It is possible to be both victim and survivor; it is possible to be both angel and villain in equal measure, at different times, for many reasons. Good and evil are not so obvious, not so easy. Sometimes, she'd learned, the greatest of evils could spring from passive neutrality, unchecked bitterness, and blind loyalty. But it is always possible to move on. And that - that is what she gave to me..

The girl - who was once called "witch," - wiped a bead of sweat from her forehead and sighed, stopping for a moment on the crumbling road she walked. The road led away from the land that had given her that name to begin with, and the story that had gone with it was fading in her mind, now.

She had been searching for a long time now, perhaps for years, decades, centuries; and yet, she could not tell, for it seemed mere moments to her. Time had stopped having much meaning to her long ago. Little sparks flew in the air, bits of matter desperate to move where time had frozen for them. The girl was treading between time and space, not through it. It did not matter, for she had a destination that eclipsed anything else.

She smiled brilliantly as she walked, tireless, not flinching even as the road folded up alongside her (as roads that lead beyond worlds are wont to do). Her shadow bent with it, walking next to her as an another person might. She took her shadow's hand as she continued walking, until it vanished into the slow and total darkness that engulfed her. The path had vanished into blank nothingness, and yet she feared nothing, because she knew where she was going.

"Chu," the small creature atop her shoulder blurted, alarmed as the scenery changed. She consoled him with a little pat to the head. A dim light outlined a great cliff that was once a tower loomed ahead of them, covered in dead trees, rotting detritus and all kinds of scattered junk. Broken swords were heaped in an immense pile upon it all. She shuddered a little but did not falter. Her feet nimbly picked their way through the broken shards strewn all over. A giant door jutted out of the torn ruins, wrapped in ancient roots and cobwebs.

"Open," she spoke, her voice like a crack of light through heavy clouds, and it obeyed her, the vines moving aside gracefully and bursting into violet flowers, small glowing objects almost like stars falling out of them. The roots moved away entirely and returned to the trees, which were slowly returning to life at her will.

She stepped gingerly ahead as the great doors parted and revealed a huge hall of emptiness: no walls, no ceiling, no floor. It was exactly as she had expected it to be. There was no floor to be seen or felt, but she crossed it easily, her shoes clicking softly. There was no need for her to call out.

After a few minutes of walking, she stopped - beaming - and spoke. It was her turn to do so.

"I'm here."

Light began to trickle in from somewhere far above, cracking through the darkness and illuminating the shadowy form of a figure curled up, not too far ahead. The girl dropped her bags and hurled herself forward, unable to contain her relief. It surprised her to notice that she had been holding her breath so far - uncertain of whether or not she would be here when she arrived. She managed to keep calm, though. The small monkey leapt from her shoulder, making concerned chirping noises and racing to the body. She scooped him up in her palms and shushed him with quiet consolations, returning him to his shoulder perch.

"Utena," she breathed, the shafts of light waving over the other girl's body and a shock of pink hair in clear view. She knelt at her feet, closing her eyes to keep calm.

Heavy tears formed in her eyes, and she could not yet decide whether they were happy or sad. She hovered over Utena's unmoving form, still in her uniform; swords still jutting from her back. She leaned in to kiss the fallen girl's hair and touched her hand, still dangling over the precipice below, still reaching for her. It was still warm.

So it's not too late, after all. Hugely relieved, she knelt beside her friend and felt warm streams of tears slide down her face. As they did, there was a great roar - water began to rush over unseen walls, great waterfalls, the space quickly beginning to flood around them.

Tossing aside her heavy jacket and hat, she braced herself to pull out the swords that still pierced Utena's back; gripping the hilt and pulling with all of her strength, struggling. If I can't remove these.. She preferred not to think about that possibility.

The swords were held fast by Utena's desire to be pierced by them: her sense of guilt. Anthy could move anything with her power in this dreamland, send great torrents of water over cliff walls and move eternally sealed stone doors at her simple request. But she couldn't change another's will in this way.

She knelt, breathing hard, stroking Utena's hair fondly. The space below them was filling up with water quickly, and soon would engulf them both. She needed Utena to be conscious when that happened.

"Utena," she brushed back the girl's hair behind her ear and kissed it fondly. "I'm here. You have to let go of these swords. You don't deserve them." Utena's face was frozen in a heartbreaking expression. "You have been trapped here such a long time. If you can't release them, you will fade away forever." She knew that she could hear her, just as she had heard her voice in her half-conscious sleep long before.. When Utena had come to her prison, and called her name, she had heard it; why couldn't she hear her?

The water was rising. She could hear it slapping against the platform they lay on, her body pressed closely against the others, clinging to Utena's very faint breathing.

"Snap out of it, Utena," she whispered softly, without anger. "I need to tell you how much I love you." She found Utena's lips with her own and nudged them softly together, tears streaming down her face, kissing her just as the water closed over their heads and filled the rest of the space entirely, sending their hair floating and entangling together.

The force of the water shoved one sword away, and Anthy's eyes widened in surprise. She took the other between her hands and pulled it away almost easily, watching as it floated away with the rest of the rubble. The tower, the precipice, the entire prison crumbled to pieces and was washed away by the heavy torrent of water she had called, rushing onward to engulf and crush the pillars of the rest of Akio's world, too.

There was silence. Light flooded the water; there was water above, below, around and beyond them, and through the water on every side, stars could be seen from afar.

She placed her hands on Utena's wounds and felt them healing at her touch. A glass platform forming underneath them, the water running siphoning effortlessly away over it. She looked down through the glass and swore that she could see roses.