Je viens offrir mon coeur
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Discordance

_ "How touching. The last moments of a playboy. Did you swear your eternal love yet, Touga?"

Akio walked slowly around them, circling like a vulture around a corpse, his voice dripping with irony.

_ "Utena, I have to tell you the truth, I am not your Prince. Dios, my poor, poor, beloved other, departed this world today, thanks to the help of your soul-sword. Only I remain."

A scream ripped through the hall and Anthy started to sob, grabbing on to a piece of rubble for support, her nails digging in the broken marble.

_ "I'm sorry I lied to you, dear sister, but I could not live in this world knowing he did too. Yes, I needed the sword to open the way to the chamber where he locked himself up, but I also needed it to kill him."

_ "Are you trying to obtain the revolution for yourself?" burst out Utena.

_ "My dear, didn't your boytoy here tell you? The Revolution has already happened, since Dios is dead and I am alive free to reign over all..."

An uncertain voice rose to interject, and Anthy, sobbing, drug herself across the floor to be closer to her companions.

_ "The Revolution... is not about power. It's about people's feelings."

_ "Touga... don't talk..."

_ "The Revolution... can't be undone..."

Touga started to cough, and Anthy let herself fall by his side, on her back, arms flung wide, like a porcelain doll dropped by a capricious child. As in a trance, her voice, stronger, completed his words.

_ "The Revolution can't be undone. If a bride without a soul can be made to feel friendship. If a heartless playboy can be made to feel a perfect unblemished love..."

Utena turned to her friend in surprise as she continued to speak, her voice more regal, more self-assured, than she had ever heard.

_ "You must be defeated. For Dios."

Akio laughed.

_ "Will you fight me yourself Anthy? Will Utena? Touga? And what weapon will you use? This is the end."

_ "Anthy? The sword?"

Anthy's hands shot to her chest, grabbing fistfulls of her Bride's dress as if she expected the sword to appear.

_ "I'm sorry, Utena-sama..."

_ "There is no more sword of Dios!" Akio cut in, a smirk of his face, "When Dios hid his body in this castle, he entrusted his soul to Anthy, along with a mission. To find you, the woman whose soul-sword was capable of destroying even me. She gave up her own soul to shelter his. Now that he is dead, there is no more sword of Dios."

_ "Anthy, say this isn't true!"

Mechanically, the girl continued to tug at the front of her dress, an empty, lost look in her eyes.

_ "I'm sorry, Utena-sama."

Tears prickled Utena's eyes and she closed them, unwilling to show weakness in front of the one she had loved, the one she had loved and who had betrayed them. Yet moisture still seeped through her heavy lashes. It was over.

_ "Then... we have lost..."

Utena felt a soft touch on her face, Touga's fingers wiping away her tears, and she opened her eyes to gaze in his brilliant blue ones.

_ "Tenjou... Listen to me..."

His voice was so low she could barely hear it. She bent closer to him, hanging on his every words.

_ "There is... a way..."

His hand clasped hers and moved it so that it rested on the center of his chest. She jerked back as if burnt when she was suddenly reminded of herself as she had so often been with Anthy, before the start of a duel. Anthy, the Rose Bride offering herself to her.

_ "I can help... take me..."

_ "Touga... no..."

_ "I was always yours... take me..."

_ "Touga..."

_ "This is the only way. Utena..."

Touga smiled. His eyes focussed on her, only her, a dying man holding on to his lack anchor to life.

A raw whisper.

_ "I love you."

He gasped and his head snapped back as his back arched in her arms. She felt it, in her palm, the jutting coldness of a sword-hilt. His soul sword.

_ "I can't..."

His shaking hand grasped hers, wrapping her fingers around the hilt. She felt him, taunt in her arms, as he surrendered his soul to her.

White light flooded the hall as Utena pulled his soul sword all of the way out. Anthy blinked, and scrambled to her knees, as she gazed in rapture at the beautiful shining white blade. Worthy of a Prince.

The light waned, and Touga went limp in Utena's grasp. But the glass sword remained firmly in her hand. Tangible. Real.

_ "Touga? Touga?"

She held him close to her, burrying her face in his neck, tears falling in his soft hair.

A whisper.

_ "I'm... not worth your tears..."

A scream.

_ "UTENA-SAMA!"

A reaction.

Utena turned around quickly, the slim shining blade of her rapier stopping Akio's. She strained against him, unable to counter, forced in a deadlock. She could not move with Touga held against her.

_ "Using your Prince as your bride... You really are desperate, Utena."

_ "My... Prince?"

_ "Silly girl, unable to see what was plainly in front of you all the time. I was generous, I sent you your own Prince to lead you here. He never believed it though. He always thought that he was not worth being anyone's Prince. Least of all yours."

Anthy came closer and reached out, taking Touga in her arms.

Utena laid her hand against the flat of her blade and, with the combined strength of both her arms, pushed Akio back and scrambled to her feet, the tip of her sword shaking visibly.

_ "You're lying!"

_ "Why would I lie to you at a time like this, in the midst of my revolution? Your Prince is lying there, his body broken. Will you destroy his soul as well? Do you know the concentration, the life-energy, it takes for him to sustain the sword you hold in your hand? Will you let him die just so you can have a weapon to challenge me?"

Akio took a few quick steps and smashed his blade against hers. Utena stumbled back, almost dropping her sword.

_ "Utena-sama!"

Tears welled up in Utena's eyes as she turned to Anthy and Touga.

_ "Anthy! I can't do it!"

Akio's blade rose from her blind side and dug into her arm. She doubled over and dropped to the floor.

_ "Do it for me", Anthy's voice rose uncertainly, as she repeated words whispered to her, "because this was my choice, to protect my Princess. I would have fought for you, but now this is all I can do..."

Akio dove towards her with a killing blow. She scrambled for her sword, feeling a surge or relief as the hilt comfortably fit in her palm, and thrust it out. It barely stopped the attack.

_ "Why are you doing this, Touga? You are dying for an ungrateful woman. The only reason she is fighting me is because she learnt that I used her. But even now, she still loves me. No you, me. She told me she loved me, Touga, has she ever done the same for you?"

_ "Touga, don't listen to him!"

_ "She whispered to me that she belonged to me, in the middle of the night, as we made love while you waited for her to come back, looking out the window. She was not thinking of you then, she was mine."

Utena's tear-filled eyes opened in horror as Akio's lunge struck against the delicate weapon she held in her hand with such force the glass blade creaked ominously, cracks snaking along its length.

_ "Her skin is delightfully soft. And I have to say, of all the woman I have slept with, none have surrended to me quite as completely. What else could she do, having chosen me over you? Did she ever let you touch her?"

He disengaged, and, as she took a step back, her foot hit an obstacle.
She fell. Her opponent loomed over her, ready to strike down, and she prepared for one last desperate defense.

A realization.

Touga was losing faith in her. The sword would break. She would be defeated, and die. And she would have rendered his own death meaningless.

A capitulation.

Anthy looked down and saw Touga's face, contorted in pain. She gathered him in her arms and held him tight against her, then whispered fiercely:

_ "Love is unselfish. It's not about having your feelings returned, it's about protecting the one you love."

A revolution.

Utena pointed her blade at Akio in a last gesture of defiance. The glass blade shattered, every fragment shining like a myriad of small suns, brighter, brighter, until the light ate the darkness in the room, leaching colors, leaching shapes, until all there was was pure blinding radiance.

Akio screamed.
There was a faraway sound like a sword dropping to the ground.
But it could also have been a drop of water trickling off a leaf into a pond.
Akio's wail died.
Then all that was left was silence.

To be concluded...