Two for the road

A shojo Kakumei Ukyo sequel


     It was the happiest day of my life. After all these long decades, I could 
finally leave Japan and go home! True, it was nothing I did that set me free; 
rather, it was the apocalyptic events set in motion by the arrival of Kodachi 
Kuno and her friends from Nerima at Ohtori Academy. Events that included the 
death of Akio Ohtori and the exile of his sister to parts unknown, and the 
takeover of the private school by the Ministry of Education and its hatchetman, 
Undersecretary Kazuhiro Fuse. It was he who had looked at me and told me that I 
could go home...home to America. After sixty years imprisoned by the magic of 
Akio Ohtori, I could finally go home.
     I must have looked more than usually scary in my joy. Most of the students 
avoided me anyway, since even when sober I had a reputation as a merciless 
teacher who believed firmly in public humiliation as a tool to encourage rapid 
learning. On this day, this finest of all possible days, it was as if I moved in
 a small bubble of space into which no students intruded, not even those 
desperate for help with their English, as so many of them usually were. Juri 
Arisugawa, who had passed my class with flying colors last year as a junior, 
smiled and waved at me, and I waved back. I was on top of the world.

     Then I saw Ukyo Kuonji. Like myself, she was avoided by the other students;
 like myself, she projected an aura of cold disdain. She, too, inspired fear 
among the students, except for the few girls who roomed with her in the East 
Dormitory. Sometimes, not often, I would see her walking with Arisugawa or with 
the new Seitokaicho, Kodachi Kuno; even more rarely, with Keiko Tendo, Utena 
Tenjo, or Nanami Kiryuu. Mostly, however, she walked alone across the campus, 
sat silently in her classes, and retired to the dormitory without saying two 
words to her classmates. On this particular day, she sat on the hill where the 
cat and Utena had come to Ohtori, her battle spatula in its usual sling and her 
books lying next to her on the grass. Her scarred face was turned to the sun, 
but her eyes were closed; if she had been wearing a bathing suit instead of the 
combatant chef's uniform she affected these days in place of the standard Ohtori
 uniform, I would have thought she was sunning herself. As I walked closer, her 
eyes opened, but she remained seated. "Tanaka-sensei," she said neutrally. 
     "Kuonji-kun," I replied. "A nice day to be outside. It's almost a pity 
you're all covered up like that instead of working on your tan."
     She looked back at me with a complete lack of expression on her face. "No 
point in that, sensei. It only makes sense to work on your looks when you have a
 reason to. Mine are dead, or might as well be."
     I sat down next to her. "You don't have to call me sensei any more, 
Kuonji-kun. Undersecretary Fuse has released me from my contract. I can go home 
to America now."
     She nodded. "That would explain the face-cracking smile you've been wearing
 ever since you left the Administrative Tower. Congratulations. I know you've 
been trying to leave here for years, according to some of the rumors."
     "Sixty years, give or take a few months. Thanks."
     Her eyes widened."Sixty years? But- you don't look that old, sensei."
     I nodded, staring out across the hill to the bright waters of Tokyo Bay. "I
 came here during the landings of the Final Invasion, sixty years ago. Most of 
my troops went home to America after the war was over, but I didn't have enough 
time in service, and I stayed on. Thanks to the late Chairman and some of his 
relatives, that stay lasted for sixty years. I may possibly be the oldest 
lieutenant in the United States Army since the time of the Indian Wars."
     "United States? But we lost the war to the Germans..."
     "You're familiar with the theory of parallel worlds, Kuonji-kun. You also 
know that magic works. Need I say more?"
     "No," she answered quietly. "So what will you do?"
     "I don't know," I said thoughtfully. "Maybe do some traveling. I didn't get
much of a chance to see America before I wound up in the Army. I'd like to see 
some baseball games, too. What about you?" 
     She shrugged. "Finish my studies here. Go to college and get a business 
degree before I open my restaurant. Pretty much the same things I was going to 
do if I'd stayed at Furinkan." Her face darkened. "Except for chasing after 
Ranma Saotome."
     I looked at my shoetips for a moment. "I'm sorry, Ukyo. Nobody should have 
to go through something like that at your age."
     She looked at me with her eyes gone wide. "Sensei - how - "
     "It was all over the school. It was impossible *not* to hear about it. I'm 
just sorry I didn't do something about it earlier."
     "There was nothing you could have done," she replied quietly. "It all 
happened the way End of the World wanted it to happen."
     "Akio Ohtori never meant for you to be scarred like that," I said. "As much
 as I despised and resented the man, he was an aesthete. He preferred to corrupt
 beautiful things, not destroy them."
     "Sensei no baka," she said humorously, and punched me lightly in the 
shoulder. "I'm not beautiful. I never was. 'Cute' was the most anyone ever 
called me."
     "You never saw yourself through anyone else's eyes but his, did you? Oh, 
Ukyo-kun...you broke a hundred hearts when you took up with Himemiya-san. The 
Chairman may have been frustrated by you, but he admired your body and your 
heart both. He wanted nothing but the best for his sister, after all."
     "Then why did he tolerate...ah, never mind. That's all ancient history 
now," she said bitterly. "The Chairman had an odd way of showing his 
appreciation."
     I shrugged. We sat together on the grass while the silence deepened. 
     "You don't have to stay here," I said hesitantly. 
     She turned and looked at me. "What do you mean? I'm on scholarship. I can't
just pack up and leave."
     "True. Arrangements can be made, though. You could come with me, see America, maybe get your business degree there too." I hesitated for a moment. 
"Get a new start, away from all this, someplace where what you are doesn't 
matter as much as what you do."
     The silence returned for a moment and then was broken by a soft sigh. "I 
think that would be nice," she replied quietly. "I think it would be very nice 
to go somewhere where nobody knows me or my story."
	"Well, then." I stood up and offered her my hand, but she smiled thinly 
and rose to her feet without my assistance. "I think I know just the man to 
arrange it." Together, we began to walk back to the Administrative Tower. 
Undersecretary Fuse was going to have a little more business to take care of before he returned to Tokyo.