Roses Grow
by sharnii
Chapter 12: Beneath the Surface
It was a nightmare, it had to be. Nine of us crammed into one camper van on a murderously hot day. We were racing down a road in the middle of nowhere. The van was painted red (Miki had mumbled his apologies, ironically the rental shop had no other colors available), which magnified the unbearable heat. Naturally the sky was cloudlessly blue. I was reminded of the gaping maw of some mythical beast, hovering over its next meal. All around us stretched what appeared to be a desert landscape. I didn't remember there ever having been wilderness nearby. And wasn't it winter?
Saionji was driving, with Wakaba as his self-appointed company in the passenger seat. I could hear the high-pitched buzz of her constant conversation through the partition. Obviously she was excited to have her highschool crush all to herself. I couldn't hear anything from him aside from the occasional grunt.
Everyone else was crowded miserably in the camping section; Juri and Miki were seated on the bottom bunk, Miki expertly wrapping a bandage around her wrist. Nanami was having her hair brushed by Tsuwabuki on the top bunk (which was rather disturbing to watch). Touga was stretched out laconically on a tiger-skin, filling the floor space with his sinuous frame. He looked remarkably comfortable. Finally there was an old armchair in the very back (as out of place as the rug) which I was sharing with Anthy half-seated on top of me. I was hot and sweaty with my hair sticking unpleasantly to my neck. Yet I wouldn't have moved for anything.
Anthy had been quiet and almost…washed-out since the confrontation at Juri's, and I wanted to keep an eye on her. For my own part I was conscious of my wound throbbing lightly where her spine pressed against me (but who cared about something like that), and of a general ache in the vicinity of my heart. Frankly I was more attentive to the threatening blue sky, just outside those ridiculously frilly curtains. No, Anthy wasn't going anywhere if I had anything to do about it. Wrapping my arms loosely around her waist I breathed in her comforting scent.
"Where are we going anyway?" asked Nanami. "Ow. Have a care, Tsuwabuki-kun. Be gentle!"
"Yes, Nanami-sama, sorry." He sounded more excited than repentant. I guessed it wasn't everyday a just-turned teenager got to be so intimate with his adult mistress.
"We need to put distance between us and Ohtori-san." Juri's voice was thoughtful. "We need time to decide what to do."
"Yes," said Miki, "although…it bothers me that we're going away from Kozue."
"We have no choice," Juri reminded him. "She's with the chairman. You can be sure he'll be aware of everything that happens to her."
"Yes," he said dejectedly. "I hope she's not hurt too badly."
"He's a liar," Juri told him. "I doubt she's in a coma…" She paused uncertainly, obviously realizing she had no way of proving that statement. Miki was hanging his head.
Awkward silence.
"What's so interesting outside?" asked Touga. With a start I realized he'd propped himself up on his elbows and was watching me intently.
"Er nothing," I said, face burning.
"Oh really?" he purred back.
"It's so hot," I moaned, trying to change the subject. Anthy was wearing a midriff top in palest green and I watched in fascination as a line of sweat dripped down her stomach. It ended up sliding past the waistband of her schoolgirl-style skirt, which remained as short as in our school days. Her legs slid smoothly along my own mostly bared ones. This was clearly the advantage of wearing my mini-shorts…I blushed at my odd thoughts without knowing why.
"I'm tired," Anthy murmured. Half-turning she pushed her head against my chest. I moved to wrap my arm accommodatingly around her shoulders.
"Sleep," I told her. "We don't have to do anything right now." She husked something I didn't quite catch and relaxed against me. Her forehead was digging into my collarbone but I didn't want to move her. Something told me she needed all the rest she could get. My arms tightened a little. I just…didn't want to lose her. The craziness of current events made me fear I might. But that couldn't happen, right? Since the last duel, I didn't have to worry about things like that. Right? I fretted and studiously avoided looking in Touga's direction.
A little while later when Anthy was soundly asleep (and snoring into my ear, worst luck) Juri picked her way over to perch on the arm of our chair. Her injured wrist was swathed in bandages now, strapped against her chest in a sling.
"I'm sorry," she said quietly in her rather abrupt fashion. Covertly she glanced toward the others, checking that they couldn't overhear. "I understand now why you er…" She paused uncertainly.
"Lost my spine?" I filled in for her. She had the good grace to blush. I dredged up a grin. "Oh well, good, because I'm not so sure how it happened myself." Juri looked like she didn't know whether to believe me.
"Your heart sword is broken," she told me. "Right? That's what those shards of metal were?" I only shivered in response and she touched my arm lightly. "How anyone could survive that I don't know. It's no wonder you're…different. But somehow you're still the same." One graceful hand moved to start fiddling with her locket, and I felt oddly uncomfortable without knowing why.
"Thank you for…whatever it is you did to help me back there." Oddly enough she sounded uncomfortable too.
"No problem," I muttered, "you would have done the same for me." She looked up again and for one heartstopping moment I felt like I was drowning in pools of green…that weren't the pools I wanted to be drowning in. I wrenched my eyes away and looked down at the top of Anthy's head instead. There, that was safe. When had Anthy stopped snoring?
Juri cleared her throat. "How did it get broken?" she asked me, gently for her, and after all that had happened I thought I should try to tell her that much.
"Akio used it to try and beat down the rose gate," I said. "He thought it was the key. But it wasn't."
"The door to eternity," murmured Juri, something very like awe in her voice. She studied me intently. "Did it…open then? Did you…"
"Yes," I admitted. "I don't know how but I got it open." Reflexively I glanced at the tracery of scars on my hands. Juri's eyes followed mine.
"What was there?" she asked slowly.
"Anthy," I said, testing the unfamiliar-familiar name on my tongue. It was strange not to call her Himemiya, for I always had. But in this time and place with so much between us, it was also right.
Juri gasped again. "What?!"
"It was her coffin," I revealed, as I started to stroke Anthy's hair. "She didn't even know me at first." We fell silent as we both thought about the ramifications of that. Juri didn't speak for a long time, just watched me watching Anthy. I was too tired to ask what she was thinking, and she didn't volunteer it.
Eventually she got up and went back to Miki. They conversed in whispers, conspicuously not looking at me. I sighed. No doubt they were back to their plotting and planning. Well. Maybe somebody should be. Anthy kept her own counsel. And I didn't have any head for games, either five years previous or now when I needed to even more.
An hour later we saw the first sign of pursuit. Touga was standing at the window gazing out when he shouted in alarm.
"There!"
Juri and Miki were at his sides in a moment, straining to see.
"What is it?!" I asked from where I was trapped cradling Anthy.
"I don't know yet," said Touga grimly. "But it looks like Akio-san."
I swore under my breath.
"It's a red convertible," Miki told me. "It's gaining."
I swore again. Nanami whimpered from the bunk.
"Wait a minute," said Juri, "is it really a convertible?"
The three of them stared some more.
"Nooo," said Touga at last, "I don't think it is. It's some other model I haven't seen before. Close though."
"Very close," murmured Miki. "They're going to pass us."
"Who's in it?" I asked. What the hell was going on?!
"Um, three girls," revealed Miki. "I can't see them properly, the sun's in my eyes…they're just silhouettes."
"They look familiar," said a grim Juri.
"Not to me." That was Touga. He shrugged at Juri's annoyed look.
"There's another car coming already," pointed out Miki. "See that dust cloud on the horizon?"
"There's been no traffic at all until now," noted Touga, before continuing in a surprised voice: "it's red."
I gasped and Tsuwabuki climbed down the bunk to run to where the others stood at the window.
"It would be red," muttered Juri.
"It's a convertible!" announced Miki.
I couldn't stand it. I slipped out from beneath Anthy, trying my best not to wake her. She slumped to one side and didn't stir, confirming to my mind her newfound vulnerability. Not that she wasn't always oddly vulnerable…
I rushed to press myself between Juri and Touga. The convertible was rapidly gaining, despite the fact we were fairly flying down the road. As it drew even we all gasped. It was…was it…Akio-san? No it couldn't be…
It wasn't.
But the long-haired man in the business suit bore more than a passing resemblance. He titled his sunglasses and glanced over to smile at us. We gaped like idiots. His car roared on ahead and then out of sight.
"Weird," muttered Tsuwabuki. "Come and see, Nanami-sama."
"No thanks," she growled from the top bunk.
"This is ridiculous," hissed Juri. Another red car had already appeared on the horizon. "He's playing with us. He has to be."
"Maybe it's a coincidence," said Touga. We all watched this red car (rather beat up as though it had been in an accident) struggle to pass us. Two young women were in evidence: the violet-haired one with her arm in a sling, and the blue-haired one apparently asleep in the passenger seat. Or at least she was slumped back and her eyes were closed… Miki froze. Juri looked outraged.
"It's not them," she told him stiffly. "Just relax." And she was right, it wasn't anyone we knew. It was just a red car, and they were just strangers. Slowly but surely they passed us, leaving us shivering in their wake and watching the horizon.
We waited.
Long minutes passed. No more cars came. We waited some more. Eventually we drifted back to our places, one by silent one.
The cars had been coincidence. Just like the desert. Just like the way Akio kept turning up at the worst possible time. I gritted my teeth as I slid back into the armchair and gently repositioned Anthy's sleeping form. Sure. Coincidence.
The sun was sinking into the horizon when we pulled up at a convenient hotel. Actually the hotel was a tad too convenient…it was a five star tower, obviously belonging in a bustling city. Yet here it was just when we needed it, standing on the edge of the unnatural wilderness. It was wrong.
Juri and Miki discussed this while Saionji and Touga bickered. Eventually the group headed into the hotel to book anyway (where else could we go?), leaving me alone in the van with my still sleeping companion. In the gathering shadows of twilight I bent my head toward her ear.
"Anthy," I whispered enjoying the taste of her name on my lips, and the accompanying sensation of her own lips brushing the hollow of my neck where she lay.
"Utena-sama," she murmured, which made me frown, and then there was an instant where I felt minute tension in her body as she froze. No doubt she was wondering where (and when?) she was. Then she relaxed and leaned back to look up at me. My arms were loosely around her now. Her eyes were so innocent, so vulnerable, as I had always noticed. Yet suddenly I saw they were also ancient…knowing…cold. Beneath the warmth was something…sly. Was this what some of the others had seen? Why they didn't like her? I gasped just a little.
She stayed still and gazed back at me. For a moment I wondered if she knew what I was thinking…if she always knew.
"Your eyes…" I stumbled to a stop.
"Yes?" she husked.
"Th…they're beautiful." I meant it. Beneath that ancient slyness was something else, something new. Something I could only just glimpse – something being born.
She laughed. It was a joyous sound, and in that moment she looked wild and fey. Helplessly I ran one hand through the glorious mane of her hair. She smiled up at me, looking so much better than she had, and only a little tired. Her head leaned into my hand as her hand rose to rest lightly on my chest, directly over where my heart-sword was. I sighed at the strange sensation. Slowly the low-level throbbing intensified, almost like her questing fingers were a brand.
"It hurts," she said, not a question.
"Yes," I gasped, and I was not surprised to see the globe of light she always conjured begin to illuminate her hand.
"Let me…just try this," she murmured and her eyes slanted half-shut in concentration. They always did when she drew my sword. I saw they were secretive, even seductive. Had I truly never noticed that before?
"Okay," I husked back, biting my lip at the familiar sensation. As always I felt pleasure course through me, building and building until it hovered right on the point of pain. My eyes dropped closed and my head went limp against the chair-back. If I'd been standing surely my body would have flowed backwards, caught up in the magic of this ritual. But it was different this time. Pain was flaring too, in ever-higher arcs, making me gasp and writhe beneath Anthy's hand. My stinging eyes blinked back open to see Anthy's were wide as she studied the burst of light.
"It's okay, shhh. Just try and keep still," she murmured to me, trying to lift her hand to call the sword forth. I glimpsed the very tip of the jeweled foil begin to emerge and then it stopped with a grating sound. I ground my teeth. Agonizing. Something was going wrong.
"Hold on," she whispered again, creases of concentration lining her forehead. About an inch of the handle appeared, excruciatingly slowly. It stalled again, catching jarringly on something deep inside, forcing me to cry out in anguish. Anthy flashed me a frantic look.
"Just a few more seconds…" My eyes closed against my will as she kept pulling; I bit my lip to stop from crying out again. I tasted blood. Fires burned on the back of my eyelids.
"I'm sorry," Anthy sounded frustrated now. "Utena, I'm going to have to force it."
"Do it," I somehow gasped, desperate for the ordeal to be over. Anthy grunted with effort and pulled. I moaned, then yelled. A sunburst of light flared so brightly I saw it through my eyelids. With a horrible rasping sound like bone scraping bone, what was left of my heart-sword flew free.
I knew it was gone because the pain subsided immediately. Hesitantly my eyes blinked open. Raising one shaking hand to wipe my sweaty brow I looked at the heart-sword Anthy held. It was broken beyond repair, just one inch of jagged metal attached to the hilt. Useless.
"It's beautiful," whispered Anthy, raising it to eye level. I dragged my eyes away from the sword to meet hers in shock.
"It's broken."
Anthy smiled into my eyes and pressed her lips to the hilt.
"It's even more beautiful than it was," she told me.
"Um," I said, feeling my usual flood of confusion at her strange sayings. "Can it be fixed?" Anthy didn't meet my eyes as she beckoned to ChuChu and handed him the blade (where on earth had he been all this time?! I didn't remember seeing him since before the meeting…) Self-importantly he received it and scurried off.
"No," she told me, and I heard regret (and guilt?) in her subdued voice. But then she smiled and stroked the valley between my breasts, in what was probably meant to be a soothing gesture. "But maybe there's another way."
"Another way?" I echoed shuddering against her touch. Her fingers were surprisingly distracting now the aching had stopped. Or maybe they were like that because of the aching.
"Come on," she told me, rising gracefully and pulling me up to join her. "The others are waiting for us."
I scowled as I followed her. Why couldn't she just answer me like a normal person? If she sensed my irritation she ignored it. We stepped from the van to meet two sets of quizzical eyes.
"We heard screaming," burst out Tsuwabuki.
"It was nothing," murmured Anthy, still holding my hand. I thought about pulling away then sighed in resignation. I didn't want to lose contact with her, even now.
"Oh yes," snarked Nanami, "I'm so sure." She glared at Anthy who didn't seem to notice.
"Let's go," she told me instead, pulling me lightly toward the looming hotel tower. I followed, wondering what Nanami and her minion had been doing loitering outside.
"I'm sick of never knowing anything," I mumbled.
"It's the price you pay," Anthy told me, as we entered the revolving glass doors. "For knowing everything."
"Right," I muttered. "Uhuh." But I followed her meekly.
TBC in Chapter 13: Under the Stars