Chapter 1

It had been four years since Utena had seen her, but she recognised her at once. That hair, flowing free as seaweed beneath the water. Purple, the colour of royalty, and lust, and arrogance. Those eyes, green as the earth, deceitful as the sea. Utena would not allow those eyes to draw her in a second time.

"Utena-san," was all Anthy Himemiya managed in her soft voice before Utena swept past her in the college hall, gaze turned away, teeth gritted against the torrent of words she would never allow herself to express.

You were my friend

I trusted you

You betrayed me

I loved you

You let me think you loved me too

I loved you

I love you

I love you

It was four years ago, Utena thought. Four years. It's over and done with now. I've moved on…I don't care why she's here, what miracle has brought her to the outside world…

Miracle. Utena laughed at herself, cynically. Curse, more like. She'd learned by bitter experience what Dios had known long ago – that Anthy Himemiya was a witch, spreading death and darkness wherever she went and caring nothing for the lives she destroyed along the way.

Even a plaintive "Chu?" did not make her turn her head. Better not to remember, better not to think of any of it. That was all she'd done for the past four years – not think of it. She'd gritted her way through four years of school, not remembering that she was once a duellist foolish enough to believe she could change the world, not remembering the girl she'd been deluded enough to think she could save; deluded enough to believe needed saving. Not remembering the man she'd given herself to who had only wanted to make her a passive doll for his own amusement.

She'd escaped all that. She'd become…Well, not normal, but she'd learned not to stand out the way she once had. True, she was detached and had no friends, and people thought she was a bit weird because of that – the way, perhaps, everyone at Ohtori used to think that Anthy Himemiya was weird, but damn it, she'd gotten away from the madness and was just starting to put her life back together again. She didn't need the past popping up out of nowhere to screw it all up again.

Utena sped home from college as fast as she could after that brief hallway encounter. Her car, a doubtful second hand affair that tended to conk out if she pushed it into anything beyond an amble, wasn't happy about it but at least lasted until she reached her apartment.

Letting herself in and dumping her schoolbooks onto the couch, she went into the kitchen to make herself a steadying cup of coffee. The percolator bubbled away happily to itself while Utena gripped the edge of the kitchen bench with white-knuckled hands and gasped in enough breaths for a platoon of marathon athletes. It didn't seem to make any difference. She still felt sick and faint as the heroine of a gothic romance, and hot tears splattered onto the floor as she blinked. That was how much she didn't care about this anymore.

Normally, Utena woke early. She didn't the next morning. She slept right through her alarm, and only just managed to get up in time to stumble into her lecture a few minutes late with messy hair and sleep still clinging to her eyes.

She wasn't in the best mood. She'd missed her jog and her breakfast, and on top of that had dreamt of Ohtori all night, wandering through empty hallways knowing she was looking for something but unable to remember what.

The last thing she wanted to see was a wild tumble of purple hair, attached to one very specific individual, sitting a few tiers down from her in the lecture hall. What was this, Utena thought savagely as she scribbled mindlessly into her lecture pad, had Anthy decided to become her stalker now? Were there so few universities in Japan that she couldn't have conceivably gone somewhere else?

Utena was first out of the room at the lecture's close, and she didn't pause to look back.

At lunch time, she hid herself in the empty gym and went over her notes to avoid thinking. She was appalled at the gibberish she'd apparently written. Scraps of Tennyson drilled into her by her eighth grade English teacher, maths equations Miki had taught her that she would probably never use again, part of a letter she'd started writing to Wakaba who she hadn't thought of in years. All of it detritus from the wreckage of Ohtori, disturbed from the depths of her subconscious mind.

Last of all, at the bottom of the final page, was a nearly illegible scrawl that made Utena more furious than all the rest put together.

As long as you're free of the swords now, I don't mind.

"Like hell I don't," Utena muttered, slamming her book shut.

"Utena-san, I'd like to talk to you."

It was with a kind of inevitable resignation that Utena looked up to find Anthy standing before her. This was the old gym they were in; the college had opened a new one recently and left the old to languish with promises of renovation that were never fulfilled. Usually it was kept locked, but this made no difference to Utena, who had gotten her hands on a key. She preferred coming here to the new facilities. Here, it was quiet. Here, she could be undisturbed.

Until now.

"Go away," Utena said, though on some level it wasn't lost on her that Anthy had, for the second time, left off the sama title of which she had once been so fond.

Anthy sat down next to Utena on the bleachers.

"I will," she said, contrary to appearances. "First I just…wanted to apologise to you for everything that happened. For everything I did."

"And by everything you mean…?"

"Deceiving you. Using you. Hurting you. Betraying you right—" Anthy's voice broke for a moment. "Right at the end."

Keeping her expression blank, Utena shrugged. If the old ache in her heart had started up again, she wasn't about to let Anthy see. She'd learned a thing or two herself about concealment in the last few years.

"I suppose it was what you and Akio planned all along." To Utena's relief her voice was steady, though it felt like she was hearing herself speak from a long way away.

"No," said Anthy, her reply uncharacteristically sharp. "Akio really did want you to be his princess. To live with him in the Castle of Eternity and be loved forever. He would have given that to you if you hadn't insisted on fighting him. If you hadn't tried to save me."

Utena stared down at the empty basketball court of the gym, eyes burning and mouth dry as she remembered that other terrible arena and what had come to pass there. "I didn't want what he offered," she said roughly. "It was nothing but a lie. How could I have lived that perfect life with him when you were paying for it with the swords?"

"I know. You threw away everything he offered. You threw away the dream of your childhood for me. And in return I—"

"Stabbed me in the back with a sword."

Utena threw the words at Anthy's feet like the challenge to a duel. She watched in fascination as Anthy's hands clenched and unclenched several times in her lap. Witch's hands, she thought. What spells had Anthy cast with those hands? How many men had she ensnared, as Utena herself had once been so foolishly caught?

When Anthy at last replied she spoke in little more than a whisper. "It's no excuse Utena, but I was afraid. He'd told me so many times I couldn't live without him that I'd really started believing it. We were together for such a long time…longer than you can imagine. Sister and brother, princess and prince—"

"Sacrifice and executioner?" Utena said brutally. "Master and slave? Carnal woman and lustful man?"

"Yes," said Anthy calmly, though her hands were shaking. "Those things too. He'd become a torment, yet I was terrified of losing him because he was the only piece of my world I had left. The only way I knew of being myself, however awful the cost. You were taking that away, Utena, and I was too scared to imagine there could be anything else in its place. That's why I betrayed you. I'm sorry."

"Is that all?" Utena said, still obstinately staring down at the basketball court and refusing to meet Anthy's eyes. She didn't like that apparently Anthy had decided san should go the way of sama, but she also wasn't prepared to comment on it, given that it could only be a deliberately bold, if misguided, move on Anthy's part.

Indeed, Utena could never remember Anthy being as forthright, or as talkative, as this in the past. Perhaps being in the real world had changed her. Then again, perhaps it hadn't, and this was just the beginning of a new and elaborate game designed to lure Utena in.

"No, that isn't all."

At last, Utena was shocked into looking up. With no electricity, they were half in the dark, yet there was no mistaking the emotions stirring in the green depths of Anthy's eyes. The restless desire Utena couldn't pretend not to understand anymore. The still disbelieving revelation of joy.

"Even after I did that, you took the swords for me, Utena. You opened my coffin and set me free. You did what no one else has ever done. What no one else had ever even thought of. You sacrificed yourself to save me. I didn't even know that was possible. I didn't realise there could be any other ending. But you gave me that, Utena. You gave me the power to choose my fate for myself."

"If that's really true Himemiya, I'm glad. But I don't understand what you're doing here."

"I came here because I didn't want to stay there. Once I had my freedom, I chose to leave Akio and Ohtori and that whole fucked-up world. I've been looking for you to four years."

"Why?"

The question seemed to take Anthy aback. "Because I – I wanted to say thank you."

"You've said it," Utena pointed out.

"Yes, I know, but—"

"Then what are you still doing here? Shouldn't you be on your way?"

"Utena." Anthy said it like a gentle caress. "I know I hurt you. I know I don't deserve your trust. But…you're an extraordinary person, and I miss you. During the time of the swords – that long, awful eternity, you were the only person who showed me kindness. Who offered me friendship. I was filled with too much suffering to appreciate it then, but I can now. Please, can't we start again?"

"That friendship was four years ago Himemiya, when we were schoolgirls living in a skewed fairytale controlled by a megalomaniac fallen prince. This is the real world, where things are different."

"I see. So what you're saying is that you hate me now?"

There was a terrible defeat in Anthy's voice that gave Utena pause. She remembered what she had really seen as a child; a tormented little girl with hopeless eyes who looked down at her from a web of swords. The million swords of hatred, that Anthy had borne for time longer than memory.

The swords had been there constantly, though Utena couldn't see. They'd been there in every slap and insult the students of Ohtori had thrown at Anthy; they'd been there in everything Akio had done to her. Utena knew those swords. She knew them intimately. She had felt them tearing into her body, her soul, filling her with the conviction that she could never be loved by anyone again, that all she deserved was hatred, undying, forever.

If Utena herself became the swords now, if she became just like all the others who had found it easier to condemn Anthy than examine themselves, then what the hell had been the point of fighting to the death anyway?

She let out a breath. "No Himemiya," she said softly. "I don't hate you. Never that. But I don't know if I can deal with you being here like this, in my life."

Utena risked another glance at the girl beside her. She blushed when their eyes collided, realising again how different Anthy looked. It wasn't just the loose hair and lack of glasses; it was her eyes. There was so much to see in them, more than Utena could take in. When Anthy gave her a slight smile, she was amazed at the way it lit up the depths of her eyes.

"I thought you'd forgotten," Anthy admitted ruefully. "It was so hard to find you. It took me so long. I couldn't find a trace of you anywhere, and I thought it was because you didn't remember. So I thought if you met me now, we'd be able to start again as friends, the way we should have done the first time around. It wasn't until you looked at me yesterday that I realised you did remember, and that therein lay the reason for the difficulty. Because you didn't want me to find you."

"Look Himemiya, I can't be your prince. Even if you think I revolutionised the world or whatever, that was never what I wanted. Well, it was, but not like that. I just wanted to help people, and be good. I never wanted to possess another human being."

"I know that Utena. I didn't come here to play out the farce of the prince and the Rose Bride again. I left all that behind in Ohtori. Can't you tell I'm different now? When would I ever have argued like this before?"

"Well, now that you mention it…"

"It was hard at first. Passivity was the only defence I had, and giving it up was…more frightening that you could imagine. But I've had four years to adjust, Utena. Four years in which I had to make my own way, manage my affairs, come to decisions, talk to people, look for you. I still…don't do it well all the time. I still don't like crowds. I have to work up the courage to talk to strangers. I can't lie politely to people I don't like. But I'm not the way I used to be. And I'm not asking for anything except the friendship you once offered me."

Utena looked at her again, so earnest, so seemingly sincere. A warning was screaming in her head, but she couldn't seem to heed it. Other memories were swimming to the surface, all those inconsequential moments with Anthy that had somehow added up to the most important relationship of her young life. Drinking tea late at night in the quiet of their dormitory, sharing dreams and secrets in low, murmured voices, lying together at lunchtime on the green, green grass of the hillside that always smelt of sunlight.

And there was that feeling, the one that had blossomed in her heart without her noticing. The sure conviction that she and Anthy would always be together, that nothing would ever tear them apart.

"I don't know Himemiya," she answered haltingly. "I don't know if we can be friends."

Anthy hung her head. "I see. In that case I'll leave you alone. I'm sorry to have troubled you."

"No," Utena said quickly, perhaps a little too quickly. "Don't leave yet." There was an awkward pause. "What are you even studying, anyway?" she asked, desperate to fill the silence.

"Botany," came the prompt answer.

That made Utena smile. "Of course. That makes sense." Somehow she thought Anthy would know already, but she told her anyway, "I'm studying health and fitness."

"How do you like it?"

"It's okay. But why were you in my lecture today? Taking nutrition as an elective?"

"No. I didn't have any classes today. I just wanted to see you."

"Typical," Utena said, suspicion flaring in her gut. "You haven't changed at all, have you?"

"Like I said, I'm trying. I still get things wrong sometimes. I've found it…difficult to adjust to this world. It's so different to what I knew before."

"How did you get into this university? Did you even bother to finish school?"

"I had all the necessary paperwork," Anthy said, in a way that was both prim and evasive.

Utena groaned. She'd forgotten how infuriating Anthy's answers, or lack thereof, could be. Still, she could imagine what had happened. It had been chaotic for her too when she'd first awoken in the real world. Somehow, Utena had been given a whole new life, with a story that everyone apparently knew better than she did. According to this version of events, she'd left the mysterious and prestigious Ohtori Academy in order to be closer to her aunt, who had returned to Japan after losses to her business venture in the U.S.

Everything had been arranged for Utena in advance. All of her files and records had been forwarded to her new school, along with a glowing reference from Akio himself that had made Utena blind with fury when she first read it. She even had friends who knew her, or thought they did.

It was as if she had appeared in the real world, and the world had adjusted itself to fit around her. It had been confusing at first, trying to deal with the memories of a world so different, wondering sometimes if she was mad yet knowing that she wasn't. Trying to fit into a world that was not her own, but must become so because she sure as hell wasn't going back to what she'd left behind.

Anthy too must have endured all this for the last four years. All for Utena's sake.

But I didn't ask her to, Utena reminded herself. I don't owe her anything.

Utena sighed and rubbed her forehead. She was getting a headache. "Do you have somewhere to stay?" she found herself asking.

"Yes, I have a room."

"A room?" The answer surprised Utena. It was rather incongruous with how she thought of Anthy.

"Yes. I am a student now."

"Of course. You always were very thorough in playing your roles."

"This isn't a role. This is my life."

"You gave up eternity to be a college student?"

"Why not? You did."

"That's different," Utena said huffily.

Anthy giggled. The sound tore a small hole in the already fragile armour around Utena's heart. Had she ever seen Anthy express happiness before? She found she wished she could laugh with her, but only allowed herself a half-smile.

"Chu-Chu isn't with you today?" Laughter inevitably made Utena think of the unruly little marmoset.

"No. You offended him yesterday. He wouldn't come."

"Well perhaps if Chu-Chu agrees, the three of us could have a picnic sometime…I guess I do owe him an apology."

Anthy's face lit up in a way Utena had never seen before, and Utena found herself smiling at her in return. She didn't admit to herself what had just happened.