Disclaimer: These characters are the property of Be-Papas and the brainchildren of Kunihiko Ikuhara and Chiho Saito. Title taken from the Girlyman song of the same name.
Notes: Takes place after the end of the series, so beware spoilers.
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She doesn't dare linger in front of the mirror after buttoning her coat and securing her hat over her loose curls. If she looks for too long into the green eyes staring back at her, eyes so much like his, they will convince her to retrace her steps. Dress her up any way you want, give her a pretty new pink dress and a new hairdo, but she's still the same girl she was before. The same doll. The same whore traitor witch.
The Rose Bride.
Her reflection stares back through thick glasses under a crown of pinned-up hair, and demands proof that she has ever been anything different.
"Utena," she whispers in reply. As she walks away from the gates of Ohtori Academy without another backward glance, she says the name again – her prayer, her promise.
Her prince.
--
Anthy makes her way through the forest of steel and concrete, the river of faces and bodies moving relentlessly from somewhere to somewhere. They trudge through their predictable days, their small successes and inconvenient failures, wanting either to be like everyone else or so different, so special, that it's almost embarrassing. All of them are caught up in the current whether they rage against it or let themselves drown.
This, then, is the outside world, the one that she and her brother left behind when they crossed the threshold of a storybook kingdom that was theirs for the rebuilding. Which isn't to say that they didn't reach back into this one now and then to pluck out a likely-looking champion, a useful tool or amusing toy, like ripe fruit from a tree. The last time she saw him, he was starting the cycle again, in hopes that he would choose the right tools this time, and that the finished product would at least resemble the dream that had ended a long time ago.
Even if the ones she left behind were used as surely as she was, that is no reason to wonder what will happen to them now that their world has been uprooted.
Some things about this world have changed. It's louder now, choked with the honk of car horns and the music spilling from radios and storefronts, the shouts of the night-shift workers and club-goers, the shrieking of cats and squalling children. It goes without saying, of course, that none of them will notice her unless she wants them to. Nor will any of them try to impale her on the million swords of their hatred. Not anymore.
The thought teases at her, scratching at the calm bubble that she's become so good at extending around her mind. She tries to listen, but just then a bleating siren startles Chu-Chu, who in turn squeaks loudly in her ear until Anthy soothes him, calming them both for the next leg of the journey.
--
The television in the waiting room is broadcasting footage of some distant war. Every gunshot sounds like Save us, Rose Prince, save us… This world is still divided into those who bring on the darkness and the ones who try to hold it back, even though they have more names now for both and have discarded the ones that really matter.
You know which one you are.
Hours past sunset now, and she may have been to every hospital in the city, surrounded by white walls and pain and death, holding up the same photograph and asking the same questions over and over, telling the same lies and half-truths when the staff responded with suspicious questions of their own. And smiling politely when they told her that nobody matching that description has been admitted that day.
It's not like any of them would believe the truth anyway, assuming that Utena survived the stab of a sword through her back and chest, assuming that that was the worst punishment the universe could imagine for the one who broke the rules and tried to rewrite the story.
Either way, Anthy knows that she has no reason to believe that she will find her friend tonight, or tomorrow, or in the next month, or in the next decade. And what makes her think that Utena will forgive her, or even recognize her? Tea and tablecloth dresses? Cookies and laughter? Things that normal girls deserve?
Or just the image of a scraped and tear-stained face, hands reaching into a coffin to clasp hers?
"Miss? Are you all right?"
Anthy blinks, then gives the white-coat-clad speaker her sweetest, most demure smile. She bows slightly, murmurs a thank-you, lifts her suitcase (and a finger to her lips so that her only companion makes no noise), and walks back through the automatic doors into the smoggy, neon-laced night.
--
The doorman won't let her into the building at first, even when she says that she's here on Ohtori Academy business. She lets the innocent schoolgirl mask drop for just a second, and what lies behind it (which pushed innocent schoolchildren into the fire, which watched as roses blackened and turned to ash) convinces him to press the button on the wall, speak her name into the intercom, and motion toward the elevator. She is vaguely surprised – and more relieved than she will ever admit to anyone – when it does not open onto a dueling arena or an observatory, but onto a lush carpeted foyer that leads to the penthouse apartment.
Kanae's mother is fully dressed even at this late hour, in a cocktail dress and pearls. She must have just returned from a party elsewhere in the city, but her face is far from celebratory. "May I help you?"
"We'll see," Anthy answers, matching Mrs. Ohtori's stare with her own. "I'm sorry about your husband." She lets her gaze sweep the formal outfit. "It's good to see you're holding up."
She receives a scowl in response to that. "Does your brother know you're here?"
"He saw me leave," which is the truth.
"Come in if you must. It's quite late, you know."
Anthy nods and steps over the threshold. The furniture and drapings are heavy and dark, the curtains (not shutters) drawn. "Is Kanae here?"
"She's asleep. Of what business were you speaking, please? If all was not well at the school, I would have heard, whether or not I hold any power there."
"A student disappeared recently from the campus." Anthy names a date, although the concept of time inside Ohtori's walls does not always match with its course out here. She produces the photograph again. "Tenjou Utena. Do you know where she is?"
Mrs. Ohtori frowns. "I admit that she looks familiar, though I can't place her. One can hardly expect me to keep track of all the students on that campus, even the oddly dressed ones. You do realize that this was my husband's job, don't you? And your brother's, now."
"Do you think that Kanae would still want to marry him if she knew what he was doing with you?" Or with Utena. Or with as many potential champions as he could lure into his bed. Or with...
"Are you blackmailing me, Miss Himemiya?"
"I will continue to look for my friend with or without your help, Mrs. Ohtori." She never gets up from her chair or raises her voice. "I think I have a long way to travel from here, but Kanae still won't listen to me if I tell her that the Trustee Chairman is not what he seems."
"Don't you think that I know what I signed up for?" Mrs. Ohtori demands.
"I know that your daughter has no idea what she signed up for." Anthy folds her hands. "I'm willing to believe that some part of you still cares about her."
The other woman sits in what might be contemplative and might be enraged silence, or, more likely, a bit of both. She is, perhaps unsurprisingly, adept at turning her face into an unreadable mask. "She has… spoken of you, Miss Himemiya. Now that I've seen you in person, I don't know whether to expect great things from you in ten years' time, or to be absolutely terrified."
There is only one thing that I want to be doing ten years from now, but she doesn't say this out loud. The vision of herself and the girl who saved her, seated cozily in a room far away from this one, drinking tea with no poison and no secrets between them, is theirs and theirs alone. And the question of what will happen if it doesn't come true – although she won't stop hoping – is already starting to feel less like another stab through the heart.
--
By the time Anthy's train arrives, the sky has already started to lighten from black to a pale, chilly blue-gray, dank and odd-smelling and real. Chu-Chu is curled up on her shoulder, snoring almost imperceptibly, but she wouldn't sleep even if she needed to. She has no idea whether her words will have as much power as she would like to believe, whether they will convince Kanae to open her own eyes and destroy what power Akio has left.
There is no reason to hope - although she almost does anyway - that in her absence, in Utena's, some of the ones they left behind will continue to play the only game they know – it's no more than they deserve – but that others will take new root and bloom. That is their choice, and she no longer has any part in it.
Outside the train window, the sky has started to bleed, shot through with blades of red fire. She can see a faint reflection of her own face, transparent as a ghost, and wonders who it really belongs to, now that she is truly alone (or is she?) for however long it takes.
You know what you are.
"Anthy," she whispers in reply, and for the first time since she walked away from those other names, Rose Bride, those other words, doll-whore-traitor-witch, she thinks that those might be her own eyes staring back at her.