yesterday,
and I'd like to do some sightseeing some time."

Miki looked off into the distance, considering. "Well, there are some
pleasant parks and beaches... Theaters and a concert hall, as well, but I
don't think there's much scheduled for the next month or two. There's an
old castle some distance outside of town, and I think there's an amusement
park a while down the coast, but they're a little far away to go to without
a car." He shrugged slightly abashedly. "I'm afraid I don't get out much,
though, so I can't be much help here."

"Oh, so you're from out of town yourself?"

Miki blushed slightly, rubbing the back of his neck. "Actually, I grew up
near here. It's just... I've never been to very many places. I've always
been a little busy, and when I'm not, I tend to stay home and do things I
like..."

"Oh, right. I used to be pretty tied down to the farm, until my brother got
old enough to do some of the chores, and even then my preference was for
reading."

The blue-haired youth nodded. "I always preferred mathematics and piano,
and later fencing. They've always been what I really loved."

[I wonder what is is about math and piano playing in anime?] "Are you more
a classical pianist, or jazz?"

"Mostly classical. It... well, it's always seemed to shine more, for me."

"That makes sense. How long have you known Tenjou-san?"

"Not long, really. I've been helping her study over the last week or two."
He glanced up at Skyler. "Have you known Juri-sempai long?"

"No, we just met today in class. She got saddled with being my guide."

"I see. I hope you'll get along well -- she's really a nice person."

"Very intelligent, too, I've noticed." [And attractive, but I think he can
figure that out for himself.]

"Yes, she is... and quite a fencer, too." He looked away, a bit nervously.
"Do you know much about fencing? Or kendo, perhaps?"

"Very little, really. Never trained in either, since there wasn't a teacher
for that in my home town." Skyler smiled ruefully. "Maybe I should take it
up."

"It might be a good idea. There's space in the fencing club right now, or
you could ask Saionji-sempai if the kendo club was accepting applicants..."

[Not if he's as bad as some people have been implying....] "I'll take that
under advisement. It looks like I may be having to do extra study for a
while to catch up in some of the classes." Skyler hoped he could find a
legitimate excuse to bail out of English soon.

"Some of them can be difficult, I realize. I've been helping Tenjou-sempai
and Shinohara-sempai study for their makeup exams... I hope they passed
them."

[Yup, main character has trouble in class.] Skyler smiled at at least one
anime cliche holding true. "So what's your take on this dueling stuff?"

Miki shrugged. "I suppose Tenjou-sempai and Himemiya-sempai get along well
enough. Tenjou-sempai is certainly better for her than Saionji-sempai was,
but..." He sighed. "I just wish she could be free," he murmured. "Perhaps
next time..."

He trailed off as the school bell's chimes sounded. "Oh! I'm really sorry,
but I've got to go. I promised my instructor I wouldn't be late for piano
practice today..."

He bowed slightly as he turned to leave, a crisp, stiff yet elegant motion.
"It was a pleasure meeting you, Sands-sempai. I hope everything goes well
for you here."

Skyler bowed back. "Thanks, and you can call me Skyler if you like."

Miki blinked surprisedly. "Ah... well... Thank you, but... It's a little
informal," he managed embarassedly. "We've barely met..."

"Oh, I forgot. I'm used to an extremely informal arrangement, you
understand. If you're uncomfortable, you can just stick with what seems
appropriate."

Miki nodded, relaxing slightly. "I understand. It must be quite different
in America. I didn't mean to..." He trailed off, then shrugged slightly.
"Until later, then... er, Skyler-sempai..."

"See you round!"

Finding himself alone for the moment, Skyler wandered in Higashi-kan's
direction. "So Anthy's passed off to whoever `wins' her? That's more than a
little disturbing. I'll have to ask if there's an official rulebook for the
duels I can look at. Freedom of choice would be preferable, if it can be
achieved...and this Saionji guy sounds like trouble. Still, mustn't jump to
too many conclusions. There's still huge pieces missing from the puzzle..."

Skyler was just getting his room unlocked as he heard the front door close.
Glancing down the corridor and over the balcony, he could just make out
Anthy removing her shoes, with Chuchu on her shoulder clutching what looked
like a bouquet of flowers.

"Hi!" he called down.

She looked up and smiled. "Good afternoon!" she called back cheerfully.

Skyler came down the stairs and met Himemiya-san in the entry hall, as she
set the bouquet in a vase. It was roses, he saw now, of all different
colors -- red, green, pale blue, yellow, and pink, all beautifully lush and
bright. She looked as cheerful as always, though the faded shadow of a
slight bruise was still visible on her face. "How was your day?" he asked,
fully expecting her to just say "nice."

"Oh, it was fine," she smiled. Close enough. As she turned to him, his eyes
fell on the one rose remaining in her hands -- a lavender one, matching his
outfit perfectly. "If it's not an inconvenience, this is for you," she
said, extending it towards him.

"Thank you, Himemiya-san," he said, taking it with both hands. [Lavender
roses? I suppose I shouldn't be surprised.] He tucked the flower into his
breast pocket for safekeeping.

"It seems breakfast and dinner are up to me to arrange, so if it's all
right with you and Tenjou-san, I'd like to join you most of the time. I'll
chip in grocery money when I can, and I can cook once in a while, I'm not
as good as you but I can cook, and I'm sure I can help move heavy things or
whatever else needs doing--" Skyler ran out of breath.

Anthy just smiled softly in response. "Domo, domo," she said casually. "I
don't mind cooking, but if Utena-sama says it's okay, of course you can
help."

"Thanks! I don't want to impose on your hospitality if I can help out in
return instead."

"Oh, it's no imposition at all."

"Also, I need to talk to you about something a bit less comfortable.
Perhaps we should be sitting down for it."

"If you like. I did want to clean a bit before starting dinner," she added
as she set down her bag and sat in one of the entry hall's armchairs.

Skyler tried to look non-threatening. "They didn't brief me on any of this
dueling and Rose Bride stuff before I came here. I've picked up a little
bit now, but I still don't fully understand it. I need for you to be honest
with me, even if you think it might hurt or offend me. What's this about,
from your perspective?"

She shrugged slightly, her smile never wavering. "It is a mystery, isn't
it?"

Of all the responses he'd thought she might give, that wasn't high on the
list.

Before he could press further, the door swung open again, this time
revealing a rather tired and frustrated looking Tenjou Utena, now dressed
in the uniform he'd seen in all the pictures -- a black boy's uniform
jacket, cut fairly close to her body, edged in red piping with triangular
brass lapel pins and round buttons, and extremely short, extremely tight
red shorts. An interesting combination, to say the least, not to mention an
attractive one.

"Welcome home, Utena-sama!" Anthy called out as Utena entered. Utena waved
back, blinking in slight surprise as her eyes fell on Skyler.

"Hi, Himemiya. Um, you're that guy who was with Juri-sempai, right? Skyler
Sands, wasn't it?"

Skyler quickly got back to his feet. "Yes, that's right. And you're Tenjou
Utena?" He forced his eyes to stay on her bright blue ones, despite the
temptation of looking lower. [Steady up, boy, girls don't like it if you
stare at their assets first...]

"Yeah," she nodded. Her gaze fell on the rose in Skyler's pocket, and
expression turned to worry, with perhaps a touch of weariness. "Um, don't
take this the wrong way, but you're not here to challenge me to a duel or
claim Himemiya belongs to you or get some kind of revenge or anything, are
you?"

"Well, I'm not here to challenge you to a duel today, I have no claim on
Himemiya-san and you haven't done anything to me, my family or friends that
I know of. I can't rule out 'anything', though. But I'd like to believe I'm
not hostile. Oh, and she gave me the rose herself, so no fear there. Okay?"
Skyler hoped he'd covered all the bases. He tried his best to look
non-threatening and friendly.

She looked askance at him for a moment, then sighed, half-smiling. "Guess
it's better than nothing." She relaxed slightly as she kicked off her shoes
and walked over towards the chairs where Anthy was sitting. "Sorry to get
all paranoid, but lately it seems every time I see that uniform it means
trouble. At least you and Juri-sempai seem to be acting sane, relatively
speaking." She flopped down in a chair. "I take it you've moved in here?"

"That's right, I was assigned to the room just down the hall from yours.
The uniform was assigned too. Lucky me, eh?"

[Juri would probably be amused to hear myself and "relatively sane"
connected in the same sentence.]

"Smells like a Student Council set up to me," Utena frowned. "Wish I knew
what the heck they're up to..." She stretched slightly, unconsciously
calling Skyler's attention to the twin facts that yes, her shorts were
extremely short, and yes, she did have rather nice legs indeed. He looked
away embarassedly.

"Erm, I was saying to Himemiya-san earlier, if it's all right with you
folks, I'd like to eat here most of the time. I'll pitch in grocery money
when I can, and I'm sure there's some heavy lifting chores that need doing
once in a while, and I can cook once in a while. I'm not as good as she
is," Skyler indicated Anthy, "but I'm not bad either."

Utena blinked. "Sure, if you want. Actually, I might as well help out once
in a while, too. I mean, I'm nowhere near the cook Himemiya is, either, but
I can still manage." She glanced at Himemiya. "How about it? You take the
night off tomorrow, and Skyler-sempai and I can handle dinner?"

"Of course, Utena-sama," Himemiya smiled.

"While we're still near the subject of the Student Council, what's your
take on the dueling? I wasn't exactly briefed on it before I arrived."

Utena sighed. "You and me both. I didn't have a clue about it until I was
in way over my head, and I still don't completely understand what's going
on. There's something about a miracle power that can revolutionize the
world and being 'engaged' to Himemiya, but that's about all I know." She
stretched slightly, frowning off into the distance while reaching towards
her toes, prompting Skyler to blush and look away again. "Still, from what
I know, no one's actually got to duel except me, and that's just because
I'm the Victor of the Duel. So as long as you don't challenge me, you've
probably got a chance to keep from getting caught up in all this
weirdness."

"'Engaged'? And here I thought arranged marriages weren't going to come
into this." [I didn't say that out loud, did I?] Skyler winced internally
as he realized he had.

"Jeez, I hope not," Utena frowned, seeming to think little of the gaffe. "I
don't *think* it's anything like that, though. Though I guess it probably
ties into them always calling Himemiya the 'Bride of the Rose.' Never
thought of it that way, though."

"Just a random thought. I've watched too many cartoons for my own good."

"No problem. Heck, I sorta wish my life was a cartoon sometimes. At least
then I'd probably have some cute sidekick thingy telling me what in the
world's going on..."

"Chu?" Chuchu glanced up from its position on Anthy's knee, where it had
been shuffling a pack of cards. It quickly grabbed them up and scampered up
her legs to climb her blouse, inadvertently drawing Skyler's gaze along the
long, dark legs to the hem of the extremely short skirt... He blushed and
averted his gaze yet again.

[Man, those hormones are beginning to hit me really hard. Eyes up, girls
like eye contact...] Skyler brought his gaze up to Anthy's, who smiled
back.

Utena smiled. "Okay, okay... present company excepted," she smiled as
Chuchu shot her what was probably meant to be a reproachful look.

[Just because we don't understand what it's saying, doesn't mean it isn't
trying to communicate.] Once again, Skyler wondered just how intelligent
the monkey actually was.

"Well, I should be hitting the books, way behind on my studies, see you at
dinner, Tenjou-san, Himemiya-san." Skyler tried not to look panicked.

"No prob. See you then!" Utena smiled as Himemiya waved goodbye. Chuchu
didn't look up from its hand of cards.

As he went up the stairs, Skyler started humming again. [o/~Who likes short
shorts? We like short shorts!~\o What am I thinking? I'm old enough to be a
father to most of the cast...on the other hand, I don't *look* like I
am...let's put that sort of thought off till later, shall we?]

He entered his room, sat down at the desk, and pulled out the schoolbooks.
[Hmm...well, let's get the "easy" homework out of the way first, because
English is going to be a bloody horror.]

Skyler slowly walked down the stairs, hoping he didn't look as weary and
frustrated as he felt. He'd been right. Some of his work had been easy but
dull, some had been tedious but doable, but English had been a nightmare.
The phrases were inane and yet annoyingly difficult, and even the most
incomprehensible words gave him a weird sense of deja vu. Still, he'd
gotten enough done to call it a night and break for dinner. Utena and Anthy
were waiting for him at the dinner table, and greeted him pleasantly as he
sat. Dinner, at least, looked highly appetizing... He said a quick silent
grace, then dug in.

The three (or four, depending on how one counted) of them ate in awkward
silence for a time, punctuated only by Chuchu slurping the tea and
crunching the crackers. Finally, Utena broke the ice.

"So, you're from America, right?"

"Yes, from Gunntown, Minnesota. Very small town."

"Why'd you end up deciding to study abroad? I mean, you're good at
Japanese, so I guess that's why you came here instead of Amsterdam or
wherever, but why in general?"

Skyler smiled ruefully. "I wanted a change. You know, a little adventure,
romance... magic. I've always liked visiting other places, and when the
opportunity to see Japan came up, I could hardly turn it down." [You asked
for it, you schmuck!] his conscience pointed out.

"Sounds cool. I've never actually been out of the country before. Closest I
ever came was when my aunt moved to Holland just before the school year
started, but I decided to come to Ohtori instead."

[Aunt? Ah, probably an orphan then. Another traditional anime hero cliche.]
"I've heard Holland is very pretty, especially in the spring. Of course,
Minnesota is too, especially out in the country."

"Really? It sounds great... I've been stuck in the cities most of my life.
Never had much of a chance to get out in the wild." She leaned forward as
she paused to take another bite. "What's America really like, anyway? I
mean, you hear about it a lot on the news and in the movies and everything,
but I've never really been sure how much of it is real and how much is just
hype."

"America is a really big place, with a little of everything. There are
parts of the cities that are just as crimeridden as all the TV shows make
them look, and other parts where little kids can play in the streets
safely. There's no real Wild West anymore, but there are parts of the
country that you can get far enough away from other people to pretend there
is. We have huge mountains, and prairies that go on forever. Or at least it
seems like that when you're driving across them." Skyler took a quick
drink.

"Near my hometown, it's mostly flat with low hills, farm country. Lots of
pine trees."

"Neat. That part sounds a little like Hokkaido, actually -- the whole flat
farms and pine trees bit, I mean. I've only been up there once, but it's a
pretty cool place."

She glanced down as Chuchu went to work like a buzzsaw on a piece of
cracker. "I guess it's just the whole scale thing that gets me -- it seems
like you do everything so much bigger over there." She glanced at him
curiously. "What're the schools like? I mean, I hear you get something like
a quarter of the year off."

"Well, most places that's true, though there are a few private schools that
handle things differently. It goes back to frontier days. Most of the kids
were needed to work on the farm during the summer, so they couldn't attend
school. And the tradition stuck, same way as the style of school uniforms
did here in Japan, so I'm told."

Skyler let his eyes unfocus a bit as he remembered. "Gunntown is really
small, so it just had one school, with an elementary wing and a high school
wing. I'd say about eighty percent of the people in my last class there
were in kindergarten with me. Heck, I think more people attend Ohtori than
live in the city limits back home."

"Yeah, that sounds like some of the towns in the country I've heard of.
I've never actually been to one that small, but I've heard of them."

"Oh, there's smaller. Places where the `Welcome to Town' and `See You Again
Soon' Signs are on the same post. Where'd you and your aunt live before you
moved?"

"A lot of places, actually. Her job kept her moving around a lot, so every
year or two I'd have to drop everything and head for another school in a
new city. I didn't mind, really -- it kept things interesting, and I got to
see a lot of the country. We mostly stuck to the bigger cities, though. Not
much call for a high-class interior designer in the mountain country."

"I suppose not."

The conversation drifted to more mundane matters after that, such as the
next evening's dinner -- Utena offered to try some of the recipes she'd
been learning in cooking class, like curry, teriyaki, or shabu-shabu, while
Skyler decided to go with "salad, maybe, and a dessert of some kind,
depending on what kind of recipe I can find and available ingredients."
Eventually, the meal broke up, with Utena and Skyler heading back for their
rooms and Anthy finishing the cleanup, claiming cheerily she didn't need
help.

Skyler stretched in his chair. Normally around this time, he'd be watching
TV or reading a book. But he hadn't seen a television since he had arrived,
and after the nightmare that was English, he didn't feel like another bout
of staring at text.

"D'oh! I forgot, I wanted to talk to Anthy about that test, if I can catch
her alone." He went to search for her.

"So," Skyler began, "how have you been doing in school, lately?"

"Oh, it's fine," Anthy smiled as she hung a teacup on a rack.

"Really?" He hesitated a moment, trying to come up with a tactful way to
broach the subject, then decided to plunge right in. "It's just that I was
grading one of your tests for Kyoto-sensei earlier, and, well... you left
it entirely blank."

Anthy nodded. "Yes, I did," she smiled.

Skyler blinked. "Why? I mean, are you having problems in class, or...?"

"I don't worry about such things," she replied placidly.

[!?] He shook his head, unable to quite grasp what she'd said. "You...don't
worry about such things..."

"Yes." If she was joking, Skyler had to admit she had the best poker face
he'd ever seen.

"Wow. I mean, grades aren't exactly my highest priority right now, but not
to worry at all..." He found the notion slightly repellent, like having
someone admit to an aversion to bathing.

Anthy finished shelving the last of the dishes. Wiping her hands on a dish
towel, she went out into the hallway, and began polishing the vases there
while humming a quiet tune to herself. "Was there anything else?"

"Um, no, thank you." Skyler decided a walk outside was best, to clear his
head a little. [So much for the "Utena interferes with her schoolwork"
theory...Maybe the "Nanami is jealous" theory is more accurate?] He turned
for a circular route around the nearest four blocks.

The sun was just setting in the hills behind the city as Skyler turned to
walk towards the ocean. The hill at the heart of the town, with the Academy
at its peak, cast a long shadow over the slopes of the city below, with the
central tower casting an accusing finger at the ocean, which burned orange
with reflected light, shining all the way to the horizon. The rich colors
suffused everything in sight, like an old Technicolor movie, and Skyler
paused at the top of the concrete embankment where the street turned to
lean over the edge a moment and take the splendor of the scene.

[Thank you, God, for this beauty, and for getting me through the day.] He
sighed, then began thinking out loud again. "The girl ain't right. She may
be nice, but maybe touched in the head. Utena seems a pleasant enough sort,
if a little paranoid. And if she's being challenged that often, it's not
surprising. Nice to know I probably won't have to do a duel for a while,
though."

He passed by another small house, then an apartment building that looked
uncannily like Maison Ikkoku. The shock of recognition was lessened by
seeing another almost exactly like it next door. "Must be built to a
pre-fab plan."

Skyler turned downhill, towards the ocean. "The scary thing about a
self-insertion fic is that somewhere there's theoretically a meta-Skyler
doing all this to me. Ugh, not something I want to think about too
carefully. I just hope his sense of humor was sufficiently sated by that
language bait-and-switch.

"Then again, they never promised me a rose garden...

          o/~Along with the sunshine, you've got to take a little rain
          sometime~\o"

He realized he was doing a bit of soft shoe, and stopped, embarrassed. But
the shops nearby were closed for the evening (he noticed in passing a sign
for something called 'Manga Jungle' he resolved to check out during the day
sometime), the streets seemed deserted, and he was coming up to what
appeared to be a small park. "What the hey, I'm wearing a comic opera
costume, I might as well sing. o/~I am the very model of a modern
Major-General--~\o" Skyler continued the song as he swung into the park.

[Okay, plans for tomorrow. Locate library, get recipe, find out more about
this Saionji fellow...subtly, if I can. Oh, and Touga too. It sounds like
he might be a major player.]

Several minutes and one major Broadway revue later, Skyler sat down at the
base of a large tree, a bit winded but in good cheer. [Okay, I got a little
carried away, but it was fun.] He looked up through the gaps in the leaves
above into the newly-starry sky, eyes picking out familiar constellations
like old friends. [At least the stars here are the same as they are back
home. That's a comforting feeling...]

Back home. Would he even be going back? Did he want to? [The Ends of the
World called this a "dream". And all dreams end when you wake up. But when
that awakening might be is a question I can't answer. Certainly not for a
while, though.

[Just in case this place is somehow connected to the real world, or time is
passing, I should write home. After all, it's something real exchange
students do...]

Skyler let his thoughts drift to the young women he had met today. [Pretty,
one and all. But can I win a heart? Should I even try? Would it be honest,
knowing who and what I am?] He remembered Juri's alternate explanation.
[Huh. Unlikely, though something to joke about. Don't think that girl is at
all interested in me, sad to say. I'll just leave the door open, and hope
she considers walking in.]

[Nanami, now, she seemed a bit more friendly that way. Easy to flatter,
anyhow. Though if she and Utena are on the outs, could become pretty darn
uncomfortable at the dinner table.

[Utena and Anthy *might* be a couple. Or it could just be a really close
friendship. At least living next to them, I should get some better clues
soon.]

[Oh, and Miss Keiko and her wingmen. Ah don' theenk soh, Meester. Unless
that horrible anime cliche of first meeting argument leads to romance later
applies....ick.]

Skyler blinked as a cold breeze blew across him, and realized he'd been
sitting in one place for quite a while. [Must have dozed off there for a
moment... Or did I just get lost in thought?] He instinctively tried to
check his watch, then realized his outfit hadn't come with one. [Well, at
least I don't feel tired. Small blessings, I guess.]

He stood and stretched for a moment, listening to the sounds in the
distance. It was remarkably peaceful for a city, even a city at night -- no
honking horns or sirens or rushing cars, just the wind, the birds, the
distant voices echoing through the darkness...

"Unbelievable, just unbelievable!"

Skyler jumped slightly. Okay, not-so-distant voices. He turned towards the
park's entrance in time to see two female figures, silhouetted by the
streetlights, walking by, one of them lugging something extremely large.

"Oh, come on!" the other girl replied with quiet energy, in a voice that
tugged at his memory. "It's a great idea! And you know that if we don't
practice whenever we get the chance..."

"I know, I know." The other girl shifted her burden (which resembled
nothing so much as a tractor tire) just enough so she could cover her mouth
as she yawned. "But at this time of night... I wonder if she'll even be
awake."

"We are, right?"

"Debatable..."

[Oh ho! Mischief afoot! And what kind of practice do you need in the middle
of the night?] Skyler grinned, something that would have startled most of
the people he knew back in Minnesota.

He listened to his footsteps as he walked to the exit. [Not *too* loud...]
Yes, he'd follow quietly and see what was up. But no sneaking, that was
undignified, and left you open to accusations of ill intent.

"I still don't see why I have to carry this thing," the second girl
grumbled as the pair continued up the street, with Skyler a discreet
distance behind. "You were the one who found it, and you were the one who
had the idea of using it..."

"Right! So you've got to have something to do, don't you think?"

The second girl just sighed. "Okay, okay. What's this about, anyway?"

"Oh, the denial of desire. The rationalization of frustration and failure.
The true nature of nature. I wonder if we can work some poetic justice in,
too, or if we should save that until the next time."

[Must be a poetry major,] Skyler decided.

"Probably next time. I'm having enough trouble just trying to convincingly
talk like I have a cold..."

"You're right, I think. Anyway, we're almost there."

'There,' in this case seemed to be the main building of Ohtori Academy
itself. [Should've guessed by the outfits -- even in shadow, that outline's
pretty distinctive.] The two girls picked up their pace as they got in
sight, the first waving to a third girl, who seemed to be waiting by the
door for the two of them. Skyler followed at a more hesitant pace as they
entered the building. [Now what? If I follow them in it'll look like I'm
snooping for sure. Still, I wonder what the heck is going on here...]

He stood indecisive, then realized, [I've gone too far already, besides at
this point they'll be in as much trouble as I am if we're caught.] Skyler
took courage and a large step forward.

The main hall was still dark -- the girls hadn't bothered to turn any of
the lights on, giving the vast hall a gloomy and cavernous feel. Moonlight
and the reflected glow of streetlights through the high stained glass
windows cast shadows on the rose-mosaiced floor, piercing the gloom enough
to navigate by, but somehow that only brought the darkness into sharp
relief. Skyler slowly made his way towards the rear of the room and the
banks of lockers, listening to the echoes of whispers.

"...just set up the scaffold here..." "...move the light a little back...?"
"...can't fit into the darned thing..." "Just cling to the bottom, and
I'll... Oof." "Right. Everything ready? Then..."

With a sharp click, a spotlight flared to life, casting shadows on the
rose-engraved wall, as a plunkety music box cranked to life, playing a
simple tune. The silhouettes of the girls looked slightly larger than life,
projected on the walls (the first girl standing to one side, the second
clinging to the bottom of a giant tire swing), but more than that, they
looked familiar. *Now* he remembered where he knew those voices from...

["I wonder, I wonder! I wonder how those beings from that 'Earth' shall
receive us."]

"Talk about deja-vu," Skyler muttered. [But that was a dream before, right?
So is this a dream, or a performance for someone I haven't seen yet?
Curiouser and curiouser.]

He made himself comfortable and watched the show.

"Ka-choo!" The girl on the tire swing sneezed as the tire rocked back and
forth. "It's such a good thing I caught this cold," she muttered peevishly,
through what sounded to be a very stuffy nose. "I'm sure that outing was
going to be so tiresome. Who wants to go to the zoo anyway? It's always the
same there, with the same old insignificant animals.

The other girl raised her hands high into the light, making shadow animals
as the swinging girl listed them by name. "The hawk. The wolf. The deer.
The swan. The giraffe."

"Honestly, is that all? Why should I want to go!? Who'd want to see all
that!?"

The other girl just sighed in a quiet, motherly voice. "You really wanted
to go, didn't you?"

The music plunked around one last time and stopped. "Great work!" the
'motherly' girl with the bow exclaimed as the tire dropped to the ground,
its fall cushioned by the girl clinging to it.

"Ow! Watch it!" The girl with two braids pushed the tire off of her and
stood, rubbing her back. "Honestly, honestly. You'd think you could be more
careful."

"Sorry," a third, quiet voice replied. [Must be that girl they met up
with.]

"Oh, don't worry about it!" the girl with the bow said lightly. "It was a
grand rehearsal, as always."

[Oh, right, rehearsal. It'll probably make more sense in context.] Skyler
stretched. [Maybe I should clap? Or should I just back out before I'm
spotted?]

The first girl was obviously getting carried away a little, her hands into
the shadow animals again. "I loved the animal bit -- 'the hawk, the
wolf...'"

"Kyaa!" Skyler wrenched his head around, away from the shadows on the wall,
just in time to see the tractor tire hurtling towards him. "Peeping Tom!"

In accordance with the anime tradition about angry women and the men they
hit, Skyler was frozen to the spot. And any thought of defense fled his
mind as well. Thus, he was bowled over by the large toroidal missile.

"I don't think I can do that one," the other girl replied puzzledly,
looking at her hands.

"Ulgg..." Skyler pushed the tire off himself. [No fair! We hadn't even
gotten to a nude scene yet!] Skyler squelched the hentai part of his
thoughts and tried to concentrate on appearing harmless.

"There's someone spying on us, I mean! See?" The girl with the two brown
pigtails was storming towards him, menace in her eyes. "Some sort of
pervert!"

"Pervert?" The girl with the curly black hair and red ribbon seemed
nonplussed. "We weren't doing anything that weird, I don't think."

That gave pause to the other girl. "Well... He still shouldn't have been
spying on us."

Skyler decided to take the opportunity to break the ice. "Hi. Does the
Drama Club always meet this late?"

The black-haired girl smirked. "Are you kidding? You'd never catch *them*
out at this hour. They're not exactly the most creative types in the
world."

"That's right! That's why we got together. *We* are the Experimental Shadow
Theater Ultimate New Gravity Shadow Experimental... er... Kashira
Ultimate... er... How does that go again?"

The first girl just sighed. "Never mind." She nodded to Skyler. "I'm
Ikuhara Eiko. Who are you and why, may I ask, are you sneaking around
watching us rehearse?"

"Skyler Sands, new guy in town. I happened to see you folks carrying the
tire up here, and wondered why anybody would be doing that. At first I
thought it was some sort of elaborate prank."

"Nope." The second girl shook her head. "Just our creative genius here
getting a sudden inspiration. I think I'm almost getting used to it by
now."

"Come on, Biko-chan, it worked, didn't it?" Eiko looked to Skyler. "What
did you think?"

"Well, experimental pieces always require a bit more thought than usual to
decipher. Or, in layman's terms, I didn't get it. By any chance did you
recently do a piece involving aliens?"

"You see?" Biko's irate expression reappeared. "I told you he'd been spying
on us, I told you!"

Eiko raised an eyebrow. "I do have to wonder. How'd you find out about our
practice two days ago if you weren't watching us?"

"I had a rather curious dream on the way over from America. I thought it
was nothing more than that until your performance tonight. Now I have to
wonder..." [Great. My otakufic power is tuning into avant-garde drama
productions. Wait a minute...Eiko, Biko? If the third girl is Shiiko,
someone's having a good laugh...] "I assure you, I wasn't knowingly present
at the time."

Biko blinked. "You saw our rehearsals. In a dream." She narrowed her eyes
exasperatedly at him. "Either you're crazy for thinking that or you're
crazy for thinking we'll believe that."

"Or he's some sort of weird psychic from beyond time and space sent here to
watch over us and help with rehearsal," Eiko added casually. "What do you
think, Sands-san?"

"Hmm, Option Two is the most likely, from an Occam's Razor point of view.
Option One is also quite probable, and would fit with at least one other
person's diagnosis. Option Three is highly unlikely, but has a certain ring
of truth to it...and I tend to tell the truth whenever it's possible. Not
sure about the `watch over us and help with rehearsal' part." Skyler
adjusted his glasses, as he adopted a professorial attitude.

Then he grinned. "It all depends on what you *want* to believe, since I
can't prove any of those."

Biko was not impressed. "Like I said, one way or the other, he's nuts."

[Hmm, wonder if in a past life she worked in a military recruiting office?]
thought Skyler, remembering a certain notation on his enlistment papers.

"Okay, okay," Eiko grinned back as she framed Skyler's face with her hands.
"So we've got one vote for nuts and one for a fast-talking psychic guardian
angel from America." She moved in closer, blatantly inspecting Skyler's
profile and jawline even as she deepened her voice comically. "For the
tie-breaker vote, we move to the esteemed Judge Shiizaa. Your honor, your
comments?"

"Um..." Skyler glanced to the third girl, the one standing by the
spotlight, with the auburn ponytail, and, as he now noticed, a decent
beginning on a blush. "I really don't..."

Eiko sighed. "And our third member's stage fright kicks in again. That's
the *other* reason we tend to practice when nobody's around." She leaned
back, squinting through one eye at Skyler. "You know, you've got a good
profile for the theater..."

[Shiizaa? Close, but thankfully not quite.]

"Well, I have been in plays," he replied. "I like acting."

"Really?" Eiko's grin turned exuberantly predatory. "Then I wonder, would
you be interested in joining up with the 'New Experimental Shadow Theater:
Ultimate Kashira?'" she asked as she shot a glance at Biko. "It'll open up
new worlds to you, I swear!"

[NESTUK? Oh-kay....and I think I'm already in a new world...]

"Well, if there's a role you really need me for..."

"Oh, come on! Roles are such an old-fashioned notion. We mostly improvise
on the spur of the moment. All you'd have to do is just show up for
rehearsal whenever I get inspired with new ideas!"

"Which," Biko grumbled, "can be any hour of the day or night whatsoever,
including in the middle of classes or an hour before dawn or..."

"Oh, you know you love it!"

Guerrilla theater might not be to everyone's taste, but Skyler was finding
himself intrigued. Especially if this could get him out of English class.
He opened his mouth to--but he froze in mid-breath.

*Plink*

A chill ran through him suddenly, as if a drop of ice-cold water was
rolling through his bones. Instantly all his senses were on full alert, his
muscles taut as bowstrings, as his mind frantically tried to figure out
what was going on.

Something was happening. He didn't know what, and he didn't know how he
knew, but something important was happening nearby. And whatever it was, it
was unnerving the heck out of him.

"You all right?" Eiko blinked at him.

"Shhh...do you hear that?" Skyler closed his eyes, trying to get a
direction. [If it's trouble, I should be attracted right to it...]

"Hear what?" asked Biiko. "Like I said, nuts."

"No, I think he's on to something," whispered Eiko.

There was something... a feeling he was getting. Something to the north...

He pictured the campus in his mind. The main hall and spire, the outlying
class buildings, the track and field, and to the north of them... The
forest. He'd noticed it in passing during his run: a chain-link fence
marked 'No Admittance,' beyond which lay marble stairs, rising up a hill to
what looked like a small stand of forest, enclosed by a high, white marble
wall. That had to be it.

He took a deep breath, now smelling the faintest hint of roses in the
crisp, still air. He still had no idea what was going on, but if he was
going to get answers, he was almost sure it was going to be there.

Skyler opened his eyes. "There's something going on in the forest. Sorry,
minna-san, but I'd better check it out. Oh, and Shiizaa-san, don't be shy,
I don't bite--much." Waving, he turned and sprinted for the door.

"Like I said, nuts," were the last words he heard.

(to be continued...)

Next time, on _Ma Vie et Roses_:

[Skyler walks up white marble steps in the light of dawn, looking at the
white gates to the forest beyond.]

SKYLER:  Things have been strange around here, but the weirdness really
         moves into high gear as I go deeper into the mysteries of the
         Duellists.

[In the middle of a forest, a massive, free-standing spiral staircase
stretches upwards into the mist. Skyler hesitantly puts his foot on the
first stair.]

SKYLER:  Will a duel make everything clear, or just confuse me even more?

[Skyler, sitting at a table, bites down on a spoonful of curry.]

SKYLER:  Well, at least I can always count on Anthy's cooking...

[The side of a school building explodes in a cloud of brown smoke.]

SKYLER:  Next time, on _Ma Vie et Roses_!  Episode Three: 'Mihatenu
         Shitsumon' (Unfulfilled Questions).  Don't miss it!

ANTHY:   Zettai Unmei, Mokushiroku.

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Glossary:

Anime: Japanese animation. _Shoujo Kakumei Utena_ is an anime show,
broadcast on Terebi Tokyo.
Ballistophobia: Fear of round objects flying towards one. (Includes
bullets.)
Bentou: Japanese boxed lunch. Usually a number of specially-prepared foods
arranged in an aesthetically pleasing manner, sometimes on a bed of rice.
Bishounen: Literally, beautiful young man. A somewhat common art style for
young men in anime and manga, emphasizing a soft, gentle attractiveness.
Popular among female fans.
Chris Davies: Anime fan fiction writer known for his exploration of lesbian
themes.
Domo: Literally, 'very.' In context, it can mean many things, but is often
a shorthand for 'domo arigatou' ('Thank you very much.')
Fox-Broome Theory of Parallel Earths: A description of the state of the DC
Comics continuity prior to 1985. Named for Gardener Fox (who introduced the
theory in his story "Flash of Two Worlds" in _Flash #123_) and John Broome,
who created most of the early stories of the second Flash, whose mythology
Fox built on.
Hentai: Usually translated "weird" or "perverted", though as Skyler is
using it, "lewd" would be closer.
"Hiroshi and Daisuke": Two characters in the Ranma 1/2 series, classmates
of Ranma's, who make cameos to comment on the action. In the manga, they
are so unimportant as to go unnamed. They are named in the anime for script
purposes.
Kashira: A feminine sentence ending translatable as 'I wonder' or 'Do you
think?', depending on context. The shadow-play girls use it quite a bit.
Kendou: The sport form of the art of Japanese swordplay.
-Kun: Suffix for names. Generally used by superiors to their charges
(teachers to students, managers to employees, etc.) or by young men among
themselves.
Maison Ikkoku: A low-end boarding house, seen in the Rumiko
Takahashi-created manga and anime of the same name.
Manga: Japanese comics. The manga version of _Shoujo Kakumei Utena_ was
published in the anthology _Ciao Flower Comics_.
Ne: A sentence-ending particle meaning, roughly, 'okay?' or 'right?'
Occam's Razor: A logical principle first formulated by William of Occam,
stating that the simplest explanation that fits all the available facts is
most likely to be correct.
Otakufic: Also known as self-insertion. An anime- or manga-related story in
which the main character is the author, or a thinly-veiled stand-in for the
author.
-Sama: Suffix for names. A term of extreme respect, sometimes bordering on
obsequious depending on the context and tone.
-San: Suffix for names. Generally considered the 'default' suffix, it can
be used to address anyone from a complete stranger to a fairly close
friend.
Sekai no Hate: Translates literally as 'End(s) of the World' -- Japanese
does not always mark plurals. Note that 'hate' (pronounced 'hah-tay')
implies a physical edge, as opposed to 'owari,' which would refer to the
chronological ending.
Sempai: Refers to one more senior than the speaker (usually in school,
though sometimes in a place of business). Often used as a name suffix.
Sensei: Teacher. Often used as a name suffix.
Shabu-shabu: Japanese dish made by preparing thin strips of uncooked beef
and a pot of boiling sauce and oil at the center of the table. Using
chopsticks, each diner takes a piece of beef and dips it in the sauce
briefly to cook it, then eats it while still hot.
Shiiko: In the humorous anime _Project A-ko_, the three leads are named
Eiko (A-ko), Biiko (B-ko) and Shiiko (C-ko). 'Ko,' meaning 'child,' is a
common ending for girls' names, and hence the characters are almost
literally named 'Girl A,' Girl B,' and 'Girl C.'
Zettai Unmei Mokushiroku: Literally, this translates as 'Absolute Destiny:
Apocalypse.' Among other things, it is the name of the song played as Utena
climbs to the Duel Arena, and is said by Anthy at the end of each 'Next
Episode' segment.

Author's Note (SKJAM!): Well, that was a bit of a surprise for me. Hope you
folks are still enjoying the ride. Believe me, it's going to get even
wilder. Let us know what you think, and keep watching the skies!

---------------------------------------------------------------------------

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