Title: Red Kiss
Author/Artist: KyaniteD
Pairing: Juri/Anthy
Fandom: Shoujo Kakumei Utena
Theme: # 19: Red
Disclaimer: The basic set up, surroundings and characters are not mine. The story, however, is.
Rating: If a rating should be applied, it'd be PG-13, just like the series itself.

Not beta'd.

Red Kiss

Several shivers ran through her body.

It was winter. For the first time, it was winter at Ohtori Academy, and she wondered, if that had anything to do with the child of the sun, and its mysterious disappearance. Mysterious to everyone but her. She winced at the memory and buried her face deeper into the thick furry collar of her coat. A matching, just as thick and furry muff kept her hands warm, and a pair of boots completed the ensemble and ensured that she wouldn't get any frostbites on her feet while standing in the snow, watching the duel.

Snow. The whole arena was covered with several inches of snow. And it was still snowing. It reminded her of Juri's last duel with Utena, when rain had set in after the pendant had been cut from Juri's neck.

Juri wasn't wearing the locket anymore. She had given it to her, along with a picture of them, Utena and Anthy, taken on one of their happier days. She had wondered about the meaning of such a gift. She had been afraid that it meant Juri had given up on her. After rejecting her so many times, in so many different ways, she had been afraid that the Beautiful Leopard had eventually resigned.

But here she was, still fighting. Still fighting for her, fighting to keep her, fighting to stay by her side. She was not allowed to be the champion, she was denied the chance at being the prince. But she stayed, and she fought, like a knight, with devotion to the unattainable lady.

Juri had won every duel, not once had she lost, not one day had she left Anthy's side, always watching her, protecting her from unwelcome advances and bullying classmates.

Juri always won. Juri never used the Sword of Dios. Juri fought on her own, without Dios, without his sword, she would never be the prince, anyway. She would not risk all her hard work, she rather relied on her own abilities than making herself a pawn at the mercy of whoever was behind this cruel game.

The snowflakes had become bigger and it was hard to see anything at all. The challengers had become tougher lately, stronger, and colder, adhering to the rules, but increasingly ignoring the traditional code of the duelists.

Sometimes she found herself worrying about Juri...

A cry of pain echoed through the thick wall of snowflakes. She noticed a flash of red and then watched her knight falling to her knees, bending over in obvious pain. For the fraction of a second she was frozen to the spot, literally, as a flood of dreadful visions sent cold shivers over her skin. Without any coherent thought she ran to the fallen duelist, deeply concerned and not paying any attention to the other uniformed figure, who was holding up the bloodstained blade in a pose of victory.

With horror she saw the blood slowly coloring the snow under the slumped duelist, while snowflakes started to cover the orange curls, fading out the vibrant color and turning it into white - almost imitating a fast aging.

And suddenly she realized that she could lose Juri, not through her rejections, not through Juri's resignation, but through the cruel reality of the duels. Juri did not rely on the Powers of Dios in any way. She realized that Juri had no reason to be here. The only remaining female duelist had freed herself from her imprisonment; she was no longer bound to this world.

Juri had never been fighting for the Power of Revolution, and now she wasn't even fighting to disprove its existence anymore. Anthy realized that she was fighting for her; and she wasn't risking some foolish dream or some false and warped image of a relationship that never existed, she was fighting on her own, it was her free will, and she risked her very self. For her, for Anthy, for the Rose Bride, who denied herself a free will, who imprisoned herself in the memories of past loves.

Slowly her mind rose from her musings and she wondered, why the bells hadn't tolled to announce the end of the duel. She looked around but couldn't see any petals of the salmon colored rose she had pinned to Juri's jacket before the duel began. This could only mean that the duel wasn't over yet, and a warm feeling of joy spread through her body: Juri would fight. She knew she would fight for her; she was the only reason why the enigmatic fencer was still here, in her reality.

And once again she winced at the surfacing memory of her beloved prince, stabbed by her, the princess she had sworn to free and protect. She had stabbed the one she cherished most, who was fighting for her even after being fatally wounded by her protégée.

It felt like events were repeating. She had denied Juri the chance at the fateful and dangerous duel called Revolution. And here she may be dying anyway, for no other cause or goal than...

"Move it. Let me finish her."

While her thoughts were running wild, Juri's opponent had also noticed that he had missed Juri's rose, and now he was closing in on them, his sword en attaque.

She grabbed Juri by her shoulders, urging her to get up, but upon her touch the fencer started to vibrate, emanating a low, feral growl. Then she rose slowly to stand in front of Anthy, facing her and the duelist behind her. Anthy noticed the blood on the fencer's left hand, and concluded that she must have protected the rose with that hand, so that her opponent's blade cut through her hand instead of the rose.

Juri followed her gaze to her hand, and a cold smile crossed her beautiful features, a smile that never reached her eyes. She stuck out her tongue to lick some of the blood from the cut on her hand and fed it with a hard kiss to Anthy. It was a disgusting, numbing kiss, but so Juri in its fierceness and so sensual in its intimacy, so red with blood and - what she realized in just that moment - love.

"She is mine, and mine alone. None of you will ever touch her."

Juri had never touched her, either. Not after...

She had begged and pleaded and wooed and reasoned, she had been fighting for her, and while victorious in the arena, she had never been granted the fulfillment of her one wish.

And still she was fighting, to the blood, Anthy had seen that now, but she knew, Juri would not die, for if she was dead she could not protect her anymore.

She was pushed aside, and as she was stumbling out of the way, the Beautiful Leopard held up her deadly blade and leapt at the challenger, who was still visibly shaken by the blatant display of a perverted attraction between his adversary and what by right and nature should have been his bride.

And while he remained immobile, the angrily yellow rose was cut from his uniform jacket. Finally, the sound of the bells rang from the nowhere of a grey, cloudy sky.

She noticed that even the castle could not be seen anymore.

She turned to her victor, who had dropped her foil and was now trying to get a look at her injury, obviously fighting the urge to use her white uniform to wipe off the annoying sticky liquid that was still seeping from the cut.

Anthy pulled a neatly folded handkerchief from one of the pockets of her coat. She always carried one with her; she always carried this one with her.

Carefully, she took the injured hand and bandaged it with the cloth. She tied it with a knot, smothing out the corners, one of which was embroidered with two Latin letters:

T.U.