Chapter Text
Do you know? Do you know? Have you heard the news?
There’s another quest starting today, out here in the real world.
Oh! Brave hero, who took that irreversible step…
But there’s something strange about this!
What kind of quest does a witch embark on in the first place?
Do you know? Do you know? Do you really know the answer?
* * *
The reflection of the café was eclipsed for a moment by the stiff plastic casing of the camera, as she settled further into the soft plush upholstery of the coffee shop window seat and snapped another photo of the mob preparing for the next thronged crossing.
She nodded without turning when the server asked if she’d like fresh tea. Then she blinked, a thought occurring to her. She looked down at the small collection of half empty cups in front of her. A sigh escaped her, as she observed how she had arranged them in a pattern that suggested, from her perspective, a flower budding for the day.
After a lingering moment, she lifted her camera back up, feeling the warm metal of the buttons in their familiar position and took a picture of that, before turning back to stare out and patiently count the seconds until the synchronised lights changed to favour the pedestrians again.
Her internal clock was calibrated to the point that she didn’t need to do this, but she found she enjoyed the act of watching the pressure of the crowds build up at the crossing points, potential energy gathering until relief arrived in the form of a flashing green man. The first time it happened, she had expected a crush, just as when the peak finally overtakes the base of the wave and starts to break, but people silently, efficiently, and politely marched across to where they needed to be without looking at each other than to avoid collisions.
Tourists such as herself excepted, of course.
Her latest mug of tea completed the pattern as it was put down. She noted that, between photos, she had idly traced a shining path of tea down the centre of the flower. She stared at it for a moment with a blank expression, then shook her head and drank her cup, just as darkness ebbing in made it impossible to take more photos.
She stood, gathering her things, smoothing the wrinkles in her soft, powder-pink dress before pulling her black leather jacket on and going to the counter, reaching into her purse to pull out the amount on the bill before they brought it up on the screen. She smiled to herself at the way their eyes flicked down in surprise before politely accepting it. She wondered if someday she would reach in and find nothing there, but she suspected that her brother would have made sure long ago that he would never need to worry about money again. She certainly had no qualms using it for herself.
She held onto the rail, resisting as the subway tried to bump her this way and that until she could step off, into the overheated station. Fanning herself lightly with her city map, she rode the escalator up and paused at the exit to refresh herself in the cool night air.
She adjourned her journey back for an hour, to get today’s photos developed – idling in the ramen shop next door as she waited until she could, finally, retreat to her hotel room. With exaggerated care so as not to knock the “Do Not Disturb” sign off the handle, she slid into the room, concentrating so as not to disturb the careful arrangement of photos already set out across the floor, forming a mosaic that she had spent sleepless nights poring over the same way an archaeologist would survey an ancient mosaic.
She added the Shibuya crossing ones to it, laying them out from the wall towards the small island of carpet she left in the centre, standing in the frozen sea of moments.
She started with the newest ones, then, slowly searching each photo for a hint of pink, or the familiar lines of that face lit up in the light from noon to evening. Looking for someone who couldn’t keep themselves from standing out. She blinked when she reached the latest photo unfulfilled, unsurprised, but unable to avoid a blow to her heart like the cold steel of a sword.
Then she started on the others, making her way backwards in time to the first day she had gone to Tokyo tower and looked through rented binoculars to see if the capital would prove any more fruitful than the rest of the country had been. Each day, she overcame her nerves over crowds, picked a new outfit and ventured forth, letting the wind whip her long hair out as playfully as it desired.
This night, she slowed as she made her way backwards, spending more time looking at idle pictures she had taken outside of her hunt. For a long minute, she stared at the solitary snap she had allowed someone else to take of her sitting barefoot by a tree, searching in her face and demeanour for any glimmer of the panic she remembered overwhelming her. She wondered how much she might have missed in others, if she couldn’t even detect that in a picture of her own face.
Two hours later, the weight of empty photos dragged her down, crushing her face into her hands as her lungs filled. As they reached their peak, her head fell back, silence rippling out across the room as she held her breath before she screamed; the sudden cry directed to the ceiling, pulling her body upwards as she snatched up the useless scraps of carefully printed paper, shoving them into the plastic bags they came in, pushing those inside each other until the floor was free of all her efforts, of any reminder of her absence.
She left Tokyo that night, flying to India.
The flight hit turbulence after an hour, the rough fabric of the seatbelt cutting into her stomach each time the plane jolted. Looking out, she caught flashes of lightning beneath them and shivered, turning away until the oblivion of exhausted sleep overtook her.
She wasn’t sure what she hoped to unearth when she arrived; ascending into the mountains to a city called Manali. She traced paths that were carved by feet that had turned to dust long before the homes around her had been built. All the while, she kept carefully to herself.
She came to a stop in front of a tree stump, chopped down six months before her arrival. She tried to tally the rings, curiously, but they weren’t clear to her eyes. She ran her thumb along the wood, trying to trace the number that way, feeling the way it was drying like sawdust and timber left to rot, but she found herself losing count and having to start over. Eventually, she turned her back on them and sat, allowing herself to stare up at the light polluted clouds.
She departed India for Europe a day later, enjoying the mindless shows on the small tv in the back of the seat in front of her until she was jolted awake by the wheels touching earth again. When she was in transit, nothing seemed to bother her except the stiffness of a chair or the blandness of food. She felt mundane, encased as cargo with her fellow passengers until they alighted in single file and disappeared from each other’s story.
Europe was chosen, picking up a thread sourced from her memory, vague and distrusted less than a year after the events. In their shared room, Utena had told her about an aunt who was moving continent, while Anthy watched Chu-Chu digging through Utena’s pockets for hidden sweets. Back then, the outside world was an impossible dream, and she hadn’t spent time concerning herself with it.
Anthy lingered over the wish that she’d paid more attention to her, a familiar longing coiled in her stomach. She wished a good many things these days, but she put them aside and reached into her wallet for enough money to get a train ticket from Amsterdam to Paris.
The French Winter made her breath frosty in the lights of the Eiffel tower, so she bought overpriced scarves, hats and gloves that made her feel like a sheep waiting to be shorn. She avoided the Métro after going in once and feeling her temperature shoot up like a fever, choosing to walk and take buses instead. She found herself sitting in cafés in the morning to drink coffee and watch the women pass by. She captured fewer photos, only large crowd shots before the café owners’ implacable presence raised the cup to her lips and moved even Anthy Himemiya on. She spent less and less time in each futile spot, as her search spread out across Europe.
Ireland was wet and brown in Winter, and her hair became most unwieldy, so she quickly tried Scotland. She made her way from monochromatic Aberdeen, south into England, but neither country proved much better for her hair. After less than a fortnight, she booked passage back to the continent via the tunnel that ran back to France, travelling in pink jeans and a green top, layers of earth between her and under enough water to crush her. The train journey felt more unreal than even the London Underground, she shifted uneasily in her seat as she waited to see if the world she came out in was the same as the one she’d left.
After re-emerging into the light, she found no belief remained to drive her actions. Despite this, her patterns persisted. She lost track of the countries she passed through; the voices of other passengers drowned out by a growing laugh directed at her from the back of her mind. She couldn’t tell if it was her own voice, or an echo of his.
Eventually she found herself making her way north through Holland or Belgium, further up through what might have been Denmark, the landscapes and borders hazy in photos that refused to develop properly.
Her crossing to Scandinavia docked there before the dawn. She disembarked, standing on the dock as the sleepy morning crowd flowed passed her, and found she couldn’t find the will to drag out her camera.
She had searched for Utena for a year and a day before this despair had sunk into her bones. Her footsteps echoed as she passed under a bridge in an empty park at dawn, her momentum gradually spent itself. She came to a standstill, staring at the fog rising off the manmade lake in the centre, where all the paths in the park converged, her left hand loosely holding the handle of her suitcase, her right clenched tightly in front of her chest.
Her tears fell silently, to begin with.
The hard white plastic suitcase hit the grass, shattering the morning frost and she buried her face in her hands, trying to catch the burning trails of hot oil on her cheeks as her chest heaved. Her knees buckled as she fell beside her battered suitcase, staring at blurry nothingness as the fog settled deeper around her. The featureless weight of the mist crushed her, bent her over in front of the water as she was faced with the gravity of what she wanted to do, find one pink grain of sand on a beach constantly hidden and reshaped by an indifferent sea. Her heart throbbed in her chest, determined to burst her ribs like an eggshell, choking her sobs.
She was shocked, but unable to silence herself, when she saw the shape of a person resolve in the reflected sky in the pond. She couldn’t restrain the full-body sobs; when the visitor knelt next to her and reached out, she froze for a moment, her body trapped between too many responses. At last, the hunger for a comforting touch wailed loudest and she leaned in, her pain swallowed hungrily by the fog.
When her tears stopped, she tripped over her numb legs trying to stand independently and landed on ass again. She fumbled in her jacket for a monikered handkerchief, now worn by time, and wiped away the trails on her face before, at last, turning to look at the woman who had come to her side.
Brown eyes stared out calmly over the water, as the woman stood next to her in a midnight blue dress, her hands stuffed into the pockets sewn into her fabric. Red pumps matched a ribbon tied into a bow that held her black hair back, hair that hung low down her back and looked ready to blow dramatically in the wind, if it would ever rise.
She seemed to be waiting; Anthy got the impression she could wait until summer turned to autumn, if she had to. A moment later, Anthy realised she was waiting for her.
She stood up, successfully. “Thank you, Miss.” Anthy hiccoughed, midway through her short sentence, but continued. “I didn’t…” Her voice trailed off; she turned to look at the still water. The sun was starting to rise higher – she could tell by the circle of light that showed where it was already burning off the mist to bring out the day. What was it she hadn’t meant to do? Give up, cry openly, reach out for comfort? It seemed trite to deny any of them, as they had already happened.
The woman seemed startled out of some thought by her soft voice, head cocked curiously as she easily understood Anthy’s words despite her never having been here before. There was a strange tilt to her smile and her eyes suggested recognition. “That’s alright. When I first came to this town, I almost caused a traffic accident and had to find a place to stay and work without a red cent to my name.” She sighed, looking back out over the water. “It can be a lot, figuring the world out by yourself.” There was fondness in her tone, a friendly air to how she spoke. Anthy wasn’t sure who it was directed towards, and she didn’t exactly trust it. She found her mind probing about her, feeling some kind of tension growing she couldn’t see how to resolve.
Then she spoke, unprompted, putting her goal into words for the first time. “I’m looking for a girl. Her name is Utena Tenjou, a pink haired girl a little older looking than I am.” She felt Chu-Chu poke her neck at that, and saw the woman look down at him curiously. “Ah…and I’m Anthy Himemiya. This is my friend, Chu-Chu.”
The smile that met her gaze when she lifted it back to the other’s face reminded her of someone, though she couldn’t place why it made her shoulders relax an inch lower. “Chika. Nice to meet you Anthy; we don’t see many other witches around here” she replied, holding a hand out. “And I’m afraid I haven’t heard of any Utena around here. I run a delivery business, though, so if she’s nearby and gets mail, I just might!”
The hand hung like a hopeful puppy in the air for a long moment before Anthy relented and reached out to shake it. “It would be good to stay in one place. That is what the advice is when you’re lost.” Another first. She’d never allowed herself to think it, all the time she was on the road, but she was lost; unmoored from how she used to live, without a new destination to point towards.
“Well, I can put you up for now if you want to stay here. I was lucky enough to get the same offer when I first arrived here, I guess it’s my time to pay it forward,” Chika replied easily. “Say, you don’t mind broom rides, right? Not all witches use them but…”
Anthy paused as she bent to retrieve her suitcase, but only for a moment, regathering herself on the way back up. “I can’t say I’ve ever used one. I certainly don’t mind being a passenger, Miss, so long as you’re good at driving it.”
“Good to hear! Let’s go.” Her pale hand was held out expectantly again, as she already stood over her broomstick. This time, Anthy took it without hesitation. “And call me Chika.”
* * *
Magenta foxglove,
Bloom when the dog days begin
Tonic or Poison
* * *
She looked at the sky where the clouds raced the wind and won, at the clock on the belltower whose hands changed position between blinks, at the incomprehensible letters on street signs that grew in the middle of fields and frowned, understanding that she must be in a dream, yet knowing she wasn’t the dreamer. The textures of her dreams were nothing like the smooth fabric of modern big tent that filled the field before her with gaudy colours that clashed, shifted, and clashed again in new ways each time she looked.
A chorus of shadows danced around the entryway, and although she could spot no source for them, their voices echoed out, one from either side. “Come one! Come all! Well, there’s only one, but come anyway!” There was something
She stared into the yawning entrance inscrutably, then looked back at the beckoning shadows. “What kind of show is there?”
“Why, the only show in town! Watch the daring swordswoman defend herself as she crosses the tightrope. Ooo, is today the day she finally slips?! There’s only one place to find out! You better have your runners on if you want to make a difference, though.”
Anthy felt the air sucked out of her lungs, her body paralyzed by images painted on the canvas by the shadowy announcers, in what felt like sadistic mockery. Almost without willing it, she found her legs had taken her under than Stygian archway and into the tent, entering a cacophonous interior that smelled like popcorn and candyfloss and deceit, filled a crowd of shades cheering loudly at the entertainment as Anthy was drawn inexorably to her own seat.
The woman on the tightrope was real. Pink hair tightly braided, it clung to her skull as if afraid of being cut. Her blindfold was black and white – why did they give her a blindfold on a tightrope with a sword?! – and it matched her outfit.
Her opponent was free to look around as they pleased; Anthy was uncertain that they even wore clothes. Features were almost impossible to discern, made up of shadows that merged and flowed together in an unsettling array. Once she thought she saw Touga’s superior grin taunting his blind opponent with an opening she couldn’t take. Saionji’s rage seemed suited to a vicious downward stroke. A focused expression as the blade sought a home in its opponent’s heart could have been Juri.
The edges of the blade this chimeric creature held shone bright and hungry in the electric spotlights. It pressed for an opening, and to Anthy’s eye it seemed that the sword dragged the body behind it, without needing the motivating force of the performer, drawn hungrily towards its prey.
Even blindfolded she outmatched them.
They slashed up from hip to shoulder, eager to spill her entrails out for the baying crowd but she bounced back a step; he stepped in angrily, forcefully cutting through the air her neck had occupied before she had dropped low, one leg straight out to the side, drawing back in as she smoothly rose, slicing upwards to push him back across the rope, the white rose on his chest her clear target, even blind.
Where he slashed hard, she softly redirected, changing the angle to her advantage.
When he tried to feint in and bury his blade in her guts, she scornfully smacked it aside.
The straight thrust for her heart was turned aside along the flat of her blade as she stepped close until their hilts clicked together – and then she leapt past them on the rope as they tried to push her off balance, landing lightly and pirouetting, she cut faster than they could react, a cascade of rose petals matching the crescendo of the mob denied its blood again.
She never even got to remove her blindfold to celebrate.
The blade played its last trick, transmuting the crowd’s despair into eager cheering as the tightrope she posed on was cut beneath her feet. For a moment she fell without sound or reaction, then her flailing arm wrapped around the rope as it swung over and into slammed her into the supporting pole. A cry escaped her lip as her shoulder took the weight of the blow, a wound in her side suddenly opening as she struggled to hold on and avoid plunging to the exposed earth below her, a hole waiting to embrace her in the shape of a girl curled up on herself.
The blood dripping in the air allowed Anthy to regain her own will. She took one frightened look at the ravenous mob that surrounded her, then saw again they were only shadows and wraiths and unreal, unlike the sword that lay broken in its own miniscule matching grave, the dirt already sliding back in. Unlike Utena, slipping down and down the rope towards her end unless someone helped her; unless, she understood, she acted.
There was no time to run to her, no time to rely on the questionable strength of her body. There wasn’t even time to call out that she was going to do something. She simply stood, reaching out her hand towards where Utena slid in slow motion. Anthy saw those calloused hands lose the battle, the rope slackening as the tension of her weight was lost, as she started to plummet, knowing she would land perfectly positioned to be buried, unable to see it.
Utena Tenjou fell towards her fate.
Vines twisted out of the dirt, wrapping thornéd and determined around the pole, growing faster than gravity’s pull. All the green was pulled up with it, vines turning ashen grey as soon as they grew, the life pulled into a single crimson bloom that pulsed and spread, unfurling at once slowly and in fast forward, each petal revealing more of its precious golden core until it sat exposed, the blooming flower’s heavy perfume permeating the circus tent to silence the crowd and snuff out the stench of lies for a moment as the rose stretched softly out.
Utena fell. This time Anthy caught her, watching her ruffle the petals with her weight before elegantly sliding down onto the ground as the flower bent with her, sweetly caressing her injured form. Utena leaned in close, breathing in deeply. Anthy stared, flushed with the power of her choice, then watched Utena’s head turn towards the roar of the crowd as they rushed at her, swords glittering as bright as the shades were dark. Utena ran, a straight line taking her out of the tent, away from them, away from Anthy. She watched her go, breathing heavily as the rose lost its petals and fell into the waiting grave.
Anthy Himemiya woke up, crying in the night.
* * *
Ms. Utena is
Tenjou is
Utena
Saionji Kyouichi had possession of my body, according to the rules of the game we played. He was simple enough to see through; a boy who let himself be caught in the cage of living up to an ideal that didn’t exist, in denial about the fact that he was entirely at odds with that ideal and in love with his friend Touga Kiryuu.
He hurt me quite a bit, trying to reconcile his ideal with his true self.
I think I can forgive myself for it, with the gift of distance. I can’t imagine holding onto it will help me.
Besides, it was informative to watch the ways he tried to escape my brother’s webs, once I was out of his grasp. From a…professional perspective, it was interesting to see how little pressured needed to be applied to just the right spot to lure him back into the game. Foolish boy, always something which simply never existed. And yet…
He did grow, given enough time. He became capable of offering support (not to me, of course). He learned to seek self-worth outside of our silly games, or at least, to try.
The first time she freed me was from him…
Why can’t I write about her?
This is meaningless.