FicWad

Prologue:

Two female voices talked aloud dramatically in front of a stone wall painted with a rose signet. But on this certain day, however, the wall couldn't be seen... nor the two shadow girls posing in front of it.

"Do you know, do you know, have you heard the news?!" The one asked excited.

"What is it? What's the news?" The other answered urgently.

"The world is gone! Washed away, like Noah's ark!" The first exclaimed, making a wave like motion with her hand.

"Oh my, oh my... how could this be?!" The second questioned.

The sky was covered with dark gray storm clouds, covering the sun, leaving everything in a thick fog.

"This fog is miserable! I can't see a thing!" A-ko remarked annoyed.

"Is this the end?" B-ko asked in awe.

"Marco?" The first girl asked quietly reaching her hand out to at least touch the wall they had been standing next to.

"Polo... where are you!?" She answered bumping right into her shadow companion. "Oof."

"I hope the sun comes back soon..." The other sighed worriedly.

"Hai, otherwise we'll be out of a job!"

"Maybe we should go ask the chairman..."

"I think he has his own problems to worry about right now..."

And boy did he; after all it's not every day the power goes out in Ohtori Academy.

~ * ~

Anthy Himemiya watched as a very troubled Akio paced his office, every once and a while glancing out the window.

"What's the matter, Onni-sama?"

"Matter? Nothing!"

"you're pacing.. ."

"Am I?"

"You shouldn't bite your nails Onni-sama... It's a nasty habit."

She watched with hidden amusement as Akio walked over to his precious Planetarium projector and... kicked it.

"Damn this thing!" He thought a moment before turning slowly around, a nervous smile leaving his face to be replaced with an adoring one as he looked to his little sister.

"Anoh,.. My wonderful Anthy-chan... Do your older and much wiser Onni-sama a small favor, and fetch me batteries!"

He turned back to the machine and popped open the compartment which were made to hold them and counted irritably.

"Lots and lots of batteries!"

Anthy smiled secretly and turned to leave, ChuChu scrambling up onto her shoulder. In Akio's own downfall he did not realize the slight rumble and ping of the heavy elevator door closing behind her. His whole world was nothing but illusions, so one more wouldn't hurt.

The day was the first of the month of April, and Anthy relished in it.

~ * ~

On the inside of Ohtori academy's main hall entrance was a bulletin board. A collection of students crowded around it murmuring, one volunteered to read it allowed. Two students stood out among them, a girl with a black boy's uniform that stood out in the gray mist, and a smaller darker skinned girl with violet hair pulled up at the nape of her neck.

"Attention Students, do to unfavorable -and slightly unusual weather conditions- classes for today will be postponed until further notice." The ink had begun to run a bit from the rain and it was hard to make out anything else from the fog other then at the bottom of the letter, a quick and courteous. "Thank you. -Head Chairman"

"Oh great, Hime, classes are canceled for today anyway."

Utena Tenjou sighed and leaned against the side of the building running her hand through her damp hair.

"And here we were on time despite my alarm clock not going off...Which was odd, even if the powder did go out from the storm, the batteries still should have kept it working." She looked at ChuChu wondering if he had something to do with it. He was curled up on Anthy's shoulder not liking being roused that early either.

"Today has been a rather curious day, hasn't it, Utena-sama?"

"I'll say." She kicked a pebble and it flew into the misty fog. A moment later a male voice cried out in irritable pain.

"Tenjou!" The word was spat like venom.

"Saionji... Gomen ^^; I didn't see you there."

A few more students began to cluster around the notice, the vice president continued undisturbed.

"Forget about that, what the hell did you do with the castle?!"

Utena blinked as all of the other student council members gathered around her like lost sleep in a flock.

"Why do you think I had anything to do with this?!"

"Well, Tenjou, you've been causing trouble at this school ever since you've arrived here." As if looking for evidence, he pointed to her accusingly. "Your hair is bubble-gum pink, for god sakes!"

She regarded her hair as if for the first time, noticing this.

Touga stepped in and caressed the fretting young man, as if soothing a pet. "There, there, Saionji... everything will be fine."

Saionji pointed to the gray blank sky whimpering, Touga patted his back nodding.

"Yes, yes, I know..." Touga looked to Utena and Anthy rolling his eyes, and smiled apolitically as if excusing his recent behavior.

Footsteps sounded somewhere near them, drawn by the argument between the two duelists before. They paused a moment as if making sure and then turned to a full running gallop. "I know that uniform anywhere!" A cheerful voice rang out.

Utena staggered and held her arms out regaining her balance as Wakaba glomped habitually onto her, as if nothing had changed.

"Utena, My love! ^-^"

Everyone starred at the young girl as she squeezed Utena with a breath stealing hug; until she looked up and blinked noticing the attention. "Nani?"

Miki clicked his stop watch. "Didn't you notice anything out of the ordinary, Wakaba?"

"Um,..." She looked around a moment before realization dawned on her puzzled face. "Ohh... You have a button un-done." Touga smirked and waved his hand in front of him slightly, as if dismissing the statement.

"No Touga, not you. I meant Utena." She giggled and fixed the undone brass button on her Uniform, Utena intern blushed and looked at Anthy with an almost caught expression. Everyone's attention shifted on her as she began to shuffle her feet nervously on the ground.

"It was dark this morning... I couldn't see."

Juri grinned maliciously.

"I had planned on classes being cancelled!" This time she was blushing, Anthy smiled. Miki gasped.

"Miss Himemiya! Were you behind this?!"

The now much embarrassed champion duelist panicked and waved her hands in front of her as if correcting his mistake. This time the scent of an affair was thick in the air and it hit Touga's senses like a shark sensing blood. His sparkling bishoyousen essence turned to the babbling girl, and into their conversation; Miki continued.

"As the Rose Bride, It's up to you to see to it that Miss Tenjou's Landry is taken care of daily... Isn't that right? You were late this morning because you couldn't find any clean clothes." Miki smiled as if solving a puzzle.

Utena blinked and then nodded relived before quickly covering Anthy's mouth with her hand as she began to say, "Clothes?.. I don't-"

"Yes, Miki-kun's right," Touga agreed deciding to torture the red hued girl some more. "And once you start, you must finish or the 'laundry' will be wrinkled for the rest of the day... Believe me; I've left a few pieces of 'wash' unattended to myself." He looked to Utena and Anthy with his classic Cheshire cat smile. "If you know what I mean?"

"No, Touga, I'm afraid we don't. -.-;" Utena practically growled this.

He was about to say something else when footsteps sounded on the pavement coming towards them and then stopped as their conversation stopped. Everyone looked at each other spooked and tried to see who it was, but the fog was thicker than ever so they couldn't see at all who was coming. The footsteps grew a little closer and then two voiced called out in exclamation and relief that they found some help.

"Do you see, do you see, do you see what I see?!"

"Hai, the champion duelist and the rose bride were caught in the fog too!"

"Who's there?" Wakaba asked out timidly hiding behind Utena a bit.

"It's the END OF THE WORLD, I knew it! I knew it would return for me..." Saionji rambled out loud delinquently, everyone sweat dropped.

"Oh, Utena-sama, I recognize those voices. ^^" Anthy said after a moment. "They're your own personal stalkers; you remember those two girls who always hid in your locker bank and waited for you to arrive before duels. Always talking and acting out those plays..."

"If they are, they owe me some clothes... I've heard rumors someone's been selling them at the gates of the academy in the morning."

A-ko and B-ko sweat dropped before crossing their arms over their chests and turning up their nose at the gathering.

"For one thing, we are not stalkers. And for another, a girl's gotta eat! You wouldn't believe what gym shorts are going for these days, used ones too!" The student council wrinkled their noses and Utena's eye twitched.

"We promise we won't steal anymore of your clothes if you please help us." B-ko added in desperately, "You have no idea how hard it is to be known as a shadow all your life..."

Utena sighed and reached out trying to comfort the miserable voiced and found a shoulder to pat.

"Don't worry, I'll go to the chairman and sort things out."

"Oh, thanks but... we're over here!"

She gasped feeling someone else's hand touch and hold her own from moving, and a delicate body pressed against hers. It didn't take her long then to see the soft wine colored hair, dark violet eyes, or slight smile.

Shiori looked up at whom she was standing so close to.

"Oh, Utena, sorry I thought you were Juri. Your stance is about the same." She grinned slightly and leaned up to whisper something near her ear. "By the way noble Prince, that's not my shoulder, if you're wondering."

The delicate butterfly slipped away then and walked a few paces to Juri sneaking around her frame and holding on to her arm, leaving Utena stunned and blushing severely with that same cross mark on her forehead that had been almost as permanent as a birth mark that day. She mumbled an apology to Juri who just shrugged, before walking off towards the chairmen's wing as it began to rain again.

"Come on Himemiya; let's see what your brother has to say about this before we're all soaked."

Miki discretely slipped Touga a piece of paper with a castle drawn onto it, which he used to coax the still disoriented vice president with.

"Come on Saionji, follow the castle...Good boy."

With that the group set off. Until, there was a horrible shrieking cry, shrill and obnoxious enough to cause hair to rise on the backs of their necks.

"ONNISAMA! Wait for meeee!" Touga groaned and mentally kicked himself before counting to ten and put on his best charming big brother smile. "Nanami, there you are! I was worried." Nanami threw her arms around him and held on with a death grip. Her eyes glittered affectionately and her Bishoyou aura sent out sparkles for miles as she looked up to him. ChuChu batted at them and Miki sneezed.

"I was afraid I'd never find you! I've been searching for such a long time... I thought the world was ending and I wouldn't spend my last moments with you."

"I've only just seen you yesterday Nana-"

She hugged the words out of him. "It seemed so hopeless wandering around in that fog, but love found a way, didn't it? My wonderful brother...."

Touga nodded a bit with a sigh and began to walk slowly dragging the girl whose arms were around his legs, across the campus ground. "I can officially say the world can end now that I'm with you..."

"I knew it, I knew it was the end of world!" The two shadow girls whispered quietly to each other. Wakaba clung to Utena's arm.

"The world is not ending Nanami, we just have to talk to Akio and see what's going on..." Utena paused seeing Saionji had woken up from his vegetable state, and had sneaked up to walk beside Anthy.

"Now's are chance Anthy! This has to be what the end of the world is talking about in those letters! Come with me and we shall seek out Eternity together, never mind about that wanna be man delinquent of yours, Tenjou..."

"Excuse me, Saionji, but in case you hadn't noticed I'm right here!" After a pause she muttered. "I'm supposed to be a prince anyway, dammit."

"Look, there's the Head master's wing." A-ko supplied hurriedly taking their attention from arguing and to their quest. They all huddled around the main entrance and looked up upon the massive building, through the windows it looked as though the power may be out.

Anthy and Utena walked in, telling them they'd return shortly and took the stairs just in case. When they arrived, Akio was in a state that Utena had never seen before. In a shadowed and dark room his figure lay in a helpless and lost state. And as they approached he slowly looked up and faked a half hearted smile, his cheeks flushed.

"Akio, we have a matter to discuss... "

"Ah, my darilling lil' sister and her much attractive friend... How nice of yoou to visit. I'm sorry I'm not in a hostin' mood, today. You know how those things goes." It was apparent he had been drinking. Utena blinked a little and exchanged glances with Anthy.

"Ah... Akio-san? Are you feeling well?.." Utena asked seeing the half empty bottle of gin sitting on the coffee table and a floor full of batteries, apparently not of use.

"It's just a little rain, it's not like it's the end of the world or anything. ^^" She supplied cheerfully picking up one of the batteries and looking ahead to the grand and seemingly useless heap of metal in front of her.

The head master almost glared at the unknowing girl but contained himself enough to laugh slightly. "Perhaps so... I wish Touga was here..." He muttered, regretfully swishing his glass before noticing he had some of the liquid left and downed it. Utena continued to look ahead, pretending she didn't hear that. Anthy supplied an explanation.

"Onnisama's upset because he can no longer see his stars..." Akio looked up at the two suddenly interested.

"Oh I see, because of the power outage. Hmmm..." Utena walked over to the window for a moment. "From up here, it doesn't appear the lights are out at all in the town..."

"Nani?" Akio asked hopefulness creeping slowly back into his features.

"Yeah, the street lights are on. Akio-san, are you sure there was an outage?" She walked over to the machine again as he carefully watched her, oddly observant for being tipsy. "Oh, here's the problem." He staggered to his knees and crawled over to her grabbing the edge of her jacket's hem.

"You mean, you can fix it?" Utena sweat dropped and pried from his desperate grip. She bent and picked up a rather large plug with two hands and put it back into its socket. Within moments there was a shifting and turning sound as the machine came to life and clicked on, casting constellations and planets onto the wall like a good little star projector should. Akio staggered to his feet, the old him slowly creeping back into his stance, the glow back into his eyes. "Wonderful, Utena."

"Nothing to it really" Utena muttered embarrassedly pleased, and rubbed the back of her head with her hand.

"How very odd though, that the plug would be out..." Akio muttered and cast a glance where Anthy and ChuChu had been. But both the girls were on their way out.

"By the way, Akio-san, it seems while we were inside the rains cleared up. You should come outside and enjoy the sun. The days still called off right?" She asked hopefully as the elevator doors shut behind them.

Akio smirked now left alone, his back turned to the machine, the batteries and the odd array of cookie crumbs that he didn't notice before on the floor. The doors opened a few moments later again with a ping as Touga slipped in, looking around with an amused expression. He stepped over to the open bottle and sniffed it wrinkling his nose a bit from the sudden strength of it.

"Celebrating the holiday without me, Akio?" He then asked a hint of laughter in his voice.

"This morning was quite uproar, wasn't it?" The chairman agreed answering a question with another; sitting heavily onto the plush sofa another full glass in his hand. Touga took the drink from him and sipped it carefully. "And what of it?"

"There will be hell to pay." He promised, laying his head back to watch the constellations flash and disappear on the dim rooms walls.

Sibling practical jokes were always fun...

~ * ~

~ L A F I N ~