"I'm afraid you aren't on her list of allowed visitors, ma'am." The receptionist's voice was full of polite regret. Anthy stood, a bouquet of white roses in one hand and her handbag in the other, wondering why Utena would choose to keep her out. There was only one way for her to find the answer.
"That's alright," she said. Across the room, an apple rested on a coffee table. A single fork appeared next to the apple, as though it had always been there. The woman behind the desk felt something in the air change. "What room, again?" The woman gasped for breath, sweating in the cool, conditioned air.
"Two hundred twenty-two. Shall I show you—"
"No need," Anthy said, and swept past her. The halls were clinical; behind each door was a story Anthy had no energy left to tell. Here in the world, no shadow players lurked to draw you into every passing tragedy. They went on quietly, so that no one had to know another's suffering. She reached Utena's door in a few minutes, knocked twice, and entered.
Utena was awake. A half-empty bottle of water sat on her nightstand, along with a worn hospital copy of an abridged Mahabharata. The blinds were open, filling Utena's eyes with a pale blue light that washed them out, deadened them. Anthy closed the blinds and replaced the fake peonies in Utena's vase with her roses. Then she sat in the small wooden chair, and waited in silence.
"Himemiya," began Utena, and stopped. Her hands were shaking a little. "Are you—is he—"
"I'm free, Utena. More than I have ever been, thanks to you."
"What are you?" she asked, looking at the ceiling. "Both of you."
"Ancient," Anthy replied. "Inside, I am a hundred towers in gray stone, an empty city sieged in silence, a rose crest in relief." Utena wet her lips with a tongue as pink as her hair. "Akio is a prince. There is little else to him beyond that. The power—neither of us know quite how to die. But I have the power. Akio has everything else." Chu Chu jumped from Anthy's knee to Utena's bed. Utena swept him off with the back of her hand.
"How am I alive. The swords, I mean. Were they real, or just pictures?"
"They are...I have never been sure. When you need to fight, the swords are sharp." Utena turned to face Anthy, and a Utena's hand flopped, palm up, onto the sheet. An invitation. "Your skin is so beautiful. I wanted to be Japanese when we came here, but of course I could never have suggested it. It wasn't my nature to suggest anything to him, even if he might have listened." Utena flexed her fingers.
"Touch me."
Anthy reached out a hand, and hesitated. Utena's brow creased.
"I don't have scars. But I've been here for months—where have you been—just, touch me, Anthy. Please."
Anthy reached out and touched a dry fingertip to Utena's palm.
(the screech of steel on steel, every swordpoint wants the whole flesh to itself, piercing, hating, raw and long in ire, cold metal and hot blood, all the way to the hilt, until Utena is invisible beneath the bristling cocoon of them, ancient and new, crumbling and fresh. a single lock of pink hair floats down from the mass and the swords descend on this, too. every nerve is simply a reason to die)
Anthy lifted her finger.
"Every moment?" she asked in a whisper.
"Always."
They waited together. Utena could feel the roses blooming gently in their vase and wanted terribly to be swept up onto the back of a white horse and spirited away. But the real world was harder than that. She would have to crawl up out of the bed in which she'd been content to waste away. But then, even when she had been in the coffin, she had come out on her own power. The prince was the stimulus, but her motivation was her own. Utena sat up and did her best to stand.
"How are you going to get me out of here?" asked Utena. "I think I can walk, but...this paper outfit..." Anthy smiled.
"We're going to get up and walk out." And that's what they did. Outside Utena smelled the hydrangeas out front of the clinic. A small white luxury car was parked on the curb, pristine and European. It was lovely, but not ostentatious, the sort of car an pop star might sing while draped over. Utena imagined a road in the daytime by the sea, where every painted sign read "Go". Anthy got into the car and did not strap herself in. Neither did Utena.
"Where are we going to go?" Utena asked.
"Anywhere."
"Ohtori?"
"Not there," Anthy said. "We could, if you really wanted to," she amended. But Utena was already shaking her head, waves of brittle pink hair falling over a bony wrist. She'd lost weight while she was away. In the course of bringing Ohtori Academy revolution, she had given her pound of flesh twenty times over.
"No, you're right. Let's not. Where do you want to go?" Anthy stopped with the keys in the ignition, like she had never considered the question.
"Well, if I'm with you, Utena, I don't mind."
"Really?"
"Really."
"Let's go to a hotel," said Utena. "Take a night and sleep on it. Do you have money?"
"I don't need it. Let's go." Anthy turned on the ignition and pulled away. Her car was powerful and gentle all at once, and the purr of its engine pulled a fresh feeling from Utena's breast. It was as though she was holding a photograph of this moment, feeling nostalgia and a muted joy she couldn't express.
"Anthy," she whispered, "stop." The car braked immediately. Utena got out; they were on a bridge past which the ocean lay blue and glittering. She pressed a hand to her chest and drew a sword from it. Utena thought she understood how Anthy had stood the feeling for so many duels. When a hundred million swords were piercing you always, the removal of one infinitesimal blade felt so relieving it bordered on catharsis. She held the Sword of Dios, as ever.
"What are you doing, Utena?" Anthy sounded concerned. Utena turned from the ocean back to the car, that glittering blue filling her eyes with light. She raised the sword up high above her head, to the sky, as if expecting the blessing of a phantom prince, and brought it down on the hood of the car. The blade shattered. Utena realized for the first time that she wasn't wearing her signet ring.