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As the last light of the day fled from the school, Akio drove through the winding mountain highway from Ohtori Academy to Houou City.
His sister, gone. The witch, the bride, gone. The cherry blossoms were blooming; a new school year started tomorrow and she wasn't back. How was a revolution going to be achieved without a rose bride?
The street lamps flashed by like strobe lights. A car engine rumbled somewhere in the distance. There's no revolution without a rose bride. Where in the world had Akio's sister run off to? She'd been so rebellious last year. Akio might have to count this semester a loss and leave school to hunt her down—
Headlights blazed in his eyes as another car sped around the upcoming curve. Akio swerved to the side, almost crashing into the mountain to avoid it, and slammed the breaks to watch as the other car zoomed by to the right. For a moment, it looked like it wasn't even on the narrow mountain road, but gliding over the air beside it.
It was a hot pink race car, as narrow and deadly as a wasp's body. The driver's hair billowed behind the car like a cloud of dark purple smoke.
Akio watched it disappear around a curve. Every once in a while, its bright red taillights resurfaced in the darkness as it wove back and forth along the mountain path, taking the road toward Ohtori.
Akio's heart was pounding.
It didn't stop pounding until he reached home.
###
Do you know? Do you know? Do you know about my frog?
Ew! You have a frog? Where did you get that? Put it back in the pond where it belongs!
No! This isn't just any frog! This is my one true love!
You're in love with a frog?!
He's not a frog! You see... a long time ago... he was cursed.
Cursed?
By a witch.
A witch?!
He's really a prince, you see! But he was being hunted—
Oh my! How scary!
—and so, to keep the prince safe, the witch turned him into a frog.
Let me guess, let me guess—to turn the frog back into a prince, you have to give it true love's kiss?
Exactly! Just, like, this... pthoo! Ew! Yuck!
Gross! You really kissed it!
He didn't change back?!
Huh. Maybe it's not a prince.
Maybe not... but he is my one true love!
So you really are just in love with a frog, then?
Why didn't he turn back?
Maybe you're not a good kisser?
Do you know? Do you know? Do you know why?
###
Wakaba's wailing could be heard halfway across the campus. "I can't believe I'm never gonna be in class with Utena again!"
Nanami paused on her way to class. She grimaced at the reminder of Utena; but, after a moment, her sour look abated. "It's hard to believe she's really gone," Nanami said quietly—for her brother's ears only.
Not that it truly mattered what volume she used; she'd have to shriek to draw more attention than Wakaba, who'd found a railing around a second floor mezzanine porch to drape herself over dramatically.
Wakaba wasn't the only one in mourning. Many other students—mainly in Utena's year, a few younger, almost all girls—were watching Wakaba's wailing with sympathy, with mirrored grief, with teary eyes. The worst off of them couldn't even look at Wakaba; they turned away, eyes downcast, hands over their mouths, shoulders shaking.
"It hasn't had time to sink in yet," Touga pointed out. "The announcement was only a couple of days before classes resumed, and then the funeral yesterday—the students who didn't get the chance to make it have to deal with the shock and the lack of closure."
"Is that why there were so few people at the funeral? I thought no one wanted to come." Nanami's gaze skimmed over the nearest clump of whispering, sobbing girls. Those girls hadn't been at the funeral. Under her breath, Nanami muttered, "Thank goodness almost nobody saw."
"'Thank goodness'?" Touga repeated, and Nanami started. "What a horrible thing to say. And it was such a lovely funeral."
Nanami huffed. "I didn't mean the funeral! I meant you!"
Touga splayed his fingertips gracefully across his chest in mock surprise.
"Did you have to lay all over Utena's casket like that?!"
"I'm what made the funeral lovely."
"And strike poses? For five minutes?"
"It's what she would have wanted. We were old childhood friends."
Nanami started again. "You were? Since when?"
Touga gave her a mysterious smile. "You missed a lot last semester."
They fell silent. The morning was cool and still, and even Wakaba's crying was starting to peter off.
Finally, Touga said, "I'm actually surprised Utena wasn't expelled sooner. She was always getting in trouble with the teachers."
"And I hear the chairman hated her," Nanami said with relish. "I wonder what school she's attending now?"
"I wonder."
They passed Saionji and Anthy walking the other way—the champion and his rose bride. Nanami turned her nose up at Anthy, squeezed Touga's arm, and tugged him away before he could get into a conversation with Saionji.
Anthy and Saionji weren't looking at each other. Unsurprisingly, Anthy looked like the absolute picture of artificial serenity. Saionji, however, looked troubled. He walked close to Anthy's side—but maintained just enough distance that he wouldn't risk touching her, even by accidentally brushing his arm against her puff sleeve.
On one of Anthy's shoulders rode Chu-Chu, nibbling his way around a donut and occasionally throwing dirty looks toward Saionji.
On her other shoulder rode an alert-looking stoat with carnation pink fur.
###
"Why are you back?"
Akio didn't bother to say hello to Anthy before questioning her; but then, Anthy didn't bother to say hello to him when she walked into the room, as she always used to in the evenings, quiet and contrite.
"Isn't it obvious?"
Akio didn't answer. The stoat in Anthy's hands twisted around, sniffing the air. The room was as silent, as cold, and as still as a mausoleum.
And Anthy's face was as calm as a corpse's when she went on: "I'm here for the revolution."
Akio's wariness instantly dissolved. "Are you?" He sat and relaxed, arms draped over the back of his chaise lounge, legs spread casually, like a usurper getting comfortable on somebody else's throne. "So it didn't last between you and Utena. I'm not surprised. She played the part of a hero gallantly, I'll grant that; but she couldn't bring about a revolution. Not like you and I can, Cecilia Gallerani."
Anthy said nothing. At Akio's gesture, though, she sat primly on the edge of a chair facing his chaise.
Once she sat, she asked, "Do you know why revolutions are fought?" After she settled, the only movement she made was her fingers, lightly stroking the stoat's fur.
Surprise flickered in Akio's eyes, like light reflecting off of deep green malachite. "When you left, you knew everything. Now you're ready to listen to your brother again?" He laughed softly. "Revolutions are fought when a true prince wants the power to change the world, of course. Without that longing—that greed for power—revolution will never be achieved."
Anthy made a quiet humming sound. "Well, you have all the answers."
Akio looked sharply at her, searching for any trace of mockery in her expression. None was visible. He slouched back in his chaise more comfortably. "You've added another pet, my Lady with an Ermine," he said. "Do you know what stoats have been used for, historically?"
Anthy tipped her head, curiously. Light glinted off her glasses and into Akio's eyes.
"In the winter, they're hunted for their pure white winter coats," Akio said. "Ermine cloaks are usually worn by royalty. Countless ermines are hunted and slaughtered in the cold months for their fur."
Anthy's fingers stopped stroking the stoat.
"Cui candor morte redemptus. They'll surrender into the hands of a hunter before they'll allow their illusion of purity to be stained. Much like you," he said. "Of course, I would never hunt my own sister's dear pet." Akio stood up, crossing slowly from his chaise to Anthy's chair. "Especially when she's so kindly decided to return to my embrace." He reached up to loosen his tie.
With a burst of panicked susurrations, the puffs and pleats of her school uniform rustling fearfully against the chair and Akio's pants, Anthy stood and darted to the side, holding the ermine close to her chest. "Saionji," she said, "is waiting for me, outside."
"Oh?" It was one syllable—it wasn't even a word—and yet, it was loaded with menace and threat.
"He escorted me here. He was—so kind, to allow me to come visit my brother." The menace in Akio's face was only growing, and so Anthy added quickly, pointedly, "I belong to him."
Akio hesitated. Those were the rules of the rose bride. She was her fiancé's property. Akio might have been pulling the strings of the game—but if he started breaking the rules, he would only undermine himself. If she belonged to Saionji and Saionji demanded that she stay closer to him than to her brother, Akio had no power to stop it—for now.
But he said, "He won't hold you for long, Cecilia Gallerani. He never does."
Anthy received this reminder with perfect silence and stillness.
The door cracked open—and there, indeed, was Saionji, frowning impatiently. "Anthy. Are you finished yet?"
"I'm sorry for taking so long." She hurried from one of her keepers to the other. Saionji held the door open just wide enough for her to slip through. Akio was surprised he didn't try to seize her and haul her closer, the way he'd handled her during past failed revolutions. Even if he did own her, perhaps he was wary to get violent in front of her brother, chairman of the academy. Anthy turned to look back at Akio, just before Saionji pulled the door shut.
###
As soon as the door was shut, Anthy whispered to Saionji, "Thank you for coming."
Four words. They were the first time she'd ever sincerely thanked him—this was the first time he'd ever given her anything to thank him for. And they were some of the few kind words she'd ever said to him for any reason other than obligation. And yet, for that, he wasn't going to get anything in return for her gratitude.
Well—he wasn't going to get anything from her. He was, however, going to get something else. The power to revolutionize the world. They all were going to get it together.
The power to revolutionize the world wasn't on his mind. Her four words were.
As they walked back to their dorm rooms, he was careful not to brush against Anthy. Her stoat watched him with sharp eyes.
###
It happened during a freak snowstorm a couple of weeks into class. Harsh winds blew the last few dying blossoms off of the cherry trees on campus. The students ignored their lessons to stare out the windows at the bizarre weather—and at the one student skipping class who seemed to be ignoring it.
Anthy was outside, wandering in the snowstorm. Her latest gross pet, the long pink rodent, was shivering in her embrace. It was bizarre that Anthy herself wasn't shivering; she was still in her normal uniform, arms and legs exposed to the icy cold.
As the waves of snow obscured and revealed Anthy, it seemed that her appearance morphed and shifted. One moment, it looked like her stoat was as white as snow; another, it looked as though Anthy was the one wearing a cloak of snow white with black flecks. But surely those were visual tricks, just snow clinging to the two figures? But then another moment, it looked like Anthy wasn't in her uniform at all, but rather a regal red gown.
And then, as the distracted students inside gasped in fascinated/disgusted shock, she lifted her pet rodent to her face and kissed its nose.
The storm, practically a blizzard now, roared up and hid Anthy once more. When it cleared, the students who had been watching gasped again, this time loudly enough to call the attention of the students further from the window; they stood from their seats and craned their necks to look outside, and gasped too.
Anthy's ermine was gone.
In its place, gallant and princely as ever—and definitely not immune to the cold, from the way she was shivering—stood the expelled Tenjou Utena.
###
Do you know? Do you know? Do you know—how I, Napoleon Bonaparte, made it from my exile on Elba all the way back to Grenoble?
No! I don't know! But it doesn't matter—I, the soldier of the 5th Infantry Regiment, will stop you before you reach Paris!
Ho, ho, ho. Do you think it will be that easy? Don't you want to know why none of the other soldiers I've faced have stopped me?
I—I—I assume it's because you killed them. You are a military genius.
Actually, I didn't have to fire a single bullet.
Then—?! Swords...?
I'll show you what I did!
Oh no, he's going to use his secret weapon! He's going to— wait... is he... opening up his coat?
Look at me!
I—I'm looking, sir!
If there is any man among you who would kill his emperor, here I stand!
I...
Hmmm...?
... Long live the emperor. Long live the emperor!
You'll follow me to Paris, now?
I will, sir! I'm sorry for challenging you, sir! Even if I feel foolish for switching sides so easily.
All the other soldiers came over to my side just as easily as you.
Really?!
Do you know? Do you know? Do you know why?
###
Utena was visible from all across the campus, one of the few students standing as everyone sat outside and ate their lunch. She was wandering from cluster to cluster of students, smiling sheepishly and pressing her hands together in supplication. Wakaba scolded her loudly, "Utenaaa! Why don't you have your own lunch?! You shouldn't be begging food off everyone else!" and Utena protested good-naturedly, "I can't help it! I'm still expelled, I can't get school lunch."
Anthy covered her mouth with her fingertips as her shoulders trembled with silent laughter. Saionji, scowling, made a point of not looking at Anthy or Utena.
For all the effort he put into not looking at either girl, Utena was certainly looking at him. And her slow circle of the campus eventually brought her to Anthy and Saionji. "Hey."
Saionji looked at her coldly, resignedly. "What."
Utena was chewing on the first of two octopus-shaped wieners on toothpicks that she'd received from Wakaba. When she swallowed it, she said, "Now that I've got some fuel in me..." She reached in her pocket. "It's time."
She pulled out a car key and held it up by the blade. A pink rose signet was engraved in the head.
"Utena!" Anthy scolded, getting to her feet. Saionji made no move to stop her. "You'll lose it like that." She took the key from Utena, tisked, and slid the ring onto her finger. "There."
"Thanks," Utena said, and held the signet out to Saionji again, hand curled in a fist. "Are you ready?"
He eyed the ring with distaste, but sighed and got to his feet. "Let's go."
Utena smiled grimly and ate her second octopus sausage.
Somewhere in the distance, bells rang.
###
Saionji was silent as he drew the sword from Anthy's heart. And although he tensed, he didn't say a word of complaint as Anthy turned away from him, bent Utena back, and drew forth a sword from her heart.
No, not a sword—or at least not a conventional one: a bayonet attached to a musket.
Paintings hung from a twenty foot tall spiked fence, spinning around the perimeter of the arena. Utena and Saionji faced each others, swords raised, waiting for the bells to ring. When they did, Saionji didn't move. He tensed—as though he considered it—but then he stayed there, ready, waiting.
Utena raised her musket and pointed it at Saionji's heart.
"Bang!"
At the word, the green rose on Saionji's breast exploded. He lowered his sword.
Anthy walked to Utena's side and beamed.
###
Far away, Akio paced in his room like a hunted man—like a hunted man who didn't understand what was hunting him.
###
Being expelled, Utena still technically didn't have any classes and wasn't in the dorms—but when she scrawled her name in pen under Anthy's on a door in the East Dorm and moved herself in, nobody said a thing about it. Those were the rules of the rose bride.
High in his room, Akio started revising the rules for next time.
Utena didn't need to mooch food off the other students now, with Anthy making her bentos. Which was a relief to the teachers—one less disturbance that rogue troublemaker was causing—but they still grumbled about the way she distracted everyone. The students—especially the girls—watched her through the windows as she wandered around the campus during class time, entertaining herself. She'd taken to dribbling a basketball down the sidewalks. It was audible through the windows.
Delinquent. She was more of a pain expelled than she'd been as a student, and now the teachers had no power to stop her.
None of the faculty—all the way to the top—had any power over Utena anymore.
###
Utena and Anthy hunted Miki down in the music room while he was practicing the piano. They waited, Anthy leaning against the windowsill and Utena sitting on a nearby table, through three rounds of the same song—Anthy clapped politely after each—before Utena asked, "Aren't you going to challenge me?"
Miki turned to look at her. "It sounds like you want to challenge me."
Utena shrugged. "I can't do that, though. I'm the defending champion, you've got to challenge me." She looked at Anthy for confirmation.
"Actually, there's no rule against the rose bride's champion challenging a duelist."
"What!" Utena threw her hands up. "Why didn't you tell me fifteen minutes ago?"
"I wanted to listen to Miki play first." Her eyes sparkled with hidden laughter.
"Hff— Well— I guess—!" Utena harrumphed insincerely at Anthy. "Miki, I challenge you to a duel." She held out her key.
Anthy tutted. "Again, Utena?" She crossed the room to fix her ring.
As they headed to the dueling arena, Utena taking the lead, Anthy hung back to walk alongside Miki. "I liked the third time you played best," she said. "It sounded... more complete. Like you'd finalized the song, instead of finishing it just planning to start it again later."
Miki smiled. "Thanks—although it's not really the third time I played it. I was playing it earlier, too."
"Oh? How many times have you played the song that we weren't watching, then?"
"That's the thing—I'm not sure." He pulled out his stopwatch. "I've tried to keep track, but it seems like I've forgotten."
"How strange." Anthy tilted her head back, looking up at the forest around the dueling arena as they approached. "It must be a relief to you, to finally stop playing the same song over and over."
"It is."
There were rose buds in the forest.
###
When the bells rang, Miki held out a hand before Utena could hold out her musket. "I've never had a chance to explore the dueling arena, since we can only ever visit it during a duel. Do you mind?"
Utena watched with the musket slung across her shoulders as Miki circled the arena, examining the sculptures scattered across the arena. "Where do these come from?"
"There's a planetarium projector," Utena said, "up in Akio's room."
"Oh?"
"You're not supposed to tell that," Anthy said mildly.
"You're not, maybe. I don't see why I can't." Utena waved her musket toward the illusion of a castle floating above. The light glittered off the blade of its bayonet. "What's that thing going to do, start dropping hologram bricks on us?" Anthy covered her mouth.
Miki studied a headless, armless, winged statue; then turned away. "Okay. I'm ready."
Utena pointed her bayonet at Miki's heart. "Bang!"
As they left the dueling arena, Miki asked Anthy about playing a duet sometime. Blue rose petals danced between the statues.
###
Akio was pacing back and forth beside his car when Anthy came in for her weekly visit. He didn't speak to her; just waited for her to sit. She perched in the exact center of the chaise, legs crossed at the ankles, her hands laced and laying in her lap, facing the side of the car.
He leaned against the car's door, arms crossed, scowling at Anthy. "What are you doing?"
She didn't reply. She just smiled at him, mysteriously, secretively.
"What is it you want?" he tried again. "When you brought her back, I'd thought that it was in the foolish belief that she might still develop into the prince we need. But you're not pushing her to develop into a prince. The duelists are performing the rituals and progressing through the stages, but they're not dueling. Why?"
Still Anthy smiled, a small smile, and said nothing.
"And that mockery of a sword you're pulling from her heart!" Akio went on. "Why? Surely you don't plan to shoot your way to the power to revolutionize the world?"
And she remained silent.
"Then what's your objective?" Akio demanded. "What are you here to do, Mona Lisa? Unravel everything that we've done? Mock me? Kill me?"
"Oh, no," Anthy said at last, "I don't think there's any need for me to do that."
Akio's tensed shoulders relaxed slightly; but his gaze was still sharp, distrusting. "Of course not," he said, as though he were trying to convince himself. "We've been working to reclaim Dios's power for a long time, Lisa Gherardini. Too long for either of us to wish ill on the other, isn't it? You may betray everyone else, but you can't betray me—can you, sister?"
"I'd never put a knife in your back, brother."
"Of course not," he said, as though he were commanding Anthy. "We're family, after all. Our red veins, sharing the same blood, are our red string of fate."
Anthy's laced fingers tightened.
Akio moved to push off the side of the car, stepping toward Anthy; but she asked, "Do you know why revolutions are fought?"
He paused. "This question again. Are you making fun of me, La Joconde?" He settled back against the side of the car once more. "They're fought when one with the heart of a prince wishes to reclaim his birthright. A prince is deserving of many things—of a castle, a princess to keep in it—but he rarely gets what he deserves without fighting for it. You know this—we had what we were owed, once."
"Well, you have all the answers."
Akio shoved off the hood of the car, as though to lunge at Anthy; the headlights flashed on in her face, blinding her. The lights on her glasses hid her eyes. "What are you playing, Mona Lisa?" The engine revved dangerously.
And was answered with the threatening whine of a race car engine. He jerked around to face the doors; a bright light was shining through the crack underneath.
"Ah," Anthy said mildly. "That's my ride."
Akio made no move to stop her as she stood and walked to the door.
"If you're now fighting against me," Akio said, causing Anthy to stop, "and not with me, you'll never stop fighting. I hope you know that."
"An eternal fight..." Anthy started walking again. "I'm used to that." The doors swung open for her. Saionji, Miki, and Utena waited on the other side.
She stopped at Utena's side, and turned to face her brother. "Besides. That's the nature of revolutions, isn't it?" she asked. "They go around and around."
Anthy and Utena reached for each other's hands; the doors swung shut.
###
"One request: I want it to be a real fight," Juri had said; and so it was. They growled, snarled, screamed, and lunged at each other, blade crashing against bayonet, sweating and panting and bruising. Anthy largely ignored them, circling the arena to look at the new paintings. Every once in a while she glanced at the duelists to ensure no blood was being drawn, then turned back to the paintings.
She didn't give them her full attention until Utena let out a soft "uhff" and, triumphantly, Juri cried, "Ha!" Utena was splayed flat on her back, musket knocked several feet away, while Juri stood over her with sword pointed at her rose. "Have I finally improved?" Juri asked. "Or are you just getting rusty?"
"It has been a while since we've gone for a drive," Anthy observed.
Utena stared up, trying to catch her breath. The Castle Wherein Eternity Dwells stared down at her, distorted through hundreds of rhombus-shaped panes of glass assembled into a pyramid over the dueling arena. "Nah," she said, pushing Juri's sword aside. "You're fighting with a proper sword. I've got a gun with a tiny sword at the end. You've got an unfair advantage."
"Ohhh?" Juri stepped back, letting Utena up to retrieve her weapon. "I didn't hear you making excuses like that the last time we fought."
"We were fighting for real, then." Utena pointed the bayonet at Juri. "Ready?"
Juri nodded, and Utena said, "Bang." Juri flicked off a couple of orange petals that had landed on her shoulder, and they headed out of the arena together.
"You really should join the fencing club and learn some proper technique," Juri said.
Utena groaned exaggeratedly.
"Or kendo. You'd have to put up with Saionji, but you and Touga are old friends now, right?"
"Don't I do enough dueling already?! I don't want to spend my free time on it, too."
"You can't keep winning duels on charisma alone, you know."
"How many more do I have to win? Only a couple, right?"
"I have faith that Utena can win as she is," Anthy piped up. "And this time, she won't be fighting alone during the duel called Revolution."
Juri stared at Anthy. "They have names?"
Some of the roses in the forest were beginning to bloom.
###
Nanami sighed in irritation when Utena caught sight of her and her brother across the campus and made a beeline toward them. "What does she want?"
"A fight, no doubt," Touga said.
"I guess there's worse things she could want."
"I'm sorry I won't be able to give it to her."
Nanami gave Touga a puzzled look.
"You won't understand," he said. "It happened during the semester you were out."
Utena was within shouting distance now, and so she shouted: "Hey!" Touga replied by shaking his head and holding up his hand, the back facing Utena. Nanami did a double-take: he wasn't wearing a ring.
Utena stopped. "Oh. I'd hoped... I see." She gave him a sad smile.
He sadly smiled back. "I'm afraid so."
Nanami looked back and forth between them, mouth set in irritation but eyes glittering with concern. "What?" she asked.
In the time it took Touga to look from Utena to Nanami, his sad smile had transformed into a princely one, infallible and irresistible. "You should be happy," he said. "Now we've both left the student council." Nanami studied his face for a long moment, but his smile never faltered.
"So who is my next duel against?" Utena asked. "If not you, then—"
"Uuu~teee~naaa~!" Holding a key over her head, Wakaba destroyed Utena with a flying tackle-hug.
###
Wakaba insisted on having a picnic at the dueling arena. "It's so nice out," she said, "and the roses in the forest are blooming! I want to see all the colors!" She made Utena carry her piggyback up to the top.
Before they ate, they had to set aside a little pile sampling from their lunches for Chu-Chu so he wouldn't climb all over their bento boxes.
"The arena looks different," Wakaba said, looking at the museum-like façade that had sprung up around it. "Was it remodeled between semesters?"
"It changes every time I come here," Utena said.
"Really? That's so weird." She attempted to smile and it came out as a grimace. "There's so much weird stuff that happens here. I feel like I'm only on the surface of it, while you two know all about it. I wonder if I should be jealous."
Utena laughed awkwardly. "Definitely not. You're lucky, being on the outside of all the craziness that goes on here." Anthy looked down at the sandwich triangle in her hands. Chu-Chu stopped eating to gaze at her.
"I guess," Wakaba sighed. "I don't feel lucky, though. I feel—left out, mostly. It's not your fault! But—yeah."
"You shouldn't feel like that." Utena's awkward smile faded. "Listen. The things happening here—none of us want to be involved in them. Some of us might have thought we did at the start—like, I think the student council really believed in this at the start—but what's really going on here... none of us wanted it. I didn't want it. You didn't either, even if you don't remember participating. Do you?"
Wakaba shrugged awkwardly. "Not really."
Anthy set her sandwich in front of Chu-Chu.
"I'm glad you're coming with us," Utena said. "I wish we could help everyone get back to the real world. But if we can't, at least you're— Anthy?"
Anthy's head was bowed, eyes squeezed shut, mouth twisted. She turned away from Utena.
"Anthy." Utena leaned against her, wrapping an arm around her shoulders, rubbing her upper arm. Anthy didn't start crying until Utena touched her. "Hey. Hey."
"I—" Anthy covered her face, fingers sliding under her glasses. "I'm—" Chu-chu climbed up in her lap.
"It's okay," Utena said softly. "It's not your fault."
"It is!"
Wakaba sat back and turned away, trying not to listen while Utena comforted Anthy.
They packed up their picnic, agreeing that they didn't want to eat in the dueling arena anymore and that they could finish lunch once they were out of here. (The odds that they'd get the chance were slim; while they weren't looking, Chu-Chu slid under the lid closing on Anthy's bento.) When Utena pointed her bayonet at Wakaba and said, "Bang," Wakaba looked down in disappointment as her own rose fell apart.
"Brown," she sighed. "A brown rose is so boring."
"It looks better than the black one you had last time," Utena said.
"It looks copper to me," Anthy said, and Wakaba perked up a little.
As they left the dueling arena, Wakaba gave Utena a sly look. "Sooo..."
Utena gave her a suspicious look back. "'Sooo'?"
"So how long has it been 'Anthy' instead of 'Himemiya'?"
"O-oh!"
Utena and Anthy spent the long walk down the stairs dodging and deflecting Wakaba's questions about their relationship.
###
Do you know? Do you know? Do you know how the world will end?
Eh?! The world's ending?! Where, when, why, how—?
No, it's not really ending! I'm finishing a poem, see—
—oh, Eliot, you scared me—
—and I'm trying to figure out how to end the poem. And the world.
So, you want to know what the End of the World is like? Hmm...
Ah! I think I've got it!
Do you?! Tell me! Tell me!
This is the way the world ends: not with a bang but with a whimper.
... Ah.
You don't like it?
It's okay, but—why does it have to end with a whimper? Instead of a meteor? Or an alien invasion? Or a dinosaur attack!
Do you know? Do you know? Do you know why?
###
The duelists had ceased receiving letters from the End of the World. He knew, then, that although they were still playing by his rules, they were no longer playing his game. Although days went by, classes were still scheduled, and day and night followed each other, it seemed like Ohtori Academy had ground to a halt. Miki's spent so much time staring at his stopwatch, his teacher confiscated it.
At last, new letters, the last letters, were sent to the duelists. They were signed "End of the World," they were on the same stationery, they had the same seal; but the handwriting was different. Perhaps they should have been signed "Sister of the End of the World."
###
Akio summoned Touga to his room.
"It seems," he said, "that you, my Phoenician, are the only one who hasn't joined this strange cult that Utena's dragged everyone else into—including my dear sister."
Touga smirked. "So you noticed. How could you tell?"
"You're the only one who hasn't been dragged into one of those sham fights with her," Akio said. "It's unfortunate that so many of the duelists fell in with it—there's no way any of them will gain the ability to revolutionize the world, the way they're going now."
"A shame," Touga said cooly.
Akio studied him for a moment. "You remind me of my sister, in a way," he said. "Before she fell in with Utena."
"Oh?"
"Cui candor morte redemptus, Phlebas. Just like her."
Touga made no reply to that. He stuck his hands in his pockets and looked up at the projector.
"I think you could get the duels back on track," Akio said. "You are, after all, one of the few who were able to defeat Utena. You wouldn't lie down and take it if she pointed her little toy gun at you. I truly believe you're the best duelist at Ohtori. Perhaps you're even good enough to win eternity for yourself."
"You really think I'm so talented?" Touga asked. "I'm flattered to hear you say so. Especially under the circumstances."
"The 'circumstances'?"
Touga drew his hands from his pockets. He was wearing his rose signet ring.
"I challenge you to a duel."
Akio's eyes shot wide in horror. The windows slammed shut. The room fell into darkness.
The planetarium projector turned on.
Akio ran.
###
Even though it was five in the morning, long before class, the school was already crowded—although the school grounds were clear. Hundreds of students stood beneath the arches of the school buildings, eyes watching as Akio ran toward the dueling arena, heading to cut off the duelists before they could escape.
The green grass and trees of the campus were gone—nothing left in the blazing wake of the planetarium projector's light but prickly pear cacti. The hallucinatory castle was crashing down on him from above, and the duelists were waiting, armed. Saionji, Miki, Juri, even Wakaba—and he could hear Touga closing on him from behind. Both Utena and Anthy were carrying bayoneted muskets. A flag fluttered behind Anthy, black and blank. "What are you doing, Marianne?" he demanded, pointing his sword at Anthy.
Utena almost stepped forward, but at a look from Anthy, stepped back again. Anthy led now. "I'm leaving," she said. "Through you."
He laughed in disbelief. "You can't," he said. "You won't let yourself. This is the third time you've tried to leave. You can't commit to it. You keep coming back to me, and you know it."
She shook her head. "I've never come back to you," she said. "I came back once for Utena, and once for our friends. Not you. "
"Your friends," he sneered. "What lies did you tell them, to convince them that you're friends? Do you know that she does that?" He looked at the duelists. "She lies to everyone. She makes you think she's grateful for your company, or enjoys your music, or likes your hair. But she's lying. I'm the only one you don't lie to, Marianne. That's why you belong with me."
The tiniest smile played on Anthy's lips. "How interesting," she mused. "You think I don't lie to you."
Akio raised his sword. The duelists stepped back, readying their own weapons. "You don't stand a chance," he told them. "None of you made it to the End of the World. None of you are strong enough to beat me."
"The End of the World came to us." Fearlessly, Anthy walked ahead of the other duelists, up to Akio. "And we don't have to beat you."
He laughed. "No? Why not? You think you can stop me by pointing at me and shouting 'bang'?"
"No." She stood on her toes and, smiling, whispered to him, "You're already dead."
The ground cracked, and he fell. When he landed, looking up at Anthy, he was only a couple of feet lower; but he was as broken and unbreathing, swordless and pantsless, as though he'd tumbled from his bedroom window.
He whimpered.
A shallow valley had dropped in the ground around Anthy, and the duelists dropped with it. Utena was first back on her feet, and immediately returned to Anthy's side; then Saionji, then Miki, readying their weapons just in case; then Juri, watching Anthy with some emotion that couldn't decide if it was awe or fear. Wakaba had to retrieve her blade, slung several feet away, before rushing back to Utena's side. Only Touga didn't get back on his feet. His hair was soaking wet, and water trickled from his mouth. Somewhere in the crowds of students, Nanami wailed in realization.
Akio, paralyzed, darted his gaze between the duelists, one after another. He looked again and again back to Anthy. She stood over him, bearing her flag, black with the rose sigil in blazing pink. "Have you figured out yet why revolutions are fought?"
He opened his mouth, but no sound came out.
"When the people realize they no longer need a prince."
###
The morning shadows were still impossibly long as the duelists trekked to the Rose Gate, behind which was the power to revolutionize the world.
"I'm not looking forward to telling my family I'm going to transfer," Juri said. "My sister graduated from Ohtori, everyone was expecting me to as well." She looked at Miki. "Your sister is staying here, isn't she? Are you okay with that?"
"I think I'm ready to spend a little time away from her," Miki said. "I'll miss her, but... I need it. I think she does, too. Maybe in another year she'll be ready to leave."
Saionji had stopped walking at the gate, turning to look back at the campus. Two corpses were black specks in the distance.
"What's up?" Miki asked.
He shook his head. "I spent so long trying to catch up with Touga... and I never knew I was ahead of him all along. He was never even alive." He laughed shortly.
"Show some respect," Anthy snapped. Saionji looked at her in amazement. "You have no idea what it's like, going through reality as a living corpse."
"Someday, we'll come back for Touga, too," Utena said firmly, a promise both to Anthy and to herself. "Him, Nanami, Kanae—whenever they're ready to come with us."
"To break through the shell of the world," Miki said. "I think I finally understand it."
Wakaba gave him a look that said she clearly did not.
They grabbed the handles of the Rose Gate—Utena, Anthy, and Wakaba on one side, Saionji, Miki, and Juri on the other—and slowly, laboriously, pulled it open. On the other side stood the road out of Ohtori.
"How are we getting back to town?" Saionji asked. "We're not going to walk all the way, are we?"
Wakaba laced her arm around Utena's and raised her key. "We'll drive!"
As the first light crept over the school, two cars drove through the winding mountain highway from Ohtori Academy to Houou City.