The Cycle

Frau Eva

It wasn't long before I found her. A simple searching spell isn't hard to perform, at least not when you've lived in the strange, ancient ages I have. But even that wasn't quick enough. The days it took to get to her-even if they had somehow been reduced to seconds-still would be enough time to fill me with anxiousness. It was a strange, almost forgotten feeling. She has a habit of making me remember things like that.

I was happy when I finally saw her, but that quickly changed to guilt once I saw the criss-crossing scars. Ah, finally a sensation I'm familiar with. She knew what I was thinking. She smiled and told me not to worry, not to feel bad. That this was a small price to pay. I didn't know if I should believe her or not.

Once she was released from the hospital, we lived together in a small apartment in Houou. Utena tried to finish the rest of high school in a small public school while I worked as a gardener. She would have objected to me creating my own money. Her Aunt Yurika was against the arrangement at first, not to mention angry that Utena was expelled from Ohtori. But it wasn't hard for me to convince her to let her niece live with someone she didn't know, far away. I am my brother's sister, after all.

Utena was always thankful that I found her. She said that I had saved her this time, both from her own sense of failure and from the wrath of Aunt Yurika, and that I had a touch of prince beneath layers of princess. I hadn't really changed. It was a princess searching for her prince, as Psyche searched for Eros.

Meanwhile, Utena began volunteering in a soup kitchen and helped out her classmates whenever she could. She was still the same, of course. That's the lesson I've learned in my eons of life. Things don't really change, not really.

At first I simply thought she was aging well. But when her Aunt Yurika died, and then Touga, then Juri, then Saionji, then Kozue, then Wakaba, then Miki and Nanami, then an aged Tsuwabuki...then we were forced to realize what she had become. She had smiled and said, "This means I'll be with you forever, protecting you." That night, when I was sure she was asleep, I crouched down to the tiled floor of the kitchen and cried.

As I said, it started out small. She volunteered at the soup kitchen, helped out her classmates. Eventually, she became the crutch of the school's downtrodden. She would come home and proudly tell me of her deeds while I blankly served her a cup of tea. A girl in Home Economics made her a white prince's uniform, half out of thankfulness, half as a good-natured joke. One day during swimming class, she pulled a drowning girl from the pool and resuscitated her. Utena was featured in the newspaper for saving a girl from a burning building. The embers never even touched her white uniform.

Eventually people began calling the apartment, begging for help. They learned that her work was more efficient, more assured of success than the authorities'. A firefighter, a policeman, a soldier can die. Utena cannot.

That was a hundred years ago. Now she lies on our pink-sheeted bed, covered in sweat, her heart pumping hard against her white uniform. I had to disconnect the phone; the constant ringing disturbed her, made her anxious. But now the doorbell takes its place, accompanied by a cacophony of muffled screams outside the apartment. She groans as she strains to get up. I push her back down. "You'll tear the stitches if you go," I say, "And who knows what will happen if they tear and I'm not there to put them back in?"

"Then what should I do?" she asks, panting. She covers her pale face with her hands. "What should I do, what should I do?!"

Though I know she's immortal, I momentarily contemplate taking a palette knife and ending her misery, ending this cycle. Who could kill the innocent of the innocent, the savior of the world? Not even a witch. What cruel design allows an immortal to tire, but never die?

"Don't worry, my prince," I say, kissing her brow. "Don't worry. You don't have to do this anymore. You'll never have to do this ever again." I then raise myself up and began to walk to the door. She faced the swords for me once upon a time.

Utena's eyes widen. "Anthy?! Anthy! No! ANTHY!"

I open the door to face the mob. Things don't really change, not really.